Transcript of Haley Stevens’ Bombshell Endorsement Could Backfire Big Time

The fallout was immediate. Rogers' Calciots moved from 23% to 32%. I guess that's real, though El-Sayed remains the favorite at 68%. But El-Sayed is showing no signs of losing momentum. He raised $2.4 million on Sunday. It's beginning to feel more like a fundraising event for El-Sayed. Democratic leaders across the country are really pissed off. Chuck Schumer called the move a despicable betrayal, while Hakeem Jeffries urged voters to back El-Sayed. Let's watch how Stevens responded to the backlash.

And Anderson Cooper has exactly the right question. What changed? So this feels very strange. So I'll start there, Jess. Do you think this has any impact?

And I know that his tack is that he's against ethno-states generally, but people feel like he's only talking about Israel and regularly talking about Israel in the ethno-state category. So Haley Stevens didn't invent this, right? That it's a set of concerns that people have. And there's talk about some folks that will be leaving that line on their ballot blank. There is a group called Democrats for Mike Rogers, which her fiance, Jason Turkish, is a member of. I don't know how robust that group actually is.

Usually these things exist. But Mike Rogers has been doing better with Jewish voters and Black voters than a Republican nominee traditionally does. So there was an argument to be made that inroads were happening with those communities. But the story does not make sense. And as, you know, someone who is part of the media and also someone who doesn't like to be sensationalist or certainly, you know, place blame on a woman, like, did your fiance make you do this?

The story is just not adding up here. And the quick turnaround on this, that she's even saying, "Oh, I haven't cast my vote yet," when there was a conflicting story about how she had already voted and had voted for Mike Rogers. Like, nothing is making a ton of sense except the fact that she was uneasy, which we knew from the jump with this, and that her fiance was definitely pushing in this direction. And Governor Blanchard, who was the governor of Michigan, had dinner with them on Friday night and, according to reports, said that her fiance was quite bullying and was talking about how everybody's disappointed in her and that, you know, she came out right away and she endorsed him.

Well, that's what you're supposed to do after a primary. And you're not supposed to make it ugly. And you're supposed to do what you can to help the person that won the primary win the general election. And that doesn't mean just act like everything's sunshine and butterflies. That means talking to them about real weaknesses in their campaign, which there are with Jewish voters and with Black voters. But I don't think it's going to have a tremendous amount of impact on it tomorrow. There's even a case to be made, which, you know, some folks in the media and other electeds have been making, that the fact that she did this at a Black church made them feel like she was using Black voters as pawns in this bigger game and that they were not happy with that.

Like, why did you have to do this here? Or my point, which I just made on America's Newsroom, I was on this morning where I said, why wouldn't you just say, upon further consideration, I'm going to be voting, you know, straight ticket Democrat, but I'm leaving the Senate line blank? You know, coming out and endorsing Mike Rogers and then making the argument that it's because you want to support the party that isn't proliferating hate when they've called Abdul, just in the last few days, a jihadist, a leprechaun jihadist, you know, Muslim Brotherhood.

I don't know how you could be saying, like, you guys are the hateful ones, but these ones over here are okay. Not to mention the litany of reasons that she's given about why you can't elect Mike Rogers based upon his record and the fact that he'll be a rubber stamp for Donald Trump, meaning, you know, people are—poor people are going to have less health care, they're going to be paying more, you know, talk of having a national abortion ban. It's bad stuff. And the betrayal that these folks in the party feel, you know, she was on the phone with a lot of them hours before this happened, you know, the night before, like Debbie Dingle and Jamie Raskin and talking to Nancy Pelosi.

And then they're waiting for her at Clyburn's church. People, her staff was there.

Half her staff has reportedly resigned. Half her staff has resigned over this. So Republicans aren't going to—Moderates aren't going to credit her for this. I mean, I think the percentage of the Jewish vote in Michigan is 1.5%. Is that right?

Probably the most effective campaign ad ever is that people thought John Kerry was better on the issues, but he was seen as a waffler. And even though Trump was seen as Islamophobic, he captured a greater share of the Muslim population's vote in Michigan because they said, quote unquote, in exit polling, that I'd rather you stab me in the front of the chest than in the back. So voters and the public are generally turned off by people who flip-flop like this, especially when there doesn't seem to be an event other than trying to either grab the spotlight or demonstrate grievance or because she's personally still angry about her loss, whatever it might be.

But this is more—I think this story in retrospect, the lesson here is going to be about how not to handle yourself 48 hours before an election, not about the impact it's going to have. I don't—I mean, I don't—I just—I don't see any—I mean, I guess it's too late for polling. And again, there's certain stories that the media just loves because they're kind of quite—they're salacious and they can bring her on and she looks like an ass. And it's interesting warfare, which the media loves.

My sense is, in retrospect, this will be seen as a nothing burger other than her signing her own resignation from the world of public politics.

And they are—Abdul is playing like that in terms of how hard he's working. I know that there have been criticisms about, you know, attitudinal things where he seems—comes off as arrogant and like he doesn't have to, you know, answer certain questions, etc. But the guy isn't sitting around on a barco lounger with his legs up, right? He's doing events nonstop. But 11 points, that feels crazy to me. I mean, maybe I just won't allow myself to feel like it could be like that tomorrow, that level of a bloodbath.

But what—what's your feeling?

But he feels like he has a pretty comfortable margin.

Kansas specifically, with an edge in Alaska and a virtual tie in Iowa. Just 38% of voters across the states approve of Trump's job performance, and Democrats have a nine-point advantage on the cost of living. Again, when they took a bunch of seats in '18, they were D7. Now it's D plus nine. So this is not—this is a—again, the thing that I find most shocking about any of this is usually at the end, things close and narrow, and this seems to be—the Gulf appears to be broadening. Any thoughts on the final weekend on the campaign trail, Jess?

Did you see the ad that he made himself on his iPhone that his team wasn't involved in and then just released on socials? And they're not even putting money behind it. It's so catastrophic. I thought it was either a parody or something that Reverend Hamilton, like, had had some fantasy dream about, and then, like, somehow it came into being that Roger Marshall would go direct to camera to talk about the medical debt story, how he actually instructed folks to go after people who had come to him for emergency hysterectomies, for instance, and that they set the interest rate at 18% versus the industry standard of 12%, and that he had gone after folks for as little as $101.

So that story has been permeating the ecosystem in Kansas between that and stiffing the local bakery. Everyone's getting an idea that Roger Marshall is not a good dude. So he decides that he's going to do a direct to camera about this.

To be crystal clear, the Kansas Bill of Rights ensures that no one can go to prison because of indebtedness. And I would never wish that on any patient I had the privilege to serve. My involvement in any patient's account ended the minute it was turned over to an outside agency. I never had anyone arrested, not once, and Adam Hamilton knows it. Kansas deserves to know the truth, and now you do. I'm Senator Dr. Roger Marshall, and I humbly ask for your vote.

Who is technically in charge of candidate quality on the Republican side?

Like, people are going to notice, and they want you to work hard, and they want you to deliver. And one of, you know, we've been rightfully so a bit obsessed with the Senate side, but I've been paying attention to, and I'm sure folks that are the types that would be tuning into a live Substack about this have been doing it as well. You know, the story on the House side of the candidate quality and also what looks like beating these gerrymanders is enormously important to all of this.

You know, they thought the Republicans figured they would win four seats in Florida. Maybe they're going to get one of them because of how good the candidates have been. And in Texas, you know, gerrymandering for what they thought would be five seats, maybe they get one or two. You know, folks like Johnny Garcia, Deputy Sheriff, former hostage negotiator, Bobby Polito, the Tejano music star, who's running this very unconventional, super exciting campaign. And I don't know why after one good election, Republicans thought that they could own the Rio Grande.

You know, that Latino voters were in it for the long haul. But you're seeing these crazy turnout numbers, and it's being predominantly driven by younger voters and especially younger Latino voters who did not necessarily vote in 2024, those low propensity voters. So I think that that is definitely a piece of the puzzle that is perhaps under-discussed, but I think is very important that, you know, you try to rig the game and you try to cheat. And it looks like, you know, knock on wood, that that's going to blow up in their faces.

So let's talk a little bit about the question looming over Tuesday. What happens if the results are contested? In Alaska, Republican Senator Dan Sullivan says he'll accept the election results, but he's accusing Mayor Pittola of showing voters disdain by recruiting a second candidate with the same name to confuse them. Asked whether the effort was illegal, Sullivan said, "I'll let the lawyers figure that out," adding there are good arguments on both sides. Meanwhile, a federal judge just threw out a Justice Department lawsuit that could have delayed certification of Alaska's Senate race, and Democrats are already preparing for legal battles.

Election officials that actually look if these are legitimate candidates or if it's for gaming the system. But it needs to happen on both sides. And one of the things I don't like about the Democrats is we like to disarm unilaterally. So we have our dignity. New York Supreme Court overturns the gerrymandering that Republicans are doing in other states, and we lose one seat to Republicans. That strikes me as infinitely Democratic. So I'm sort of, I'm not willing to disarm unilaterally, and this is nothing the Republicans haven't done before. Do you think, one, that's accurate?

And two, what do you think happens post-election with some of these challenges?

You know, and that will wind its way through court. But I was certainly happy to see Dan Sullivan say that he was going to accept the election results. And you know that it's going to be a cabal of politicians in DC led by Donald Trump that are saying that everything is fraud, even if the margins are, you know, quote unquote, "too big to rig," which hopefully it's a good night that we're in that kind of space. But yeah, I want a little more Mitch McConnell energy on the Democratic side.

And to a lot of people, that's what this is. And I, you know, tried talking about it on the Five and, you know, it did not go well. But stuff is, gross stuff is happening right now, even on Alaska's ballot. I mean, the Republicans have this guy who's sitting in a New York prison who's running on the Democratic ticket. And the guy is in jail for 20 years. He's not coming to take his seat. And it's because the candidate who might win this is the independent candidate.

So they have him as the Dem. There are these mailers in Nevada. This is so effed up. So the candidate for Governor Ford is the last name. So there is a woman, Danielle Ford, so not exactly the same name, but she's running as an independent candidate. And the right has been sending out these mailers with a picture of Danielle Ford and AOC, calling her the AOC of Nevada, which obviously implies that she's the liberal candidate, not Aaron Ford.

And they don't care about that, right? You bring that up, "Oh, well, you know, it's not quite the same thing." Yeah, we, yeah, you didn't take a helicopter to find Dan Sullivan necessarily, but you're running a guy in prison. You know, they did, there was crazy chicanery in a 2020 race in Florida where a GOP operative actually went to jail for this. So they pushed back and said, "Well, he actually went to jail, but the Republican kept the seat."

One country party chair is even withdrawing her endorsement. Turuck says Democrats don't have to agree with him on everything. Let's listen to a clip.

And it is a Republican dream that you could go into this election talking about transgender stuff and that it will actually move voters. It's not even on the list of things people are considering. And on top of it, now Democrats have an eight-point advantage on who's better to handle them because they've been so nasty about kids, you know, denying that an eight-year-old can go play soccer with whoever they want to, that they've taken an issue where they had a clear advantage and turned into monsters.

So I'm glad that he did this. And that Annie Andrews did a direct-to-camera about this as well in South Carolina.

I think this is a smart move.

But I have heard from folks on the ground that there is a concern about a Democratic Senate writ large so that people, even if you're in Texas and you don't like Ken Paxton and you like James Talladary, you think he's a good guy, that you realize if Texas falls, right, if at least on the Senate level, I think Governor Abbott's going to win by quite a healthy margin, that that's a big plank for Democrats towards control of the Senate.

Do you think that, do you get the sense that people are being that strategic about it, that they're thinking about the larger picture or some of these candidates are just so repellent that a Talladary, you know, is able to pull this off?

I don't know. I'm an enormous fan of the Bill Maher show for, amongst many reasons, that's where I met you. But I saw the show Friday and it was the first time I watched the show and had to turn it off. I thought it was a real miss on their part. And I love Bill and I love his team and, you know, they know I'm always a fan and a supporter. But on the Friday before the election to bring on Kid Rock and Ted Cruz and Caroline Leavitt, it felt like, it felt like, I don't know, it just felt like a Republican ad.

And the talking points on Talladary from Cruz and Kid Rock were that, you know, that he believes he, you know, God said there are six genders and no one was there to push back and say, "No, Talladary is trying to reflect the empathy and love of your Jesus that says that all people should be loved and serve some, are deserving of some dignity." And the idea that Ted Cruz, and then he said, Ted Cruz has said, well, no one would use the word masculine to describe James Talladary. And I'm curious if anyone would use that word to describe Ted Cruz, who continues to suck the cock of the president who insults his wife's looks.

That's not exactly masculine, Senator Cruz. And Kid Rock and Ted Cruz sitting there talking about masculinity while neither of them could do a fucking pull-up. It just, it struck me as just so non-balanced and that Bill didn't provide his usual sharp, gutting pushback and meanwhile didn't spend any time. And then Bill did say this on, so masculinity is being a corrupt person that protects pedophiles and cheats and lies. And that's Ken Paxton. That's who we want.

That's your vision of masculinity. I just found the whole thing so off-putting. And the comments in the video were just, I mean, they just got mauled. By the way, Kid Rock hasn't had a hit song since Governor Dukakis was elected. Actually, it's not fair. Not since Governor Dukakis was elected, but since Governor Dukakis was elected governor. Who the fuck cares what Kid Rock thinks? I can't, I'm still trying to figure out how he gets on the show. Anyways, I found this whole thing so just totally biased and unlike what they do.

Because the thing I love about that show is they kind of hit it straight down the middle, which pisses off everyone. And I found that at this moment to come out with these, this like right wing and the guest was Caroline Leavitt, who by the way, is sharper than anyone that was on that stage. I don't appreciate Ms. Leavitt, but I appreciate just how smart she is and on point she is given her objectives and the constituency she represents given her age.

And basically what will be the president of the 14th largest economy in the world, Los Angeles. Homeless issues, economic growth, taxation, special interest groups soaking the city. And they're talking about the.

I mean, we're grasping at straws. Though the Olympics is a big deal, it's going to be, you know, an even bigger deal, obviously, for the next governor, you know, for Becerra, who I expect will be the governor by a very large margin. But, you know, conversations when you have a DSA candidate on the ballot around police and support for police, I think are fair game. You know, there are DSA members out there talking about defunding the police, saying we should abolish prisons, et cetera. I actually think that is a fair knock on them since they go out and do interviews where they are talking like that.

But this feels like a race to the bottom situation. And I'm curious if Bass is able to pull it out and, you know, closing this 11-point gap in the last few weeks with, again, a lot of undecided. But how does she change course? Right? If you eek this one out and you've heard so many voters, you know, these are Democrats, right? These aren't like, I have to win over somebody who's not prone to like me. Like this should be easy work.

Like what are you going to do differently? How are you going to actually address the homelessness crisis? What are you going to do about drug addicts in the streets? How are you going to fix the schools? What are you going to do with cutting red tape, which is a complete nightmare in that state? You know, everybody who homes were affected by the fires in the Palisades, Altadena, all of it, they have the same response. You know, we're dyed in the wool, liberals, and we can't even start construction on our homes because of all these hoops that we have to jump through.

I mean, come on. 3% of high schoolers identify as transgender per the CDC. That seems awfully high to me. But anyways, Alaska, Republicans are attempting something similar. In Ohio, a GOP-aligned super PAC has spent over $1.5 million to oppose Democratic challenger Sherrod Brown and promote socialist candidate Greg Levy. Levy is pulling around 5% and Dems are worried he could take progressive votes away from Brown. We just referenced the Los Angeles mayor's race. Eight of the previous nine polls have shown Raman in the lead. When Raman ran for city council in 2020, she had said she opposed LA hosting the Olympics.

She cited rush planning and a lack of public input as her reasoning. She's also more recently expressed concerns about the city covering costs if the private organizing committee LA 28 runs out of money. Folks, it's too late. And if she were to not, if she were to get, if she were to win the mantle of mayor, there's no fucking way she's not going to be supportive. She's not going to let a global event implode on her watch. Again, it's the media turning, in my opinion, an issue into a non-issue. I can't believe they're arguing over this and not issues that affect everyday Angelinos.

Talking about a generational divide, in an October survey conducted by the Los Angeles Times, by the Institute of Governmental Studies at UC Berkeley, 69% of likely voters under 30 and 74% of voters age 30 to 39 favored Raman. Jesus, wow. 74% of voters age. And again, this is somewhat of a larger metaphor for the election. And that is, I don't think, I mean, I don't think it's the Democrats winning here. I think it's Republicans losing. And I don't think Nityi Raman is going to win the election.

I think Karen Bass is going to lose it. It just, as I think you said it perfectly, just a weak incumbent. Curious, we don't spend enough time, Jess, and we'll, before we end here, any gubernatorial races we should be talking about? Georgia's a toss-up. Kansas tilts Republican. Nevada tilt Republican. Iowa tilt Dem. Wisconsin tilt Dem. What are you looking at or anything interesting we should be thinking about in terms of the gubernatorial races?

The Georgia governor's race is really interesting. I think that, you know, John Ossoff in seemingly very safe position against Mike Collins, another terrible candidate. But Keisha Lance Bottoms in a much closer race with Rick Jackson. John Ossoff has very much made this a ticket race, which helps her a lot. And she was part of that rally with Obama and Ossoff. But that would be a very big deal for us to get the governor's mansion.

There's a governor's race in Arizona with Katie Hobbs, you know, vying for reelection. Wisconsin is interesting. I mean, remember that primary everyone was paying attention to and how with just a couple of weeks left, Tony Evers said, "No, we're not going DSA on this. I'm going to go get David Crowley, who had already dropped out of the race. I'm going to ask him to get back in." Then he manages to win it because Twitter is not real life and voters on the ground actually want a normal human being to be their nominee. And so that race is very interesting.

I expect Crowley to win, but I think he's only up about three, four points at this point. The Michigan race, we mentioned Jocelyn Benson, the Democratic candidate running against John James in reference to conversations about Abdul. But she is important in and of herself. And I know the governor's mansion, you know, Gretchen Whitmer has been in there for a couple of terms now, very popular. Jocelyn Benson has been running a wonderful campaign, but I'm very interested in the margins there and, you know, how much she wins by knock on wood versus how much Abdul wins by or if people are just going to be going straight ticket there.

And then in Nevada, I already mentioned those mailers relating to Aaron Ford, the lieutenant governor who's running for governor, where they have the Danielle Ford and AOC mailer in circulation. So a lot that's really interesting there. And, you know, governors are the people who are actually in charge of your life. And they are the executive that matters most to it. Oh, New York has a race. Kathy Hochul looks quite comfortable right now, but there has been swirl over the last few weeks because there were a few polls that had Bruce Blakeman within striking-ish distance.

But looking ahead to the 2028 field, a lot of people's favorites are governors, right? The people who have been delivering for you are actually balancing budgets, protecting your healthcare against, you know, onslaught coming from DC. These guys matter a lot and I don't think we talk about them enough and that's on me. I should do a better job of it. But there are a lot of really interesting races.

I would call us, you know, I love those, those, what if it was a real billboard talking about the movie? The kind of real name for this show should probably be, I think, Progressives That Aren't Batshit Crazy. And I just want to talk a little bit about young men in the economy. I think something the Republicans have been very effective at is branding the Republican Party as the party of growth and of a strong economy and sort of labeling Democrats as these tax and spend liberals who don't have an underlying or a fundamental understanding of the economy.

I did a debate with Ben Shapiro, sponsored by USA Facts, which is an organization funded by Steve Ballmer, and they sent out this amazing packet that was about this thick of economic data. And I spent a lot of time with it. I found it really interesting. And what I did was I went through, and since 1980, 1980 is largely when we transitioned or evolved from a manufacturing economy to a services and tech economy. I would describe 1980 as good a demarcation as any in terms of when the economy in America changed.

And since then, we've had almost 12 presidential administrations. So five Democratic, we're at six and a half based on the fact we're halfway through the second term of Trump, six and a half Republican. And I went back and I looked at all of the GDP growth, the job growth, and the addition to the deficit as a percentage of GDP. And then I divided, averaged and divided out on Republican administrations versus Democratic administrations. And this is what I found. Under Democratic administrations, you have added, we have added approximately 2 million jobs to the economy each year.

Republican administrations, 1 million. So twice the number of jobs added across those five administrations as during the six and a half Republican administrations. Let's talk about GDP growth. GDP growth has averaged under Republican administrations 2%. Under Democratic administrations, it's been 4.1%. Double the economic growth. And then you'll immediately think, well, okay, tax and spend, liberals juicing the economy on the backs of future generations and adding to the deficit.

Well, hold on. The deficits under Democratic administrations has averaged 2.1% of GDP. Additional additions to the deficit each year under Democratic administrations. Under Republican administrations, it's been 2.8%. In sum, the progressive policies of taxing the wealthy, taxing corporations, redistributing that income in the form of infrastructure, technology, education, social services to the middle class to create an engine of growth has hugely paid off.

And it's Democratic economic policies that resulted in more jobs, more job growth with lower deficits. So if, like me as a younger man, you are very focused on your economic well-being such that you can have a family, such that you can register the prosperity that America is known for, then I would urge you to vote Democratic. Democratic administrations, Democratic policies have resulted in greater job growth, greater economic growth, and lower deficits. So I'm urging young men to avoid the labeling and the stereotypes of Democrats as not being pro-growth.

They are the party of growth. Any closing thoughts before we wrap this up, Jess?

And when you actually started talking and you said, I want to talk to young men, I thought you were going to talk about taking care of yourself, which you should also do. And there's no indication that Chris Murphy was not doing that, but he was only 53 years old. He's awake and he's alert. Doctors are optimistic that he'll make a full recovery, but it's really scary stuff. And, you know, life is very precious and it goes fast and you don't know what's coming tomorrow. Wishing him obviously a speedy recovery and that all of you who are listening are taking good care of yourself.

It is easy to get too busy and to be burdened down by everything. And life is very precious. So hoping Chris is well very soon and yeah, just scary.