Is the Progressive Takeover Real?

Today's Presented Exponsor is simply safe home security.

Every political consultant will tell you hope is not a strategy.

You don't wait until election night to see if your ground game works,

but traditional security systems do exactly that.

They play defense only after someone is already inside your house,

like not going to Wisconsin.

You know what I mean? That's exactly what it is.

It's the traditional security system, too.

Yeah, Hillary should have.

Traditional security systems that only alert you after a break in

is already underway, simply safe is designed to help stop intruders

before they get inside.

They got smart AI powered outdoor cameras that detect suspicious activity,

the perimeter and alert live USBs agents to step in,

simply saves agents assess the threat,

intervened through the outdoor camera to scare off trespassers and call 911 for dispatch.

Our CEO, Lucinda recently at a simply safe system installed at her house.

She got the indoor and outdoor cameras, the motion sensors,

the windows and the door centers into her home.

It's fully protected.

She said installation was super easy.

Everything has worked seamlessly since the day it got done.

And it gives her peace of mind knowing that her home is now protected by the good people

over at Simply Safe.

Simply Safe has been protecting your world for 20 years.

Right now you can get 50% off a new Simply Safe system.

Go to simplysafe.com slash crooked.

That's simply safe.com slash crooked for 50% off.

There's no safe like Simply Safe.

This is the Jonas Brothers from Hey Jonas.

We love our pets and we want to be smart about our pets.

Pet smart keeps finding ways to help pet parents like us be smarter about pet parenthood.

What's great is that pet smart helps us plan for everything we can and prepare for everything we can't.

Life gets busy, especially if when we're traveling or out on tour.

So it's nice having options.

You can set up auto ship for your pets essentials,

so you never run out of their favorites.

It's one less thing to worry about.

Or if you need something last minute,

you can stop by your local pet smart,

order online and pick up in store in two hours or less for free,

or even get free same day delivery.

We've been spending a little extra time at pet smart lately

because we just welcome to hamster into the family between River the hamster and our two dogs.

It's been really easy to grab everything we need in one place from food and treats to toys and habitats supplies.

It just makes life as a pet parent a little easier.

Pet smart.

They've got the smartest solutions to any pet need anytime, anywhere.

Shop in store or online at petsmart.com, pet smart, anything for pets.

The all-new tropical butterfly refresher is now at Starbucks.

Dive into juicy guapa and pasture fruit flavors,

with mango pineapple popping pearls, versing in every sip.

Ice cold, instantly refreshing and impossible to put down,

made for summer only at Starbucks.

Welcome to Paz de America, I'm Alex Wagner.

On today's show, MSNOW's Chris Hayes,

dubbed by to talk about recent progressive wins,

how Democrats find their path to victory in 2026 and beyond,

and who is winning the war for American attention?

Chris and I dug into candidate strategies as the midterms draw ever closer,

as well as how the Democratic Party can rally around its new Senate candidate in Michigan,

Abdul Al-Sayed.

We also talked 2028 and how these midterms this November might influence the party

in the wild ride ahead.

It was a great conversation and we're going to get to it in just a minute.

But first, a little housekeeping.

If you have not gotten tickets for CrookedCon yet, what are you doing?

Here's another reason why you should.

At Crooked, we believe the answer to right-wing authoritarianism is a big, welcoming,

fun, pro-democracy movement.

So we have invited some of the biggest,

funniest voices online to all day CrookedCon.

At CrookedCon, you will have the chance to meet creators and new media personalities

who make sense of the news with humor and hot takes.

They'll be popping around the Washington Convention Center, hosting happy hours,

Q&As and workshops for attendees.

They will also be, of course, making content.

Because what happens at CrookedCon ends up online for every political nerd to see.

Check out which creators are joining us so far at CrookedCon.com and grab your tickets today.

Post-hate, see ya in DC.

Here's my conversation with MSNOWs Chris Hayes.

Joining me now in a tank top for those of you who are not watching on YouTube,

you should be. Please hit subscribe while you're at it.

Is the one, oh my, look at those guns, Susan.

What does it say?

Sun's out, guns out, guns out.

Sun's out, guns out.

Sun's out, guns out.

Is the great Chris Hayes, but it's always great to see it, especially in the summer.

It's pure August right now.

So I'm not even.

Yeah, it's giving real pride.

It's also recording us on a Friday in August.

We sure are.

So you know, if you didn't think he was wearing a hot tank top and a gold chain drink

in Celsius, like there's no sun and

I'm going to put Chico.

Okay, I was hoping it was Celsius.

That would have just been a little bit more on brand.

There's a show tonight and that's a hard rule.

Got it.

There's a hard rule one has had to enforce.

To learn the hard way.

Yeah.

I was really excited when we had a big primary on Tuesday and we thought who can help us unpack

what the fuck happens now?

Who is wise, but also just ballsy enough to say what they really think and Chris Hayes,

you're up.

I won.

You won.

You won.

Let's start with kind of where we sit as you say on Friday after the Michigan primary ahead

of the Wisconsin primary.

Are progressives having a moment?

Yes or no?

Yeah, I mean, I think it's a huge, you know, one of the weird things that happened

in elections is we interpret the results against the benchmark of polls as opposed to

the benchmark of like fundamentals.

So like, you know, I remember 2020,

people, that was a disappointing election night for Democrats in 2020

because it was all much closer than the polls had predicted.

Yeah.

Sarah Gideon was going to beat Susan Collins and she lost by 12 points and, you know,

there's a bunch of races like that.

So, but you got to take a step back and say,

what happy here was that the polling was wrong, right?

The polling was a mess.

So just look at the results.

And the fact of the matter is you had a unabashed progressive candidate.

Who has run statewide in primaries before and lost by 20 points.

He ran against Crescendo Whitmer.

When a narrow victory over a candidate who, I think, is not a great candidate as like politicians

go, is not a great candidate, but did have the backing of the state party essentially behind

you're both the incumbent Senator Gary Peters and the incumbent governor, Governor Whitmer.

You had $60 million in outside spending on her side against Abdul Al-Sayed.

And he emerged victorious in a swing state in which, look, there's a theory of the case here.

Why a progressive outspoken progressive candidate can win a statewide swing state race.

They have a theory of the case.

And I think it's actually a relatively persuasive one.

But it's also like, there's reason to be worried about it.

And just like, there it is.

I mean, there just is like, and despite all that,

he did emerge victorious.

And I just think there's no universe in which he would have emerged victorious two four six

years ago. Like something is obviously happening among, and let's be clear here,

the Democratic primary electorate, which is a different electorate than the general electorate.

Right? And a different electorate than the presidential general electorate,

we're talking about concentric circles.

But yes, it was a huge win for progressives, for sure.

At the risk of sounding like I'm glazing, first time I've used that term,

I do also, I do think there's really something to be said.

Like the redefinition of what electable means is changing.

And the issues that he's talking about, it's the first time I've seen a glimmer of an

authentic answer to what it means to be a populist and to be on the left and take rightfully

the mantle of economic populism and like really appeal to working class voters in an authentically

progressive way that's like really steals it from MAGA convincingly. Like I felt like he was very like,

you know, I do saw it, I say it, we'll talk about Israel in a second, but just on economic issues,

on health care, on jobs. Like he was relentless on beating this drum in a way that felt utterly

authentic and very much in line with what Democrats maybe should have been talking about for

decades, for years now, not a decade. Yeah, and I think that points to what the theory of the case

for the progressive left is about how to win cross pressured swing state elections, right?

Is that people are pissed off the status quo, they don't like foreign wars and money going abroad.

Again, these are like the cross pressured voters you can win. They're pissed off with the

economic status quo, things are too expensive and they are enraged at the billionaires and the

corporations and the tech lords that want to put data centers in their backyards. And that this

is a cluster of issues that are both squarely in the kind of progressive populist wheelhouse

and also can win people who aren't just down-moline progressives, right? And if you focus,

that's the theory here. And they, I mean, again, it's going to get tested.

Oh, it sure is, it sure is. Both, and not just in Michigan, I mean, I think also it's,

this is, we're talking, these are precursors to national debates that we're going to be having

for the next two years. And what happens here is going to have a huge impact on those national

debates, particularly the presidential primary about who and what is electable. Yeah.

And so, so when you hear, when we talk about Abdul Sayed and to some degree, when we talk about like

Zora and Mamdani, how do you square that with Abigail Spanberger and Mikey Cheryl and Cory

Bush being beaten in Missouri by Wesley Bell who was backed by APAC in the state. And Marie

Glews and Camp Perez, who handling wins her primary and is one of the most centrist moderate

Democrats in the house. Like how do you just kind of say, I mean, all politics is local. And if

that's the case, then what does that portend for the national reckoning that's a foot come next year?

Yeah, I think one is, yes, I mean, it's sort of a boring and deflating thing to say all politics

is local, but that is a big part of it. Like we're talking about very different constituencies

and very different places with different electorates and different issue profiles. That's one.

Two, none of this stuff is linear, right? So it's like in the, it's like the stock market goes up

and it goes down and it goes up and it goes down over a 30 year period. It's gone up, right? So it's

like, if you take sort of take a step back, it's like, is the progressive left growing in

strength inside the Democratic Party in the aggregate over the last 10 years? Yes.

Pretty clearly, yes, right? Like since 2016, I think the answer is since the Bernie primary,

you know, defeat, I think the answer is very clearly. Yes. Now in individual cases, that doesn't mean

they're winning everything. And no, there's there's a lot of variation. The last thing I would say

here about Abdul Al-Said and Mom Donnie, and I this was true of Platinum or two before he dropped

up. So think about what are the gates that you go to go through to become a candidate through the

traditional, what's people call it establishment? Let's say traditional channels, right? It's like

constituency relationships, relationships with mentors and other elected officials, endorsements

from local groups, right? Being good at navigating the politics of the coalition, right? These are

all things that you have to be good at. Being a really, really great communicator is nice to have,

but not necessary to ascend up the ranks in the traditional politics. So, like Roy Jackson?

Right. Yes, exactly. Who got pretty high in main politics? Yeah. Even Abigail Spamberger is a

perfectly good communicator, but she's not like electric. Electric, right? If you were not going

that route and you were going to have success, you have to be a really dazzling communicator.

So you got a different set of features that are being selected for. So the reason that you get

Platinum lighting up main on fire and the reason Mom Donnie is able to win that primary coming out

of nowhere and the reason I think Abdul-Said ends up winning a very hard fallout, split the win,

is that they're just extremely gifted communicators. Yeah. Now, that's not all that matters in politics,

because another thing that happens through the gate checking that happens through the

normal Ascent in politics is some vetting, is some like, is this person got some stuff in their

past? It's going to blow up. Yeah. And we saw like a rocket ascendancy via a tremendous charisma

and political talent in Grand Plotner completely blowing up, right? So, but I think that distills

down a little bit. When you point to Mom Donnie and Abdul-Said, it's both and, right? The ideological

ferment has to be there, but you have to be really good to capture it. Yeah. Because, well,

okay, so where does that leave you on for we're saying this, you're going to be hearing this

episode on the eve of the Wisconsin primary where Francesca Hong, well, who is not a dazzling

communicator? No. And who Bernie Sanders, who's been kind of like a minikink maker in this primary

season on Podsave America with my colleague John Favreau, did not specifically endorse her.

Do you have a theory of the case on that? Is that because there's a sense that she's going to lose,

and she's not actually one of the future stars of the party of the left of the party?

There's a few things going on. One is the sort of there has been a sort of comedy of errors

among the sort of establishment or the Democratic party that has led to this moment in terms of

Mandela Barnes drops out Sarah Rodriguez, who was going to be, who was kind of the sort of consensus

pick, but had an enormous kind of basically a finance director, did a whole bunch of stuff she

shouldn't have. It's unclear like the extent of it, but she drops out. So one is just like one of

these kind of, you know, the kind of car crash that happens that you're sort of around for.

The other thing is, yes, there is a desire for, there is the primary base, the primary voting

Democratic base is to the left of both the median voter and the median like Democratic politician

in a lot of cases. Hong is taking advantage of that. The other thing that's really important here

is no one in that primary has gone up with TV ads, but for the Republican super PAC that's spent

$5 million boosting Hong. This is part of the thing that people have not talked about, but is a big

part of the story there. No one else is spending. The state party in Wisconsin has a lot of money,

partly because of how good a job Ben Wickler has done through the years. They won't spend until

the general. They're not spending the primary. The primary candidates haven't spending. There has

been $5 million about dollars of outside money spent to boost Hong by Republican interests because

they think she's beatable. And the last thing I'll say here, what you see in Sanders not endorsing

Hong and even Hassan Piker wrapping her on the knuckles for her Thanksgiving answer. Oh, God.

Is that everyone actually understands that there's a penalty for ideological extremism?

And that's good. But people kind of pretend not to. It's like we all get that there is kind of a bell

curve of political views. And you do you don't want to be too far from the center and everyone gets

that and everyone loves a winner. No one wants to be associated with a loser. So this sort of ascended

movement doesn't want to feel like Hong disproves their theory if and when she loses because I don't

think she's yes exactly. But on people who like fireworks. Yes. Right.

Bad on people who like the fourth of July.

Positive America is brought to by Cook Unity. I love Cook Unity. I've been a Cook Unity

customer for years. Long before they ever sponsored this podcast. Just had a bunch this week. I

had a great chicken Szechuan salad. I had a Thai beef and rice dish that was really, really good.

And I'm going to have it again tonight probably. Cook Unity is the first chef-led meal delivery service

that makes your meals and small batches inside local microkitchens across the US, not factories.

So every dish arrives with the kind of freshness you'd get at the restaurant itself.

Meals from Michelin star chefs, James Beard winners, and Food Network stars. Go to cookunity.com

slash crooked or use code crooked before checkout for 50% off your first week. Cook Unity works with

some of the best chefs in the country to bring creative delicious meals to your door. There are

hundreds of dishes to choose from and the menu is updated constantly over 10 different dietary

preferences. High protein, low sodium, GLP1, pescatarian, gluten-free, and more over 25 global

cuisines, Mediterranean, Korean Thai, Mexican, Italian, and more. Taste what happens when real

award-winning chefs make fresh small batched meals just for you. Go to cookunity.com slash crooked

or enter code crooked before checkout to get 50% off your first order. That's 50% off your first

order by using code crooked or going to cookunity.com slash crooked.

See what stands out and see if better help is right for you. Visit betterhelp.com slash PSA.

That's betterHELP.com slash PSA.

I bet I know where you sit on this, but like Rahm Amidual, who's probably running from

President in 2028, is very worried about the DSA, the Democratic Socialist of America,

and writes in a Wall Street Journal op-ed this week, when the DSA attempts to turn safe democratic

states and districts, a darker shade of blue, Democratic candidates and swing districts are

put at a distinct disadvantage. Should 2028ers just shut the fuck up about the DSA for right now?

Like, what is the answer there? How would you like to see them grapple with this dynamic?

Well, part of the thing I would say is that I think there's a, like, there is a kernel of truth to it,

but also are you helping by putting more attention on it? If the whole bill is set.

And also if you're wrong, you've alienated a crucial part of the base that you're going to

actually need to try and win over. This is a real, and this is a real paradox, I think, of what we

might call like this term that got started used as popularism, right? Which is a broad term

that Democrats had to sort of move back to the center, align themselves with views that had

majority support. And there's a certain week version of that argument that's almost

total logically true. Like, like, yeah, when you run for office, you want to be nearish the center

of the voters that you're appealing to. Now, the question of like, what is the center and what's

the issue space and what's salient and how you get it as a whole complicated thing? It's harder than

it looks. But one of the things that we saw happen with the labor party in the UK, which tested

this theory, they came into office and they're like, we're going to engage in a bunch of high

salience, high profile fights with the left flank of our party, which meant we're going to put

immigration and trans issues in the paper all the time. There are worst issues. We know that from

the polling, but we're going to pick a bunch of high profile fights so everyone's constantly

talking about it all the time. And guess what? It didn't work now because why would you want to

talk about the things? Even if you're trying to get to the center on it, you end up raising the

salient. So it's like, don't workshop it in public. From things that Josh Turrick is being

hurt at the margin by Daria Lisa Shavaleye winning her primary in Washington Heights, which is not

a crazy idea. Why does right talking about that in the Wall Street Journal help it? She already

won. She won. The Wall Street Journal. At this point, how are you helping him by being like,

boy, these people are really a problem. And they're going to be a problem for the Josh

Turrick's the world. Right. Just talking about something else. That's not helping Josh Turrick.

Right. And it's not as it dissuading people in the DSA from mounting, like, making their case.

Right. Because the other thing is she won that election. Right. The voters of the voters.

Now, can I argue against myself for a second too? Sure. I mean, that's why we thought we would do

both of these things. This is why we only needed one booking today. Because I do think there's a little

bit of this. I want to say to my friends on the progressive left, let's all just concede the

fundamental idea that a primary electorate can select a candidate who is poorly optimized for

a general election. Yes. We've seen a few literally many, many years now under Donald Trump.

Of course. So it's like the idea of like, well, who's electable now? We just won the

primary. It's like, no, no, no, that's a different electorate. It doesn't mean anything.

Like, and I, again, I think most people think more sophisticated fashion clearly that folks in

Michigan do like, like we said earlier, also, it has a theory of the case. But I do think there's

a little bit of this like the way I think about it is in order to get to the MBA, a basketball

player has to have a completely delusional sense of their own ability or they won't make it.

That is an adaptive quality in the player, but the scouts can't have that. And the other people

have to be clear. To win as a candidate to be Zora Mamdani, you have to have a kind of delusion

of your own ability. But everyone else should be pretty clear. I'd like, yeah, there's a trade off

about where you are on the ideological spectrum that, and it is possible that you engineer a very

motivated, disproportionately highly educated democratic primary electorate that selects for candidates

who are too ideologically extreme to win generals. This is just a obviously a true thing.

Right. So just because you're winning the primary doesn't mean you can, the TLPR is

primary zone generals. Yeah, Blake master won the primary. You know, you know,

it's like, yeah, Robinson won the primary down North Carolina. Christine, I'm Christine,

Emma, which are Donald. I wonder, I'm always like galled by this and I kind of wonder where you

sit because Donald Trump's making hay as our is every single Republican in the party about the

fact that democratic socialists are in the vanguard and they're all commies and they're going to be

coming for your money and your children should they win in 2026 and 2028. At the same time that Donald

Trump is like nationalizing private enterprise and has these like federally run gas stations up

and down the east coast like he's practicing socialism and like I'm not going to art like maybe

it's time for the federal government to eat like our gas subsidies. I mean, there's a case to be made

for a lot of this intervention and I'm not saying we should be nationalizing private enterprise,

but should Democrats point out the sort of socialist tendencies of this administration as hypocrisy

or is it just too fraught to be aligning yourself in any way with the most questionable parts of

the Trump agenda agenda? Yeah, it's a great question. I mean, it's a really important intellectual

point, which is that I have never seen a president in my lifetime who was more antagonistic to free

markets to the fundamental sort of like he's like gas is too high. Chevron and ex-centre making

too much profit. He does, he truly does not believe in free markets and he truly is

illiberal on that sense in the old classical like sense the word. Like remember,

Adam's wealth of nations is written as a polemic against what?

Terrace and mercantilism. Like Donald Trump is fundamentally authoritarian, illiberal and

believes in a personalist controlled economy in which he makes all the choices and also believes

as a fund as one of his core ideological commitments bizarrely along with like women and people

of color and fear are that like tariffs or how everything works. Like truly believes to his heart.

Like he is like the deepest part of him. So he's a mess ideologically. He is totally hostile

of free markets. One of the things you've seen that's interesting in actually in the polling is that

if you ask people about socialism and capitalism, socialism is gaining over capitalism,

but people like the notion of free markets. And they also increasingly like the notion of

free trade, including people who consider themselves the most sympathetic DSA, which is fascinating.

I don't think the hypocrisy thing matters as much as just being like everything's expensive.

He doesn't care about you. He's corrupt. No, I'm serious. Yeah. It's like no point in making an

ideological argument against the job. I just mean as a rejoinder to like their all commies and

socialists. It's like well, actually you're the fucking socialist, but then that's sort of

painting Donald Trump with a socialist brush, which is a turn off to every. It's like a boner

killer for everybody. That's right. He's something totally different. You know what I mean? Like

he's in his own category. He's like a he's like a pre-Adam Smith monarch.

Okay. Well, then that settles that. No more mention of Donald Trump's socialist policies.

I do we have to get to the thing that is actually like that. It's not the third rail. I know it's

like what it is the thing that I think this this week has taught us and maybe this season is

teaching us, which is Israel is and I want to I want to get it something that Ryan Broadark

over at garbage day right. It's the Democratic 2026 Democratic Civil War is a rat's nest of

different schisms. It's young versus old labor versus capital. Maybe progressiveism versus the

status quo, populism versus elitism. Perhaps more than anything though, it is a conflict between

the Democrats that are willing to accept money from pro-Israel organizations and those who aren't.

Is that fair, Chris? I think it's been one of the biggest fissures and I do think that there's

something about there's there's a few things. One is that I think APEC has made and they don't

care what I think an enormous tactical error. I know I agree. Just in service of their goals,

yes. In service of their goals and here's the argument I'm going to make.

They have relied on a strategy of attempting to trick voters as opposed to making their case.

So what they have done in all these cases and it happened in Michigan and the New York Times ran

a analysis of this is they have spent enormous amounts of money. Some of the most expensive

primaries in history are all APEC primaries. Jamal Bowman, before that the court of Bush

one was very expensive. The court of Bush was about one this time. It was just about 5 million in a

relatively small house race. They spent 30 here. There's another 30 that we still don't know what it

was because we don't know the disclosures yet. So maybe it was that maybe not. And in all the

cases, the vast majority of the ads they ran were not about Israel. They were attempts to paint the

person that they were attacking as often insufficiently loyal to the Democratic Party. Yeah.

That's not what they actually believe and it's not the case they're trying to make to the public.

I think it is both toxic for the discourse and also self-defeating to spend tons of money in the

attempt to essentially trick the voters. I think it would have been better to spend the money being

like we think Israel is a good ally. What Hamas did was horrible. They're defending themselves

or whatever you want to say. Right. Right. Here's why Iron Dome is important and in fact having

Iron Dome leads to less Israeli fatalities which also does lead to better outcomes in the region.

Whatever argument we want to make, they're not making that argument. And there is something

insidious about the combination of all of this money where you're trying to trick the voters.

And then when people call the money out, you're like that's out of line. That's anti-Semana.

It's like there's this old expression I love which is like throwing rocks and hiding hands.

It is a lot of throwing rocks and hiding hands from you back at this point. Yeah. And I sort of

feel like look, it's a free country and you've got a view. And that view is shared. There's a lot

of Democrats that share that view. There's a lot of particularly Jewish Democrats in my life who

share that view, who are defensive of the state of Israel and they think it's under seas and

under threat and they don't like the direction the Democratic Party is going on it.

You have to make that argument and have the argument on its terms and not attempt to use

the catastrophic citizens United's decision to pour a ton of money into races in the hopes of

tricking voters into electing a person allied with you but not on the terms of the thing you actually

agree in. And I think that has been an absolutely poisonous toxic and it's not I want to be clear.

It's not just them. Crypto's been doing the same thing. AI is doing the same thing.

This idea that you're going to come in on primaries with this agenda and try to get voters to vote

for your candidate not by making an argument that crypto is good or AI shouldn't be regulated

but rather that like that person who's not didn't vote for Kamala Harris or whatever you think

is going to get the primary voter. I just think it's a really toxic way of doing politics.

It's been incredibly destructive. It really pushes the debate off into

completely different territory. Well, and it also it also ends up it is ended up

connecting in the minds of people the Israel lobby, the Israel interests and big money.

Yes. And big dark might which is not a connection that you want to create.

No, it's not a good connection for Israel. What you want to say is like look there's actually

a lot of people in the Democratic Party who agree with us. Like we're representing them.

Again, that's fine. I have different views than APAC does on the conduct of the War of

Gaza and a bunch of other stuff. But it's true that there's a lot of Democrats who agree with

them, right? Totally. They're going to make the case. You've got to make the case.

Yes, no one's making that case. And instead APAC is aligned with like nefarious outside spending and

trickery effectively. And so I guess the inversion of that is Abdul El Sayyad,

you know, to great effect talked about all the APAC money that was flooding his race. They

overwhelmingly supported Hailey Stevens. They are APAC is now considering pouring millions of

dollars into the general election race between Mike Rogers and Abdul El Sayyad. Do you think

that for a general election campaigning against APAC's outside spending is a useful tool for

Abdul El Sayyad or like where is the benefit? Who gets the upper hand? And I think it probably

is actually. And again, I want to express some sympathy with the critique that there is something

Ugi about the like constant invocation of the dark like the new very dark.

The new is money. Yeah, totally. There is a latent antisemitism or explicit.

People getting uncomfortable with that. I don't think it's crazy. The problem is that it is a

fact of the matter that like AP and the other thing is if you're going to have $60 million or

$30 million shops in your head, the only thing that you could do is call it out. So it's like,

do you think it meaningfully? Do you think El Sayyad's ability to use APAC's sort of

weaponization against him is more useful to him in the general than the money that

Mike Rogers could actually get from APAC? Well, I think because there's going to be an enormous

amount of money dropped on his head in that race, that's going to be across the board. It's not

just like APAC will be a small fraction of it because it's going to be a ton of that

Senate majority packs. Like the, you know, I think calling out that is actually very useful.

Like just as a general thing. And in the general, most of the money won't be,

you know, it buy in large is going to be outside money from corporate interests that have all

given money to Donald Trump or to Mitch McConnell's pack or whatever. And in that case, I think

just taking the same line, which is like, these people want to like jack up your oil prices and

they want to put data centers in your backyard and they close down your hospitals so they can get

cash tax cuts and they're spending $150, $200 million to beat me. And I think that's, you know,

use the same line there because again, what else can you do other than, you know, he's not,

he's, he's probably going to be outspent from the outside in this race because Republicans are

going to put, you know, a lot of money into that race. Well, it could be the right, I mean,

that in Maine, God forbid, you are a television viewer in either one of those states in the coming months.

Pots of America is brought to you by Blinds.com. There's a version of your home you haven't lived in

yet where the light behaves where the rooms feel finished where you sleep until you decide to wake up.

Blinds.com is spent 30 years making it easy to find the perfect fit with over 25 million

windows covered and 50,000 firestar reviews you can feel confident you're in good hands. Whether

you want to go full DIY, bring in license and vetted pros to handle the measure and install or land

somewhere in between. You're always in control. They make it simple to choose the level of support

that works best for you with flexibility every step of the way. No pushy salespeople, no awkward

in home visits, just real advice on your schedule. They'll even ship samples to your door fast and

free. Choose from a huge variety of style options at prices that fit any budget. Everything is

backed by Blinds.com's 100% satisfaction guarantee because at Blinds.com, the only thing they treat better

than windows, it's you. We have Blinds.com. Great. We installed these electric shades, I don't even

know what the term is. We operated with a button or remote so that because it gets super sunny

different times of the day and super hot in the office, it's made a huge difference. It made

the office much better. They're great blinds. They came in, they installed them, took basically no

time and they're great. Right now Blinds.com is giving our listeners an exclusive $50 off.

When you spend $500 or more, just use code Cricket at checkout, limited time offer, rules and

restrictions apply, cblinds.com for details. Hey, so listen, whether you're in the states across

the pond or somewhere on the other side of the world, we love that you tune into Cricket for US

News. But did you know we also have a UK news show? Yes, that's right. It's called Potsay for the UK.

Potsay for the UK is a no bullshit, unabashedly progressive conversation about politics focused

on the issues that matter most of the people of Britain. With all the changes in our government,

including the fun, revolving door of Prime Ministers we have here, there's always lots to talk about.

And there's lots of fabulous guests to talk to, journalist politicians, experts, comedians and activists.

Yeah, we've had great comedians on as well, like Rosie Jones, Stuart Lee, Ashling B. We've also had

Tommy Vitor on, who may be our boss. We still go. We're not quite clear on who our boss is.

I thought it might be Tommy Vitor. I thought it might be John Favreau. I don't know if it's

John Lovett. It's hard to say. It's not clear to us who our bosses are. Some of our listeners call

us irreverent but not stupid. I'm dear to that. I'm deeply stupid. This is so too bad. So look, come check us

out. Come join us. Potsay for the UK every Thursday, wherever you get your podcasts.

This is the Jonas Brothers from Hey Jonas. We love our pets and we want to be smart about our pets.

Pet smart keeps finding ways to help pet parents like us be smarter about pet parenthood.

What's great is that pet smart helps us plan for everything we can and prepare for everything we

can't. Life gets busy, especially if when we're traveling or out on tour. So it's nice having

options. You can set up auto ship for your pets essentials so you never run out of their favorites.

It's one less thing to worry about. Or if you need something last minute, you can stop by your

local pet smart, order online and pick up in store in two hours or less for free. Or even get

free same day delivery. We've been spending a little extra time at Pet Smart lately because we

just welcome to hamster into the family between River the hamster and our two dogs. It's been really

easy to grab everything we need in one place from food and treats to toys and habitats supplies.

It just makes life as a pet parent a little easier. Pet smart. They've got the smartest solutions to

any pet need anytime, anywhere. Shop in store or online at petsmart.com. Pet smart. Anything for pets.

I want to ask about the flip side of all this, which is let's talk about it. Hassan Piker.

This is what Hassan Piker had to say after Abdul Al Sayed won Michigan and people began talking about

what he needed to do next. Here's that clip. Like everyone being like Abdul has a

fuck ton of work to do. Mending bridges. Here's the fucking take nuke for you. Okay. You are all

unbelievably islamophobic pieces of shit. Okay. You literally called the dude a fucking terrorist

for months on end and like called him a sexist misogynist terrorist. Bad candidate doesn't

fake doctor when he has like two fucking degrees and now you're going to sit there and be like,

well, you know, you really got to come to me now. Like what are you talking about? Do you want to

fucking win or not? Lock the fucking. Okay. Lock the fucking and I do worry that there are some

out there who in an effort to make sure that they that this narrative that a progressive can win

and a state like Michigan doesn't take root will literally either subtly or, you know, not so

secretively endorse mic Rogers. Okay. It is some deep paranoia that people, Democrats, so in

so threatened by the rise of democratic socialists and hard core progressives on the left wing

would support mic Rogers over Abdul Al Sayed. We can unpack that in a second, but just more broadly.

Like what the fuck should happen here with Hassan Piker? Like what should Democrats do? I mean,

is this the case where it's like, don't talk about it. We should have Abdul Al Sayed continue to

campaign with him. We're going to get to like his reach in a second, but just as a specific political

actor, like should other Democrats be talking about him? I was on deadline White House with Nicole

Wallace and she wanted to ask Mallory McMoro about Hassan Piker and I was just like, this just

is not good for anybody on like what should happen here, Chris? I don't really know. I mean,

one level, like, I think there's a little irony in like every the whole discourse being like the

left needs a Joe Rogan and then like getting the closest thing to it and being like, not like that,

not like that, not like that, not like that, not anyone who says this is sendiary thing. It's like,

do you ever watch Joe Rogan show and says, he says crazy stuff all the time? Like, it's like,

and I do think, I mean, the difference in this case, I think there's a difference between

going on someone show and campaigning with them hugely, right? So like, I think you'd go on

lots of people and say, I've been on Bill Marshall. Bill Marshall says all sorts of things that I

don't know. Not only do I disagree with you, he says some things I really like find. Oh, yeah.

Pretty, pretty brawl. And more often with greater frequency. Yeah. So, but all, you know,

again, it's a free, like, it's a free country. So the big question is campaigning with.

I don't think it makes a ton of sense in a general election, frankly, to campaign with a son

baker. I think you also can't control what a 35 year old streamer's going to say. I also think

that he is learning the lesson that like, with great power comes great responsibility. And like,

no, seriously, I mean, it's one thing, it's one thing to be like, look, this is a dude who streams,

like seven days a week for years. Do you know the amount of words he said? Like, you're going to

say some stuff. And part of the part of the genre of what he's doing is saying stuff.

I'm reminded a lot of Marcos Malizisaniga, who played a somewhat similar role a generation ago.

Yeah.

Down with Daley Coast. And was, would say pretty like, you know, provocative things and would

curse and be like, at these people. And there was also an attempt to sort of tie him. I also sort of

feel like, I don't know how much the guilt by association works in the era of Donald Trump.

Like the man had dinner with Nick Fletes. Yeah. Like not even for any purpose other than like,

let's break bread. I just think it's hang out. Do it. I want to hear what you're trying to get

his kid. I think about these days. Nick. I'm interested in your point of view, Nick.

So I do think there's a little bit of like the associational politics have lost a little bit of

their sting. But the other thing is like, if Hassan Piker wants to contribute to the success of

the movement, like, he's probably going to have to watch what he says a lot more. And like,

that's not that fun for him. And I get that like, he's been in a different lane. But

one of the things that all of us, I think with public platforms, start to learn is that like,

your words of consequences. Yeah. And it doesn't mean that you like say things you don't believe.

It doesn't mean you don't say things you do believe. But it does mean that like, how you select

your words and the way that you communicate really does matter. And I think that's going to be

true across the board. The only thing I'll just say on the substance of what he was saying was,

the Democratic Party's not done. They need him to win so they can have power. Like, they're all going

to they've all consolidated behind him. They're not so anti-DSA that they would literally

seed control of this. They want to control the United States Senate. Believe me. Like, very badly.

Believe him. They truly do want that. So

So probably not. But the other thing I'll say too. In the same way that I said, it's like a little

bit of buy the ticket. Take the ride where it's like, Apex spent that money and the cost of that is

it you're going to get called out. Yeah. Like, I'll say it made a choice to campaign the House

downpecker. I think it probably helps in the in the primary. And the cost of that is people

are going to criticize that. And you got to like, that's by the ticket to the ride. And you got

to come up with a way that you're going to talk about it. I thought that I thought the two best

responses this was Debbie. Did you see Debbie Dangle talking to Greta Van Suster? Yes. Or she's

just like, he's a way to reach a lot of young people who we have a hard time reaching. And he

looks good when he works out. This is the Debbie Dangle ticket. I was like, you know what? This is a

person who is a conduit to reach people who are outside the system that I want to reach. And

that's and that's important to me. And that doesn't mean that I agree with everything. He says,

Norton, me and the ends of things I think are really gross and wrong.

Right. You do not have to endorse in turn the values of every person that airs you.

That's right. We're endorses you. We're even works. You know what I mean? Like,

and I also thought that the AOCs response to the TMZ report, I can't believe I just said that

that sentence who said the AOCs response to the TMZ report who is like, aren't you worried about

like, it's not just socialists and there's going to be calmness. And she's like, I'm not the

belief police. People can believe they want to believe. I believe what I believe. I'm going to

try to do what I'm going to do. Like, and I do think that like, that's another way of,

of sort of threading the needle here. I think it's also just, I mean, I think what I'm hearing

in your responses. It's like about frankness. It's about honesty. It's about not apologizing,

but also not glossing over the, the rougher parts. And don't get defensive. The other thing

though too is, and this is the thing Mondani is good about is like, you got to pivot to what

you want the election to be about. Yeah. And right now, there's like both the, both the sort of

mainstream media and the right wing media are like, this is an election about what Hassan Piker

said about 9, 11, seven years ago. By the way, can I just say this? Ron Johnson, the sitting

senator from Wisconsin, is a fully avowed 9, 11 truth or, and somehow this is like, not a story.

I'm going to do, I think I'm going to do it either day or tune like, because I got a whole

thing about this. It's the craziest thing. His, he has gone to conferences. He has said basically

he thinks building seven was a control demon like the full, like, 12 demolition. Yeah.

Jet fuel doesn't melt. Like all the stuff that you and I 20 years ago were hearing from like,

kooky people outside like anti war rally. Like, and I mean, legit, like straight down the line.

Like, and people have been run out of public life. They have been hounded. Van Jones had to

believe his job in the White House because he signed something that was like very tangentially

related to 9, 11 truth about we need an investigation. Yada yada. And Ron Johnson's like sitting

center just being like, yeah, we think probably, I don't know, but looks like it might have been

an inside job. It's like, and, and they want to like have these crazy 9, 11 discussions.

Anyway, it's just I can't get over a good note. Good note. Just, I mean, as a reminder,

the depravity and delusion on the right far outweighs literally anything. Ron Johnson's a 9, 11 truth

or someone talked to him about that. Like Mike Rogers was talking about this. I'm like,

go call up Ron Johnson and get his takes on 9, 11. It's totally what do you think about that?

Speaking of alternative facts. No, not alternative facts, but alternative ecosystem. We were talking

about Hassan Piker largely because of his fear of influence. And there is a real kind of gut check

happening inside Democratic politics right now about what kind of media matters, what kind of

messaging is resonant. Ryan Broderick, who I quoted before from garbage day is like lays out the

two axes as he sees them. One is the institutional access, which includes cable news podcast,

hosted by former Obama and Biden bros. So we are guilty as charged. The New York Times Axios

Politico, the Washington Post blah, blah, blah. The related sub stacks and X accounts with those

folks. And then new media, which is leftist streamers like Hassan Piker, YouTube SAS,

he calls them dark woke podcasters, Ryan Grimm and Dropsite news, Blue Sky users short from

informed video content from the DSA, random shit posters. You are an expert in the attention

economy. Where do you see like if you're mapping out your 2028 presidential campaign or even your

next three months in your midterm election campaign, like where, who matters? Where is the like

what is most relevant in terms of speaking to the voter? I do think one frustration that I had that

I expressed in one of the chapters in the sirens call my book about the attention economy that

that had a chapter of politics and that I said a lot when I was doing the book tour when it came out

is the risk aversion of Democratic political class, consultant class around interviews had to go

away. Like, Haley Stevens, she never came and got her interview. Thank you very much. Well,

she was a good example, right? She was a great example. Like repeated and treaties, begging,

what can we make work? Nothing. Nothing can ever work. Go talk to people. I think that is actually

a big thing. You got to go talk to people. And I think actually that's it actually connects to one

of the things we're seeing in the Democratic primary electorate, which is that people want good

talkers because they felt like they didn't get them. And I like Joe Biden, who in his prime was a

great, I mean, a truly, for Del Castro level talker. I mean, the man, a man could talk truly the

gift of gab. That was not the case of the Joe Biden that was, you know, in the White House.

Basement, what, or Basement Joe, the campaigner. And like Kamala Harris is, I would say a perfectly

proficient communicator is a politician, but she is not a particularly great one. I would,

I would go one step further. I think she's remarkably risk averse and that she wants very,

very controlled environments. And that's, and that's not politics. That's just not politics.

Very risk averse and very wary in a extemporaneous settings. And so I think there is a desire,

Dave Wigel has made this point. I think I even, I sort of thought of this, but he's kind of

articulated of like, we want a really good talker. And it's like Barack Obama was great talker.

Really good at talking. And again, talking is not, I talk for a living. So I rated, I, I sort of both

rated highly. And I also look for it because I'm, you know, literally this phrase, good talkers.

I think that we use in our, um, booking meeting, in our booking and our campaign show. And it's like,

is good talker correlated with like Donald Trump. I hate to say it in his own weird way.

Is it good talker? Great. Yes. I mean, less so now, but I mean, I went to so many Trump rallies.

And that guy could just do a routine for an hour and a half. I like, I loved it.

So does it mean that the person is like, going to be good at the job? No. Unfortunately,

those two things don't have a great correlation. But it's also the case that. And so the reason

this all relates back to your question about where you go is, I think you got to be willing to go

everywhere. And I think you got to get your reps in. And you got to be good at talking. And I

think you got to be good at talking. I mean, this is one of the things that got us, you know,

vants, vants will go goes everywhere. Yeah. Whenever he does get his reps in, he liked, and he liked,

he likes to mix it up with like goes on the view. He got like all of that, I think is actually

really important. And again, the other thing about volume is the more of it there is, the less

people obsess over a single gaff, like you just go do another interview. It's like, remember when

he said the dumb thing about, you know, cat ladies, like, and that was, you know, he's still talking

about the cat ladies in that way. For sure, that hurt him, but also it kind of ended up being

swallowed by the sheer volume. I mean, Trump is the sheer volume of shit that's coming out of his

mouth. Well, true. But I also think that like, that's kind of partly the way it works. So I do

think that I don't know like how you rank, but the other thing I would say is I talked to

someone the other day he said, of an electorate that you're dealing with, the sort of operative

rule of thumb these days is about 50% you can reach through TV and 50% are just like completely

off TV. And that to me is like the fundamental structural thing that people have to reckon with.

And part of what I wrote about in my book is that in the kind of TV dominant era that sort of

starts really in the 60s and sort of extends, I think, all the way through for like the next 40 or

50 years of American politics, it's like you raise money and the money is used to buy TV ads.

That is most of what a campaign is. Raising money, running the ads. And when you're down to

only 50% of the electorates being reached that way, you still got to do that part.

Like we saw this actually, I think with the Stevens race, I mean, I think part of the reason

those numbers, there's a bunch of reasons that her numbers in rural areas were

not as bad as they should have been. Well, no, they were they were higher

than then anticipated partly because that was the place that was getting TV. Yeah. Like,

no, those are the people that are watching TV too. I mean, both, both. I think like you're not

you're not doing a lot of there's not like a bunch of local press there. You're not doing a bunch

of events there. And so it's like, there's huge swaths of your electorate that like the way

they're going to learn about this race is like, they're watching TV and they're getting

on that. So you can't give up on that. But you got to have a theory of the case of the other 50%.

I'm going to interpret what you're saying slightly differently because what I'm hearing is,

and I would probably put it more like 60, 40, like 40% of the people are getting it on TV just

because if you look at those numbers, which I'm I'm sure you don't actually in order to survive

like the demographic numbers are it's just an increasingly old audience. Yeah. Right. But

that social media and shit posting and shit posters and those accounts are now equally as important

as broadcast television. And that is actually a sea change from even like eight years ago or four

years ago. And that that actually really does matter. And and and that doing more media is in some

ways less impactful, but also it is a little bit of insurance policy against the mistakes that

you're inevitably going to make by doing long form interviews, which is I think the real essential

fear. It's not that I'm going to do an interview that doesn't matter. It's like, I'm going to

fucking how do I throw an hour and a half with Alex Cooper without having to talk about

whatever Willie Brown, I don't fucking know. Give me some something that's like uncomfortable for me.

Yes. Yeah. Um, also learning how to talk about uncomfortable things is kind of an important

one of anybody's shown you, I mean, if there's one lesson for Democrats to take away from the

Trump years, it's like you can do some crazy shit. And as long as you are authentic about it.

And I'm not saying anybody should try and model Donald Trump's fucking behavior. No, there's like

how many bad interviews that that guy gives that like we're like with these, I mean, the moment where,

you know, Highland and Halpern asking for his favorite passenger, Bible of them came telling

Chris Matthews, you got to punish the woman on a board. I mean, you know, there's a million.

And they don't even like, there's already been at my fingertips in terms of his worst moments.

Like there's so many. I know I'm reaching back the archives. Of course, the like, I like people

that were on captured, like, which was the original one. Or I don't really care about American's

financial situations. That wasn't podcast interview. But anyway, that's just him fucking talking.

Podsave America is brought to you by Mint Mobile. Summer means a well-deserved break.

Some extra time to stretch out and relax. Mint Mobile thinks you deserve a break too,

which is why they created the Mint Mobile Summer Sale. Right now, all of Mint's plans are

$15 per month, even unlimited. So free yourself from big wireless and their gimmicks and gotchas

and switched to Mint for high-speed data and coverage on the T-Mobile 5G network. Mint Mobile took

what's wrong with wireless and made it right with premium wireless for 15 bucks a month on America's

largest 5G network. You can even bring your current phone and your number choose from three, six,

or 12 month plans and say goodbye to a monthly bill. Ditch overpriced wireless with Mint Mobile.

It's so easy. Sign up online and get three months of premium wireless service for 15 bucks a month.

To get your new wireless plan for just 15 bucks a month, go to MintMobile.com slash

cricket. That's MintMobile.com slash cricket. Cut your wireless bill to 15 bucks a month at MintMobile.com

slash cricket. That's it. There's no catch. Up from payment of $45 for three months, $90 for

six months or $180 for 12 months plan required $15 per month equivalent taxes and fees extra

initial plan term only greater than 50 gigabytes. My slow and network is busy includes up to 20

gigabyte hotspot capable device required availability, speeding coverage. Very see MintMobile.com.

Hey, so listen, whether you're in the States across the pond or somewhere on the other side of the

world, we love that you tune into cricket for US news. But did you know we also have a UK news show?

Yes, that's right. It's called Potsay for the UK. Potsay for the UK is a no bullshit,

unabashedly progressive conversation about politics focused on the issues that matter most of

the people of Britain with all the changes in our government, including the fun revolving door

of prime ministers we have here. There's always lots to talk about. And there's lots of fabulous

guests to talk to journalist politicians, experts, comedians and activists. Yeah, we've had great

comedians on as well, like Rosie Jones, Stuart Lee, Ashling B. We've also had Tommy Vitor on who

maybe our boss. We still we are not quite clear on who our boss is. I thought it might be Tommy Vitor.

I thought it might be John Favreau. I don't know if it's John Lovett. It's hard to say. It's not

clear to us who our bosses are. Some of our listeners call us irreverent but not stupid. I'm

objective. I'm deeply stupid. This is so too bad. So look, come check us out. Come join us.

Potsay for the UK every Thursday, wherever you get your podcasts.

This is the Jonas Brothers from Hey Jonas. We love our pets and we want to be smart about our pets.

Pet smart keeps finding ways to help pet parents like us be smarter about pet parenthood.

What's great is that pet smart helps us plan for everything we can and prepare for everything

we can't. Life gets busy, especially if when we're traveling or out on tour. So it's nice having

options. You can set up auto ship for your pets essentials so you never run out of their favorites.

It's one less thing to worry about or if you need something last minute, you can stop by your

local pet smart order online and pick up in store in two hours or less for free or even get free

same day delivery. We've been spending a little extra time at pet smart lately because we just

welcome to hamster into the family between River the hamster and our two dogs. It's been really

easy to grab everything we need in one place from food and treats to toys and habitats supplies.

It just makes life as a pet parent a little easier. Pet smart. They've got the smartest

solutions to any pet need anytime, anywhere. Shop in store or online at petsmart.com.

Pet smart. Anything for pets.

All right, I have two more for you. One is, you know, we began this conversation talking about

expectation setting and how if you're trying to understand where the sort of zeitgeist is at in

terms of democratic politics, like maybe leave the polling out of it because polling

stores expectations and therefore also results. You know, Nate Silver, the great

statistician, was talking about the polling that led up to primary day in Michigan that showed Abdul,

I'll say I had with like a very, very healthy lead. He of course goes on to win by like a point.

And I think everybody had flashbacks to the Anne Seltzer poll, which was off in 2024 by a whopping

16 points and had showed Kamala Harris winning the state. Abdul is now saying he's going to beat

microaggers by seven points. His campaign has a history of releasing internal polling. All of this

seems like highly sus. Maybe something you don't want to do. If you're, you know, as a, as someone

who follows this all the stuff. Closely. Should everybody just shut the fuck up about polling?

Should we stop looking at polling numbers entirely? Like what do we do about polling?

Well, I think that primary, I think primary polling is always hard and particularly

Michigan where people don't register for a party. We've seen a bunch of these cases. Both the

Obama Clinton one was a surprise and then the Bernie Hillary one was a big surprise. So there's

been a real history of specifically Michigan Democratic primary polling misses. So I think there's

partly that. Again, I think it's like the thing about polling is it's best in just the general

aggregate as like a directional point. Is it though? I mean, like 16 points.

I'm told was up by the 17 point. It's not wasn't good for his support. Like just what is the

utility of it? It's not a lot off. Yeah, I mean, I think when, right, when something's off by that

much, there's no utility. But I don't think that's usually the standard miss. You know, I mean,

like even like if you look at what the, you know, what was the 2024 presidential, like a close race

decided by a few points in either direction. Yeah, right. It was. Right. I mean, you know what I mean?

Like part of the problem is here's my general thing about polling and this doesn't really respond

to Michigan. This is more about broader stuff from presidential polling in a country as polarized

as ours. We want a level of specificity that it can't deliver because in our country, a pointer

to matters a ton in in front line swing races in the state Senate in the state wide Senate races.

A pointer to is probably determinative. Polling is not going to be great at telling you. Right.

A point. So like my general takeaway is that like the Paxton Taller Eco race right now is close

in anyone's race. My general takeaway of the polling that we've seen is that Michigan's going to be

close very close. You know, that main is going to be really close. Nothing more than that. So,

so like like ignore the numbers. Take the vibe like generalize. Yes. And like yes. Now again,

if it's off by 13, there's nothing you can do with it. But it is rare. That is a pretty rare

polling. Yes. Okay. Fine. So whoever commissioned that poll does not need to leave their job like the

poor and Seltzer. Let me just say that there were multiple internals. They released, which I think

was like a weird sign up that I think blew back and was yeah, not a good. But there were also public

independent polls, including Emerson, which is a highly rated pollster that has that double digits.

And I still haven't seen the like full autopsy of what went wrong there. The the

the Seltzer one is that she just completely modeled the elect. Here's a big problem too.

Something that pollsters have been dealing with in 2016 is that the kinds of people who are

highly involved and highly educated are the most likely to respond to polls. And those people

are also the most liberal. Right. And this is a this is a fact about the world that every

pollster has been trying to model and methodologically get their way out of. But there's a fact about

the world that wasn't true in the past. It was not true in the past that your likelihood to

respond to a poll correlated with your ideology in any way. It is increasingly the case it is. And

so now you have to model your way out of that. And that leads to a lot of modeling assumptions that

introduce a lot of uncertainty. That was very judicious that assessment. Chris now we're we're

going to return to the man who sits before me in a gold chain and a pink tank top for this last

one, which is we're sitting at this moment. I feel like so much of this season of democratic

politics has been defined by the questions around masculinity and power. Right. There's

Platner. Yep. There's Swalwell and California gubernatorial race. Obviously main Senate race.

Max Miller is currently in a house race. Well, refuse us to drop out despite like very serious

allegations of abuse. And otherwise representative Chuck Edwards is out with some ridiculous

reporting about what he's been doing. We went to Brown University, which we're prone to bring up

all the time. And I think I sound like a brown graduate when I start talking about the essence of

sort of like the fall of the patriarchy defining the kind of chaos in the political landscape. But I

do think it has a lot to do with why we had Barack Obama and then Donald Trump and then Donald

Trump again and this sort of crisis of like how to be a man. And like Donald Trump has come up with

one modality of masculinity, which is real fucking vile if you ask me, but is intoxicating to both

men and women, especially if they're white. And Democrats have had a really hard time figuring out

like what is what is manhood look like coming from the left. And like you see these attempts

at finding new models, whether it's Hassan Piker or I guess to some degree Gavin Newsom or

Graham Platner. And like it hasn't really they haven't found the shoe that fits. I don't think.

Yeah, I'm not saying that Gavin Newsom's chances aren't significant. But like do you have a theory

about how the Democrats should begin to try and answer like what is the rejoinder to like

the vile masculinity of the right. Because that's going to be I think essential and figuring out

who should leave the party or be part of the leadership of the party in the coming years.

I don't have a good answer to that, but it's something that I puzzle a lot. I do think

Abuel Asaiet is kind of interesting because he is. He has been charged with being a misogynist though

in talking the way that he did about Haley's. Oh, he's rolls his eyes in his pink tank top.

Well, but I think that there are women that don't agree with you even on the left that like the

way he talked about Haley Stevens was misogynistic and you know some of his attitudes the

listen, I'm just a vessel. Yeah, I mean, I think that charge, I guess what I would say is

I think it's probably useful to separate out charges that happen in the context of a heated

primary. Yeah. With broader things about the person's life. You know what I mean? Like,

sure. This is a different thing than like, Platner, you know, like. Oh, yes. I'm just saying that

like there's just different categories of what people say against each other when they're running

against each other in a primary. There was a lot of allegations that Barack Obama was being

sexist towards Sarah Palin or Hillary Clinton. And I don't think it was true to Sarah Palin.

I don't really think it was true to the Hillary Clinton. Some people maybe

felt that it was, but I think those those exist in a different space than people that are

testing to your character who have been with you outside of campaign. You know, the whole like he

can bench 315 and he's, but he's also like a doctor and he also seems like a person who,

you know, I don't know you said the interview he did with his mother that I thought was really

interesting. Who is an engineer came here from Egypt was often the only woman in a room sort of

talking to her about what that felt like, which I thought was interesting. And also I think

speaks to them recognizing they have some work to do on that front. The way that I saw for this

is the same way that I think about how to think about patriotism and how to talk about patriotism

from a center left progressive standpoint, which is like my version. I think Barack Obama is the

best example of this, but I also felt this way about the World War II Museum in New Orleans,

which is a great museum if anyone ever goes, which is a sort of like progressive pluralistic

patriotism. Like we are a great country because we are this place that is built out of all these

different people from all these different experiences and we've screwed it up a million different

ways and a million times, but we have also kept trying to figure out how to make all these people

together work. And I think that the version of masculinity is to be a man is to be a person who is

strong in a sort of inner and deep sense and who like and who bench 350 and and looks out for

people and does the right thing and people can look towards and depend on. And to me, it's like

in the same way that like you take this venn diagram of some of the attributes that we learn in

our civic culture about America with the attributes that we as progressives cherish and you're like

that's the thing I'm going for. Yeah. I think you take the aspects of masculinity that I do think

have a root in the culture, which is like strength or leadership or dependability or you know,

looking out for people even protecting people that like that you cultivate those in a broader sense

of like looking out for people looking out for people that are being bullied or being marginalized

like being the one that stands up for them. That that to me is like the vision of what of where you

kind of find the sweet spot into the answer. And I don't know how you communicate that, but that's

the way my own conception of it is. I think one of the things that Democrats could really do is

kind of wrap their arms around like someone who's loving like and has shown themselves capable

of great love. Yeah. Whether for children or their mother or their spouse or their partner

because that's something that Trump doesn't have at all. And that is I think really aspirational

especially to see if we're talking about a guy like men being comfortable showing the fact that

they can be lovers. And I don't mean that like a sexy way. No, no, I don't. But it's a real

important reminder that like that that's what most people are looking for in life is to be loved

and to feel loved and to belong. And Trump's found the inverse of that like he's found unity through hate

and like like love and affection is always in season. Sometimes it might come arrive at your doorstep

and a hot pink tank top and a gold chain. Kate Shaw. Sometimes not. You are one of my favorite people

on the planet. We have known each other for 30 fucking years. I know it's wild. And every conversation

is better than the last. Oh, that's sweet. That was really fun. I'm so glad we did it. You're the best

Chris Hayes. Everybody watch Chris Hayes on MS now. Always listen to his podcast. Why is this

happening and consume all books he writes because they're really good working on the next one. I'm

very excited about this next favorite project. Of course you are all my Jesus. Okay, well thank you

for doing this in between writing drafts and thanks to everybody for listening. Paz, America is

a cricket media production. Our show is produced by Austin Fisher, Saul Rubin, McKenna Roberts and

Ferris Safari with Reed Charlene, Elijah Cohn and Adrian Hill. Our team includes Matt DeGroat,

Ben Hathco, Jordan Cantor, Charlotte Landis, Kirol Pellevi, David Tolls, Mia Kelman, Ryan Young,

and Naomi Single. Our staff is probably unionized with the Raiders Guild of America East.

Hey, so listen, whether you're in the States across the pond or somewhere on the other side of

the world, we love that you tune into Cricket for US News. But did you know we also have a UK news show?

Yes, that's right. It's called Paz, Save the UK. Paz, Save the UK is a no bullshit,

unabashedly progressive conversation about politics focused on the issues that matter most

to the people of Britain. With all the changes in our government, including the fun, revolving

door of Prime Ministers we have here, there's always lots to talk about. And there's lots of fabulous

guests to talk to, journalist politicians, experts, comedians and activists. Yeah, we've had great

comedians on as well, like Rosie Jones, Stuart Lee, Ashling B. We've also had Tommy Vitoron,

who may be our boss. We still don't know. We're not quite clear on who our boss is. I thought it

might be Tommy Vitor. I thought it might be John Favreau. I don't know if it's John Lovey. It's hard

to say. It's not clear to us who our bosses are. Some of our listeners call us irreverent but not

stupid. I'm just about to say. I'm deeply stupid. This is not too bad. So look, come check us out,

come join us. Paz Save the UK every Thursday, wherever you get your podcasts.

You ever wonder how far an EV can take you on one charge? Well, most people drive about 40 miles

a day, which means you can do all daily stuff. No problem. Go to work, grab the kids at school,

get the groceries and still have enough charge to visit your in-laws in the next county.

But they don't need to know that. And the best part, you won't have to buy gas at all.

The way forward is electric. Explore EVs that fit your life at electricforall.org.

Hey, it's Disney for Albertsons, Vaughn's and Pavilions. It's back to Diels time,

now through August 25th. Enjoy hundreds of weekly store-wide deals and earn four times the points.

Look for in-store tags to earn on eligible items from Ziploc, Angelsoft, Lays,

Goldfish, and Dannon. Then clip the offer one time in the app and save all event long.

Stack up those points to save even more. Enjoy exclusive deals when you shop in-store or online

for easy drive up and go, pick up or delivery. Subject to availability, restriction supplies,

see website for full terms and conditions.