MS NOW’s The Weekend co-host Eugene Daniels recently traveled to Chicago for the DSA convention and upon returning claimed on Saturday that the group of radicals is actually trying to moderate in order to be taken seriously.
After playing part of his interview with co-hair Ashik Siddique, Daniels recalled, “So, guys, I think—what I thought was really interesting and what I left with was that they're also understanding that this is a moment that they haven't had before, and that they actually have to appear more serious.”
Eugene Daniels tries to claim the DSA is moderating. After going to their Chicago convention, he claimed "What I left with was that they're also understanding that this is a moment that they haven't had before, and that they actually have to appear more serious...so when you talk… pic.twitter.com/hwI67zk7Lq
— Alex Christy (@alexchristy17) August 1, 2026
Seeing the upside in that, Daniels continued, “You know, when I was talking to the co-chair at the beginning there, one of the other parts of the conversation was that, you know, they know that people see them as like, silly little kids that are playing politics or — where in fact, they could, you know, take all of the anger that's happening in this country and transition into something real.”
Daniels’s idea of moderation was extremely generous:
And so when you talk about, you know, that little pamphlet I had was something that they were giving out to everyone. And what was not in there was the stuff that has gotten the most attention from their platform. That's on two pages. We have this in element one. There are a lot of things on there, but what wasn't in that in that paper was there was no abolish the U.S. Senate, which has gotten them pilloried. There was no abolish the Defense Department. There was no there was nothing about defunding the police. That that was not in there. And what he said to me was this document that I was holding in my hand, has — was put together in the last month. So to me that signals that there may be some changes coming to the platform.”
The problem for Daniels is that the other co-chair, Megan Romer, was on Fox News Sunday not even a week ago and affirmed the DSA’s desire to abolish the Senate, presidency, the Supreme Court as we know it, ICE, the border, prisons, defund the Pentagon, and have the government seize larger corporations.
The fact that the DSA’s pamphlet Daniels mentioned didn’t talk about the nutty things Romer talked about does not mean that the DSA no longer believes them. It just means the DSA knows it has to do a better job of not saying the quiet part out loud. Unfortunately for them, Romer’s interview and their candidates’ social media histories exist. It is up to journalists to press these candidates on the sincerity of their campaign conversions and not just blindly accept them.
Here is a transcript for the August 1 show:
MS NOW The Weekend
8/1/2026
9:41 AM ET
EUGENE DANIELS: So, guys, I think—what I thought was really interesting and what I left with was that they're also understanding that this is a moment that they haven't had before, and that they actually have to appear more serious.
You know, when I was talking to the co-chair at the beginning there, one of the other parts of the conversation was that, you know, they know that people see them as like, silly little kids that are playing politics or — where in fact, they could, you know, take all of the anger that's happening in this country and transition into something real.
And so when you talk about, you know, that little pamphlet I had was something that they were giving out to everyone. And what was not in there was the stuff that has gotten the most attention from their platform. That's on two pages. We have this in element one. There are a lot of things on there, but what wasn't in that in that paper was there was no abolish the U.S. Senate, which has gotten them pilloried. There was no abolish the Defense Department. There was no there was nothing about defunding the police. That that was not in there.
And what he said to me was this document that I was holding in my hand, has — was put together in the last month. So to me that signals that there may be some changes coming to the platform.