👀AOC’s last 48 hours look a lot like a 2028 audition

In today’s “The Inner Circle”: Republicans finally have their sharpest midterm argument — but did President Trump step all over it by going after Abdul El-Sayed’s wife’s hijab? Plus, AOC’s weekend media tour spikes the chatter about her 2028 intentions. Mentioned in today’s edition: Donald Trump, Abdul El-Sayed, Mike Rogers, Hasan Piker, Francesca Hong, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Bernie Sanders.

🗳️ STRONGER CASE — OR MUDDIED WATERS? — With ABDUL EL-SAYED now Michigan’s Democratic Senate nominee and extreme leftist FRANCESCA HONG widely expected to win tonight’s Wisconsin gubernatorial primary, Republicans finally have what they’ve been chasing all cycle: The perfect ploy to turn the midterms from a referendum on DONALD TRUMP into a choice about which party is more extreme.

El-Sayed, after all, campaigned with radical Twitch streamer HASAN PIKER, who said Americans “deserved” 9/11. Hong has backed abolishing the police and once proposed canceling Thanksgiving because she deemed the holiday oppressive — though she’s now running away from the idea fast.

But a new line of attack on El-Sayed threatens to water down that clean political shot and unify Democrats — namely, the mocking of his religion.

Over the weekend, President DONALD TRUMP leaned into what Democrats argue is blatantly Islamophobia:

• Trump posted a side-by-side image on Truth Social of himself and his wife, Melania, dressed in fancy evening wear, next to El-Sayed and his wife, SARAH JUKAKU, who is shown wearing a hijab, the traditional Muslim head garb. Trump’s caption? “Two VERY DIFFERENT Americas.”

• Trump has also been using El-Sayed’s full name, Abdulrahman Mohamed El-Sayed — though El-Sayed has made clear that he prefers to go by “Abul,” dropping the longer, more difficult-to-pronounce first name, as well as the middle name taken from Islam’s prophet. It’s the same playbook Trump deployed against BARACK OBAMA over a decade ago, you’ll recall, tucking in his middle name, “Hussein.”

• Republicans have also taken to calling El-Sayed “dangerous.” To be fair, the candidate himself boasted that he was “dangerous” to establishment Democrats and AIPAC because he could outmaneuver their piles of cash spent against him. The GOP’s intention, however? Make him seem “dangerous” to America writ large, in part because of his background.

🎯 THE CASE THEY’RE STEPPING ON — Republicans argue this jazzes up the GOP base and could make swing voters think twice before turning out to back El-sayed. But it also distracts from what’s otherwise a pretty clear and digestible message against Democrats — a message that, mind you, has suddenly put Michigan’s Senate seat and Wisconsin’s governor’s mansion within reach for the right.

While El-Sayed says he’s not a DSA member, his policies track a lot of the group’s platform. His decision to campaign alongside Piker is real ammunition for Republicans, and it makes plenty of Democrats uncomfortable, too.

And the knocks on El-Sayed keep coming: The latest? Old El-Sayed comments saying he “hates Mackinac so much,” the popular Wolverine State vacation spot, which Republicans are unsurprisingly using against him.

So here’s my question: Why go after his religion and risk unifying Democrats at a time when many of them are uncomfortable with this guy to begin with?

CONSIDER THIS: Democrats know the rise of Democratic Socialism and left-leaning candidates is a potential problem in the midterms. It’s why, in recent days, they’ve appeared on the defensive:

• Even big-name progressives have refused to embrace Hong’s bid for governor in Wisconsin, including BERNIE SANDERS and AOC, who declined to endorse her.

• El-Sayed, who once refused to disavow Piker’s 9/11 comments, said this weekend on NBC’s “Meet the Press”: “Of course it was a dumb statement and of course I think Hasan himself would say that was a dumb statement.”

• And AOC appears to be distancing herself from the national platform of the Democratic Socialists of America. (More on that below.)

Democrats clearly see a problem in their own party. So again: Why distract from that strong case — socialism, Piker, Mackinac — by turning this into a fight over a woman’s hijab that makes El-Sayed look like a sympathetic figure?

👀 ICYMI: AOC’S 2028 TEASE — If you didn’t think Rep. ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ was eyeing a presidential run this coming cycle, the past 48 hours were the wake-up call you’ve been missing.

In the span of two days, the high-profile Squad Leader did several notable things that make her run for the presidency seem almost certain — and that go well beyond refusing to rule out running for the White House, which she also did in a Sunday interview.

1) AOC resurfaced on the Sunday shows for the first time in more than two years. It’s a big deal for a prominent Democrat who nonetheless tends to stick to friendly, left-leaning media outlets and reporters. If she runs for president, she’s going to need to get her reps in with journalists who will press her on her past positions.

2) She dissed the DSA — On ABC’s “This Week,” AOC went out of her way to distance herself from national DSA, stressing she’s only ever been a member of the New York City chapter — not the national organization, whose platform includes abolishing the Constitution. Here’s the exchange:

Karl: “Are you still a member of Democratic Socialists of America?”

Ocasio-Cortez: “Of the New York City chapter. Yes.”

Karl: “The New York City chapter. Not the national?”

Ocasio-Cortez: No.

Karl: And what’s the difference?

Ocasio-Cortez: So, every DSA chapter is formed locally. And so, the New York City DSA chapter, those are folks that you know… It’s kind of like your local union chapter.

When Host Jon Karl asked if she supports some of the national DSA’s positions — listing a few like defunding DOD, abolishing police and prisons, giving asylum to illegal immigrants, getting rid of the Supreme Court and the Senate and public ownership of corporations — she said “no.

3)AOC also distanced herself from her own more controversial past positions, and threw out a new justification to explain them away:

“I have a local city councilman that has this saying, ‘Woke 1 was crazy,’” she said, laughing — a clip that has gone viral as Republicans mock her change in thinking.

Asked whether she and the movement went too far during COVID, AOC suggested they did — a huge turnabout for a candidate once known as a give-no-apologies leftie. Here is her response:

“During this time and during — especially during Covid — there was a huge opening of the Overton Window… There was some of the highest unemployment rates that we have seen because of those shutdowns. And I think that the doors were really open in trying to entertain any and every policy that was going to get us to a better place. And I actually think that the discussions that were had in that time were quite fruitful. I think that when we talk about crime today, it’s fundamentally different than the way that we talked about crime … During lockdown, of course, rhetoric in that time is not rhetoric that we would use today.”

4) AOC got personal about her decision to freeze her eggs in hopes of having children in the future. The 36-year-old even posted an Instagram video of herself giving injections and said she plans to talk about this process publicly as she undergoes the procedure.

My The Huddle co-host Dan Turrentine’s read on the egg-freezing moment in our show this morning says it all:

“That is bringing an issue into the public to kind of humanize yourself, to talk about your own challenges — and maybe your aspirations for a family in the future,” Dan said. “Those — and going on a Sunday show — those are all moves of someone who wants to be in the national conversation, who wants you talking about them, who wants you to think of them in a fresh light.”

There’s no doubt this is AOC’s biggest moment. With candidates on the left rising and trumping the Democratic establishment, her wing of the party is flexing harder than ever and often winning. It seems almost political malpractice for her to sit out the 2028 presidential field.

🎥🔥 TODAY’S WATCH — Catch our fuller conversation on these topics, plus primary day previews in Wisconsin, Minnesota and South Carolina. Also: the WNBA’s transgender firestorm, Iran and WILL SHARF’s new gig as White House counsel heading into storm of Democratic investigations. On today’s The Huddle. Subscribe to our YouTube channel. Or listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.