Piers Morgan Uncensored w/ El-Sayed vs Haley Stevens – Midterms Debate from DC with Mehdi Hasan & Cenk Uygur (Transcript)

He has denied that. So, Cenk, my first question to you is, did you seek any approval from Abdul El-Sayed for this ad before you put it out?

CENK UYGUR: No. I didn’t. And it’s an interesting question, Piers, because all of the media seems to assume that all the other PACs are coordinating, which is illegal. You can tell with us. We’re honest. We didn’t coordinate at all, and that’s what you’re supposed to do if you’re doing it right.

PIERS MORGAN: Abdul El-Sayed has made it clear he doesn’t agree with the ad. It doesn’t stand for him. It’s not something he’s been involved in putting out. You’ve just said that he didn’t approve it in advance. But since you started airing it, have you heard from him or his campaign with any effort by them to try and get you to withdraw it?

CENK UYGUR: Yeah. Again, you can’t coordinate. So, no, we haven’t heard from his campaign, and I have heard from other PACs. We could talk more about that after the election is over. And do I care what other PACs think? No. If I cared what they thought, I’d contribute to them instead of creating my own PAC. Rebellion PAC is for the strong, for people who’d like to go on the offense and stay there.

So if you like that ad, rebellionpac.org, we’re going to make a lot more of those in the presidential campaign, and we’re not going to pull any punches. That ad resonated through the roof, Piers. It… We… Another PAC tested it. It moved voters, undecided voters to Abdul El-Sayed and certain demographics that we care the most about by double digits, the best ad of the political season.

So the people on TV are nuts. The American people love that ad, and it absolutely shows in the numbers, and it shows everywhere you go. But the people on TV love Israel so much that they’re like, “Oh my god. They criticize Israel. Let’s lie about it.”

And that’s interesting too, Piers, by the way. Cable news, every single one of them has lied about how it’s antisemitic when it doesn’t mention Jews, has nothing to do with Jewish people at all. Yet they won’t let me come on or Kara Eastman from Rebellion PAC or anyone to actually defend the ad. So the cable news is revealed. This is one of the four giant wins from this ad, which is that cable news has revealed themselves. They’re not left or right. They’re just pro-Israel. So… And they’ll lie…

PIERS MORGAN: Okay. Well, you’re on.

CENK UYGUR: …for Israel no matter what.

PIERS MORGAN: Okay.

CENK UYGUR: But Van Jones is a huge liar, and Dana Bash is a huge liar, Jake Tapper, who’s a huge liar, but we can keep going.

PIERS MORGAN: Well, look. I’ve got you on my show as I always do. We are Uncensored. I don’t play those kind of games and deplatforming people, as you know. But outside, he’s distanced himself from this. He’s disavowed himself and the campaign from this ad. Why do you think he’s done that if it’s such a great ad?

CENK UYGUR: Yeah. It’s because he knows that the disingenuous people in mainstream media are going to use it to attack him, and the Democrats who actually work for Israel used it to attack him. And so you had Elissa Slotkin and Josh Gottheimer and Debbie Wasserman Schultz, all the usual suspects come out there and go, “Oh my god. We’re so concerned about the ad.” Why would you even be concerned? It had nothing to do with them. If you’re concerned about Rebellion PAC, take it up with us.

This whole denounce game, the American people are onto it, yet the fools on cable news continue. “Do you denounce? Do you denounce? Do you disavow?” Who cares? Why didn’t they… Look. I can prove it definitively. Mike Rogers has been backed by the Israeli lobby. Israel has murdered 75,000 Palestinians, 22,000 children, and not a single person in cable news has asked Mike Rogers to disavow Israel. In fact, Mike Rogers proudly said that he will serve Israel unconditionally.

That is insane. Yet no one in cable news thinks that’s remarkable. They apparently think all of our politicians should serve Israel unconditionally. Furthermore, I’ve asked Mike Rogers. I haven’t seen any other reporter ask him, will you also support the voters of Michigan unconditionally, or are you prioritizing Israel over your own voters? That’s a super fair question because he’s never said that he would serve Michigan unconditionally, only Israel. So this is an Alice in Wonderland, Kafkaesque world where everyone in television news, etcetera, disagrees.

By the way, this is important. I think Abdul played it perfectly. So he first disavowed Haley Stevens, and that showed strength, and it toppled that domino over. And she revealed who she really is, an agent of AIPAC and self-immolated on live national television. We appreciate her for that. Then he came out and disavowed the ad. At that point, I could care less. And this isn’t about me. This isn’t about my ego. I’ve been thrown under the bus by almost every part of the political spectrum, and I couldn’t care less.

I’m here to fight for the American people, and clearly the right choice there unequivocally is Abdul El-Sayed. The other guy won’t even… Says he won’t even serve our country. He’ll serve another country. This is a no brainer. That’s why, by the way, after the ad came out, what happened to Abdul’s numbers? The numbers went up, not down. There is objective reality. People said that the numbers would go down, and they were totally wrong.

“Would You Regret It?”

PIERS MORGAN: Okay. Well, what I would say about that is it’s a bit early to assess because, of course, Haley Stevens, the reason that she has gone the way she’s gone, she is saying, is as a direct consequence of the ad, Abdul El-Sayed’s refusal to condemn it, and so on. That precipitated, in her eyes, a chain of events, which I’m pretty spurious about, frankly, but she says that seems to be what she’s telling people. And that led to her, in the end, supporting Mike Rogers, which was a dramatic sort of very late, early November surprise.

But if it turns out, Cenk, that in the end, Abdul El-Sayed comes up short, that he doesn’t win in Michigan, would you accept that politically this ad, which he’s disavowed publicly now, damaged him rather than helped him? And if that is the case, would you regret it?

CENK UYGUR: So let’s talk about both sides of it, Piers. So if it turns out that it hurt Abdul, but not just, hey, he lost, and I want to knock on wood somewhere here. I hope to god that doesn’t come close to happening, and I don’t think it will. And they test the ad again, and it turns out that it did not do well, then I am a person who believes in empirical objective reality. If it tested poorly, which I already know that it didn’t, it tested through the roof. Right? But if they do it again and somehow it comes out poorly and then it affected him and that hurt him, well, of course, I would admit that because I’m an honest person.

Now let me reverse it. If it turns out that the numbers hold as they are now, that his numbers rose since the ad and that we are correct that the ad tested through the roof and it helped them win, will anyone then turn around and say, “Hey. We’re so sorry. It turns out that ad was terrific as a lot of people online and then almost the entire online community agrees it was. We apologize for saying it was offensive.”

The voters of Michigan agreed with it. 54% of them agree with the ad. Do not want to give Israel another dollar. 61% of independents in Michigan don’t want to give it another dollar. Piers, are you going to ask people if they’re sorry for criticizing an ad that turned out to be spectacularly effective? My guess is… And not with you, Piers. Person I would put people news. They’ll continue to lie about it is my guess because that’s what they always do. You know that people can’t wait to blame me, but there’s no way in the world anybody’s going to give me credit.

Is Israel to Blame for Michigan’s Cost of Living?

PIERS MORGAN: Okay. Let me just be straight with you from what I think about this. So I watched the ad. I was aware, obviously, pretty quickly that it was something you had used yourself in your own campaign several years ago. But when I watched it, I just thought, “Come off it, Cenk.”

The idea that cost of living increases that people in Michigan have experienced in the last year in particular, they’re down to the Iran war, to the freezing of energy through the Strait of Hormuz, through energy prices, gas prices rocketing. That is what’s had the main effect on prices in Michigan for ordinary people in Michigan. So the idea that somehow, because of your ad, we’re supposed to all buy into this concept that it’s because of America’s funding of Israel, I felt was just materially untrue. That is not why people in Michigan are paying more prices at the pump. And so there was a disingenuous aspect to it.

And look, you’ve been on my show many, many times. I love having you on. You’re always a great guest. But you are driven through the prism of a very, very strong anti-Israel view, and you’re perfectly entitled to it. But people are looking at this game. “Well, this is just Cenk doing what he always does, blaming Israel for absolutely everything, including cost of living rising in Michigan, when everybody knows the main driver of that is the Iran war.”

CENK UYGUR: So, Piers, I love this conversation, and I love that you just admitted that I’m right. So who started the Iran war? We know for a fact it was Israel. Marco Rubio admitted it was Israel. The New York Times admitted it was Israel. Everybody knows that this is Israel’s war. As I’ve said on your program many times, by the way, look at your own comment section. Almost everyone agrees with me. We have no US interest in this war at all, not one.

Whereas Israel has all the interest in the world, and they want to… They declared on tape after the war started, “We’re so glad this war started, and we’re going to now be a regional superpower.” Why is it our business to make Israel a regional superpower? We’ve already wasted $8 trillion on Israel’s wars, and they demand more and more wars every time. And no matter if you get a Democrat or Republican elected, they all serve Israel and start Israel’s wars for them. And now you tell me that that’s not relevant? That’s the most relevant thing there is.

Why are gas prices higher? Because of Israel’s war. Do we have to put aside $161 per taxpayer to pay for Israel’s genocide on top of the war we’re paying? Yes. Everything in the ad is empirically correct. And by the way, we didn’t say that they’re causing the price of eggs and bananas to go up. Look at the ad. It says gas prices are higher because of Israel’s war, that Mike Rogers is, by the way, supported for twenty straight years using the same exact talking points as Netanyahu who’s been trying to drive us into this disastrous war for Israel.

He got $9 million from the Israeli lobby, and Piers, that had nothing to do with Jewish people. 63% of Jewish Americans agree with us. They’re against the current Netanyahu government of Israel, and it has to do with Israel. And we have given them all that money, and we have started all those wars. It did increase gas prices. The ad is 100% true, and that’s why it bothers the establishment because somebody caught them representing a different country.

So I’m super glad that it was Rebellion PAC that caught them, and that’s why it’s called a rebellion because we need a rebellion to bring our country back. Believe in America, vote for American senators, not Israeli senators.

“This Ad Created Four Wins”

PIERS MORGAN: Okay. Final question. Have you heard from Abdul El-Sayed since this ad began airing?

CENK UYGUR: No. I did… I have not heard from him. I have not talked to him. And look. This ad created four wins, and some of them are related to Abdul, but others are outside of and bigger than Abdul. So number one, as I’ve said now many times, and you’ll see it after the election, it tests through the roof, so it helped Abdul, and I’m super proud of that.

Number two, it exposed every Israeli shill in media and politics. Everyone calling it antisemitic clearly is lying about it, and it’s weird that they’re lying about it. Obviously, doing it on behalf of Israel. Number three, it caused Haley Stevens to destroy her own career. I love it. Super proud of it.

And number four, look at what we’re doing, Piers. We’re finally talking about the issue that most Americans care the most about, but cable news will not cover because of their religious devotion to Israel. I don’t mean religious literally. Because it definitely doesn’t have to do with religion. It has to do with a toxic ideology called Zionism. And the American people are asking now, and that’s why Abdul has a huge lead. “Wait. Why are we paying for Israel to get 2,000 pound bombs?” Why do we cost somebody after them? They will ask for another 3 billion.

PIERS MORGAN: But Cenk…

CENK UYGUR: And they… How many times are we going to pay Israel? How many genocides and how many wars are we going to do for Israel? And the American people, both the Republicans and the Democrats and the independents all agree with us. So sad day for all the Israeli supporters. We’re going to win because we’re fighting for America.

PIERS MORGAN: The problem… Okay. The problem is that Abdul El-Sayed has spent most of his campaign fighting the charge that he is in any way antisemitic, and people have been dragging up his connections to relatives. He said antisemitic things and so on. I would imagine, I’ve not spoken to him, but the last thing he would want out there is an ad of the kind that you put out there because it fuels the fire that he is somebody who’s not just anti-Israel, but he’s antisemitic, and that’s what this ad is really about.

I don’t think you are antisemitic. I’ve had this conversation with you before, but it fuels the fire from his critics to look at it and say, “Well, this ad is exactly what we’re talking about. This guy blames Israel for everything.” Now we will find out in the next couple of days whether your ad helped him or didn’t help him, but it certainly set off a chain of events which led to Haley Stevens going to Mike Rogers and endorsing him, which was a dramatic, I think, pretty charlatan like thing to do.

But if it turns out that that tips things against Abdul El-Sayed, you could say that, actually, it all comes back to this ad and the damage… Because of the consequences it caused. However, if Abdul El-Sayed wins by a landslide in Michigan, as many of the polls are suggesting he might, then you could say the opposite. So we will find out, and we’ll get you back on, Cenk, to discuss it when we do. But I appreciate you coming on Uncensored. Thank you very much.

CENK UYGUR: Thank you. Rebellionpac.org, and Young Turks will see you election night with a lot of AIPAC Tears mugs. Let’s go. Let’s free America.

PIERS MORGAN: Okay. Thank… Cenk. Thanks very much.

Mehdi Hasan on the Ad and the Haley Stevens Controversy

PIERS MORGAN: Mehdi Hasan, we’re listening to all that. I hear Cenk’s arguments. I do think he’s very one track. Every time he comes on my show, everything is immediately Israel, whatever the debate is. It doesn’t matter. It can be literally the price of lemons, and he’ll find a way of bringing Israel into it because he hates the Israeli government so much. Do you think this ad was a smart thing to put out?

MEHDI HASAN: I don’t know the answer to that question. I think you summed up very well there. We will see tomorrow night what happens. Clearly, it’s damaged him with some voters in Michigan, but as Cenk points out, it’s helped him with other voters who do agree with the ad.

I think the attacks on the ad have been absurd. Let’s just put this in context. Cenk’s ad, I don’t believe even ran on Michigan television. This was ginned up as a fake controversy by Haley Stevens, the charlatan as you just described her, as an excuse for her doing what she was going to do anyways. This idea that she joined Mike Rogers because of an ad that Abdul El-Sayed had nothing to do with is insane.

By the way, as a lot of Jewish Democrats have pointed out over the last forty eight hours, okay. You don’t like Abdul El-Sayed? Stay at home. Don’t vote. But why would you endorse Mike Rogers who’s running in basically what it looks like these days a white supremacist party?

You get very upset with me when I make Nazi comparisons to Donald Trump. Have you been following this campaign, Piers? He’s calling Abdul El-Sayed a jihadist, a terrorist. He says there’ll be metal detectors in Congress if Abdul is elected. That’s the kind of racist thing he’s saying about a Muslim candidate. Trump has referred to Shylock bankers recently. He said Jews who vote for El-Sayed are dumb. They need their heads… The insults that have gone against Jews, Muslims, black people.

Did you see the Secretary of Agriculture’s Halloween post on Saturday? It was “SNAP fraudster” with a picture of a black man. I mean, this is old school white supremacist stuff. They’re desperate. They’re losing. The economy’s bad, so they go immediately to racism, Islamophobia. And that’s why this ad is such a red herring. This was always about Haley Stevens making an insane decision to jump ship.

PIERS MORGAN: Should Cenk have put it out?

MEHDI HASAN: It’s an old ad. He did it for his own campaign. I mean, let Cenk answer those questions. I’m not going to tell Cenk.

PIERS MORGAN: Yeah. But if put out, Cenk does his stuff. But if his motivation was to help Abdul El-Sayed.

MEHDI HASAN: He is.

PIERS MORGAN: Yeah. But I’m not sure.

MEHDI HASAN: And by the way, Harry Enten, who’s a star at CNN has said, you know what? The Israel ad may end up helping Abdul El-Sayed in the end. Because people in this city here in DC, Piers, people in our industry are in a bubble. They do not recognize just how unpopular Israel is, just how fed up people are with endless wars in the Middle East at Israel’s behest. And a lot of people do agree. They do make the connection, which you failed to make in your interview, which is, yes, the war in Iran drove up prices. Who started the war in Iran?

PIERS MORGAN: I mean, if I’d done the ad, and I wouldn’t have done that ad, I would have mentioned Iran specifically. That’s maybe one thing Cenk could have done to make his case stronger, which is, as you say, the reason prices are going up is because of the war in Iran, not because of Gaza, but because of the war in Iran.

MEHDI HASAN: And the war in Iran was launched by Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump.

PIERS MORGAN: Yes.

MEHDI HASAN: And that’s the original sin. That’s what’s going to cost them.

PIERS MORGAN: I wouldn’t describe it as Israel’s war because in the end, the American commander in chief makes the call to commit American troops.

MEHDI HASAN: You and I agree. I would never give Donald Trump a pass on Iran. Netanyahu tried to get every president he’s ever dealt with to hit Iran. Bill Clinton to do it. Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and he got Donald Trump to do it. Now I’m not excusing agency from Donald Trump. But at the same time, let’s not be under any illusions. The State Department website says right now that we went to war… The United States went to war for Israel. That’s what it says effectively on their own website.

PIERS MORGAN: The Haley Stevens thing is… I mean, I watched it. There’s absolutely…

MEHDI HASAN: Same thing.

PIERS MORGAN: Car crash interview on CNN last night, where she made zero sense, couldn’t answer basic questions.

MEHDI HASAN: She’s a liar. Three days ago, she was saying, “I’m endorsing Abdul.”

PIERS MORGAN: Three days ago?

MEHDI HASAN: On Sunday morning, apparently, she texted Congresswoman Debbie Dingell with a love emoji saying, “I’m still on board. I’m with the Democrats.”

PIERS MORGAN: What do you think has happened? There are so many theories going around.

MEHDI HASAN: I don’t know. Was this always her plan to do this? That would be the argument amongst many pro-Palestinian people who say, look, AIPAC funded her attack ads on Abdul El-Sayed. She benefited from an AIPAC campaign, and this was always about screwing him over, rat-f***ing him. That’s what she’s done.

Other people would say this is really weird because she was talking to fellow Democrats in the House. She’s a House Democrat saying, “I’m still on board” on Saturday. Jamie Raskin, Debbie Dingell, they all got calls and texts. On Saturday, spoke to Charlotte Clymer, the trans activist, saying, “I’m still on board.” So what on earth happened overnight?

There’s a famous line from her. Right? “Israel comes to me in my dreams.” Did Israel come to her in her dreams on Saturday night? Because what on earth happened on Sunday morning? There’s the role of her fiancé, this guy, Jason Turkish, who… Forget me. Her own former campaign staffers are saying, once he got involved, she changed. He became a toxic presence in the campaign.

PIERS MORGAN: He already had announced… He’d been doing his own media appearance. He announced a week ago that he was backing Mike Rogers. And he was saying he thought she may do this.

MEHDI HASAN: Yes. And she was saying, “No. I’m not.” And in fact, she got really upset and her supporters said, “Don’t be sexist. Just because her fiancé is doing it doesn’t mean she’s going to do it,” and then she did do it. He went on Fox. He went on TMZ. He’s a Democrat donor but has also donated to Republicans. Again, these people are one issue people.

Isn’t it greatly ironic, Piers? You mentioned Cenk is obsessed with Israel. This is the attack that people make on Abdul El-Sayed. Why is he obsessed with Israel? Mike Rogers runs ads saying he’s going to be the senator for Palestine. It’s not Abdul El-Sayed is obsessed with Israel. If you watch his interviews, he talks about Medicare for All, price of living, money out of politics. You know the people who are obsessed with Israel? His opponents. Haley Stevens just torched her entire political career she’s done in the Democratic Party for one issue, for Israel. That’s absurd.

Can the Polls Be Trusted?

PIERS MORGAN: What do you think is going to happen tomorrow night? And I caveat you by saying that the one thing I’ve learned with anything involving Donald Trump…

MEHDI HASAN: Yes.

PIERS MORGAN: And pollsters…

MEHDI HASAN: Yes.

PIERS MORGAN: Is you can’t really believe anything or take it at face value because they’re so often wrong. I remember in 2016, I was one of the very few people saying, “I think Trump’s going to win.” Everyone assumed because the pollsters were saying it, it would be a landslide win for Hillary Clinton. And we saw the same thing happen again and again with Trump. Can we say with any certainty what we think is going to happen tomorrow?

MEHDI HASAN: Not really. No. I don’t think so.

PIERS MORGAN: I mean, look. What’s your gut feeling?

MEHDI HASAN: The gut feeling is that the House was always going to go. The House of Representatives were much easier win. People forget this. If you go back to January, February, I had a look at the headlines from January, February 2025. The consensus in this town then was the Democrats can win the House. They can’t win the Senate. The map is so bad. They’re defending seats. There’s not enough Republican target seats. They can’t get the Senate.

Now, of course, the House is seen as a lot of guarantee, and the Senate, are they going to get 51, 52, 53? They need four seats to flip the Senate. And, really, they need 52 because John Fetterman, their Pennsylvania senator, is so unreliable. They might get it. I mean, you’ve got Republicans spending money in places like Kansas and Iowa, places where there haven’t been Democratic senators for decades. So Republicans are on the defensive.

Donald Trump is super unpopular. It’s all about the war on Iran. Iran, Iran, Iran. Everything goes back to he lied about not going to war, and then the war drove up prices. He said he was going to end inflation on day one. So it could be a complete tsunami for the Democrats. But as you say, the polls have got things wrong before.

In the primaries, the polls showed Abdul El-Sayed winning a landslide over Haley Stevens. He won by, what, less than a percentage point. It showed Francesca Hong in Wisconsin winning the Democratic primary. She lost badly. So I’ve been scarred by polls. And in 2016, I got Brexit wrong. I got Trump wrong. I stopped doing predictions after that.

PIERS MORGAN: I mean, if Trump and the Republicans were to hold the Senate, I would see that for them as a major win given all the mood music. Do you agree?

MEHDI HASAN: I agree. If they hold on now to the Senate… Even though, as I say, a year and a half ago, Democrats weren’t even supposed to be winning the Senate. But, yes, given where the polls are, given how unpopular Trump is, given the chaos in this city, given the strong candidates the Democrats are running, James Talarico in Texas, Roy Cooper in North Carolina, strong people. It’ll be very interesting to see if they don’t win that.

But if they do win both houses…

PIERS MORGAN: Chambers.

MEHDI HASAN: Then you’re looking at proper lame duck Trump. You’re looking at a second term president in his last two years facing an emboldened Democratic Party with lots of progressive voices like Abdul El-Sayed in them controlling both houses. You’re looking at potential impeachment. You’re looking at investigations into Elon Musk and Jared Kushner and all of those folks. It’ll be very difficult for Donald Trump to do anything domestically. He may ramp up in Iran because very hard to control a US President abroad, but at home, he will be limited.

PIERS MORGAN: You’re going to be in Michigan tomorrow, where it’s all going to go down with Abdul El-Sayed. It can be a fascinating night. You’re going to join us in our four hour live special of Uncensored.

MEHDI HASAN: Yep.

PIERS MORGAN: It’s going to be a hell of a night.

MEHDI HASAN: It will be a hell of a night, and the whole world is watching Michigan because this race has become such a fascinating prism. It’s not just about Israel. It’s not just about big money. It’s not just about a Muslim… First ever Muslim senator. As you say, we’ve now got this crazy soap opera drama with Haley Stevens and her fiancé. The whole thing is insane. You got Cenk Uygur’s ad determining national politics. The whole world is watching. It could affect the Iran war. There’s a lot of fallout from just this one state, let alone all the other states for their election.

The Iran War and the Midterms

PIERS MORGAN: Well, as Mehdi says, the Iran war is looming large over tomorrow’s elections. The cost of living and rising energy costs are key factors influencing votes, and there is fevered speculation about what is going to happen next, including this morning, an astonishing claim by Tucker Carlson that nuking Iran may now be on the table.

But joining me now in the studio, Glenn Greenwald, host of System Update; Joel Rubin, the former US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State; and John Kiriakou, former CIA whistleblower, of course, and author of the new book “Remains of the Day.” Well, a stellar panel and a stellar backdrop, I think we can all agree, and quite stellar weather, actually, from Washington DC in November. So we are blessed.

Glenn Greenwald, I feel if the Republicans lose the House and the Senate, it can probably be charted back to the end of February and the decision by Donald Trump to go into war in Iran with Israel. Would you agree?

GLENN GREENWALD: Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, that’s certainly… I think there are many factors. I would say that was the principal one. And it’s just so interesting because the last time the Republicans got slaughtered in a midterm election on this level that they’re likely to get crushed, it was in 2006 where the primary cause back then was the war in Iraq. And Donald Trump, I think, knew that better than anybody, which is why he campaigned for so long, and he promised not to involve himself in these kind of wars. And yet, here we are back in the middle of one, and I think the political consequences will be quite similar as well.

PIERS MORGAN: I mean, I thought it was a bad idea at the time, mainly because Donald Trump had campaigned so vociferously in the 2024 election on not taking America into pointless, expensive overseas wars…

GLENN GREENWALD: Yeah.

PIERS MORGAN: Especially in the Middle East.

GLENN GREENWALD: Right.

PIERS MORGAN: And he said, “What I want to focus on is America First, getting the cost of living down, getting inflation down, and gas prices down.” And in one fell swoop at the end of February, he threw all that up in the air. Why do you think he did it? And do you think right now, a mile away from here, he’s deeply regretting that decision?

JOEL RUBIN: Oh, he must be regretting it. And I was actually serving on Capitol Hill as a staffer at the time during the Iraq war when that wave election happened. I think he’s going to face the voters now after this election and feel the same pressure to stop the war.

I think that he, at the time, got caught up in the emotion of it, got caught up in the fact that the Iranians were slaughtering thousands of people in the streets. He was saying stop it. They didn’t heed. Then, of course, the Israelis took a shot on the Supreme Leader and were effective with their strikes. I think for Trump, though, he has to have buyer’s remorse right now. He’s still getting some pressure to continue to restrike.

And then to your point about what Tucker Carlson’s putting out there, it just feeds the discussion that this war may not be over. But I think Trump is desperate to get out of this war. And Congress, the Democrats, if we do see the Democrats take control of Congress, they’re going to put more pressure on to end the war as well.

Can Congress Stop Trump on Iran?

PIERS MORGAN: Can they stop him? I mean, in that eventuality, say he lost the House and the Senate, which may happen. I mean, I think predicting anything at this stage is kind of all up in the air. I don’t really believe anything I’m being told. But if he was to lose both…

JOEL RUBIN: Yeah.

PIERS MORGAN: What power does Congress have to stop Trump doing what he wants to do with Iran, for example?

JOEL RUBIN: I mean, they could pass a War Powers Resolution essentially rescinding his ability to wage war, but then he would veto that, and that would mean that he could still… Could defund, and he would veto that too. So the big question is going to be, what about Senate Republicans? Because the House will override a veto most likely, but the Senate is really where the decision will be made. And if Republicans stand with him, he’ll have unilateral authority to continue to do what he wants to do.

Tucker Carlson’s Nuclear Strike Claim

PIERS MORGAN: John Kiriakou, this notion that Tucker Carlson’s… It’s not the first time he’s claimed something like this is about to happen. But he says that the administration could be days away, he said he’s heard this on good authority, from using a nuclear weapon against an underground Iranian nuclear facility called Pickaxe Mountain. Apparently, conventional weapons can’t penetrate the site, a nuclear strike might be the only option, and it’s on a scale that might bring this war to an end and achieve Trump’s aspiration as he’s now turned it into, which is to prevent them from having a nuclear capacity. What do you make of all this?

JOHN KIRIAKOU: Well, I’ve heard the same thing from my own contacts at the White House that the president is considering the use of a tactical nuclear weapon against Pickaxe Mountain so that it will penetrate to the point where it will destroy everything that’s underground. But more than that, he wants to break that final taboo. And I’m told that’s the word that he’s using, “the final taboo,” so that future presidents would feel empowered to use a nuclear weapon. I think it’s crazy.

PIERS MORGAN: But he could say that he’s… I mean, my spine is shivering. Why would you want to empower them? I mean, immediately, Vladimir Putin looks at Ukraine.

JOHN KIRIAKOU: Exactly.

PIERS MORGAN: He looks at a strangled battlefield. He thinks, “Oh, great. I can use a tactical nuke. The Americans did it. I can do it now too.” Once you lose that high moral ground about the use of all… Once you use the deterrent fact that has been the reason people have them, once you start saying, well, you can use them, the whole game changes.

JOHN KIRIAKOU: And may I add something too? One of the things that we always seem to forget is that Iran is the size of the whole of Western Europe. It has 92 million people. It’s surrounded by mountains on three sides and water on the fourth. Unless we’re prepared to commit a million ground troops, even a nuclear bomb is not going to win this war. Donald Trump just doesn’t seem to understand. We’ve already lost the war.

The war is over for all intents and purposes, and we’ve lost. Benjamin Netanyahu convinced him that the Iranian government was a house of cards. And as soon as we took out the leadership, the whole thing would collapse on itself, and everybody would live happily ever after. And that was never true. It’s even less true now.

PIERS MORGAN: The other thing, Glenn, I think about this is that we’ve already seen the Iranians waging a… I mean, you have to admire the tactics they’ve been using. When confronted by a far superior military force by America and Israel combined, they’ve waged a deliberate asymmetric war by closing the Strait of Hormuz and by attacking the Gulf States. Now the Gulf States have been seriously damaged economically by this. The whole business model of replacing reliance on oil with tourism and sport and entertainment has literally gone up in smoke.

If there was to be an attack of this magnitude by the United States and Israel, presumably, against Iran, I’m certain the Iranians would respond as they’ve already been threatening to do by massively escalating attacks on the Gulf States. And who the hell knows where that all ends, but not well.

GLENN GREENWALD: I mean, the Iranians have been in power and have been preparing for a war like this for fifty years. And as John just said, they have all kinds of geographical advantages. They’re very serious people. They have a lot of great scientists and military strategists. They’re not Venezuela. They’re not a joke when it comes to these kinds of wars. All of this was easily anticipated.

The thing that alarms me the most, Piers, is that what Trump has been going around saying is, “Look, I know you’re counting on the fact that there’s a midterm election. We’re about to have that. Maybe I’m going to win. Maybe I’m going to lose. Either way, I don’t really care because I don’t have to run again.” And that is clearly a thought that he has in his head that there’s nothing constraining him politically or seemingly in any other way.

That’s one of the problems about having very old leaders is they stop thinking about life on earth and they start thinking about their own legacy and how they want to be remembered in this kind of grave historical mark they want to leave on the world. And I think psychologically that’s the most alarming part is how Trump is being oriented to think. And as you know very well, he’s not exactly a difficult person to manipulate either. We’ve seen that so many times. And if you understand how Trump works, you can kind of guide him in that direction and make him think he’s doing it on his own.

Netanyahu’s Role

PIERS MORGAN: Do you believe what Tucker’s saying that this is all being driven by apparently daily calls from Netanyahu, who faces his own ongoing election crisis now, where should he be outmaneuvered and be removed from office by a coalition against him, then, of course, he’s facing personal corruption charges and a trial, which could lead to him going to prison? So there are huge personal stakes for Netanyahu in doing anything he can to change the mood music around his premiership in Israel.

GLENN GREENWALD: Yeah. And this is something that every Israeli will tell you is that Netanyahu has used war to keep himself in office. He’s hardly the first leader to do so. He also has this kind of legacy concern as well. The project of removing the Iranian government has been his main focus for forty years. He sees this as his last chance to do so. And so the combination of Trump and Netanyahu together is very alarming.

I think what Tucker is trumpeting there is not that a decision is made, but that this is being discussed at the highest levels of the Trump administration. Anybody who has any sources or contacts in the Trump administration knows this is true.

PIERS MORGAN: Joel, I mean, American presidents have all probably considered at some stage, could they use a tactical nuclear weapon to end a series of pretty disastrous wars. Right? Whether it’s Iraq or Afghanistan or with… Somebody painted a good argument that since World War Two, what wars has America actually won? Right? It’s waged a lot of military conflicts of war. So they must have all, at some stage, at least considered the potential of doing this. But I just think it would be utter insanity if Trump was to do it. I’m not convinced he would do it.

JOEL RUBIN: Right.

PIERS MORGAN: I am convinced Netanyahu would do it and would be quite happy if the Americans joined in. Do you think it’s even feasible?

JOEL RUBIN: I’ll tell you. I think what makes me hesitate to say yes from a Trump perspective is that he has consistently, for four plus decades now, been talking about the dangers of nuclear war. Going back to the 1980s, this is not a thing, an issue that he has ignored. It’s been part of his DNA as a thinker on national security. So I find it very implausible that he would launch a nuclear strike because his whole history says the opposite. That doesn’t mean he wouldn’t launch heavy strikes.

But I’ve got to add also in this interesting conversation about Israel right now. The leader of the camp that won the elections recently, Gadi Eisenkot, no dove on Iran, publicly warned Prime Minister Netanyahu and said, “Do not play politics. Do not use our military for your political gains.” So already, the line is being set even inside Israel that Eisenkot, who’s a former chief of staff of the military, and all of his inside allies as well are saying we are not going to support a nuclear strike. So I understand why the argument is being put out there, but I don’t think it’s plausible in this scenario.

A Lame Duck President?

PIERS MORGAN: If Donald Trump gets wiped tomorrow, which could happen, and as I’ve said earlier in the show, if he was to hold the Senate, the Republicans would claim that as a massive victory given all the… The mood music. But my gut is telling me we might be heading to the blue wave people have been talking about, under repudiation, mainly of what’s happened with Iran and the cost of living crisis that’s followed and so on. Where does this leave Trump, do you think?

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: As a lame duck president but with executive powers. He does have executive powers… The most dangerous lame duck president we’ve ever seen.

JOHN KIRIAKOU: You can go ahead and accuse me of being irrationally optimistic here. But I’ve come to the conclusion that, like every president in the final two years of his term, Donald Trump is going to be more concerned than he has been at any point about his legacy. Does he want to be the president that used a nuclear weapon? Does he want to be the president that walked out of the White House on his last day and left America mired in war?

I’m hoping that he cares enough about his legacy that he puts an end to this, that he just brings the ships home and the troops home. He engages even in secret private conversations with the Iranians about protecting our Gulf Arab allies, leaving them out of it. Some kind of an agreement with the Houthis, the Ansar Allah in Yemen. There’s got to be something more than what we’re seeing so far right now. I’m hoping that he’s thinking about that legacy.

What It Means for Ukraine

PIERS MORGAN: And what would the consequences be for Ukraine with the midterm results?

GLENN GREENWALD: Well, that’s what I was actually… Part of what I was thinking, how this all relates to Ukraine. I mean, one of the reasons why you don’t get into wars is because you don’t always get to choose how you get out of them. From the start, NATO said, “Oh, we’re not going to give an inch away of Ukraine to Russia, and we’re taking back Crimea,” and that was never going to happen. The Russians would never have permitted that. So right from the beginning, it was this kind of aimless, endless war guaranteed never to end on those terms.

I don’t think it’ll change much about Ukraine either. The Congress can’t and won’t force Trump in foreign policy. We’ve had this tradition, unfortunately, over the last thirty years where Congress in the area of foreign policy basically doesn’t exist anymore, cedes it all to the president. They’re going to have investigations. They’re going to ask about Jared Kushner, the Trump family, all of which should happen. I just don’t think that even if Americans go to the polls and are angry as you think they are about the war in Iran and the secondary cost or even things going on in Ukraine, it’s going to make the slightest difference if Democrats take over both houses.

PIERS MORGAN: Yeah. I mean, Joel, I actually think it’s just simpler than that. I think it’s the economy, stupid. Right? I think that traditionally, historically, governments around the world get punished when people are feeling the pinch in their pocket. And if that is the driving factor here, they will be blaming the decision to go to war in Iran for the impact, I think, on energy prices and everything that’s come forward. So I do think there’s a direct correlation back to the economy, stupid.

JOEL RUBIN: Yes. It really is. And then gas prices in particular, if Democrats can’t come in with plans on how to address that beyond just saying end the war, I think it’s going to be a big miss. We’re already seeing that Hakeem Jeffries and others are saying they need to have a positive agenda going forward.

But to this question about Ukraine, I do think there is a lot that the Democrats could do, especially if they get both chambers, to try to embarrass, humiliate, and pressure President Trump on Ukraine. Recently, a sanctions bill was passed, the Lindsey Graham sanctions bill. He basically gutted that bill on a Friday night when everybody was out of town and said, “I’m not going to impose sanctions on Russia that you, Congress, wanted.” So there are still tools available to make the argument leading into 2028 about what a real Democratic presidential candidate could stand for, and Ukraine is going to be at the center of that.

Panel Predictions

PIERS MORGAN: Okay. Having condemned pollsters earlier in the show, I’m now going to ask you to all be a pollster. John, what do you think is going to happen tomorrow?

JOHN KIRIAKOU: I went through things state by state by state this morning, and I came out with fifty one forty nine Democrats.

PIERS MORGAN: Right.

JOHN KIRIAKOU: I think that the House is lost to the Republicans. Between the Cook Political Report and Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball, they’re talking about a Democratic pickup of between twelve and twenty five seats. I think it’s probably going to be around 18. But the Senate… The Democrats are going to win the Senate in crazy places like Kansas and Texas.

PIERS MORGAN: What do you think is going to happen?

GLENN GREENWALD: I mean, I am kind of reluctant to predict because of the polling disasters that we’ve seen. And as you know, I live in Brazil where I just heard 85 to 90% that Bolsonaro was going to win the second round, which everybody thought, and then Lula won, so that kind of compounds my uncertainty.

But on an intuitive level, I agree with you. I mean, it seems like 2006, and it’s not the Iran war principally, but people understand that has caused these secondary economic problems. And I just think in general, people understand that the promises Trump made to them are the ones most that he has abandoned. And that was his political strength. I think he’s lost it among white working class voters, people who didn’t go to college. His kind of core base seems to have abandoned him. So I think it’ll be a pretty intense blue wave, even more than 51-49.

PIERS MORGAN: Yeah. Joel?

JOEL RUBIN: Yeah. I think it could be a little higher than that, 53. We’ve seen 10 million more early voters this time than four years ago at the same time in the cycle. The question is, of course, are there more voters out there? But, yes, there are. Democrats have been mobilizing for the last nearly two years on the ground in rallies, No Kings rallies as an example, just getting people engaged in the process. And I think we’re going to continue to see people coming out to vote, and it’s going to be a big wave. Maybe two forty in the House, 52 to 53 in the Senate.

PIERS MORGAN: Wow. That’s going to be an exciting night. Gentlemen, thank you all very much indeed. Appreciate it.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Thank you.

A Brutal Campaign: Isabel Brown and Jon Sopel

PIERS MORGAN: Well, the midterms campaign has been brutal from claims of a jihadist communist alliance to some extremely personal attacks on James Talarico in Texas, not to mention a decoy Dan in Alaska. Joining me to try and make sense of all this, Isabel Brown, host of The Isabel Brown Show, and Jon Sopel, former BBC White House correspondent and the host of The News Agents. Well, welcome to both of you.

ISABEL BROWN: Thank you.

JON SOPEL: Thanks for having me.

PIERS MORGAN: Comment again on the weather. You lived here for eight years. Was November normally like this?

JON SOPEL: No. I had prepared to pack thermals and everything under the sun, thick overcoats, hoods. And then I’ve got here, I looked at the temperature projections, and it’s 21, 23 degrees.

PIERS MORGAN: Absolutely. Amazing. Hope it lasts till tomorrow night. Isabel, make sense of everything because the polls are all pointing the same way now. They’re all saying we’re going to see a big blue wave. It’s just a question of how big. What do you feel?

ISABEL BROWN: Well, make sense of everything is the task I think we all wish we could accomplish in this midterm election. Things have been all over the map, and I think there’s a lot of confusion based on polling data, what we can expect tomorrow, rightfully so. You’re very skeptical of polling data yourself, Piers. I have been the last several election cycles, particularly in the first presidential election I voted in, with a 99% certainty Hillary Clinton would be the President of the United States.

I think it’s going to be a lot closer than most people give it credit for, likely to tip slightly towards the Democrat Party based on everything we’re seeing in some of these very key races in Texas and Michigan and Minnesota, all over the country. But time will tell. Anything is possible in the next forty eight hours.

PIERS MORGAN: If there is a blue wave, then how much is Donald Trump going to bear personal responsibility, do you think?

ISABEL BROWN: I think there’s a lot to be said that younger voters in particular are rightfully frustrated with some of the messaging or lack thereof that’s come out of the Republican Party in the last several months. There’s a lot of disillusionment about ongoing war in the Middle East, again, rightfully so. There’s concerns about economic issues, the cost of affordability, purchasing your own home as a young person, or even just affording rent.

But the solution to that, contrary to what many conservative podcasters are starting to lean toward on the Internet, is, of course, not to vote for the Democrat Party and many of the policies that exacerbate those very same affordability and foreign policy issues that we’ve seen throughout my lifetime.

“A Very Different Picture” From 2016

PIERS MORGAN: Jon, you were here for eight years, did an excellent job covering Washington for the BBC. You saw the Trump phenomenon come through. I remember 2016. I called it for Trump when everyone was saying it was a lock for Hillary because I was down doing crime documentaries in rural Florida and Texas, and I could feel the Trump train steaming away and the anti-Hillary train. It was the combination.

I think people have completely misread this. I would be surprised if I was down there now whether I got the same vibe from rural Florida and Texas, particularly from the farming community and other communities who’ve been really economically battered by the combination of the tariff war with the war in Iran and the knock on effect on energy prices and so on. What do you sense?

JON SOPEL: I sense something similar. I mean, I was at the Javits Center in New York where Hillary Clinton’s victory party was scheduled to take place in November 2016. And I had that deep sense of foreboding going there because I’d seen with my own eyes the extraordinary turnout, kind of excitement at Trump rallies and the utter indifference at Hillary Clinton’s rallies and also that feeling that Hillary Clinton was speaking to a particular section of the population, educated, liberal, kind of urbane, all the rest of it, and that the rest of them were not really there.

And so it didn’t surprise me at all when we saw the first results coming in from Broward County and thinking, “Oh my god. Trump’s going to do it.” And you spool forward to today, and it’s a very different picture, I think. And the affordability thing, which is… Look. There were three things that Trump got elected on in ’24, which was the southern border, and a lot of people are resenting what they’re seeing with ICE. Woke, he’s done very well with that. And the economy.

PIERS MORGAN: And no wars.

JON SOPEL: And no wars. And so you’ve got the combination. The war that he promised he wouldn’t get involved with is actually affecting the US economy profoundly.

PIERS MORGAN: Yes.

JON SOPEL: And the price of gas, the price of groceries have skyrocketed because of this war in Iran, and I think that is going to cost him dear. That doesn’t mean I believe all the polls, though.

Fractures in Both Parties

PIERS MORGAN: No. I mean, it’s very interesting to me that there’s been a real fracturing in both parties. Right? So on the Democrat side, you’ve got the progressive left making a real play, Abdul El-Sayed and Mamdani and the others, AOC. You can see all the oxygen is heading to the progressive left of the Democratic Party.

On the Republican side, you’ve got so many people like Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, Megyn Kelly, Marjorie Taylor Greene. All these people who were big Trumpers in their time, all turning their back on him because they feel he’s betrayed what MAGA was supposed to be.

ISABEL BROWN: I’m a lot more interested in what voters and actual elected officials have to say about all of this than the podcast class. And I think this fracture that you’re seeing on the left…

PIERS MORGAN: But the podcast class… I mean, don’t…

ISABEL BROWN: It’s wildly important. I am a podcaster myself. I speak to them every day. But the point is really to interact with what real people are feeling on the ground outside of this city, which is beautiful and spectacular, but completely out of touch with how most people are living their lives today.

When I look at younger voters feeling disillusioned with the Republican Party today, I think of the Trump effect and what was so appealing about Donald Trump running for president in 2016 and 2020 and, of course, in 2024, why he gained more votes than any president, Republican or Democrat, than any president in history. It’s because he was unafraid to run unabashedly on offense for the things that he believes in.

And you’re now seeing that same energy and momentum put towards certain individuals on the Hill. I think of Brandon Gill, for example, congressman out of Texas, who are embracing that same on offense conservatism. But at the same time, most of the candidates that we’re seeing in this particular election almost seem to be apologizing for their conservative values. They’re saying, “Well, I’m personally pro-life,” but then they’ll put out a pro-abortion ad like Michele Tafoya in Minnesota. We even saw that with Mike Rogers this last weekend in Michigan.

You’re watching Republican members of Congress like María Salazar introduce mass amnesty bills to give 10 million illegal immigrants in America mass amnesty. Ironically at a time where there are 10 million unemployed Gen Z American citizens desperate to look for work here in this country. You’re even watching people like Vivek Ramaswamy say we should have more H-1B visas at a time that most young conservatives across the board are calling for restricted legal immigration, not just mass deportations. So that’s where that disillusionment on the right tends to come from.

On the left, you’re now watching this fracture between someone like Congresswoman Haley Stevens and this wildly progressive wing of the Democrat Party that seems to increasingly become the face of the political left. The moment you question any of it, you are virtually excommunicated from the Democrat Party. In fact, James Carville, this morning, I saw a clip on social media, called Haley Stevens a used condom…

PIERS MORGAN: Yeah.

ISABEL BROWN: For questioning anything surrounding the candidacy of Abdul El-Sayed, rightfully so.

Israel and the Michigan Senate Race

PIERS MORGAN: Well, hey. So, Jon, on that, I mean, you were down in Michigan where El-Sayed obviously is trying to win. The whole specter around these midterms has been unusually highly fueled by the Israel debate. Obviously, October 7 and the aftermath, hugely important. But for the first time in our lifetime, a majority of Americans have a negative view of Israel. I didn’t think that would happen in my lifetime. So there’s been a real sea change in here. How significant is that going to be, do you think, in a lot of these results?

JON SOPEL: I think it… Look. I think in Michigan, it’s certainly going to be really important. And the sense of shock yesterday when Haley Stevens did what she did, not just sit on her hands and say, “I’m just going to stay out of this. I don’t want to support Abdul El-Sayed,” but she got in behind the Republicans. And I think that there’ll be…

PIERS MORGAN: But I watched her interview, obviously.

JON SOPEL: I know.

PIERS MORGAN: She’s an absolute clinker. I mean, the brain was not engaging.

JON SOPEL: No. No. No.

PIERS MORGAN: I mean, she wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer, was she?

JON SOPEL: God. She wasn’t the bluntest knife in the toolbox. No. I think that what’s happening is that this is the sea change in American politics. Further to your point, Isabel, about the kind of opinion, I think that this is not going to be a vote for Democrats. It’s a vote against Donald Trump. I mean, Donald Trump promised these things on the economy or no more wars, and a lot of people feel that he…

PIERS MORGAN: That’s what I mean. It’s a self-inflicted…

JON SOPEL: Yes.

PIERS MORGAN: Situation he’s now in.

JON SOPEL: Yeah. I mean, I think if you… And the more he talks about the ballroom and the gilt and the gold and everything else… And even having his final speech on the Reflecting Pool…

PIERS MORGAN: I know.

JON SOPEL: Which he still insists was vandalized even though everyone has established it wasn’t vandalized. This is an air of delusion. And it’s the emperor with no clothes, and his cabinet aren’t telling him, “Donald, you’re making a complete mess of this.” And so I think that that is… I don’t think the Democrats have set out a clear agenda.

ISABEL BROWN: There is clearly a… Disagree with that. I don’t… I wholly disagree with that.

JON SOPEL: I think if the Democrats haven’t set out a…

ISABEL BROWN: Well, the Democrat…

JON SOPEL: I think there’s a battle that is ongoing within the Democratic Party of… Is it the establishment Democratic Party of Clinton and all the rest of it? Or is it a new much more radical left wing party that would be kind of not unlike some of the left…

PIERS MORGAN: Yes.

JON SOPEL: In the Labour Party in the UK. And I think that that is an unresolved battle, and that is why Michigan, I think, is so critical…

ISABEL BROWN: Yeah. I agree.

JON SOPEL: To what happens in 2028 in the election. Because if El-Sayed wins, you could see him potentially making a run for the presidency.

PIERS MORGAN: Potentially.

ISABEL BROWN: Absolutely. He’s very much becoming embraced as a new face of the Democrat Party, and I, for one, find that wildly concerning. I think most classical liberals in this country should find that wildly concerning.

Is Abdul El-Sayed Being Overdemonized?

PIERS MORGAN: Don’t Republicans fall into the same trap the Democrats made with Trump of over demonizing somebody?

ISABEL BROWN: Not at all.

PIERS MORGAN: I think Abdul El-Sayed has been overdemonized, and he’s helped…

ISABEL BROWN: In what way?

PIERS MORGAN: He did… Because they made… When they call him a radical jihadist, I mean, he’s always…

ISABEL BROWN: I mean, it’s pretty reasonable to ask questions if your mother worked for an organization that we proved in 2004 was funding al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

PIERS MORGAN: He’s not an Islamist jihadist.

ISABEL BROWN: Sure.

JON SOPEL: Yeah. Yeah.

PIERS MORGAN: You can look at… Can look at me.

ISABEL BROWN: I hope not. I don’t think he’s given a compelling case… I don’t think it’s massively Islamophobic about asking questions if the Muslim Brotherhood is funding an American political candidacy.

PIERS MORGAN: When the left call Trump a Nazi, I feel the same way. It’s ridiculously overdemonizing somebody.

JON SOPEL: Well, there’s plenty to go at. You can go…

ISABEL BROWN: I just don’t understand… To ask questions about who’s funding your campaign…

JON SOPEL: …Questions. When Donald Trump stands up at a rally and says, “Abdul, why not call him Mohammed?” And all the rest of it, it’s just… It’s demon… If you… Let’s say it was, and goes, “Ramadan. Ramadan.” If someone did that about Jews and Yom Kippur…

ISABEL BROWN: Oh, that’d be helpful. People are doing that about Jews.

JON SOPEL: Yes. Not the President of the United States.

ISABEL BROWN: Not the President of the United… People who Abdul El-Sayed is refusing to denounce, like Hasan Piker, who has called for very radical action and violence, not just against Jews, but against Americans that vote differently than you politically.

JON SOPEL: Why should he have to go around denouncing random people on…

ISABEL BROWN: It’s not random people. It’s people who you’ve appeared on livestreams with and appeared at political events with. But asking questions about the funding sources of your campaign coming from known designated terrorist organizations…

JON SOPEL: Yes.

ISABEL BROWN: Is 100% of the way that judge… Yeah. You’re watching the mainstream media go out of their way to say even asking a single question is supposedly Islamophobic, and that exact accusation has now been given to Congresswoman Haley Stevens. People calling her radically Islamophobic because she doesn’t agree with a Hasan Piker normalized left wing violence wing of the Democrat Party. That is a wildly important decision.

JON SOPEL: It is clear she doesn’t know why she…

ISABEL BROWN: She posted to social media. She said, “I do not like Hasan Piker. I do not like this direction of the Democrat Party.”

JON SOPEL: …Repeatedly yesterday on CNN why she changed her mind over the last twenty four hours, and she was incapable of answering.

ISABEL BROWN: Okay. Well, let’s talk about this then because repeatedly, Abdul El-Sayed has refused to denounce someone like Hasan Piker. Instead says, “I want to capture his audience of 3 million daily listeners that tune into this young man’s livestream.” So thank you. A livestream that then tells people we should let the streets of America run red with capitalist blood, who has said America deserved 9/11, who has said that America as an entity is a worse, more evil organization than most known terrorist organizations on the planet and who has undoubtedly, make no mistake about it, normalized political violence in America.

JON SOPEL: Look. It’s perfectly reasonable that you say, why are you friends with these people? It’s also perfectly logical. If you’re Abdul El-Sayed and you’re the campaign manager, wherever you stand politically, to think, “I want to stick to my messaging. I don’t want the messaging imposed on me to be continually asked, am I a jihadist?” …Hasan Piker’s livestream, and he goes to the… He is trying to talk about affordability. He’s talking about health care. He’s talking about the bread and butter.

ISABEL BROWN: You know what’s amazing? Because people demand that Republican politicians in America denounce anyone who is deemed fringe or potentially radical or violent in our country. Think of how many times Republican politicians have been demanded to denounce Nick Fuentes, for example. And it is an absolute scandal if they give anything less than a full throated unequivocal denouncement of that…

PIERS MORGAN: There’s a little hypocrisy on both sides, but I do think my point about the overdemonizing is mainly… It’s self defeating. What it normally does is help the person being overdemonized because they’re able to illustrate they’re not, in Trump’s case, Adolf Hitler or in Abdul El-Sayed’s case, he’s obviously not a radical jihadist. So when people keep saying they are, but the evidence will point to the contrary, I don’t think it damages the candidate. It helps them. And furthermore, I think that if he wins tomorrow night, he is even stronger.

JON SOPEL: Oh. I agree with that actually.

PIERS MORGAN: Because he will then say, “You threw everything at me. I had to walk through fire. They were throwing spears in my direction. And even my Democratic rival betrays me at the last moment, and still I win.”

JON SOPEL: That is going to embolden…

PIERS MORGAN: …The left in America. I also think, by the way, the Democrats are getting a bench of people who are very skillful public performers.

JON SOPEL: They are.

PIERS MORGAN: El-Sayed is one. Mamdani. I think James Talarico in many ways is another. They’ve obviously got AOC. They’re young. They’re dynamic. They’re eloquent. I may not agree with all their policies.

ISABEL BROWN: And that’s where the conversation needs to go.

PIERS MORGAN: It does. But I do think there’s a threat to the Republicans of a young team now, very skillful public performers eating up the oxygen of the media in a way that if I was a Republican, I’d be quite alarmed by how much traction that’s getting.

ISABEL BROWN: Well, frankly, that’s why I’m so excited by someone like Brandon Gill, who I mentioned earlier. He’s young. He’s charismatic. He has a new generation of ideas to bring to the Republican Party. In clear conversation here, I think we do need to be focusing on the policies because my biggest problem with Abdul El-Sayed or James Talarico or any of these more radical left wing progressive candidates infiltrating and taking over the leadership of the Democrat Party are indeed their policies, things that radically lean more towards socialism and authoritarianism unapologetically, to the point that there are many people calling for the abolition of the Senate or the president. So I agree.

Lessons From Jeremy Corbyn

PIERS MORGAN: And, Jon, we had a bit of this with Jeremy Corbyn in the UK…

JON SOPEL: Yeah.

PIERS MORGAN: When he suddenly became leader of the Labour Party, and he was a very radical progressive left character, if you like. And it all went up in smoke. And so there is a sense here where you can always be careful what you wish for if you’re the Democrats. If you do want to win in 2028, you’ve got to be careful. Perhaps you don’t get dragged too far to the left and make yourself unelectable in the general election.

JON SOPEL: And I think if we’re going to make the comparison between the UK and the US, I think the center of political gravity in the United States of America is towards free markets, towards capitalism. It’s not to where Jeremy Corbyn was.

PIERS MORGAN: Correct.

JON SOPEL: Jeremy Corbyn was too left wing for British politics. Someone like that in US politics… I know there is all the enthusiasm of the youth. I’ve been to the Bernie Sanders rallies, and they get enormous attendance. But that doesn’t win you an election. That doesn’t win you the Midwest. That might not even win you some of the coastal… So I just think the Democrats have to be very careful in drawing too many conclusions if a progressive wins because I’m not sure you win from the far left in America.

ISABEL BROWN: Completely agree.

Final Predictions

PIERS MORGAN: Okay. Prediction time. What’s going to happen?

ISABEL BROWN: I wish I could predict anything in the next twenty four to forty eight hours. I think it’ll probably lean slightly to the left, particularly in the House when it comes to our turnout. But I really do think this is going to be a neck and neck election across the board.

PIERS MORGAN: Could the Republicans hold the Senate, do you think?

ISABEL BROWN: It’s possible.

JON SOPEL: Yeah. I think there are eccentricities in the races.

PIERS MORGAN: Yeah. Like Alaska.

JON SOPEL: I think what we’ve just talked about in Michigan, you look at Maine where Susan Collins is defending her seat. She always outpolls the closing polls. And in the last…

PIERS MORGAN: You’re the Washington guru. You covered many elections.

JON SOPEL: I reckon it could end up with fifty fifty and JD Vance still holding the casting vote in the Senate.

PIERS MORGAN: Wow. That would be a thriller. It’s going to be a big night. And just to remind you, tomorrow night, we’ll be here for four hours live from 7 to 11PM Eastern, and we’ll go a bit longer if we have to. It’s going to be a roller coaster night, so make sure you come and watch Piers Morgan Uncensored. We will be uncensored and live all night long. Thanks for watching. Thank you, guys.

ISABEL BROWN: Thank you.

JON SOPEL: Thank you.

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