The Chuck ToddCast
Chuck Todd Reacts to Special Elections + John Fetterman on Donald Trump & 2028 Presidential Run
02 Apr 2025
On the debut episode of the newly relaunched Chuck ToddCast, Chuck sits down with Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman.But first, Chuck reacts to the special election results for US Congress in Florida that saw Republicans Jimmy Patronis and Randy Fine beat out Democrats Gay Valimont and Josh Weil for the seats vacated by Matt Gaetz and Mike Waltz. He also discusses the hotly contested Wisconsin Supreme Court race, where liberal judge Susan Crawford won her race against Brad Schimel, who had millions of dollars of support from Elon Musk.Then, he and Sen. Fetterman discuss a wide range of important issues, beginning with his message to Democrats who are alarmed by the actions of Donald Trump’s administration. He shares his reaction to the “Signalgate” scandal and his assessment of what went wrong for Democrats in the 2024 election. Fetterman gives his take on Elon Musk and Doge performing massive cuts across the federal government, as well as the looming tariffs that President Trump is threatening to impose on America’s top trading partners. They also try to make sense of the administration’s 180-degree turn on longstanding U.S. foreign policy and the president’s fixation on Greenland. Finally, they discuss the current lack of a true leader for the Democratic Party, the role of billionaires in politics, and whether Senator Fetterman is considering a run for president in 2028.Timeline:0:00 Introduction2:30 Special elections in Florida8:42 Wisconsin Supreme Court race14:48 Start of John Fetterman interview18:00 Aaron Rodgers to the Steelers?19:00 Message to Democrats that are freaking out23:44 Reaction to “Signalgate”27:10 What happened in 2024?30:44 Elon Musk and DOGE35:22 America’s 180-degree turn on foreign policy40:38 President Trump’s fixation on Greenland44:28 Fetterman’s Mar-A-Lago visit46:45 Who’s the leader of the Democratic party?51:04 Influence of billionaires in politics54:08 Will Fetterman run for president in 2028?56:09 Do Democrats need to move to the center?1:01:09 Chuck’s final thoughts on the interview with John Fetterman
Full Episode
Hello there. Happy Wednesday. It's Chuck Todd. And yes, the Chuck Todd cast is back after a short hiatus. I am back. I am independently owned. I am not part of any media empire. I am a part of the new class of independent journalists. And in some ways, you want to talk about reporting without fear or favor. Well, there's nothing like working for yourself.
The only fear is when I look in the mirror and the only favor is to try to be honest. No BS for you. As you know, starting on a Wednesday, one of the reasons why I will always have a podcast dropping on Wednesdays is because, as you know, as I like to say, is that if it's Tuesday, somebody is voting somewhere.
Well, this Tuesday, past Tuesday, April 1st, was a pretty significant Tuesday, at least in the first 100 days. Here we are still in the middle of the first 100 days. of the new Trump administration. We're on day 72, to be exact. And with these early elections, two House special elections in Florida last night and the Wisconsin Supreme Court race that was a statewide election.
And look, I will go down rabbit holes later throughout these episodes. I won't do it here. It drives me nuts that we even have elections for judges. I think that is ludicrous. Go read Alexander Hamilton's Federalist Papers on this. We should not be electing judges, but I'm not gonna go on that rant now. What matters here is what did we learn from this?
Well, we're 72 days in to the Donald Trump administration, and in many ways, it's deja vu all over again. What we're seeing in the Democratic Party's overperformance in these three special elections on April 1st and, frankly, another special election a couple of weeks ago in Pennsylvania for state Senate district is that Democratic based voters are more fired up about voting right now.
than Republican-based voters. It's the same phenomenon we saw in 2017, same phenomenon, frankly, we saw in 2018. There is something that I believe that exists. I call them shotgun Trump voters, meaning when Trump's on the ballot, they vote. And when Trump's not on the ballot, they don't. Well, Trump wasn't on the ballot in Wisconsin and his people didn't come out enough.
Trump wasn't on the ballot in Florida one or Florida six. And the Republican candidates underperformed by 15 and 20 points, respectively. And if you want to know why Elise Stefanik, the New York congresswoman who was once a member of leadership and was tagged to be the next ambassador to the United Nations and why her nomination was yanked last week.
All you have to do is look at the results of what happened on Tuesday night, because she's from a district in upstate New York that Donald Trump carried by about 20 points. The two districts in Florida were districts that Trump carried by 30 points.
And the fact of the matter is an underperformance by 15 to 20 points by a Republican candidate in that New York district is the difference between Democrats and winning or losing. There was enough pad for Republicans to win both special elections. in Florida. These were very Republican districts.
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