SPRUNT: Yeah. Two things – the rhetoric from some politicians, and then the ads themselves on state level, local level. Let’s start maybe with the rhetoric.
KURTZLEBEN: Sure.
SPRUNT: I spoke with folks at the Center for the Study of Organized Hate.
And they actually did some, like, data-digging in this. And they found that after Abdul EI-Sayed won his primary in Michigan and after Zohran Mamdani won his election in New York City for the mayor’s race, anti-Muslim rhetoric skyrocketed among GOP politicians.
And we have seen this. Like, probably a lot of us have seen some of these tweets. I mean, there’s one from Alabama senator Tommy Tuberville, who posted within hours of El-Sayed winning that primary that he’s a terrorist. He
– I think he said, quote, “a radical Islamist who will do everything he can to destroy America.” He’s just one example, but it is indicative of the type of messaging that we are seeing, both anti-Muslim and anti-Arab, from many Republican lawmakers over the last few years.