2457 - Dems First Electoral Challenge & Schumer's Cratering Support w/ Ben Wikler & Ezra Levin

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Majority Report with Sam Seder Episode 2457 - Dems First Electoral Challenge & Schumer's Cratering Support w/ Ben Wikler & Ezra Levin Release Date: March 19, 2025

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Introduction

In Episode 2457 of The Majority Report with Sam Seder, host Sam Seder delves into the emerging challenges facing the Democratic Party, particularly focusing on leadership issues within the Senate and the broader implications for upcoming elections. The episode features insightful conversations with two prominent guests: Ben Wickler, Chair of the Wisconsin Democratic Party, and Ezra Levin, Co-founder and Co-Executive Director of Indivisible. Together, they explore the erosion of support for Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, the strategic battles in Wisconsin's pivotal elections, and the grassroots movements aiming to reshape Democratic leadership.

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Discussion with Ben Wickler: The Wisconsin Battle

Timestamp: 26:04 - 35:31

Key Topics:

• Historical Struggles in Wisconsin: Ben Wickler outlines the Republican onslaught in Wisconsin over the past decade, highlighting Scott Walker's aggressive policies against unions and Medicaid, which led to significant Democratic setbacks.

  "What Scott Walker did when he came in, he said on the basis of a trumped up budget crisis that they needed to smash collective bargaining for public sector employees. That was Act 10."
  — Ben Wickler (27:30)

• Supreme Court Influence: The manipulation of Wisconsin's state Supreme Court played a critical role in cementing Republican control, with narrowly decided races tipping the balance towards conservative judicial leanings.

  "These Supreme Court races have been critical, and I made fighting in the Supreme Court races a top priority for me and for our work at the party."
  — Ben Wickler (31:10)

• Current Supreme Court Race: Wickler emphasizes the importance of the upcoming Wisconsin Supreme Court race between Brad Schimmel, a Republican candidate backed by Elon Musk, and Susan Crawford, the progressive Democrat. This race is pivotal in determining the judicial and electoral landscape of Wisconsin for the next two decades.

  "If Brad Schimmel gets the deciding vote on our state Supreme Court, then we have serious risk of like serious election sabotage."
  — Ben Wickler (34:50)

• Elon Musk’s Involvement: Musk's unprecedented financial influence in the race raises concerns about external interference in judicial elections, potentially undermining democratic processes.

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Discussion with Ezra Levin: Indivisible's Role and Schumer's Leadership Crisis

Timestamp: 46:35 - 74:07

Key Topics:

• Origin of Indivisible: Ezra Levin shares the foundational goals of Indivisible, established in response to the Trump administration's policies and the perceived vacuum in Democratic grassroots leadership.

  "We saw people all over the country were saying, gosh, what do we do? ... That's what we've been doing over the last eight years."
  — Ezra Levin (47:23)

• Impact on House and Senate Democrats: Levin critiques Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer for failing to adapt to the current political climate, arguing that his strategies do not align with the grassroots demand for more aggressive opposition to Republican initiatives.

  "Chuck Schumer misjudged the Republicans. ... he wants to cave, but he wanted to cave for a long term clean CR."
  — Ezra Levin (53:46)

• Grassroots Mobilization: Emphasizing the necessity of grassroots activism, Levin discusses Indivisible's efforts to galvanize local communities to pressure Democratic leaders to adopt more robust opposition tactics against Republican policies.

  "We have to reach people who believe in freedom, justice, democracy. ... we can out turn out Republicans in this race."
  — Ezra Levin (42:34)

• Call for Leadership Change: The conversation shifts to the growing sentiment within the Democratic Party calling for Chuck Schumer to step down as Senate leader. Levin outlines the procedural steps required for such a leadership change, highlighting the current lack of momentum.

  "We have nearly unanimity around this question. ... if you are in a Republican district, it’s really important for you to be organizing and showing that you're putting in the works."
  — Ezra Levin (71:31)

• Strategic Failures: Levin criticizes Schumer's handling of budget negotiations, suggesting that his inability to foresee Republican maneuvers has led to significant strategic missteps, weakening Democratic leverage.

  "He thought they were going to fail to get their bill through in the House ... He did not update his thinking when the facts on the ground changed."
  — Ezra Levin (53:46)

• Future Implications: The guests discuss the broader implications of Schumer's leadership on upcoming elections, emphasizing the need for a unified and proactive Democratic strategy to prevent further erosion of democratic institutions.

  "We have a 50-50 state of Wisconsin, the closest state in the country, and we're being outspent. ... if we win this election, it is going to say something powerful about our ability to put people power over the power of organized money in this country."
  — Ben Wickler (41:03)

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Conclusions and Action Steps

Timestamp: 75:11 - 81:41

Key Takeaways:

• Voter Mobilization: Seder and his guests urge listeners to engage actively in the political process through phone banking, volunteering, and direct voter outreach to support Democratic candidates and challenge Republican dominance.

  "This is your one good voting law, which is, you know, a same-day voter registration. ... this is go time."
  — Ben Wickler (38:12)

• Leadership Accountability: Emphasis is placed on holding Democratic leaders accountable, particularly Chuck Schumer, to realign party strategies with the urgent needs of preserving democratic integrity.

  "If you are in a Republican district, it's really important for you to be organizing and showing that you're putting in the works."
  — Ezra Levin (69:21)

• Grassroots Empowerment: The episode underscores the power of grassroots movements in effecting change within the Democratic Party, advocating for a bottom-up approach to leadership and policy formulation.

  "Provide that pathway for them, encourage them to walk and cheer them on when they do. That is the pathway to getting any kind of change in the future."
  — Ezra Levin (70:24)

• Urgency of Action: The guests collectively highlight the pressing nature of the political challenges ahead, urging immediate and sustained action from Democratic supporters to counteract Republican strategies and safeguard democratic institutions.

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• Ben Wickler (27:30):
  "What Scott Walker did when he came in, he said on the basis of a trumped up budget crisis that they needed to smash collective bargaining for public sector employees. That was Act 10."

• Ben Wickler (34:50):
  "If Brad Schimmel gets the deciding vote on our state Supreme Court, then we have serious risk of like serious election sabotage."

• Ezra Levin (47:23):
  "We saw people all over the country were saying, gosh, what do we do? ... That's what we've been doing over the last eight years."

• Ezra Levin (53:46):
  "Chuck Schumer misjudged the Republicans. ... he wants to cave, but he wanted to cave for a long term clean CR."

• Ezra Levin (71:31):
  "We have nearly unanimity around this question. ... if you are in a Republican district, it’s really important for you to be organizing and showing that you're putting in the works."

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Final Thoughts

Episode 2457 of The Majority Report with Sam Seder provides a compelling analysis of the internal struggles within the Democratic Party, spotlighting the critical role of leadership and grassroots activism in shaping the party's future. Through the expertise of Ben Wickler and Ezra Levin, listeners gain a deeper understanding of the strategic imperatives facing Democrats as they navigate electoral challenges and strive to reclaim and reinforce democratic institutions against rising authoritarian tendencies.

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Note: Advertisements and non-content segments have been omitted to focus solely on the substantive discussions and insights provided by the guests.

Transcript

[Sam Seder]

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[Emma Vigeland]

That's so weird how that keeps happening.

[Sam Seder]

So strange. Minnesota gop HHS looking to drastically gut funds for domestic HIV prevention. All this and more on today's Majority Report. Welcome, ladies and gentlemen.

[Emma Vigeland]

It is new hump day, not news.

[Sam Seder]

Where is it? Where's.

[Emma Vigeland]

I'm here. I'm here. I like to, you know, milk it, make an entrance.

[Sam Seder]

Yes, I understand. And it is hump day.

[Emma Vigeland]

Yeah, sorry. I fulfilled the contractual obligation. I messed up at the beginning. That's all out of sorts.

[Sam Seder]

Yes, we're all out of sorts these days. Thanks for joining us, folks. A lot to get to today. We'll be talking to Ben Wickler, who is the chair of the Wisconsin Democratic Party, about a really important race that is happening in two weeks, less than two weeks in Wisconsin. Maybe it was two weeks yesterday. A Supreme Court seat there. We'll be talking to Ben. More about that in a moment. Also, we'll be talking to Ezra Levin. Like I say, he's the Ed of that group, indivisible. And they have called for Chuck Schumer to resign. And over the past 24 hours, the there has been a continuation. In fact, a what starts to start to feel like a cascading series of critiques of Schumer and calls for him to step down as Senate leader. And not from this is not a. The hippies are doing this. We're talking about Pelosi, we're talking about congresspeople.

[Emma Vigeland]

I mean, the ladies of the View raked him over the coals. I don't know if that, that kind of sums it up. Right.

[Sam Seder]

We will, we will get to that in a moment. And he is on a tour to attempt to, I guess, salvage his Senate leadership. And it in and of itself is an example of why he's not up to the moment. But we will talk about that more in a moment. First up, there are still a couple of Republicans who are willing to go out and do town halls, which I, I commend them for doing. It's important to do regardless of whether you're a Democrat or a Republican. We're also starting to see Democrats go into Republican districts. In fact, I think last night in Wisconsin, Tim Waltz was giving a speech in a Republican district. Ben Wickler was there. We'll talk to him about that. But like I say, there's still some Republicans who are willing to have town halls. I don't like to make too many predictions over the past couple years, but I suspect we're going to see an increasingly fewer number of these town halls because of moments like this in Nebraska. And I should say Nebraska is not in California or New York. Just so that people are clear. Nebraska is not a coastal, like a coastal elite, about as far as you.

[Ben Wickler]

Can get it from the coast.

[Emma Vigeland]

But Soros's tentacles extend very far into the heartland. I mean, are these all paid protesters?

[Sam Seder]

Again, there's a, they're spreading it around and they, it's, it's nice to see that they're sending some to Nebraska up.

[Emma Vigeland]

And coming research available to her. You are disfunding nih.

[Sam Seder]

Pause it for one second. Obviously, this woman is talking about all of the funding cuts that are happening under this administration. And we should be clear. And we'll talk a little bit more about this when we talk about Chuck Schumer's failed strategy. David Dayen lays it out pretty well in the American Prospect yesterday. I think it was yesterday or today that this continuing resolution is still going to allow for a lot of cuts. Both as it's written, there are called for cuts, but then it gives Trump a license to move money around. So even if the courts end up stopping Musk and Doge, there are other entities that can essentially inhibit these programs that exist. And she is talking about that right.

[Emma Vigeland]

Now to Mike Flood, the National Science foundation. And you can't put that on on anybody but yourself and your GOP colleagues. I would like to know.

[Ezra Levin]

I would.

[Emma Vigeland]

Like to know how you personally stomach that decision. Thank you.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Anybody that has been through, a close relative or a friend or a family member with cancer knows how deeply personal that is. And I have had that experience with my own wife. So yes, I do know what that process is like. Here's where we're at. We're at the dawn of a new presidential administration. The 119th Congress is about 60 days in. We have the Department of Government Efficiency that is looking at and is sunk. It is looking at the funding that's available for research. And in some cases that funding has either. Been.

[Sam Seder]

Pause it right there for a second. That crowd of rabble rousing hippies there.

[Emma Vigeland]

The pink haired antifa mob. Does anybody have.

[Sam Seder]

Let me put it this way, when I can look right at an audience and say I would be on the young side in there, that gives you a sense of the demographic that's there now, of course these people have more time to pay attention to what's going on. I mean, it's just the case, you know, a decent amount of those folks are probably retired. A decent amount of those folks are probably more reliant on government services because of their age like Medicare or maybe they. And just with time you end up getting a little more savvy about these things.

[Emma Vigeland]

Okay, well, I mean also they may be close to retirement, which is part of what we talked about earlier, which is that the fact that any cuts to retirement or dips in the massive dips in the stock market that could be affecting their 401k Social Security cuts, it affects folks closest to retirement most.

[Sam Seder]

Yep.

[Unnamed Speaker]

The funding that's available for research and in some cases that funding has either been identified or suspended or is on hold or has been terminated. I don't, I don't believe we're in a process today at this moment to say in any way that medical research funding is going away. I support medical research funding if it is currently paused. If there is a, if there is a concern, we take those up individually and ultimately where we need to go is to a balanced budget. A balanced budget.

[Sam Seder]

Where we.

[Unnamed Speaker]

How can you be against a balanced budget?

[Sam Seder]

How can you be against it for one second? I'll tell you how you can be against a balanced budget. If you look back over time at whenever we have approached a balanced budget, you will see that we have a recession shortly following it. And that is because if the government has a balanced budget, then the private sector has a negative one. There's only so much money. It's going to be in one area or another. The fact of the matter is, is that when we came close to a balanced budget with Bill Clinton and Projected surpluses. That is when we had a recession. And you can go back and track. Every time we have come close to having a surplus, we get hit with a recession.

[Emma Vigeland]

But even if you want to take their argument on their terms, which I agree we shouldn't, but just for the sake of like this interaction with this Republican, with his constituents, there is an easy way to achieve what he's saying he wants to achieve.

[Sam Seder]

Oh, these guys know.

[Emma Vigeland]

They know. And I know it's about to. What is about to be said. But you can cut cancer research funding or you could do something else to raise more revenue budget.

[Unnamed Speaker]

All right.

[Sam Seder]

All right.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Here'S a. Okay, let's talk about this. Let's talk about this. So your proposal to solve this is to tax the rich.

[Sam Seder]

Wow.

[Unnamed Speaker]

So let's talk about this, because this is actually a very good point. If you look at President Joe Biden's last State of the Union address, he had a proposal called the millionaires tax. President Biden proposed a millionaires tax. And let me tell you, if it was enacted, it would raise $50 billion a year. That's about 200 times less than what we need to address that. So even your proposal to tax the rich.

[Sam Seder]

Pause it for a second. It wasn't their proposal. Here's my proposal. Tax the rich more.

[Ben Wickler]

Biden's wasn't sufficient.

[Emma Vigeland]

Right. How about billionaires shouldn't exist and claw back all of that money. They could be 999 millionaires, but everything over that goes back into the pockets of the American people.

[Sam Seder]

Wealth tax.

[Ben Wickler]

And Emma made the good point is like, okay, you're talking about how that's insufficient, yet you just transitioned from NIH funding to solving the national debt. From what? Like looking at NIH funding closer, please.

[Emma Vigeland]

I mean, the kid that Trump brought.

[Sam Seder]

To the joint address, defense cut defense.

[Emma Vigeland]

Was a 13 year old who had brain cancer in 2018. The one he made the honorary member of the U.S. secret Service, where he was treated in Texas, is being affected at Baylor College of Medicine by the cuts from NIH funding. Like this is all over the country and everybody's affected by cancer, everybody's affected by health care costs.

[Ben Wickler]

Every state has cities with universities that probably get NIH funding.

[Emma Vigeland]

In fact, sometimes the beating heart of economies in redder states where there isn't a ton of like commerce and capital are things like universities. Like the University of Alabama is what, the top employer in the state or one of the top employers in the state. And, and included in that is, it's not just the football program. It's also researchers that work there. I mean like a lot. The University of Arkansas I know is doing some research into, into chips and like computer systems and things like that. These are going to be affected and these are in red states as resident gets continue.

[Ezra Levin]

Yeah.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Oh, and also by the way, that would also hamper our nation's growth if you're going to ask me.

[Emma Vigeland]

Right. It would sort of solve it.

[Unnamed Speaker]

All right, next question.

Okay, we are going to move.

[Emma Vigeland]

Next question.

[Ben Wickler]

No one would hamper the nation's growth is slashing Medicaid which is also really important for rural communities to talk about just hospitals as centers of employment.

[Emma Vigeland]

Right. And he said it there that Biden's billionaire tax would have raised revenue. Like it's like what they do with the Social Security thing. Oh, it's irredeemably fraudulent and we have to cut it. But you know, we're cutting it to save it. We're also acknowledging its importance as we're justifying cutting it. It's, it's a two step that they can't pull off. They don't have the dexterity.

[Ben Wickler]

I love how great the people get it there though. Like they groan at growth as opposed to tax cuts because they know trickle down is a lie.

[Sam Seder]

It's a failure. I mean Kansas, Kansas, Kansas, Kansas. Google it if you don't know what I'm talking about at this point. I don't know how you've been watching the show for any period of time and you don't know what I mean when I say Kansas and Sam Brown back, but Google it. I also like how it sounded like it was just going to be some rump group of people saying tax the rich in that auditorium and then like 3/4 of the place joins it. Next question. All right, in a moment we're going to be talking to Ben Wickler, chair of the Wisconsin Democratic Party. First, a couple words from our sponsors. When you think about businesses that are selling through the roof like Aloe or Alberts or Skims, yes. You think of a great product, think of a cool brand. Brilliant marketing but often overlooked secret is actually the businesses behind the business that makes selling and shopping for shoppers buying simple for millions of businesses. That business is Shopify. Nobody does it better than Shopify. It's the home of the number one checkout on the planet. And the not so secret secret with shop pay that boost conversions up to 50% meaning way less carts going abandoned and way more sales going Ka Chang. So if you're growing your business, your commerce platform be better Be ready to sell wherever your customers are scrolling or strolling, whether it's on the web, in your store, in their feed and everywhere in between. Businesses that sell more sell on Shopify. When we started our merch store, it's not a big part of our business, but I didn't want to do it at all because I thought this thing's going to be a huge pain in the butt. Not going to be able to do anything with it and I'm not going to be able to update it. It's all turnkey, super easy for a small business like ours. And if our merch stuff, we did a huge run on it, like, I don't know, we sold a whoopsie shirt, right? Yeah, that sold like hotcakes, actually. And anytime we do an Emma Majority product that goes off the flies off the shelves.

[Emma Vigeland]

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[Sam Seder]

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[Unnamed Speaker]

It.

[Sam Seder]

We are back. Sam Cedar, Emma Vigland on the Majority Report. It is a pleasure I believe to welcome back to the program Ben Wickler, the chairman of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin. Ben, thanks for joining us.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Thanks for having me. It is a living the dream, fighting the nightmare. That's what I would say about how to do it.

[Sam Seder]

Yes, I'm glad to hear at least it's you're living the dream, as it were. It's good to see you. Let's start with this race that is coming up in less than two weeks. It is really key one, I feel like, I mean certainly for the, for the duration of this iteration of my show and I should say just full disclosure, we knew each other back in the Air America days when you were producing there and I and you came in and gave me some advice on this show probably 10, 12 years ago. I think it was 14 years ago maybe. But this show has, I could mark it when I mark it in my head about the fights that we have seen in Wisconsin over the course of, of the past 14 years. You had Scott Walker, who basically unleashed the Koch brother experiment that in many ways attempted to sweep the nation. And it has in some respects, in terms of like busting unions and attacking Medicaid there and Wisconsin though over the past seven, eight years. And I know at least you deserve at least a chunk of that credit, but of course I think a lot of Wisconsinites do, has been fighting back, has reversed things like the gerrymander there has taken back power in your state. And a big pivot point for that has been the Supreme Court. Tell us about that history and then let's talk about this race.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Absolutely. So Wisconsin experience a kind of micro version of what the whole country is experiencing right now, which is Republicans sweeping in, taking trifecta control and then immediately setting about trying to smash the basis of the progressive movement, Democratic strength, worker power, you know, clean and effective government. What Scott Walker did when he came in, he said on the basis of a trumped up budget crisis that they needed to smash collective bargaining for public sector employees. That was Act 10. 100,000 people protesting outside the state Capitol. At the same time, they gerrymandered our maps to high heaven, locking in conservative majorities from Congress to the state legislature. They passed voter suppression laws that had a massive, terrible effect on especially young voters and black voters, which was the intent, as a whistleblower later revealed. It was a full court press. And then within government agencies, they were throwing out the nonpartisan civil servants. They were clamping down on the use of any language. They said the Department of Natural Resources couldn't mention climate change, for example. There was all this stuff that we're kind of seeing now with Trump and Musk. And it almost worked to break democracy in the state. They had a, a hammerlock for years. And this was all in part because our state Supreme Court rubber stamped a whole bunch of illegal laws. There was a Supreme Court race in the spring of 2011. The more progressive candidate who would have tipped the majority to, you know, pro democracy justices lost by less than half a percentage point. And so they had a state supreme court majority for 15 years that they used to just, you know, support whatever it was that Scott Walker and Republicans wanted to do. I moved home in 2018. I got to volunteer for, for Governor Tony Evers, who won that year by one point. One point, which in Wisconsin we call a landslide because it's more than one point. Attorney General Scott call beat a terrible Republican Attorney general who'd been part of this whole machine attacking everything good. His name was Brad Schimmel, and we Democrats swept every statewide election that year. And then in 2019, I was elected chair. While I was running for chair, there was another Supreme Court race that we lost again by less than half a percentage point. So these Supreme Court races have been critical, and I made fighting in the Supreme Court races a top priority for me and for our work at the party alongside this amazing the folks who've been on the ground year over year over year, from candidates to grassroots activists and organizers to our partners and friends in the union movement. So many folks, folks. Spring of 2020, we won a double digit landslide in a race that seemed potentially lost because it was the first election during the COVID pandemic and Republicans insisted on going forward, even though in Milwaukee, out of 168 polling locations, only five were open on Election Day because so many poll workers had dropped out because of COVID And that sort of sparked the rush that we've had since then. We won the 2020 presidential by a hair's breadth, seven tenths of a point. In 2022, we, for the first time in more than 60 years, we won a governor's race when there was a Democratic president in the White House and prevented a Republican supermajority. 2023, we finally won the state Supreme Court majority. Another blowout. And now, and then the state Supreme Court, I should say they struck down the gerrymandered maps, but only after Republicans tried to impeach our Supreme Court justice before she could start doing her job to prevent her from ruling on whether the maps were constitutional. And we managed to fight and organize and push that back. So the Supreme Court has really transformed our politics in the, in the state by reading the Constitution before approving any set of maps. And we now have fair maps in our state legislature. We still have gerrymandered congressional maps because those have not been adjudicated yet. But in this race now, Brad Schimmel, the guy who Josh Caller, Attorney general, beat in 2018, he's running to become and kind of ultra, hyper, mega Supreme Court justice. And if he wins, it's an open seat now retiring progressive justice. This will determine the majority on the court. So this is like a race that will either pull us straight backwards into hyper gerrymandered state legislative races, attacks on voting rights from the Supreme Court. He has said that Trump keeps losing in the courts and we need a support network and the only way we can stop that is through the Courts Brad Schimmel. He's like running to be Trump's mega warrior in Wisconsin, potentially overturn elections. And on our side we have Susan Crawford, who, let me put it this way, there was a case called Planned Parenthood versus Brad Schimmel. Brad Schimmel said he was honored to be named in that case. The lawyer in that case for Planned Parenthood was Susan Crawford, who is the candidate that I'm supporting and Democrats are supporting for Wisconsin Supreme Court. So it's like freedom, democracy, justice, fairness versus Maga, maga, Maga musk on the other side. And that is coming up in 13 days.

[Sam Seder]

We should say that these races are technically nonpartisan, but it's quite clear who the progressive justice is and who or would be and who the right wing reactionary justice would be. There are two points that I think your story makes clear. One is that it is a mistake to presume that Trump ushered in a lot of this because it existed when Donald Trump was still receiving and having pizza with Mitt Romney when he was running. I mean, all this stuff is sort of like part and parcel of a right wing ultra conservative movement. And then the second thing is, is how important a race like this is. I mean, we people pay attention to Senate races and House races and governor races and state senator races, but this race will determine the nature of the playing field that all those other races take place on.

[Unnamed Speaker]

That is 1,000% right. And to put this in vivid context, Wisconsin is the only case where the Supreme Court seriously entertained overturning the 2020 presidential race. And it came within a single vote. It was a 4, 3 vote on our state Supreme Court. They would have thrown out hundreds of thousands of ballots just in the two biggest Democratic counties, Dane county and Milwaukee County. If the Republicans had gotten their way, and if Brad Schimmel gets the deciding vote on our state Supreme Court, then we have serious risk of like serious election sabotage. On top of that, it was the Supreme Court that put the gerrymandered maps into place in 2022. They basically overrode the governor's veto and just chose the maps proposed by the Republicans. It was the Supreme Court that banned dropboxes in Wisconsin. Like they, when the MAGA had the majority there, they just put their thumb on the scale and that affects the House majority in 26 and 28, the Senate majority. We have Senate races in 28 and 30, presidential election voting rights and certification in 2028. Not only that, the next five state Supreme Court races could very easily be justices who've been elected running for reelection. And no justice who's been elected running for reelection is lost in the last half century. This is an open seat this year. So whoever wins this year might control the majority through the 2030 redistricting cycle, meaning congressional maps, the House majority, the state legislative majorities could be determined through 2042 by what happens in the next 15 days. And these races, Republicans saw long ago that they were critical and flooded in money. Our side now is fighting finally with fire. With fire. But we have a huge battle ahead of us in these next two weeks.

[Sam Seder]

My understanding is that Elon Musk has dumped about what. What is like $10 million into the. What is the. The money situation here is nuts. And I've also read that he's, like, deploying some of the tactics that he used in electing Trump by creating fake progressive groups. Tell us about that.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah. So this is Elon Musk's first big fight since the 2024 election. And he has now put in, as of this moment, from what we can track $13.2 million into helping Brad Schimmel get elected.

[Emma Vigeland]

A state Supreme Court race. That's a lot of money.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yes. So he's put in more money than, as far as we can tell, any donor has ever put into any judicial election in American history into this race. And he is running TV ads that are all like, crime, crime, crime, general kind of fear mongering for stuff targeted to Republicans. He's has hired canvassers to go door to door with flyers, which I can grab one out of my bag, that, that show Trump and say, Trump is winning for America. But liberal judges are trying to stop him. Elect Brad Shimmel to advance Trump's agenda. It is completely straightforward. Like, he will do whatever Trump wants. And it is. He's trying to rile up the mega base. But then he's done this third thing, which is set up a. A cutout organization called Progress 2028, which. The same group, this is the group the last year ran ads to Jews saying that Harris supported Palestine and Palestinians saying Harris supported Israel. And that same group is running ads targeted to hardcore right wingers, saying that Susan Crawford is like a big criminal justice reform person and is our liberal champion and support, you know, tell her thank you for being, you know, like, you know, liberal in crime. And it is just a way of getting Republicans to turn out. Now it is illegal to run a front group that doesn't file with the disclosure, you know, with the, with the Wisconsin Elections Commission, they've done that anyway. But I think he thinks that if he controls the state supreme court, he can evade any penalty that remember that the US President cannot pardon people for committing crimes that are convicted in state court. But if he owns the state court, then there's no accountability there either. So he's trying to knock out, you know, the last bastion of, of, you know, any kind of accountability in our justice system.

[Sam Seder]

Where have I heard that dynamic? If Trump doesn't win, I could go to jail. I mean, that he literally told that Tucker Carlson. All right, so Ben, what obviously anybody who's listening to this or watching this, living in Wisconsin, they got to go and vote. And I what is the registration they need to be registered by now to vote in this election?

[Unnamed Speaker]

Well, this is our one good voting law, which is, is because Republicans realized that if they did, if they abolished this, they'd have to comply with other federal voting laws they have a waiver from. But our one good voting law is we have same day voter registration. So if you are in Wisconsin right now and you've been here for 28 days and don't intend to leave, you can go to the polls, you can early vote. If you go to wisdoms.org vote or vote.westems.org take your pick. You can find a map. We compile the only map of early voting locations through our state party. And you can cast, you can register and cast a ballot today. Early vote is open right now. So this is, this is go time. The path for us to win this is through every majority report, viewers and listeners and fans, telling everyone they know to go and cast a ballot and doing that, multiplying that over every channel. We have to reach people who believe in freedom, justice, democracy. This is, we haven't even talked about the abortion bans and all the stuff that could come into place if Schimmel wins. But we can win this because our side is more pissed off than their side. So we're going to be outspent. But we could out turn out Republicans in this race. And if we do, not only can we win, we can also show the whole country that Elon Musk can't just buy whatever outcome he wants. And that can embolden Democrats to fight back and make Republicans think twice about walking the plank with him as he attacks Social Security and Veterans Administration and cancer research and everything else he's going after. So anyone watching you can volunteer. If you go to wisdoms.org volunteer, you can vote. You can recruit other people to vote. You can donate. We can definitely use the contribution. We also have a website called peoplevmusk.org, where you can see our ads going after Elon Musk for his role in the race. We're trying to turn this into both a choice between Susan Crawford, who's our amazing candidate, and Brad Schimmel. And also a national referendum on whether Musk gets to just call the shots in every election. Most people want him to lose this election. And if we turn that into votes, we're going to win and we're going to say something powerful about our ability to put people power over the power of organized money in this country.

[Sam Seder]

And I think people, you cannot overstate the message. I mean this alone won't do it. But the message that like, look, if you get associated with what's going on in Washington D.C. you're gonna lose is the sadly. And we'll talk about this with Ezra Levin. But that's the only strategy we have right now based upon what Schumer has done in terms of giving up our leverage. But if people see in Wisconsin that people are gonna lose if they are tied to Musk and Trump, it is going to, it is one sort of like data point that one of these Republican lawmakers is going to be thinking about. Are there if I go to these sites and we'll put all of these in our podcast and YouTube description, make sure that your folks send it to us if we have, if we miss one. Can people also make calls from out of state?

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yes, we have daily phone banks running right now so you can sign up and these are fun calls. You're not calling kind of like one foot in mega swing voters. You're calling people who are Democrats who don't know about this election yet. And people will thank you for, for telling them about it and telling them that their same day registration that they can go and vote. These are very satisfying calls to be part of. You can also join filmmaker call volunteers and ask them to go knock on doors so you can have a multiplier effect. That way you can go to wstems.org call and you can find links to all that stuff which will will. I know you'll put the show notes and links to this. We have, we have tons of ways for people to be able to get involved in this fight and like it'll be a collective victory. We have right now we've seen more than twice as much volunteer energized energy going out, more than twice as many door knocks, more than twice as many phone calls, more than like four times as many friend to friend relational voter contacts. There's such a huge push coming from the ground up. And if we can show that all of that is enough to beat Elon Musk. And actually the second biggest donors in the race are Dick and Liz. You line who funded Stop the Steal, the formerly biggest Republican donors in the country. If we can beat all of them, then we can, we can win anywhere. This is the 50, 50 state of Wisconsin, the closest state in the country, and we're being outspent. And if we win this election, my hope is it'll inspire people to run for office and to fight harder if they have office and to get involved in this fight, because all hope, in my belief, is not lost. We still have enough of a democracy left that we can fight back and we can win.

[Sam Seder]

This is great for people who have been like, you know, feeling helpless and they can't do anything. Take a half an hour, make a bunch of calls. Again, this is not a persuasion election. This is a mobilization election. And you're going to be talking to people who are, instead of hanging up on you, who are going to get into a fight with you, are going to go like, thank you for reminding me. Oh, I didn't know this. I'm going to go tell my folks. It is going to be fun, and it's a great way to deal with that frustration that I think a lot of people and frankly, depression that people have been feeling. You have the power to actually influence this election because this isn't. You don't get a ton, a ton of people coming out for an election in April for a Supreme Court. Ben, I wish you the best of luck. I know you got a lot of work to do, so get to it. And hopefully you guys will see a surge of people over the next 24 hours, because I know there's a lot of people out there who want to do stuff. And this is a perfect way, if you've been feeling disempowered, to feel like you've got a little power back right now. Ben, thanks again.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Thanks so much, Sam. Thanks, Emma.

[Emma Vigeland]

Grateful to be here.

[Sam Seder]

All right, folks, we're gonna take a quick break, but again, this is a great opportunity for you. If you've been feeling frustrated, if you know people who've been feeling frustrated to say, like, you know what, take a half an hour, make a half a dozen calls. I suspect you're gonna enjoy it enough. This is a very different dynamic than, you know, going out and cold calling or knocking on doors. You don't know who's gonna be there. This is letting people know there's an election that is gonna have a direct impact on their lives and it's going to have an indirect impact on yours.

[Emma Vigeland]

This. This I am. And we just got Brian from Wisconsin. Musk's fake progressive organizations are sending get out the vote postcards with a fake election date on them. My partner and I multiple with April 11 listed as the date instead of April 1.

[Sam Seder]

They're going to pretend like it was a misprint.

[Emma Vigeland]

Oh, of course. I mean, you know, plausible deniability for this guy. We should have more empathy for him though.

[Sam Seder]

Yes. Post a video of you phone banking sometime. You know what?

[Emma Vigeland]

Well, but can we record the other person on the other end? That's.

[Sam Seder]

We don't need to do that or explainer.

[Emma Vigeland]

We'll figure it out. All right.

[Sam Seder]

Well although we might be able to. We're going to check third party in Wisconsin. In the meantime, we're going to take a quick break. We've got Ezra. Yes, and we will take a break break. When we come back, we'll be talking to Ezra Levin, the co founder and co executive director of Indivisible. Right back after we are back. Sam Cedar, Emma Viglan on the Majority Report. I want to welcome to the program Ezra Levin. He is the co founder and co executive director of Indivisible, which I think most people are aware of. They should be. But Ezra, let's just start there. Just tell us broadly the brief history of Indivisible and what you guys do.

[Ezra Levin]

Yeah, so we started shortly after the first Trump election in 2016. Look, we started both because Trump was promising a heinous agenda and also because there was a vacuum at the leadership level of the Democratic Party, folks not recognizing that they needed to fight back. So people all over the country were saying, gosh, what do we do? What do we do? And my co founder and spouse, Leah, we are former congressional staffers. We saw the impact of the Tea Party. We disagreed with their ideology, we disagreed with their violence, we disagreed with their bigotry. But we saw them organized successfully locally and we said, gosh, that's what we need. We need people organizing locally to push their elected officials, fracture the MAGA coalition and help Democrats find their spines. And that's what we've been doing over the last eight years.

[Emma Vigeland]

Well, I mean there's also we need some more work right. Like here. And I know that Chuck Schumer is going to come up in a second, but why don't you go ahead Sam, and then I'll ask about, about that.

[Sam Seder]

Well, part of that spine stiffening started, it seems to me, several weeks ago, in which, at that time, we heard Minority Leader in the House, Hakeem Jeffries. And I remember one particular article. Richie Torres, Congressman from. Is it? The Bronx here were very upset that people felt like they weren't doing enough. And I wonder, how much of a coincidence is it that we saw them coalesce around and take what is a pretty bold step? I mean, at least in the great scheme of things over the past couple of decades, the Democrats voting against the continuing resolution like they did in the House a week ago.

[Ezra Levin]

I don't think it's a coincidence. I think one of the. One of the features of grassroots organizing and pressure campaigns like we do is very rarely will the target of your pressure admit, okay, it worked. I've shifted positions because you pushed me. Congratulations, you've won. No, usually it pans out this way. Pans out this way. First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win, and they adopt your position. So what we saw in the House was a historic level all around the country of grassroots movement building bigger than we've seen since 2017. And what they were looking for were for Democrats to start fighting back. And they were calling and showing up at the congressional district offices and showing up at the town halls of Democratic members saying, hey, we'll have your back, but you gotta fight for us. You gotta fight for us. And it was slow going initially. Initially, they were ignoring, and initially they were pushing back. But look, I've been plenty critical of Hakeem Jeffries over the last few months. He whipped his caucus into shape. They held firm on this, and we should be praising them to the rooftops for doing that. And I do think that's a direct result of organizing all around the country.

[Emma Vigeland]

Is there a different challenge with the Senate? Is it the fact that, I mean, Hakeem Jeffries was in part able to keep his caucus together because everybody's up for reelection in two years, and they might be considered concerned about a primary challenge even closer or sooner than that. And, you know, when you look at the votes in the Senate and who caved on this dirty continuing resolution, these are all people who are far away from their reelection effort or retiring.

[Ezra Levin]

Oh, obviously, of course. Look, the Senate's a different body. It's not a majoritarian institution. They actually had leverage, unlike the House. The House, you know, it's a majoritarian institution that Republicans had it. They were able to pass the bill with their own votes. The Senate, not the case. They needed 60 votes to pass this. And I think you're pointing out something real here. It is no coincidence that every single one of the 10 Democrats in the Senate who happened to vote for this bill, they happen to not be up for election next year. They just happen to just be the folks who have a few more years to build up their reputation. Again, that's not an accent, I guarantee you there are a lot of other Senate Democrats who would have voted for this if they needed to, but, but they didn't want to face the pressure from the base. So I think your point is something real here. But the basic idea of local, organized, grassroots pressure works the same in the Senate as it does the House. It just works on a different timescale.

[Sam Seder]

Give me your sense. And I want to get to, you know, obviously you've been critical and it's been reported that Schumer, in what appears to be an ongoing and frankly degrading, I guess not just degrading personally to him, but literally the exercise itself seems to be falling apart as the further it gets out. Sort of like a, an apology tour or a rationale tour. But before we get to that aspect of it, what do you think happened? Because it's quite clear now that we have Nancy Pelosi coming out that when Hakeem Jeffries was asked, do you think it's time for new leadership in the Senate, he said, next question. Aoc, when she released a statement, suggested that the the House members were blindsided. Do you have a sense of a tick tock of what happened to Chuck Schumer's decision making? Was there any type of strategy involved? I mean, what's your sense of this?

[Ezra Levin]

Oh, yeah, look, we were deeply involved. We were working with members of the House caucus and with Senate Democrats as well. Behind the scenes. I will say there were a lot of folks in the Senate Democratic caucus who wanted to fight back. And about five or six weeks before this came to a head in mid March, we put out a call and we said, look, Democrats should be planning a flag right now. They should be saying, we are not going to give Elon Musk a blank check. If Republicans want our votes, they should put in some safeguards against Musk's raiding of the treasury and the rest of the federal government. Any of Republicans refuse to agree to that, Democrats should say, fine, we will agree to a short term clean funding bill to open up negotiation. Again, that was the plan that we put forward and it's actually the plan that House Democrats embraced. That is indeed what they embraced to Their credit. Here's what I really think, real talk, what actually happened in the Senate, I think Chuck Schumer misjudged the Republicans. I think he thought they were going to fail to get their bill through in the House and he thought therefore Democratic votes were going to be necessary in just a different way. So he wanted to cave, but he wanted to cave for a long term clean cr. That's my guess. That is my guess. Then Republicans managed to pass the bill on their own through the House and he was presented with this new reality and instead of updating his position and caving just for a clean long term cr, he caved for a Republican funny bill. That's my best guess. It was bad judgment at the outset and then he did not update his thinking when the facts on the ground changed.

[Sam Seder]

This, I think is the fundamental problem with Chuck Schumer. And frankly, I mean, I think we have other examples of Democratic leadership, the inability to update their thinking under current, you know, for this era, although I would say that it's also been an extended problem. We heard in 2008 that the Republican fever was going to break. We heard in 2012 that the Republican fever was going to break. These are direct quotes we heard in 2016, we heard in 2018, we heard in 2020, 20. We heard in 2024. And once the Republicans passed their, their budget resolution, the one that calls for about $800 billion or necessitates about $800 billion worth of cuts in Medicaid when no one seemed to think they were going to pass that. And this, to be clear, is not the continuing resolution. It was the budget. And I know you know this, but how was it that this did not cause a reassessment by the Democratic leadership of what the dynamic is today? Because we just spoke to Ben Wickler. Elon Musk has put about 10 to 12 million dollars into a Supreme Court race there. That is a signal to every Republican that if you don't do what we tell you, we will to put 10, $12 million into your congressional primary. You know, that's, that's nothing.

[Emma Vigeland]

But to add to your point, that's him not, not seeing the moment and underestimating the Republicans that they would be kept together because they're all under threat of what you're saying. Well, that's. Why would he think that they would, they would fracture? There's no reason to think that they.

[Sam Seder]

Would and had no plan B. And here he is yesterday on the View more or less saying the exact same thing like there is no way Chuck Schumer is going to accept that this is a different era and this is a different Republican Party.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Governor Pritzker's chief of staff, Ann Caprera, has said the following. The fight going on in the Democratic Party right now is not between hard left, right and moderate. It's between those who want to fight and those who want to cave. And it gives me no pleasure to say this to you because we are friends, but I think you caved. I think you and nine other other Democrats caved. I don't think you showed the fight that this party needs right now because you're playing with by a rule book where the other party has thrown that rulebook away.

[Ezra Levin]

True.

[Unnamed Speaker]

And so in my view, what you did really was in supporting that GOP partisan bill that Democrats had no input in, you cleared the way for Donald Trump and Elon Musk to gut Social Security, to gut Medicare, to gut Medicaid. Why did you lead Democrats, Democratic senators to play by that book that the Republicans are not playing by?

Okay, first I'd say, Sonny, no one wants to fight more than me and no one fights more than me. You got to fight smart. It is not true. That bill had far less. It was bad. I hated it. But it does far less damage to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid are far more susceptible to being eliminated, which is what that horrible must. Can you imagine this guy Musk, a billionaire, saying $11,000, $1100 for a senior citizen is not necessary.

But are there Ponzi schemes in that bill?

There are many fewer cuts in that bill than that would be in a shutdown. It was a bad choice. So we got to. Yes, they exist. But if you have, you have two choices, one bad, the other devastating. One chops off one of your fingers, the other chops off your arm.

[Sam Seder]

That's right.

[Unnamed Speaker]

So I want to fight. And we are fighting. We're going to fight every day on this. Every day. Today we're fighting them on Medicaid, tomorrow we're going to fight them on, you know, the next few days on tariffs. We're going to fight them on Social Security. But I want to win and fight smart.

[Sam Seder]

I want to get to the not all Republicans thing. I mean, let's just, I mean, assess.

[Emma Vigeland]

It a few times because I can just summarize.

[Sam Seder]

I want to get that. Yeah, I want to get. When he says not all Republicans, because that's the point of this. But we can assess his assessment of this because today the Social Security administration has basically cut off phone verification and have closed they have a plan to close almost 40 regional offices. I mean all of this stuff is happening, it's just happening undercover. And so the. Do we have that clip?

[Emma Vigeland]

This is one of the instances, I think he said it two or three times. I just, in the chat, it's only 12 or so seconds. But you can see this is a, I know this is a long lead up to ask you about this, Ezra, but this is just a prime example of what we're talking about. The segmenting of, of MAGA from the Republican brand, the segmenting of Trump from the Republican brand. This is what he keeps saying repeatedly, an example of it.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Now, do we have to act and do we have to fight these Republicans, this right wing group, not the maga, not all Republicans every step of the way?

[Emma Vigeland]

So he says it with emphasis. That's Alina Haba, if I'm not mistaken, who literally worked for Trump. So who are you referring to, Liz Cheney, who was primaried out of power? Who are you referring to? All of the House Republicans voted for this particular bill and all of the Senate Republicans say for, I guess you know, Rand Paul, they're all MAGA Republicans. Why are you separating the two?

[Ezra Levin]

So I think this hits on the fundamental disagreement I have. And I think this was really explained to me in the interview that he gave to Chris Hayes last night because I have been baffled. Why we have just been let down repeatedly at a tactical and strategic level. Why for the last several months has Schumer not whipped votes against the nominees? Why did every single Senate Democrat vote for Marco Rubio?

[Sam Seder]

Why?

[Ezra Levin]

Why are they voting for the Treasury Secretary? Why are they voting for the labor secretary? Why has he declined to use unanimous consent agreements to slow down the workings of the Senate and use other procedural maneuvers? Why did he allow Democrats to vote for the Lake and Riley bill, this MAGA messaging bill on immigration that allows the administration to go after folks who are just accused of a crime, not even convicted of a crime? Those are all strategic and tactical disagreements. Right? And he's not a dummy, right? He's not an idiot. He's been in Congress for a long time. He knows how things work. Why isn't he doing what's necessary in this moment? And you're hitting on the point here. He doesn't agree what this moment is. He does not agree with what this moment is. He told Chris Hayes directly yesterday it is not a constitutional crisis. He does not believe this is a constitutional crisis. Yet he does not believe the Republican Party is the Republican Party of 2025. He appears to believe it's the Republican Party of at least 2017 or maybe the 1990s, which is to say a party that you disagree with on social and economic policy, but not a party that poses a unique, distinct threat to our constitutional republic. I side with the Timothy Snyders and the Heather Cox Richardsons and the other historians of tyranny and authoritarianism in the world who say, wake up, everybody. You gotta fight now or you're gonna lose it. I respect that he doesn't believe that's not what time it is, but he is far out of step with rank and file Democrats all over the country who are calling for Democrats to fight back. There is an effort out there to portray this as some sort of AOC versus Schumer or left versus middle versus centrist versus conservative Democratic factional debate. That is not what this is. Schumer did not just disagree with aoc. He disagreed with the union that represents federal employees after he who said would prefer a shutdown to this Republican bill. He disagrees with the litigators like Norm Eisen, who's defending us against Musk in the courts and says, yes, the courts would be better off in a shutdown than with this Republican cr. He disagrees with the good government groups like Public Citizen, the folks at center for American Progress who said, no, we're watching this. We would rather a shutdown than this Republican cr. He disagrees with basically every single member of the Democratic caucus in the House of Representatives, from the most conservative to the most progressive. He is out on a ledge here. So when we call for him to step down from leadership, this isn't coming from some ideological space. This is coming from a space of. This is a crisis. It's 2025. Our democracy is on the line. Your rank and file Democratic members want you to see you fight. You're not fighting. Let's get somebody in who will.

[Emma Vigeland]

Yeah, I just want to correct myself really quickly. That's not Alina Haba. It's Alyssa Farah. I mixed up the brutal. But she worked for Trump. She's a never Trump.

[Sam Seder]

I mean, I think that is the fundamental problem. Problem. And I don't even know if one has to accept that this is the constitutional crisis or we're headed towards a constitutional crisis. But this inability to see the dynamic as different from 2017, his whole strategy as articulated, and this is the part, like, where I am baffled by this. His articulated strategy is that by the time we get to the fall, we're going to see a couple of these lawmakers peel off from Donald Trump because he's going to be unpopular.

[Ezra Levin]

That's right.

[Sam Seder]

Yet there is no way to indicate to once they stop these town halls, there is no way to indicate to the general population what is going on because they're not paying attention to what is happening in a district court in Rhode island or a district court in San Francisco. You know, I wish they were. We'd have a thousand times more viewers on this program. But they're not. I mean, that's just the fact of the matter. He is allowing a slow rolling shutdown of the government by Elon Musk, by the Trump administration. And it's slow rolling enough that it's not attracting the attention and allowing for the blame to be put where his strategy is geared towards. And in the same breath, he says they could shut down the government for six months and get rid of the worst services. But if he believes that in September there's going to be a will for senators to part ways with with Trump, why wouldn't that happen in three weeks after he shuts down all these government services? It's just, it's an inconsistent. Even within the context of his own premise.

[Ezra Levin]

Well, and we've actually been through this before with Chuck Schumer helping to lead. Between 2018 and 2019, there was the longest government shutdown in history, 35 days. And who was driving it? It was the Republicans and it was Donald Trump. And what were they asking for? They were asking for more money for ice, more money for border enforcement. Something quasi similar to what they've been asking for here. What was the Democratic strategy there? They said, look, we won't give in to this hostage taking. We want a clean CR and then we can open up negotiations and we figure out how we get by this. And you know what happened? We shut down for 35 days. Republicans caved. We got a three week clean CR and we got beyond the crisis. They use their leverage in that one. It actually is possible to do that. But Sam, I will push back a little bit that it's impossible to let folks know what is going on because Republicans are hiding because that's what we're doing right now. It's congressional recession right now. This is the first congressional recess for senators. It's the second one for House members. A lot of the Republican House members got scared off from town halls because they looked ridiculous in February when they showed up in public and got yelled at by their constituents about Elon Musk. We are all across the country about 150 of these empty chair town halls missing Member town halls, constituents are putting on events, they're inviting local elected officials, they're inviting the press, they're inviting other constituents, and they're inviting their Republican member of Congress who is in hiding. And if that member doesn't show, they've got somebody in a clown costume or a chicken costume, or they've got a cardboard cutout. And they make the case that not only is the Republican extremists for supporting Elon Musk, but they're cowards, unwilling to actually face their constituents. If we want to put pressure on these Republicans and fracture the MAGA coalition, I don't think it's a sound strategy to wait for Chuck Schumer to do it because he's embraced the James Carville strategy of roll over and play dead. So if you want to put pressure on these Republicans, if you're in a Republican district, it's up to you. You ought to be organizing. But I don't think we can afford to wait. I'm sorry. Elon Musk's approval is somewhere in the mid-30s. We've got Donald Trump somewhere in the mid-40s. You know what Chuck Schumer's approval rating is right now? 27%. 27%. That is who the highest ranking Democrat in Congress is, has a 27% approval rating. And he's talking about how someday, sometime in the future, Donald Trump's approval might drop down to the low 40s. Chuck Schumer can't dream of having an approval rating in the top 40s.

[Sam Seder]

Well, we got a call yesterday, actually, from a listener in Kentucky who is planning to go, I think, to an invisible, indivisible, sponsored town hall in the 6th district, Andy Barr's district. And she's talking about running against the guy. She's just, you know, a woman who's never been involved in politics, but she's seeing the devastation from all these cuts. If we want to. I mean, you've outlined one thing that people can do right now, and that is to organize locally or find out if there's another town hall or. And go there and to organize with people organizing. The best thing for folks to be able to do what. What ability do we have? I mean, I'm watching Nancy Pelosi come out. I'm watching. Of Cascading. I think there was a congressperson in Delaware.

[Emma Vigeland]

No, Marilyn Glenn Ivey first to call on him to step aside.

[Sam Seder]

Called for Schumer to step aside.

[Emma Vigeland]

Lots of federal workers in that district.

[Sam Seder]

What can those of us who. Who feel strongly that we need a Senate leader who is going to fight back. And regardless of why he didn't, whether it's incompetence or just a blinkered notion of the ERA or if it was protecting donors interest in maintaining the stock market, whatever. I've heard a lot of theories. All of them seem to be possible. What can we do as not members of the Senate to push this point more?

[Ezra Levin]

Yeah, let me say a couple things. One, this is no longer about Chuck Schumer. This isn't about whether you have a positive feeling about the man or negative feeling about the man. The fact of the matter is we don't have a Democratic Party that currently is capable of leading a unified opposition. And that's not just bad for the country, it's also bad for the Democratic Party's future prospects headed into next year. We just have to recognize this.

[Sam Seder]

He's a Donald Trump saying we need a strong Democratic Party. Isn't that what politicians are supposed to do?

[Ezra Levin]

I'm sure in a few months the Republicans will come to our aid. That's my understanding. Chuck Schumer. So whose hands is Chuck Schumer's fate in? It's not in his own hands. Now there's not going to be pressure on Chuck Schumer directly from constituents. That's going to lead him to say, okay, now I will step down from leadership. The three categories of voices that matter now are other elected Democrats. So Glenn Ivey being the first House member to call, you should look to see if there are other House members or Senate members call that matters. The second are groups with big constituencies, not just like think tanks or interest groups of people who organizations that move people that have constituencies so Indivisible as 1600 Local indivisible groups all over the country. We held an emergency meeting on Saturday to call this question. 91% of our group leaders voted for indivisible national to call for Schumer to step down from leadership. 91%. We've never had a vote like that on a big strategic decision. There is almost unanimity around this question. Other groups representing large constituencies might also call that question and I think that they've going to hear something similar. But the third, and I think the most important thing, maybe it's unbiased because I'm a grassroots organizer. We get the party we demand. We get the party we demand. If we accept field leadership, that is what we will get. So if you are in a Republican district, it's really important for you to be organizing and showing that you're putting in the works. That's why these empty chair town halls are really important. That's why showing up in public events and to congressional offices is really important. That's right. And op EDS is really important. Building up your power in those red districts and showing we aren't hating the Democratic Party. That's not why we're organizing. We're trying to save our democracy, so we're doing the work we can where we live. If you happen to have a Democratic member of Congress in the House or the Senate, you should be organizing to cheer them on. If you're in Glen Ivey's district, thank him. And if they haven't yet taken a position, ask them to take a position. Ask them to take a position. If you demand it, if you demonstrate that there is political advantage and you were a member of Congress coming out, they're going to come out. Members of Congress love to be praised. They don't want to be criticized. They certainly don't want to be criticized by constituents who are of their own party. Provide that pathway for them, encourage them to walk and cheer them on when they do. That is the pathway to getting any kind of change in the future.

[Emma Vigeland]

What is the timeline? Lastly on this is, can Chuck Schumer be removed before the reconciliation fight in the fall? And is that within the realm of possibility based on the conversations that you're having?

[Ezra Levin]

I mean, tomorrow works for me and I'd be fine with that if he wants to get his ducks lined up and then announce tomorrow. But realistically, here's how it works. You need 20% of that of the Senate Democratic caucus to go on record calling for a meeting of the Senate Democratic caucus. And the meeting has an agenda item and it's something effective. Thank you for your service. Truck streamer. We would like you to step down and we're going to vote for a new. A new leader. It's probably going to be phrased somewhat differently than that. Then there is a private ballot. There's a private vote. So all of the Democratic senators will vote for a new leader. That can happen at any time. But so far we have zero Democratic senators who are calling for that meeting or even publicly calling for them to step down. So we are about seven steps behind where we would need to be. And we need to take, we each need to take that individual step forward in order to get there. But that's the pathway. If it happens, that is how it will happen.

[Sam Seder]

I imagine if you start to see senators publicly calling for that kind of vote, things move, start, start moving Very, very Quickly, Nobody, I think, wants to be leader if they think they're hanging on by a thread.

[Ezra Levin]

I hope this somewhat. We're in a somewhat similar situation after Biden's debate performance last year where in the initial aftermath there was chaos. People weren't sure what was going to happen. Everybody just assumed he was going to hang on. People, many folks were hanging back and seeing, okay, which way is the wind blowing? How bad is this? Is he going to be able to survive this? Are dominoes starting to fall? So everybody is looking around to everybody else. That is where it is. There is not a leader right now because Schumer can't be the leader of this. And nobody else is leading the effort. So everybody's a politician who's going to make this decision. They're pretty good at reading the room. So what do we do?

[Sam Seder]

Well, we got to make the room seem hostile to Schumer.

[Ezra Levin]

Let's redecorate the temperature. We got to rise the temperature. Yeah, we just got to increase a little bit. And that's. That is in our power to do that is in our power to do so.

[Sam Seder]

Folks should be contacting your Democratic member of the House or your Democratic senator and tell them, time for new Senate leadership. And the more they hear from people about this, the more they're going to realize the incentive structure is going to be in favor of them echoing their constituents requests. Ezra Levin, co founder, co executive director of Indivisible, thanks so much for your time today. We'll put a link to those town halls that are happening around the country. Really appreciate you coming on today.

[Ezra Levin]

Anytime. Great to chat.

[Emma Vigeland]

Thanks, Ezra.

[Sam Seder]

All right, folks, we're going to head into the. Went a little bit long today, but definitely worth it. You've got a lot of work to do. You've got a lot of work to do. You've got two action items for the day, two sets. One is go to Majority fm. Find the links for the Wisconsin Democrats. Go either if you're in Wisconsin, I mean, make some phone calls. Do, do 20 minutes of phone calls. It is going to make you feel so much better, so much more empowered. And then call your, your, your Congress people, call your senator if they're a Democrat and say, time for new Senate leadership. We're watching. We're unsatisfied. And that's all it needs to take. Be polite. So, you know, to tell them, I've been a Democrat my whole life. I have. I'm the one who bought all that Democratic merch gear.

[Emma Vigeland]

I'm still with her.

[Sam Seder]

Exactly. And tell them that new Senate leadership so easy peasy for your Wednesday. Just a reminder, it's your support that makes this show possible. You can become a [e-mail] when you do. You know I get the free show free of commercial, but you get the fun half. You can IMs be the IM on the app, can listen on the app and watch on the app. I don't know what else to say. It's your support that makes this show possible. Also speaking of Wisconsin, just coffee.co op based in Madison, Wisconsin. I went out there in 2010. It's like almost like the only poster I can I stare at during the show is the Wisconsin 14 never gave up. That's when some 14 Wisconsin senators left the state to try and prevent a quorum. As Scott Walker was ramming through this anti union bill, Just Coffee was out there giving out free coffee to all the protesters. And I got news for you. Protesting in January and in December in Madison, Wisconsin is about 1 of the coldest things you can do. Was also the place Steve Crowley got punched in the face by a union guy and that was provoking him. Oh yeah, yeah.

[Emma Vigeland]

Oh yeah.

[Sam Seder]

Oh no, no. Crowder deserved it. I think that goes without saying. But that was also fun. But so whenever I think of Just Coffee, I think of those Madison protests and them giving out coffee and then I think of Steven Crowder getting punched in the face and dropping like a sack of potatoes. And so has he been seen in.

[Emma Vigeland]

Public since many questions?

[Sam Seder]

Oh yeah, no, I know it's been years. I mean he had chest retreat reduction.

[Emma Vigeland]

Surgery or something like that. Gender affirming surgery. That that's what Wisconsin people are tough like. Have you ever watched those Green Bay packers games? Like they'll be out there shirtless and it's minus 20 degree real feel.

[Sam Seder]

So it's crazy. But Just Coffee co op, fair trade coffee, use the coupon code. Majority get 10 off. You can also get the majority report coffee. Matt. Left Reckoning.

[Emma Vigeland]

Whoa, who's this?

[Ben Wickler]

Yeah, Left Reckoning. Last night we had a returning guest of Left Reckoning, Aaron Kowalski from Nebraska. People should go check that out. We had him respond to Adam Carolla's statement of people should stop relying on the government and worry about their own families. From a farmer's perspective of like needing to know how the wind is going to blow and things like that.

[Sam Seder]

Well, they can get their own weather service. Exactly.

[Ben Wickler]

Just get your own noaa.

[Sam Seder]

Who is this businessman that you're doing the show with now?

[Emma Vigeland]

Is this that Republican candidate.

[Sam Seder]

No, I'm talking about the businessman in the. In the. The suit.

[Ben Wickler]

Yeah. David's been showing me up a little bit.

[Sam Seder]

What's going on?

[Ben Wickler]

I need to. I need.

[Sam Seder]

I haven't seen pictures of Grisco lately.

[Emma Vigeland]

It's actually offensive to you because you're in the gray T shirt and he looks like he's ready for a job.

[Sam Seder]

He's also got this sort of like a business haircut now.

[Ben Wickler]

And the haircut was new. Yeah, actually, too. And, I mean, if I say so myself, three dapper guys. So if you're just looking for some eye candy, you can just watch it on mute.

[Sam Seder]

Some type of, like, thirst trap or. What do the kids call this? It's like. It's like one of those.

[Emma Vigeland]

It's a fan cam. No, that's not right.

[Sam Seder]

Yeah.

[Emma Vigeland]

Why am I so bad? Yeah.

[Sam Seder]

Crazy. What's going on over there?

[Ben Wickler]

Patreon.com left reckoning in the post game, we get into a Chuck Schumer as well.

[Emma Vigeland]

Someone should do a Kowalski fan cam.

[Sam Seder]

Folks are really swooning him. I think he just broke our twitch stream. Folks, see you in the fun half. You are in for it. All right, folks. 6, 4, 6, 257-3920. See you in the fun.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Are you ready?

[Sam Seder]

Oh, who sent us this?

[Unnamed Speaker]

Alpha males are back and the alpha males are back, back Just as delicious.

[Sam Seder]

As you could imagine the alpha males.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Are back, back, back, back, back and the alpha males are back, back Just.

[Sam Seder]

Want to degrade the white man.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Alpha males are back, back I take.

[Sam Seder]

All of it to my.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Alpha males are back, back, back, back Snowflake says what? The alpha males are back.

You are a madman.

And the alpha males are back, back.

Oh, no.

[Sam Seder]

Sam Cedar. What a. Wow, what a nightmare. Nightmare. Yeah. Or a couple of them. Just put them in rotation.

[Unnamed Speaker]

DJ dinner.

[Ben Wickler]

Well, the problem with those is they're like 45 seconds long, so I don't know if they're. Enough break.

[Ezra Levin]

That's nonsense.

[Sam Seder]

See, white people doing drugs. They look worse than normal white people. And all white people look disgusting.

[Unnamed Speaker]

And the alpha males psych them. Them.

[Sam Seder]

Snowflake says, what?

[Unnamed Speaker]

What?

[Sam Seder]

What?

[Unnamed Speaker]

What?

[Sam Seder]

What? What? What?

[Unnamed Speaker]

What?

[Sam Seder]

What? What? What? What? What?

[Unnamed Speaker]

What?

[Sam Seder]

What?

[Ezra Levin]

What?

[Unnamed Speaker]

What?

[Sam Seder]

What?

[Unnamed Speaker]

What?

[Ezra Levin]

What?

[Unnamed Speaker]

A hell of a lot of bank. A hell of a lot of bank. A hell of a lot of bank. Okay, I'm making stupid money. Hell of hell of a lot of bank. A lot of bank. All lives matter.

[Ben Wickler]

Have you tried doing an impression on a college campus?

[Sam Seder]

I think that there's no reason why.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Reasonable people across the divide can't all agree with this psych.

And the alpha males are back, back, back, back, back, back and the Africans are black, black, black, black, black, African and the alpha males are black, black, black, black, black, black, black and the Africans are back, back, back, back.

[Sam Seder]

When you see Donald Trump out there, doesn't a little part of you think that America deserves to be taken over by jihadists? Keeping it 100.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Can't knock the hustle.

[Sam Seder]

Come on, on, on the bigger game plan. By the way, it's my birthday.

[Unnamed Speaker]

My birthday.

[Sam Seder]

To me. Jew boy, I have a thought experiment for you.

[Unnamed Speaker]

And the alpha males are back, back Africans are black, black Alpha males are black, black Africans are back, back Come.

[Sam Seder]

On, come on, come on. Someone needs to pay the price for blast to be around here. I am a total question.