Welcome to The Beat, everyone. I'm Ari Melburgh. Our top story begins with a midterm campaign ad

as a Republican senator talks about violence and crackheads.

Violent crime is surging in Louisiana. Woke leaders blame the police. If you hate cops just because

they're cops, the next time you get in trouble, call a crackhead.

Next time you get in trouble, call a crackhead. We're going to get into this. We are in the

midterm home stretch. And what you see there from Senator Kennedy is not actually an aberration

at this point. Many Republicans are turning to fear tactics,

tropes, racial references, and sometimes outright documented racism in this part of the final

weeks of this campaign. Now, some candidates have used in the past racial dog whistles. That's the

tactic where you're signaling a type of racism to one audience while

preserving your deniability. But lately, the right wing has relied more on something like

racial sirens than any dual messaging. Crime is up right now in America, and that certainly

can be a valid issue for campaigns. But some Republicans are now literally campaigning on the false, racist accusation that black Americans would be the cause of all American crime.

And I'm going to show you exactly the quote, so you can decide for yourself what you're hearing.

But I want you to know up front. This is not like

a fringe or rookie candidate. In the news, sometimes there are people who aren't in power,

who say all kinds of things, and that doesn't always make the news, or we decide whether or not

to cover it. But I'm talking about someone who already has power, current U.S. Senator

Tommy Tuberville, who was saying this at a Trump rally, he was arguing that people

who support slavery reparations are the people who, quote, do the crime, and they're out

to take over.

They want to take over what you got.

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