00:00And as midterm elections are just a few days away, we have a special guest to go
00:06into the relevance of this electoral process. We invite Hassan El-Tayyab,
00:10Director of Middle East Policy at the French Committee on National Legislation
00:15and co-chair of the US ceasefire coalition. Hello Hassan, welcome to From
00:20the South, thank you very much for your time. Thanks for having me on.
00:25Hassan, over 26 million US citizens have cast their votes early. What does this mean
00:32regarding the engagement that voters are having in this electoral process,
00:36also the urgency of this moment?
00:41Well, yes, so we're heading towards the midterm elections here. We have a lot of early voting
00:48going on right now, despite a lot of misinformation coming from the administration about the electoral
00:53process. So that enthusiasm to get out in the polls and put a check on this Trump administration is
01:01very real. And that's why I think Democrats have an over eight point advantage right now. And it's
01:06looking like they may flip the house. There's an affordability crisis going on in the United States,
01:13driven by inflation, driven by energy shocks because of this reckless war of choice against Iran that
01:20Trump launched earlier this year in February. So the American people are motivated to get to the polls
01:28to try to have a course correction and hopefully right the ship to one, get the affordability crisis
01:35under control and hopefully end some of these endless wars. And I think that's going to be the big
01:41story out of this midterm election is that the American people have confirmed at the ballot box,
01:47their deep opposition to not just war with Iran, but reckless wars around the world, even threats of
01:57escalation in Cuba, Greenland and beyond. I think the American people are sick of it. And that's why
02:04they'll show up in numbers, both early voting and day out. Can we say that early voting could determine
02:10the outcome in the battleground states? It's hard to say. I don't want to overemphasize how important
02:21all of this is. Ultimately, we have to count every single ballot. That's the way our democracy works.
02:27Every vote matters. And it could take a few weeks actually to really get all of the results tallied,
02:34both on elections in Alaska and California, especially. But if this turns out to be a decisive
02:42victory for Democrats, where they actually announced the victories on some of these swing states,
02:49I'm thinking about Texas, Michigan, Maine, and elsewhere. If they're able to make some of those
02:54announcements the night of the midterms, I think that's going to send a really powerful signal and
03:00act as a powerful mandate for this new majority potentially in the House and Senate to fulfill
03:09what the American people are saying that they want in poll after poll. End the endless wars,
03:14fix the affordability crisis, tax the super wealthy, and support benefits and health care for average
03:20American people. You are mentioning the affordability crisis and also the war in
03:27against Iran. The economic impact is being felt by U.S. taxpayers at this hour. There are reports
03:34showing millions of dollars that are coming from the pockets of U.S. citizens precisely
03:40to maintain, for the U.S. to maintain this war on Iran. To what extent the Middle East crisis and
03:47the
03:47involvement of the U.S. precisely in that conflict is going to shape the intention of voters in the midterms?
03:57I think it's a significant one. I could, you know, polls we've seen, but a vast majority of Americans
04:05blame the Trump administration for the affordability crisis as a result of things like the tariffs and
04:14this reckless war in Iran that they launched with the Israeli government in February. So I think that's
04:21going to be a theme. They also are expecting that this incoming party, should the polling results turn
04:30into actual votes in a House majority for Democrats, they're going to expect more action. They're going
04:37to expect that Democrats lead and push for more votes on the war powers resolution, work to block funding
04:45for this reckless war of choice against Iran. That's the power of the purse that they have.
04:50They have a lot of leverage and use subpoena power, oversight power. So that's what I think the American
04:55people are expecting. This and they're connecting it back again to that affordability crisis.
05:01They see that this is all connected. They see not only, you know, with the Strait of Hormuz,
05:07possible escalation in the Babel-Mendib Strait is driving up costs, but they also see that we are
05:12spending billions of dollars. It was just reported that $47 billion has been spent on the Iran war since
05:21February. That is a staggering number. That's almost as much as we spend on an annual State Department budget.
05:29That's the part of our government that's supposed to do statecraft and hopefully advance peace and
05:35human rights around the world. And we're basically, we've spent that taxpayer money on a war of choice
05:43that doesn't really seem like it's going to end anytime soon. So I think people are really distressed
05:48about that and want to see Congress take a stand, take a step up and lead on this. And that's
05:57what I think
05:57they're expecting and Democrats and they need to deliver if they, if they want to continue getting
06:03that kind of support from the American people at the ballot box. Thank you. Thank you, Hassan,
06:07very much for your time here with us. Also for showing us what is at stake for U.S. citizens
06:13in
06:13the midterm elections, but also for the rest of the world. Thank you for, for your time.
06:18Good time. Thank you.
06:19Good time. Thank you.
06:20Now we're
06:20Good time.
06:20You
