But overall, what's going on in that race? And does this hurt him at all at this point?

Well, look, any time you spend two weeks off the campaign trail in what is a very competitive race, especially in a red state like Texas for a Democrat, it's not great.

Now, he said he has the flu.

I think there's no reason not to believe him.

12 days is an awful long time to be dealing with serious flu symptoms that take you off the campaign trail.

But look, there were also a lot of conspiracy theories and a lot of stuff on the right that ended up being disproven.

And until there's, look, I think his campaign could have done a better job recording a video or doing something to kind of respond to the online chatter out there.

When you look at the president's travel schedule and you look at where the Republicans are spending their money, what does that tell you about this race?

H- how do you react to that?

Yeah.

I, I don't believe in coincidences in politics.

Now, maybe he's following the maxim, if you don't have anything good to say, don't say anything at all.

We saw yesterday what happened when Zohran Mamdani, the virulently anti-Israel New York City mayor, uh, put out a pro forma acknowledgement of the 10/7 terror attack, and then spent most of his comments attacking Israel and blaming them, blaming the victim, uh, for what happened on 10/7.

Uh, so maybe better not say anything at all than to hear what he actually believes.

But yeah, we, we have enough body of evidence.

What happened to them?

What's your take on it?

Yeah, they have a right to be outraged.

It's not just Republicans or people who are supportive of Israel.

It's a lot of moderate Democrats who, like you said, Mary, why you can't just express your sympathy and condolences for the Jewish community who lost the largest number of Jews in any moment since the Holocaust with the October 7th Hamas terrorist attack.

You can't just leave that note of sympathy and not have to blame Israel or Jews for their own predict for what happened, the horrible terrorism that happened on October 7th.

This is who he is.

I mean, Mamdani has notably been more pragmatic on a lot of other issues as mayor, whether it's scaling back sort of the very radical.

Why do the sheep vote for the wolf?

Yeah

...

the, the war is...

The, i- i- i- if you withdraw funding from Iran and you, and you basically try to force Trump's hand, uh, if you take control of Congress, that's gonna mean the war goes on even longer.

That, [laughs] you're liter- literally just taking away American leverage.

And, and we've learned this week that the blockade that the US and the Trump administration has been pushing in, in, in, in, in the Strait of Hormuz is really pushing Iran, Iran to the brink, both economically and the fact that we've actually helped our allies get m- many exports and oil through, through the Strait of Hormuz, and we're, we're winning.

Um, so if you just with- if you do as almost every Democratic senator is calling for now and cutting off funding, uh, to fight the, the, you know, the, the, continue the operations in Iran, uh, it's only gonna guarantee that the war goes on longer, and, and it's gonna guarantee Iran is more successful.

One and done.

It's such an extraordinary story.

I mean, Hugh, it's a mi- a miracle that, that the plane landed safely and no one, aside from the pilot who was brutally injured by, by the terrorist co-pilot, uh, everyone, uh, escaped, uh, and survived.

And, uh, it, it really shows you that the Israelis are made out of sterner stuff.

I mean, they, they took action.

The plumber, uh, apparently watched a documentary on how to, [laughs] to, to, you know, make sure the plane didn't crash and, and pulled on the, on the steering and, uh, and, and, and, and, and then you had, I guess, another backup crew that was in, i- i- on the plane and was able to land it safely in Saudi Arabia.

But, uh, it is a sign of just the Israeli will for life and their ability to just, you know, really...

It reminded me of the, you know, United Flight 93, um, uh, ag- quick action to prevent, prevent that plane from crashing into the, into the Capitol on, on 9/11.

What's that tell you, Josh Kraushaar?

I'm baffled by this.

Yeah, I mean, look, you're seeing the extremes become mainstream in the Democratic Party, especially in the Michigan Senate race, where Abdul El-Sayed certainly has a credible chance of winning a Senate seat, despite holding positions that would have probably forced him to drop out of the race.

if this was an election held five or 10 years ago, his views, his unwillingness to condemn Hassan Piker, who anti-American, anti-Semitic, pro-terrorism talker.

But yeah, for some reason, he will not condemn someone who campaigned for him, who was a surrogate for him.

And I think we know why, for the very reason that he did campaign for him during the primary.

And it's an inconvenient truth that a lot of people don't want to reckon with, don't want to confront.

The fact that, you know, actually, El-Sayed, Interestingly enough, was asked by an Iranian American whose family was being tortured by the Iranian regime at a town hall this week whether he could speak out against the Iranian regime that murdered 50,000 people.

How are Jewish Americans looking at this issue? Are they scared? Are they horrified? Are they going to become Republicans en masse?

So why would we continue long-term on this?

Yeah, well, look, I think the key is whether this summit is more about pageantry or more about deliverables and trying to come up with some, at least, pathways to open conversations about AI and tariffs and trade and ways to, frankly, deal with Iran and prevent China from helping out the Iranians.

Those are very important agenda items.

So it is important to talk and have these key diplomatic moments It's also important, as Roger Wicker was outlining, not to put out the red carpet for Xi and to do things in a more, I think, Strategic minded and tougher minded fashion.

Look, I was listening to Scott dissent on special report last night, Treasury Secretary talking about what these talks would lead to.

I was a little bit struck that there wasn't a whole lot of news or at least a playbook on what we expect to get out of the meetings.

I think the one headline was that there was a pause in the tariffs for at least a few weeks.

Wait, are you a Big Ten party or not? He's not allowed in the Big Ten? The tent's not big enough for him?

And you couldn't be more confused when it came to would you defend Taiwan? So having said with these numbers, what do you think could happen over the next 40 plus days?

Well, it looks like right now Iran, using its proxies, the Houthis, are trying to cause as much problems as possible for the president in creating more choke points in the region than ever.

than ever before.

So, I mean, look, they understand the political pressure points that Trump is facing.

I think Trump talked about this before, Brian, but being stalwart, sticking to the message consistently about the need to defeat the Iranians and prevent their ability to get a nuclear weapon and threaten our allies in the region.

I mean, that's a clear message, but we don't hear it every day and we get all kinds of different points made from folks in the administration.

I think that's part of the challenge.

all right so let's talk about ai the data centers last week oh my goodness we can't have a data center the world will end and now we can if we continue with ai the world will end uh i'm beginning to feel pandemic The green energy, the Y2K, doesn't this feel the same? I'm not saying AI is not a legitimate issue like we've never seen before, but all of a sudden the hysteria on the right after President Obama makes his speech is impossible not to think is ginned up.

It's just not right.

Hugh, we've known he's not very smart for a long time.

He streams for hours upon hours with the most inane, ill-informed, pro-authoritarian regime, pro-terrorism rhetoric.

And I was stunned, Hugh.

I don't know if we've talked about this.

He said when he first kind of hit the national scene, Politico did an interview with him.

I think he did a share of national interviews.

Do you think those are going to surface? Do you think the Democrats might not want to give money to a guy that's a political time bomb?

Is it basically a done deal, either he doesn't run or runs as a Republican?

Well, Brian, all, all of his friends are now on the Republican side of the aisle.

He feels, um, sort of betrayed and, and snubbed by his own staff, by, by Democratic senators.

Uh, they're, they're keeping their, their, their voices down because they don't wanna alienate him even more.

But it, it is remarkable that someone who has generally voted with the Democrats, except for some bills on the Laken Riley Act and on Isra- on the, he's been a big supporter of Israel, as most Democrats used to be.

[laughs] But that, that's enough to estrange him from, from a lot of the base of his party.

Uh, it's kind of remarkable given that he votes, he vote, he votes more with the Democrats than Joe Manchin did in, in, in, you know, in, as from West Virginia, and, and, and I think about the same as Kyrsten Sinema, uh, who was also sort of attacked by, by her own base in the party.

Can you believe it? That that clarity had to be reiterated?

Do you?

Well, this is a week that involved American military engagement again in the region responding to Iranian attacks.

It's a week where we heard Rubio and Trump both and advance, I think, in the press conference as well today saying the MOU is pretty much a dead letter right now.

This is we're not doing diplomacy.

This is this is the long game.

So, yeah, I do hear the administration being on the same page.

along those lines.

Do you agree with me? We're going for the insane, crazy, off-the-map of reasonable argument here?

What do you think the president could say to him? What could he do in the last two months?

I don't think you can say much of anything.

The policy is the policy and I don't get the policy.

I don't know why we're in a fight economically with one of our friends in Canada.

This is to me a self sabotage both on substance and on politics.

But when you look at the politics, Brian, we're talking about Michigan.

That is a border state with Canada.

What are your thoughts about going back to military exchanges?

Talk about the ideology of the DSA a little more so folks really understand what it is we're talking about.

Well, there was that made-for-TV moment about a month ago now on Fox News Sunday where Shannon Bream asked the co-chair of the Democratic Socialists of America, did you really believe in abolishing the Senate? Yes, of course.

Do you really believe in abolishing prisons? Yes, of course.

you know, getting rid of jails.

And the whole platform is something that is the driving force behind why, especially younger Americans that are getting drawn in and social media is a big, playing a big role in this, but it's drunk.

People are, you have a lot of time on their hands and they're being drawn into some of these very extreme ideas.

And you talk about this red green.

But why are so many red seats, red states in play right now?

Talk about the ideology of the DSA a little more so folks really understand what it is we're talking about.

Well, there was that made-for-TV moment about a month ago now on Fox News Sunday where Shannon Bream asked the co-chair of the Democratic Socialists of America, did you really believe in abolishing the Senate? Yes, of course.

Do you really believe in abolishing prisons? Yes, of course.

you know, getting rid of jails.

And the whole platform is something that is the driving force behind why, especially younger Americans that are getting drawn in and social media is a big, playing a big role in this, but it's drunk.

People are, you have a lot of time on their hands and they're being drawn into some of these very extreme ideas.

And you talk about this red green.

But why are so many red seats, red states in play right now?

Josh, First of all, what's your 30,000-foot view of this phenomenon?

Well, look, we could see it coming a long time ago.

We had been asking a lot of Democratic lawmakers and candidates what they thought of Hasan Piker and whether it was appropriate for – it was stunning how his extremist rhetoric was not being condemned.

And John Ossoff was the latest Democratic senator to speak out against him.

Today, he's obviously in a reelection campaign.

We asked him four months ago at his office, four months ago, whether he – What he thought about Piker, because actually Piker had said he was one of his sleeper favorites for presidential candidate in twenty twenty eight.

And also office did not respond.

Is he just giving up on winning? Do you think his numbers are so bad that he's giving up on winning? Josh, this is

Is that widespread or is that a half dozen American Jews in a room? What is that?

Well, there are a lot of Jewish voters in Michigan that are wary and probably will not vote for Abdul El-Sayed.

If you had me guess on the percentages, I think over half of – maybe well over half of the Jewish community will not cast a ballot for El-Sayed.

Now, will they vote for – Mike Rogers will actually take the full step to voting Republican.

I think a lot will.

And you saw one of the leading rabbis in the Detroit area community, someone who actually happens to be Rahm Emanuel's, one of Rahm Emanuel's rabbis, said he is endorsing Mike Rogers and spoke very glowingly about him at a press conference this morning.

But, you know, the overall number, I think you look at the primary numbers and 70 plus percent of Democratic voters, Jewish precincts voted for Haley Stevens.

How many unforced errors does he get away with, Josh

It's called retaliation, where k- they dropped flyers to let people know to evacuate buildings because we're gonna be bombing something there because they built the, they built a lot of their industrial complexes, uh, under schools and under hospitals.

Uh, good luck winning Florida with that message in, in, in a state with, well, that leans to the right, obviously, and, and also has one of the largest Jewish populations in the entire country, which is...

And, and it has a Jewish population that is much more moderate and, and even Republican than in a state like New York.

So that, that is a message.

Democrats are already privately, if you...

I've talked to some top Democratic strategists that South Florida may, may have had an outside chance with, with, with Vindman and, and a more moderate candidate in that race, but that race is not gonna be invested in by the...

They've written off that, that Senate race totally.

Those are probably two detrimental things, wouldn't you think?

How do you see this playing out?

Alaska's one of the states that has a very unique, uh, election system.

So they-- Essentially, the, the results with th- this month's primary is gonna be something akin to a preseason game where [chuckles] you get a certain early taste of where Alaska voters are in the run-up to the, to the November election with, as you said, the top, top four candidates moving on to, to the November ballot, and it's a ranked choice ballot in, in, in November.

So we'll get a good sense of just exactly where the Alaska voting electorate is at this early stage of the campaign.

Peltola is a former s- uh, congresswoman, statewide elected official, and is someone who is more moderate seemingly than [chuckles] a lot of her other Democratic colleagues.

But that, that is where the Kamala Harris issue is such a sensitive one because for Peltola to win in a red state like Alaska, she's gotta distance herself and, and actually reject a lot of these national Democratic figures.

She has to run an Alaska-centric campaign and not adopt the views of the National Democratic Party.

Now, is, is he really being-- uh, uh, sounding an alarm bell for Republicans? Is he, uh, a guy signaling a run for president in two years saying, "Hey, this is what we have to fix"? What, what do you get out of what he said about that?

guy in a football high school environment in michigan which is almost as crazy as ohio texas and florida uh after he said that there's toxic masculinity in football

I mean, it's funny.

I think Mike Rogers has said he's going after faith, football, the flag.

That's sort of the line that Rogers has used against El Sayed.

And I think it's hard to follow all the back and forth on social media, but I think El Sayed challenged Mike Rogers to a one-on-one football game, which...

I thought Elsay had played football in high school, but apparently not, because the notion of a one-on-one football game makes no sense, and it really makes him look out of touch.

So, look, I...

What's that mean? How do you interpret Hassan Piker's appeal for help?

... a- and that's what happened?

Yeah.

Part of it is that this was a fast-moving race, and, and everyone threw the kitchen sink, whether it was the governor, Tony Eber, uh, Evers to, to, to endorse and, and campaign against Hong and, and support Crowley to AOC's prominent interview on Sunday where she would not en- en- endorse Hong's candidacy.

So there was a lot of things going on behind the scenes.

That was a fast-moving race.

But there's also this issue where the people who respond to polls are usually the most progressive, uh, like col- highly college-educated people who wanna answer any poll they get, where people who are working class, who tend to vote for the more moderate candidates, don't answer the phone [laughs] or don't, are hard to reach when it comes to p- political polling.

So I think there's a little bit of that as well.

... remember, she's on the record saying defund the police.

Right.

That's a interesting...

And, and by the way, who, whose wife goes to...

So, I mean, the, the, she's going into the heart of a very unstable, um, country in Syria.

I mean, who...

The, the...

We've reported at, at Jewish Insider about Mamdani's wife's very extremist, pro-Hamas views that he wants to avoid talking about.

Uh, what do you make of that statement?

Is that enough for him to make the case?

Well, look, I think there are two parts to the concern among a lot of Jewish Americans about Vice President Vance.

Look, I think he's perfectly – he's been more critical of Israel than a lot of other leading figures in the administration, but certainly compared to where – A lot of folks, especially on the left, are in politics.

I mean, Vance's views are not not not all that.

You know, I think it's less about his views on Israel that he that he's and his critiques in recent months on podcasts.

And I think it's more about his associations and his refusal to denounce folks like Tucker Carlson on the.

anti-Semitic far right that have raised concerns in the Jewish community.

Can you?

Mm.

And, um, you know, I think, I think this goes beyond...

I mean, it, it, you know...

Th- th- he clearly has a deep-seated hatred for Israel throughout his whole political life.

I mean, you know, that, that is very obvious.

Um, but it increasingly is apparent that his rhetoric, uh...

And I thought he tried to do a little dam- damage control on the clip you played on, on CNN, but, you know, after the terrorist attack in Detroit against a, a synagogue where there were dozens of preschoolers, uh, in school, he went, uh, and, and, and told the national press, "Hurt people hurt people." Uh, essentially understanding the, the, the motivations and, and the, the Hezbollah s- sympathies of the terrorists in, in that awful, uh, attack against Temple Israel in, uh, in, in Detroit.

Right

What happened in those 24 years, from your perspective, within the Democratic Party and perhaps more broadly in America?

So within the Democratic Party, we've seen, look, different scholars, different experts have kind of pinpointed certain dates and time.

John Podhoretz wrote a really interesting essay the other day about 2013.

I think he, or maybe even further back, but he kind of looked in the 1980s and saw seeds of leftism and campus activism that were being planted in the party and on the left that kind of were nurtured throughout the decades and kind of have found its full force in 2026.

Look, Having covered politics and covered it at a very granular level, to me, the moment where the Democratic Party's warmth towards Israel and towards Jews changed was the Obama push to get the Iran nuclear deal pushed through Congress.

And that was the first moment where you saw a number of pro-Israel Jewish Democrats, from Chuck Schumer to Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who were torn between their principles and the politics.

Debbie Wasserman Schultz, I remember, was in tears on an interview on CNN.

Who becomes the heir to Donald Trump and the MAGA movement? And what direction does it take? How worried are you about the split within the party and what it might mean for the Jewish community and the relationship to Israel?

What does that mean?

Well, there's a long history, a long history in Jewish history of Jews being accused of the most insane libels, just lies that have led to pogroms, that have led to mass deaths, led to the Holocaust.

And using the word bloodthirsty invokes a whole lot of very disturbing kind of memories in Jewish history.

And I don't think that's an...

You hear that language from other... anti-Semitic figures when describing, and it wasn't describing, it was describing the state of Israel in a national television interview after he won or all but won the nomination.

So that was not a coincidence and it makes any kind of attempts at outreach with the Jewish community in Michigan and beyond feel pretty hollow because it doesn't seem like he's actually taking any any steps to you know moderate his rhetoric he campaigned in the final week of the the final week of the race with hassan piker who is an anti-american anti-semitic podcaster who uh said america deserved 9-11 and he's been trying to back you know that's been a big problem uh and it's something that he's figuring out is a big vulnerability once you get to the general election in michigan so this is someone who has piled around with radicals um of all stripes and the language i mean it's one thing to be virulently anti-israel which clearly el sayed's politics are driven by his deep hatred of the jewish state that that's been pretty clear for a long time but i think what makes it even more concerning certainly in the jewish community but i think beyond uh is the kind of rhetoric and the kind of extreme language he's been using, even after he wins the nomination, when you think you want to make outreach to the people who are skeptical of your candidacy.

What else are you writing about here?

Well, look, I find it pretty remarkable that even though the Democratic leaders in the state and in Washington clearly preferred Haley Stevens in the primary, you had like Alyssa Slotkin, a moderate Democrat who cares about national security stayed out of the race.