The Chuck ToddCast
Chuck Todd Reacts to Special Elections + John Fetterman on Donald Trump & 2028 Presidential Run
Wed, 2 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
Chapter 1: What were the results of the recent special elections in Florida?
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.
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Chapter 2: What happened in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race?
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.
The Stefanik District, which is not that far from the Albany region there, it's a pretty conservative district, not nearly as deep red Republican as Florida 1 or Florida 6. So everything we saw on Tuesday night explains the actions of what we saw earlier with the decision on Stefanik. The fact of the matter is Washington Republicans are starting to get nervous.
The question, of course, is who's to blame? Is this a Donald Trump phenomenon? Or is this an Elon Musk problem? Let me start in Florida, where in many ways, I have a feeling you're going to hear more folks in the White House blaming Ron DeSantis for underperformance in at least one of the districts, and they are Donald Trump or Elon Musk. So Florida 1 is the panhandle district.
For those of you that follow the news media, if you remember Joe Scarborough's in Scarborough country in the congressional district that he once represented, it's that congressional district. It's Matt Gaetz's congressional district. So it's had his fair share of famous and infamous representatives in Congress.
It was a DeSantis statewide elected official ally, Jimmy Petronas, who was in that race. The Democratic candidate is somebody who ran the last time. Now, she raised more money than she had had ever in her congressional races. And she did carry one important county, Escambia County, which encompasses Pensacola. And that's a pretty big shock to Florida Republicans.
And you're gonna see people nationally say, oh, this must be a sign that more and more sort of college educated voters who may be lean right as they do in Pensacola, but aren't quite mega right, are starting to revolt. And that may very well be the case.
There's a little bit of all politics is local here, and there's a lot of folks in the local political Pensacola community, which is obviously the heart of Escambia County, that are really upset with what Governor DeSantis has been doing with the University of West Florida board. So don't be surprised.
if Trump allies sort of lay the problems, the underperformance problems of the Republican candidate, Petronas, more at DeSantis' feet than they do their own feet. Because, you know, what has been interesting about this is when the rumors of close polling in that Florida 6 race, you know, Florida 6 is the congressional district that was vacated by the current National Security Advisor, Mike Walton.
Of course, I say current. because he is at the heart of so-called Signalgate, which of course dominated the headlines last week. But more importantly, he's somebody that the MAGA, those in sort of the MAGA right, have had in their sights for a while. And I think Waltz is sitting there, he's in a very precarious position. because he's not seen as a true believer, particularly on foreign policy.
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Chapter 3: What is John Fetterman's message to worried Democrats?
He had four national security advisors in four years. Who are the two people that spend the most physical time with a president? the chief of staff and the national security advisor. So in some ways, the proximity, when it comes to managing your Trump relationships in Washington, if you're Republican, you don't wanna be, you wanna be in the inner circle
but you don't wanna be in his office all the time. And in some ways, I think that's what I think eventually is gonna doom Waltz in. But in the Waltz race, the Republicans nominated a gentleman by the name of Randy Fine. Now, DeSantis was hoping Randy Fine would fail. Why?
Well, Randy Fine was one of the first Florida state legislators to break from DeSantis when DeSantis announced his presidential candidate campaign and instead endorsed Trump. And it frankly became the permission slip for a lot of Florida Republicans to abandon the so-called popular governor at the time and Take Trump's side.
And Trump, of course, loves that type of, call it loyalty, whatever you want to call it. He loves it when he can sort of break somebody on their home turf. And in this case, the fact that fine, and yes, national Republicans had to dump a bunch of money in there to bail them out, to make sure that it wasn't that close in the end. It's still a massive underperformance.
Chapter 4: What is Fetterman's take on the 'Signalgate' scandal?
But the irony now, Governor DeSantis had spent the last 48 hours saying, well, the only problem in Florida 6, it's a candidate problem. It's a candidate problem. He really wanted to pin the blame on Randy Fine.
Ironically, that whole story I told you about with the University of West Florida, the Republican that has been been pushing back at DeSantis the most for his bizarre appointments to that board at UWF. Randy Fine. So let's just say in my conversations last night with a few connected Florida Republicans, they view what happened in Escambia County more as a DeSantis issue than as a Trump issue.
But let's get out of Florida and let's go to Wisconsin. Let me make this clear. Had Democrats lost this Supreme Court race, this would have been catastrophic, right? They should feel good that they won and they had to win. But in many ways, they should win, right? This is almost, we're starting to see the party in power. This is the first test of party in power. You're a swing state.
You would assume the out party is gonna have the enthusiasm. So a loss here for the Democrats would have been catastrophic. The fact that they won by nearly double digits or in that range,
Chapter 5: What went wrong for Democrats in the 2024 election?
I'm gonna be fascinated to watch throughout today and over the next week, because I talked to quite a few Republicans over the last few days who've been secretly rooting for that if they're gonna lose, that the sort of scenario that happened on Tuesday night was the most survivable scenario. Why? They held the two House seats, so they're not gonna have House vote problems.
And they can pin Wisconsin on Elon Musk because from for some bizarre reason, Elon Musk chose to insert himself even more so into this race. He became he said, you want to make this a referendum on me? He said, yes, make it a referendum on me. So he spends the final weekend there. The candidate that he was supposedly supporting didn't necessarily want him out there.
But look, I understand why Musk did it. Musk wanted to prove his detractors wrong, that he wasn't the problem, that he wasn't polarizing, that he wasn't a net negative. I think it's pretty clear that he is a problem, that he is a net negative. And I know plenty of Washington Republicans that are hoping the White House gets the message and they just want Musk out of here. Now,
Chapter 6: How does Elon Musk influence American politics?
If getting Musk out of here and getting him, getting Doge out of the headlines, is that gonna sort of stop the political polling bleeding that we've seen out there? I'm a little skeptical because I think the bigger problem Donald Trump has is tariffs and the economy. But Musk has been quite the distraction. And in some ways, Trump loves the fact that Musk is his heat shield for a while.
And so I won't be surprised if Trump doesn't actually just dump on Musk too much because he knows the role Musk is playing. And oh, let's not forget, Musk is the single biggest financier right now of the MAGA movement and of Republican Party politics. So they all have interest in keeping him sort of involved because they want his money.
But I could tell you there are a lot of elected Republicans who are gonna be on the ballot in 2026 that do hope that the message that Washington Republicans receive and that the White House receives for what happened in Wisconsin, it's not a surprise Republicans lost this seat. It is a surprise that they lost a swing state like this by nearly double digits.
And it is going to be hard to look at this and say, this didn't have at least something to do with Elon Musk. I mean, Democrats, I was, full confession, over the weekend, I was dorking out with my fantasy baseball drafts. I'm in a league that has been around for over 40 years.
In fact, our league claims to be the second oldest fantasy baseball league in America, outside of the original folks in New York. Well, we do it at a sports bar and we have plenty of TVs on during the draft. and the Milwaukee Brewers are playing the New York Yankees this opening weekend. So what did that mean?
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Chapter 7: What is Fetterman's view on America's foreign policy changes?
I saw a ton of Wisconsin Supreme Court ads in the middle of while I was bidding and frankly overbidding for people like Max Scherzer, because I can't give up my love for Max Scherzer. And every one of the Democratic attack ads featured Elon Musk, not Donald Trump. So the fact is the metrics, the analytics, the messaging was all anti-Musk. And it clearly worked in Wisconsin.
So what I would say is this. Keep keep track of of what of how Republicans message this this week, how many of them decide to try to not blame. You can't blame Trump right now for anything. It's a lot easier to pile on Musk. And now you have upside. I mean, Musk's more unpopular than any other Republican right now. And now you've got proof that Musk himself was a problem.
Putting himself front and center seemed like a really bad idea. And these election returns in Wisconsin indicate that, yes, it was a really bad idea. So the one thing I'll be watching for is how aggressive, how loud do some Republicans get on Capitol Hill? How gleeful are they, frankly, in trying to
in trying to attack Musk and trying to separate themselves from what is becoming more and more unpopular almost by the day. All right, with that, I'm gonna be sneaking in a quick break here. Coming up, I have a fascinating long conversation with John Fetterman. I went to his Senate office to sit down and do it. We talked plenty of politics.
We talk a little Aaron Rodgers to the Pittsburgh Steelers because Fetterman's a big... Fetterman supports all Pittsburgh sports, but the Steelers are really what he cares about. Let's just say he's got some interesting things to say about Aaron Rodgers, about Donald Trump, about a lot of people that we consider bold-faced names here. So I hope you...
Listen to the whole thing, because the thing that I'm most excited about now is not doing five minute interviews, not doing the eight minute interviews and having to insert all these gotcha questions here, gotcha questions there. Instead, it's an interview that breathes and hopefully you get the context that you've been looking for. So with that, we'll sneak in a break.
And on the other side, my conversation with John Fetterman. Well, Senator Fetterman, thanks for doing this. My first independently owned interview for the Czech podcast. Congratulations. Thank you, sir. I appreciate you doing this. Just to signpost this and when we're talking, it's Thursday, opening day for baseball. So I'll go ahead. You have to be a Paul Skeens fan, I assume.
And I know baseball is not your first love.
I am. I have a story, though. They were kind. They invited us to like a public event. And my 10-year-old was really, really excited. Of course, I mean, he likes baseball. But he also was like – because he found out that his girlfriend was there because she's very famous on TikTok.
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Chapter 8: Is John Fetterman considering a presidential run in 2028?
And then, and it was really kind of weird, but somebody actually jumped in the river to catch it. And I'm like, you know, I don't, you shouldn't do that because, you know, that's a big river and who knows. But, but no, that, I think at the time, that was the first time somebody, I think it was like, I think it was someone on the mats, but they knocked it out of the park for the first time.
Yeah. Pittsburgh's a football town first, right?
Oh, well, of course. That's the official state religion.
That wasn't even it. And when you use your bathroom here, it's all terrible towels, right? For your hand towels, right?
Oh, yeah. Well, of course. People need to have to understand it. Are you ready for the Aaron Rodgers experience? Yes. Well, I watched that documentary about him and, you know, with the ayahuasca and a lot of the other stuff. And I'm like, I'm a Packer fan.
I've lived with Aaron Rodgers. It is what it is. On the field can be fantastic.
I don't know, but I think it's doing your due diligence to watch that documentary to really understand what's coming. No judgment, no judgment. Let's just say he's an individual and we're all unique individuals.
Exactly, exactly. Many people believe you're a unique individual.
Yeah, well, that's the thing. Like, I dress like a slob here, you know, so we all have our own kind of quirks. But again, anyway, I do recommend that documentary.
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