← The Majority Report with Sam Seder
The Majority Report with Sam Seder
2465 - Elon And Republicans Are Panicked Over Special Elections w/ Dave Weigel
00:58:52
It’s Monday! Sam and Emma are joined by Dave Weigel, politics writer at Semafor, author of the "Americana" newsletter to preview the first round of major elections after the Trump/Musk regime’s DOGE overhaul. First, they run through updates...
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- [00:00]
Sam Seder
You are listening to a free version of the Majority Report.
- [00:04]
Emma Vigeland
Support this show@jointhemajorityreport.com and get an extra hour of content daily.
- [00:18]
Sam Seder
It is Monday, March 31, 2025. My name is Sam Seder. This is the five time award winning Majority Report. We are broadcasting live steps from the industrially ravaged Gowanus can in the heartland of America, downtown Brooklyn, usa. On the program today, Dave Weigel, reporter, politics reporter for Semaphore, will be joining us on the important elections and the massive amount of money that Elon Musk has dumped into him this week. Also on the program, it's tariffs week again as farmers and purchases of goods start to panic. And here's something you haven't heard this term in years. Stagflation financial forecasters are seeing it on the horizon. Meanwhile, Mike Waltz may be the odd man out as signal gate still reverberates in D.C. on France, Marine Le Pen A Dwight Trey Adwai.
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Emma Vigeland
I tried to love the romance.
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Sam Seder
Yeah.
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Emma Vigeland
Jarell Decadu over here.
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Sam Seder
Marine Lepant gets two years in prison, two years suspended sentence and banned from presidential elections for embezzlement. And after quietly reversing on closing 47 Social Security Administration offices, Doge is now primed to crash the entire Social Security operating system. Secretary of Quackery RFK Jr expected to lay off all the workers in the infectious disease and HIV AIDS policy department as Tesla's Tesla protests continue in US Tesla dealership in Rome, Italy loses about eight Teslas to fires set in the Teslas. Democrats in Rome, Iran rejects direct talks with the US Reacting to Trump's letter, emboldened by Chuck Schumer's cave, Senate Republicans now are racing toward a budget resolution for reconciliation. Possible vote this week. All this and more on today's Majority report. It is Monday.
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Emma Vigeland
It is Funday Monday. Funday Monday, although maybe fun deferred because I think we have to wait until we hear what the outcome of these special elections is going to be, whether or not we're having fun with them.
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Sam Seder
That's right. I guess that's fair, says Emma Viglund.
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Emma Vigeland
Yes, that's me. Hi.
- [03:46]
Sam Seder
Thanks for joining us, folks. Beginning of the week, I'm already starting to get angry. Ims from the farmers in the IM section. Kowalski from Nebraska says farmers starting to panic. SAN I've been stuck piling resources for the last month and a half to wait out the coming storm.
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Emma Vigeland
It's insane.
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Sam Seder
Also, we're talking about elections that and we'll be talking to Dave Weigel in a bit about this. There's really basically three things that we can do right now as a society to deal with the growing authoritarianism and fascism we're seeing in this administration. Donald Trump out there saying that he wants to run for a third term. He's not joking right now. You can't see a path to that happening legally. But it's unclear where we'll be in four years and, and how robust at a time when Republicans are saying due process is a nicety that we no longer need. And I'm specifically talking about. YouGov came out with a poll this week. Maybe we'll talk more about this later. But YouGov came out with a poll this week about deporting undocumented immigrants who have committed a crime. I don't know what the numbers were. 75%. Then they asked the question, however, if doing these deportations required the deportation accidentally of people who are in this country legally, are you still for it? And then all of a sudden, only 29% of people are for it. There is one cohort that is okay with essentially no due process, with scooping up people who are perfectly legal in this country and deporting them, and that is conservatives and Republicans, actually, they both came in at 52%, were okay with that. So as a society, we're facing a growing fascist movement and a, an administration that is, you know, pretty fascy, as it were. They're really basically three things, and we've talked about them a lot that can, that can slow this role. One is just broadly organizing that encompasses, I think, labor unions, but also just labor in general and tenants and your neighborhood and your friends and all the things that come out of these organizing. Sometimes it means protests, sometimes it means just being at the ready, all of that. And the courts right now are one of the biggest things that are slowing the role of this administration. They will adjust. And of course, they're also getting law firms to provide them pro bono work. We have yet to see how that pro bono work is going to be deployed. And they're getting other institutions, frankly, to do their work for them, caving before anything gets going, you know, universities, etc. We don't really right now have much in terms of the Democratic Party because our leadership in the Democratic Party seems to be incapable of fighting understanding the moment. However, there is an electoral component to it, and it's these elections this week that are really important because to the extent that incumbent Republican lawmakers have a sensitivity to losing their elections, on one hand, on one side of them is Elon Musk promising to deploy a lot of money in primaries against them if they in any way provide any friction to Trump's agenda. But on the other hand, we're starting to see out of that Pennsylvania elections last week that there could be a 15 point swing in the general election for a lot of these lawmakers. And as such, their calculation is different. It doesn't matter if I get through the primary, if I'm going to, you know, absolutely get destroyed in the general and if I can just get through. So if I can get through the primary and Musk can't deploy, you know, his resources all over the place, they're going to support me in the general because I'm a vote for them. So it changes marginally. A 15 point deficit going into an election would be a problem for a lot of these people. And so as such, you see Elon Musk and the Republican Party, their hair is on fire right now. Elise Stefanik is the first casualty of that. She would be getting her what apparently.
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Emma Vigeland
Oh, well, apparently I thought that she might have had to put a down payment on a fancy apartment or a condo in New York, but apparently you get one of the swankiest apartments for free. As UN Ambassador, she thought she'd be dining with diplomats.
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Sam Seder
She was definitely picking out curtains for her apartment. And now it's all ruined for. Because they're afraid of taking her out of the house because they're afraid of losing these elections.
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Emma Vigeland
Right.
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Sam Seder
And so Elon Musk has been deployed. He has taken his big screen TV and is in Wisconsin yesterday, I should say, I guess this is Sunday. Yes. He's in Green Bay, Wisconsin, and he's got about a crowd of 2,000 people, which is not a, it's not a small crowd. This is an election and we're going to talk to Dave Weigel about it. And we talked to Ben Wickler about it for a Supreme Court seat in Wisconsin. Weigel will tell us why it's so important, but Elon Musk clearly thinks it is because he's left the cot he has in the White House to go to Wisconsin. I mean, this is time away from destroying Social Security. So, you know, it's important to.
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Emma Vigeland
That's his passion. Well, but this is also about his wealth as well, because Elon Musk has been, or Tesla has been suing Wisconsin because the state blocked an ownership or the opening of a dealership there. So this is all about his bottom line and trying to use his connection with the Trump administration to prop up Tesla as it's cratering in the markets. And as we're getting information about these Chinese electric vehicles, who could start doing business with Canada and Mexico potentially because of these Trump tariffs, just completely outpacing him in terms of battery technology. Apparently BYD in China just had a breakthrough and their batteries might be able to charge in the same amount of time that it would take to fill up a gas tank, which would be absolutely like blowing Tesla out of the water. So that's why he has to use the Trump administration, because he's afraid of what happens if Tesla stock dips below a certain point. If he used that as collateral for his Twitter purchase, this means a whole house of cards could fall. The whole house of cards could fall.
- [11:47]
Sam Seder
And he's definitely concerned about this. He just had apparently Grok AI as a separate company. He just had that purchase Twitter. Right now we're still pulling that apart and we're going to need some, some writing, but it is definitely a way of creating another layer of distance between that moment of reckoning. So he's got a lot of motivation. And again, he's also trying to show like, if you go up against Trump in a prime, you know, in a primary, this is what I could do to you if you were running in a House district. And now remember, there's only 2,000 people in this, this auditorium. It doesn't feel like they're all Musk supporters.
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Emma Vigeland
Some of them wanted the million dollars.
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Dave Weigel
He was promising website and the DOGE handle on the X platform. There is a tremendous amount of waste and fraud in the federal government. Like, shocking. Really. It's insane. Yeah, it's really wild. So I mean, it was inevitable that at least a few Soros operatives would be in the audience.
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Mike Waltz
Give my regards to George.
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Dave Weigel
Say hi to George for me.
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Sam Seder
Usa.
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Dave Weigel
Usa.
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Sam Seder
Usa. Usa.
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Dave Weigel
Yep.
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Sam Seder
Okay. I mean it was. Now this is like a, like again, another Like a Black Mirror episode. He is complaining about a foreign born billionaire who has been, I guess presumably paying activists to influence elections as he sits in a room. Yeah, where literally offering $1 million to someone who has voted in this election already. And he's doing this on a daily basis.
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Emma Vigeland
Soros, his net worth is around $7 billion. Elon's is over $340 billion. But those are. What'd you say?
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Unknown
Those people are explicitly there for the promise.
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Emma Vigeland
Yes, but, but also Soros is a bit Jewish. And if you recall, Elon Musk endorsed that anti Semitic conspiracy theory back in the day when the ADL was condemning him. And now they're saying oh, because he's a part of the Trump administration.
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Unknown
Tense time.
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Emma Vigeland
That is fully Zionist. Maybe that Nazi salute wasn't so Nazi.
- [14:37]
Sam Seder
E. The, the ability of him to say, to be sitting up there and say without irony, there's a billionaire who's trying to influence elections with paid operatives as he looks out on a sea of probably a decent amount of his own paid operatives, all of whom the people there are there for the money.
- [15:04]
Unknown
And clearly have no problem with billionaires spending to rig elections.
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Emma Vigeland
It's or to rig comedy crowds. I mean George Soros must have also paid for all of those people in Dave Chappelle's crowd that booed him so badly that he had to be what, institutionalized for hurt feelings? Isn't that what happened?
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Unknown
They had to have a wellness check maybe.
- [15:24]
Sam Seder
When did this happen?
- [15:25]
Unknown
After. After Chappelle. He did the thing where he came out on Chappelle after firing a bunch of Twitter people and everybody in the.
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Sam Seder
Musk did. Oh, back in the day. Yes.
- [15:35]
Unknown
I'm Rick Bitch.
- [15:38]
Sam Seder
Here is Elon Musk talking about his vision on stage there. I guess he's. He was taking questions and he's asked a teacher asked about like, what are we going to do about two student teacher ratios because we're getting all these cuts. Education department incidentally provides supplemental funding for primarily low income urban and rural schools. And this teacher wants to know how to fix it. And Elon Musk has his solution.
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Emma Vigeland
He knows kids. You know, Elon Musk, he understands child. Well, maybe not child rearing and raising them, but he knows how to spawn children. I guess maybe he has some ideas on how to teach them.
- [16:32]
Dave Weigel
With your investments in Khan Academy, with the advancement of AI educational tools, where specifically you can get feedback and these students can get feedback? Yeah, absolutely. Where do we see 100 years from now with all man, 100 years from now?
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Unknown
About 50.
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Mike Waltz
I hope we last hundred years.
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Dave Weigel
That'd be like jackpot, you know? Yeah, exactly. Hopefully. Hopefully we were like on Mars, you know, so that would be really cool.
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Sam Seder
So positive for a second. Why would you hope that we're going to be on Mars in 100 years? I mean what, like what, what, what is going on in his head that he says this? Does he. So he thinks, does he, does this mean he believes in climate change? That we should just shouldn't do anything about it?
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Unknown
No, he's afraid of the woke mind virus.
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Emma Vigeland
He's also just has a fundamentally anti humanist worldview. And so basically instead of improving all of humanity, let's flee to his colony that he'll commodify and AI, you know, who needs.
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Sam Seder
But I don't understand why you would say hopefully. It's just so bizarre.
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Unknown
He doesn't believe any of this. Will watch the interview Hasan did with Vivian, his estranged daughter, but it's all marketing. He knows that stupid pigs believe this stuff when he says it, and it helps get him in the newspapers. He is not sincere about believing that we're going to get to Mars.
- [18:03]
Dave Weigel
So that would be really cool. So I do think AI can be incredibly helpful in teaching because you can essentially set up each kid with like a personalized AI and that. That AI can then answer questions for each kid. And that actually can be very profound in learning because obviously if you've got a classroom of, say, 25, 30 kids, it's you. You can't like, spend. It's literally impossible to spend time with every kid individually, or at least you can spend a little bit of time and not. Obviously, it's a 1 to 21 to 30 ratio. So. But what you can do is you can set them up with the AI and then you can, you know, if things get stuck or whatever, if you want to, you can, you can essentially guide the orchestra that way. And I think it could be a very powerful learning tool. You know, I personally enjoyed my English classes in high school, actually, you know, they. Sometimes I wondered, why am I reading Charles Dickens? But, you know, there's some merit to reading Dickens and many of the. I actually think that we should have a great canon of English literature that kids do, at least, you know, some number of the significant works in the English language. So.
- [19:22]
Sam Seder
Okay, now there's a couple of things to point out here, and maybe we can work from the end back. First off, it's a very strange thing to say, the English canon. I mean, books get published in English that are not written there in the entire time. I think what he's really saying is Western. And in that instance, and he begrudgingly admits that there is a value to being able to read. But what he doesn't understand about education and I think like, you know, college students using AI, maybe older high school students. But the whole point of educating kids in elementary school and in middle school is not necessarily to give them rote knowledge, which is, you need some of that, but it is literally how to learn. And it's conceivable, I guess, in a hundred years that we may have an AI that has the ability to assess the learning style of children and the specific. The specifics of any given child. But that's the whole point of a human being teacher is that they have the sensitivity to understand. This child learns best in this type of way. This child has these learning deficits in that type of way and then address those. That's what a good teacher does. Not just, you know, what year was the, the Civil War?
- [21:03]
Emma Vigeland
Right.
- [21:04]
Sam Seder
I don't think he has an idea.
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Emma Vigeland
Well, he has no idea how to raise children because he doesn't do it. But. Or what children need. They need human interaction and somebody that works through problems with them. Like there's not been enough. There haven't been enough studies done on this. But anecdotally, professors and teachers are saying that reading comprehension is way down. I think that was in part due to the pandemic, but it's in part due to not prioritizing our education. It's also phones and phones.
- [21:28]
Sam Seder
I would say it's, it's, it's, it's. I mean, the, the competition for reading now for kids is just nuts. And of course he didn't like Dickens. Yeah. Why couldn't it be a tale of one city?
- [21:48]
Unknown
It was just the best of times.
- [21:53]
Sam Seder
It was the best of times. In a moment, we're going to talk to Dave Weigel about why Elon Musk is out in Wisconsin and also about what's going on in Florida. First, a couple of words from our sponsors. Years ago, we had some neutrophil in the office. They had sent it to us. They were asking us if we wanted to have a sponsor. At the time I was like, I don't need to take neutrophil. And I'd asked Michael, co host at the time, he was like, no, why would I?
- [22:23]
Emma Vigeland
I don't need it.
- [22:23]
Sam Seder
Yeah, I don't need it. And then a couple years ago, I was like, I'm starting to feel like I'm having a little thinning. I'm getting up there. And I didn't want to. I wanted to see more hair growth. And so I started taking Nutrafol. And then they came back and we're like, okay, I'll advertise for you now. Nutrifal, number one dermatologist, recommended hair growth supplement brand. It is trusted by over one and a half million people. You will see thicker, stronger, faster growing hair with less shedding in three to six months. With Nutrafol, thinning hair is different for men and women. So a one size fits all approach to that hair growth doesn't cut it. Nutrafol has multiple formulas for men and women that are tailored to different life stages such as postpartum or menopause and lifestyle factors such as plant based lifestyle so you can get just what you need. It's physician formulated 100% drug free ingredients. Nutrafol supports healthy hair growth from within by targeting key root causes of thinning, stress. I mean of thinning rather I should say stress hormones, aging, aging, nutrition, lifestyle and metabolism through whole body health. Both Emma and I know people who had serious issues with thinning in their hair and neutral fall helped them out big time.
- [23:50]
Emma Vigeland
Absolutely.
- [23:52]
Sam Seder
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- [25:49]
Emma Vigeland
Wow.
- [25:49]
Mike Waltz
Yep.
- [25:50]
Sam Seder
And I was like, we advertise for them. It was, it was, it was pretty great to see that Zipix have already helped hundreds of thousands of customers get their nicotine fixed without having to inhale smoke or vape oils. So what are you waiting for? Give your lungs a break. Try Zipix Nicotine Infused Toothpicks Ditch the cigarettes. Ditch the vapes. Get some nicotine infused toothpicks@zippixtoothpix.com today. Get 10% off your first order by using the Code Majority Report at checkout. Your lungs are going to be glad you did. Must be 21 or older to order. Warning, nicotine is an addictive chemical. Zip more, smoke less with Zipix nicotine toothpicks again. Check the podcast and YouTube descriptions for links and the codes. Quick break. Dave Weigel from Semaphore.
- [26:45]
Emma Vigeland
Sa.
- [27:35]
Sam Seder
We are back. Sam Cedar, Emma Vigland on the Majority Report Joining us now, Dave Weigel covers politics for Semaphore and one of my favorite Twitter and followers and follows and reporters the Semaphore I get the it's emailed directly to me your reporting and I love it. Dave, always a pleasure to have you.
- [28:06]
Mike Waltz
No good to be back. Thanks guys.
- [28:08]
Emma Vigeland
Good to see you.
- [28:09]
Sam Seder
So were you out in Wisconsin covering this?
- [28:13]
Mike Waltz
I was.
- [28:14]
Sam Seder
Okay.
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Mike Waltz
Yeah. Not, not the last week. I was there when Don Jr. Was campaigning for the Republican nominee and when Tim Walls was campaigning for the Democratic nominee. So I was there a week ago. But you could see what the plan was.
- [28:29]
Sam Seder
They're not technically Republican and Democrat. Right. I mean there's it's a non.
- [28:34]
Mike Waltz
You can explain it. Go ahead.
- [28:36]
Sam Seder
Well, it's a nonpartisan election, but it's quite clear there's a liberal and a conservative running for the Supreme Court. And this will determine it's a liberal that is stepping down. So this will determine the majority controlling. Right now the majority is controlled by the liberals.
- [28:56]
Mike Waltz
Yeah. This would be a conservative majority for two years if conservatives win this Democrats, and you've probably talked to Ben Winkler about this, they had a long term plan which is not even done yet. The plan was to win the state Supreme Court, bring a case that would break the gerrymander, which already happened. The state legislature is not as gerrymandered as it was. They're in a position to actually maybe win the state senate next year, which was impossible under the old gerrymander. And the Republican plan is win this election, bring a new lawsuit. They won't say who will do it. Bring a new lawsuit, reach gerrymander of the state, undo what Democrats did to prevent that. Democrats are just trying to hold their majority.
- [29:35]
Sam Seder
And we should be clear, when Republicans had gerrymandered Wisconsin, you a 57% electoral win in terms of votes in Wisconsin brought about a something like 65% controlling control for Republicans. That's how much it was gerrymandered. Now, to be fair in there, you know, you had some races where people aren't running against each other, et cetera, et cetera, and some places where the votes get rolled up. But that was the dynamic.
- [30:07]
Mike Waltz
Yeah, it was impossible for Democrats to win the legislature. And because they couldn't win the legislature, impossible to get a 50, 50 map. Right now it's, it's a, you know, eight, eight seats in a 50, 50 swing state. Republicans have two Democrats can kind of compete for the third one and the only. So the way this.
- [30:26]
Sam Seder
You're talking about Congress.
- [30:27]
Mike Waltz
Yeah, for Congress, sorry, for the House Representatives. And so the original focus of Republican messaging on this race was there was a fundraiser for the debt for the Democratic back candidate, Susan Crawford, just Susan Crawford's the liberal majority candidate, Brad Schimmel, former Attorney General would be the conservative candidate. One fundraiser where people said, pointed out in the Reid Hoffman's group, hey, if we win this, we could remap the state. And Republicans started to say this whole election is attempt by Democrats to rig the state so that they're going to get rid of the first district and the third District and make them Democratic and will never win again, et cetera, et cetera. If there was nonpartisan redistricting, you probably would have 4 swing, let's say some safe R seats, some safe D seats and some swing seats. That's how it started. But then as Elon got more involved in this race, he picked that argument up and he made it entirely about voting in this election will change the course of civilization. You need to do this so that activist judges around the country are punished because they're not letting Trump and me do what I want. It changed, but it started with this a little bit esoteric redistricting argument. It got a lot more politically intense.
- [31:41]
Sam Seder
Just give us a sense of the money disparity that's being spent in these races. Because when Elon Musk decides to, to move in, it all of a sudden changes the physics of everything, right?
- [31:53]
Mike Waltz
Well, it is. If you look up all of the Democratic spending, all the Republican spending, it is pretty even. But it would have been a Democratic advantage. But for Elon Musk, he's going to end up having spent at least $23 million. And that's between donating to the state party, which he did pretty recently, having America pack spend money in the state and having building America's Future pack buy ads in the state. And the ads have mostly those three things do different, have different tasks, but they have all. They basically have ended. What was the Democratic fundraising advantage, which was a combination of big donors giving to the state party. That's an old Scott Walker law that's still in the books. You can give unlimited money to the state party and Democrats having good small dollar fundraising. So Susan Crawford, a judge from Dane county, has lapped Republicans and personal fundraising for her campaign. Small donors. If you watch the debate, you can hear the Republican backed candidates say that this is bad, this is out of staters trying to buy the election. And you can hear Crawford hit back. Yes, but Elon Musk, this is a guy out of state who's trying to bury the support from Wisconsinites and people from around the country, the small dollar donors trying to bury them with literally giant checks. That's what the race has been about. The conversation about the race in Wisconsin for the last 72 hours is, wait a second. Who is actually trying to buy in this? Is it small donors? Is it Jamie Pritzker because he gave a million dollars to state party? Or is it Elon Musk outspending everybody on his own?
- [33:28]
Emma Vigeland
Well, also I saw, I mean I was shocked to hear you say that final total because this morning before you came on, I was reading your article in Semaphore about it, that it was $11 million when I guess you wrote this up maybe 10, 11 days ago and now it's more than doubled. Like what can you talk about that? Broader context and also Elon Musk's case that could be delineated by the Wisconsin Supreme Court about his dealerships for Tesla, which I think is a part of his motivation. Right?
- [34:03]
Mike Waltz
It's part of his motivation. So his rhetoric at his own events and on X, et cetera is we need to do this to stop illegal voting, we need to do this to save Doge, we need to do this to stop illegal immigration. Everything, every Republican issue. But yeah. So Tesla wants to sell cars without dealerships. It sued in Wisconsin before this race started. It was not winning that case. That was one of the first things Democrats grabbed onto is it seems bad that a guy who wants a particular thing that might come before the Wisconsin Supreme Court is spending all this money in our state. Because whatever you think of George Soros donating to the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, he's not saying. And also you're going to kick back to me a bunch of things I want, right? You're going to hand over a lot of state investments to my hedge fund. No, it's kind of understood that the big donors on the Democratic side were just liberals who said please do some liberal things if you win but nothing for me personally. And yes, Musk has a personal interest in the state. Schimmel has said that he would rule it in a nonpartisan fashion on anything Elon does. But he's also commented on Elon and said he's doing the right thing. He's very pro doge. It's very muddled. And this is not news to anybody listening to this. But the law exists in different ways. You have no money, and if you have $400 billion, Musk operates with impunity because he can have lawyers drag everything out. He has the confidence that if there's a federal crime that Donald Trump is going to pardon people. He has the confidence that he can pressure judges recusing if somebody sues. If he wants to sue somebody, he sues them in Texas, where he has a favorable judge. So Musk has been operating in this like he operates everywhere. I mean, the same way that Musk is confident that no one's going to really nail SpaceX for polluting some space junk near Brownsville, Texas. But in this race, the Republican messaging that he's emphasized is it's not even about him. It's, yes, I'm great, I'm Elon Musk. You all support me. Doge is doing the right thing. If you want the Trump agenda succeeded, we know you don't normally care about a court race, and whatever you think of me, come out and vote for Donald Trump. So America pac, his pac, it's stuff it's sending to the doors, is all about Trump. Vote for Brad Schmolln to support Donald Trump. He had Sean Duffy at his. Elon had Sean Duffy at his rally in Green Bay last night as the Transportation Secretary, saying, this election is a way to show your support for Doge and for Donald Trump. That's what they're doing. So Elon gets some benefits if this goes the right way. But he's also happily reframing everything as pro Trump. Because what do MAGA voters care more about? Do they care more about Teslas being sold in Wisconsin, or do they care more about supporting their beloved president? Right.
- [37:00]
Sam Seder
All right, so. And I want to sort of like pivot to Florida, these races, but from a political matter, like, what is the for him to get this involved? I don't know that it's just Tesla. I'm sure that's, you know, things can be a twofer and that Doge stuff. But just talk to us about how the politics influence, like, you know, and that also brings us to Florida. And has Musk invested in Florida? It's it doesn't feel like he has that much. And if not, why? Because it has a similar dynamic, it seems to me. I mean, Wisconsin could be a swing of like three, three congressional seats by, you know, in two years. But the result of these things, even if the Democrats lose in Florida, which, you know, odds are that they will.
- [37:50]
Mike Waltz
They think they'll lose. Yeah, yeah.
- [37:52]
Sam Seder
But it still makes a difference where the points land. Right. Because this is going to influence lawmakers, period.
- [38:01]
Mike Waltz
Yes. Well, one question coming out of this race is one, can you convince MAGA voters to show up for somebody who's not Donald Trump? Because Democrats have had pretty good special elections. Flipped a couple seats already this year in Iowa and Pennsylvania because MAGA voters are not coming. They had this in Wisconsin last year. Tammy Baldwin did not get as many votes as Kamala Harris. It's just that a bunch of people voted for Donald Trump and then didn't care about the rest of the Republican Party. That was a benefit even when Trump was on the ballot. So how do you get people to say, my vote is about Donald Trump, I'm going to come out. If you can turn the MAGA voter of a presidential year into a regular Republican voter, then obviously you're going to benefit in a lot of ways. That has not been happening in these places. That was not happening in early voting in Florida. So the reason Republicans start to get worried is because they had a candidate, Randy Fine, who is personally, if you talk to Republicans in Tallahassee, talk to DeSantis, personally obnoxious, a very pugnacious Republican that a lot of people in the party don't like and didn't want to support and didn't give money to. Barely running a campaign, not doing much of an early vote, Democrats outrunning him. And their whole argument has been support Donald Trump, show up on Election Day. That's the thing. What kind of politics are possible if you just get Trump voters to show up in non Trump elections? Because I wrote in one of my stories about this that in 2019, Republicans won a Supreme Court race in Wisconsin partly by sending a bunch of mail to voters and saying, hey, if you're a Republican voter, aren't you still angry about the Brett Kavanaugh hearings? To get revenge for Brett Kavanaugh and to beat liberal judges like the ones Brett Kavanaugh is not. Vote for our candidate. And it was pretty effective. But it's been competing against Democrats in Wisconsin under Ben Wickler, being very, very well organized, beating all their metrics, turning out for everything and Wickler, very blunt that our voters are furious and on tilt all the time and their voters are pretty happy that Trump is owning the libs. So we don't think they're going to turn out the same way.
- [40:08]
Sam Seder
Let's play this Josh Weil article because I have also ad I should say I also have a theory about like, if Musk showing up actually hurts the cause more than helps. But I want to ask you about that, but first, this is from Florida's 6th district. This is around the Daytona beach area. This is the race that they think they can win. There's another one, first district, and that was Gates, his old seat. This is Michael Waltz's old seat. And the irony is he may be out of the administration before anybody actually takes this. This, this we'll see takes, you know, actually is sworn in in, in Congress because of, of his inability to his fat thumbs, I guess, when it comes to his signal chats. But this is let's play this. I'm Josh Wheel and I approve this message.
- [41:10]
Josh Weil
Randy Fine, a violent, corrupt politician, so radical and dangerous. He supports the effort to cut 880 billion for Medicaid, devastating disabled children and those in nursing homes. Fine is so unhinged and anti American. He supports the idea that Social Security is the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time. He wants to cut 700 billion. Stealing from your retirement. Ray Be fine. Unhinged, un American.
- [41:37]
Sam Seder
I'm Josh.
- [41:38]
Emma Vigeland
Oh, Josh Wild. So he's the Democrat. My favorite part of this is the Chinese Communist flag that's interspersed with no. Well, with no explanation. Yeah, but they're trying to get people that are, you know, in that area. Right. Retirees.
- [41:55]
Sam Seder
This is, I mean, this is what I find fascinating about this because the mayor who won in that special election in Pennsylvania, he ran against Doge and Elon Musk and didn't mention Donald Trump's name. And that whole ad, if you look at that ad, all of those things tie back either to the Republican House or Elon Musk. And because, you know, the sort of vague notion that Musk is working for China in this instance. And I'm curious as to your take on this, because in running against Musk and the Republicans, you're, I mean, everybody knows who empowered Musk and the Republicans on the Democratic side. But you're not sort of like ringing that, you know, Pavlod's dog, like Trump's in this race type of thing for his voters is that have you, has anybody articulated that type of strategy? Because I'm seeing That and it makes total sense to me.
- [42:58]
Mike Waltz
No, that's very smart. And that's also the Democratic message in Wisconsin is Musk is trying to buy this. They don't mention the Trump thing. They think that the way Republicans are getting Trump and Musk in the race is not going to help the party. They think it excites their voters. But yes, in both cases they want to emphasize Musk because Musk is less popular. Musk doesn't have that cult of personality. There are some young men who think Elon Musk is amazing and don't love Trump as much, but it's pretty marginal. So you're right. That is how they focus. This is that it's about these guys trying to rip you off. And they're very comfortable, every Democrat's very comfortable saying these guys are trying to rip off your benefits to send the money back to the richest people in the world. The very populist message, maybe it doesn't sound super convincing from some Democrats. Maybe it'd be more convincing, as Bernie says, if they turned down all billionaire money. But that's the message everywhere. And in that Florida race, what is it now? It's March 31, I'm thinking two, three weeks ago, I was talking to Democrats who were annoyed that Josh Weill was raising all this money because they said the best we can do here is the margin shrinks a bit. We really wish this money was going to other places. We wish this was going to people who could win special elections like this Lancaster county race, which they won the state Senate race last week. They're a different two now because Fine ran such a bad campaign that they don't think they can win this. But they think it was the verge of being a single digit, low, single digit, five point race that make Republicans scared. And they were really happy that at least a panic pulled out. But you're right, the messaging was not send a message against Donald Trump. I Remember back in 2018, Andrew Gillum ran for governor of Florida. And during the primary when it was just Democrats paying attention in his ad, he said he supported impeaching Trump. They really thought bringing him into this race, he's so unpopular, that's a way, that's a way to get over it. They don't think that anymore. It is maybe Trump's approval rating goes down over the next two years, but they think it's attack the weaker people around him. That's the way you do it.
- [45:04]
Sam Seder
Well, I got to also think that when you're talking about low turnout, which means you know, high information and you know, high, high highly engaged and high propensity to vote. Voters they all know, like Elon, they don't think Elon Musk just showed up on his own. When you say Musk, they hear Trump. It's just that when you say Musk to less engaged Republican voters, they don't necessarily hear Trump.
- [45:40]
Emma Vigeland
Well, but if you say Trump, you might, you have the risk of.
- [45:43]
Sam Seder
That's what I'm saying, engaging those low income. Right.
- [45:47]
Emma Vigeland
Low propensity. Sorry. But I do find it's like the ad the way that we'll is, is framing them as extreme and focusing on Medicaid and Social Security feels unique as well. I mean, I guess it's also specific to Florida given the level of retirees there. But if they're talking about single digit margins here between the two, Waltz won this district in the in November by 33 points.
- [46:16]
Mike Waltz
Yes. So this should be a safe seat. It's Daytona beach and then there are retirees in the district. That is the messaging that has worked. But all special elections, every election until 2028 is going to have a smaller pool of voters than a presidential. Every special election, not to oversimplify it, but a little bit to oversimplify it is about getting as many of your presidential voters out as possible. The new people joining the new voters turning 18, et cetera, coming in. That is a smaller part of it. And so even in the space coast in Florida, did you have an if you got let's say 70% of the 2024 Democratic vote out and 40% of the Republican vote, that's how you win it. But you're not assuming you're converting more people. So this is going to Democrats and saying that. It's just that that point Sam was making that this is not saying cast a vote against Trump, it is saying here is something that let's, I don't want to make up a poll number in this district, but let's given that Republicans have given up saying that we're going to cut Social Security, let's say that that message is like an 80% message even in the Republican district. Yeah, that's how you go for it. But it's a way to also tell your Democratic voters this is an election coming up, please turn out it's not quite. And Trump has posted about it. Trump said vote in this race, but.
- [47:39]
Sam Seder
Oh, it just froze.
- [47:41]
Emma Vigeland
We lost.
- [47:42]
Mike Waltz
Dave Jr. Essentially changed the circumstance. When I was there with Don Jr. Republicans wanted Trump to rally and to show up and to have, have something for Brad Schimmel and that obviously never happened. He, he does get antsy if he thinks he might put skin in the game and be embarrassed. And Republicans had, had. That's how they had Heather built. The Wisconsin campaign is, we don't want to sell him, get involved here because he might decide, oh, Republicans, always lose those Wisconsin off your races. I'm going to look stupid if I do this. They're both being genteel about how they mentioned Trump. Except in Wisconsin, this male that's going to Republicans. Now, the TV ads you'll see say this liberal judge is horrible and she's going to let criminals out of jail, etc. Etc. The mail that Republicans are getting is saying support Donald Trump. The message that you do for somebody who's going to turn on the brewers game is a little bit different than the message you do to somebody who's in your books saying they voted for Trump in 2020.
- [48:43]
Sam Seder
You can tell directly Republican voters, in other words, vote for Trump in this erase. But if you start, they're afraid of wielding Trump as well because that might motivate more people to come out to vote against Trump. I mean, this is what. All right, just lastly, what are the implications? What are the implications for legislation and candidates, Republicans in the House in particular, when a seat that was won by Waltz at 33 points comes in as, let's say a nine point race, that the Democrat loses by nine points, I mean, never mind wins. But like, what is that? What does that signal to them? How does that change their calculation going into 2026?
- [49:36]
Mike Waltz
Well, you don't have Republicans who are that nervous about winning right now anywhere. The official. They'll change this. The official Republican position is that they are trying to expand this map that they, Mike Johnson has said that they see seats that Trump won by, sorry, that Trump lost by less than five points as targets. And this is putting some ice water on that. You're not going to hear Republicans say, this is the year we're going to take back like Mikey Sherrill's seat in New Jersey or something, or this is the year we're going to beat Eugene Vindman. They're starting to get a little more realistic about where they can compete. Who is actually scared enough to change their votes because of this? Not that many Republicans compared to eight years ago. There were really almost nobody in a. I think it's three people who were in seats, Republicans who are in seats that Harris won. They're already pretty open and speaking out against the party in a bad news cycle. Like Brian Fitzpatrick in Pennsylvania and Don Bacon in Nebraska. These have been very hard for Democrats to beat because they run ahead of the party and they're already trying to find votes they can break from the party on. They just keep voting with them on these spending bills. Because the premise of every spending bill this year, and this is pretty new, is that whatever you spend, Doge is not going to. Don't worry about it. Doge is illegally going to. Well, they don't say illegally, but Doge is for. Until a court stops us, Doge is going to cut this. So you've got guys in competitive seats being much more confident they were eight years ago in voting for Trump. But what happens if that's a massive.
- [51:16]
Sam Seder
Failure of Chuck Schumer's, incidentally? Because that's going on and they're getting their cake and eating it, too, and Chuck Schumer just gave them a rubber stamp to do that.
- [51:26]
Mike Waltz
But putting that aside, the only argument Schumer can make is that. But if we, if we put in a shutdown, then they'd be doing the same thing. Russell would be saying, great, yes, except.
- [51:34]
Sam Seder
For they wouldn't be able to. They either have to have their cake or they'd have to eat it. They wouldn't get both. That's the point.
- [51:40]
Mike Waltz
He had. He had to. He sucked back down. Everyone's angry about how it went. The. But the next voting will happen on actual spending programs, outlays. Which tax cuts are we going to extend? Is there a Republican who says, I'm politically kind of nervous about supporting this extension of tax cuts if it doesn't include, let's say, free ivf, which Trump ran on, or no tax on tips, which he ran on if it does involve cutting Medicaid payments. Am I worried about that? Am I worried if they talk about block grant granting Medicaid? You do have a couple people who might be nervous enough to not support that. And then what happens? Then you have to go back to the House drawing board and go to Democrats and say, can you fund this thing that doesn't go all the way. They have no Democrats playing ball with them. They kind of have Jerry golden in Maine in the House. And when there is a. They have. When the shutdown's on the table, they have John Fetterman, they have some senators. But which Republicans are confident that they could go to voters and defend any kind of entitlement cut? Not, not that. Not that many are worried about this, but let's say three of them are. Four of them are.
- [52:50]
Sam Seder
That's enough that sometimes that's all you need.
- [52:53]
Mike Waltz
I mean, so that would be enough in this climate. And so certainly replace these, these. They're going to actually have a little more wiggle room after these special elections because if they, if Randy Fine wins, then yeah, their majority goes up and they can lose three votes and pass something. But that's still. That means four people. If Mike Lawler decides something's tough for him because he's run, he wants to run for governor of New York and he can't defend something that they're doing, that becomes a problem. Yeah, that's where they're trying to get back to. It's just that's normal politics and normal politics do not exist under doge and impoundment because the president can say I'm signing this bill, but it's not real. If you Republican calls me and tells me not to spend this money, I won't spend it.
- [53:32]
Sam Seder
Dave Weigel, really appreciate your laying this out for us. The stakes are really big for these elections. Much more so than I think people would have anticipated, you know, six months ago.
- [53:45]
Mike Waltz
Certainly Elon saying that like the judgment of history or something depends on Wisconsin.
- [53:50]
Emma Vigeland
Future of Western civilization.
- [53:53]
Sam Seder
We may not make it to Mars after all if they if this race in Wisconsin. But Dave Weigel, really appreciate. We'll put a link to your semaphore stuff. Really appreciate.
- [54:04]
Mike Waltz
Thank you so much. I appreciate it, guys.
- [54:05]
Emma Vigeland
Thanks, Dave.
- [54:07]
Sam Seder
All right, folks, we're gonna take a quick break. Head into the fun half. I've got to skedaddle. I got a. An important appointment. But you will be. The ship will be landed by Emma. Just don't freak out when I come back and all of a sudden I'm gone.
- [54:22]
Emma Vigeland
Sam may be back later in the show. We shall see.
- [54:25]
Sam Seder
This is no relationship to the names I was called on Friday.
- [54:31]
Emma Vigeland
He's definitely not interviewing my replacement.
- [54:33]
Sam Seder
People made a. Well, I mean Matt apparently and I had sort of forgotten about this went hard on the. Stop stuttering. Whatever. We're not going to get into that right now.
- [54:44]
Mike Waltz
It's like legalized comedy.
- [54:49]
Dave Weigel
Less wanted to make comedy illegal, you know.
- [54:52]
Emma Vigeland
Yeah. No.
- [54:53]
Sam Seder
Your support is what makes this show possible. You can become a member. Join the MajorityReport.com when you do, you not only get the free half free of commercials, but you also allow the show to survive and thrive also. Just coffee co op, fair trade coffee and hot chocolate. They're in Madison, Wisconsin. I know they're working on this election and they have great coffee. You can get the majority report blend and others 10% off. Use the coupon code majority. Matt left Reckoning. Yeah.
- [55:22]
Unknown
Tomorrow, Chip Gibbons of Defending Rights and Dissent on live at 7:00 Eastern Time. Subscribe to us on YouTube when I get to 50,000 subscribers.
- [55:30]
Sam Seder
See you in the fun half. You are in for it. All right, folks, 646-257-3920. See you in the fun.
- [55:47]
Unknown
Are you ready?
- [55:54]
Sam Seder
Who sent us this?
- [55:57]
Unknown
Alpha males are back, back, back, back, back Boy is back and the alpha males are back, back Just as delicious.
- [56:06]
Sam Seder
As you could imagine the alpha males.
- [56:08]
Unknown
Are back, back, back, back, back and the alpha males are back, back, back.
- [56:14]
Just wanna degrade the white man Alpha.
- [56:17]
Males are back, back I take all.
- [56:20]
Of it with my bro.
- [56:21]
Alpha males are back, back, back, back Snowflake says what? The alpha males are.
- [56:29]
You are a madman.
- [56:31]
And the alpha males are back, back.
- [56:33]
Mike Waltz
Oh, no.
- [56:34]
Sam Seder
Sam Cedar.
- [56:35]
Mike Waltz
What up?
- [56:35]
Unknown
Whoa.
- [56:36]
Mike Waltz
What a night.
- [56:39]
Sam Seder
Yeah, or a couple of them. Just put them in rotation.
- [56:42]
Unknown
DJ, dinner.
- [56:42]
Well, the problem with those is they're like 45 seconds long, so I don't know if they're enough breaks.
- [56:48]
Mike Waltz
That's nonsense.
- [56:50]
Unknown
See, white people doing drugs, they look worse than normal white people. And all white people look disgusting.
- [56:55]
And the alpha males psych them, them.
- [57:01]
Sam Seder
Oh.
- [57:02]
Unknown
Snowflake says, what, what, what?
- [57:04]
Mike Waltz
What? What?
- [57:05]
Sam Seder
What?
- [57:05]
Mike Waltz
What? What? What? What?
- [57:07]
Sam Seder
What?
- [57:07]
Mike Waltz
What?
- [57:07]
Sam Seder
What?
- [57:08]
Mike Waltz
What, what, what?
- [57:11]
Unknown
Snowflake says, what a hell of a lot of bank.
- [57:17]
Hell of a lot of bank.
- [57:19]
A hell of a lot of bank.
- [57:20]
Okay, I'm making stupid money. Hell of a lot of bank. A lot of bag. All lives matter.
- [57:36]
Have you tried doing an impression on a college campus?
- [57:40]
I. I think that there's no reason why reasonable people across the divide can't all agree with this. Psych.
- [57:47]
And the alpha males are back, back, back, back, back, back and the Africans are black, black, black, black, black, black, African. And the alpha males are black, black, black, black, black, black. And the Africans are back, back, back.
- [58:03]
Back 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 at 100. Can't knock the hustle. Come on. Fuck em, fuck em. Things I do for the bigger game plan. By the way, it's happy birthday to me, Jew boy. I have a thought experiment for you.
- [58:27]
And the alpha males are back, back. Africans are black, black. Alpha males are black black Africans are back, back.
- [58:36]
Come on, come on, come on. Someone needs to pay the price for blasphemy around here.
- [58:43]
Sam Seder
I am a total, total pushing, pushing, pushing, pushing. Pushing, pushing, pushing.