Chuck Shultz

A host: “so, i mean, this is, i just want to add what elissa slotkin said, who was at the, like, the split screen was the republican with haley, and then elissa, this massive unity rally. and this was senator slotkin's message on this. any day of the week, michiganders care more about the price of gas or groceries and the daily political drama or the last-minute moves by politicians for tv cameras. i was knocking doors in sterling heights yesterday into a house. those folks were hyper-focused on how expensive everything in their life seems to be, and they're desperately worried, often in tears, about the future of their kids. for that reason, i've avoided commenting on the actions of congresswoman haley stevens until now. she goes on to say there's too much at stake. the election on tuesday is bigger than any one person. it's about who we are as a country and the values that represent us. michigan elects fighters, and we will elect abdul el-sayed.” A host: “yeah, i mean, my counterintuitive take here is that this is a bizarrely inverted unifying moment for the democratic party. like, nationally. yeah, well, i just think the reaction today was the behavior here from congressman stevens is so aberrant. it truly is bizarre. i gotta say, like, look, people have their beliefs in the other politics, and they're allowed to leave parties and endorse whoever because of principled disagreements, and that is what it is. we live in a free society. it's a democracy. the way that she personally went about this was just downright bizarre. i mean, her staff was waiting at the clyburn event not knowing that she was showing up to endorse mike rogers. there's just a strange set of behaviors here. but also in the response, i mean, you hear what michael said, right? i was looking at people at jonathan chait at new york, at the atlantic, because, you know, wrote a piece today who's been very skeptical of abdul el-sayed, right, saying, look, there's no question between these two people about who cares more about the safety and pluralism of religious minorities in america. it's obviously abdul el-sayed. and this is someone who's been very clerical of him. neera tanden has been critical of abdul el-sayed, being like, this is nuts. nancy pelosi. i mean, so what you see is, i think like in the face of this very shocking, bizarre and aberrant thing, the party unifying weirdly and counterintuitively in the wake of it, because people do understand the stakes. and i think it also puts into relief a little bit like there are real genuine good faith battles inside the democratic party. and part of the price of building a bigger tent coalition is you get more of them. totally, if the democrats have the best night of my lifetime on tuesday and walk in with 55 senators, that is going to be a real pain to manage. but that's the best problem you can have, right? it's like the bigger the tent gets, the more intense the fights inside the coalition become. but that is the price of broadly expanding the tent in both directions. the left, in some cases, as we see, you know, with abdul el-sayed and michigan, troy jackson, to a certain extent, and some members of congress, and to the right in the center with, you know, adam hamilton or josh turek, right? like that's going to be how it is. but that's the best possible problem to have as a party.” Ari Melber: “all true. well, i don't think michigan democrats wanted to close this way.” A host: “oh, no, no, no.” Ari Melber: “i don't think this was the close they were looking at.” A host: “this was not the plan?” Ari Melber: “this was not the plan. a lot of them are happy that they've banked 1.8 million votes already. and it may be that this was already baked in for a lot of the reasons that chris just expertly said that this is done if it's done, if it's an economic wave, if it's a blue wave, that if then you wouldn't think that this final schism would make that big a difference. having said that, the problem is they want to be closing on those issues in economics. and this feels like a james comey type moment. it feels like one of those distractions that even if everyone in the light of day looks at it and goes, i don't think this is a reason to change your whole vote or look at the blank check that rogers and the republican party have given this president, so we have this war and these gas prices to say nothing of tariffs and trade in michigan, canada. there's tons going on in michigan that makes people skeptical of this incumbent republican party. but yeah, you wanted to close on wrapping that up, not the way you drew it up. the only other thing i'll say in terms of how she did it was there's also like, if you guys remember when people would criticize obama and sometimes you're like, oh, that's a valid criticism. and then there are other people who would say, i didn't get good enough inaugural tickets. yeah, they would publicly admit that's why they were mad at obama. and this had a bit of that flavor.” A host: “oh, this this definitely had that flavor.” Ari Melber: “i mean, she even alluded to not being invited. so she wasn't going to be a part of the party anymore.” Jen Psaki: “the thing that i think hasn't gotten enough attention about this, in my view at least, is that mike rogers ran the most islamophobic campaign that i can remember. she basically was endorsing him saying like, i'm against bigotry, right? but i'm standing next to this guy who was pushing islamophobic messages, which doesn't make sense. it makes sense to no one.” A host: “i agree.” Jen Psaki: “that's not how any democrat wants to close. every democrat i've talked to today is like, what the hell, right? what the hell? we're so close to the election. however, she's not a movement candidate. you know, i mean, remember in the primary, she doesn't have like decades of a movement behind her in the sense that like she didn't have a huge grassroots campaign. she got highly funded by apac, which i'm sure is going to come up in lots of conversations. i just don't know that there are going to be thousands following her. i'm like a little skeptical of what the constituency is that's going to actually be moved by this at this point. the margins right now in michigan are close. i had a couple of conversations with a number of state senators, republicans and some other operatives. and the internals are showing this very close, and this was sort of midday conversation after all of this noise had happened at the church this morning.” Michael Steele: “i think what i find the most disturbing are two pieces of this. the first is, yet again, the black vote is used as a prop and a backdrop for the politics of a republican candidate who, to my understanding and knowledge from people on the ground there, has spent very little time in the black community talking about the issues other than waving the flag of entrepreneurs and because that's all we care about. and a democratic candidate, to your point, who is po'd because she didn't get invited and she lost the primary, and it sounds all very personal and very spoiled, right? so there is that piece. the other part that i find the most disturbing, and this is going to be a test for michigan voters, is that what happened today was a permission structure given for those who now feel relieved in their racism and their islamophobia to now come out and participate at a time where they otherwise may not have. you've given that voice because, to your very point, she stood next to a man who ran a very islamophobic campaign. he's, you know, a member of the party whose titular head has been out there calling abdul el-sayed a terrorist and all kinds of ugly islamophobic things. so at what point does she then renounce any of that, now that you've bought into this? and this is what i don't think has been lost on the voters. one, two, the test for those voters is, okay, this was a nice dog and pony show on a sunday morning, and yes, we're offended that you had to do it in front of our church or at our church or in our church. we've already made up our mind we're going to the polls and we're going to take michigan in a different direction. we don't have the problem with abdul el-sayed that you seem to have with abdul el-sayed. i'm hoping that that's the response of voters.” A host: “i'm just very glad you said that, because, again, i'm not a black democrat, in case anyone wonders.” A host: “neither am i.” A host: “but i found that it was a very bizarre scene. i'm like, what are we doing here, exactly, right? why is this happening where it's happening in this college? the whole thing was very odd.” A host: “well, that's what i was trying to, he said it much better, but trying to get at it. she won the black vote in the primary, huge percentage of voters, the base of the democratic party in many states, including michigan. i don't think that black voters are like, oh, haley stevens is now with mike rogers. so now we're with mike rogers. no. well, but i think, i mean, ali, you're going to, you have the expert in the room, so we'll go to the expert.” Ali Velshi: “i know, and i've got numbers that put meat on every bone that you guys have been talking about. everything that you've said bears out in the numbers. let's take a quick look at, this is the race right now, decided like rogers, but let's go back to the primary race that we're talking about because this tells you the whole story. let's take a look at this one by 13,700.” A host: “oh, ali, we have to fix your microphone. rush, rush. we're going to fix your microphone.” Ali Velshi: “got it here? one, two, three, five, six, seven.” A host: “can you hear him?” Ali Velshi: “see, this is what it's really like. when you interrupted me, i swear to god. i thought you were going to make a call. i went there like i was calling you. i talked like this.” A host: “oh, there we go. there we go.” Ali Velshi: “i literally went to myself. is she calling michigan? so take a look at that. abdul el-sayed wins by 13,792 votes, right? so haley stevens had 731,000 votes. that's not nothing, right? the question is, to jen's point, she's not a movement politician. so do those 731,000 people.” A host: “thanks, buddy. i owe you one.” Ali Velshi: “all right. i'm coming back with this. all right. so first of all, look at that lead. then go to the county that's going to make the most difference here, and that is wayne county in detroit. in wayne county, haley stevens beat abdul el-sayed by pretty much the entire election margin, 17,000 votes. so the question is, do these 17,000 people in wayne county, which involve a lot of black democrats, are they moving with haley stevens? be reminded that prior to this primary, don't mean this in a bad way, nobody knew who haley stevens actually was before this whole thing. so i'm not entirely sure that happens. and then to michael's point, this took place outside of a black church. people feel like they were used as props. and whatever the argument is between haley stevens and abdul el-sayed, it's not everybody's. and then to mychael schnell's point, abdul el-sayed was right on brand by saying that's politics. i'm not really talking about politics, i'm talking about policy, and he goes back to that all the time. and then to the point that others were making here that haley stevens' whole concept here is that this is about bigotry, and yet she's aligned with some remarkable bigotry. this is high-end bigotry that we're seeing in michigan. so and i think it was ari who was making this point, the early vote in michigan in 2022, again, these are all mail-in votes, but it was 1.5 million. so far this year, it's 1.8 million. so 1.8 million out of 4.2, i think, million total votes in michigan, this decision is already made. so whatever gain haley stevens thinks she's going to give mike rogers, she's going to do with about half of the outstanding vote. so all of this adds up to probably not all that much. and take a look at these numbers, this is the latest polling from 50+1, it's polling average. abdul el-sayed at 49.3 to mike rogers 44.6, i'll remind you, this is within the margin of error. so it's closer than it may look. so it's close, but it's not clear who goes with haley stevens in this thing. and as michael and i were discussing earlier, it's also not clear what success looks like here. what's the outcome? it's not clear that haley stevens thought this out any further than today's news cycle because what happens next, what's supposed to happen to those voters, very unclear.”