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| Several special elections yesterday, and here to break it down for is Kirk Beto of National Journal. | ||
| He's the editor of their hotline joining us this morning via Zoom. | ||
| Kirk Beto, thanks for your time. | ||
| Really appreciate it. | ||
| Hey, Pedro, thanks for having me today. | ||
| A lot to talk about this morning. | ||
| Definitely. | ||
| Before we go into the specific races, are there emerging themes overall from these races that you see seeing bear itself out? | ||
| Absolutely. | ||
| I don't think it'd be crazy to say that yesterday was Democrats' best day since Trump took office between their overperformance in the two special elections down in Florida that we're going to get into, their big win in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race, and Corey Booker giving Democrats a real shot in the arm with his record-breaking 25-hour plus-lawn speech on the floor. | ||
| Democrats are showing some fight right now. | ||
| And in terms of the elections, their overperformance in Florida and the big win in Wisconsin is continuing a trend that we've seen in every special election since Trump took office, and that is Democratic overperformance. | ||
| They're outperforming the baseline of these special election races by about 10 points each time out. | ||
| Yesterday, continuing that trend as well. | ||
| It was a really encouraging sign for Democrats to have them thinking that like it's 2018 again. | ||
| So you mentioned the Florida races, so let's start with that. | ||
| Two special elections for two seats for Matt Gates and Mike Waltz. | ||
| Let's start with Randy Fine. | ||
| Talk about the specific race and then what's the impact? | ||
| What do you get from the results of the race? | ||
| Yeah, so this is a district over in the Daytona Beach area, a little bit east of Orlando. | ||
| It's a district that Trump carried by about 30 points or so last time around. | ||
| And Mike Walls carried by about a similar margin. | ||
| This is the one that got the most attention because of the unique nature of both candidates here. | ||
| Randy Fine is a controversial state legislator who's very much in the image of Trump and very much thumbing his nose at the establishment. | ||
| He got reprimanded in court for flipping off a judge. | ||
| He's filed some controversial legislation. | ||
| He's run afoul of DeSantis as well down there. | ||
| And he's not a great fundraiser. | ||
| He was outraised pretty handily by Josh Wheel, the Democrat there. | ||
| He's a teacher. | ||
| Wheel said yesterday that he raised about $14 million for his campaign. | ||
| And there were trouble signs with this race for the last few weeks. | ||
| And in fact, it trickled all the way up to Washington where Richard Hudson, the chair of the Republican Congressional Campaign Committee, said that he really needs, Randy Fine really needs to get his act together. | ||
| They were really worried, maybe not so much about losing the race because this is such a heavy Republican district, but having a really embarrassing showing out there. | ||
| Hakeem Jeffries similarly said, you know, I've donated to Josh Wheel, but no outside money from Democratic groups came down here. | ||
| And when the dust settled last night, Randy Fine won pretty comfortably, but not by the same margins that Trump won. | ||
| He won by about 14 points or so. | ||
| So, half as well as Trump and Walls have done in that seat. | ||
| That's, again, a really encouraging sign for Democrats. | ||
| Now, if you remember in 2017, during Trump's first term, there were a slew of special elections that were like this as well for Democrats overperforming, not necessarily winning. | ||
| Things like Georgia 6. | ||
| There was a race in South Carolina, special election in South Carolina as well, where the Democrats did not win, but they cut significantly into the margins here. | ||
| And that's kind of what we're seeing throughout all these special elections now: that as the Democratic coalition gets older, gets wider, gets more highly educated, they're more likely to turn out in lower turnout special elections like this and the midterms as well. | ||
| Now it's going to be up to Hakeem Jeffries and the rest of the Democrats to parlay this momentum into wins in 2026. | ||
| So that was the one Florida race, the other featuring Jimmy Petronas. | ||
| Yeah, this one was a little bit more under the radar because Jimmy Petronas was a little bit more of a traditional candidate. | ||
| The Democrat in that race, Gabe Alamont, did not raise as much money as Josh Wheel did in Florida 6. | ||
| Florida 1 is over in the panhandle. | ||
| That's the Matt Gates seat. | ||
| But actually, this did not get as much attention, but it was closer when the dust finally settled than Florida 6. | ||
| Trump won that seat by about 37 points last year, and Petronas won it by about 15 or so. | ||
| So, again, Democrats had a larger overperformance in this under-the-radar race than the one that was getting a lot of headlines here. | ||
| So, again, that's a very encouraging sign for Democrats that they didn't have to spend any money in any of these races right now. | ||
| And still, they're outperforming their baseline here. | ||
| And that's thanks to the changing nature of both party bases here, where Democrats are more likely to turn out in these low-propensity special elections. | ||
| But again, it's a very encouraging sign for Democrats and one that Republicans, I think, should start taking note of. | ||
| Several Democrats have called in this morning and, particularly, talking about that Wisconsin Supreme Court race, calling it a good night for them. | ||
| Give your assessment of that. | ||
| That's certainly my take as well. | ||
| Susan Crawford, the Dane County judge, the liberal candidate there, won by about 10 points. | ||
| And this is unlike the Florida races that did not receive a whole lot of national money. | ||
| There were over $100 million spent on advertisements alone in this race. | ||
| Now, Wisconsin Supreme Court races are nominally nonpartisan, but not so much the case anymore. | ||
| They might be that on paper, but the way things are campaigning right now, it's a very partisan race. | ||
| The conservative candidate there, Brad Schimmel, had the support of Elon Musk, who spent through his affiliated PACs about $25 million to get him over the line. | ||
| He held a rally up in Green Bay over the weekend, and he was raising the stakes so much where he was saying that it's the end of American democracy, the end of Western civilization, if the conservative candidate loses this race. | ||
| But when the dust finally settled, Susan Crawford wins by 10 points. | ||
| It was a very nationalized race. | ||
| Democrats weren't hiding from that as well. | ||
| If you look at their ads, they were really leaning into Elon Musk's involvement here. | ||
| Ben, the chairman of the Wisconsin Democratic Party, was also nationalizing the race. | ||
| Ken Martin, who's the DNC chair, was also talking about the high stakes of the race in terms of sticking up to Trump and Elon Musk. | ||
| So this was much more of a testing ground of what the 2026 messaging could be for both parties here. | ||
| And if I'm Republicans, I'm worried about this. | ||
| Kirk Beto is joining us for this conversation about these special elections. | ||
| And if you want to ask him questions, again, different numbers, so you'll want to take note of them. | ||
| Republicans 202-737-0002. | ||
| Democrats 202-737-0001. | ||
| And Independents 202-628-0205. | ||
| So if you have questions about the special elections and the results, you can call in. | ||
| Can also text your thoughts this morning or questions at 2027. | ||
| I believe it's 202-748-8003. | ||
| Kurt Beto, you've referenced this already. | ||
| So, how does either side frame this going forward? | ||
| So, what's interesting is Republicans are talking about how Democrats lit money on fire in the special elections in Florida. | ||
| The NRCC released a statement last night criticizing the Democrats for spending and donating all this money to Josh Wheel only to lose by 14 points here. | ||
| But what we got to remember is no major outside Democratic group spent money here. | ||
| This is not like the Georgia 6 special election from 2017. | ||
| That was the most expensive House race at the time, where outside groups were campaigning for John Ossoff and Karen Handel down there, which ultimately the Republican Karen Handel won. | ||
| I believe over $55 million in outside money was spent there. | ||
| This is not the case there. | ||
| So, Republicans, you know, and they're right about this. | ||
| At the end of the day, they are going to get two more members in Congress, bringing up their majority to 220 to 213. | ||
| It's much needed reinforcements for Speaker Mike Johnson. | ||
| And as soon as those guys get sworn in, he gets a little bit more breathing room, which is going to help him a lot. | ||
| Democrats are spinning this a completely different way. | ||
| The House Majority PAT, the Democratic-aligned super PAC, put out a statement last night talking about that if Democrats continue this same overperformance, if they performed in the same way that they did in the special elections in the midterms, then they could flip about 40 seats. | ||
| Now, no one is thinking right now that there's going to be a 40-sweet sing, a 40-seat swing in Congress like there was in 2018. | ||
| But Democrats only need to net three seats right now to flip the House. | ||
| They feel like the wind is at their back right now. | ||
| They feel like they have the momentum, and they feel like they have a blueprint now between the Florida special elections and the successful anti-Trump, anti-Musk playbook in Wisconsin to really step into 2026 with a lot of confidence. | ||
| And what would elements of that blueprint be, do you think? | ||
| I think really leaning into the threats to Social Security, to Medicaid, to Medicare, leaning into making Elon Musk kind of the main character of this election, unlike Trump, which is really interesting. | ||
| I don't know what Musk's role in the midterms are going to be right now. | ||
| A lot of people were worried that his involvement in this Wisconsin Supreme Court race was going to be the blueprint for how he might invest in primaries next spring and eventually the general election as well. | ||
| Musk is a relatively newcomer to politics. | ||
| I mean, he spent a quarter billion dollars trying to get Trump across the line, spent $25 million on this race here. | ||
| I wonder if after his defeat here in Wisconsin, if he doesn't maybe reevaluate his involvement in electoral politics, maybe not so much what he's doing at the White House, but what he's doing, where he's spending his money in terms of what campaigns and candidates he supports. | ||
| And that's kind of the biggest unknown right now. | ||
| But in terms of the strategy for Democrats, I really do think it's hammering home some of the bigger controversies here that actually touch American voters. | ||
| Unlike Signalgate, for example, which is a little bit more of a beltway phenomenon, they want to talk about cutting entitlements, stopping Trump trying to curb government services and to make them feel that that is going to be on the ballot this year or next year. | ||
| Again, our guest is Kirk Beto of the Hotline at National Journal. | ||
| If you want to ask him questions about these elections and the results, 202748, I'm sorry, 202737002 for Republicans, 202737, 0001 for Democrats, Independents, 202628-0205. | ||
| Kirk Beto, you mentioned it, but I want to roll it into the conversation as well. | ||
| The impact from Senator Corey Booker, this 25-hour marathon, breaking records. | ||
| Ultimately, what does that do for Democrats? | ||
| I think it gives it, first off, it does slow down and disrupts the normal business of the Senate, like Senator Booker said when he started the speech. | ||
| What I think it does, it shows their voters that they have a very visible, a tangible show of a fight. | ||
| Now, is this going to gum up all the works of the Trump administration? | ||
| No. | ||
| Is it going to stop the Doge agents from going into government agencies and starting kind of things? | ||
| No. | ||
| But it is a very visible reminder that they can still fight. | ||
| If you remember where we were at two weeks ago here with a lot of folks in the Democratic Party calling for Chuck Schumer to step down after agreeing to the House budget plan, this is Corey Booker here putting himself through this incredibly physical and mentally demanding challenge to show people that Democrats still have a little pet in their step and can some way disrupt the normal business of government. | ||
| Millions of people watched that speech on social media. | ||
| I believe there was a TikTok feed of Corey Booker's speech that had hundreds of millions of views. | ||
| It's a real energizing moment for the Democratic base at a moment where they were been pretty lowly for the last few weeks here, and they've already started fundraising off this as well. | ||
| Again, it might not completely shut down the works of the Trump administration, but it's a very visible, tangible shot in the arm for the Democratic base that was really searching for some sort of energy. | ||
| Let's hear from Annie in Florida on our line for Democrats. | ||
| You're on with our guest, Kirk Beto of National Journal. | ||
| Annie, good morning. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| Good morning. | ||
| Good morning, everyone. | ||
| What an inspirationing, inspirational speech from Corey Booker. | ||
| That's amazing. | ||
| That was an amazing speech. | ||
| My question is about the governor of Florida. | ||
| How's it looking for Dems in Florida? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Who's going to run? | |
| Who do you think is going to run against Byron Donalds? | ||
| Go ahead, Cory. | ||
| That's a great question right now. | ||
| One, the Florida Democratic Party is asking itself a lot right now as well. | ||
| The problem is the Florida Democratic bench is not as deep as it used to be. | ||
| I mean, I think Nikki Freed is who's the chairman of the state Democratic Party right now, is doing some outreach to candidates right now. | ||
| You could see someone like Val Demings jump into that race, even though she hasn't really given a whole lot of consideration to it. | ||
| There's Stephanie Murphy as well, the former representative, but she's not been a name I've seen floated around. | ||
| Right now, a lot of the action is on whether or not Casey DeSantis gets in on the Republican side and challenges Byron Donalds. | ||
| But for now, Byron Donalds seems to be on a blind path to the nomination. | ||
| And unless Democrats can find another candidate, I find a candidate, I really don't see much of a path stopping him, even in a year that should favor Democrats as a blowback to Trump in 2026. | ||
| Where the current governor, how much endorsement or how much support has he given to Donalds to date? | ||
| He has been very diplomatic and very political with how he's talking about Byron Donalds, because like we said, First Lady, Casey DeSantis is heavily considering a run as well. | ||
| She hasn't ruled it out yet. | ||
| I think she's still looking at her options. | ||
| And I think if I'm Ron DeSantis, I'm a little miffed that Trump tried to jump in here and anoint a successor to him, carpetbagging in here from New York when Ron DeSantis might have wanted to try and get his wife into the position instead. | ||
| So we're waiting for that to play out. | ||
| That's the big drama that I'm watching right now down in the Florida gubernatorial race. | ||
| You said that Democrats have to gain three in the House to gain control. | ||
| How many seats are up for play? | ||
| In the House, you know, every cycle, all 435 House seats are up. | ||
| But what we've seen is just a real narrowing battlefield over the last few cycles. | ||
| In fact, we said earlier that the land of 40-seat swings is probably not going to happen anymore. | ||
| When I was testing with strategists in both parties last night, a 40-seat wave this year is the equivalent to a 10-seat gain either way for both parties. | ||
| I would say that there's probably about 30 or so seats that are going to be really competitive and decide the majority next year, especially the 16 seats of crossover members. | ||
| Now, these are members of one party whose district voted for another party for president. | ||
| There's 16 of them. | ||
| 13 are held by Democrats and three are held by Republicans. | ||
| So that's three Republicans in Harris districts and 13 Democrats in Trump districts. | ||
| Now, on paper, that's not a very encouraging sign for Democrats right now. | ||
| There's not as many Jimmy seats and not as many layups as you would see in previous cycles. | ||
| You know, as much as we're talking about this Democratic overperformance here, they're still going to have to fight tooth and nail to get those three seats. | ||
| And the way I've seen it, heard it described multiple times is that it's going to be a real knife fight for the majority here, even with the win that Democrats bats. | ||
| Let's hear from Homer, who joins us from Massachusetts on our line for Republicans. | ||
| Homer, hello. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| You're on with our guests. | ||
| Go ahead, please. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, I just want to point out that he said that there was no money put into the Wisconsin race, really, but there was George Soros and J.B. Pritzker, which we already heard a caller say. | |
| And I'm also worried or wondering, you know, these guys complain about judges when they're Eileen Cannon or the Supreme Court judges and want to get them impeached, but they don't ever want to do that when it's the other side. | ||
| You know, it's so bad when the Republicans are in a majority. | ||
| But now in Wisconsin, it's a three-to-one majority again, and they're going to gerrymander their stuff so that they can get more Democrat seats. | ||
| And it's just ridiculous. | ||
| It's not like we're getting an actual vote or an actual representation of the people in most states because both sides do it. | ||
| And, you know, they only give one side of the story. | ||
| We need a Paul Harvey to give the other side of the story. | ||
| And now we'll know the rest of the story because we only hear one side every day on this show. | ||
| You guys read from the New York Times and all these papers. | ||
| Where's the New York Post? | ||
| Every day it's the same paper. | ||
| Can't you guys get that? | ||
| Caller, we're talking about both sides today when it comes to Republicans and Democrats, especially when it's considered Kurt Beto, if anything from that call you wanted to elaborate on. | ||
| I might have misspoke. | ||
| Of course, there was outside spending in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race. | ||
| There was no outside spending in the Florida special elections. | ||
| Wisconsin saw over $100 million in ads coming in from, most notably, Elon Musk, $25 million through his various organizations. | ||
| But to the caller's point, yes, there were a lot of Democratic spending as well out there. | ||
| George Soros invested it in this race as well. | ||
| There are other Democratic groups as well. | ||
| I believe the DNC might have even bought some billboards as well. | ||
| This was the most expensive judicial race in United States history, breaking a record from the 2023 Wisconsin Supreme Court race. | ||
| And to his last point about kind of those trusts in the courts, I think that is kind of the bigger issue here. | ||
| And one of the storylines that I was watching going into last night is that these races are supposed to nominally be nonpartisan, but you all know who is backing, which party is backing which candidate. | ||
| There's billions of dollars pouring into these races. | ||
| And this comes at a time when trust in the court system is at an all-time low, according to a poll from Gallup in December. | ||
| And I'm worried about the reaction to this race right now. | ||
| Elon Musk said that it would be the end of Western civilization. | ||
| If the Democrat, if the liberal candidate won this race last night during his concession speech, Brad Schimmel had to quiet down some folks in his audience who were yelling about fraud and that Susan Crawford was a cheater. | ||
| He tried to reassure them that, look, we need to accept the results of this race here. | ||
| It's fair and square. | ||
| So I am worried about the long tail consequences of this polarizing the judiciary and making an election for a Supreme Court judge a marquee race. | ||
| A viewer off of X, Kurt Beto, asks, Wasn't Susan Crawford expected to win in Blue Wisconsin? | ||
| And does Mr. Beto think that districts may be redrawn to try to get Democrats two more seats in the House, excuse me, now that they will have favor in the state Supreme Court? | ||
| Susan Crawford was the favorite going into last night, according to the polls. | ||
| What's interesting is the size of her win here. | ||
| It's 10 plus points here. | ||
| That's a pretty good drubbing here. | ||
| The turnout was what we were watching for as well. | ||
| It looks to be slightly below midterm level of what we would see in Wisconsin. | ||
| So, again, a lower turnout election does tend to benefit Democrats and the candidate that Democrats tend to support. | ||
| So I think it's notable the margin there. | ||
| Now, to the question about redistricting, this was a big issue in the 2023 version of this race as well. | ||
| But the liberal judge who won that election recused herself from hearing a gerrymandering case when that came up on the docket after the election. | ||
| Susan Crawford has played very coy with her answers about whether or not she would weigh in on a redistricting case right now. | ||
| So I'm very curious to see what she does do. | ||
| She's said that she doesn't want to pre-judge cases. | ||
| I wouldn't be surprised if she recused herself, but I also wouldn't be surprised if she wanted to stay and hear this case because Wisconsin historically is one of the most gerrymandered states that we have. | ||
| It's up there with Illinois and North Carolina, Pennsylvania, before they changed the lines a few years back. | ||
| And if they are able to change the lines, up to two seats are probably going to be in play now for Democrats. | ||
| And again, reiterating how narrow the margins are in the House, a two-seat swing either way is going to be massive implications for control of the House. | ||
| So our House reporter James A. Downs over at Hotline is going to be following those cases very closely in our newsletter. | ||
| So we'll try to update folks as much as we can as that court case moves through the docket. | ||
| Kirk Beto from Hotline joining us for this discussion. | ||
| We're going to hear from Kurt in Maryland, our line for independence. | ||
| Thank you for calling. | ||
| You're on with the guests. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, Pedro. | |
| Good morning, Mr. Beto. | ||
| I'm going in regards to the Social Security war room that was discussed yesterday. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And I'd just like to know what Mr. Beto believes that that will entail in the future. | |
| Pedro, if you film it, what was the Social Security war room? | ||
| Yeah, could you elaborate on that caller, please? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Oh, yes. | |
| Yesterday, Senator Warren and Schumer had mentioned that they had established the Social Security War Room to combat the Elon Musk and the Doge Social Security. | ||
| Well, how they feel that it's being dismantled by Doge and Elon Musk. | ||
| Right, So the Social Security war room here, that to me emphasizes how important the Democrats believe that the threats to Social Security, Medicaid, other entitlement programs are from this administration. | ||
| It's again kind of a show of that we are taking those problems here. | ||
| So we are on it. | ||
| We have Elizabeth Warren, one of our more popular regulators in reeling in Trump and Elon Musk on the case here. | ||
| To me, it just, again, emphasizes that they are taking this problem very seriously. | ||
| And it's a preview of what message that they're going to emphasize throughout the next few months here on the path to 2026. | ||
| That regardless of whatever noise that Trump is making about trying to annex Greenland or what is he doing with the latest executive orders about the Kennedy Center, that what voters are going to care about the most, and again, this is very reminiscent of their 2018 strategy, is hammering Trump on cuts to health care, Social Security, and other entitlements. | ||
| Kirk Beto, what do you think it means for Republicans on this liberation day, so to speak, that the president has deemed to announce the plan on tariffs? | ||
| Yeah, I mean, we're almost halfway, we're almost done with the interview here. | ||
| We haven't even talked about Liberation Day here. | ||
| I think it puts Republicans in a really tough spot. | ||
| I think Republicans, much like when they vote no but hope for yes here, they're hoping that there's some sort of last-minute negotiation here. | ||
| That's why there's been a lot of questions about when Trump signs these tariffs into place later this afternoon. | ||
| When will they take effect? | ||
| Is there any more room for negotiation right now? | ||
| I think what you're seeing with a lot of Senate Republicans in particular is a lot of anxiety over, especially a lot of anxiety over these tariffs from Canadian imports, on imports from Mexico as well. | ||
| It's going to put Republicans in a real tight bind here. | ||
| And I bet that if Republicans are going to have any more town halls after the during the Easter recess here coming up here, they're going to hear an earful about the rising cost of goods, everything from beer to wine from Europe to textiles as well. | ||
| They're going to be hearing an earful from them from voters. | ||
| Don in Pennsylvania, Democrats line. | ||
| Good morning to you. | ||
| You're on with our guest. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I would be interested in hearing his thoughts on Representative Stefanik out of New York, what her chances are since Donald Trump pulled her nomination as UN ambassador. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Just interested in what your guests would have to think about that, right? | |
| Don, thanks for the question. | ||
| Mr. Beto. | ||
| This was really surprising to us. | ||
| We had heard grublings for a while that the reason that they were delaying her confirmation hearing is because they were worried about the margins in the House. | ||
| And it kind of finally came to a head during that fever of slow-simmering panic amongst Republicans over these two special elections in Florida that if Elise Stefanik's seat was open in upstate New York, where Trump won by about 21 points, I believe, in 2024, that that could be in play as well and further cut into Mike Johnson's very, very, very narrow majority. | ||
| The Stefanik getting Trump pulling Stefanic's nomination means that she'll be on the ballot again come November 2026. | ||
| It'll be much more difficult for the Democrat up there who had the nomination for the potential special election to defeat her. | ||
| She's a member of leadership. | ||
| She's a great fundraiser. | ||
| She knows that district. | ||
| She really is going to be a tough out. | ||
| She, I think, is going to be safe in that seat for as long as she wants it. | ||
| But now that she's been stymied about joining the administration, she's going to have, she's rejoining Republican House leadership and some sort of newly created position to be determined here. | ||
| We don't know exactly what that title is going to be, what that responsibility is. | ||
| I wouldn't be surprised if she looked for other opportunities, whether that's another administrative post, whether that's something outside of Congress. | ||
| But I think her future is really up in the air right now. | ||
| This is from Terry in Minnesota, Republican line, calling us for a discussion with Kirk Beto. | ||
| Terry, good morning. | ||
| You're next up. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Say, Kirk, I'd like to remind you, the really big thing that came out of the Wisconsin election last night was that they passed a strict voter ID law, which will make your cause or your comment about, oh, the judge will do gerrymandering to help win those two huge seats. | ||
| But you don't mention that the two Florida seats were huge wins. | ||
| I tell you, Kirk, you reek of desperation like all liberals do right now. | ||
| Oh, they're so scared. | ||
| They're desperate, the Republicans. | ||
| They're running roughshod over you and your party. | ||
| Pauler, our guest is invited to give information as far as his post as an editor and reporter. | ||
| Well, thank you for the call. | ||
| Mr. Beto, anything you want to add to that? | ||
| Well, I'll try to take another shower after this. | ||
| But what I think is the most important part of that is, yes, we didn't really talk about the big win on a voter ID law that voters passed in Wisconsin, which Elon Musk tweeted out last night before he even acknowledged the Supreme Court laws was this was the most important thing was passing that voter ID law. | ||
| There have been a few other places where voter ID laws have come up. | ||
| You know, President Trump has signed an executive order requiring that on voter ID on elections across the country. | ||
| Now, the executive branch doesn't necessarily have the power to regulate elections in the states. | ||
| It's up to the states to do that, like this ballot initiative. | ||
| Democrats have sued the Trump administration of the executive order, so we're watching that play out. | ||
| But it is this interesting kind of split screen here where Susan Crawford, the liberal candidate, wins big at the Supreme Court level. | ||
| But those same voters then are supporting a form of voter ID law, which for, you know, if you were to ask Democrats for their thoughts on that four, five, six years ago, they probably would have been a little bit more squeamish about and maybe even against it. | ||
| And I think it talks about the shifting attitudes voters have, not just on election integrity, but immigration as well, because you see some more liberal areas allow non-citizens to vote in local city elections or even some county elections as well. | ||
| And it's been kind of a shift in Democrats over the last four years or so to take a little bit Democratic voters on a harder stance on immigration and enforcing immigration laws. | ||
| And I think the passage of a voter ID law is just a bigger part of that narrative. | ||
| Let's say hi to Richard in Georgia, Democrats line. | ||
| Richard, hello. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, Pedro and Mr. Beto. | |
| First, I want to make a comment that last year I told a Washington Journal that the dictator is in office now along with the dictator Supreme Court. | ||
| And now, my question is, I saw a news clip on another channel last, this past weekend about the billions of dollars that the taxes are being taken out on the workers, migrant workers, into the social security system. | ||
| To me, it seemed like that would make the social security system more solvent. | ||
| And when are the, you think the Republican legislators, congresspeople in Washington are going to wake up and see what the Doge is doing, the damage to this country, with all of these federal employees being put out of work, especially at the VA, which I am a veteran, and I depend on the VA for help with my medical issues, | ||
| and also I draw my Social Security. | ||
| Thank you, Richard. | ||
| Well, Richard, first off, thank you for your service here. | ||
| And I think Republicans are really starting to feel that right now. | ||
| We mentioned a little bit earlier about the town hall troubles that they've been experiencing since about February or so it started, where they're hearing from angry and frustrated constituents about these cuts to the federal government with the laid-off federal workers, the potential cuts to those entitlements that you're talking about as well. | ||
| And I think that as long as this continues, they're going to keep hearing it. | ||
| It got so bad that Richard Hudson, the NRCC chief, told his members to stop holding in-person town halls and have virtual town halls. | ||
| As long as this continues, I think this is still going to be a massive issue that Republicans are going to keep feeling pressure on. | ||
| In fact, you see Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan, the two Republican senators from Alaska, really start raising the alarm on some of these doge cuts to some of the environmental organizations that help monitor the terrain in Alaska. | ||
| And I think if you really want to watch where this is playing out most acutely and where it could be a preview of things to come in the midterms, watch the Virginia governor's race, where a huge swath of the Virginia workforce are federal employees, especially folks living up in northern Virginia. | ||
| And that's become a real dividing line between the presumptive Democratic nominee. | ||
| We haven't had the primary yet, but former rep Abigail Spanberger, the Democrat there, has made criticizing and combating those cuts to the federal workforce a key part of her campaign. | ||
| And then the lieutenant governor, the Republican lieutenant governor, Winston Earl Sears, had some comments this past weekend where she talked about how these cuts to the federal workforce aren't that big of a deal. | ||
| The state has unemployment services, and Democrats have seized on those remarks. | ||
| And I bet if you're in the Virginia media market, you're going to be hearing a lot of those remarks in the next few months in advertisements coming here pretty soon. | ||
| So if you want to see how Republicans could respond to the Doge cuts, watch that Virginia governor's race. | ||
| Because if Abigail Spanberger starts running circles around the Republican there, then I think Republicans in Congress are really going to start changing their tune pretty quickly. | ||
| Let's get one more call, and this is from Nelson in our Republican line. | ||
| He's from Florida. | ||
| Nelson, you're on your last call. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Can you hear me okay, gentlemen? | ||
| Yep, you're on. | ||
| We got you. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay. | |
| Mr. Bado, I'm also a combat wounded Vietnam veteran. | ||
| I'm in my 70s and I'm on Social Security. | ||
| And I support President Trump and his policies. | ||
| I think they're necessary. | ||
| As far as the tariffs are concerned, I'd like to point out that the United States fiscal policies for about the first 175 years was mostly tariffs, and that's how the United States function was through tariffs. | ||
| I believe that the use of tariffs can go a long way at beginning to help bring down the national debt, assuming that it's done correctly and assuming that Congress in the future doesn't start and continue to spend more than we're bringing in. | ||
| And I'd like to hear your comments regarding that, sir. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Thanks. | ||
| Again, thank you for your service. | ||
| And I think the threat of tariffs, as I understand them, and from reading up on some of the history of it as well, the threat of tariffs is much more effective. | ||
| And I think this is the Republican thinking as well, than the actual use of the tariffs right now. | ||
| For the first hundred and some odd years of the country, we were a little bit more isolated. | ||
| We were a little bit more dependent on what was grown here, what was manufactured here in the United States. | ||
| In the post-war world, in the post-World War II world, we've become an interconnected global economy, you know, for better or worse. | ||
| And we depend on so, even just look at what's in your cars. | ||
| There's so many different parts in a vehicle now that come from so many different countries. | ||
| You know, there's a widget from Japan, there's steel from China. | ||
| There's so many different things that go into even just a car from so many different countries that a tariff on one of those is going to raise the price astronomically. | ||
| And I think that you hit on a point here that the trade imbalance that Trump talks about a lot is concerning and does need to be addressed. | ||
| But I think Republicans and Democrats alike on the Hill and a lot of economists as well are worried that this sort of mercurial approach to tariffs that Trump is approaching, this kind of hodgepodge, using it as a strong-armed real estate negotiating tactic and then following through with it is not necessarily the way to do that. | ||
| We're going to learn a lot more about the fallout from those later this afternoon once Trump starts signing those executive orders, levying those tariffs. |