Attorney General Todd Blanche on Sunday defended the Justice Department’s lawsuit — filed at President Donald Trump’s request — seeking to block Alaska from certifying its election results if Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan loses.
In a contentious interview on CNN’s “State of the Union,” he denied the president is laying the groundwork to contest the outcome of the midterm elections in just over one week.
“President Trump is not trying to take over a state election in any way, shape or form,” Blanche insisted.
But when pressed on what crime the administration alleges is being committed the attorney general said, “Well, it depends.”
“There could be a crime,” Blanche said. “But the real wrong here is that Alaskans are going to be confused and will not have their vote heard.”
With a little over one week to go before Election Day, Trump administration officials have set their sights on the key Senate seat, where Sullivan is facing a surprisingly competitive challenge from former Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola. The lawsuit has heightened Democrats’ fears that Trump could try to undermine the integrity of the midterm elections.
Sullivan, the incumbent, is also being challenged by a retired elementary school teacher who shares his name.
“There is no dispute that the only reason the second Dan Sullivan is running is to pull votes away in a confusing and inappropriate manner from the Dan Sullivan incumbent,” Blanche said Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”
Host Margaret Brennan pushed back, explaining that “Dan S. Sullivan” is clearly listed on the ballot as the incumbent while his opponent is listed without a party affiliation as “Dan J. Sullivan.” She also pointed out that early voting began in the state on Oct. 19.
The Alaska Supreme Court had already settled the issue in June, ordering that both Sullivans be placed on the August primary ballot.
Alaska’s senior Republican senator, Lisa Murkowsi, who frequently breaks with Trump, criticized his administration on Friday for filing the lawsuit. “Alaskans don’t need any help voting for their preferred candidates, and the State of Alaska has already handled this by clearly distinguishing the candidates on this year’s ballot,” she said.
Peltola, who narrowly leads Sullivan, according to MS NOW polling partner FiftyPlusOne, told MS NOW’s Nicolle Wallace over the weekend that “this is exactly the kind of corruption that Alaskans are sick and tired of.”
JERUSALEM — He serves a mostly ceremonial role. But in a matter of days, Israeli President Isaac Herzog will wield significant power as he decides which political party will have the first chance to build a government — a move that could determine the fate of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
In an exclusive interview with MS NOW, Herzog said he would not bow to pressure from President Donald Trump to benefit his friend Netanyahu, whom Trump endorsed last week.
“I don’t think the president of the United States or anybody else can intervene in my discretion — the discretion has to be based on certain facts, and we will see what the facts are,” said Herzog. “There will be a lot of pressure, though, regardless.”
Herzog said he has “huge respect” for Trump and welcomes any dialogue, but the decision will be his, and his alone.
“I know how to deliberate with him or any other world leader,” he said. “It’s Israel’s democracy and Israel’s constitution, and that’s what counts for me.”
On Sunday, Trump re-upped his endorsement of the Israeli prime minister on Truth Social, writing, “As everyone is aware, including the enemy, Bibi and I have a great relationship in winning together.”
“We have to finish the job that we started!” Trump concluded.
With final election polling showing neither Netanyahu’s Likud party nor challenger Gadi Eisenkot’s Yashar party likely to win outright, an initial round of coalition building will likely ensue to reach the 61-seat majority threshold of the Knesset, Israel’s 120-seat Parliament.
The decision of who gets the first crack at that is one that weighs on Herzog.
“It’s going to be very delicate,” Herzog said, noting the leading candidates’ public commitments not to align with certain factions. “So it’s really an open game, especially if the results are going to be close.”
With a diverse set of parties in the anti-Netanyahu bloc, Eisenkot faces an uphill battle to solve the math problem of reaching a majority: He has ruled out including both the Arab and ultra-Orthodox parties in any government he leads.
Arab Israelis make up about 21% of the country’s population, but politicians vying to become prime minister have long excluded them from being part of the ruling government.
Though he noted Arab parties are “part and parcel of Israeli democracy,” Herzog wouldn’t say whether they belong in Israeli leadership.
“There’s a question about what happens if you have to take decisions now about war and peace, and this is the issue at stake in the political discussion and the decisions of the voters,” he said.
Herzog repeatedly said he would do whatever is within his power to avoid sending Israeli voters back to the polls for more rounds of elections — including pushing for a national unity government that would include both Netanyahu and Eisenkot, while excluding leaders from extremist parties.
“I don’t know if it’s feasible,” he conceded, noting the overall process could take long, drawn-out weeks. What that could mean for the Iran war, which Trump has hinted at restarting after the U.S. midterms, is unclear.
“I hope now there’s either negotiations or again a flaring up of the military escalation,” Herzog said, adding the decision is up to the negotiators, militaries and the U.S. president.
In the closing days of the election, the devolving situation in the West Bank has been at the forefront, highlighting the contrast between Netanyahu, who has repeatedly ignored violence against Palestinians, and Eisenkot, who has pledged to get tough on rising attacks, which have led to international condemnation and threats of sanctions.
But Herzog took exception with blaming Israeli settlers for violence in the West Bank, instead insisting the recent increase is the result of a small group of violent people “that everybody has to crack down on.”
“I can attest to the fact that strict decisions were taken by all relevant authorities, including the Israeli Security Cabinet, to that effect to crack down on this phenomena, and you will see more and more results, I hope, in the near future,” Herzog said, adding, “It’s despicable, it’s outrageous. We should take all necessary steps to arrest all of them.”
Herzog condemned a terror attack on Friday in which two Palestinian gunmen killed two Israeli soldiers and wounded three others in Hebron, prompting Netanyahu’s office to instruct security forces to immediately cordon off Hebron and prepare for a full closure of the West Bank.
“We have to fight terror without any limitations, subject of course to the law, and we have to crack down on all this violence so that we contain it fully,” he said.
Given his pivotal role in the outcome of Israel’s elections, Herzog has refused to wade into key electoral issues, including — and especially — holding Netanyahu accountable.
Last November, Trump wrote to Herzog urging him to “fully pardon” Netanyahu, who was indicted in 2019 on charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust.
At the time, Herzog’s office responded that he held Trump in the highest regard but that anyone seeking a pardon had to submit a formal request.
Herzog, the eleventh president of Israel and who has been in office since July 2021, is predicting “huge turnout” and is confident in the integrity of Israel’s elections, which he says will determine the course of the country’s debate over the independence of the judicial system and Israel’s borders.
“Israel is an incredible democracy,” Herzog said. “It’s a source of dignity and pride to all those who love to bash at us and criticize us and attack us day in, day out without knowing that we are the only democracy in this region and we protect the free world.”
CLEVELAND — When asked about President Donald Trump’s strong defense of a GOP attack ad featuring her estranged mother calling her a liar, Amy Acton exercised prudence.
“I’ve worked with the president before,” the Democratic gubernatorial nominee told MS NOW, “but I think he needs to learn the facts of this case. They’re irrefutable.”
During an interview following a rally with former President Barack Obama on Saturday, Acton declined to attack Trump. Instead, the childhood sexual assault survivor praised Republican leaders in her state who have condemned the spot, including former Ohio Gov. Bob Taft and Mike DeWine, the current governor, who called it “deeply troubling.”
“All of our living governors have spoken in Ohio and condemned this ad, and that means the world to me,” Acton said in an interview. “What I am focused on is what these governors know: that the people of Ohio are struggling. They’re ready for change.”
Republican gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy’s decision to release and amplify the advertisement in his exceedingly tight race against Acton has divided Republicans ahead of the midterms. But Trump has remained firmly in his corner, advising Ramaswamy to “leave it up” and suggested it could clear the way for a Republican victory in the state.
“I told him, leave it up and look upstairs and say, ‘Thank you God, very much,’” Trump said at a rally in Sioux City, Iowa, on Thursday. “I only wish I could have had an ad like that against somebody.”
When pressed by a reporter on his defense of a GOP attack that touches on the Democratic candidate’s childhood trauma, Trump doubled down, asserting the ad was not tied to the criminal histories of Acton’s mother or her late husband.
“You’re trying to take a horrible situation for a Democrat and make it look better. The mother said really bad things about a person that wants to be the Democrat governor of Ohio,” Trump said on Friday. “This has nothing to do with a stepfather or anything else.”
Acton’s decision to withhold criticism of Trump — while thrashing Ramaswamy — speaks to the fine line she has walked in her pursuit to become the first woman to lead Ohio, a state Trump won three times.
Her emergence as a viable Democratic contender for governor came after she broke from Democrats on a number of policy positions, including issues relating to federal immigration enforcement, transgender athletes and voter ID laws.
The controversial 60-second clip released by Ramaswamy’s campaign features Acton’s estranged mother, 82-year-old Donna Arthur, who calls her daughter a “liar.”
“She lies about her past. She says she grew up living in a tent. None of that is true,” Arthur says in the ad. “Don’t vote for people who lie.”
Acton told MS NOW she has not spoken to her mother in nearly 50 years. She has long been vocal about the challenges she and her brother faced as children, one she alleges was rife with physical and sexual abuse, poverty and a period of homelessness.
Court records obtained by news outlets show Acton’s stepfather, Cledith Arthur, was charged with rape of a minor under the age of 13 before he fled the state and later died. Acton has identified herself as the victim. Her brother has said their mother remained married to Arthur until his death.
“The last time I saw my birth mother, I was 12 years old in a courthouse after a grand jury hearing, where my stepfather was indicted, and then he was a fugitive. They skipped on bail and left,” Acton told MS NOW.
Additional records obtained by NBC News show that both Donna and Cledith Arthur faced additional criminal financial charges over the course of several decades.
“I’m learning things that even I don’t remember, obviously, as a 12-year-old child,” Acton told MS NOW. “We’re learning more about the kinds of things he did to other children. We’re learning more about the troubled life of my mother, who was not well then, since I was probably three years old, and is not well now.”
Citing the negative reception to the Ramaswamy ad, The Cook Political Report on Friday shifted its rating of the race from “toss up” to “lean Democrat.” Acton told MS NOW that trend lines were already pointing in that direction.
”My opponent has spent $110 million and counting in the most abhorrent, lying, made up ads, and it never moved the needle one inch. We have started tied or ahead in every single polls in this race. We’re up double digits with independents and we have tons of Republicans crossing over,” Acton said.
For Ohio voters at Acton’s rally in Cleveland, alongside Obama and Democratic Senate nominee Sherrod Brown, the move by Ramaswamy to release the ad was a sign of “desperation.”
”I thought it was just so underhanded and I thought it was just such a bad choice for Vivek to do that,” 70-year-old Ken Salzbrenner said. “To bring up the situation that she was in, that she had no control over as a 12-year-old, I think was just outrageous, and it shows his lack of leadership that he would make that choice.”
During his remarks at the event, Obama hammered Ramaswamy as “thirsty” and framed his release of the ad as a desperate attempt to “get attention”
“There is no line he will not cross, there is no low he won’t sink to, to try to get in the limelight,” Obama said. “There’s got to be something inside you where you just say, you know, no office is worth stooping that low because, you know what, character matters.”
On Aug. 26, 2024, in Fort Myers, Florida, I answered a knock at my door to find a police officer waiting to arrest me. My first thought was my 12-year-old daughter, whose room was nearby. “Can she hear this?” I wondered. “Does she know what’s going on?” I had answered the door in my flip-flops, T-shirt and shorts, not realizing it would be all I had to keep me warm as I was thrown into an ice-cold jail cell, then into a steel cage in the back of a police van and finally locked up in a second jail. They told me I was being arrested for attempting to lure a child — roughly the same age as my daughter — from a McDonald’s in Jacksonville Beach, a town 300 miles away that I had never been to.
The whole time, I couldn’t stop thinking about when I would see my wife and daughter again. How would I explain why I was under arrest for a crime I didn’t commit in a city far across the state? Especially when I didn’t even understand what was going on myself.
The police ran my two vehicles through a database of license plate readers, which didn’t show my car anywhere in the entire county, much less near the restaurant. Yet based on the say-so of glitchy AI, they ruined my life.
After pledging the title to my truck for bond, I left the police station completely traumatized. I later learned that the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office uploaded a picture of the McDonald’s security footage into an artificial intelligence facial recognition system, which erroneously flagged me as a possible match. Jacksonville Beach Police then conducted a photo lineup not with the victim, but with a McDonald’s employee who was not an eyewitness.
Meanwhile, the officer leading the investigation ignored a mountain of evidence of my innocence. I have a prominent scar on my face that the suspect didn’t have. The same employee who picked me out of the photo lineup also said the suspect was a “regular customer,” but I live more than five hours away. The police ran my two vehicles through a database of license plate readers, which didn’t show my car anywhere in the entire county, much less near the restaurant.
Yet based on the say-so of glitchy AI, they ruined my life.
Robert Dillon, a commercial crabber in Florida, holds a crab.Photo courtesy ACLU
Until I was arrested for a crime I did not commit, I was a successful commercial crabber. I’ve loved crabbing since I first tried it as an 8-year-old kid hanging out on the Maryland docks. In the 40 years since, I’d built a beautiful life. I had a fulfilling career on the water, and an incredible wife and daughter and great friends. Anyone who knew me would tell you that I was a family guy. I was happy. All that changed after the police hauled me to jail and posted my mugshot online.
Weeks later, the Florida state attorney’s office dropped all charges. Now, I’m suing the officers, the city of Jacksonville Beach and the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office. In addition to damages, I am asking the court to order the city and the sheriff’s office to overhaul their procedures for using facial recognition technology.
It had taken two months to prove my innocence and my mugshot stayed on a police department website for nearly a year. At first, I could barely leave the house, terrified that someone would confront me for this revolting crime or see me with my daughter and call the police. Even when I was with people who knew I had been falsely accused, I couldn’t stand them looking at me and wondering even for a second, “Maybe he actually did it.”
I fell behind on rent, and when I was finally able to get back out on the water, it was too late. My seafood buyers had moved on. I was hemorrhaging cash. I had to turn my back on the ocean and start doing lawn care to provide for my family. Even harder than finding the money to rebuild my business is rebuilding the trust and credibility I lost because of the government’s colossal screw-up.
if there is one thing I am not, it’s a quitter. I will not quit until I get justice and the government makes amends.
When I told my daughter about the reason for the arrest, something I’d waited to do until after I had proven my innocence, she couldn’t stop laughing. To her, the accusation was that outrageous. While she laughed, I cried, just grateful to know that she was still in my corner and saw me for the person I was: her loving, caring, happy-go-lucky dad.
I am the first to admit that I am no angel. I’ve done stupid stuff in my past — gotten in some fights, spent some nights in jail. Any of my friends would agree that if there’s a loudmouth at the bar, I’m the one to tell him off. But I would never hurt a child. Ever.
When I’ve gotten in trouble, I’ve paid my debt to society. But the government doesn’t want to pay theirs. When I got into a bar fight, within a day I was hauled in front of a judge. Yet more than two years after my wrongful arrest, no one has even apologized, much less been held accountable in any court of law. And nothing has changed. I am still suffering. All because some cops used shoddy AI facial recognition, ignored contradictory evidence and, instead of protecting little girls in Jacksonville Beach, arrested an innocent guy in Fort Myers.
The government keeps trying to sweep what they did to me under the rug, hoping that I will give up and move on. But if there is one thing I am not, it’s a quitter. I will not quit until I get justice and the government makes amends. That’s why I have turned to the courts. They must hold the police accountable for altering my life forever. The record is clear. Justice should not take years to impose.
(Editor’s note: The Jacksonville County sheriff’s departmenttold Wired Magazine, “Due to pending litigation, we would be unable to comment further on the incident.”)
Caro is a city of about 4,000 people in central Michigan and the seat of Tuscola County, which Donald Trump won by more than 40 percentage points in 2024. On a brisk Saturday afternoon, just more than two weeks before Election Day, I drove there in a rental car to see progressive firebrand Abdul El-Sayed, a candidate for U.S. Senate, hold a town hall. When I flipped on the radio en route to Caro, I immediately heard the hosts of a right-wing talk show lavishing praise on Elon Musk. After many miles of driving alongside corn fields and wind turbines, while listening queasily to admiration for the reactionary tech tycoon, I was surprised at what I saw upon my arrival: hundreds of people lined up outside a community center waiting to hear what a Bernie Sanders-backed Democrat had to say. El-Sayed, who has never held elected office, has a narrow lead in the polls against former Republican Rep. Mike Rogers for a seat left open by a retiring Democrat.
El-Sayed took to the stage in his signature tightly fitting black shirt and jeans. After joking that he had come to Caro because it was one letter off from Cairo — a nod to his Egyptian ancestry — he immediately worked the crowd up by listing things that “shouldn’t be this hard” in America: buying a tank of gas, buying a second bag of groceries, seeing a doctor. When he ended the list by declaring, “Shouldn’t be this hard to pay your taxes and know that that money’s going to be spent on you and your kids instead of dropping bombs on somebody else and their kids,” the crowd roared.
Then came a call-and-response from El-Sayed and the Caro crowd that hammered home his core campaign themes:
“Money out of?”
“Politics!” they shouted.
“Money in your?”
“Pockets!”
“Medicare for?”
“All!”
Marla Martian, front-left, of Schwartz Creek, Michigan, shouts along with El-Sayed on Oct. 18, 2026, at a campaign event in Flint, Michigan.Quinn Banks for MS NOW
Many in the Caro crowd nodded as El-Sayed said, “Donald Trump is not himself the disease of our politics. He’s the worst symptom of the disease of our politics. The disease is the system that allows big corporations and billionaires and special interests to buy and sell politicians in ways that leave them rigging the system against us.” His language frequently draws attention to his training as a doctor. He never practiced medicine after finishing medical school at Columbia, but he earned a doctorate in public health from Oxford, and he has served as a health director for Wayne County, which is home to Detroit.
It was after El-Sayed said he’d answer questions that the mood darkened. In what may be the most viral moment of the 2026 midterm elections, a man in the audience who identified himself as Tommy stood up and asked El-Sayed if he would “disavow the Muslim Brotherhood,” an Islamist organization that Tommy called a “terrorist group.” El-Sayed said he’d have no problem disavowing the Muslim Brotherhood and did so. He then rejected the bigoted basis for Tommy’s question, and lectured him on the Constitution and freedom of religion.
Left: An attendee listens to U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley. Right: El-Sayed speaks to community members and supporters.Quinn Banks for MS NOW
There has been no indication that El-Sayed, or anyone else in the room, knew that Tommy was Thomas Teepell, a GOP operative who most notably worked as a former aide to Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo. But watching their exchange from inside the room, I was struck by El-Sayed’s antagonistic, even scornful, tone with him. Most politicians find a way to brush off the substance of what their hecklers say, if they don’t have them escorted out altogether. As Teepell began to leave, a woman yelled, “Bye, Tommy!” All of a sudden, a whole chorus of “Bye, Tommy! Bye, Tommy!” rang out as he walked out the door. “Tommy” might have thought his Islamophobic attack would do well in Caro, but El-Sayed beat him back, and he walked out being jeered, with his tail between his legs.
The Caro town hall dramatized the exhilarating possibilities of El-Sayed’s campaign — and the dark reactionary forces arrayed against him.
El-Sayed is not a socialist, but he is backed by many of them, and his demands for government-backed health insurance, hostility toward corporate power, and willingness to call Israel’s war a “genocide” represents a break from standard American liberalism. His campaign embodies a belief — contra the Democratic establishment — that the political system must change and that the left can plausibly build a base for that effort in heartland America. In that Caro town hall, that change felt like a possibility.
But “Tommy” represents the right’s counter to this vision. Not with rebuttal, but by fostering bigotry and smearing progressive politics as an alien import. Michigan State University political scientist Matt Grossmann told me Muslims are “one of the few demographics that voters are willing to express that they dislike.” Nearly 40% of voters in Michigan have admitted they’re less likely to support a Muslim candidate, and the GOP’s attacks on El-Sayed have mostly focused on him being a Muslim born to Egyptian immigrants to imply he’s a “risky” extremist.
Some politicians might react to such a political environment by affecting an air of amicability, but El-Sayed doesn’t. For some Michiganders, that makes him all the more appealing. I spoke to dozens of voters that week as I followed El-Sayed criss-crossing the state. Nearly every town hall attendee I spoke to described El-Sayed’s fierce speaking style — which routinely includes cutting down his opponents with harsh language — as a reason they were drawn to him.
“I like how he’s almost abrasive, like how honest and how raw he is, and the things that he’s honest and raw about,” Trevana, a 36-year-old customer service professional who lives in Midland, told me.
El-Sayed shakes hands with Zelda Cornish from Holly, Michigan, on Oct. 18, 2026.Quinn Banks for MS NOW
Alexus-Jo, a university financial aid office staffer who lives in rural Bay County, said she has in the past voted Republican and third party, and wasn’t planning to vote at all this time — but then she was moved by his tough persona: “I feel like establishment Democrats underestimate how volatile the general political climate is, and I feel like he’s not being stepped all over,” she said.
She added, “Seeing my Republican family members or people that aren’t Democrats say, ‘I don’t love the idea, but he’s got some things where I’m like, “OK, I’m listening,”’ that has really made me energized to get more into politics.”
My goal in Michigan was to see how a candidate aligned with the Bernie Sanders left connects with and persuades voters far from the deep-blue cities and districts where the movement has thrived — and how that candidate withstands right-wing attacks. El-Sayed is connecting with voters in a thoroughly purple state, it seems, by disregarding colors and labels.
“There’s no such thing called ‘progressive’ versus ‘conservative’ ideas, we make that up,” El- Sayed told me after a packed 500-person town hall at a theater in Bay City, a small urban center in a Trump-friendly county which, to his point, voted twice for President Barack Obama. “Red and blue are not real, those are not real things. What’s real is people are locked out of their politics by a system that allows big corporations and special interests to buy their politicians.”
The far left has long believed that appealing to people’s shared class interests can cut across cultural differences and pre-existing ideological barriers. El-Sayed’s race against Rogers will be the most consequential test of that theory in recent memory.
***
El-Sayed’s potential strength with swing voters can be placed in three buckets: his specific mode of charisma as a fighter; his focus on — and slightly misleading framing of — Medicare for All; and his ability to frame issues including foreign aid and crime in ways that can appeal to voters on the right and left.
In our era, anger at the status quo is a way to reach across the aisle. El-Sayed’s persona as a scrapper, enhanced by his conspicuously muscular physique, allows him to radiate populist energy at a time of bipartisan demand for it. A new TV ad campaign of his emphasizes his credibility going up against the “corrupt swamp” and the “elites” in Washington to highlight where MAGA Republicans might find something in common with his worldview.
When El-Sayed fired back at “Tommy,” in Caro, I agreed with his argument, but I also winced — condescension toward a town hall participant is usually gaffe territory. But that’s an old-school rhetorical norm, and it is precisely because El-Sayed responded so forcefully that he was effective. He kicked off a news cycle about Islamophobia and his campaign, brought broadly positive attention to himself in the mainstream press and on social media, and used the moment of confrontation to raise money.
Still, there are obvious potential downsides to such pugilism. El-Sayed was repeatedly panned for being patronizing toward his opponents during a primary he won by a narrow margin, and he might miss out on voters who prefer conciliatory or unity-focused orators.
When I asked El-Sayed, while riding on his campaign bus between Flint and Detroit, if he ever second-guessed his abrasive style, he answered, “I just am who I am.” He continued, “I like to build stuff. I rebuilt a health department, led another one, built programs. But too often, when you look at why we are not building for working people in America, it’s because of the insane politics from folks like Donald Trump and Mike Rogers and JD Vance. So if you’re coming to break the things that we want to build, yeah, I’m going to stand up to you.”
El-Sayed receives a wristband from American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees members.Quinn Banks for MS NOW
Virtually every voter I interviewed cited El-Sayed’s support for Medicare for All as a key point of interest. KFF, a health research group, found in September that 66% of Americans, including nearly 40% of Republicans, support “a national health plan, sometimes called Medicare-for-all, in which all Americans would get their insurance from a single government plan” — the highest share since they started asking the question about a decade ago. A top pollster in Michigan found support for Medicare for All in Michigan is at 62%.
Mark Brewer, a 65-year-old independent voter and retired construction worker who lives near the village of Mayville, told me he thought El-Sayed’s support for Medicare for All was a good idea. He has voted for libertarian candidates in the past, and told me he’s “financially conservative,” but was frustrated that the vast amount of money he spent on health insurance never guaranteed him care.
“I worked construction for 40 years. I paid $375,000 into health insurance during that time. The day I retired, it stopped,” he said. He said he was unhappy he had to go three years without insurance until he qualified for Medicare.
Tad Sumner, a 61-year-old Midland resident who works in banking and IT, said in 2016, he was for Hillary Clinton, not Bernie Sanders, but he has slowly moved to the left and toward El-Sayed’s healthcare views because “health care has become more and more profitized.”
People skeptical about Medicare for All are often afraid of losing the insurance they do have, as flawed as it is. How does El-Sayed put them at ease? “People are frustrated by the current system,” he told me. “I’m not interested in taking anything away. I’m interested in offering you a guarantee for health insurance, cradle to grave, without worrying about a network, or out of network, without worrying about a premium, copay or deductible.”
Unlike some advocates for Medicare for All, El-Sayed says his plan would not entail prohibiting duplicative private insurance. But as People’s Policy Project founder Matt Bruenig has pointed out in Jacobin, that’s effectively a sleight of hand. After a public plan emerges and many employers drop coverage of health insurance, it’s unlikely that people will be able to, or inclined to, purchase expensive private policies that duplicate coverage they’re already guaranteed. Moreover, private insurance would likely look quite different, if it still existed, Bruenig notes. Whether El-Sayed’s plan would formally allow private insurance is not really the issue — but his position that he doesn’t want to take anything away must make the idea go down easier for the skeptics.
El-Sayed has garnered a lot of attention for confidently characterizing Israel’s treatment of Gazans as a “genocide” and opposing unconditional aid to Israel. But the bulk of his foreign policy messaging during town halls and press interviews hasn’t focused on Israel. In those contexts, he has more generally called out militarism and argued that the U.S. should focus on spending at home.
El-Sayed arrives to speak to attendees at a Get Out the Vote Rally hosted by the Northern Midwest Regional Council of Carpenters and the Michigan Democratic Party in Detroit on Oct. 18, 2026.Quinn Banks for MS NOW
The remark he made in Caro — “Shouldn’t be this hard to pay your taxes and know that that money’s going to be spent on you and your kids instead of dropping bombs on somebody else and their kids” — has cross-partisan appeal. With it, El-Sayed simultaneously connected foreign policy adventurism to depleted social services at home; issued a moral judgment by directing attention to the killing of innocents; and, because he didn’t name any countries, he condemned the U.S. backing Israel and the U.S. war with Iran simultaneously. There was something there for war-averse people across the political spectrum. That framing seemed to resonate with many voters I spoke to, some of whom approved of his position on Iran or Gaza, while many others said they approved of how El-Sayed’s foreign policy “put Michigan first.”
I asked El-Sayed if he wanted to be associated with an America First position, or if he would say other values inform his foreign policy worldview. “I definitely am America first,” El-Sayed said. “But my real value is I believe in international law, and I believe we need to be the first among equals to enforce international law.”
That poses some vexing questions and contradictions. Enforcing international law would seem to cut against the idea of focusing exclusively on American affairs. And he insisted on a “responsibility to support Ukraine.” That’s not what MAGA America First advocates want. But this part of El-Sayed’s worldview doesn’t feature in his messaging and doesn’t seem to be trickling through as much to voters, based on my conversations.
When crime came up at the town halls, El-Sayed positioned himself as an advocate for both the status quo and reform. Like socialist New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, El-Sayed has flipped on his previous support of “defund the police.” At Bay City, a voter asked about criminal justice reform in light of an unsolved murder of her peers. El-sayed emphasized “everybody should get to come home safely” — community members and police — and he spoke about funding the police in order to protect “recruitment, retention, and retirement.” He added that there should also be investment in community violence intervention and mental health response services. In other words: Fund the police and alternatives to policing.
When I asked if he took issue with “defund the police” as rhetoric or policy, he said, “It was a dumb idea and dumb rhetoric.”
While some proponents of criminal justice reform on the progressive left will take issue with El-Sayed’s turn to full-throated support for policing, his additive approach to reform has the potential to appeal to progressives and nonprogressives alike.
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Nine-year-old Zelda Cornish from Holly, Michigan, asks El-Sayed and U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley a question during a campaign event on Oct. 18, 2026.Quinn Banks for MS NOW
Will all of this come together for a winning ticket? El-Sayed’s calibration of progressive politics to the Rust Belt seem to be resonating enough with voters that he’s been able to maintain a lead, but his lead is narrower than the Democratic gubernatorial candidate’s lead over her Republican opponent in this state. He is massively outraising his opponent, but Rogers is a former seven-term U.S. representative with Trump’s backing and significant name recognition. El-Sayed has labored to make his campaign appealing to people across the political spectrum, but that doesn’t mean that they will overlook his party affiliation or discard racial prejudice. He could easily lose.
The Democratic base is not entirely a lock for him. El-Sayed was weak with Black voters in the primary, and whether they will turn out in large numbers for him is an open question that could decide the race. Tensions between the Arab and Black community in Michigan have been cited by strategists and reporters as an issue for El-Sayed. But the main issue may have less to do with race than with ideology. “A lot of his issues with Black voters are not necessarily specific to Black voters,” Grossmann, the Michigan State political scientist, told me. “Within the Democratic Party, Black voters are actually more likely to identify as moderate or conservative, and more likely to be skeptical of the Bernie wing of the party.”
The stakes of this race are exceptionally high. The outcome will not only be crucial in determining who controls the Senate, but will also shape conversations about 2028. According to a recording obtained by The New York Times, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, D-N.Y., who is considering a presidential run, said at a New York fundraiser in October that El-Sayed is part of a “generational project” for the progressive movement that could help “break the map.” She added, “If Abdul can win in Michigan, anybody can win anywhere.”
Undoubtedly, the outcome of El-Sayed’s race will be used to make the case that a democratic socialist like Ocasio-Cortez has a real chance at winning the White House — or shatter the argument. But a major confounding variable in this contest is that El-Sayed faces unique obstacles due to his identity.
Given that polls in Michigan detect real bias against Muslims and that Trump has won the state twice, I asked El-Sayed whether running as a progressive Muslim in an environment of rampant Islamophobia was asking too much. Had he been tempted to move toward the center?
“I don’t lie to people,” he said. “I tell them what I believe. I’m not willing to check my ideals at the door because of my identity. That’s what people hate about politics. I am who I am. I’ll tell you what I believe. If you agree with me, vote for me.”
He added, “Even if they might never want to vote for me because of my name, maybe by the end of my public service, they’ll think a little bit differently about what America is. Because America’s always been a place where people come together despite our differences to build together what we can’t alone. I believe in that.”
Marla Martian, front-left, of Schwartz Creek, Michigan, shouts along with El-Sayed on Oct. 18, 2026, at a campaign event in Flint, Mich.
Left: An attendee listens to United States Representative Ayanna Pressley. Right: El-Sayed speaks to community members and supporters.
El-Sayed shakes hands with Zelda Cornish from Holly, MI, on Oct. 18, 2026.
El-Sayed receives a wristband from American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees members.
El-Sayed arrives to speak to attendees at a Get Out the Vote (GOTV) Rally hosted by the Northern Midwest Regional Council of Carpenters and the Michigan Democratic Party in Detroit, on Oct. 18, 2026.
9-year-old Zelda Cornish from Holly, Michigan, asks El-Sayed and United States Representative Ayanna Pressley a question during a campaign event on Oct. 18, 2026.
At a recent town hall in Detroit, Vice President JD Vance faced a question that went to the heart of the Catholic faith he says guides him: How can he reconcile the treatment of families by Immigration and Customs Enforcement with the Gospel?
Sister Nancy Sylvester of the Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, described her group’s work at the southern border and the trauma children endure when they come home to find their parents gone. Then she asked Vance how he could justify ICE officers’ conduct “in terms of the kind of values we want to live by.”
Vance praised ICE agents as patriots. He offered only a passing acknowledgment that officers who “screw up” should be investigated and prosecuted, without grappling with the Americans killed by ICE agents or the detainees who have died in ICE custody.
The town hall drew more attention for the way in which Vance stumbled over questions about Trump’s corruption and the deaths of service members in the war in Iran. But his answer to Sister Sylvester was especially revealing: When the administration’s actions collide with the Catholic teachings he frequently invokes, Vance is willing to set those teachings aside.
As a former seminarian, I found the gap between her question and his answer deeply troubling.
As an American and as a former seminarian, I found the gap between her question and his answer deeply troubling.
First of all, Vance has frequently centered his Catholic faith throughout his political career. Just this year, he published his second memoir, “Communion,” detailing his conversion to Catholicism and how it informs his worldview. And yet earlier this year, when Trump was inexplicably feuding with the first American pope, the vice president had the gall to say that “it would be best for the Vatican to stick to matters of morality,” and “let the president of the United States stick to dictating American public policy.”
That’s despite this administration repeatedly presenting matters of faith and matters of government as irrevocably entwined. Just months earlier, Vance lamented the Supreme Court upholding the separation of church and state, saying at a Turning Point USA event, “I think it was a terrible mistake, and we’re still paying for the consequences of it today.”
For all its bluster about protecting religious freedom, this administration has actually targeted faithful servants like Sister Sylvester. The haste of this White House to extrajudicially purge the country of undocumented immigrants has put it in direct confrontation with people of faith.
Which brings to mind another book Vance should have spent a bit more time with. In Matthew 25, Jesus says that on Judgment Day, those who welcomed the stranger will be welcomed into the kingdom of God. He identifies Himself with people who need food, shelter, care and companionship. Our response to their vulnerability becomes a measure of our response to Him.
Last year in Chicago, Catholic groups sued the administration for the right to minister to detainees at a Broadview ICE facility. In New Jersey, elderly Catholic nuns have organized protests outside of Delaney Hall against the deaths of ICE detainees. Nuns have also been protesting in Vance’s home state of Ohio, as Haitian immigrants repeatedly dehumanized by this White House see their legal status ripped away.
These protests are so widespread because the Catholic Church is unequivocal in its teachings about hospitality for the immigrant, charity for the poor and embrace of the stranger.
Trump’s immigration actions have put the administration in direct conflict with people of faith who take these teachings seriously. In some cases, it has even suppressed their ability to worship.
Human dignity does not depend on citizenship. A person’s immigration status can determine whether that person has a legal right to remain in this country. It cannot determine whether that person deserves to be treated with compassion.
Compassion is not separate from Catholic teaching; it is a demand of it. Church leaders have made that clear in response to the raids.
Last year, the Diocese of San Bernardino lifted the obligation to attend mass after immigration agents carried out detentions on two of its properties, noting that Trump’s thugs were “seizing brothers and sisters indiscriminately, without respect for their right to due process and their dignity as children of God.”
Just months later, U.S. Catholic bishops blasted the Trump White House after its raids completely upended church life, “destabilizing the life of the particular immigrant, but whole families, businesses, the life of children, whole communities, neighborhoods.”
Just a matter of months ago, immigration agents arrested a Nigerian nun in McAllen, Texas, as she was walking to Mass in her habit. They took her rosary and detained and imprisoned her.
Vance’s response to Sister Sylvester was especially galling when he added the comment about an obligation to prosecute agents who abuse their position.
The Trump administration didn’t just refuse to pursue federal charges against agents who killed Americans like Renee Good and Alex Pretti. They actively rejected calls to do so, betraying the small-government principles of conservatism for 30 pieces of silver to say that masked federal agents can kill Americans with no recourse.
And once again, the administration’s actions defied the ways Vance said his faith informed his worldview. Months before Vance found himself defending the extrajudicial killing of Americans in the streets by their own government, he said, “You can’t just have compassion for the criminal. You also have to have justice, too. Which is why I think that a properly rooted Christian moral order is such an important part of the future of our country.”
There is an uncomfortable demand here for anyone in politics. The person whose suffering complicates your preferred policy remains a person to whom you owe a moral duty. Winning an election does not relieve you of it. Neither does inheriting a broken immigration system.
Catholic teaching recognizes the legitimate responsibilities of government. Paragraph 2241 of the Catechism allows nations to regulate immigration for the common good and recognizes immigrants’ obligations to obey the laws of their receiving country. It also obliges prosperous nations, within their capacity, to welcome people seeking safety and a livelihood unavailable at home. Those responsibilities belong together.
The same teaching requires public authorities to respect fundamental human rights and administer justice humanely, with particular concern for families and the disadvantaged. A government’s authority to enforce the law therefore carries moral limits on how it does so.
There is no reconciliation between the Trump administration’s wanton targeting of immigrants and thousands of years of Catholic teachings. Vance knows this. Vance’s conscience is his own. But his exercise of public power is subject to public scrutiny. As a fellow Catholic, I expect him to explain how the policies he supports honor the dignity his church teaches that every person possesses. Perhaps then he may be able to answer Sister Sylvester’s question.
For more thought-provoking insights from Michael Steele, Symone Sanders Townsend and Luke Russert, watch“The Weeknight”every Monday to Friday at 7 p.m. ET on MS NOW.
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