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14 days to November 3rd. Today is a deep dive into the most important Senate race in the country: Michigan.
JD Vance spent the weekend in Michigan campaigning for Republican candidate Mike Rogers. While he was there he sat for a CBS town hall that was, by every political measure, his first real audition for a presidential run. He got questions about gas prices, corruption, and the Iran war. Grant plays the key moments and walks through what Vance said, what he didn't say, and what it means that the Yale Law School graduate and vice president who gets daily intelligence briefings claimed he didn't know what conversation a Gold Star widower was asking about.
On the Trump corruption question: in his first year back as president, Donald Trump has made $2.2 billion. That is $983 million more than he made in the previous 47 years of public filings combined. The top 29 holders of his personal cryptocurrency will get VIP access to a gala next month. Most of those spots appear to be held by overseas investors. Vance told the town hall he hasn't seen any corruption.
Then there's Tommy. A viral clip from an El-Sayed town hall shows a young man named Tommy asking El-Sayed to disavow the Muslim Brotherhood based on a 2012 tweet from El-Sayed's estranged sister about a conversation with their mother from the 1970s, before El-Sayed was born, when the Brotherhood was a nonviolent movement. Tommy turns out to be Tommy Teepel, a paid Republican operative who until recently worked for Josh Hawley and whose father is connected to a prominent Christian nationalist who prayed over them at an event near Mar-a-Lago. Grant documents all of it, explains why El-Sayed's answer was both understandable and slightly flippant, and why nobody is asking Mike Rogers to disavow the 491 right-wing terror plots and attacks from the last 30 years.
The episode ends with the most important frame for this race: if El-Sayed wins or loses, it won't just be about a Senate seat. It'll be about who gets to be the face of the Democratic Party after Biden and Harris, and what it says about us if the only options are doubling down on the racism or pretending it isn't there.
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This episode is in partnership with Vote.org. Midterms are November 3rd, and your voter registration may not be as solid as you think. Moving, a name change, or routine list maintenance can take you off the rolls without you noticing. Vote.org is free and nonpartisan. In about two minutes, you can check your registration, find your polling place, see your state’s deadlines, or request a mail-in ballot. Check now at Vote.org, then go vote.
CHAPTERS:
0:00 14 days out. Two weeks. Michigan is the race that tells us where both parties are heading.
2:00 JD Vance's CBS town hall: his first real audition for president and why it went badly
4:30 Gas prices and the Strait of Hormuz: what Vance said and what he conspicuously didn't
7:00 Blaming Biden in month 21: when does this administration own the economy it created
9:00 The corruption question: $2.2 billion in year one, Trump crypto VIP access, and "I haven't seen any"
11:30 The Gold Star widower question: what the vice president with daily intel briefings said he didn't know
13:30 What this town hall tells us about a potential President Vance before his campaign even starts
15:00 Sponsor break
16:30 Tommy: who he actually is, who his father is, and who prayed over them near Mar-a-Lago
19:00 The Muslim Brotherhood context: what it is, what it isn't, and what El-Sayed's actual connection is
21:30 El-Sayed's answer: why it was understandable, why it was slightly flippant, and why Rogers is lying
24:00 Rogers on CNN: "an ideology we should worry about." He means Islam.
25:30 Nobody is asking Rogers to disavow 491 right-wing terror plots. Grant on the double standard.
27:00 Islamophobia at a 25-year high: 51% of Americans falsely believe Islam promotes violence
29:00 What El-Sayed winning or losing actually means for the Democratic Party after Biden and Harris
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