Dem attorney backs GOP hopeful in Michigan race against El-Sayed, 'jumping ship' from his party's 'lunatics'

When a longtime Democratic attorney says his own party has "gone off the deep end," that's not a talking point from our side. That's Julian Epstein, a man who spent years defending Democrats on cable news, now telling anyone who'll listen that he can't stomach where his party has landed. He's not quietly sitting this one out either. He's backing Mike Rogers, a Republican, in a Senate race against Abdul El-Sayed. That's not a small gesture.

What's notable is what Epstein isn't saying. He's not complaining about taxes or gas prices. He's saying the nominee himself is the problem, and he's using the word "lunatics" to describe the wing of the party that produced him. That's a specific, personal indictment from someone who knows these people, not a stranger throwing stones from Fox News.

Democrats can wave this off as one disgruntled insider. Maybe he is. But defections like this tend to happen when something has genuinely shifted, not when everything's fine and one guy is being dramatic. Voters in Michigan watching a Democratic lawyer walk out the door might reasonably wonder what he's seeing up close that they're only catching in headlines.

We don't expect every Democrat to suddenly agree with Epstein. But when your own bench starts sounding like the opposition, that's a story about the state of the party, not just a story about one endorsement.