Ask Abdul El-Sayed a question. He might ask you one back. Let’s go Off Script

Hey everybody, I'm Christian Bryant. Welcome to Unbiased Updates Off Script. We spend all week reporting the news, now we get to talk about it. Coming up on the podcast, a candidate for the U.S. Senate has a pretty unusual way of handling tough questions. He fires back with questions of his own. Is Abdul El-Sayed calling out unfair attacks or is he just dodging the questions? I'll ask our senior politics reporter. Why are you asking me that? Come out and just say the thing that you're implying. It is fascinating. It is making people who support him like him even more. Plus, AI needs a lot of power, and we mean a lot, so much that tech companies are now building power plants to run their data centers. But our energy reporter found some of those plants are getting approved with little public input, and the communities are pushing back. And Ukraine says it just pulled off a first in warfare, using a flying drone to rescue a wounded soldier from the front lines. We'll tell you how they did it. Let's start with what matters, what caught our attention this week, and why we think it deserves yours. There's a Democratic Senate candidate in Michigan who's getting a lot of attention, not just for what he says, but how he answers questions. Take a listen to what happened when someone at a town hall campaign stop asked Abdul El Sayed to denounce the Muslim Brotherhood. Now, the person who asked the question is off mic, so it's a bit difficult to hear. But what's more interesting is El Sayed's response. Take a listen. Will you disavow the Muslim Brotherhood? What's your name? No, what's your name? No, what's your name? No, no, what's your name? No, your friend's got the mic here. I'm asking you a simple question. You give me your name, I'll answer the question. Hi, Tommy, how are you? Are you? Do you know what the Constitution of the United States is? I have one question. Will you disavow the Muslim Brotherhood? Sure. Yeah, absolutely. But I want to ask the question that you're asking. Why are you asking the question? Well, because they're a terrorist group. Okay. No, no, but what are you implying? Do you assume that I wouldn't? Yes. Why not? Because I have not heard you disavow them yet. Have you disavowed them? I haven't heard you disavowed them yet. I disavowed them. Do you? Great. Now he did eventually say yes, he does denounce the group, but not before turning the tables and asking nearly three dozen questions of his own. And this isn't the first time he's done it. Here's another example on Fox News when asked about his support for gender affirming care. So you think it's okay for a parent to slash you think that's okay i mean do you so do you really want to have this conversation are you circumcised yeah yeah but i mean that's a personal question okay doctor you probably should want to move on you probably should want to move on a circumcision is different than castration i think it's a problem it's a problem that you think that you get to decide what happens between a parent a doctor and a patient and i'm just saying that yes circumcision is surgery on a kid's ding-a-ling so So if you really want to bring that up, you can. I just think you guys are really selective about how you want to talk about these things. So is El-Sayed challenging the premise of unfair questions or just getting really good at not answering them? Ozzy, thanks again for joining us on Offscript. I had a chance to read your article. I really enjoy your reporting. It's something I've already told you time and time again. Oh, man, thank you. Well, you know, you can cash at me later. Tell me a little bit about Abdul El-Sayed and how he's handling some tough questions on the campaign trail. I'm curious to know how his approach compares to what we've seen from other candidates. So elections are a popularity contest. You have to convince people to vote for you as opposed to somebody else. And many people use that as the opportunity to say, be nice, be welcoming. even if you don't like something try to turn the other cheek and like show a bit of grace even when something is not working out your way right voters don't want to see people like often being antagonistic when there's a good faith question being asked of them right that isn't quite happening here now Abdul El-Sayed is a physician public uh he worked in public health in the detroit area and if elected he would be the first muslim elected in the u.s senate because of this historic nature of his candidacy and because he is an outspoken critic of the u.s support of the government of israel there has been a lot of questions thrown at him that he by his nature seems to think are illegitimate so in so rather than answering the question that he gets asked He takes it as an opportunity to question the person posing him the question and basically saying, why are you asking me that? Come out and just say the thing that you're implying. It is fascinating. It is making people who support him like him even more. And it is also challenging people who are asking him questions about his stance on Israel, his stance on terrorist groups and things like that. he's making them come out and say what it is that's behind their question and it's not something that we're seeing a lot of on the campaign trail is this an effective strategy i don't know how we would measure it but is this something that you know that people have responded positively to because you know this his campaign has kind of been a machine of you know viral moments and a lot of them right extremely online using a lot of language yeah the internet the language of the NPC or like a NPC like like non-player character or something like that it's the kind of like stuff that you heard coming out of 4chan and through republican politics and he's one of the few democrats that uses that kind of language and the demeanor he has you know he's sort of like a former football high school player he still works out he's like buff and he's cutting like a different profile of the kind of candidates that democrats have normally run and he's cutting against a lot of the caricatures that republicans try to argue is from is a democratic candidate so like is it working in the room it sounds like it is it gets clicks online uh if your campaign makes a video of your own candidate and it doesn't sort of do well online then like you really have some problems but it's getting people's attention because it shows a fight but it also shows like something substantive most recently there was this exchange where he's at like a town hall event and and literally as he's turning away like like you see it on the screen he's turning away he's like walking on the stage somewhere and you hear a voice yell out in fact the thing that most uh consultants will say is if there's something negative and you're explaining it you're losing like you hear that all the time from communication consultants if you're explaining you're losing Al Sayed is leaning into the explanation except he makes himself the one asking and he's saying why are you asking me that question have you asked other people that question i haven't heard you denounce them this is something i want to encourage our our viewers and our listeners to to go back and watch if they haven't seen it already um because it it has become something that we've seen you know more than once while he's been on the campaign trail um and this kind of leads into the the other portion not just how he has been answering questions with questions but how religion has become a big part of the conversation around his candidacy um talk to us a little bit about that. How has religion really shaped the conversation around his candidacy? It's an issue that he gets asked about directly and indirectly. And for a candidate running in a competitive Senate seat in Michigan, you know, a swing state, it's a battleground state, it's elected Democrats and Republicans. So when he gets asked a question about his own personal identity he often later in the campaign season he often sort of shrinks that answer and says the thing that's really important is the price of groceries my last name is not the reason why your guess why your grocery bill is high my first name is not the reason why you can't see a doctor my middle name is not the reason why your tax bill is going up like he he makes this connection not excusing in any way who he is or apologizing for it, but he's saying, like, if you're worried about those kitchen table issues, that question is not going to answer it. It's sort of immaterial. But what has been very clear in 2026 is that Republicans have sought to gain attention by framing a threat coming out of the Muslim community that they say needs to be addressed. They use the word Sharia law as a stand-in for some kind of imposition of Islamic rule that the country needs to be protected from. It's not happening. It's very much a dog whistle. And we can follow that conversation all the way to the end and we sort of know where it goes. what El Sayed is trying to do and it's a challenge I think that a lot of historic candidates face you know the first black president you know the first woman running for a particular office now we have a Muslim, a person who is Muslim who happens to be Muslim that is running for Senate there's the question of like the weight of history are you facing questions that other people wouldn't face because of your identity and what he has tried to do is acknowledge the identity and historic nature, but keep the focus on the issue that he thinks are going to cut his way rather than his opponents. Mike Rogers, former FBI agent, has raised the issue of terrorism, has raised his background in fighting terrorism. And that's been seen as a very subtle way of saying, I am the anti-terrorism guy. And as critics have said, the emphasis and the focus that Mike Rogers is putting on that issue is a way of othering a person who looks like Abdul El Sayed who was born in the U.S. his parents are um immigrants from Egypt and they've even called into question his you know all sorts of manner of his American nature yeah his his i his identity has become um a a talking point where he wants his politics to be um front and center Before I let you go, Ozzy, I'd be remiss not to mention the fact that former President Barack Obama will be campaigning with El-Sayed very soon. There's a clip of El-Sayed talking about his relationship to former President Obama and likening him to a parent that, let's say, you don't really disagree with, but you love anyway. um that you do disagree with but you love you right that you do disagree with but you love anyway yeah i mean what do you what do you make of his criticisms while also you know still tapping into the president's ability to galvanize voters it is something that appears to be necessary barack obama is still by and large more popular than he is unpopular especially with black voters who is a constituency that Abdul El-Sayed appears not to have made as many inroads as you would think a Democrat would traditionally. And that could be crucial. Abdul El-Sayed's criticisms of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israeli campaign in Gaza and the West Bank has helped fuel criticism of him from Jewish voters who appear to be open to voting for a Republican in the past where they may not have been. So that cleaving of like that block of voters or some set of that voters makes it even more important to hold on to other constituencies in a Democratic winning faction. And bringing the first and so far only Black president to campaign with you when you need to sort of shore up members of that community, it seems like a smart move although he has been on the record criticizing obama's two terms by essentially saying he didn't go far enough it wasn't really a directional argument like progress is always something that you have to exceed previous expectations and it is hard to galvanize progressive voters if the person you're now praising and standing next to is someone that they view as having fallen short but you know in the final days of an election anyone that you think you can help you out you're gonna find a way to be friends with them and invite them over and see if you can make it into the end zone is that the right sports analogy that was that was incredible i will say if i was campaigning right now i would be making a call to senior politics reporter Ozzy Pabra, oh god, come show face uh for for my campaign Ozzy, um as always thank you for the time and your reporting. Um, and I look forward to catching up with you again soon as we get closer and closer to the midterms. So thanks so much for being on off script. Thanks for having me. The comment section can be a pretty loud place. So every day we pick a question or comment worth a closer look and see where the facts take us. We've got a couple of comments about our report Tuesday about the U S holding up Patriot missiles for Ukraine. Ashton Black on YouTube says, stop giving them our weapons. Mac McElveen wrote, pay for your own war. Does the American voter want gas down or not? So why does America send weapons to Ukraine anyway? First, national security. The argument is that stopping Russia and Ukraine could prevent a much bigger conflict in Europe, one that might eventually involve American troops. Second, who pays? The U.S. has provided billions in military aid, But under a newer NATO program, European allies are also paying for American weapons sent to Ukraine. And third, there's a tradeoff. Those weapons cost money and take time to replace. America needs them too. So the debate isn't just whether we should help Ukraine, it's whether helping now reduces the risk of a much bigger war later. We love hearing from you, so keep those comments coming in to us here at Straight Arrow. You can leave them on our YouTube page or email us at offscript at san.com. Okay, now let's go inside the story. Each week, we grab one of our reporters and go a little deeper. We discuss what didn't make the story, the questions that came up, and what they found while reporting it. We all know AI is booming, but here's something you might not know. Some of the data centers powering it are now getting their own power plants. And that's raising questions about pollution, oversight, and how much say the people living nearby actually get. Our energy reporter, Keaton Peters, dug into the permits and found a growing number of projects using a less rigorous approval process. He also met a Texas family that put construction of their dream home on hold after learning a massive data center and power plant could be built across the street. So how is all of this happening and who's keeping an eye on it? Keaton, thank you so much for joining us on Offscript. In this piece, you've outlined how companies building data centers are bypassing a normal regulatory process by doing two things. One, bringing their own power. And then two, making their facilities smaller. What more can you tell us about what you're reporting covered? And another question is, when did this become a trend? Yeah. So first, to be really clear about what's happening, you know, there are two different air permit processes when you are looking to build a new power plant. You've got major source, which is just a threshold where the EPA has said, hey, this is a lot of potential air emissions of you know not just like CO2 and methane those things that you might think about but like particulate matter that can cause you know lung issues other compounds that have been known to cause health problems so if it's over a certain threshold the EPA says hey you have to have a public comment period you have to go through these more stringent reviews now a minor source is just you know below that threshold usually around 250 tons we don't need to get into the numbers but you know below that threshold the EPA doesn't all you know the states are left to do what they want with that a little bit more and so at least in some states like Texas where I am you know there are not requirements that every minor source permit has to go through those public comments, even letting people know that it's happening is not always a requirement. So what you're seeing is in cases where the data centers are being located alongside a power plant and that power plant is really only being built for the big tech facility, there are ways where they're making sure they fit in the minor source category really because it is um a time saver you know and and this is happening in a number of states where they'll either say um we have you know less emissions or they'll even split projects into multiple facilities multiple permits now when did it become a trend at least in Texas I um did some exclusive data analysis for Straight Arrow that found there was a surge in this type of permit for an electric generating unit connected to the natural gas grid and that happened in 2024 and 2025 you know this is a permit that before then think of like if you're a major retailer maybe you have a generator for if the power goes out and if that's connected to the natural gas grid as opposed to just like off-grid diesel then you know then you need a permit like this so it's always been a thing that these permits have been issued but in 2024 and 2025 we saw it go up from like there would be 30 to maybe 70 or 80 a year to well over 100 in 2025 there were about 158 of these permit applications at the Texas environmental regulatory agency I want to focus in on this woman that you featured in your piece you introduced us to a woman who said that she feels stuck in a way right she's building her dream home then learns a data center will be built near her and she's already committed you know a hundred thousand dollars of her own money to to this project tell me more about her story and what that says about people like her in this position and how they're being impacted by yeah no thanks for that and I really encourage folks listening to this to go and and read the piece because the lead is about this woman her name is Mary Santana and this is a community about 40 minutes outside of Austin Texas and she was three days from pouring the concrete on a project she'd been working on for years to build a her dream home for her husband and five of their youngest children and that's when she found out about the project that was proposed you know basically across the street about a half mile away according to her and you know i think that it's it's reasonable for folks to want to know who is our new neighbor like how is this process working and there are a lot of communities like that that as a reporter working on on issues around the grid building power plants data centers consume a lot of energy i think that there are a lot of cases of similar groups of neighbors that are just asking questions about you know how does And the reason why the minor permit designation is important for this facility by a company called Pacifico Power that is under a minor source permit in Texas is that these neighbors don't have a legal process under which they can go and say, we have concerns about you know whatever it is the the emissions from that potential changes to their neighborhood um they're kind of left feeling like um the process went around them where the company had been planning it for a number of years but they only found out a few months ago and for for Mary it was when this you know she was hoping to have her house built by Christmas um and so that feeling of being stuck is because she thinks well i don't know if i want to be this close to it and and if it does get built and i want to move can i really sell my property to someone who's going to want to live this close to a power and it's not to say that these companies are doing anything wrong uh by going through a a different process again bringing their own power making the facilities smaller what have you heard from them about instances like you know what's outlined in your reporting what are they saying about why or are they saying why they are going a different route in terms of getting these facilities built and getting them approved yeah this is important because this is a perfectly you know normal legal process that exists where there are these two types of permits The main issue that I hear from watchdog groups, you know, like nonprofits that are really digging into this thing and trying to be an advocate for those communities is that there are two, they say, loopholes that these companies are taking, which is to either put an artificial limit on basically saying, sure, if we operated 24-7 or a majority of the hours out of the year, we would exceed this emissions threshold. but on the permit they say we're going to set a limit on how many hours a year we can operate the question is who enforces that and the other sort of loophole as it's being described by some of my sources is what i said earlier to to split it into different projects and to have three different permits but it's really all feeding the same data center they're all within you know a very short geographic distance from each other. That's what's at issue here and what's really being pointed at as a misuse of the minor source designation. Now, to your question about what the companies are saying, for the most part, I am reaching out to all of the companies that are mentioned in the article. A number of them did not respond to our request for comment. Those that did tended to just to hey our state the same environmental agency approved this we went through the normal process and you know all of this is just us following what is laid out so i think it is reasonable for a company to submit whatever permit application they feel is best what what this speaks to is more i think how the scale of the ai build-out is so large that it's challenging some of the existing structures within our our government when it comes to how these things are only approved how has this issue of data centers animated voters ahead of the midterms especially considering how close we are to a midterm election um what's been the impact there on how voters are thinking about data centers yeah i mean my perspective on that question is informed on having written about folks like mary santana and these projects for two years now and i can tell you anecdotally that there are individuals in Texas and in other states that you know will will vote for a different party this time around, because they view, you know, whatever power, whatever party is in power and has, you know, tried to, they perceive as having tried to build more data centers, and they don't like that. So for some folks, this is like the top issue that will, they will vote for the other party this time around. Keaton, thank you so much for talking a bit about your reporting and kind of clarifying some of the issues surrounding it. I appreciate your time. Thanks so much for joining us on Offscript and we hope we get a chance to talk to you again sometime soon. Pleasure to be here with you, Christian, and happy to come back anytime. Again, Keaton's story is titled, She was building her dream home, then came a data center's minor power plant on a shortcut permit. Check it out on our site or on the Straight Arrow app. We cover a lot every morning on Unbiased Updates, but there are always a few stories we just can't squeeze in. So here are some that we think are also worth your time. Ukraine says it just pulled off something never before done on a battlefield, rescuing a wounded soldier with a flying drone. And the story behind this rescue is remarkable. The Ukrainian military says the soldier had been stranded on the front lines for 500 days, trapped in an area surrounded by mines and Russian drones. He was wounded in a drone attack earlier this year and, according to Ukrainian officials, was forced to partially amputate both of his own legs while waiting for help. Ground teams couldn't reach them, so on Monday, Ukrainian forces sent in a heavy-lift drone originally designed to drop bombs. They modified it to carry a person safely, then used other drones to distract Russian forces while they flew them out. Ukraine says it's the first battlefield rescue of its kind. An Australian lawmaker has lost both of her legs after police say a driver deliberately ran her down Monday. Independent MP Helen Haines was hit near her office in the state of Victoria. Her husband says doctors had to amputate one leg after the attack and the other on Wednesday. He says she's now in stable condition. But the good news in all this is Helen is alive and she's stable. That is the most important thing for our family. Helen's road to recovery will be long and difficult, but we know she is a fighter. Police are still investigating a motive. The 43-year-old suspect was arrested shortly after the attack and appeared in court Wednesday facing several state and federal charges. His lawyer says he has a neurological condition and a concussion, and may also have undiagnosed mental health issues. And finally today, here's the kicker, the story we're sending you out with. It's 2026, and flying cars are finally here. Sorta. Tesla has finally unveiled its new Roadster sports car after years of delays, and this thing does more than drive. It has SpaceX thrusters that can briefly lift it off the ground, and Tesla says it can go from zero to 60 in under a second. Elon Musk posted on social media. Turns out the future does have flying cars but don't start clearing space in your garage just yet. Production isn't expected to begin until 2028 and there's still the question of whether these things will even be street legal. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis says he wants to make sure they're allowed in his state. He joked that at the very least they could be used to leapfrog golf carts, which if you spent any time in Florida, you know might actually come in handy. By the way, if you haven't seen the video, we'll put it on the site for you. S a n dot com or our app. Okay, that's it for us this week. Thanks for listening to Unbiased Updates Off Script. If you've made it this far, email us. We actually want to hear from you to help shape the show. Email us at off script at s a n dot com off script at s a n dot com for all of us here at Straight Arrow. I'm Christian Bryant. We'll see you next week.