Midwest
Bill Maher: 'We've passed the Rubicon with 'Death to America' chants on US soil'
“Real Time” host Bill Maher said it’s time to draw the line when it comes to chants of “Death to America” on American soil.
On Friday’s “Overtime” segment on YouTube, Maher addressed the protesters in Dearborn, Michigan, who shouted “Death to America” and “Death to Israel” during an International Al-Quds Day rally earlier this month.
“Can I talk about American propaganda? Because there was a rally in Dearborn, Michigan, it’s a large Muslim population, [there were] chants of ‘Death to America.’ I feel like we’ve passed something here,” Maher said.
‘DEATH TO AMERICA,’ ‘DEATH TO ISRAEL’ CHANTS POUR OUT OF MUSLIM PROTESTERS IN MICHIGAN ON LAST DAY OF RAMADAN
President Joe Biden’s campaign said it does not want the vote of anti-Israel agitators who chanted “Death to America.”
“The left has gotten mad at me for many years for talking about Islam. I try not to do it too much because I know it makes them go crazy, and I’ve made my point. But it needs to be talked about now. When you start chanting ‘Death to America’ in America.”
In a conversation with guests Piers Morgan and British journalist Gillian Tett, Maher pointed to quotes from anti-Israel activist Takek Bazzi, who headlined the hour-long rally in front of the Henry Ford Centennial Library in Dearborn.
BIDEN CAMPAIGN: WE DON’T WANT THE VOTES OF ‘DEATH TO AMERICA’ PROTESTERS IN MICHIGAN
In video shared by the Middle East Media Research Institute, Bazzi tells the crowd at the event that the “Death to America” chants were in honor of former Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini.
Takek Bazzi during his speech in Dearborn, Michigan. (Middle East Media Research Institute)
“Imam Khomeini, who declared International Al Quds Day, this is why he would say to pour all of your chants and all of your shots upon the head of America,” he told the crowd.
“He’s the good guy now?” Maher said of the former Iranian leader.
“I’ve heard this before. Not coming from America but…now it’s coming from inside America? Sorry. Got to talk about this again,” Maher continued.
Maher then highlighted a separate portion from Bazzi’s inflammatory speech, where Bazzi referred to the United States as “one of the rottenest countries that has ever existed on this Earth.
“It’s not just ‘genocide Joe’ that has to go,” Bazzi told the crowd, “it’s the entire sytem that has to go.”
“No, it doesn’t” a fed up Maher replied, prompting a loud applause from his audience.
“This is America for crying out loud. And there are people who will see this and say, oh, he’s a conservative now. I have not changed. I have always liked America and thought death to what was bad.”
Bazzi referred to the United States as “one of the rottenest countries that has ever existed on this Earth. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)
Maher posted the segment on X, formerly Twitter, with the caption,”We’ve passed the Rubicon with chants of ‘death to America’ on American soil.
Bazzi’s rhetoric was condemned by the White House and by Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.
Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud publicly denounced the chants, calling them “unacceptable and contrary to the heart” of Dearborn.
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BLOOMINGTON — Indiana football’s roster is on more equal footing with Miami, even though the star rankings have meant little to the final results in this year’s CFP.
The No. 1 Hoosiers (15-0) beat Alabama and Oregon by a combined score of 94-25 despite having no former 5-star players in the starting lineup and just one former top 100 recruit.
The No. 10 Hurricanes (13-2) will have a pair of former 5-star recruits in their starting lineup but are only starting a total of three former top-100 prospects. It’s a sharp drop off in top talent from the likes of Alabama (14), Ohio State (10) and Oregon (eight).
| Category | Indiana | Miami | Oregon | Ohio State | Alabama |
| 5-stars | 0 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 9 |
| 4-stars | 2 | 7 | 11 | 16 | 9 |
| Top 100 recruits | 1 | 3 | 8 | 10 | 14 |
| 2-stars or below | 9 | 4 | 2 | 1 | 2 |
Indiana’s starting lineup still leads the way in overlooked recruits — it will start nine players that ranked 2-stars or below, including starting quarterback Fernando Mendoza — but Miami almost has more (four) than IU’s past three opponents combined (five).
The Hurricanes also has a more of a transfer laden starting lineup (11) than any of Indiana’s postseason opponents.
Here’s a position-by-position breakdown of the recruiting rankings for this year’s participants in the CFP championship game:
Re-live IU’s 2025 season
Indiana football’s quarterbacks vs. Miami
| Position | Indiana (Year) | Rating (National rank) | Miami (Year) | Rating (National rank) |
| Quarterback | Fernando Mendoza (2022) | 2-stars (No. 2,149) | Carson Beck (2020) | 4-stars (No. 254) |
Indiana football’s skill positions vs. Miami
| Position | Indiana (Year) | Rating (National rank) | Miami (Year) | Rating (National rank) |
| Wide receiver | Elijah Sarratt (2022) | 0-stars (N/A) | Malachi Toney (2025) | 4-stars (No. 359) |
| Wide receiver | Omar Cooper Jr. (2022) | 4-stars (No. 299) | Keelan Marion | 2-stars (No. 3,390) |
| Wide receiver | E.J. Williams Jr. (2020) | 4-stars (No. 69) | CJ Daniels (2020) | 3-stars (No. 2,450) |
| Running back | Roman Hemby (2021) | 3-stars (No. 1,767) | Mark Fletcher Jr. (2023) | 4-stars (No. 149) |
| Tight end | Riley Nowakowski (2020) | 0-stars (N/A) | Alex Bauman (2022) | 3-stars (No. 1,770) |
Indiana football’s offensive line vs Miami
| Position | Indiana (Year) | Rating (National rank) | Miami (Year) | Rating (National rank) |
| Left tackle | Carter Smith (2022) | 3-stars (No. 730) | Markel Bell (2022) | N/A |
| Left guard | Drew Evans (2022) | 0-stars (N/A) | Matthew McCoy (2022) | 3-stars (No. 735) |
| Center | Pat Coogan (2021) | 3-stars (No. 613) | James Brockermeyer (2021) | 4-stars (No. 194) |
| Right guard | Bray Lynch (2022) | 3-stars (No. 1,033) | Anez Cooper (2022) | 3-stars (No. 1,149) |
| Right tackle | Kahlil Benson (2020) | 3-stars (No. 714) | Francis Mauigoa (2023) | 5-stars (No. 9) |
Indiana football’s defensive line vs. Miami
| Position | Indiana (Year) | Rating (National rank) | Miami (Year) | Rating (National rank) |
| Defensive tackle | Mario Landino (2024) | 3-stars (No. 2,398) | Ahmad Moten Sr. (2022) | 3-stars (No. 558) |
| Defensive tackle | Tyrique Tucker (2022) | 0-stars (N/A) | Justin Scott (2024) | 5-stars (No. 10) |
| Defensive end | Mikail Kamara (2020) | 0-stars (N/A) | Rueben Bain (2023) | 4-stars (No. 62) |
| Defensive end | Stephen Daley (2022) | 3-stars (No. 1,987) | Akheem Mesidor (2020) | 3-stars (No. 636) |
Indiana football’s linebackers vs. Miami
| Position | Indiana (Year) | Rating (National rank) | Miami (Year) | Rating (National rank) |
| Linebacker | Aiden Fisher (2022) | 0-stars (N/A) | Wesley Bissainthe (2022) | 4-stars (188) |
| Linebacker | Rolijah Hardy (2023) | 0-stars (N/A) | Mohamed Toure (2019) | 3-stars (No. 1,024) |
Indiana football’s secondary vs. Miami
| Position | Indiana (Year) | Rating (National rank) | Miami (Year) | Rating (National rank) |
| Cornerback | D’Angelo Ponds (2023) | 3-stars (No. 1,966) | OJ Frederique Jr. (2024) | 3-stars (No. 784) |
| Cornerback | Jamari Sharpe (2022) | 3-stars (No. 826) | Ethan O’Conner (2023) | 3-stars (No. 673) |
| Safety | Louis Moore (2020) | 0-stars (N/A) | Zechariah Poyser (2023) | N/A |
| Safety | Amare Ferrell (2022) | 3-stars (No. 578) | Jakobe Thomas (2021) | 3-stars (No. 2,048) |
| Rover | Devan Boykin (2020) | 3-stars (No. 833) | Keionte Scott (2020) | N/A |
Michael Niziolek is the Indiana beat reporter for The Bloomington Herald-Times. You can follow him on X @michaelniziolek and read all his coverage by clicking here.
In five of six legislative special elections last year, Democrats overperformed by more than 20 percentage points compared with the 2024 presidential election.
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Des Moines Register Chief Politics Reporter Brianne Pfannenstiel breaks down Iowa’s top races ahead of the 2026 midterms.
Iowa Democrats ended 2025 on a high note, winning a Dec. 30 special election in Des Moines’ western suburbs by a wider margin than during the presidential election.
That capped off a year in which Democrats won four of the six legislative special elections and ended Republicans’ supermajority in the Iowa Senate.
In five of those six special elections, Democrats overperformed by more than 20 percentage points compared with 2024.
They’ll look to build off the momentum going into the pivotal 2026 midterms that will include open races for governor and U.S. senator as well as regular Iowa congressional and Legislature elections.
Whether 2025’s Democratic Party victories are bellwethers or blips will play out this year.
Democrats saw Iowa special elections consistently tilt left
Though Republicans won in two special elections in 2025s, their margins of victory were significantly smaller than 2024.
Republican Wendy Larson won December’s special election for the vacant seat in House District 7 by 40 points. That’s a wide margin, but wide margins are expected for Republicans in that part of the state: The party holds strong advantages in voter registration totals in Calhoun, Pocahontas, Sac and Webster counties, where the district is located.
And even that 40-point margin represented a shift toward the Democrats.
In the 2024 presidential election, Republican Donald Trump defeated Democrat Kamala Harris by 50 points in House District 7. Democrats didn’t even field a candidate for the district’s legislative seat that year.
The 10-point shift toward Democrats from the 2024 presidential election to the 2025 special election in House District 7 was the smallest of any legislative district that held a special election last year.
Each of the five other districts shifted toward Democrats by more than twice as much.
Moreover, those special elections were spread across the state.
Democrats consistently gathered a greater share of votes from Senate District 1 in the northwest part of the state to House District 100 in the state’s southeast corner, ranging from 10 to 26 percentage points.
The two seats Democrats flipped in special elections — Senate Districts 1 and 35 — each shifted to the left by more than 20 points compared with the 2024 presidential election.
In Senate District 1, Trump outpaced Harris by 11 percentage points in 2024, while Democrat Caitlin Drey won the seat there by more than 10 points in August.
In Senate District 35, Trump’s victory margin in Senate District 35 was more than 21 points. In January 2025, Democrat Mike Zimmer won the district’s Senate seat by 3½ points.
In 2022, Republicans won both those seats by even wider margins than Trump in 2024.
Should Democrats expect momentum to carry over to 2026?
Pushing voters to the left in six isolated special elections is one thing. Parlaying those successes into November’s midterm elections is quite another.
Turnout was key in 2025’s special elections, and it will be again in 2026.
The numbers of votes cast in 2025’s special elections equaled roughly one-quarter to one-third the votes cast in the 2024 presidential election in those districts.
Turnout should be higher in November’s midterms.
Since 2000, the percentage of Iowa’s registered voters who have participated in the midterm elections typically has hovered around 55%. (About 75% of registered Iowans usually vote in presidential elections.)
But what determines an election is less about the number of people who show up and more about who those people are.
An increased share of those who went to the polls in the special elections were Democratic voters — or, perhaps more accurately, a greater number of Republican voters stayed home.
Republicans will be working to get those voters back to the polls this November.
Republicans maintain advantage in Iowa voter registration data
The leftward shift in last year’s special elections has yet to materialize in Iowa’s voter registration numbers.
Over roughly the past 15 years, voter registrations in Iowa have swung heavily toward Republicans.
Democrats, conversely, have lost 200,000 voters in that time, and Republicans have opened up an overall advantage of more than 10 percentage points.
Despite their victories at the ballot box in 2025, Democrats have not chipped into Republicans’ significant lead in voter registrations.
Last year was the first since at least 2000 when the share of active voters who were Republicans was at least 10 percentage points higher than the share who were Democrats throughout the entire year.
Republicans began 2026 with nearly 200,000 more active registered voters than Democrats, among their largest leads this century.
Those two parties do not comprise the entirety of Iowa’s electorate — a large share of Iowa’s active voters are not registered to a party, and a smaller amount are registered to other parties, including Libertarians.
And just because a voter is registered as a Democrat or Republican doesn’t mean they’ll vote for their party’s candidates.
But the large voter deficit indicates Democrats are starting from a less favorable position.
Their special election victories in 2025 proved they can win elections, but they’ll need to make up some ground to replicate that success in 2026.
Tim Webber is a data visualization specialist for the Register. Reach him at twebber@registermedia.com and on Twitter at @HelloTimWebber.
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