00:00Americans are desperate for him to stick the script.
00:03I'm Dana Bash. Let's go behind the headlines and inside politics.
00:13Right now, President Trump is on his way to Michigan.
00:16The White House says he'll visit a General Motors facility outside Detroit to talk about his trade policies.
00:22Of course, no one knows what he will ultimately say when he's there.
00:26But with just 99 days until the midterms, there's another reason for the president to travel to the Wolverine State.
00:34It's a must-win Senate race.
00:36And while his GM visit is supposed to be an official White House event, not a campaign rally,
00:42the presumptive Republican Senate nominee, Mike Rogers, who currently doesn't have a government role, is expected to attend.
00:49This presidential visit also lands in the final week before Michigan's Democratic Senate primary.
00:56Where the race between Abdul El-Sayed and Haley Stevens has become a real test of the different visions
01:04within the Democratic Party that we've seen before, but not like this, in a purple state.
01:10I'm joined by a terrific group of reporters here at the table.
01:14Manu Raju, I want to actually start and sort of set this table with what we have been hearing from
01:21Mike Rogers,
01:21because we talk all the time about Democrats, which we'll do in a little bit.
01:24But what we have been hearing from Mike Rogers on the campaign trail, specifically in this ad that he has
01:30running.
01:32People are frustrated because they're feeling the pain.
01:35Mike believes that hard work pays off, that hard work is important.
01:40Mike wants to put shot back in every school.
01:44Yeah, look, he has not been the focus of this campaign at all.
01:47It's been a huge benefit for the GOP.
01:50They've consolidated behind him for months, and he has stayed out of the fray,
01:54allowed this to become a Democrat versus Democrat divide.
01:58The challenge is going to be, come within the next 100 days,
02:01can whoever emerges from this very divisive primary unite and focus the party to go after Mike Rogers?
02:09What will be interesting to see is how much Rogers aligns himself with Trump in the final 100 days.
02:15When he was out, when he ran in the last cycle, he very much tied himself to Trump.
02:20But that was a presidential election cycle, and he knew he needed to ride.
02:23And he didn't win.
02:24He did not win.
02:24He knew he had to ride Donald Trump's coattails.
02:26He narrowly lost that race.
02:28He has not always been a Trump MAGA ally.
02:31He was very much a critic of him, particularly after January 6th.
02:34Now, with Trump's numbers sinking, how will Mike Rogers and other swing state Republicans decide what to do about Donald
02:41Trump in the campaign trail?
02:42He makes a decision today to appear with him, but what will he do that in the last couple of
02:47weeks of the campaign?
02:48Yeah, I mean, we knew him covering him on Capitol Hill.
02:50He was a contributor here for a while.
02:52He is definitely a traditional conservative, a real conservative.
02:57And just to point out the beginning of that ad, just to sort of put a finer point on it,
03:02you heard Mike Rogers' wife say, people are frustrated because they're feeling the pain.
03:08They get it.
03:09They know that you have to acknowledge that.
03:11And he's going to be, yes, at an official event with President Trump.
03:16But we certainly haven't had a lot of acknowledgement or empathy from the president on these issues, despite the push
03:27by people in his orbit.
03:29And as I bring you in on what you're hearing about what he's going to say, let's just also look
03:33at the latest poll about the economy.
03:36And the question, this is from CBS YouGov over the weekend, is the economy getting better, 21 percent, getting worse,
03:4359 percent.
03:45So it's not just that people feel bad, but they think it's going to get worse, 6 in 10.
03:51Yeah, and look, there's so many things that are hanging over this.
03:54President Trump is supposed to go talk about jobs, talk about the economy, talk about some of the programs that
03:59he's put in place that he believes will help people.
04:01Obviously, the Iran war is still hanging over all of this.
04:04If you talk to any Republican strategist, including those closest to the White House,
04:07they'll tell you that their outlook for what the midterms looks like is all dependent on what happens with Iran.
04:12They can't operate outside of that.
04:13Now, in terms of Mike Rogers and how he plays this race, I think that's all going to depend on
04:17who he's running against.
04:18I mean, you're looking at two incredibly different races for Mike Rogers, depending on who the Democratic candidate is.
04:26And that will really impact whether or not he brings in Donald Trump or if he keeps him at an
04:30arm's length.
04:31One of the biggest talking points that the Republicans are trying to, and that's in the White House, are pushing
04:37on these various states and these races is to paint their opponent as so far left, they're radical, they're communists,
04:44they're socialists, they're so far out there that they'll have policies.
04:48So, dependent on who the actual candidate is, is going to probably shape how he impacts with Trump as well.
04:56And then, Emily, you are out there covering sort of these politics and these races.
05:01And one of the other key questions is the enthusiasm and how you get the Republicans out to vote.
05:09Again, this is an official event that the president is going to.
05:12But one of the ways that a lot of Republicans, even those who don't necessarily or understand that the president
05:18won't help with critical independent voters,
05:21know that they need him to goose the base and to make sure that Republicans actually get out there.
05:27This is from the AFP and Washington Post.
05:30This is according to a poll that they did.
05:33About one in five reliable Republican-based voters are at risk this November, according to Nathan Nesimento,
05:41who's the executive producer at AFP, excuse me, executive director at AFP Action.
05:45Those voters in Iowa, Ohio, North Carolina, Montana, New Hampshire, and Michigan, which we're talking about,
05:53are either saying they may stay home or are weighing voting for Democrats.
05:58I think there is this strategy that you're seeing pop up in a bunch of different states right now
06:03where candidates on the right need to embrace Trump's endorsement if he gives it to them.
06:07I, you know, it feels like a stretch, I think, to say that the endorsement alone is still,
06:12it is hurting candidates with real Republican bases.
06:16But they also need to differentiate themselves from Trump, and people in the White House understand that,
06:21and people on the ground in these states understand that.
06:23So it's this complicated dance of needing to own Trump and prove that you're your own person.
06:28And we saw that play out really interestingly in the South Carolina gubernatorial race,
06:32where if you, you know, one gubernatorial candidate, like, just became the Trump-endorsed candidate,
06:37and voters felt like she didn't have enough going for her by herself.
06:41Which is why he endorsed two.
06:43Right.
06:43So he couldn't lose that in the runoff.
06:47Can we talk about money, which we'll talk a lot more about,
06:49and the problems that Democrats, the DNC in particular, is having later in the show?
06:54So, but this is something that I know you wanted to point out, and it is to the FEC disclosure.
07:02And the question is, when and if that money is going to be spent in this midterm?
07:08Well, and I'll remind you that James Blair told you that it was going to be spent on candidates.
07:12And White House has said that it will be spent, but they don't want to telegraph how they're going to
07:16spend it.
07:16But we're really getting up there.
07:17Now, the general idea among these kind of political operatives has been that people aren't really paying attention until August.
07:24So August is when, but we're coming up on that.
07:27Yeah.
07:27They're going to start spending the money.
07:28And there are a lot of races that they need to invest in if they want to have any chance
07:32of not being completely wiped out.
07:34They are sitting on so much money.
07:37And I will tell you, they have this kind of strategy session with Susie Wiles and James Blair and Chris
07:42Lasavita at the Four Seasons.
07:43They brought in all the cabinet members, and they never once brought up spending money on these campaigns.
07:48They said, oh, you know, I talked to one person who was in the room saying, yeah, no, they never
07:52talked about what they were going to do, but we think they will.
07:54But there's still not a lot of communication as to how they're going to spend this money and when they're
07:59going to start.
08:00It's a lot of money.
08:01It's a lot.
08:02That's great reporting.
08:03Can we talk about the Democrats?
08:04Because that is really the question that you brought up, Kristen, about who is going to be the Democratic opponent.
08:11Over the weekend, the more moderate Democrat, somebody who has the endorsement of a lot of establishment Democrats, Haley Stevens,
08:21was campaigning with Gretchen Whitmer and Jim Clyburn.
08:24Let's listen to some of that.
08:26But as someone who won statewide twice, I know Haley is tougher than the environment we got to win in.
08:40You got to put solutions first and politics last, and you got to get shit done.
08:46I know what it takes to energize Democratic voters.
08:53I know she has what it takes to energize Democratic voters.
09:01At the same time, I want you to weigh in on both of these, Manu.
09:05The opponent of Haley Stevens, Abdul Al-Sayed, was speaking in a meeting, and here's some audio that was obtained
09:16by Playbook about what he says his insurgent, left-leaning candidacy would mean if he won and came here in
09:27Washington.
09:29He said, I need to use the platform that I have, and frankly, AIPAC and all the other corporations are
09:36going to give me if I win this race.
09:40What they don't realize is that in spending so much money, they're turning me into David, right?
09:45So, like, if I'm the guy who came through and beat Goliath, now all of a sudden you just gave
09:50me the best platform in the entire U.S. Senate.
09:54He's not wrong.
09:55Yeah, and look, and that's an argument that is motivating a lot of folks in the left flank of the
10:01party.
10:01He certainly has a lot of energy in the left.
10:04The question is, does he have the coalition to not only win November, but to win the primary?
10:10I mean, the big focus right now is black voters, particularly in Wayne County, in Detroit, and can Abdul Al
10:18-Sayed, who has had a lot of support among a lot of younger voters, a lot of older voters,
10:22but a lot of white voters, can he broaden it to African-American voters?
10:26We've seen that be a problem for a lot of these candidates on the left.
10:30He told me he's not a socialist.
10:32His policies are very much in line with the Democratic Socialists of America, like Medicare for All and things like
10:37that.
10:37But he's having the same political issues as some of those Socialist Democratic candidates in being able to broaden that
10:44coalition.
10:45That's going to be a big, big question ahead of next week.
10:49But we are seeing the establishment really do everything they can for Haley Stevens right now.
10:55Gretchen Whitmer was not expected to get behind her.
10:57Did so, in no small part, because they have their own personal animus from their last campaign when he tried
11:02to challenge her in the primary.
11:04Yeah, that was very telling. No question.
11:06All right, everybody stand by.
11:07We are 99 days out from the midterm elections, and the Democratic National Committee has 99 problems, and money is
11:15most of it.
11:16We have reporting on the stunning DNC cash crisis.
11:19And later, the U.S. just shattered a record that nobody wants, a 35-year record for measles cases.
11:26What does that mean for HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.?
11:31We'll get into that.
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