BS BULLETIN:

• Tucker Carlson has stunned Republicans by lavishing praise on Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed while unloading on Republican Mike Rogers.
• Carlson recently called El-Sayed’s campaign message “literally Trumpian” and defended the Democrat’s controversial comments about America’s response to 9/11.
• Now El-Sayed is being asked the obvious question: Would he actually campaign with Tucker?

Politics is getting weird in Michigan.

How weird? Democrat Abdul El-Sayed is now fielding questions about whether Tucker Carlson might campaign with him.

Carlson has spent the past several weeks torching Republican Senate nominee Mike Rogers while saying surprisingly nice things about Rogers’ progressive Democratic opponent.

During a discussion with Breaking Points host Saagar Enjeti earlier this month, Carlson heard El-Sayed’s campaign message described as almost Trumpian.

Carlson corrected him. “Well, it’s literally Trumpian,” Carlson said. He then delivered the line Republicans probably enjoyed considerably less: “I wouldn’t vote for Mike Rogers at gunpoint.”

Carlson’s unexpected political bromance with El-Sayed only intensified after Republicans attacked the Democrat over comments about the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

El-Sayed has argued that while America should mourn the victims of 9/11, Americans should also recognize the enormous suffering caused by the wars that followed. Rogers’ campaign blasted those comments. Carlson defended them.

“El-Sayed did not celebrate airplane hijackings or cheerlead Al-Qaeda,” Carlson wrote, arguing that El-Sayed was criticizing the U.S. response to the attacks. “He is obviously right.”

Carlson then urged “the good people of Michigan” to keep Rogers away from Washington. This led Mediaite’s Diana Falzone to ask El-Sayed whether he would welcome Carlson onto the campaign trail.

The question creates one heck of a political predicament.

Carlson remains enormously influential with the America First right, while El-Sayed is a progressive Democrat who supports Medicare for All, opposes U.S. military aid to Israel, and has previously campaigned with left-wing streamer Hasan Piker.

Republicans have spent months attacking that Piker relationship. On CBS Sunday, El-Sayed repeatedly tried to steer questions about Piker back toward grocery prices, health care, and other Michigan issues.

Meanwhile, Carlson is attacking the Republican in the race. And Carlson’s argument is particularly awkward for the GOP because it isn’t based on suddenly discovering a love for progressive politics. It’s based largely on foreign policy.

Carlson and El-Sayed have found common ground in their opposition to U.S. intervention overseas and criticism of American support for Israel, while Rogers’ background as former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee represents much of the Republican foreign-policy establishment Carlson has spent years attacking.

The result is one of the strangest alliances of the midterms.

President Trump has endorsed Rogers and repeatedly attacked El-Sayed as an extremist. Vice President JD Vance has called El-Sayed “evil.” Republicans made the Democrat one of their favorite targets at last week’s GOP convention.

Tucker Carlson? He’s practically writing the guy’s campaign copy.

MY QUICK TAKE

This is where somebody needs to check whether the simulation has sprung a leak.

Republicans: Vote Rogers! Democrats: Vote El-Sayed! Tucker Carlson: Have you people considered the Democrat?

At this rate, El-Sayed’s next campaign rally is going to feature Tucker Carlson introducing Bernie Sanders while JD Vance sits backstage wondering how everybody got here.

November cannot possibly get weirder. Which, unfortunately, means it absolutely will.

DBS WIRE SOURCES:

Mediaite — El-Sayed pressed on whether he’d campaign with Tucker Carlson

Mediaite — Tucker Carlson calls El-Sayed’s campaign ‘literally Trumpian’

CBS News — Abdul El-Sayed on Face the Nation

Associated Press — Republicans make El-Sayed a top midterm target

New York Post — Tucker Carlson all but endorses El-Sayed and defends his 9/11 comments