At Last, a Real Fighter to Punch Back at Trump
On his first weekend as the Democratic Senate nominee in Michigan, Abdul El-Sayed came out swinging. In contrast, the Republican senator who made Todd Blanche attorney general had everybody cringing.
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Good morning, and as tradition now demands, Happy Monday. Martin here, happy as ever to be delivering the news you need. We may be in the dog days of August, with the Senate finally having followed the House out of DC for an absurdly long summer break, but political battles continue.
In today’s ‘First Draft,’ we look at a fascinating first few days in Abdul El-Sayed’s campaign for U.S. Senate in Michigan, as the Democratic candidate mixes persuasive answers to predictably hostile news anchors with off-the-cuff hooks, jabs, and roundhouses befitting politics in the Trump age but all too rare from the Dems. Has Donald Trump finally met his match when it comes to the art of the counter-punch? We may be about to see. Also, we take in Senator Bill Cassidy’s truly excruciating explanation of his vote to make top Trump lackey Todd Blanche attorney general, and consider another dispiriting day in Trump’s zombie war with Iran. Time to dive in.
Meet the Dem Who Fights Back
In late 2019, after Donald Trump stoked huge controversy by suggesting a revered Democratic congressman had gone to hell, the White House defended the president as “a counter-puncher,” who only delivered such right hooks when he was “under attack.”
The subjects of that Trump insult were the late Rep. John Dingell (the longest-serving member of Congress, ever) and his widow and successor, Rep. Debbie Dingell, who still represents Michigan on Capitol Hill. Since then, nationally, there have been countless other instances of Trump “counter-punching” opponents and critics with barely a blow in return. But now it looks like the Wolverine state has delivered a counter-puncher Democrats can call their own: Abdul El-Sayed, the newly minted candidate for U.S. Senate, after a bruising primary. And that should have Trump worried.
From the president down, Republicans are going in hard. On Saturday, Trump posted pictures of himself with his third wife, Melania Trump, and El-Sayed with his only wife, Sarah Jukaku, who was wearing a hijab. The Islamophobic and racist message was as inevitable as the wrongly placed apostrophe in the caption: “Two VERY DIFFERENT America’s.” El-Sayed’s response was swift – and brutal.