Loading summary
Transcript92 lines
- [00:00]
A
All right.
- [00:01]
B
Good morning and welcome to our Tuesday morning drop site live Stream. Later in the program, we're going to be joined by Sam Robinson, a terrific journalist from Michigan to talk about actually at least four interesting races going on there. Of course, you have the Senate campaign between Abdul El Sayed and Haley Stevens. You also have a contest in Detroit where Sam, Sam Robinson covers more more specifically between Donovan McKinney and an incumbent APAC backed Sri Thanadar, as well as two other candidates who are running Kyle Blomquist and and then Will Lawrence in mid Michigan. Will Lawrence running kind of against against genocide, against data center build outs in mid Michigan. He will be joining us with Sam later in the program. But first we're going to be talking about how the the war is reshaping Gulf countries and Gulf alliances. My colleague Murtazo Hussein is, is here with me to talk a little bit about more about that. Maz, how you doing?
- [00:58]
A
Good. Good to see you.
- [01:00]
B
So tell us a little bit about the guest that we're going to be having on. And then I've got a, a Bezel Smotrich tweet that is relevant to this entire conversation that I want to share with you and get your reaction to.
- [01:12]
A
Yeah, you've been teasing this tweet for me for a couple minutes, so I'm curious to see what this is, but it's a good one. Yeah. You know, basically the, the Persian Gulf region, such an economic longing for the entire world has been totally upended by the war. And we kind of haven't really felt the impact economically or strategically left yet. But our guest, Amir Hanjani, he's a board member at the Quincy Institute, which people probably know from Trita Parsi and Eli Clifton and other people. He wrote an article recently about how the war has changed the Gulf and particularly premise on the fact that the Gulf countries that he's very familiar with and spent a lot of time there, their view was Iran basically won the war. And it's very interesting because there was a interview with the Iranian foreign minister Arakchi, which is published earlier this week, and he mentioned that some of the Gulf countries had been told by the United States, in his view that basically just give us a month, give us a month to sort out the Iran problem and you'll never have this problem again. And that was sort of the premise by which they got their acquiescence to the war. They've been denying a lot of these countries that they knew about the war, they participated. It's completely farcical if you look at open source information, you can see that they were the main staging grounds for the war. And we've been reporting before the war started that they were well aware the GCC countries in Jordan, what kind of war it was going to be. And they kind of went all in with the US on the premise that, yes, you give us a little bit of time and we'll just make this problem go away. The problem didn't go away. We're now like, I don't know, it was like five months into the four day special military operation and Iran is hitting the Gulf countries very hard. It seems like it's going to be around for quite a while, maybe even stronger out of the war. So it's going to completely change the way that the Gulf region is set up. So I want to talk to Amr a bit about that because he has some insight into the perceptions in the other countries of how they're going to survive or how they're going to institute a new order with this new reality. I don't think that the American dominated Gulf is going to come back. Even if Trump does escalate the war, even if he tries to launch ground operations and so forth, it seems very difficult to put the toothpaste back in the tube in this case.
- [03:25]
B
All right, so this post this morning or late last night from Amit Segal caught my eye. Yeah. So this is a reporter who's very close to Netanyahu. He says Finance Minister Smotrich, after the lengthy security discussion last night, quote, the state of Israel has no interest in joining the contained confrontation between Iran and the United States. The current situation is the best one for us, unquote. So that is, you know, tight. Ben Gavir, ally Smotrich and who as the finance minister has almost dictatorial authority over the west bank at this, at this point. So he's saying that this is the best of all worlds for Israel. Israel's not fighting. Israel's not getting attacked. The Gulf countries are just getting blasted by Iran. The U.S. is losing, you know, one or two service members a day in this confrontation as it looks like Iran has shifted its focus from primarily targeting military infrastructure, you know, antennas, radar, radar systems, early warning systems, and pivoted to striking dormitories which were housing service members. And so they're starting to, we're starting to see significant casualties. That, according to Smotrich, is the best of all worlds. How, how, how do you explain a, a statement like that coming out from an Israeli minister?
- [04:52]
A
Well, it seems like a lot of the new generation of Israeli politicians, especially the more far right ones, they really enjoy rubbing people's face in it. They're kind of open about their perception of things. They're much more blunt. And I think this is the perception of a lot of people in the Israeli political establishment. What they really wanted was to have a forever war between Iran and the United States that they wouldn't have to be very heavily involved in at all stages. They can just run on autopilot, so to speak. And they're glad to see the destruction of the Gulf countries. I think that they were hoping to trigger sort of a Guns of August type situation where a bunch of overlapping alliances just led to a big civil war in the Gulf indefinitely. And that's kind of what's happening. They have economic relationships with many of those countries, but not all of them. And those relationships are really less important than the goal of weakening Iran and making Israel the sole surviving preeminent power in the region. Kuwait, which is getting really hit really hard by Iran and which also is part of, you know, it doesn't have any relationship with Israel theoretically is a state of war with Israel still. So, you know that that's good for them in a way. So they're glad to see all the other parties destroy each other. They're glad to see the US be bogged down the Middle east. Because if you remember, just before this cycle of fighting in Iran started about a year ago involving the US There was still all this talk about the US One day pivoting to Asia or leaving the Middle east behind. That was a big part of the Trump 2025 National Security Strategy. And that seems to be all out the window now. We're talking about maybe years of involvement, fighting Iran, putting everything else to the side, setting aside budgetary and munitions stores for an endless Middle east war. And that's really ideal for Israel because they didn't want, and in some ways they could not afford the US to leave the region. And as Smotrich said, they got something which is ideal for them. They have the US fighting on the front line of a war against Iran where Israel doesn't have to take any of the hits or any of the destruction from that. And the idea that the US is going to leave now has been much more render much more difficult. And if the Gulf Arab states are destroyed in the matter, that's not even. That's all the better. In fact, it leaves Israel more powerful in isolation.
- [07:15]
B
Now what about from Iran's perspective? It's. We understand why Israel wouldn't want to be getting struck by Iran here. I've also seen some analysis of the Iranian attacks over the past several days as targeting kind of the Gulf Wall or the Arab wall that is standing between Iran and Israel. You know, in the 12 day war and then again in the first phase of this one, a lot of Iranian missiles either kind of fell short, fell out of the sky, or were intercepted by either the US or Israeli ballistic missile interceptors which rely heavily on these early warning systems that are constructed throughout Bahrain, Kuwait, Jordan in particular, by successively kind of punishing those early warning systems in between Iran and Israel. I've seen people saying that Iran is setting up then the ability to start striking Israel more effectively. But Israel seems, or at least Smotrid seems to feel that they're rather comfortable that Iran and the US are going to engage in them, engage separately and the Gulf is going to absorb most of the blows. Do you have a sense of how Iran feels about this situation of Israel keeping itself out? And does, does Iran benefit from keeping Israel out? Because then there will be less, less sorties and less, less attacks coming from the combined coalition.
- [08:40]
A
You know, a few years ago, after it seemingly the US had completely given up on the idea of a transformative political change in the Middle east involving, you know, the integration of Israel with the Palestinians and all these things that were very popular in the 90s, they shifted to a different model and they actually gave it a title, which was Mead, which is Middle East Air Defense. So we're not going to have like a grand coming together of all different countries and reconciliation of differences and what have you, but we can work together to make this missile defense system that encompasses all the CENTCOM countries, including Israel, and you know, it defends them against long range missiles and the unstated premise of that was obviously defending them against Iranian missiles. So what the MEAD system did in fact was turn the Middle east into a gigantic sort of buffer zone of missile defense systems basically defending Israel. Israel is at the center of it, but all the countries would play a role in that. Jordan, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and so forth. They would have this integrated system of sensors and radars and anti missile batteries and so forth that would make it like a thick forest of defenses you have to get through before you can actually hit Israel. So I think it was very foolish of them to be involved in that because geographically speaking, if you're somewhere at the outskirts of that forest, you're likely to get hit really hard in the war anyways. And it's unlikely those systems will be able to Defend you against power that has thousands and thousands of short range and medium range ballistic missiles. But they still got involved in it. They still joined the Mead program. And what's happening now is that Iran is systematically dismantling every layer of that system. So they started the war by hitting all the radars and thaad long range ballistic missile defense systems and other ballistic missile defense systems in Bahrain, in Qatar, in Saudi Arabia, all these countries. And now they've heavily degraded those systems in those countries now and they're going more inland, they're hitting Jordan really hard. And Jordan is the next layer before you get to Israel. So it's kind of interesting because this is something the US spent many, many years developing the system of anti missile defenses and they put a lot of money into it. It was supposed to be the system that would replace heavy US military involvement in the region. It would just neutralize Iran's ballistic missiles through these defenses. But instead it's being all taken apart. And now you're in a situation where once, if and when the Jordanian node of that is heavily degraded or destroyed, Iran can fire a lot of ballistic missiles at Israel with much more, greater effect. And they could do a tremendous amount of damage to Israel, which ultimately is a very, very small country. And it's, even if you look at the map, it's very small. If you actually look at the population centers and where things are, it's even far smaller. You can do a tremendous amount of damage with ballistic missiles. And another thing the Iranians did throughout the war is that they used the less effective missiles early on because they knew that they would drain down the interceptor batteries. And now, only now they're starting to use the much more advanced ballistic missiles. And there was a story in the Wall Street Journal the other day with anonymous US officials stating that Iran is believed to be using, have developed new technologies. Or maybe Russia and China are helping Iran with their missile strikes recently. I think that both of those claims I would look at with a degree of skepticism. I don't think that the Iranians have whole cloth developed any new technologies during the war, although they are engaging in some forms of adaptation during the fighting. And likewise Russia and China, they have their own relationships with the US the degree of alignment between all these countries is often greatly exaggerated. And they often bargain their relationship with Iran with the US they're really not that close. And for them to, especially for China to engage in helping attack U.S. troops, that would be a huge escalation. Russia may be giving some targeting information, so forth, but there's no evidence of transferring new technologies or missile capacities to Iran. Iran is just doing what they were planning to do for many, many decades, which is save their more advanced missiles in reserve when they've dismantled this Mead system or degraded it or drained its batteries as much as they can. And those strikes would be much more damaging to the US and its partner countries in the region. That's why to say all that the MOU was really a great time for the US to get out of the war because they hadn't taken a tremendous amount of casualties. The stage of the Iranian degradation of their systems was still not at a point where it become critical. But now, if the war continues, there are going to be a lot of casualties, going to be a lot of damage and so forth, because this is how the Iranians plan to proceed with the war. And I'll add, you know, if people are boxing fans, there was a classic strategy that Muhammad Ali used to do in boxing matches which called the rope, a dope strategy. So if you're the smaller party in the conflict you want to get and you're fighting a larger party in a boxing match, you don't want to have it all sluggish out in the first two rounds because you'll get knocked out and it'll be pretty obvious. What you want to do is keep the larger party in there, wear them out over 11, 12 rounds, and then if you're still in the fight, you can deploy your advantages and then you can knock them out because they're fatigued and so forth. That's exactly what the Iranians are doing. And again, I'll add one final comment. Trump got in this war very casually. Maybe the Netanyahu convinced him or he was feeling good after Venezuela. Very superficial reasons like that. The Iranians have been preparing for this war for four decades. So they had a very calculated plan. They took it very seriously. So all that to say, I think that still this is a good time for the US to get out of the war, because it's only going to get worse from this point on where the advantages start accruing to the Iranian side.
- [14:50]
B
And what do you think the US War planners missed when it came to botching this strategy? Because as somebody who was a total amateur and just looking for from the outside, if they were describing to me this, this, this strategic array, they okay, we're going to put these, you know, multi billion dollar pieces of equipment all throughout our bases in Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain and Jordan. And that's going to be, you know, layer upon layer of missile Defense to protect Israel. I hope I would have had the foresight to be in the meeting and say, oh well, how are you going to stop the multi billion dollar antenna from getting hit? Like what? Which if I'm looking at the map correctly here, looks to be 100 or 200km in the first layer from Iran. So they can, that's a very difficult thing to protect. And of course as we saw within the first 24 hours of the war, we were seeing images of these multi billion dollar early warning systems lying in smoldering ruins, which then makes the ones that are 200km away more vulnerable, which then makes the ones that are 400 kilometers. This, this appears to me to be a pretty mundane observation that you would expect somebody in the room would have elevated to the decision makers. So how, what's your sense of the kind of these, just the American decision making apparatus that allowed them to go forward and say no, actually it'll be fine, they won't actually do the most obvious thing.
- [16:25]
A
Well, my understanding from reading something the reports about this is that the military leadership was not particularly thrilled about the idea of fighting this war. I think it was Chief of Staff, Joint Chief Staff Dan King, he was not exactly enthusiastic about it. Even Rubio and Vance and others in the administration, they acquiesced to the decision, but they weren't really chomping at the bit for this. It was really the political appointees like Hegseth and obviously people outside the government like Netanyahu were very influential and Lindsey Graham who were the most adamant that this should happen. And these people were the ones who cared the least perhaps about some of these details or they were not as professional or as far as we know, they didn't understand the fine nuances of what the war really entail. And they're the ones who push forward more strongly. So I think the point you're raising that speaks to the reticence of some of the more professional military officers who maybe didn't like Iran at all. But they certainly understood the cost of this. And if, you know, at the start of the war, Kain gave the order along with centcom to evacuate many of these US military bases in the region. And people were basically working from home, they were working from hotels and things like that in the Gulf. He probably saved the lives of hundreds of American service members with that decision. But it came at the cost of the war being fought much less effectively because. Because if you're not fighting from your bases, fortified bases nearby Iran, you can't really generate the tempo of airstrikes that is necessary to be effective at degrading Iranian capacity in such a conflict. So they are very casualty averse and they save the lives of service members. But it came at that price. So this whole situation actually is interesting because if you were to go back maybe 20 years, Iran didn't have some of the capacities which have been proliferating around the world now, these precision drones and the level of missile program they have today, in that case, the war maybe would have been much more effective. This whole issue of the Strait of Hormuz, if you were operating the previous paradigm, before drone warfare, the idea was if some ships go out there to block the strait, just sink the ships and then keep going and then that'll be the end of it. Or if artillery batteries are on the shore and they're hitting ships, just destroy the batteries and we can be done with that. That was how people thought the war would go. They thought they'd open the strait in a few days. No one thought that months and months would pass, this trade would be under their control. That's a new variable which technology is made possible. And likewise, these underground missile cities that the Iranians have developed, if you could just wipe out their overground missile batteries and they didn't have anything like that, wouldn't be such a problem. But the US basically wasting very effective, very expensive and very rare exquisite munitions firing basically at mountains and solid granite rock to try to temporarily disable the cities, but they can't destroy them. This is a tremendous waste of resources. And, you know, it all reminds me, there was a very obscure article I read many years ago, right after the assassination of Qassem soleimani by a U.S. army officer. And he kind of had written it as a personal reflection, but he said that, you know, the day that I realized that U.S. empire in the Middle east was over. And his analysis, his view was the day after the assassination of Qasem Soleimani. Because what happened the day after was that Iran had fired these precise ballistic missile attacks against a U.S. military base in Iraq. And they calibrated the attack not to kill anybody, but just to give a demonstration effect. And I think they thought the message of that demonstration effect would be very clear. But I don't think that the Trump administration really got it. But this army officer said that the message is very clear, which is that all our basing network around the region is no longer safe because Iranians now have highly precise strike capabilities. So he's like, well, we can't have any of these bases anymore, because if they can do that, they can do that anywhere. And he kind of went on and on a bit about it, but he said that if you game this all out, we're going to have to leave the region because it's not safe for us to be there. And the entire premise of us being there has now been undermined critically. And only now, six years later, are we seeing the full fruition of that. Because I don't think many of these bases will be rebuilt. And it's really a question now if the Gulf Arab states, if they're going to continue doubling down on a relationship which manifestly has failed to protect them, is put them in now in great existential danger. But I still think that even if they were to try to entice the US Back, even the US Military leadership is not going to want to rebuild these bases because they basically prove themselves to be worthless during a war. And I'll add one final point, that a lot of the bases around the Persian Gulf region, the reason they're there is to control the Strait of Hormuz and control the Persian Gulf basin and all the shipping that's there. If you can't have the Fifth Fleet base in Bahrain, it's not safe anymore, and other bases around that littoral region of the Persian Gulf, then how are you going to contest the straight of Hormuz? How are you going to control it so forth? At very least you'll have to split it with the Iranians, and they don't seem like they want to split it anymore after the war. So do you fight a forever war to try to get control of the Strait? Even that's not really going to work because you need to have whoever's in Tehran basically agreeing that not even a single drone or missile will be fired in the Strait, and that's going to require maybe an invasion of Tehran, which I don't think the US Military, even with a draft at the moment, has the capacity to do. So it's kind of really, you know, the war was a big mistake because a lot of US Power around the world is built on perception. And these very powerful bluffs that exist, you don't want to give anyone the opportunity to call your bluff. So what's this done now? You've called the bluff about not being able to protect the Gulf states, not being able to protect the straight of Hormuz. So now what? What do you do with that? And I think that the best thing to do would be to leave the situation. I don't think there's an agreement. It's probably realistic now after everything's happened, especially with the MOU falling apart, but just leave the region and try to work something out in the long term. And now I think there's really question and that's what I want to talk to AMR about when we bring him on. The question really does fall upon the Gulf states because if they decide to pull out, pull the plug on the Mead and the Abraham Accords and all these things they're doing with the US Then you could have a new modus vivendi in the region. But as long as they feel still trapped into this, this painful situation can go on at great cost to everyone, but especially to them.
- [22:53]
B
And so going, going back to the American strategic thinking and developing this array of missile defense, your answer makes me think that their vision and their vision was basically this would this will set up a strong defense for an attack, a can, a kind of unprovoked attack by Iran against Israel. Because it would be, it would be so costly for Iran to first have to go through the first layer, then the second layer, then the third, then the fourth, and then finally they can start striking Israel. And in the meantime, the US And Israel will be exacting, you know, extraordinary costs on Iran as we, as we have done over the past several months. The, the damage to Iran and its civilian infrastructure, its economy, it's thousands of people, you know, is, is extraordinary and not one that I think any country would, would willingly choose even if they are going to come out ahead of this. But what it didn't do is set us up for a unilateral attack on Iran, which, which then forces them to respond. So from I can, so I can imagine from the military's perspective, okay, you want us to defend Israel, here is a way that we can set up our pieces in the Middle east that will make it very difficult and very costly for Iran to ever launch a war against Israel. And that would also explain why Dan Kane and others were so resistant to the idea of launching the war themselves. And I remember in the, in the reporting in January and February, the thing Kane kept saying is that we have a lot of military infrastructure in the region that is going to be, put it, significant risk. And so basically what the military was trying to develop for Israel was a defensive capacity, but not an offensive capacity Israel and then Trump insisted on using what was built for a defensive purpose for an offensive purpose. And it wasn't built for that. And it, and so it has literally blown up, literally blown up in their Face. Before Amir gets here, just one other question about your sense of the, the state of play here. Had an essay saying yesterday that the US seems clearly had to have pivoted to a military solution to their diplomatic problems. Now they, they had, you know, agreed that throughout the course of the MoU there would be, you know, free shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. But the US Kept insisting that ships go through the southern side, the Omani side, so as not to develop Iran's institutional control of the, the northern slip of the Strait of Hormuz. And Iran did not, did not tolerate that and would strike ships going through the southern side. And so the US has now gone, gone back to war. It appears that Iran doesn't, it doesn't feel much urgency in getting back to a ceasefire. There's some talk about a 10 day ceasefire. The Iranians are talking pretty publicly about having very little faith in the US ability set aside whether or not they want peace, the ability to kind of in the presence of mind to maintain a peace. So where do you see the current state of negotiations here? Are we, are we looking at kind of a low grade conflict that is going to go on for several more weeks as, and what do we know about, you know, oil inventories and strategic petroleum reserve and the capacity of the entire global economy to withstand this?
- [26:37]
A
Yeah, well, absolutely. I think that we're now entering a stage where it is really hard to see an off ramp because, you know, it's kind of a miracle the MoU was signed in the first place because first of all, Trump violated the 2015 JCPOA agreement, which is very hard to negotiate. Then he attacked Iran in the middle of negotiations twice in two years. And despite all that, they still finally found some way, after much more bloodshed, to get another deal signed because it was in the interest of both parties to get that signed. And now that deal's falling apart. It really does seem like the Trump administration is not capable of engaging in diplomacy. The administration doesn't seem to be a monolith either. There seem to be different views of different factions. And the JD Vance faction may be different from the Marco Rubio faction and things like that, but the working at cross purposes in that sense is enough to undermine any agreement seemingly. And the President himself seems to be very mercurial. He doesn't seem to have a great attention span for one side or the other. And he seems also pretty much wedded into the war itself at the moment. So I think the war can go on for a very long time. And you mentioned the oil reserves. The war happened to start at a moment where there was a global oil blood, and that deferred some of the impacts of the conflict itself. China also slowed down its buying of oil, which kind of gave everybody in the world a bit of a breather as well, too. That's all kind of gone out the window now. So we're in a much leaner position at the moment in terms of global oil reserves. If the war does go on for a very, very long time, you will see physical shortages, you will see great economic disruption. And yesterday there was a new development which would really amp up the urgency and potential economic damage of the war, which is that the Ansar Allah movement or the Houthis, they announced that they were shutting down the Bab El Mandeb, which is sort of the escape hatch for a lot of regional oil that was pumped across Saudi Arabia to make sure it's still got the global markets. And I saw before our show started today, some reports that tankers had already begun turning around from the Baba Mandeb, Saudi oil tankers. And that's the case. And there's really no more oil and gas getting out of the region. That's pretty much it for the entire, this extremely important economic zone for energy production for the entire world. So you really need a deal even more urgently right now. But there seems to be no prospect of one. And because of the damage that was done in Trust during the war. Sorry.
- [29:17]
B
Oh, I think you muted yourself, Maz. I think you muted yourself.
- [29:21]
A
Sorry about that. Actually, he's trying to. I have to send a link to
- [29:25]
B
join this call right now.
- [29:27]
A
He's about to join us exactly now.
- [29:28]
B
Oh, okay. Yeah, send him. Send him the link.
- [29:30]
A
Well, I'll start before I got muted. I was saying that, you know, during World War II, obviously the different belligerents were completely at odds with each other. They hated each other. Millions and millions of people died in the war, but they still never assassinated the negotiators in the middle of a conflict because they knew how damaging that would be when the day eventually came which it would, that they would need to sign some sort of agreement with the different parties, Japan or Germany, wherever else it was. The US Conflict, which was much less damaging, much less heated than World War II, obviously, they did that multiple occasions. They killed the negotiators on the Iranian side and they basically killed our own off ramp when we wanted to end, when we needed it to end, for economic reasons or reasons of depletion of critical munitions, we blew up our own off ramp. And we did it again now with the MOU seemingly. So that's very, very damaging. And it speaks to sort of institutional decay in the US Diplomatic corps and political establishment so forth that they would take these very extreme steps, which are really unwarranted in every way. And now we are in a situation where we don't really know how to get off this. So I can see this war. I can see Trump deciding to just do a 180 and pull out. I think it's looking less likely now, but it's possible at any time. But I could also see this war going on to the end of the year, past the midterms, past the point where great economic disruption has been done to the entire world and the US because nobody really wants to surrender. And from the Iranian perspective, for them, surrendering would be. Surrendering would be existential. They would be basically signing the death warrant of their country, whereas for the US it would be quite embarrassing. And Trump would need to do some sort of, you know, massaging of the public messaging. I think armor is on. But I want to make one last point, too, that there was a statement or a leak from a U. S. Official about the war yesterday, I believe in the Washington Post kind of mentioned that we don't have the munitions to conduct this war safely anymore. We don't have the interceptors. You don't have these. It's been used, been destroyed. And I don't know if the White House is aware of that. That's what the quoted official said. So, you know, we could also be heading to a situation where the war is resulting much more damage and much more killings of US Service members, which would be a very incredibly tragic waste of life for pretty much no reason. Or it could end the situation where the US Loses the war militarily because all its assets and systems in the region are destroyed, or Israel is hit very, very hard. And that's also a reasonable outcome if we don't find a way to diplomatically exit the war or unilaterally exit without an agreement.
- [32:05]
B
All right, bringing on now Quincy Institute's Amar Hanjani. Brad. There we go. Amar, how are you?
- [32:13]
C
Good. Ryan, how are you? How are you?
- [32:16]
B
Good, good. Nice to see you. Welcome. Thanks so much. So, yeah, walk us through a little bit of how. What your sense is of how the various Gulf states are reacting to this new. This new wave of war. And maybe if you want to pick one to start with, then we can go through the. Go through them kind of piece by piece.
- [32:37]
C
Sure. Well, you Know the Gulf states, traditionally there's been the GCC, which was formed in 1981, which really was formed as a result the Iran rock war. And they've had a lot of unity on foreign policy, at least when it comes to how they present themselves to the region of the world. When you go a few layers underneath that, there have always been differences that they've been able to gloss over. That's no longer the case anymore. This war has brought those surfaces, brought those differences to the surface and has made it possible for each state or a variety of states to group themselves, excuse me, in different coalitions, if you will. There is one group of Gulf states led by Oman, Qatar and increasingly Saudi Arabia, that is looking for diplomatic off ramps. That's looking for the day after this war to think about how do we engage Iran and make sure that this doesn't happen again. I think with the exception of Oman, many of the Gulf states, although not in favor of this war, didn't sign up for this war, weren't consulted properly for this war. Thought, well, now that it started, if this work could topple Iran and have regime change, that may not be a bad thing. They quickly realized after a couple of weeks that wasn't the case. And you know, the UAE took more incoming missile and drones than any other Gulf state. Then you have the other coalition of Gulf states, Bahrain, Kuwait. And I would say the UAE is sort of in between these two coalitions, which are very much against any type
- [34:41]
A
of
- [34:43]
C
Iranian day after engagement, if you will. At least so far their territory is being used to hit Iran with himars and other missiles. The other DIs, particularly Kuwait and Bahrain, have not put limits on US troops and US involvement as launching pads from these countries. So that is sort of the state of play where we sit today.
- [35:17]
A
You know, Amir, you wrote an FP at the end of last month. Also a very interesting article. We talked about the way that the Gulf states had interpreted the way the war had actually been conducted, because I remember we were talking earlier, before we came on. Abbas Arakchi, the Iranian foreign Minister, was speaking yesterday and he mentioned that he had talks with some of the Gulf states before the war started and they mentioned various things to him. Some Gulf leaders basically told him that they've been told by the US that if the war would go on for maybe a month and then this Iran problem would go away. Some of them had told Iran, as conveyed by Arachi, that, you know, the US is going to attack you and there's not much you can do about it. They're going to take all your nuclear assets and disarm you and so forth. And they felt quite confident in the war in that way. But it didn't, as you mentioned, it didn't go that way at all. It seems like obviously Iran is still there, it's still, the government's intact and they're still fighting. They're hitting the Gulf states and the other parts of the region quite hard. And you wrote an article in the FB and you actually kind of went through this and your assessment is that the Gulf states would conclude that Iran had won the war. And you know, if that's the case, then their historic sort of political alignment would have to shift. And you mentioned rightly that the different coalitions inside the GCC is not really a unitary entity. But, but if the war ends and Iran is still there and it's perceived to have been prevailed in the conflicts or, you know, despite being heavily weakened by the fighting strategically its position has been enhanced. How would the region have to reorient itself? Because it seems it's almost at the moment at least a zero sum competition between the US and Iran and countries which align with the US and Iran. What would the day after potentially be like if Iran does manage to survive the war and enhance its position in the Persian Gulf strategically?
- [37:12]
C
Right, that's, that's the 64, not million, but maybe billion dollar question. And I think that's, that's what the Gulf states are wrestling with now because they had been sold, I don't necessarily think I would say Oman, liso, but the other Gulf states had been sold on this fiction that Iran would crumble, disintegrate weeks or maybe a month. And you know, we want to deal with this Iranian, you know, quote unquote regime problem again in the future. And Arakshi attested that in his interview. He said, I met with a variety of Gulf leaders and they kind of told me, you know, your time is done. He said, they were speaking to me, you know, kind of arrogantly and you know, I, I just gave them a factual response. If we're hit, we will hit. I think now that Iran has showed its endurance, it has shown its ability to take these blows, but inflict punishing blows on not just the United States and its bases, but the region as a whole. The Gulf states are going to start doing what any state would do in that, in that instance, that they will, they'll start hedging. They're going to start, it's not, they're going to abandon the US security umbrella, but they're going to start diversifying
- [38:42]
D
because
- [38:43]
C
there's a, the factual, there's a fact that those bases. I don't believe we're going to be coming back. I don't think that there's a situation where Iran is going to tolerate, you know, heavy US Military presence near its, its borders again. And that would, what does that mean? It means that the Gulf states and Iran and Turkey and Pakistan and Egypt will have to start filling in that gap and coming to some sort of collective security umbrella where each of the states feel satisfied with the security situation in the region and having the US not as the guarantor in the first instance, but maybe the guarantor of last resort if things were to go awry. But even in that situation, we're seeing that right now things are AWRY and the U.S. is hitting, sorry, Iran is hitting U.S. assets in the region with impunity, more precision and with greater pace. So unless there's a collect, they're going to have to start looking at the security collectively and including Iran in that security architecture, not excluding them. I think that's the lesson of this war.
- [40:04]
B
And Amir, I want to bring Will Lawrence on in a moment, but wanted to ask you first. How does Bahrain, how does Bahrain survive that situation? Is, is there and how, how existential is it to them if the United States does in fact leave not, not the country itself, but the government of Bahrain, which seems to have somewhat of a tenuous hold over its population?
- [40:29]
C
Right. I think, I think the Bahrain case is instructive. It's, it's because it's, and unique in some ways because it's small, it's an island state. But I think from the Iranian standpoint, they view there are elements in Iran who always said, you know, Bahrain is part of Iran and you know, we're going to take it back one day. But that's not really realistic. And I think that would put Iran at odds with the entire Arab League and then, you know, there could be collective Arab action. If Iran were to ever do anything like that in Bahrain, I think they view Bahrain as more of a Saudi appendage the Iranians do, and we'll treat it as a Saudi appendage. If the US Were to, let's say, leave their naval base in Bahrain, I don't think they're gonna, they're going to take any over action to absorb Bahrain or to invade Bahrain because then Iran would be seen as the aggressor they'd use, they'd lose that narrative where thereby, you know, right now, you know, they're not the aggressor. They're defending themselves. If they go and try and take over a sovereign state, then they are the aggressor. And I don't think they want that, you know, that label and also the blowback that would come from that. But the Bahrain situation will require stabilization from Saudi Arabia. When this war ends, I'm sure they will refortify it and bring in more assets there.
- [42:04]
A
And I want to very quickly put into one other issue with Iran itself as well, because you spent a lot of time in Iran. You kind of have a good granular texture of society. In the same interview, he mentioned that there was a plan to destroy Iran basically by partitioning it on ethnic lines. Trump has talked about this, too. Arming Kurdish separatists and, you know, exacerbating the fault lines within Iranian society to trigger a sort of collapse, not just the government, potentially the partition of the country itself. And that hasn't happened at the moment. Any effort to do that is sort of imported today. But there also hasn't, you know, to our knowledge, been really uprisings against the government. Maybe has been some sort of rally around the flag effect in response to these attacks against the country over the last few months. Is there something in your view which doesn't really add up here in this thesis, that of causing the split between the state and society that's serious enough to cause the country to collapse? And how do you interpret these statements, or how do you think Iranians are interpreting these statements, calling on the dissolution of the country? Because I know even Iranians who are anti government, they don't like the government. They tend to be very patriotic. So it could trigger something. And that says, what's your view of how people may misunderstand or the US Elites maybe misunderstand these frictions inside Iranian society?
- [43:26]
D
Right.
- [43:26]
C
I mean, I think this is, you know, we have, I hate to say it, kind of idiocracy in Washington right now where they think that, you know, from seven or 8,000 miles away, they can decide the fate of a country of 92 million people by essentially foreign powers. Right. As you said, there are many Iranians who have disdain for the government in Iran. That doesn't mean that you condone having bombs dropped over your head or the heads of your families or your countrymen by two foreign powers, two nuclear foreign powers, by the way. You know. But yet the Americans have been sold this on Fox News and by the think tanks in Washington that, you know, the Iranians want freedom. They just want More they just want you to keep bombing them and that will give them their freedom. I think what Iraq sheet, you know, rightfully laid out in that interview is that, you know, the number one,
- [44:36]
A
as
- [44:36]
C
he sees it and as the Iranian state sees it, the number one responsibility of the Iranian government is to protect this territorial integrity. And it let the Iraqis, Kurds know and the Iraqi central government know, let Turkey know and all the region know. If you try and invade and play the separatist card, we're going to quash it very quickly and we're going to hold you, Iraq, other foreign powers responsible and take action. Don't think because we're busy with this war with Israel and the United States that we're going to let our, our territorial, territorial integrity and our sovereignty be threatened. And I think this is more of the idiocracy of the, of Washington where they can they, you know, the Kurds are going to come in and Israel is going to, you know, bomb them and the US Is going to bomb Iran and, and there's going to be this uprising. And you know, that just, you know, it was never thus. It's never going to be thus.
- [45:37]
B
Amir Hanjani, a board member at the Quincy Institute, you know, really appreciate you take taking some time this morning. Thanks so much. And we've got, we have Will Lawrence, the candidate in mid Michigan for House of Representatives. Will, will Sam Robinson be joining us in just a moment. Reporter from Great reporter from Michigan. Will, thanks so much for being here. I know you don't have a whole lot of time, but appreciate it.
- [46:02]
D
Thanks, Ryan. Glad to be here.
- [46:04]
B
Yep. So you've got so August 4th, you're in the final stretch of your primary campaign, facing off against two weeks, facing up against two other Democrats for the right to take on a Republican and flip a, and flip a red seat. I'm curious how this war has kind of shaped the campaign so far. I know that data centers and, you know, blocking data centers has been kind of one of the driving pieces of your campaign, but you've also kind of organized it around this moral core of being against genocide, against war. How has, how have you seen the campaign shift in between the ceasefire and now the this, the disruption of it and the return to war? What are you hearing from people on the ground about this Groundhog Day of like, oh, wait, I thought this was over now here we are back at war again. Gas at $4 plus again, what's going on?
- [46:58]
D
People are deeply concerned. When the war began back in the spring, I started to have 17 and 18 year olds walking through the door of my campaign office and saying we don't want to get drafted and go die outside of Tehran or anywhere else on the other side of the world for that matter. So it's been a huge issue that is animating people, especially the youngest people. And then we've all seen the costs of food and fuel and fertilizer increase as a result of the impacts of this war. So people are just, I think, throwing up their hands. And in particular, there are a lot of former Trump voters who are now just disgusted with this war in Iran. I mean, Trump said he wasn't going to start any new wars and people really believed him. And now they're seeing him write another chapter, one of the most shameful chapters in our long history of ill advised wars in the Middle East. So it's a big issue. It's an issue across this political spectrum. It's an issue with some of the most disillusioned and disenfranchised voters. And I'm proud to be a voice that was saying before this war started and consistently since it began that we need to bring this to a resolution so that we can get around to building good housing and providing health care to everybody here in the United States rather than spending trillions on more endless wars overseas.
- [48:31]
B
I was just going to bring in Sam Roberts, you bring in Sam Robinson as well so he can be part of this conversation. But yeah. Sam, how you doing?
- [48:40]
E
Hey, Ryan, how are you?
- [48:42]
B
Great. So Maz, go ahead. Sorry, you were, you were in the middle of the question.
- [48:46]
A
That's nice to meet you, Sam. Well, I was very interested in the point you made quickly about former Trump voters or disillusioned Trump voters, because Trump did specifically not just campaign against foreign wars, he kind of campaigned in particular against an Iran war. He suggested very strongly that that's the war he would never wage and so forth. J.D. vance said it very directly. What are you hearing from people specifically who Support Trump in 2024 about this? And do you think it could be represent a significant shift of his base to vote for other candidates? And is there also an age stratification there? Is it mostly younger Trump voters or gives a little more color about that aspect of, of the situation?
- [49:29]
D
Certainly strongest among the young voters. I mean, there was a lot of hand wringing about young men in particular after 2024 who went and voted for Trump. And you know, in many cases that was people who didn't know better. And now they know better because we've seen more and it turns out that this man was, you know, the liar that many people knew and said that he was. But it's a, it's an issue that is bringing people across because it was a major, you know, emphasis on the 2024 campaign. There are several other issues as well that I've seen really cross pressuring people, data centers, as we've been talking about extensively and Ryan mentioned, but also when the Epstein files were released, at least the tip of the iceberg, and Trump was obviously so heavily implicated in the ring with Epstein, although we've still only seen the tip of the iceberg. That was another moment where people really started to get off the Trump train and say, you know, he said he was going to drain the swamp, but it turns out that he's one of the biggest swamp creatures of them all. And so these are issues that are bringing people together across the political spectrum. And I'm seeing a lot of Trump voters, you're right that it is younger folks especially, but of all ages who are saying, I really thought that this guy was different. I thought that he was an outsider. I thought that he was not going to repeat the same mistakes that our foreign policy establishment has been responsible for around the world. And now we're seeing it's just more of the same.
- [50:59]
B
Yeah. Sam, did you want to hop in? And all from your perspective, like, how is this Mid Michigan, how is this Mid Michigan race being framed across the state?
- [51:12]
E
Well, certainly in the last two weeks, there's been a lot of money spent against Will Lawrence. Will, why, why do you think you've had such success? I know data centers, especially where you are, it seems to be the uniting topic among, you know, the left, not even the far left. Right. I mean, these are pretty median voters, regular folks that are, are saying, coming together, saying that our state leaders aren't listening to us.
- [51:44]
D
And, you know, yes, and it's, it's, I would say, not just the far left, not just the, you know, liberal Democrats, but independent voters and, you know, dyed in the wool Republican and Trump voters. I mean, people have seen that everybody from Donald Trump to Gretchen Whitmer have been united in rolling out the red carpet for these data centers. Trump has been very vocal and in support of the big tech companies. And then Whitmer took this photo op with Sam Altman in Saline. And the story there is very instructive because the residents of Saline said, we don't want this data center. The township officials said, okay, we represent our residents. We are going to deny the permit for this hyperscale data center and Then Oracle and OpenAI as part of a joint venture said we're going to sue the crap out of this township and we have a trillion dollars and you don't and we're basically going to sue you into bankruptcy if you don't fold. So they folded and settled and then after all of that Whitmer came out and did the photo op. And so I just think it's the brazen lack of self determination and democracy that is being afforded to these local communities in these massive deals that are being proposed that is just really rubbing people the wrong way. And the condescension that comes then from all the boosters and promoters and we have, you know, many instances of local politicians signing non disclosure agreements in order to discuss these deals. So then they're coming forward to the public and they say, trust us, trust us, this is a great deal. But people say you've given us no reason to trust you. You're under an NDA and you're telling us that DTE and Consumers Energy have assured us, assured you that our rates won't rise. But DTE and consumers are despised all over the state because all they do is raise rates. So the pitch has been very entitled and poor from the boosters. I'll just be blunt about that. And people are rejecting what they regard as an imposition into their communities and their self determination.
- [53:52]
B
I have a little intuition about this that I wanted to bounce off of you and see if there's anything to this. And I'd be curious for both you and Sam's response to this, but the, the difference between, you know, when you're a member of Congress, you can't really get, you're not really supposed to cash. You can cash out by insider trading while you're in Congress. You can't really cash out until you leave and then you go join corporate boards and become a lobbyist. If you're a town, you know, city councilor, county commissioner, state representative, you can, you, you bake, you make basically nothing and then you can work second jobs. And a lot of these folks work as consultants for corporations or even as lobbyists in some states. It's, it's the most insane thing. You have somebody who's Florida state representative and also a lobbyist for like the utility. And so what I've seen in a lot of data, say data center fights around the country, I haven't seen this in Michigan. I haven't covered this particularly is the data centers come in and hire the local officials as consultants on the Side, which is actually legal. And then the voters find out about this and they're like, this is. This is absolutely insane. We elected you to represent us, not to represent us, and then take a retainer from this data center that's trying to come and build. But the intuition I have is that because there's so much lack of trust from voters when it comes to public officials on this question, the fact that you're willing to take an unpopular stand against a genocide in Gaza, the fact that you're willing to come out against war, which in the US As a political matter is often, you know, not easy, I wonder if that serves for them as some sort of a proxy that. Right. I can trust this person to stand up on this issue. They're less likely to sell out because they're not selling out on this one. And so will first, if I'm curious if you've seen that on the ground at all, if there's a bleeding between the issues. And then I'm curious if Sam, seeing that just like in general, a vibe on the ground.
- [55:57]
D
Yeah, absolutely. I think you're right that there are certain issues that are, you know, the Democrats and Republicans in D.C. close ranks around those issues. And these are the ones we're talking about again, you know, protecting the Epstein collaborators, continuing these stupid wars, rolling out these data centers. And these are issues on which, if you're willing to speak out, it's genuinely different because it's so uncommon. And actually, one of the attacks that's out there against me right now to the tune of about $800,000, is that I'm getting rich off of Wall street, big oil and data centers. They're running an attack ad on me because I have $11,000 in a 401k in an index fund. And they are making that to sound like I'm big money sellout and I'm profiting off of the data centers and people. I'm hearing people talk about it around town and people say, this is just ridiculous. This is ridiculous because we've seen you out there fighting. And the ones who are really taking the money from the big tech companies are certainly not the ones who are speaking out at the township meetings. So we found already that, you know, my track record of showing up alongside working people to fight back against these billionaires and tech giants is already, you know, making me robust in the face of these attempted smears to tear me down. And it's pretty telling, actually, that the attack they want to make is that I'm in bed with the Tech companies or something because they know just how unpopular these companies are.
- [57:36]
E
Yeah. Well, watching your campaign, Will, I think one of the reasons that you've had success polling with independents or even Republicans has been your willingness to embrace sort of the America first, you know, even just that phrase itself. I heard from a former Trump voter. He told me that he regretted his vote. It was over at Chandler park in an Abdul rally a few weeks ago. He told me that he was voting for Abdul because he feels like Abdul is an America first candidate. He told me that you don't have to be a Republican to be an American first candidate. And I think the more people I talk to on the left and right, the more I hear people talking about where we're sending our money to. I think AIPAC has absolutely lit a fuse under Gen Z. Folks that, you know, are not politically aware or active are talking about, you know, aipac. So yeah, it's been absolutely politically effective. I mean, state legislators that have no ability to, to, you know, determine foreign policy, they can write resolutions, they're campaigning off of their unwillingness to take AIPAC money despite AIPAC not being involved in state legislative races. So it's been a.
- [58:57]
B
Not gonna take the money. I'm not being offered.
- [58:59]
E
Yes, it's been a salient political strategy to use.
- [59:04]
D
And I appreciate you mentioning, Sam, that the polling we have shows that I'm the most electable general election candidate in this race because I'm up 19 points with independent voters for precisely the reasons we've been describing. The willingness to touch the issues that corporate funded Democrats and corporate funded Republicans have been unwilling to touch.
- [59:27]
B
And Will, I know you've got to run to another campaign event. Two week Sprint is on. So thank you for taking a little time to be here this morning. Appreciate it.
- [59:35]
D
Thank you, Ryan. Thanks, Mataza. Good to see you, Sam.
- [59:38]
E
Take care.
- [59:41]
B
Yeah. Sam, if you got a little bit of time to stick around, we'd love to get some more of your analysis on Michigan and on, on Will's race. You're right that he really has. The last two to three weeks, like the whole, they're just emptying the kitchen sink. Everything but the kitchen sink is getting thrown at him, which really does suggest that he has developed into the front runner in this campaign, which is kind of shocking because it's a, you know, it's a swing district represented by a Republican. He's a founder of the co founder of the Sunrise Movement. I describes himself as a Democratic socialist and yet here he is like on the cusp of victory. They may be able to spend enough money against him in the final stretch to, to hold him, hold, you know, to have him pull up short that one thing they've been throwing at him is this, is this clip where he talked about the relationship between what he called, quote, unquote, white progressives and the corporate black establishment, where he was saying, basically the point that he was making was that because of the kind of moral authority that kind of black politicians have developed throughout, you know, decades of the civil rights movement and before that, that moral authority then sometimes gets wielded as a weapon by the establishment against people. Say, like in the Sunrise movement. Oh, it's just a bunch of spoiled white kids who want to do climate change. That was the point that he was making that has become this weapon against him. Say he's actually a racist guy. I was thinking about that in the context of yesterday's endorsement. I don't know if you saw Sri Thanadar announced that he was endorsed by Hakeem Jeffries.
- [61:22]
E
Yes.
- [61:23]
B
Which is ironic because Hakeem Jeffries had just been attacking Bernie Sanders, for Bernie Sanders endorsing against a black candidate in North Carolina. But now Hakeem Jeffries is endorsing against a black candidate in Detroit, Donovan McKinney. So it's not always about racial solidarity. Sometimes it's just about power. I'm curious, how, how has that, how have those attacks been filtering through the like, are they breaking through? Is it. Are people like, oh, he does sound racist? Like, what, what is the.
- [61:55]
E
Well, it's certainly been, you know, again, Detroit is home to, I think, 77% black residents. We are majority black, overwhelmingly so. And so, you know, it's all kinds of different folks across ideologue, a lot of people. And again, Will was talking about, in the context of, I think the host of that show, who is a black leftist himself, was talking about how Joe Biden did. Did a event at Morehouse College, sort of symbolic olive branch to the black community. Our black leaders here heard what Will said and certainly attacked him for it. I think about people like Michigan's Democratic Party Black Caucus chair, Keith Williams. He has a fun Facebook account. I was watching Roland Martin's interview with Will and it was interesting to me how, you know, over half the comment section is actually agreeing with Will and criticizing the Congressional Black Caucus for its relationships with Israel, for its, you know, sort of out of touch reality that it has with, with black residents now. You know, black Detroiters are not following their political leaders like they are whatever else is in their life. You know, politics is. Is just not on the minds of most people. My neighbors, you know, most of them who are voting even, you know, they're not familiar with the dynamics in the race against Haley Stevens or Abdul Al Sayed. And so while the, the Will Lawrence controversy broke through with the politicos, I don't think it did with anyone in his district. I think is 6% black. So I mean, you know, I don't know if it's going to have an effect in his primary race.
- [63:57]
B
What about the Abdul Al Said Haley Stevens race? Like, what are you, what are you seeing there? Yeah, are, you know, so Mallory McMorrow dropped out. Like, so the first question would be, the first guess that people had was all that that'll really help. Haley Stevens doesn't necessarily seem to have been. Been the case. How have you seen the race kind of sort out since. Since she dropped out. And, and I thought that is interesting. I think people should remember what the point you just made that while we who are kind of political addicts are following this race very closely, for a lot of normal people, they barely have any idea, other than seeing YouTube ads and television ads, that there's even a race going on.
- [64:36]
E
Yeah. And as you guys have seen, I mean, the ads have been absolutely effective. People think that Barack Obama has endorsed Haley Stevens in this race. He has not. He endorsed her in 18 and 20 against in a general election against Republicans. You know, it's, it's been kind of remarkable when you talk to people who are online versus those who are just sort of going about their lives, they'll see the ads on the tv. Abdul Al Said is the front runner. You know, the Glenn Garriff poll polled, that's the Detroit News WDIV Local 4 poll that had Haley Stevens 9 points up. I believe the margin of error was 4.4. That poll is 500 people, 15% landlines, but 100 phone calls, telephone calls. And so it's probably not getting a true representative. You know, not to poo poo on the Detroit News or, or the pollster, Mr. Zuba. But it's just on the ground. You can feel it. And Haley is not doing events with supporters. Abdul is hosting theaters and gyms filled with thousands of people. It would be not in line with reality not to, to acknowledge that Abdul appears to be on the ground, the front runner. And, and it, you know, his supporters will say it's not even close. I'm, I'm not at that point. I'm not ready to say that yet. But it does Feel like he has real momentum and you know, the election August 4th is a few days away. We started, you know, early vote absentee, you know, last. So we'll have been voting. I've been hearing from a lot of my neighbors on Detroit's east side who have been listening to Haley Stevens ads who are vote for Haley because Obama told them to. Not everyone, though,
- [66:43]
A
you know, at these events is there a sense of the type people attending, Are there a lot of new voters? Because it seems like there's some sort of new energy as you're speaking to that's been triggered by his candidacy, who's coming out and what are they saying at these events that maybe is exciting them about Abdul in this case?
- [67:01]
C
Yeah.
- [67:01]
E
So as I mentioned, APAC has been one of the top items that I've heard from, from voters, even, you know, before the issues like affordability or healthc care. I do think people in Michigan, not just Arab Muslim voters, I mean, you guys remember uncommitted got over 100,000 votes in February 2024. Haley Stevens and her campaign and her supporters have used Abdul Al Said's support of Uncommitted against him. Of course he ended up supporting Kamala Harris very openly and publicly. But the, the anti war message that Abdul has really been focused on since his launch, since his 2018 gubernatorial campaign against Gretchen Whitmer and Sri Tannadar, which again, I think without the gubernatorial campaign in 18, you do not have this huge statewide effort where he's able to have these huge events in Traverse City or Marquette in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, Kalamazoo, Grand Rapids, Flint. Of course, you know, the Detroit media market knows Abdul well, He's from Ann Arbor and he was the Wayne county and Detroit health director. But people that I talk to, they're focused on health care for all. They're focused on money out of politics. Michigan has a ballot initiative that would ban our utility companies and companies that have contracts with the state up to $250,000 from giving to political candidates. And so the message that Abdul has been deploying has been popular.
- [68:41]
A
And
- [68:44]
B
how is he doing as well as he is with so many people believing that Obama's behind Stevens is, is Obama's kind of hold on the party that's obviously it's the strongest of anybody out there. But is it, is it weakening a little bit? And so like, like in some world now, maybe if he comes out fully and like does a rally for her and maybe that's a wrap, but like, how come it's not enough for her at this point.
- [69:11]
E
You know, I do think she's really focused in on the Detroit media market. You know, I don't know how moving Barack Obama is to folks outside of metro Detroit.
- [69:22]
B
It's a big state.
- [69:24]
E
You know, I, I've spent almost 15 years in mid Michigan, which, where I was, Midland, Saginaw, basically. It's kind of a purple populist kind of place. And so the Obama ads are working. I do think that. And you've seen it with the endorsements. I mean, Abdul has endorsements from an organization called the Council of Baptist Pastors, which is typically like a pro Israel. You know, that was a really surprise. Warren Evans is the sort of not conservative, but he wouldn't identify himself as a progressive Wayne county executive. He has a number of black supporters who are entrenched in our community who have wide reach. And so I do imagine Abdul might not do as bad as we think in the city of Detroit. I would expect him to lose the city and win Wayne county, however. Yeah, I, I think, you know, $55 million or however much it's been in outside spending from those groups, it's, it's gonna work with some people.
- [70:38]
B
Yeah. And keep. Bring us up to speed a little bit on the, the Detroit race. So you've got as you said, Tree Tanadar, who, amazing story guy ran for governor and in 2018, he initially met with some Republican consultants because he wasn't sure what party he wanted to run in. Like he didn't know anything about politics. He's like, how do you, how do you do this political thing? Like what party should I run in? What should I say I believe. And they're like, you have to come with a little bit more than just that. Give us, give us the basics here. So they, he ended up running as a Democrat for governor, spent an enormous Fortune, lost then one in 2022. Right. And then running against APAC. Then in 2024 he becomes a big APAC ally, gets re elected. Now he's facing Donovan McKinney, a DSA backed Justice Democrats backed state representative, born and raised in one thing, northeast Detroit. But recent polling has McKinney down a little bit because Tanadar has unlimited money. I think people from the outside are like, how is this possible? Guy's such a weird candidate. How is he, how is it possible that he's even in the race? So what is the, how would you. Do you believe that, Paul? And what's your, what's your assessment of this, of this, of this race which the left you know sees as its next opportunity after Arizona today to like
- [72:08]
E
Ouston incumbent Malat Kairos of Denver. Chris Rabb of Philadelphia. They were at Horace Sheffield's church. It's called the Bridge center on the west side of the city of Detroit. Horace Sheffield is the father of Mary Sheffield. Mary Sheffield was just elected in a landslide fashion as Detroit's first female mayor. Mary Sheffield's endorsements thus far have been really, you know, not endorsing the, the progressive candidates in certain races, state legislative races. Horace, however, has endorsed Abdul Al Sayed. He's full throatedly endorsed Donovan McKinney over Sri Tandar. They had pins that said no shree for me. And at this rally at Horace's venue, it, it was very, I, I should say it was, it was lightly attended. It was not sort of the same feeling that you got from, from an Abdul event. Donovan had been a part of several Abdul El Sayed events previously. Gets a big applause. However, I do think that, you know, 80% of, of Detroiters who don't vote are deciding our elections. Right. We have a criminally low turnout that will hover from like 13 to 16%. And it's an August primary. Right. I just don't think that SRI has gotten himself into enough trouble to really wake up the general voter base. I think Detroiters are hungry for black representation. A lot of the more conservative Detroiters will point to SRI and Rashida Tlaib as examples of how black Detroit got its power taken away. Right. You have two black Detroiters citing Rashida's support for Palestine and the uncommitted movement and her lack of support for Kamala Harris as a reason that they're, they're, you know, waging campaigns against her. Donovan does not have. SRI is just not as unpopular, which, you know, he has his set of controversies. They just have not really been felt by regular people, which is interesting. You know, Donovan also gets flack for being a DSA backed candidate. He hasn't always been, you know, a Democratic socialist, I think, I don't know if it's unfair to use the word, you know, good opportunities. He's seeing the headwinds and getting on board with, with where he's moving to. But you know, certainly he has taken positions that rub our black establishment. Some of the same people that were criticizing the Lawrence the wrong way. And I think, you know, our, our lieutenant governor who has been really fantastic at sort of triangulating himself between the younger progressives and the older black establishment. Donovan has had to do that as well. He's Done it really well. There's another person who's, who's done that, I would say to, to a worse degree, Denzel McCampbell. He's a city council member in Detroit. And Denzel and Donovan, they, they feed off each other. I think they're examples of, of Democratic socialists in, in Detroit who are black men, you know, in their 30s, who are, you know, gonna be the next generation of Detroit Democrats. But currently in the configuration right now, you know, it's controlled by the establishment class. The Wayne county commissioner that is appearing in those Obama Haley Stevens ads. He actually, through his 13th congressional Democratic Party chair seat, he endorsed Sri Tanadar. A lot of people say, well, why'd you do that? A lot of people are obsessed with the proximity to the office. He's making a gamble saying he doesn't think SRI is going to lose. You know, based on that poll, I think Donovan still has his work cut out for him.
- [76:15]
B
Yeah.
- [76:16]
A
Yeah.
- [76:16]
B
It seems like he needs a real push the last two weeks to get. To get over this hump. Yeah. And then Maz, if you have anything but last one, Kyle Blumquist is another kind of sleeper race in Michigan Houses. Are you following that one at all, any sense? I haven't followed it very closely.
- [76:32]
E
I haven't. I mean, I've been seeing all of his messages and, and I've been getting his email blasts and certainly seeing his post on social media. Ryan, our state of Michigan is just so far away from each other that, you know, the people in the UP are not consuming Metro Detroit news media and the people from metro Detroit and Detroit are not consuming what's going on in the up. Part of the reason why Mike Duggan's independent campaign for governor struggled so much was because people that were being told, oh, he saved Detroit, really just didn't care.
- [77:07]
B
Right. They're like, what's Detroit?
- [77:09]
E
Right.
- [77:10]
B
How was like 12 hours end to end. How. How long would it take to drive Michigan?
- [77:15]
E
Yeah, I mean, oh, my gosh. Yeah, I think nine, maybe 10, 11 hours from the southernmost point to. And I, I've been everywhere. I've been really lucky to, to get up to Kwamenon Falls or, or the, the Mackinac island or, you know, whatnot on. But most Michiganders are. Are not making that drive often.
- [77:38]
B
Yeah, I heard it's gorgeous. I've never been myself.
- [77:41]
E
It is. Yeah. It's a beautiful state.
- [77:43]
C
You.
- [77:43]
E
You Upper Peninsula is absolutely fantastic.
- [77:47]
B
All right, well, Sam Robinson, people can find you on Twitter. What's your, what's your handle again? Remind me. It's Samuel J. Rob. Yeah. Samuel J. Rob. Great follow. Where, where else can they find your work?
- [78:01]
E
You can read my stuff on Michigan's longest continuously operating black newspaper. We are the Michigan Chronicle. And so, you know, a lot of my stories as it pertains to this U.S. senate race have been through the lens of black Detroiters. So I apologize for everybody that doesn't understand why I keep talking, talking about black residents who make up just 13% of the state, but highly influential within the Democratic Party. So I'll continue to do that. I appreciate you guys.
- [78:29]
B
Yeah, you got it. No apologies.
- [78:32]
E
Thank you, Ryan.
- [78:33]
B
Thanks. Yep. All right, well, that'll. That'll do it for us today. Maz, always, always a pleasure.
- [78:43]
A
Great to see you, Ryan.
- [78:44]
B
Thanks, everyone, for joining. Yep, yep. Thanks. Thanks, everybody. As always, if you want to support our work, you can go to dropsitenews.com There's a ways to Give section there. You can just upgrade to a paid subscription. If you're watching this on YouTube, you can become a member there. We're working on having some perks for YouTube members. We don't really have that yet. Right now. You just get the satisfaction of having handed your money over to a big platform that gives us a little piece of it, which we spend doing our journalism. But one day we will actually have some, some perks, some like AMAs, that sort of thing. That's what people do. We know we got to do it. But on behalf of all of my colleagues over here at Dropside News, as always, thank you so much for joining us.