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TRANSCRIPT

Jane Coaston: It’s Monday, March 31st. I’m Jane Coaston, and this is What a Day, the show that can’t wait for April 2nd, when according to National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett, all of the reciprocal tariffs will go into effect and something will happen. 

[clip of Kevin Hassett] And so President Trump has a long-run vision of a golden age of America, and we’re working really, really hard to get it out there in time. But I can’t give you any forward-looking guidance on what’s going to happen this week. The president has got a heck of a lot of analysis before him, and he’s going to make the right choice, I’m sure. 

Jane Coaston: [?], less sure. [music break] On today’s show, President Donald Trump tells NBC some crazy shit, and Iran rejects direct negotiations with the U.S. over its nuclear program. But let’s start in the great state of Wisconsin, home of badgers, cheese curds, and a big election this week that could swing the state Supreme Court. Tomorrow, Wisconsin residents will head to the polls, if they haven’t already, to choose a new member of the high court. Currently, liberals hold a four – three majority, but liberal justice Ann Walsh Bradley decided not to run for re-election. Now, voters are choosing between two county judges to replace her, conservative Brad Schimel, who also served as the state’s attorney general, and liberal Susan Crawford. But right now, it feels like voters are also choosing between Elon Musk and not Elon Musk. Here’s CBS News’ Chicago affiliate. 

[clip of unnamed CBS news reporter] An election for the Wisconsin Supreme Court is now the most expensive judicial race in U.S. history due to billionaire Elon Musk and his allies spending more than $20 million on the contest. 

Jane Coaston: That’s right, the most expensive judicial race in U.S. history. Roughly $80 million has been spent according to tracking from the Brennan Center for Justice. And Musk and his allies make up a quarter of that. Now, you might be wondering, why is Elon Musk so very interested in this Wisconsin Supreme Court race? Is it because of his deep concern over the state of democracy? Friends, almost certainly not. See, a key piece of information you might want to have is that Tesla, you know, the car company Elon Musk owns. is suing the state of Wisconsin over a state law that prevents vehicle manufacturers from owning or operating dealerships in the state, a law dating back to the 1930s. And because Tesla doesn’t sell cars through independent dealerships, that’s bad news for Tesla and Elon Musk. Musk hasn’t said his donations are related to the lawsuit, but if he could get another conservative judge in the State Supreme Court. Mmm.  Now Wisconsin residents might not care about getting a Tesla dealership in Madison or Whitewater. Shout out to the UWW Warhawks, by the way. But they probably do care about how Schimel said Trump needs a, quote, “support network,” or his championing for right-to-work laws that hurt unions. Or that Schimel has voiced support for an 1849, yes, 1849 state law that makes performing an abortion a felony offense, just as the court prepares to rule on its legality. By the way, for his part, Schimel seems pretty into abortion bans like that law, according to comments he made on tape at a meet and greet in July. 

[clip of Brad Schimel] The 1849 ban on abortions, which, by the way, what is flawed about that law? It was passed by both houses of the legislature in the same form and signed by a governor. That’s all it takes. 

Jane Coaston: So to talk about this important race, I had to call up Ben Wikler, Chair of the Wisconsin Democratic Party. Ben, welcome back to What a Day. 

Ben Wikler: Jane, it’s great to be with you. 

Jane Coaston: So tell us about Judge Crawford’s opponent, this Judge Brad Schimel guy. President Trump endorsed him earlier this month. What’s his background? 

Ben Wikler: So he’s the far right, former Republican attorney general under Scott Walker. That’s how he kind of came to renown. Basically–

Jane Coaston: And Scott Walker being the former governor who hated unions more than anyone has ever hated anything 

Ben Wikler: Yes, Union Buster-in-Chief, Scott Walker and Brad Schimel, they came into power. And then they went after unions, after voting rights. They supported total gerrymandering of the maps. They basically legalized corruption for themselves. Brad Schimel would just kind of create a firewall around Scott Walker, whatever laws he broke, and then go after Democrats, try to systematically remove the power and the basis of democracy and functioning government in the state. It’s very similar to what Musk and Trump are doing at the national level now. Brad Schimel constantly sued to destroy the Affordable Care Act. Now as he’s running for state Supreme Court, he’s running on a campaign, sometimes in front of 20 foot tall inflatable Trump balloons saying Trump keeps losing in court and the only way to solve this is in the courts. He needs a support network. He’s running to be Trump’s bag man as surely as he was Scott Walker’s bagman, which is so far from what anyone would want a judge, a Supreme Court justice to see their job as being. 

Jane Coaston: And let’s talk about Judge Crawford in that case. Can you contrast all of that with what Judge Crawford wants to do? Should voters pick her to serve in the high court? 

Ben Wikler: She was a prosecutor for years, and then served in state government. She actually served as the head of enforcement at the Department of Natural Resources. She saw how state government works through and through. Um. When Scott Walker won in 2011, she then left state government, went into private practice. She was the lawyer for Planned Parenthood. She defended voting rights. When Republicans put in a voter ID law that said that if you didn’t have a driver’s license, you had to pay to get an alternate ID, she led the lawsuit to say, no, that is a poll tax. You can’t require people to pay money to be able to exercise their vote. And she won that. She created a mechanism to get a free voter ID. She defended workers in you know union busting cases. And then she became a judge and has served with distinction um in Dane County. She’s now running, as she says, everywhere in public and private. She will treat every defendant equally who comes before her court. But most importantly, she wouldn’t be a thumb on the scale for anybody. And there’s a real difference there. And this is a moment when the rule of law, the system of checks and balances is under constant relentless assault. And she would, I think, be a line of defense for the idea that no one is above the law. 

Jane Coaston: There has been tremendous turnout in early voting in this race, because I think everybody knows just how important this is and the message they want to send. More than 500,000 of your fellow Wisconsin citizens have cast their ballots. What are you hearing from voters on the ground right now as we get close to election day? 

Ben Wikler: There’s a level of fury that voters feel about what’s happening to the whole country, a sense of panic. Social security offices are being closed. People are being fired from the Veterans Administration. The university system is being gutted. Cancer research trials are being halted. So across the state, when you start talking to people about the race, it sort of merges with this whole national picture. On the Republican side. There’s a very intentional effort just to make this a kind of like, if you support Trump, you got to vote for Brad Schimel, and we’re seeing increased turnout by Republicans. But we’re also seeing an even higher level of Democratic turnout than we saw in 2023, when the Democratic-supported candidate, Justice Protasiewicz, she won by 11 percentage points. That was a record-breaking turnout year. So this looks like an absolute record-smashing kind of intensity. The thing we won’t know until Tuesday night. is how many of those record-breaking voter turnout numbers represent Crawford voters versus Brad Schiml voters. 

Jane Coaston: Let’s talk about the money. There’s a ton of money being poured into this race, particularly by the one and only Elon Musk in groups he’s been affiliated with. CNN has put the figure at a combined $20 million. How have you worked to counter that kind of massive spending in a statewide race? 

Ben Wikler: So you can start with the groups that he’s funding, which have put in 20 million. He’s also given $3 million directly to the Wisconsin Republican Party. And on top of that, he has given a one million dollar check away. He’s saying that he is going to be in Wisconsin tonight giving out two more million dollar checks. So that’s 26 million. And he has a petition that he says he’ll give everyone who signs it, it’s a petition against activist judges. He says he’ll give anyone who signs it a hundred bucks. And if you refer someone else who signs it, another hundred bucks, so if he gets you know 100,000 people on that petition, that’s at least another $10 million. We don’t know how many people have signed it. This is by itself more money than has ever been spent in any judicial election in American history other than Wisconsin Supreme Court race in ’23 and this one. The folks supporting Susan Crawford and the Crawford campaign are being outspent, but Musk is such a colossal disaster and threat to this country that his involvement has inspired more than like 175,000 people to donate to Susan Crawford’s campaign. So she has smashed every record for grassroots fundraising. She’s raised as of the last disclosure, like $24 million into her campaign. The total spending is above $100 million right now. Musk represents about a quarter of it. But Susan Crawford’s not being out communicated because so many people, small and large donors have chipped in to help her. Meanwhile, the field organizing. Elon Musk is flying people in from Texas and putting them up in hotel rooms and paying them $25 an hour to knock on doors. On our side, we have thousands of volunteers who are doing it for free. This is volunteers who are doing this because they care about their communities. So we don’t need to have as much money as they do to out communicate and out organize them. And, you know, I think we have a very realistic fighting chance to be able to win this if we can just keep both feet on the gas until the polls close on Tuesday. 

Jane Coaston: Now talking about those checks because he had originally wanted to give checks to people who had voted, but that seems to be illegal. He like deleted the tweet. There was the petition. There’s, you know, he already paid a Wisconsin voter a million dollars, um, to somebody from Green Bay. He did this during the presidential campaign. The state attorney general is asking the state Supreme court to get involved after a lower court said Musk’s stunt was okay. We’re recording this Sunday afternoon. And as of now. the high court has not yet stepped in. What happens if the state Supreme Court doesn’t get involved in time? 

Ben Wikler: If the state Supreme Court doesn’t get involved, Elon Musk will probably arrive in Green Bay, presumably in some private jet. He will have a couple of handpicked people come up on stage. He’ll present giant novelty checks to them. Presumably it’s actual cash, he’s the world’s richest man. The question is, does that turn into votes and how many votes does it turn into and how much votes does mobilize on the other side? Like regardless of whether he is convicted in a court of law for violating our election bribery statute in Wisconsin, which is definitely a real law here in our state. Regardless of whether he is technically guilty of a crime, he’s absolutely trying to buy this election and that is not lost on anyone. And it’s infuriating. There’s a lot of Republicans as well as independent voters and just about every Democrat who are infuriated by this idea. It’s disgusting. If it works here, then he’s going to do it everywhere. So there’s this sense that people have across the state that like we have to stop him here so that this doesn’t become the norm in Virginia this fall and the midterms nationwide. This needs to be proven to be electorally disastrous for Republicans to be associated with this kind of corruption. And that that has given an extra level of urgency to the people who are knocking on doors. 

Jane Coaston: What can people do, especially people who are not in Wisconsin, to help get out the vote? 

Ben Wikler: So if anyone’s listening right now, and they don’t like the idea that Musk can just buy the judicial system, and by the way, if someone gets convicted of a crime in a state court, Trump can’t pardon them. So there’s another reason why this is important. You can help get out the vote by joining virtual phone banks. We have them going all the time until the polls, not in the middle of the night. We have them going during daylight hours until the polls close. If you go to wisdems.org/call, W-I-S-D-E-M-S dot org slash call. You can sign up for a virtual phone bank and just dial to your heart’s content. And it is extremely satisfying because you’re calling Democrats who are likely to agree with you, but who might not yet have tuned into this race. And if you’re near Wisconsin, come knock on doors. You can go, we actually set up a website, peoplevmusk.org. And if you go to that website, you can find the volunteer link that this is going to be a long slog these four years with Trump in office. But if we can win this race and then use that momentum to keep winning fights that allow us to actually create a check on this administration and elect people who can actually do good things with the power they’re elected to wield, we can make this the seedbed for something far better. So this race, this cannot be the end. This is a knockdown, drag out, mega showdown, and then it needs to be a launch pad for what’s next. 

Jane Coaston: Ben, thank you so much for joining me. 

Ben Wikler: Jane, thanks for having me. 

Jane Coaston: That was my conversation with Ben Wikler, Chair of the Wisconsin Democratic Party. We’ll get to more of the news in a moment, but if you like the show, make sure to subscribe, leave a five-star review on Apple Podcasts, watch us on YouTube, and share with your friends. More to come after some ads. [music break]

[AD BREAK]

Jane Coaston: Here’s what else we’re following today. 

[sung] Headlines.

[clip of Kristen Welker] President Trump called me to tell me he is, quote, “pissed off with Russia’s President Putin,” and threatened to impose secondary tariffs on Russia’s oil. 

Jane Coaston: Yes, you heard that right. Trump called NBC’s Kristen Welker over the weekend and gave an entirely unprompted interview where he said some crazy shit, including that he’s not happy with Russia’s president. She talked about her call with Trump during Sunday’s meet the press. 

[clip of Kristen Welker] Quote, “If Russia and I are unable to make a deal on stopping the bloodshed in Ukraine, and if I think it was Russia’s fault, which it might not be, but if I think it was Russia’s fault I am going to put secondary tariffs on all oil coming out of Russia.” 

Jane Coaston: During the interview, he also insisted multiple times that he’s not joking about trying to serve a third term. He told Welker, quote, “There are methods which you could do it.” Those methods do not include the U.S. Constitution, which limits presidents to two terms, even if they’re not consecutive. Trump also had this to say about his plans for 25 percent tariffs on all imported vehicles and auto parts, which are partially set to go into effect this week. 

[clip of Kristen Welker] And on fears of foreign automakers raising prices, quote, “I couldn’t care less if they raise prices because people are going to start buying American made cars. 

Jane Coaston: Small pitch in your plan there, chief. A lot of American carmakers don’t actually make those cars in America, so their prices are likely to go up too. On the call, Trump exaggerated his approval ratings, saying, quote, “I have the highest poll numbers of any Republican for the last 100 years,” saying they’re in the high 70s. According to a Gallup poll out last week, his overall approval rating is 45% with U.S. adults, and a YouGov Yahoo poll has his approval rating on the economy at 39%. But sure, go ahead and randomly call a journalist to say you couldn’t care less about higher prices on cars. Sounds like an amazing way to win that third term. The president of Iran said that the Islamic Republic rejected direct talks with the United States over its growing nuclear program. It came in response to a letter President Trump sent the country’s supreme leader earlier this month in hopes of striking a new nuclear deal with the country. President Masoud Pezeshkian left open the possibility of having indirect talks through mediators. Here he is during a cabinet meeting Sunday. [clip of Masoud Pezeshkian speaking plays] He says there, quote, “Regarding indirect talks, Iran has always been involved in such talks, and the Supreme Leader has emphasized that indirect talks can still continue.” Indirect negotiations have been ongoing since Trump withdrew the US from Tehran’s nuclear deal in his first term. In a weekend call with NBC News before Pezeshkian’s comments, Trump repeated his threats against Iran. Here’s Welker explaining. 

[clip of Kristen Welker] The president said he’s also considering secondary tariffs if Iran doesn’t agree to a nuclear deal. Quote, “If they don’t make a deal, there will be bombing. And it will be bombing the likes of which they have never seen before.” 

Jane Coaston: While Iran claims its program is peaceful, a February report by the UN’s nuclear watchdog seen by the AP found Iran has accelerated its production of near-weapons-grade uranium. The International Atomic Energy Agency’s report said the increase is of, quote, “serious concern.” 

[clip of Lars Løkke Rasmussen] I have a message for our American friends and all of us who are listening. Much is being said these days. Many accusations and many allegations have been made. And of course, we are open to criticism. But let me be completely honest. We do not appreciate the tone in which it is being delivered. This is not how you speak to your close allies. 

Jane Coaston: The Danish foreign minister had some choice words for the United States after Vice President JD Vance and the Second Lady’s visit to Greenland late last week. Danish foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen said in a video posted to social media over the weekend that Denmark is stepping up its investment in Arctic security. It comes after Vance made some bold claims Friday in a speech to US troops stationed on the island. 

[clip of Vice President J.D. Vance] Our message to Denmark is very simple. You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland. You have under-invested in the people of Greenland and you have under invested in the security architecture of this incredible beautiful land mass filled with incredible people. That has to change. 

Jane Coaston: Greenland is a territory of Denmark, which is a NATO ally of the US. The Trump administration has repeatedly claimed America needs Greenland for security purposes. Speaking with reporters in the Oval Office Friday, Trump reiterated those claims, a thing voters did not get asked about during the campaign, in a tone that can only be described as petulant child complaining about candy he can’t have. 

[clip of President Donald Trump] We need Greenland, very importantly, for international security. We have to have Greenland. It’s not a question of, do you think we can do without it? We can. 

Jane Coaston: And in a weekend phone interview with NBC’s Kristen Welker, he went even further. 

[clip of Kristen Welker] Mr. Trump’s saying there’s a good possibility it could be done without military force, but added, I don’t take anything off the table. 

Jane Coaston: Vance’s trip was ultimately scaled down after pushback from Greenland and Denmark. The death toll from a massive earthquake in Myanmar continued to rise over the weekend. Officials say around 1,700 people are dead. Another 3,000 people are injured, and 300 are still missing. The epicenter of Friday’s 7.7 magnitude earthquake was near Mandalay, Myanmar’s second largest city. The U.S. Geological Survey says it was the most powerful earthquake to hit the country in more than a century. It was so powerful, it was felt in neighboring Thailand, where 17 people died. Most were killed when a high-rise building under construction collapsed in Bangkok. Dozens are still missing. Rescue efforts in Myanmar have been complicated by an ongoing civil war there, which started in 2021 when the military overthrew the country’s elected government. On Saturday, Myanmar’s main resistance movement, the Shadow National Unity Government, announced a two-week ceasefire. Myanmar’s military junta has also allowed in hundreds of foreign aid workers. The death toll is expected to keep rising in the coming days as rescue workers search for the missing under the rubble. And that’s the news. [music break] One more thing. Remember Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s confirmation hearings? Probably not, because they took place at the end of January of this year, and as you know, that was 10,000 years ago. But during those confirmation hearings, R.F.K. Jr., a notorious vaccine skeptic, said this. 

[clip of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.] I believe that all my that vaccines play a critical role in healthcare. All of my kids are vaccinated. I’ve written many books on vaccines. My first book in 2014, the first line of it is I am not anti-vaccine and the last line is I am not anti vaccine. 

Jane Coaston: Lets talk about that book, which argued that a chemical sometimes used in vaccines, Thimerosal, causes autism. According to a bunch of scientific organizations, it doesn’t. But this is RFK Jr. we’re talking about. He’s not going to listen to pretty much every scientist around. Case in point. On Friday, Dr. Peter Marks, the Food and Drug Administration’s top vaccine official, resigned from his post under pressure. In a letter obtained by the New York Times, sent to the Acting Commissioner of the Food & Drug Administration, Dr. Marks explained his decision to resign. Quote, “As you are aware, I was willing to work to address the Secretary’s concerns regarding vaccine safety and transparency by hearing from the public and implementing a variety of different public meetings and engagements with the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. However, it has become clear that truth and transparency are not desired by the Secretary, but rather he wishes subservient confirmation of his misinformation and lies.” I mean, yeah, on vaccines, RFK Jr. has chosen his narrative. and he is going to pick the people who will give him that narrative in spades. So it is not surprising to me that, according to the New York Times, R.F.K. Jr. has hired David Geier as a senior data analyst. He is tasked with running a study examining the links between vaccines and autism, which don’t exist. Who is David Geier? Not a doctor, he has a bachelor’s degree in biology. But that didn’t stop him from practicing medicine in the state of Maryland until he was charged with practicing medicine without a license back in 2011. And what kind of medicine did he practice, you might ask? According to the Maryland State Board of Physicians, he gave puberty blockers to autistic kids to make them not autistic. Yes, puberty-blockers, which he believed could overrule the chemicals in vaccines that had made them autistic in the first place, which they did not do. I wish I were joking. I am not. Back in 2011, the board of physicians said that his work, quote, “endangers autistic children and exploits their parents by administering to the children a treatment protocol that has a known substantial risk of serious harm.” Geier claimed that his research was approved by an ethics committee, but it turned out that the address for that committee was Geier’s business address, and the committee members included himself, his dad, and his dad’s wife. His dad, who worked with David and was a doctor, had his medical license revoked in all 50 states. And remember that 2014 book R.F.K. Jr. mentioned in that hearing? He mentions David and his dad more than 250 times in it. And on a podcast in 2022, he said that David Geier and his father had proven that vaccines, quote, “had nothing to do with the drop in infectious diseases we’ve enjoyed over the past century.” So yes, RFK Jr. told senators back in January that he wasn’t anti-vaccine while discussing a book about how vaccines cause autism, while citing a guy who used puberty blockers to fix kids with autism, which that guy also believed were caused by, yes, vaccines. And now that guy who used puberty blockers to fix kids with autism is running a study to explore the connections between vaccines and autism. Great. 

[AD BREAK]

Jane Coaston: That’s all for today. If you like the show, make sure you subscribe, leave a review, read the constitution of the United States and tell your friends to listen. And if you’re into reading and not just about how clearly we need a basic refresher in how the constitution works, because otherwise you get people like Indiana representative Victoria Sparks speaking at a town hall in Westfield, Indiana. [clip of Victoria Sparks speaking is indistinguisable over the sound of crowd noise] In case you couldn’t hear over the yelling, she said, you violated the law, you are not entitled to due process. Which is not true. Yeah. What a Day is also a nightly newsletter. Check it out and subscribe at Crooked.com/subscribe. I’m Jane Coaston and due process is how you determine if someone violated the law. That’s how it works. Sorry if that makes you sad. [music break] What a Day is a production of Crooked Media. It’s recorded and mixed by Desmond Taylor. Our associate producers are Raven Yamamoto and Emily Fohr. Our producer is Michell Eloy. We had production help today from Tyler Hill, Johanna Case, Joseph Dutra, Greg Walters, and Julia Claire. Our senior producer is Erica Morrison, and our executive producer is Adriene Hill. Our theme music is by Colin Gilliard and Kashaka.