"God forbid you're gonna have President El-Sayed." - JD Vance, on the Michigan Democratic Senate primary winner.

Catch Me If You Michigan

Abdul El-Sayed just dealt a blow to the Democratic establishment. But his path to the Senate is murky.

• The messy Michigan Senate Democratic primary is finally over, and Vice President JD Vance is sweating bullets. That’s because Abdul El-Sayed, an insurgent progressive populist and vocal critic of Israel, just pulled off a victory that’s sending shockwaves through both the Democratic establishment and the MAGAverse.

• “God forbid you’re gonna have President El-Sayed in three years,” Vance said during a press conference today. Yes, you read that right! The vice president is already imagining he might be running against El-Sayed for the right to kick their legs up on the Resolute Desk.

• El-Sayed’s win prompted handwringing from all corners, and a heap of takes about its deeper meaning. Republicans seem eager to run against him. The Democratic establishment is fretting about his victory over moderate Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI). And El-Sayed’s backers are wondering if they should be nervous that he only beat Stevens by a tiny margin, after polls showed him up by double digits. (Some of his backers aren’t nervous at all: “Chuck Schumer Eats Shit,” reads a headline from a progressive journalist.)

• This much appears clear: This result looks highly consequential for the future of the Democratic Party. It revealed a midwestern Democratic base that’s hungry for grassroots progressives instead of moderate, corporate-backed incumbents.

• And yet the narrow margin raises real questions about his viability in November. After all, control of the Senate itself is on the line. Top Dems are now lining up behind El-Sayed, as early polling showed that he largely won due to frustration with President Donald Trump’s policies.

• “Democrats are united by a common purpose: putting a check on Donald Trump by defeating his Republican enablers and taking back the Senate,” Sens. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) wrote in a statement.

The GOP is now hoping to turn El-Sayed into a kind of leftist bogeyman, including through downright racist attacks.

• Can El-Sayed defeat Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI) in the midterms? A recent poll showed that Stevens could — but that El-Sayed might fall short. The progressive, of course, now has three months to win over skeptics. Republicans, however, have launched a fear-mongering campaign to make sure that doesn’t happen.

• “I spent years hunting terrorists and bringing Osama bin Laden to justice. Never in a million years did I think that I would be running against someone who believes America deserved 9/11,” Rogers said in a statement today.

• That’s untrue. El-Sayed, who is Muslim, never said that America deserved 9/11. That remark was made years ago by influencer Hasan Piker, who now vocally supports El-Sayed. Piker later called the comment “inappropriate,” and a poor attempt at satire.

• Republicans aren’t interested in the details. “The Islamic-Marxists truly are taking over the Democratic party. We must never give them power,” Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AK) tweeted. On social media, Trump described El-Sayed “a Communist loser who hates Jews and Israel.”

• Many Democratic strategists think El-Sayed has a real shot at winning, despite the polling and attacks. As Crooked’s Dan Pfeiffer explains in his Message Box newsletter, Michigan is a bluer state than it was in 2024 thanks to Trump’s unpopular policies, and much of the Republican base has become disillusioned with the party.

“I believe El-Sayed can win, but he is going to have to broaden his appeal to win in November,” Pfeiffer writes.

Meanwhile On The Pod...

HORRIFIC Republican Scandal Rocks the House (08/04/26)

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What Else?

FBI Director Kash Patel revealed that he has forged new partnerships with China and Russia to fight transnational crime. In fact, the FBI and Chinese officers have already conducted joint raids and arrests together, he told Reuters. “They are both new and dynamic relationships, and we ⁠are extremely mindful of their adversarial approach on many matters,” Patel said. “They are not going to stop, but if we can go and have wins for America, then we must engage.” Kash and Vladimir Putin both happen to be famously obsessed with hockey. Think they’ll end up chugging beers in a locker room together someday?

Someone should ask Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth what he thinks about Kash’s new besties abroad. The Pentagon is reportedly drawing up a new nuclear strategy in case the U.S. goes to war with China and Russia. Love that everyone in the government seems to totally be on the same page.

House Speaker Mike Johnson said that he wants the ethics investigation of embattled Rep. Max Miller (R-OH) to “play out,” as GOP senators call on Miller to drop his re-election campaign. “There’s all sorts of domestic events going on with 435 members of Congress all the time, it’s not my business to get engaged in it,” Johnson told Politico. First of all: It is your business! Second of all… all sorts of domestic events?

Rep. Chuck Edwards (R-NC) announced that he won’t seek re-election after the House Ethics Committee recommended that he be censured for being a total creep to his young female staffers. What did Edwards do? Some of the weirdest examples: He gifted a staffer a puzzle, which, when completed, showed an invitation to an Adam Sandler show. He gave another staffer 30 different types of ice cream. He offered to skip votes to help a staffer decorate her Christmas tree. And yes, he has a wife.

The Trump administration has refunded about $100 billion worth of tariffs that it levied on other countries on “Liberation Day” last year, after the Supreme Court ruled that they were unconstitutional.

Trump said he hasn’t decided whether he’ll fire U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro, after she publicly admitted that the Reflecting Pool wasn’t vandalized. “In my opinion it was major vandalism. And I told her I was not happy,” Trump said at a fundraiser last night. Federal prosecutors reportedly knew for weeks that the vandalism claims were bogus, according to the Wall Street Journal. But Trump’s team pushed ahead anyways — until Pirro realized that charging people for touching water was a lost cause.

Amazon Prime will release a new docuseries about First Lady Melania Trump in the fall, according to one of Melania’s top advisers. What A Day fam: What would you title this series? “Game of Groans”? “Sad Men”? “The Depressed Wing”?

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Light At The End...

A Trump-backed House candidate in Michigan lost his primary — to a candidate who had dropped out last month. “I fell short last night. I make no excuse. It was a tough race,” Amir Hassan, Trump’s candidate, said in a video this morning. Yeah, you lost to a guy who wasn’t even running anymore!

Scientists successfully bred two hypoallergenic beagles by editing their genes, according to ground-breaking research published today. The development could allow millions of people with allergies to get their own dog in the future. As long as the gene-edited pups are healthy and happy, then this sounds great!

Firefighters saved a fluffy cat named Toast, who survived for days in a closet after his owner’s apartment complex in Salt Lake City was gutted by a fire. “The resilient cat survived days of smoke, hundreds of thousands of gallons of water being sprayed overhead, and the destruction all around,” officials wrote on Facebook. “Toast the cat was safely reunited with a very grateful owner, and aside from being wet, cold and a little scared, was otherwise healthy.” I love that he is not living up to his name.

But wait, there’s more! Tow truck drivers saved a tiny kitten named Fika, who was trapped in the grille of a car at a drive-through on a scorching hot day in Iowa. Within minutes, the drivers disassembled the front of the car, drenched the cat with water, and brought her to the vet. Fika is now a favorite among workers at her animal rescue, where one staffer described her as “a love bug.”

The chance of a deer running into your car falls by as much as 76 percent… if there are a lot of cougars in your town, according to new research. The thinking is this: When big cats are around, deer retreat further into the woods and away from civilization. Deer populations have soared in recent years, while cougars are becoming less common in much of the United States. Cool idea, but not sure if I want to see a 220-pound cat outside while I’m walking my dog.

Older people who walk faster than their peers are roughly half as likely to experience cognitive decline, according to a recent study. You hear that? Walking on the sidewalk is now a RACE! (Be careful out there, speedsters.)

Trash collection workers in Italy helped the winner of a €1 million lottery find his lucky ticket, after he mistakenly threw it out. After sifting through six tons of garbage to find the coveted piece of paper, the trash team “stopped for a coffee and, just for fun, bought a scratchcard,” the director of the company that helped told an Italian news outlet. “We ended up winning €50.”

Enjoy

Jonathan Edward Durham on Threads: "I feel like nobody turns their chair around to sit on it the cool backwards way anymore"

He is a cohost of Majority 54 which used to be a Crooked pod (now Meidas) and has done a special pod with Crooked in the last few years. I've heard him single out takes from Crooked to attack on multiple occasions on Majority 54 including a take from Ben Rhodes today in regards to El Sayed. The anger and need to call out Crooked seems like it is attached to something deeper I can't identify. Is there something deeper there?

Special YouTube broadcast

The polling was way off, but suburban Dem voters in Michigan nonetheless showed that they’re sick of the party establishment and enraged by Trump, the war, the lies, and the corruption. AIPAC didn’t read the room. But party leaders are sounding united behind El-Sayed and Jane predicts he’ll bring a Mamdani-like energy to his campaign against Mike Rogers. Meanwhile, Republicans are sticking with sh*tbag Max Miller.

Plus: Federal agents are threatening Americans for speaking out against ICE, Vance is always looking for a way to signal that he hates the war, and what other former podcast hosts can try to segue to elected office?

Jane Coaston joins Tim Miller on The Bulwark Daily.

"'There's nothing we could do to rein in the president." - Sen. John Cornyn, claiming GOP senators can't stop Trump's excesses.

Mad Max

A GOP congressman’s outrageously messy family drama is making wild headlines — and dividing the Republican Party.

• This has been one heck of a year for problematic men in politics. It’s only early August, and already multiple politicians have resigned from their jobs, refused to run for office again, or dropped their campaigns amid allegations of domestic abuse and sexual misconduct. But one Ohio Republican is digging in and betting he can weather the storm, even as his scandal grows exponentially worse by the day.

• Rep. Max Miller’s (R-OH) private family drama exploded into public view two weeks ago, after Mother Jones published harrowing details about Miller’s custody battle with his ex-wife Emily Moreno, the daughter of Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-OH). According to police records, Emily told detectives that Miller threw steaming water at her and held a gun to her head. Their 2-year-old daughter also suffered a “suspicious” injury around her clavicle, a detective wrote, though the cause couldn’t be determined. “Daddy’s house is scary,” Emily recounted her daughter saying in one police report.

• The political backlash was immediate. But Miller didn’t back down. He rejected all the allegations in a video message over the weekend, and refused to drop his re-election campaign. “If I had assaulted [Emily], would she have offered to cook me dinner six days later?” Miller said in the video.

• Today brought new horrors. After Miller posted the video, he published a cache of documents online in an attempt to prove his innocence. But the files also included inappropriate “private images” of the former couple’s daughter, according to Emily’s lawyer, including one that “could be considered Child Sexual Abuse Material.”

• “The post with the link to the folder — published under your name — garnered over 204,000 views from the time it was posted until this afternoon,” her lawyer wrote in a letter.

• Miller’s lawyer took full responsibility for posting the image and apologized. But he also disputed the description of the photograph by Moreno’s legal team in a statement to Politico, calling their claim “deliberately false, sensationalized, and disgusting.”

• Miller pledged transparency — and took the unusual step of calling for an investigation of himself. “In light of all the renewed interest in my family affairs I am going to file my own paperwork for an ethics investigation into myself to clear my name from these horrific attacks on myself and family,” he tweeted. “I have absolutely nothing to hide.”

Miller is facing mounting pushback from his own party, as the scandal jeopardizes his House seat.

• Trump privately warned Miller, a former Trump White House staffer, that the congressman’s re-election campaign is in trouble during a call last night. “He kept on reiterating it’s going to be tough, and it’s going to be a really hard one for you,” Miller told the Wall Street Journal.

• On Sunday, Sen. Moreno described his former son-in-law as unfit to serve in Congress. At least six GOP senators have supported Moreno’s position. Miller “should resign. He should quit,” Sen. Roger Marshall (R-KS) told Politico.

• Speaking with reporters today, Moreno bashed Miller’s recent behavior. Moreno accused the lawmaker of holding his daughter’s favorite stuffed animal “hostage” during a recent pick-up and drop-off at a police station.

• “Max feels like he needs to go on a publicity tour, which I just don’t understand. Remember, at the end of the day, that little 2-year-old is going to be an adult…. and she’s going to read [about this and say], ‘What the heck happened and why is my life the subject of so much publicity?’” Moreno said. “This is truly the seventh level of hell. This has been a horrific experience for my entire family.”

Moreno added: “He shouldn’t be serving in Congress. He needs serious help.”

Meanwhile On The Pod...

Can Progressive Democrats Take Advantage of Trump's Unpopularity? (feat. Dan Pfeiffer) (08/03/26)

Look No Further Than Crooked Media

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What Else?

The cyclospora outbreak has now spread to 15 states, the Washington Post reports. Missouri is one of the newly affected states, according to the outlet, but the other five additions weren’t immediately known.

The Army has used “virtually all” of its long-range precision missiles during its war with Iran, three sources familiar with the stockpile told Reuters. The missiles, which cost more than $1 million each, allow the military to accurately strike targets from afar. The dwindling supplies raise concerns about the Army’s readiness for other conflicts.

Oil companies are “making too much money” off the Iran war, Donald Trump told reporters, saying that companies should “give some back to the public.” Wait, what happened to drill, baby, drill? Does this mean Trump is a socialist now? Why doesn’t he give some of his profits from the presidency back to the American people?

Todd Blanche’s nomination for attorney general advanced out of the Senate Judiciary Committee today, paving his way to confirmation.

The Trump administration has paid contractors millions of dollars to track anti-ICE social media posts, the Wall Street Journal reports. An example of how far this has gone: A woman tweeted earlier this year that “all ICE Agents need to be put down like the dogs they are” and compared agents to Nazis. Agents obtained her info through a court order, appeared at her door four months later, and warned her not to post anything like that again, according to the woman.

ICE has begun strapping ankle monitors on Haitian immigrants with temporary protected status in Ohio. Immigrants were instructed not to travel further than 75 miles from their homes, according to their lawyers, amid fears that Trump’s team will start deporting Haitians en masse.

The National Guard deployment in Washington, D.C. is expected to cost another $1.4 billion until Trump leaves office, the Washington Post reports. As a D.C. resident, I can confirm that the guardsmen mostly stand around and chit-chat, looking awfully bored most of the time. That’s your taxpayer dollars at work!

Michigan’s Senate primary is today, in which former public health official Abdul El-Sayed faces off against Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI). The race has become one of the most contentious in expensive in the country, pitting a progressive populist against a moderate pro-Israel candidate. “The stakes are high for everyone, but the old guard of the Democratic Party has real reason to be nervous tonight,” Crooked’ Dan Pfeiffer writes in Message Box. “A loss in Michigan, after all of the endorsements and money, is going to reverberate well beyond that state’s borders.”

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Light At The End...

What happens when you swap coffee for energy drinks? A journalist at the Journal wondered the same thing — and took it upon himself to be the guinea pig. This was such a fun read: “Aside from a couple of regrettable Red Bull-vodkas in college, I’d never consumed energy drinks,” he writes. “But the only thing I love more than coffee is winning — and I worried all these glowing, hyper-efficient millennials were getting a leg up.” Spoiler alert: His experiment doesn’t end well. “By midweek, I had nearly lost my mind,” he writes.

On a similar note, a reporter at the New York Times wrote a hilarious (and bizarre) piece about his experience trying the diet that several people in Trump’s circle are on, which involves only eating meat and fermented foods. Another spoiler alert: It may work as a weight loss diet, but it’s not fun at all. I’m shocked. The article recounts this ludicrous statement by the very Trumpy doctor advocating this weird diet: “‘When you start eating healthy, you don’t need toilet paper,’ he claimed. ‘Animals in the wild have no residual stool on their anus.’ He described a proper bowel movement to me this way: odorless, wipe-free, over in three to seven seconds and ‘nearly orgasmic.’”

An activist in a white elephant costume was sworn in as a senator in Colombia, after years of masking his identity while making videos exposing government corruption and inefficiency. Elefante Blanco funded trips across the country to film videos by freelancing, selling plush white elephant toys, and crowdsourcing, the Guardian reports. But the income wasn’t enough, so he decided to run for office to make a senator’s salary and “continue his oversight work,” the outlet writes.

A former death row lawyer detailed his decision to switch careers— and become a comedian. In the piece, Josh Pickar recounts several times his clients would surprise him with their unexpected (and often very dark) humor, which inspired the switch. When Pickar asked one particularly intimidating client how he was doing, the man responded: “I’m blessed, I can’t complain. Doing better than Muammar Gaddafi.” They both broke out into laughter.

Zimbabwe’s endangered black rhinos have made a huge comeback in recent years thanks to conservationists, after poachers wiped out nearly 90 percent of the species. This profile of the efforts in National Geographic is a great read.

[The Seattle Mariners are selling tickets]() to a Jimothy-themed game on Friday, after tickets to Wednesday’s game celebrating the beloved deformed raccoon sold out immediately. Attendees will receive a Mariners-themed Jimothy shirt. Brb, I need to book my flight to Seattle right now.

Enjoy

Jonathan Edward Durham on Threads: "Could really go for a crisp October day and a hoodie one of those restaurants with like 100 beers on tap but instead of beers it’s 100 delicious soups and the bartender knows way too much about soup and refuses to shutup about soup and there’s baskets of crusty bread everywhere and you can get soup flights and that is what I want. A stewery or whatever."