Capehart Defends El-Sayed From Socialism Label, Calls Trump 'Openly Racist'

Alex Christy
August 8th, 2026 9:35 AM

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MS NOW host Jonathan Capehart joined PBS News Hour anchor Amna Nawaz and The Atlantic staff writer David Brooks on Friday to defend Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed from Brooks’s accusation of being a socialist. While that may have been a bridge too far for Capehart, he had no problem claiming President Trump’s new birthright citizenship executive orders were “openly racist” and “white nationalist.”

Capehart wasn’t the only member of the trio upset at GOP labeling efforts. Nawaz lamented to Brooks, “What we have seen from Republicans on the messaging front so far is some anti-Muslim rhetoric already. Republicans are now using Dr. El-Sayed's full name in their ads, which they haven't used before, which is Abdulrahman Mohamed El-Sayed, which I guess is supposed to scare people or something. But the president is also talking about a rising communism threat. None of these candidates are communists. Are those the strongest messages the Republicans have right now?”

 

 

The words “Hasan Piker” and “Mao” were conspicuously missing from this segment. However, Brooks replied, “No, they should just say, these people are too left-wing for you.”

To that end, Brooks warned, “If you remember the Democratic primary debate, presidential debate, almost all the candidates said, I believe in open borders. That was political suicide. This is political suicide times 10, because if you look, for example, there are 16 Democrats who have won in Trump districts, where Trump also won. What do those 16 Democrats have in common? They're all moderates.”

Brooks was doing relatively well until he came to his definition of a moderate, “And so if you want to win and defeat Republicans, nominate a moderate. It's not that complicated. You take a look at what happened in Georgia a couple of years ago. You had Raphael Warnock, a moderate, and Stacey Abrams, a progressive. Warnock wins, Abrams loses.”

Just because Warnock does campaign with those who sing the praises of Mao Zedong does not make him a moderate. Still, Brooks continued warning, “[El-Sayed] did very well in highly educated and more elite districts. He, like all socialists, did very poorly among workers. In the general election, there are going to be a lot more people without college degrees than with college degrees, or at least in this primary campaign.”

Eventually, Capehart responded, “I would just say Dr. El-Sayed is not a socialist. He's a progressive, just to be clear. He's not a member of the DSA.”

Even Nawaz felt the need to push back a little, “He's backed by many democratic socialists, we should say.”

Later in the segment, Nawaz asked Capehart about the birthright citizenship executive orders, “This follows the Supreme Court striking down his previous effort to undermine this in—from the 14th Amendment of the Constitution. He's got these two new orders more narrow in what they're targeting here. But I just want to ask each of you, why do you think the president is so singularly obsessed with this one issue? Jonathan?”

Unsubtle as ever, Capehart answered, “Well, multiple times at this table during the campaign, I said the president was running an openly racist, xenophobic, white nationalist campaign for president. And key in that campaign was doing something about immigration. It wasn't just about sealing the border. It was about stopping immigration from countries that messed with the demographic makeup of this country. There are a lot of people who fear the browning of America.”

 

 

He further claimed, “And by going after immigration so aggressively, he's trying to do something about that. So I am not surprised the president is looking at what the Supreme Court did and is trying to figure out ways to still try to accomplish his goal, whether it runs afoul of the Supreme Court decision or not. I don't think he really cares. I think he's really just trying to do everything he can to stop immigration and in the process change the nature of who we are as a country.”

For his part, Brooks claimed, “Trump supporters I spoke to say birthright citizenship was fine between 1925 and 1965, a low immigration era. Now we're in a high immigration era. They think the fundamental coherence of the culture is being weakened.”

However, he also made sure to add, “If you ask Americans, should America be a more diverse country or a less diverse country, you get like three-quarters of the people saying we want to be a more diverse country. So those people who think we should shut down birthright citizenship in order to create coherence instead of diversity, they're in a pretty small minority in this country.”

Polling analysis aside, the idea that being opposed to birth tourism is analogous to being a white nationalist is just dumb. Historically, Russia, which is a heavily white country, has been among the biggest offenders when it comes to birth tourism. Of course, “birth tourism” was also not mentioned once in the entire segment.

Here is a transcript for the August 7 show:

PBS News Hour

8/7/2026

7:45 PM ET

AMNA NAWAZ: In terms of that, David, what we have seen from Republicans on the messaging front so far is some anti-Muslim rhetoric already. Republicans are now using Dr. El-Sayed's full name in their ads, which they haven't used before, which is Abdulrahman Mohamed El-Sayed, which I guess is supposed to scare people or something. But the president is also talking about a rising communism threat. None of these candidates are communists. Are those the strongest messages the Republicans have right now?

 

DAVID BROOKS: No, they should just say, these people are too left-wing for you. The Democrats are doing the same thing they did in 2020. They're angry at Trump. I understand that. They're angry at their own leaders for not standing up to Trump in the way they think he should be stood up to. And so they're swinging left.

In 2020, it was moderately left. If you remember the Democratic primary debate, presidential debate, almost all the candidates said, I believe in open borders. That was political suicide. This is political suicide times 10, because if you look, for example, there are 16 Democrats who have won in Trump districts, where Trump also won.

What do those 16 Democrats have in common? They're all moderates. This is one of the firmest pieces of research across the board, massive amounts of evidence. Moderates do better than progressives. They do better in race after race and race by an average of maybe four points.

And so if you want to win and defeat Republicans, nominate a moderate. It's not that complicated. You take a look at what happened in Georgia a couple of years ago. You had Raphael Warnock, a moderate, and Stacey Abrams, a progressive. Warnock wins, Abrams loses. It's the case over and over and over and again.

But Democrats seem to have not learned this message, at least the kind of voters who voted for El-Sayed. He did very well in highly educated and more elite districts. He, like all socialists, did very poorly among workers. In the general election, there are going to be a lot more people without college degrees than with college degrees, or at least in this primary campaign.

So this is bad news for Democratic electability.

JONATHAN CAPEHART: I would just say Dr. El-Sayed is not a socialist. He's a progressive, just to be clear. He's not a member of the DSA.

NAWAZ: He's backed by many democratic socialists, we should say.

…

NAWAZ: Before I let you go, I want to get both of you quickly on the president's latest move, which are two new executive orders related to birthright citizenship.

This follows the Supreme Court striking down his previous effort to undermine this in—from the 14th Amendment of the Constitution. He's got these two new orders more narrow in what they're targeting here. But I just want to ask each of you, why do you think the president is so singularly obsessed with this one issue? Jonathan?

CAPEHART: Well, multiple times at this table during the campaign, I said the president was running an openly racist, xenophobic, white nationalist campaign for president. And key in that campaign was doing something about immigration. It wasn't just about sealing the border. It was about stopping immigration from countries that messed with the demographic makeup of this country. There are a lot of people who fear the browning of America.

And by going after immigration so aggressively, he's trying to do something about that. So I am not surprised the president is looking at what the Supreme Court did and is trying to figure out ways to still try to accomplish his goal, whether it runs afoul of the Supreme Court decision or not. I don't think he really cares.

I think he's really just trying to do everything he can to stop immigration and in the process change the nature of who we are as a country.

BROOKS: I have—Trump supporters I spoke to say birthright citizenship was fine between 1925 and 1965, a low immigration era. Now we're in a high immigration era. They think the fundamental coherence of the culture is being weakened.

And that's their argument, and they're really upset about it. They think it's an existential threat, which I think Trump shares that, and that's why he's going back to this issue again and again and again. The only thing I'd point out, if you ask Americans by large majorities, they support immigration, right now, larger than majorities than any time in the last 10 years.

If you ask Americans, should America be a more diverse country or a less diverse country, you get like three-quarters of the people saying we want to be a more diverse country. So those people who think we should shut down birthright citizenship in order to create coherence instead of diversity, they're in a pretty small minority in this country.

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