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President Trump is preparing for increased military action in Iran after tragedies this weekend as three Americans were killed in action. The congressional map is tightening closely ahead of the midterms. We're going to talk about some of those dynamics. We're also going to talk about Hassan Piker and who he dressed up as at a rally over the weekend. That's getting a lot of attention. All of that and so much more on another Monday rundown from 10 Minute Drill. Everybody get up. Get up. The story of America is the story of an adventure.
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I can hear you.
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The rest of the world hears you. We are a nation under God, and I believe God intended for us to be free. First off today, tragedy in Iran.
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Two American service members have been killed, one is missing and four wounded. And there's been dozens of attacks. And this is the first time American troops have been killed in this war since March 1st.
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And there were reports on Sunday that another American was killed in Iraq during a controlled drone explosion. Experts are warning that this may have crossed the threshold for President Trump's patience before raining down hellfire on Iran.
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But I think last week the President of the United States started to indicate that they had finally crossed the threshold that exceeded his patience and goodwill. I expected expanded military operations to start next week, but I think now the president is going to accelerate that to avenge those Americans.
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The New York Times reports that the US Is rushing additional advanced warplanes and support assets to the Middle East. American officials say, signaling the Trump administration is preparing to significantly escalate its air campaign against Iran. Now, as of yesterday afternoon, President Trump had been surprisingly quiet about these deaths of American service members. I expect that we'll hear quite a bit about it in the next few days. We've talked a lot on 10 minute drill about the midterm congressional ballot, the fact that this does not feel a lot like other midterm years, particularly midterm years that were expected to be very large blue waves. For example, the 2018 picture and right now look very different from each other. Washington Post had a poll over the weekend that really, really clarifies that point. The generic ballot in 2018, at this point, Democrats had a 10 point lead. But right now in 2026, Democrats only have a 3 lead on that generic congressional ballot. But also notably, that Washington Post poll found, which political party do you agree with more on important issues? Republicans had a one point edge. And on which political party you trust to do a better job handling the economy, Republicans had a four point edge. So again, this is not like 2018 a three point Democrat advantage in the congressional ballot is still a Democrat advantage, but the fact that Republicans have an advantage on the issues and the fact that the redistricting map changes have largely evened the playing field suggest we're looking at a very different cycle than we've seen before. And one reason for that is this ongoing Democrat civil war that's impacting a number of states. That's something we're going to cover extensively this week. But for today, first I want to start with a quick look at Michigan and the role that Abdullah Said's biggest supporters like Bernie Sanders, AOC and others are playing. Now. First off, there was a lot of discussion discussion about this rally in Detroit on Saturday. Now a number of people there, including David Marcus who writes for Fox News, talking about being despite being in Detroit, rally goers being overwhelmingly white. Alex Thompson of Axios also reported AOC gets a huge welcome in downtown Detroit rallying with Bernie As El Sayed and Haley Stevens have been fighting for black voters, the crowd appears largely white and as you look at these pictures, including from Faz Shakir who works for Bernie Sanders and others, it is very difficult to find any non white people in that crowd. As we've talked about before, crowds at DSA conventions are about as white as a Timothee Chalamet lookalike contest. But it speaks to the larger problem that these DSA candidates are facing and it also speaks a little bit to why Haley Stevens recent strategy might work. Enter James Clyburn, who you may remember as the broker of the deal that brought Democrats together behind Joe Biden Biden in 2022 steal the nomination away from Bernie Sanders, who is starting to gain momentum in large part because the broken field of Democrats in that massive 2020 field, Haley Stevens is seeing a very similar dynamic with Jim Clyburn coming in to endorse her and the Congressional Black Caucus coming in to endorse her against Abdul Al said question is, will Abdul's biggest supporters still show up for Haley Stevens if she wins this primary? And I actually am believing the momentum is flowing. Haley Stevens way in part, Abdullah said, really is a bad candidate. And once again this will be another major dark mark for Bernie Sanders, the fight agency consultants behind Graham Platner and others who continue to pick really, really terrible candidates. So we'll get into this much more this week. Speaking of liabilities for Abdul Al Sayed, one of his biggest boosters and someone he's campaigned alongside quite a bit is Hasan piker, the radical YouTuber streamer guy who has said America deserved 9 11. He said he wasn't really too troubled by what happened on October 7th. He is a rabid anti Semite and he's become quite controversial. A number of Democrats have gone out of their way to say standing with this guy is disqualifying, but Abdullah said has not taken their message on that well. Over the weekend, the College Democrats invited Hassan Piker to come speak at their event.
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No more to Trumpism, but no more
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to the Democrats who compromise now. Being an office fan, I could only think of one thing there.
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Blood alone moves the wheels of history.
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But what I also want to point out is the Dwight Schutt comparison is also funny because if you look closely at Hasan Piker, he is wearing a suit modeled after Mao Zedong, the dictator of China who slaughtered millions and millions of people and was famous for essentially helping establish the current form of communism that China has been built around. It's not a coincidence that Hasan Piker is wearing a suit suit modeled after his style. Hasan Piker went to China and had a suit fitted to model after Mao and was quoted in Chinese propaganda outlets praising Mao. So again, Democrats, is this really your guy? This is the guy you're standing with. I have a feeling Democrats problems are not ending anytime too soon. By now you may have seen clips from the viral Maine Senate debate. This is the debate that was held to showcase candidates who are running to replace Graham Platner as the Democrat nominee for the Maine Senate seat. And we're going to do a deep dive on this because I've got about 40 clips that I thought were absolutely hilarious and incredible from it. But for today, just a couple key points. First off, this person stole the show.
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I'm a songwriter and then I write my own books. And then suppose my transparency. I wouldn't lie to the people and I wouldn't deceive the people like we're being deceived right now.
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Like that is Ashley Webb. Now, for those of you who are audio only, she is a 65 male, recently transitioned to female, who has talked extensively about how her own biological plumbing and things like that work. But she is running in this race and I think she's a great way of highlighting just how bad this Democrat field is. And she may have stolen the show, but the larger narrative overall, even from local media in Maine, was this isn't a very good field. For example, Secretary of State Shana Bellows, who's been positioned as one of the front runners to potentially win this nomination, had a very rough night and I'M the only one who has run against Susan Collins before. A lot of people were wondering why she would tout the fact that she previously ran against Susan Collins when Susan Collins beat her by almost 40 points. Her problems didn't end there. And so I have many ideas on this one. And if you'd like to go get
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a mocktail, give me an example of a specific area of oversight that you'd like to have a hearing on.
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Well, I'd like to have a lot of hearings. Some of these clips were so bad and got so much attention that she put out a fundraising email the next day acknowledging that she was a little bit jittery up there, but blaming it on the fact that there was a ice involved shooting in Maine last week that had her really rattled. But it didn't end for her there. She actually withdrew from the race on Sunday. The person right now who appears to be running away with it is Troy Jackson, who we've talked about quite a bit. One thing first off to know about Troy Jackson is he literally just came in third in the main Democrat gubernatorial primary, so he couldn't even come in first or second in that race. But he has been cleaning up in the caucuses ahead of what will be next Saturday's convention. The other challenge for him is he was essentially handpicked by Graham Platner and Graham Platner's consultants, and I don't think that's necessarily going to help him moving forward. But I wanted to take just a quick minute for the Hawaii Supreme Court because they released a decision at the end of last week that was one of the craziest things I've ever seen and one of the craziest things a lot of people a lot smarter than me who have seen a lot more things have ever seen. First, a little bit of commentary from my friend Eric Wesson, who's the Solicitor General of Iowa. The spirit of aloha rages against the US Constitution and the US Supreme Court. Mad not only about the result in Wolford vs Lopez, the court issues an unhinged attack on the legitimacy of the Supreme Court. I have not seen something like this and it is not good. That's what Eric says about it. Now, just a little bit of background here. We've talked a little bit in the past about how the Hawaii Supreme Court seems to think they sort of operate on their own system of laws. They talk quite often about how US Laws, US Courts, the US Supreme Court doesn't really apply to them. This is the most brazen that we've seen and they regularly cite the Spirit of Aloha, which they use as essentially their trump card for all laws. The spirit of Aloha is what allows them to circumvent the U.S. constitution. The other point that I would make here is the prime defender of the Spirit of Aloha. The person who wrote this opinion about the sanctity of Hawaii's Spirit of Aloha is this guy. His name is Todd and he is from Kentucky. And there is a phenomenal south park episode that makes fun of mainland Americans who come to Hawaii and think that they are suddenly representative of the culture that I would refer you to, but I'd also just read you Carrie Severino's take on this Someone should check on the members of the Hawaii Supreme Court. Litigants should certainly keep an eye on their ongoing disregard for the rulings of the United States Supreme Court instead of finally taking the hint after Wolford, Hawaii's high Court has gone on the offensive. How ugly and unhinged were the Hawaii Justices? Take a look at this recent opinion from the Hawaii Supreme Court in my latest national review post. Page 72 through 80 of Granila vs State are worth reading in full. But here are some of the most outrageous statements. We take no guidance on the meaning of due process from a court that gutted the process protections in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health. We take no guidance on the meaning of due process from the Supreme Court. That's the only people that you should be taking guidance from. Hawaii Supreme Court if you want to be a part of the United States, you have to work within the system. You are not some independent country, even though you've got some pretty strange people, some pretty strange leaders, and not the most impressive senators and representatives. This is a very scary situation going on with these lunatics in Hawaii. But because they're in Hawaii, the Spirit of Aloha will likely prevent them from fighting too hard on this. But we will keep close eye on this absurd dynamic. There are tons of other fun things we're going to cover this week. AOC is on tour around the country for her candidates, trying out a range of new accents. We've got thoughts on them. Zoran Mamdani was asked what working class looks like and whether he thought somebody making a million dollars qualified as working class. Can't wait to talk more about that. We've got Randy Weingarten clips some of the crazy things that she said in conferences over the weekend. We're going to talk a little bit about the Wisconsin governor's race where there's some crazy hijinks going on. It's going to be a lot of fun. Please tune in with us this week. You won't want to miss any of it. 10 minute drill. Make sure you tell your friends, leave us a review, leave us a rating, set your alerts, and have a great rest of your Monday.
Host: Matt Whitlock
Episode Theme:
A fast-paced, incisive rundown of the top stories in US politics, with a special focus on intensifying intra-Democratic Party strife during the primary season, increased US-Iran tensions after American casualties, and wild moments from recent political rallies and debates.
Matt Whitlock covers three key subjects:
[00:00 – 01:28]
Tragedy in Iran and Iraq:
U.S. Response:
Quote:
[01:28 – 03:49]
Midterm Dynamics:
Redistricting Impact:
Notable Quote:
[03:49 – 05:39]
Detroit Rally:
Establishment Pushback:
Matt’s Take:
[05:39 – 06:20]
Piker’s Image:
Quote:
[05:50 – 05:53]
[07:01 – 08:40]
Debate Highlights:
Host’s Summary:
[08:40 – 09:30]
Hawaii’s Judicial Unorthodoxy:
Quote:
[09:30 – end]
On DSA rallies:
On Hasan Piker:
On Hawaii Supreme Court:
This brisk yet information-rich installment of 10 Minute Drill gives listeners a finger-on-the-pulse update of U.S. politics: