Has this sort of thing happened in Michigan before? Is Michigan a dynamic place where people change their minds at the last moment? Candidates, major candidates.

No, I've not seen this before, but you have seen a lot of people on the Republican side endorsing people for president that were not Donald Trump.

So it is not unexpected that people who have been longtime Republicans have changed their mind regarding President Trump.

And we don't hear, you know, those were generally greeted in the media with praise and newfound respect.

Haley Stevens had significant reasons to do this.

I think one of them, which is clearly out there on the surface, is I think she was upset about one of the ads that she believed was anti-Semitic and needed to be recalled and was not.

She's been, I think, struggling with this for quite some time.

And that all appears to be gone from the hot words I'm listening.

Thaddeus, have you seen any anxiety about AI or data centers in the policy decisions or debates in Michigan?

Oh, absolutely.

I think Jim's absolutely right.

I think it also helps to explain some of the rise amongst the young of the DSA and their support for socialism because a lot of those entry-level jobs are aimed squarely at them.

So you're seeing a lot of concern about the data centers, which is actually a larger argument.

It points to the fact that they're worried about AI in general.

And I think that it cuts across things.

Jim, do you see after the election the change of weather in the Republican – I mean, Thaddeus, do you see after the election a change of weather in the Republican Party?

But I want to stay here with Thaddeus, to your memory, has this sort of thing happened in Michigan before? Is Michigan a dynamic place where people change their minds at the last moment? Candidates, major candidates.

Good day to you.

No, I've not seen this before.

But you have seen a lot of people on the Republican side endorsing people for president that were not Donald Trump.

So it is not unexpected that people have been longtime Republicans endorsing have changed their mind regarding President Trump.

And we don't hear, you know, those were generally greeted in the media with praise and newfound respect.

Haley Stevens had significant reasons to do this.

And that all appears to be gone from the hot words I'm listening.

That is, you have a question.

Yes, Judy.

I think Europe understands that at this point, financially, if they engage in trade deals with Russia, it only empowers the bear to engage in more aggression.

Have they tried to explain this to the Trump administration, to Witkoff and others, that the more you engage economically with Russia, the stronger Russia is, and it will do nothing to cause them to forbear, no pun intended, their aggressive behavior?

Do you believe that Mr. Trump is empowered in some fashion that he can maintain a foreign policy of appeasement despite Congress?

Well, the president of the United States in our three branches has the most power over foreign affairs.

He has clearly more power than the judiciary and a lot more power than the legislative branch.

So he can do certain things in the area of foreign policy, especially if he doesn't need an appropriation.

I don't have the name, but he was identified as someone who has served as a professional staffer for candidates in the past, Republican candidates.

You mean like a consultant type? Because it's incredibly interesting because, Dr.

Ebb, Abdul Syed has been questioned repeatedly, including on NBC and other places, about his family's ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.

It's interesting that this comes up now, where he can then pretend that his faith is being questioned, whereas it's really his association, his family's association with the Muslim Brotherhood.

It's different than John F. Kennedy as a Catholic.

As an Irish Catholic myself, I understand those arguments.

I read about those arguments.

What is the significance of this rising independent vote? Is it long-lasting? Is it fresh? Is it something you've seen before?

What is the significance of this rising independent vote? Is it long-lasting? Is it fresh? Is it something you've seen before?

Well, there are two ways to look at it.

One is the immediate political aspect of it.

And people who are unhappy with the president who consider themselves Republicans, we've seen some of them changing over the years.

You've also seen an exodus and it's going to increase with the DSA influence in the Democratic Party where people are going to say, well, I don't like the DSA, so I'm going to go independent.

They may continue to vote Democratic, but they'll vote for different Democrats as independents.

You'll see that with Republicans where I'm a Republican, but I'm not MAGA.

Does that make sense, Thaddeus? We have a couple of minutes.

Thank you.

Yes.

Well, again, it's-- there's also some questions about what you said, John, if you think about it.

Now, J.D. Vance, in many ways, is relatively new, uh, to elective office.

He, in many ways, has jumped the line of a bunch of other people.

And the question is: Is he MAGA's candidate or is he the Republican candidate or both at the present time? So there are a lot of things converging on him, and he has a lot of audiences that he has to appeal to.

Unfortunately, I think that he's stuck in a situation right now where he's trying to defend what is clearly indefensible, these ads that are paid for by the taxpayers at a time where trillions and trillions of-- trillions in debt.

Vance, no matter the results on November 3rd, is building up credit with the party apparatus na-nationally?

Was Mr. Bush as unpopular at that time as Mr. Trump is now about the warfighting?

Bush was unpopular in 2006.

He got very unpopular in 2008 because you had Iraq continuing to be an issue.

And you also had the financial crisis on the heels.

And you also had the industry issue so you had three major critical issues against him as a human being they would mock and ridicule president george w bush but i don't think there was the visceral hatred donald trump in many ways brings a lot of this on himself because of his intemperate remarks and his his happiness his joy in mixing it up in many ways like an andrew jackson in some ways.

Just that kind of cavalier attitude towards quoting the choir animosity.

But when you think about it, what President Trump will do is he will have these rallies.

Isn't that a fair opinion of America? I

Is there an issue in Michigan more than the price of diesel, the price of gasoline, underneath the price of everything in the store because of trucking and delivery costs? Good day to you, Thaddeus.

Good day to you, John.

Well, the economy is the number one issue in Michigan, as it is throughout the rest of the country.

Questions of affordability, questions of health care, I would count that as part of the economic affordability issue.

So health care, the economy, inflation, I think a lot of individuals are very unhappy with the way that the Republicans came in, promising to deal with the rising costs, not necessarily to bring prices back.

I think most people understand you can't bring prices back, but at least to slow the rate of inflation to show that there was some light at the end of the tunnel regarding these increases.

And I think we were on our way.

Is that correct? And

Does that strike you as a significant change in the atmosphere in the Michigan race? Good day to you, Thaddeus.

Good day to you, John.

First, I think El-Sayed had run for governor in the past.

Thank you.

I'm pretty sure about that.

I'm not surprised at all.

If you think about the president's approval rating, and you say it's at a record low, or Reuters says at a record low of 32%, you have to remember that that's spread across 50 states.

It strikes me as logical, but still, it's a big change in direction for the party to have these significant candidates walk away from the president's apparent policy.

Does that show confidence or lack of? Are they looking to turn out the base again, doubting the base, or do they want to demonstrate power?

Well, we've seen polling that shows there's an enthusiasm gap.

The Democrats are highly motivated to vote in the midterms, the Republicans less so.

So if the goal is to motivate the party to get them out, that's fine.

But you have to understand, this is a long history of Donald Trump holding rallies and preferring conventions as opposed to going in individual districts campaigning there or doing some of the other traditional retail politics that other candidates and other presidents have done so if you're going to so that's why he has rallies in states and asks candidates from across the state to come to him holds one event he considers probably that time effective a good use of his of his time and energy But it doesn't have quite the impact that it does to have a president.

I've had vice presidents and other people back in the day when I was running come into the district for me.

And that was a tremendous help and energized the base to no end.

Just odd.

Good day to you.

Good day, John.

We've talked about this before.

So as I stated, the president isn't on the ballot technically, but the president's always on the ballot.

His party's always on the ballot.

So if the president isn't doing well, isn't performing well, It trickles down, trickles down to the other candidates.

We heard about there are coattails with a successful presidential candidate bringing other people along with them into the legislative branch.

It just struck me as odd, just odd.

That is, you have a remarkable question.

Well, the question for Judy then is, has anyone forced at this point in time, given their ability to communicate, has anybody demanded that they communicate an economic platform that will appeal to Germany? Or are they just kind of still mum on that whole aspect of their platform?

Thaddeus, you have a question for Judith.

Yes, Judy, as we've seen in the United States between MAGA and the DSA, the extremes of both ends of the political spectrum feed off each other.

We've seen the rise of violent left-wing organization in France.

Are we seeing a rise on the far left in response to the AFD in Germany?

Does the president, no matter his approval rating, coming into your district, is that significant for a reelection process?

Well, it can be.

The president can come in for a fundraiser.

And even now, there are still people who would pay to see the president.

So that's one of the reasons to do it.

But in terms of using his popularity, if he's unpopular, you don't want to be perceived as being the lackey of an unpopular president.

You prefer to be the legislator who works for the popular president to advance the agenda of the United States moving forward.

they have

Does the president, no matter his approval rating, coming into your district, is that significant for a reelection process?

Well, it can be.

The president can come in for a fundraiser.

And even now, there are still people who would pay to see the president.

So that's one of the reasons to do it.

But in terms of using his popularity, if he's unpopular, you don't want to be perceived as being the lackey of an unpopular president.

You prefer to be the legislator who works for the popular president to advance the agenda of the United States and move it forward.

Is that accurate? And does that mean Vance is a lock?

That's Europe discovering the GSA, right?

Yeah, good for them.

But when you look at it, John, we've seen some types of leftist movement within cities.

We saw this as far back as the early 20th century, the late 19th century.

You know, Milwaukee.

and go to New York or pockets in New York.

Again, we talked about Eugene V. Debs and the socialist movements.

Huge.

Are we angrier?

No, I think they're frustrated.

That's for the same reasons that I just expressed.

The American public is frustrated.

They're not seeing anything that appeals to them as aspirational, something they can get behind, something that's shown any type of practical value.

And there has been some tangible helpful benefit regarding the policies.

The personalities of those involved tend to obscure them and create frustration and instability in their minds.

Do people vote this?

That is, you have a question and comment.

So, Judy, so it becomes a case of what the Russians are doing then is playing into the strengths of the AFD, who claim to be anti-war by bringing the war in one way or shape or another into Germany to scare the population into voting for the AFD.

Is that about right?

are.

So we don't really know whether they're more inclined towards socialism or not.

It would seem there's a populist party.

There would be some aspects of a socialist plank in there.

But I do agree with you also that I think the bird, the nascent communist resurgence within Eastern Germany would be a bigger, bigger analogy with

Trump, in some fashion, signaling at this with that, what is called trash-talking about fifty-first state? Is, is this something that had to happen? Good evening to you.

Uh, good evening to you, John.

I don't know that anything has to happen.

I think that the fifty-first state remark was most unfortunate, uh, for almost all involved.

It was certainly not unfortunate for Mr. Carney because I think it helped propel him in the polls and into the prime ministership.

If you recall, the conservatives were very much, uh...

The winds were favoring them very much in the, in Canada.

How do you read this?

ran for governor unsuccessfully against Governor Whitmer,

would be the type of candidate they would gravitate to, especially some of his positions that he enunciated early on, such as the abolition of ICE and others.

He ran saying that he would not back down, that he would be a fighter.

And I think that that, in many ways, especially in places like Washtenaw, which has the University of Michigan, in places like Kent County, which has a lot of younger people, and as well as Grand Valley University in it, Up in Allendale, which would be which would then say we want to fight.

So we want someone who's going to stand up to Donald Trump.

One of the problems that you have is the Democratic establishment, Governor Whitmer, Senator Peters and others got behind Trump.

Haley's representative Haley Stevens, and it wasn't enough.

which is

So is it fair to say that he's teasing us with socialized medicine and it's up to us to define what he means? Good day to you.

Good day to you, John.

Well...

He's not a socialist, is what he says, but he's been endorsed by people like Bernie Sanders, AOC and others.

So what we're looking at is someone who is further left than Representative Haley Stevens, who he defeated in the primary.

She was the Democratic establishment candidate.

What he was allowed to do, I think they took a page out of Donald Trump's book, is he had no record in public office himself.

Does Al-Said comment on all that DSA matter, or does he just avoid it by saying, I'm not DSA?

Is the

tide of the DSA and the far left of the Democratic Party continuing to rise or is it crested and beginning to ebb? Will the Democratic establishment be able to hold on to its position within the Democratic Party, to hold on to its power? Especially given the fact that President Obama is in her ads for Haley Stevens.

You've seen Governor Whitmer endorse Haley Stevens.

I believe Gary Peters has endorsed Haley Stevens.

That's a clear matchup of the Democratic establishment against the insurgent forces on the left within the party.

Now, importantly...

In Michigan, we have a modified closed primary, which means that if you get a ballot for the primary, you can only vote for Republicans candidates on one side, or you can choose to vote only for the Democrats on one side.

Is that a strong campaign strategy in Michigan?

So is Al-Said associated not only with abolishing ICE, but defund the police, defund prisons, open prisons? Does he talk that way?

He doesn't talk like that now.

I know he will not like this analogy, but he's very much like Donald Trump in the sense that he's never held elective office and he can say whatever he wants and he does not have a record of his own to run it.

So he's allowed to simply attack Haley Stevens's record over and over and over again without having one of his own.

He has posted a couple of tweets, one of which can be interpreted.

I think it has been said that it was defund the police, but He has either backtracked on that or claims it was taken out of context.

But he can attack, attack, attack and say whatever he wants.

the

Is

the tide of the DSA and the far left of the Democratic Party continuing to rise, or is it crested and beginning to rise? Will the Democratic establishment be able to hold on to its position within the Democratic Party, to hold on to its power? Especially given the fact that President Obama is in her ads for Haley Stevens.

You've seen Governor Whitmer endorse Haley Stevens.

I believe Gary Peters has endorsed Haley Stevens.

That's a clear matchup of the Democratic establishment against the insurgent forces on the left within the party.

Now, importantly...

In Michigan, we have a modified closed primary, which means that if you get a ballot for the primary, you can only vote for Republicans candidates on one side, or you can choose to vote only for the Democrats on one side.

Is that a strong campaign strategy in Michigan?

Thaddeus, you have a question for Malcolm.

Yes, Malcolm.

Moving around the region, what can you tell us? Can you give us an update on Lebanon?

Do you have any good

news, Malcolm?