Ron Fournier

And therefore there's there's a response.

So our mutual friend, Ron Fournier, who's a who is a longtime White House correspondent for for the AP.

I think that's where you know him from.

That's where I know him from.

Good description.

Ron Fournier, who used to cover the White House and a longtime political reporter and is also a Michigander and lives in the state now back, he's compared El Sad to Bill Clinton.

And Bill Clinton is obviously one of the best political athletes the country's ever seen.

And yet people regularly tell me he's run a horrible campaign.

I think he is giving therapy to Katie Zakaria and so is not actually with us because he has been dethroned as the shortest running press secretary at the White House.

But I am very fortunate to be joined by somebody who knows Michigan better than anybody I can think of, former White House correspondent Ron Fournier.

And Ron, you are a longtime Michigander and have been living back there for the last 10 years, which is why I really wanted to get you on the show today.

So welcome to The Rest Is Politics.

Michigan.

It's strange, because Ron Fournier, whose judgment I respect, says El-Sayed is a Bill Clinton level of political athlete.

I think he's a horrible candidate, and in part because he says things like, it's the hypothetical question, who's a greater threat to the United States, Israel, or Iran? It's not a hypothetical.

It's not what a hypothetical is.

Okay, great.

Tricia, we've heard Ron Fournier compare him to Bill Clinton in terms of political skills.

We see stuff like that, and yet at the same time, he's described as a flawed candidate who might lose a Democratic state in a Democratic year.

Is it possible, again, that the grassroots he's building is gonna be this positive and, and all this conversation about everything else is meaningless, that he's just running a, a grassroots movement campaign?

I went to National Journal.

M- the guy who recruited me, a guy by the name of Ron Fournier, his son was on the autism spectrum, so he really was kinda my Sherpa through, and my consigliere to, through, through that time.

That really helped me learn to adapt, and learn what worked and what didn't work in newsrooms.

And, and that was really, that was incredibly helpful.