No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen - Elon Musk's far-right Twitter gamble backfires

Episode Date: November 27, 2022

Elon Musk makes a new Twitter gamble. Brian interviews FOX LA anchor Elex Michaelson about the Ron DeSantis-Donald Trump feud, whether another round of investigations by Republicans will help or hurt their chances in 2024, and a postmortem on the Karen Bass-Rick Caruso LA mayoral race. And the chair of the Wisconsin Democratic Party, Ben Wikler, joins to discuss the midterm results in Wisconsin, how other states can build out a party infrastructure like WisDems, and what happened in the Ron Johnson race.Donate to the "Don't Be A Mitch" fund: https://secure.actblue.com/donate/dontbeamitchShop merch: https://briantylercohen.com/shopYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/briantylercohenTwitter: https://twitter.com/briantylercohenFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/briantylercohenInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/briantylercohenPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/briantylercohenNewsletter: https://www.briantylercohen.com/sign-upWritten by Brian Tyler CohenProduced by Sam GraberRecorded in Los Angeles, CASee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Today we're going to talk about Elon Musk's latest Twitter gamble and how it's shaking out. I interview Fox L.A. anchor Alex Michelson about the Ron DeSantis Donald Trump feud, whether another round of investigations by Republicans will help or hurt their chances in 2024, and a post-mortem on the Karen Bass, Rick Caruso, L.A. mayoral race. And I'm joined by the chair of the Wisconsin Democratic Party, Ben Wickler, who discusses the midterm results in his state, how other states can build out a party infrastructure like the Wisconsin Democrats and what happened in the Ron Johnson Senate race.

I'm Brian Tyler Cohen, and you're listening to No Lie. So I've kind of been ignoring the Elon Musk of it all these last couple months because I always felt that it was a little too inside baseball, a little too online. And I'm online a pretty disgusting amount of time because I have to for work, which is half honest and half me just covering for the fact that I'm addicted to being online. But one of the biggest talking points on Twitter about Twitter is that Twitter isn't real life. And so I never wanted this show to just be this little bubble where only the people who

understand what I'm talking about are the people who spend 20. 12 hours a day on that app. But I broke this week and decided to talk about Elon and Twitter because what's happening is a microcosm of what's happening on the right more broadly. And that is this embraced by the right-wing gatekeepers of anti-Semitism, of white supremacy, authoritarianism, and violence. This past week, Trump had dinner with Kanye West, whose latest screed was vowing to go DeathCon 3 on Jewish people, and a guy named Nick Fuentes, who is an avowed white supremacist

who's compared Jews getting killed in the Holocaust to cookies in an oven. Elon Musk this past week reinstated Kanye's account. The account, again, that was suspended because he threatened the Jews. That was followed by a promise to issue blanket amnesty for all suspended accounts, which includes people who have espoused outright Nazism and white supremacy and levied threats against, you know, the LGBT community and people of color. Kanye said that Alex Jones, who called the Sandy Hook Victims Crisis actors, should be allowed back on Twitter because he's a Christian.

and America is a, quote, Christian country. And so, like, are you starting to get it? Are you starting to get that at some point the things these people are saying aren't accidents. They are representative of exactly what they think, and that is why they are saying it and rallying behind other people who say it. And I think that it's telling that after an election where Republicans were largely repudiated because they were viewed as too extreme, the biggest voices on the right are basically doubling down, not on moderation, but on the extremism.

I'm sorry, but you don't have dinner with a fucking neo-Nazi and get to pretend that you're not anything other than a hardcore right-wing extremist. You don't get to traffic with the guy who harassed the parents of a school shooting and pretend that you are anything other than a hardcore right-wing extremist. And yet, this is who the Republican Party has anointed its mouthpieces. If you don't think that they've fully embraced Elon Musk, fully embraced Kanye West, fully embraced Donald Trump, you're kidding yourself.

These are the anointed right-wing heroes right now. and so from my point of view I'm always wrestling with do I talk about this stuff because at the end of the day they want the attention or do I ignore it and risk burying my head in the sand

to what's actually happening out there and I think that there's a line and when it's obscure enough you let it stay obscure but I don't think that this is obscure anymore I mean Trump is the leader of the Republican Party Elon Musk is the richest man on the planet

and the owner of what is what was our digital town square Kanye West is one of the biggest musicians on the face of the earth, this stuff isn't underground anymore. But I do think it's important to talk about because, like I just said, this last election was a referendum on Republican extremism. And in response to that,

Republicans are now doubling down on extremism. There is a majority of Americans who oppose this. We have a coalition of people left, right and center, who will ban together to reject this. And so if this is what the right wants to double down on, I think that people like me have an obligation to make sure that the public knows. I don't know why we would hide the fact

that a party that's largely lost in 2018, lost in 2020, lost in 2022, because they keep embracing lunatics, is continuing to embrace lunatics. And by the way, I touched on this in an interview a few months back with Kara Swisher, but I've actually kept quiet as long as I could as far as Elon was concerned.

Like, he was always kind of a dick, but I didn't think that complaining about him was worth hurting someone who I felt was doing a lot of good by mainstreaming electric vehicles and helping save the climate. And I do think that Tesla is doing a lot of good for the climate. But what the last couple of months has shown me is that he doesn't care about the climate. You don't come on to Twitter and endorse Republicans who deny the existence of climate change

to retake the majority if you are in any way, shape, or form serious about combating climate change. I think that what happened in actualities that Elon saw a financial opening and exploited it, and he presented himself as a climate champion, but Elon is a champion for Elon and nothing more. I think that there are people out there who are doing this for the right reason and who actually want to do good for the world and not just themselves. those are the people who I think deserve the praise, not the guy currently serving as a mouthpiece for the Republican Party, which is the only major political organization in an industrialized nation

that still, to this day, doesn't take climate change seriously. So Elon can pat himself on the back all day long, but he's telling us all right now exactly who he is. Next step is my interview with Fox L.A. anchor Alex Michelson. I'm here with the anchor of Fox L.A. and the host of the biggest statewide political show in California, the issue is, Alex Michelson, thanks for joining me today. Well, thank you for having me.

You know, we've done this via Zoom so many times, but now I'm here in your brand new studio. Thankfully, there's not a white wall behind us. We've upgraded. Your setup is spectacular. Congratulations on all your success. It's great to see that you're a real person. And I'm surprised that you're not wearing a shirt and tie.

I know. It's a whole different side of you. We're going a little casual. We got through midterms and now just kind of coasting through the end of year. That's right. making a breath. That's right. Yeah. So let's jump in here. Trump had met this week with Kanye West and a guy named Nick Fuentes, who's an avowed white nationalist, neo-Nazi. These are kind of things that he did before, but he got away with them because, you know, it was Trump. He was viewed as invincible. And he pretty much commanded total loyalty from the GOP. He doesn't anymore, as we're starting to see now. Do you think that meetings like this one hurt his standing? So we're starting off with the softball, the Nazi sympathizer question. We'll ease into this with Nazis. Just get right into it of our holiday weekend.

We don't know, right? I mean, this is the sort of thing. Do I think, you know, a year and a half from now, everybody's going to be talking about the Nick Fuentes meeting? Probably not. Do I think that his supporters necessarily care that much about this sort of thing? Probably not. Is that kind of sad?

Yes. You know, this is the sort of thing that anybody else as a candidate, at least 10 years ago, GOP, it would have really hurt them. Maybe, you know, this helps with this idea of owning the libs, of giving an FU to the establishment, of, you know, thinking that the way a lot of things are reported are too overly politically correct. So maybe in some ways it helps in that sort of thing. But I don't know.

Do I think that realistically a Ron DeSantis or somebody else is going to make an effective argument about Nick Fuentes and that's going to be a major reason somebody's not going to vote for Donald Trump in a Republican primary? No. Isn't this kind of the thing that was rejected at the ballot box, this midterm cycle? I mean, we see so much of this extremism by the Republican Party that they kind of allowed to happen because they viewed themselves as invincible. I mean, they would do this stuff and they would still win elections or it would still be 51 to 49. And so they kind of got this idea in their heads that they could do whatever they want. They really wouldn't be punished. They did kind of get punished this, this,

midterm cycle. And we think, because we see so much, so much of this that just kind of goes unresponded to, when we see this, it's like, oh, well, nothing's going to happen from this because nothing happened, you know, during both impeachments, nothing happened at the Axis Hollywood tapes. But wouldn't this be a little bit of death by a thousand cuts? And now we do know that people are recognizing the extremism. And this is the kind of thing that could finally get punished, electorally speaking? Well, there are different things we're talking about, right? There's a difference between a Republican primary and a general election. Trump's actions in the last year were rewarded in Republican primaries. Yeah. And because of that, it ended up hurting them in the general

election. I mean, when we think about the Republican nomination, we have to remember that Republicans nominate in a different way than Democrats. This is sort of in the weeds, but your show's all about in the weeds, so let's get in the weeds, right? Democrats do what's called proportional representation during their primary. So say, you're running, I'm running. I'm running. Joe Biden's running, Hillary Clinton's running, whoever's running, right? If you get 30%, I get 20%, and somebody else gets 16%. We all get those percentages and then you go towards the convention, which is why the Democrats could potentially have a contested convention

if nobody gets to 50% if everybody breaks it up. Republicans don't do that. They have where whoever wins gets all of the delegates for a particular state. state. So if you get 30%, but everybody else gets under 30%, you get all the delegates. So if Donald Trump is in a crowded field, which could happen, say Chris Christie runs and Liz Cheney runs and Mike Pence runs and Ron DeSantis runs and Nikki Haley runs and Tom Cotton runs and Mike Pompeo runs, all of a sudden, we got 2016 all over again. And then all those people split up the vote and you get Trump, say he's getting 25, 30 percent. And they're the kind of people

that like Nick Fuentes and Kanye West, and they think that this is good. Then all of a sudden, Donald Trump is a Republican nominee. So could it hurt him in the general election? We've certainly seen that if you had to make an argument right now, who would be the easiest Republican for Democrats to defeat in 2024, it would have to be Donald Trump based off of what we just saw. But you could also make an equally valid argument of who's the frontrunner to win the Republican nomination right now?

And it's probably Donald Trump. Yeah. And something that we're seeing, too, is like, even if we overestimate the guy, we're constantly seeing that all it takes is a few tens of thousands of votes and he's the next president. Or his candidates and midterm cycle are the next winners for their states. So like this, nothing is a home run. And yes, like Donald Trump had a bad midterm cycle,

but it's not outside of the realm of possibility at all that he wins if he's able to just flip a few thousand votes in certain states. And it's also not outside the realm of possibility that he might try to cheat right i mean what what evidence would there be of that right he might not accept the election results and if he's able to flip some of these secretaries of state i mean that's why the the midterms was probably more important part of the midterms than anything else was this idea that democracy saved democracy yeah at least temporarily and a lot of these secretary of state candidates who may have been more important than the congressional candidates the election deniers many of them

lost. And that could have a real impact on the 2024 race. You had brought up Ron DeSantis. Do you think that DeSantis is as strong, stronger, or less strong than Trump right now? Again, we don't really know. I mean, here's the thing about Ron DeSantis. We've never seen him face what he's about to face. Yeah. Because it's not just Donald Trump. You know, if all these other people run, say, for example, somebody who's going to probably have to, almost no shot of getting the Republican nomination, Chris Christie is on the debate stage. Now, Chris Christie could do Donald Trump

a lot of favors with Ronda Sannis. Chris Christie is a great debater. Yeah. He's a tough prosecutor. He is an experienced TV presence. Like, he ripped up Marco Rubio last time around. End up killing himself. Yeah.

But he ripped him up. So say Trump's given DeSanis a hard time, but say Christy's given him a hard time. Because the only way to beat Donald Trump in the Republican primary would be for one person to become the anti-Trump and to go mono-a-mono because of that whole proportional representation thing and them winner-take-all, them being the winner-take-all party, somebody needs to be the guy to go mono-a-mono. And if somebody goes mono-a-mano with him, they could beat him.

But everybody else knows that. So if you're Chris Christie, Rhonda Sanis is in your way of being that guy. or Liz Cheney or Mike Pompeo or all the rest of them. So DeSantis could not only be facing incoming from Trump, but from all these other places. We've never seen him face that. He could be strong enough to do it. But history is full of examples of governors

who thought that they were going to be able to withstand that, and then they end up sort of not really being much. Scott Walker is somebody who comes to mind, who everybody thought was going to be this huge star in 2016. he ended up becoming sort of an afterthought. Yeah. Pete Wilson, when he ran for president, many years ago, the former governor of California, everybody thought he was going to be so strong and so great.

He ended up becoming sort of a non-factor. So, no doubt, Ron DeSantis looks like the strongest person now, but when that incoming comes, we'll see how strong he actually is. Yeah. And I think, you know, it's a lot of this post-mortem, a lot of this granting DeSantis, the air-apparency, is just a lot of the pundit class talking, you know, us included, like I'm definitely including myself in it, but until something actually happens, until he throws a punch, until he actually kills Trump, Trump won't

die. And so I think that we have to like wait for that part to actually play itself out. And and so far, it hasn't at all. Like DeSantis hasn't even thrown a single punch, much less killed the guy. So remains to be seen. But DeSantis' counterpart is Gavin Newsom out in California, who you've covered extensively. He announced that he won't run. He It was reported that he spoke to the Biden team, that he's all in behind Joe Biden. How do you think these two governors who, you know, a lot of people like I mentioned before do believe are the era parents for their respective parties are playing things right now? Well, I think Governor Newsom would like you categorizing him that way because I think he thinks that fighting with DeSantis is good for him. And I think DeSantis thinks that fighting with Newsom is good for him because they both then look like the future as compared to the past.

think the emergence of Biden and Trump and the likely chance that both end up running again is really bad for Newsom and for and for Desantis. And I think the better DeSantis is doing, probably the better chance Newsom has and the better that Trump is doing, the better chance Biden has. In terms of how he's playing it, it's interesting that reporting that you're talking about, Jonathan Martin had a Politico magazine article about this trip to Washington, which I was on with Gavin Newsom. And I was at the White House with him. And I was the only reporter with him for this trip. And he went in to White House Chief of Staff Ron Clayne's office and said, I'm not challenging Joe Biden. And he went to Jill Biden face to face and said, I am not

challenging Joe Biden. I am here to help you. And apparently on the night of his reelection a few weeks ago in Sacramento, he got on the phone with him and said, put me in coach, help me help you essentially like the old jerry mcguire thing so newsome and i believe that yeah i don't think that he has the political incentive to challenge joe by that he's he's a he's a he's a young guy he's got you know a long future ahead of it but if but if you're just looking for sort of crass political analysis joe biden's big night was probably not great for gavin newsome in terms of raw politics yeah newsom had been making the political argument that the democratic party's narrative was not strong enough, not ruthless enough, fighting back against Republicans, made the narrative

as a sort of extension of that that maybe it had been too much Mr. Nice Guy. This idea of Michelle Obama's that when they go low, we go high, maybe seem to be a bit naive and that he was going to be the young, tough fighter taking it to the opposition. Well, Biden just won. You know, he had a really good night. And the Biden approach seemed to do okay. in a lot of these places. And so that makes Biden stronger, and it may have made Newsom weaker, at least in the interim.

But, you know, Newsom also may be playing the long game in this. He's, you know, only, what, 30 years younger than Biden? So there's close to that, maybe 25. What do you think the likelihood then that Gavin Newsom runs is? I mean, you've covered him probably more than anybody in the state of California. What do you think the – and, I mean, granted, this is also – I'm asking this question, knowing full well that he said, every which way that he doesn't plan on running for president?

I think his words say that, but his actions say something very different. His actions have certainly put him in the position to run for president. And I think it's only a matter of time. You know, is it 2024 or is it 2028? I think it's very much an open question whether Joe Biden runs. I think that increasingly, the people I talk to in D.C. and other places think that Biden will run again,

in which case I don't think Newsom challenges him, but there's nothing to be said that he can't challenge him in 2028. And why wouldn't he? I mean, he's the governor of the biggest state in the country. He's very popular here, and he's got a strong political operation. How does Biden reconcile that? Or how does the Democratic Party actually reconcile that? Because you've got Joe Biden who does keep winning,

who's showing not only in 2020, but in 2022, that he has what it takes, like the instincts to win, that he has the approach to win, and he just keeps winning. But at the same time, a lot of that, a lot of the candidates who won, one, irrespective of their views, those voters' own views more broadly of the party.

And so while they, while those same people might say, well, I don't have, I don't have that great of an opinion of Joe Biden, or I don't think he should run again in 2024, but I still understand what's at stake in this election. And so I'll vote. for Democrats. So how do you how do you kind of square those two things where where it's hard to take somebody off the ballot who has shown in every election that he can win? But at the same time, there seems to be like a sentiment in the Democratic Party or on the left more broadly that Joe Biden

is too old or shouldn't run again in 2024. Well, I think that the Democratic Party is unified behind the idea that Donald Trump is not only bad, but an existential threat to democracy. Yeah. And so I think the party is all in on the idea of doing everything possible to defeat Donald Trump. And there's only one guy who has defeated Donald Trump so far, and that's Joe Biden. Yeah. And also at the end of the day, whether or not is Joe Biden on the ballot, I think that people will show up just as much, whether it's, you know, a Pete Buttigieg or Gavin Newsom. That isn't proven. You're right.

That's not proven. It's not proven. And that does help Joe Biden in the sense that he's the only guy who did do it. Right. And there's an argument that, you know, if you look at the polls, somebody like Kamala Harris. may not beat Donald Trump, right? And so I think a lot of Democrats don't want to take that risk.

That being said, if Donald Trump is not the nominee, right? And maybe it's Ronda Sanna, somebody who looks young and feels like a new generation. Is Joe Biden as strong? Is he the guy you want to run against Ronda Sannis? Yeah. Maybe. Maybe not.

And so I think Democrats maybe overanalyze this thing and thinking that this maybe was a big win for Joe Biden, is something I literally just said. But in reality, if you really dig into the data, this election, for the first time in ever, was not a referendum on the guy in the White House. It was a referendum on the previous guy in the White House. And a lot of the voting was not necessarily because we love Joe Biden. It was, we're scared of Donald Trump and what he represents. And this idea of Trumpism

and election denial is not good. I mean, it is stunning how clear the verdict was that there were multiple candidates where you would have a Republican who wasn't an election denier and a Republican who was on the same ballot and the Republican who was not an election denier did significantly better than an election denier did or a super Trumpy candidate.

I mean, if you look at Georgia, for example, Brian Kemp running as somebody who fought back against Trump and sort of a quote-unquote normal Republican or Herschel Walker, you know, Herschel Walker did significantly worse than Brian Kemp. If it was Brian Kemp running for Senate, there wouldn't be a runoff right now in Georgia. He would already be the senator. Yeah, yeah. Well, let's go to a different race that you've also covered extensively, and that is Karen Bass and Rick Caruso running for the L.A. mayoral race. is it accurate to say that Karen Bass effectively solving homelessness is going to be the litmus test issue as to whether or not she's successful in this term as mayor?

Yeah, she would say that. I mean, there was some polling that came out that showed that if she doesn't make serious progress on homelessness in two years, people want to impeach her. I mean, it is the issue. When I talked to her last week, she said that, you know, it's her number one priority. identifying the worst homeless encampments and make very public what they are and what the plan is for that. And she seems very focused on that as her priority won. But, you know, it's a, it's a huge issue in this city. And in terms of how she won, you know, she sort of reminded people

that she's a Democrat and that he does not have as much experience as a Democrat. And it was interesting. I moderated a panel at USC recently, and a guy named Ira Reiner, who used to be the district attorney of Los Angeles, had an interesting perspective on this saying that he thought that the biggest mistake that Caruso made was that his first ad, day one, should have been, I'm a Democrat, here's why. I used to be a Republican. I was wrong when I was thinking that. Here's why I'm a Democrat now. Join me as a Democrat. Instead, he tried to introduce himself, talk about crime and homelessness. And his argument was that people in this very Democratic city where it's close to 60% Democrats couldn't get past that one issue of him not

being Democrat. Well, I think because he was disingenuous about it for the exact reason that you said in the sense that he kind of never acknowledged it beyond just answering questions about it and just saying, well, now I am, but I think if he got out ahead of it and gave people permission to not view him as a Republican in hiding, like, you know what I mean? I think it would have been different. And also, I mean, framing your coming out with exactly what you said, which was ads about crime and homelessness, that is, that it, these are, for all intents and purposes, Republican talking points. And so I think the fact that he was a Republican, coupled with the fact that his ads are what are viewed as Republican ads, even if homelessness is a major

issue in this city and people can acknowledge that, again, there's this sense of like a wolf and sheep's clothing. Right. But then there's also true that those issues are really problematic for Democrats in the city. Would you say that Karen Bass's weakest issue was homelessness? I think her weakest issue was change. Yeah. That, you know, she played as part of the establishment when you've got the president, the vice president, the speaker of the house, the whole city council, the former mayor, all these people behind you in a year when I think a lot of people in this city were looking for something else. Well, I think the irony is going to be that like one of her weakest issues that, I mean, look, if you're looking for change and you're looking at homelessness in L.A., it's been this way for a while. So that this is, you know, not an election, not a situation in Los Angeles where the status quo candidate is going to be rewarded.

So it is kind of ironic that the among the issues that she's going to be weakest on is what her entire term as mayor is going to be judged against. We'll see. She might say she'd be strong on that. Let's see how she does. Okay. So moving on to the national scene, Republicans have begun announcing a slate of investigations into the usual right wing. You mean the number one thing was in inflation? No, shockingly enough.

It wasn't the inflation plan on day one? Yeah, yeah. I'm still waiting for that inflation plan. I assume it'll come out in two weeks with Donald Trump's health care plan. But in the meantime, we're hearing these investigations into Hunter Biden, into the border. Is it fair to say that there was no introspection as to why Republicans performed so poorly in this midterm cycle that they are leaning into the exact thing that was repudiated at the ballot box? Different people have different incentive structures, right? I mean, a lot of these people in the House that are going to be.

be leading these committees come from deeply red, often gerrymandered districts, where this red meat stuff works really well for them. But they do have to, they do have a majority to protect. And these, and these New York Republicans who just got elected into office, if all they have to show for themselves is zero legislation that passed because they didn't introduce anything or they weren't willing to work with Democrats on anything. And instead, all they have is, is five-minute cable hits on Laura Ingram every night because all they wanted to do was talk about Hunter Biden. How's it going to help those people get reelected? Well, you're saying that they're all operating as a team.

Right? Each of them have their own incentive structures, and there are certain places and certain parts of the party that are looking for this, that have been waiting for years, that have been watching programs every night that have told them that this is what's needed. And so now they're trying to appease that. I mean, it is a tough, it's a tough job. And I think it is a reminder, frankly, of how extraordinary. extraordinarily successful Nancy Pelosi was to have such a small majority for the last few years

and to keep everybody in line on the stuff that matters most. And I think people aren't going to recognize that until the moment they see Kevin McCarthy or whoever it is, but probably Kevin McCarthy, try to wrangle his base that that includes these, you know, moderate, newly elected New York Republicans and Lauren Bowbert and Marjorie Taylor Green. Right. And so the other thing is, you know, I know a lot of Democrats that listen and watch your show are overjoyed at what is seen as a Democratic win and no doubt that Democrats did better politically than was expected. But losing the House is a major thing. Because the House

operates on majority rule in terms of committees, even more so than the Senate, where you have the filibuster and you have other things that you can have more of a voice as a minority. In the House, it's like, you're in the majority or you're not. And so now Jim Jordan's getting a gavel. And he's got subpoena power. And so a lot of these investigations into Joe Biden and Hunter Biden and Alejandro Mayorkas and all these other things are going to go forward full steam ahead with these people having the gavel. And that's going to be a major, major part of the next two years.

Well, if their agenda is investigative as opposed to legislative, do you think that the Republican base would prefer what I would consider mindless investigations into Hunter Biden over the tangible benefits that come from a majority party that is willing to or looking to pass legislation like look what the democrats did in the last congress mean they were able to pass they finally get the government to negotiate lower drug prices pass the chips act pass health care for veterans climate funding i mean all this stuff like one of you know with the thinnest of majorities one of the most successful congresses that we've seen one of the most accomplished congresses that we've seen we won't see that with the jim jordan congress uh the kevin mccarthy congress do you think that that that is

still preferable to the Republican base? I mean, if you believe that government is not the solution of the problem, but government is the problem, as Ronald Reagan said, then why would you want to see more government? Yeah, that's fair. Right? I mean, that's the foundation of who they are and what they want. Plus, they don't have control of the other two chambers. So what are they going to be able to do legislatively?

Even if they pass a bill, Chuck Schumer's not going to get behind it and Joe Biden's not going to sign it. I mean, wouldn't this be a good opportunity for these Republicans to say, look, We're willing to play ball. We know what's popular in America. We know that certain jobs are popular. We know that fun, like the Chips Act was monumentally popular. Look at the amount.

And a lot of Republicans got behind it. A lot of Republicans got behind. Don't they have an incentive then to at least not, at least not let the lunacy be the number one thing and just like try to get behind some stuff and tell those Democrats who have shied away from the Republican Party. All those suburban women who've shied away from the Republican Party recently that like, look, you can you can vote for us and we'll still get. stuff done for you, as opposed to just investigating Hunter Biden. And they do. And I think there are, the challenge for Kevin McCarthy now is he has such a small majority that there are some Republicans that totally believe in that. And if they don't do what you're talking about, they'll probably lose their seats. Yeah. But then there are others who are

from Ruby Red districts who don't believe that and who don't even necessarily want Kevin McCarthy to be in the seat because he's suggesting that they might do that. Yeah. So it's going to be challenging to get everybody on the same page. I mean, there is no doubt that there is at least a small portion of the Republican majority that believes in some bipartisan dealmaking, at least on things that they can get behind. Yeah. I mean, not everybody goes to Washington because they want to burn the place down. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, so let's take a step back. We're just coming off this Thanksgiving break now. The midterm cycle is finally over. What was your most memorable moment from this midterm cycle?

For me personally? You personally. Well, I, you know, I got to cover the L.A. Marys race pretty closely, as you said. I got to host and organize the first debate in the spring that had Karen Bass and Rick Caruso together. I organized and hosted the first debate in the fall that had the two of them together. And sort of my favorite thing that I did was we did this special show with both Rick Caruso and Karen Bass and their kids.

and we got to the both opened up in new ways and and everybody cried and it was really emotional and I felt like it was a reminder to people that some people do this for the right reasons and and there is some nobility in public service too and I really enjoyed that that it wasn't just focused on the cynicism so that was my favorite part what was your favorite part dunking on the conservative sometime oh yeah yeah that's it just just if I if I get to shit on Jim Jordan. That's it. That makes my day. No, I think there was a lot of people that I got to speak to that I was really happy to have the opportunity to speak to. I wanted to speak to Stacey Abrams for a long time. I was able to see Beto O'Rourke speak in person. For the exact same reasons you said,

I mean, these people are immensely, immensely talented, regardless of the cynical takes as to why Stacey Abrams couldn't be Brian Kemp or Beto couldn't, you know, Beto's run a few races and couldn't win down in Texas. I still think that these people are immense talents. I hope they don't go away. And it restored a lot of my faith in the people that are doing this and why they're doing this. And I was sort of blown away at the clarity of election night when it comes to democracy. Yeah. And I think that is something that the whole country, whether you're Republicans or Democrats, should celebrate. And maybe, just maybe, we're at an inflection point where we can start fighting about marginal tax rates again and not fighting about whether you should count the votes

or there's an elaborate fraud involving Venezuela and some sort of pipe tree. Yeah, I mean, that's completely spot on. I walked into this election. I mean, I was dreading this election for the obvious reasons, but also, and I've said this a few times on this podcast, so I apologize if you've heard this before. But Republicans were running on a platform effectively of election denialism, of just anti-democracy. Right. But the ones that were worrying to everybody were, had they, had they, had they, had they, won out this election cycle, it would have been a validation of exactly that. Not only would it have

signaled something terrible moving forward, like in 2024 and beyond, and basically a full embrace of anti-democratic ideals, but also the very people who would have won would have been put in place to help perpetuate exactly that. And so we would have been screwed both ways. And I'm trying to find a way to say that democracy was saved without sounding hysterical. There is no way to say it, but I fully believe it. I think that insofar as it could have been, it could have been protected that night it was. And so like that restored a ton of faith. I mean, it was just dread leading up to it, especially as somebody who's, who's an activist for the left. It's like, there's no way to go into that without being, without being like, we're just so completely

fucked. But we're not after what happened. And I know it's probably hard for some of your listeners to admit this, but like, there's value in quote unquote normal Republicans winning, right? I mean, insofar as it shows the difference between an election, but between like a lunatic MAGA election denialist and somebody normal, it at least is a message to the Republican Party that you can still win. It's just when you run those crazy-ass people that you won't. And so like, so I guess in that sense, it's not just like it forces the crazies in that party or it forces the elites in that party who will ultimately help make those decisions to like look and say like there is no incentive to elect those people, but there is

an incentive to elect normal people. It's not like the Democrats won out just because Democrats were more popular or whatever. It was that Republicans won when they weren't crazy. And it is kind of wild. If you hear now in the Republican establishment that the pushback on Donald Trump has nothing to do with his policies, January 6th, the impeachment, anything. It's just that he couldn't win. It's just that he couldn't win. And that seems to be the thing. And if the party is all in on this idea of win, win, win, win, win, win, and this guy is lose, lose, lose, lose, that maybe it's time to look forward. And we've heard that message before.

Whether this time is the difference, we don't know. He's also never really had that strong of an opponent internally. Could it be Ron DeSantis or somebody else that we're not even thinking of right now? That's why the next few years are going to be really interesting. Well, we'll leave it there. Alex, thank you so much for. for taking the time. If anybody wants to check out more of Elex, he is the anchor for Fox L.A. out here in Los Angeles. And he also hosts the biggest statewide political show called

The Issue is Anywhere in California. And you can also watch it on his YouTube channel, Alex Michelson with an E. Yeah, Alex Michelson with an E. And we also stream it as a podcast. So if you search for The Issue is wherever you stream, you can check out some of our past episodes, including with Karen Bass this week. We had a great interview with Arnold Schwarzenegger last week, which was really fascinating and other stuff we've done. done with Gavin Newsom. A lot of stuff we talked about here, you can go back and listen to. So thank you, Brian. Congrats again on the new space. This is more fun in person, I think. And great work.

Now you've got the chair of the Wisconsin Democratic Party, Ben Wickler. Thank you for coming back on, Ben. Great to be with you, Brian. It is a beautiful day in Wisconsin. Yes. And with that said, can you give a rundown of the results now that we're in the aftermath of these midterm elections? I'm happy to do that. And let me start by saying, this was supposed to be an election where we're going to lose everything. Wisconsin is so closely divided that compared to just about every other state, we have the most consistent pattern of having the party of the president lose ground in midterms. Last time we won a governor's race with a sitting Democratic president was 1962. The last time we defeated a sitting Republican senator with a Democratic president was 1962. It just never happens. And In that context, my mind is blown that we came within one point of defeating Ron Johnson, which I wish we'd gotten all the way there, but it was way better than the polls predicted. And in the governor's race, we won by 3.4 percentage points, which is a Wisconsin landslide. The last governor's race, the margin was one-third that amount, and that was during the blue wave year of 2018.

So the last thing I want to underscore, as well as the Attorney General's race, where we doubled the margin of victory and defeated a really, bad far-right candidate. We also stopped Republicans from getting super majorities in the state legislature, which was something that they gerrymandered the maps to basically lock in total Republican control. And that was an incredibly hard fought fight. We have a buffer of just two assembly seats out of 99. And we won those two races by a combined total of 2,49 votes. So because of gerrymandering, we came within a hair's breadth of having Republicans able to override the governor's veto, but they can't. So democracy survived in Wisconsin. So I do want to ask about the maps, but I'm going to save that for a little bit later because I have a specific question about that.

But first, what do you attribute this success to? There's a few things. I mean, the first thing that cannot be emphasized enough is that ripping away a basic freedom from half the population with the Dobbs decision overriding Roe versus Wade was a horrible thing and also a horrible political move by the GOP. It made so many people pissed off, especially women, but not just women in the state of Wisconsin. And there was also a real backlash to Republicans' threats against democracy, and that's something you saw in a number of other states, the fact that Tim Michaels, the Republican candidate for governor, vowed to sign every voter suppression law and election subversion law and vowed to scrap the bipartisan election oversight system and even said before the election, once I'm elected governor, no Republican will ever lose an election here. that I think really hurt. The second thing is Governor Ivers has done a great job. He's been a uniting, effective governor that people trust. And on the campaign trail, he talked about those Republican threats, but also talked about paving, as he put it, paving the damn road, fixing the damn

roads. And he has shown up for people. He invested American Rescue Plan funds in small businesses. So small towns had main streets that were opening doors from storefronts that had been vacant since long before COVID, all over the state. And the last thing I'd say is, in Wisconsin, we learned this very painful lesson from 2010. In that election cycle, the Democratic Party of Wisconsin had essentially gone out of business after the 2008 victory. And I was talking to the person who became chair after 2008. He came in. The party had three staff and $50,000 in debt. And this time, after we won in 2020, we just kept on organizing with like dozens and dozens of staff, ultimately hundreds of staff, working with hundreds, many more hundreds of neighborhood teams

all over across the state, knocking on doors on a year-round basis, calling people, texting people, supporting candidate campaigns, supporting recruiting, making sure even in deep red district state legislative candidates had some support to be able to connect with and inspire local voters. That kind of massive statewide, constant operation in partnership with work by unions and grassroots groups and the candidate campaigns and thanks to support from your listeners and viewers and so many others made it possible for us to do more than we'd ever done in a midterm election. And I think that was a critical piece of the victories. So with that said, what does Wisdoms do differently? And what advice do you have for other states

in terms of an investment in a state party? Because as far as I know, you guys operate a little bit differently than other state parties. I don't think anyone is as central to the operation as Wisconsin Democrats. A lot of times they rely on outside groups or whatever. But it looks like, in Wisconsin, Wistems is pretty much the premier organization that deals with organizing. Well, I want to credit, there are a number of independent groups that do amazing, amazing work here throughout the state. And I think one of the keys to our success is that we understand that we're part of the broader progressive fabric. We don't compete for resources with independent organizations. We, you know, all the legal ways that we can become complementary. We do. And the functioning of the

whole ecosystem here is critical. Some states that have a tougher time. have a kind of like zero-sum mentality where folks are actually don't have a high level of trust across the different parts of the ecosystem. So I don't want, I want to really emphasize the impact that the independent groups do have here. At the same time, I think one thing that I encourage other states to look for ways to be able to structure, and which we have in Wisconsin, there's in Michigan, there is in building this in Arizona and Pennsylvania, a few other places is a year around organizing infrastructure where you just don't turn it off in the off year. Right now, we have regional organizing directors covering every region of the state.

And we're going to be, we have a spring Supreme Court election on April 4th. We'll talk more about, I'm sure, but we're going to be running a full-scale field operation for that race. We also have a year-round coalitions program, making sure that we're connecting with black, Latino, Hmong and AAPI, Native American Wisconsinites, working with rural Wisconsinites and LGBTQ-plus Wisconsinites. We have a digital operation that does virtual distributed organizing, does content amplification, and has networks to make sure that, you know, the right isn't flooding Facebook without an answer from our side all around the state. We have a voter protection team

that stays in touch with local clerks and make sure there are poll observers everywhere so Republicans can't get away with shenanigans. That's on a year-run basis as well. So all these aspects of work that are often just staffed in the final couple of months in an election, in Wisconsin, we just don't stop doing them. And that means that you can actually build on your strengths and have momentum from election to election instead of kind of shutting down and starting up every single time. There's no athletic team in the country, professional athletic team, that shuts down completely and then rehires all the players right before the season starts. Political teams shouldn't do that either. Yeah, that's the perfect metaphor. Are you actually

in touch with Democratic parties from other states? Absolutely. I actually worked closely with the Arizona and Michigan chairs this time, and I've been just blown away by their work as well. There's a network, a national network called the Association of Democratic State Committees. We all get together several times a year and trade best practices and tips. I learn from them all the time. Ken Martin is the Minnesota chair, is the leader of that organization. I'm jealous because he's won every single statewide election in Minnesota since he became the chair,

and we lost the Senate race by one percentage point in the state treasurer's race this time. But they have a slightly easier road to hoe in terms of the composition of the state and the voting rights laws. So, you know, the way that state party chairs can support each other, I think is really critical. I think in Wisconsin, because it's so close, because elections come down so often to one point or less, we've been able to kind of raise the flag and be able to draw in resources that then allow us to deliver success in a way that has a virtuous circle. And I hope that across the country, more folks zero in on the power of state parties to make a positive difference because it really can be transformative. And so what happens in a state like Florida where the bottom has basically fallen out? How do you revive a Democratic Party in a place like that?

Florida is very, very tough. And I'm, I feel like him, the Wisconsin chair, not the Florida chair. I will say that the Florida Republican Party is incredibly effective. And in 2020, the Washington Post called the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, the state party of the year, Florida Republicans were the runner-up state party of the year that year. They really know what they're doing. One of the big things is this kind of boom-bust cycle. And I know they had a complete leadership turnover after 2020. And so there's a whole new team in place. This cycle, having continuity and then having continuous investment with a continuous organizing program, I think would make a really big difference. It's also a state where, you know, like voting rights and Democrats are under constant attack and where there's so many different types of communities where the politics are so different, it's very hard to have a statewide message as a Democrat that works everywhere. But I think one thing that should happen everywhere, this is my full-time job. And having a full-time state party chair that is able

to bring on a staff and build long-term plans, I think makes a really big difference. Yeah. And, you know, I do the Don't Be a Mitch Fund. The Wisconsin Democratic Party is a recipient of that. And so just for people like wondering what their money is going to, it's this. It's having a year-round staff and the results that come with it. So to people who've donated, thank you for donating. I just, I want to ask too, what happened in the Ron Johnson race? Oh, man. This is so painful, especially because I, from where I was sitting, I didn't have the power to fix it in the way. that felt really clearly needed to be done. The fundamental issue, so Mandela was a very strong candidate. He became closer than anyone ever has to beating Ron Johnson. It was the closest Senate race in 100 years in the state of Wisconsin. But in September, right after the primary was over, he was raising money to kind of

recapitalize his campaign. And in federal races for Senate and House, the state party isn't allowed to kick funds over to support like TV ads in the same way that we can in state races, state legislative races, governors' races, that kind of stuff. So we were kind of watching this happen in slow motion. There are three multi-billionaires, Dick and Liz Euline, who are a couple, they run the U-Line Office Supply Empire, and then Diane Hendrix, who runs ABC Home. They, in 2020, they put $20 million into his campaign. And in 2017, that was 2016, excuse me, 2017, Ron Johnson turned around and insisted on a special tax break that benefited them more than almost anyone else. They got about

a half billion dollars in tax deductions, thanks to this provision that Ron Johnson insisted on putting into the Trump tax bill. And this election, they came right back and scratched his back again. They poured $29 million this time into the biggest single candidate super PAC in the country. And there was a spending gap of, I think, $27 million. So they were over more than the total of that. in September, in some parts of Wisconsin, it was seven attack ads against Mandela for every one response. During that time, his polling fell massively. And once he was able to pull funds back together, he roared back and was able to climb back to, you know, being within a hair's breadth of winning. But that was the moment that the race really turned.

And, you know, if we could go back in time and materialize resources to be able to punch back at full strength in September, I think we would have won at the end. Or if we'd added another week at the end, he was coming. back for the whole final several weeks. He was climbing and climbing and getting back into parity. So that's the thing that just kills me about that race. And I think it's a lesson nationally for everyone involved in politics is that you can't have a gap like that where you get beaten up without a response. The campaign was doing everything it could, but we needed more independent air cover. Okay. So looking forward, this is something you alluded to before. There is a state Supreme Court race coming up in April in Wisconsin. What's at state?

in this race? Why is this race important? So Wisconsin is, has a kind of purple heart, maybe with streaks of blue, but it is a democracy that is shackled by Republicans who have done everything they could to rig the system to ensure that they would have unaccountable power. And the number one thing they've done to do that is gerrymander our maps, our state legislative maps, almost beyond belief. We are by some analysts view the most gerrymandered state in the United States of America, where we won the governor's race by 3.4 percentage points and almost got Republican supermajorities in both legislative chambers. They have two-thirds of the state Senate seats, and they have 64 out of 99 in the state assembly. That is only possible because of what they did to the maps. And the

governor vetoed Republicans proposed gerrymandered maps after the 2020 census, but then the state Supreme Court just chose the Republicans' maps anyway, which is the only state where a state Supreme Court has done that. It's a judicial decision that was made to ensure that voters wouldn't have a path to winning a majority. Democrats would have to win by 12 percentage points statewide in order to win a majority in the state legislature under these maps, which is a near impossibility. So this April 4th, there's an open seat on our state Supreme Court, which is important because it's a lot harder to beat incumbents. It is being vacated by a hyper-right-wing Republican state Supreme Court Justice who's retiring.

She is the tipping point justice on the court. There are currently four very, very conservative justices and three kind of more progressive or independent justices. With one conservative leaving, that means that whoever wins the state Supreme Court seat gets the majority on our state Supreme Court. And if there's a majority that is not a group of Republican activists on our state Supreme Court, the maps could be struck down and the 1849 abortion ban could be struck down and the voting rights restrictions Republicans put in place could be struck down

and extraordinary powers that were granted to the state legislature and taken away from the governor could be struck down. So much about how Republicans have restricted freedom and rigged our democracy could change. If we win this April 4th race, it is one of the most important races in the country, maybe the most important race before the 2024 November election. And we're going to give it everything we've got. Now, usually the maps are figured out, like, just after the census. What happens in the event that a Democrat or a liberal, rather, does take this Supreme Court seat? Does that mean that the maps could be struck down and then rewritten, like, mid-decade? Yeah. So the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that there's no kind of national, constitutional

problem with redoing maps mid-decade. And these maps are unconstitutional, in my view, on a number of different grounds. They, I mean, they're also probably against federal law because they violate the Voting Rights Act. The maps chose. by the state Supreme Court actually reduced the number of majority black districts from six to five, even though the black population grew by 10 percent and the white population dropped by 3 percent. So there's several reasons why the maps should be struck down. And they can be struck down.

If they are, then it would probably go back to the state legislature to propose maps. The governor would have to sign or veto them. If they can't agree, then it would go back to the state Supreme Court or federal court to decide on new maps to choose from submissions or hire a special master to draw them. process could absolutely unfold either before the 2024 election, to my hope, or the 26. But, you know, these maps are fundamentally flawed. And bad maps, there's recourse in court. We've seen that happen in other states as well. So, and I will say that unlike Ohio, you know, in Ohio, Republicans in the state legislature proposed on constitutional maps,

the state Supreme Court struck them down, and the Republicans and the legislature just waited out the clock. So they used unconstitutional maps in 2022. in Wisconsin, the state Supreme Court would have the power to just draw their own new maps or choose some other maps that are submitted. So the state legislature doesn't have that kind of pocket veto against judicial action that they did in Ohio. There's a very clear path to restoring democracy here. If we win the Supreme Court race, if we don't, there's not. Like, this is like the Avengers endgame. There's just one path that we can see. And it makes it a race that we have to pour everything into. And would this be the case for both the state and

and federal congressional maps, so like the state legislature and regular, you know, congressional maps for Congress? It could be. Yeah. I mean, in principle, so what happened, one of the things that led to the maps we have right now is that the 4-3 Republican majority announced that they were going to use the whatever maps made the least changes to the 2010 gerrymandered maps. Which, as you mentioned, we're already gerrymandered. So a least change map, just entrenches the gerrymander that already exists. Exactly. It's like it's a, it's a ludicrous basis.

And when those maps were drawn after the 2010 census, about a third of the state's voters were moved into new districts in order to support Republican advantages. So it's like, it's not like there's some kind of historic thing where you want to move as few voters as possible. Republicans moved a gigantic number of voters to new districts in order to get power and then turned around and said, okay, we'll choose whatever maps, make the least changes to those.

So the current congressional maps were done on a least changes approach, which is why, like, the third congressional district is shaped like the letter Y, which is not something that makes any sense. Otherwise, those could be vulnerable as well. Okay, great. And I want to finish off with this. What do you think is the biggest risk that you guys took that paid off this election cycle? Something that you weren't sure would pay off, but ultimately did. I remember a debate, the whole conversation at the beginning, at the end of 2020, beginning of 2021, we decided to run a year-round voter protection operation, even though there, you know, it's not like you have absentee ballots that need to be cured until the very end. But man, I'm so glad that we did that. Like, there have been voting rights cases throughout the last two years. The deadline to recruit poll workers through the Democratic Party for the November 2020, two elections was November 2021, which meant that we had to be doing that work in the off year when the election was very far away.

There's this, we have this amazing voter protection team that runs a 24-hour voter protection hotline and, you know, has worked, has dealt with all these shifts in the laws and turnover in clerks offices where clerks were getting threats from, you know, big lie people, like all this stuff. And that was a serious financial lift that I'm so, so glad we took. And organizing the coalitions, all this other stuff. After 2020, a lot of people warned me that fundraising was going to fall off a cliff and, you know, you should slim down really aggressively. And I was like, I think that we can do this. And we made a much more aggressive budget than maybe prudence would have suggested. But, you know, if you, if we hadn't invested so much so early, I don't know if we

would have wound up with the result that we did. So I feel really good about taking that risk. And, you know, as we look forward to 2024, I think we got to keep both feet on the gas. Well, we'll leave it there. Obviously, Wisconsin's going to be, you know, like front and center in this next election as we head toward 24. Glad that we have you at the helm and the rest of the folks over there at Wisconsin Democrats. We'll definitely have you on again as we head toward April because that will be the sole focus in March and April as we head towards. that Supreme Court race. So Ben, thank you for the work you're doing and talk to you soon. Thank you so much, Brian. And anyone who wants to get involved, you go to Wisdoms.org

slash volunteer or Wisdoms.org slash Donator that don't be a Mitch fund. We really are going to need everybody to come out of the woodwork January, February, March to win on April 4th. That election will determine the voting rules in Wisconsin for the next presidential in the tipping point state. So if you are anxious about the future of the world or have some spare energy after the big wins in November 8th, this is the place to use them. Thank you so much for having me on Brian. Thanks again to Ben.

That's it for this episode. Talk to you next week. You've been listening to No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen. Produced by Sam Graber, music by Wellsey, interviews captured and edited for YouTube and Facebook by Nicholas Nicotera, and recorded in Los Angeles, California. If you enjoyed this episode,

please subscribe on your preferred podcast app. Feel free to leave a five-star rating and a review, and check out Briantylercoen.com for links to all of my other channels.