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Now live from the civic media studios in Madison, Wisconsin, where the political party is just
beginning, welcome to the devil's advocates radio show.
Friends proving it's never personal, only politics.
Now here's your host, Dom and Crout.
Welcome back to the devil's advocates radio show, a big loser wins the edition, happier,
happier, but no losers here only winners when you listen to us and our fine guest, guys
like James Santel, who joins us right now in the seat I normally sit in in the WDX 92.7
FM studios in Madison, Jim, welcome to the devil's advocates, man.
What a delight is to be with you once again and yes you leave for a little while and I take
over the property.
That's what happens.
Hey, Jim.
Thanks for joining us.
Good to be with you.
Just don't think you're a squatter, Jim.
I never would have been able to stay back next week.
We'll see.
We'll see.
I would like to mention, I am here in Las Vegas, Nevada primary happened yesterday, Jim,
and tomorrow a caucus, something of a rigged affair they're having in Nevada, but tomorrow
the US Supreme Court to hear whether or not Trump should be on the ballot, specifically
in the state of Colorado, where a lower court ruled he was an insurrectionist and he was
removed from the ballot or at least that was the initial ruling, but so many different
people want to know is Trump isn't Trump going to be on the ballot?
Should he be on the ballot?
This has got to be a national issue, not just a Colorado state issue.
Wouldn't you think, Jim?
Let's start with the scotist, the oral arguments they're supposed to hear tomorrow.
Watch the people, don't you?
Absolutely.
So it is tomorrow morning.
It's a big case.
It's one of them out about 60 or so on the dock of the Supreme Court, probably among
the top ten or so.
And as you said so accurately comes out a Colorado, the Supreme Court there saying a number
of weeks ago that not only did Donald Trump engage in an insurrection, but he's also subject
to not being on the ballot by virtue of Section 3 of the 14th Amendment that says if you're
an insurrectionist, having previously taken an oath of office, you can't be on a ballot
like that.
And so that's the lower court ruling that has now before the Supreme Court lots and lots
of things to be heard tomorrow.
We've talked about this before and awful lot of people, including me believe that the
Supreme Court will overturn the Colorado decision, put him back in the ballot.
They've got so many different off ramps, so to speak, to do it.
And my sense is that they probably will give him this win in a time when he's otherwise
going to be facing a lot of losing opinions coming up in the Supreme Court.
But Jim, my understanding is the Colorado Supreme Court used the ruling of Judge Neil
Gorsage to justify blocking Trump from the ballot, the supposed originalists that are
the conservative block of this court, including Gorsage, doesn't some of their prior rulings
and some of their prior opinions, Jim, if they're, you know, sort of intellectually honest
and this is very important in this case, they'd be reversing themselves what they
not serve.
Right.
So this is when Neil Gorsage is on the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals.
He talks about states rights and says, you know what, states should have the prerogative
to make decisions about who's on the ballot and who isn't.
And so you get, you better anticipate that tomorrow those lawyers are going to say, judge
Gorsage at some point and you're not to distance past.
You basically said that Colorado can, in fact, remove people from a ballot.
Go back in the opposite direction.
That's one of many arguments, obviously, it's going to be made tomorrow.
Lots and lots of things to be presented to the, the justices, including once again,
as you indicated in a previous broadcast, we talked a lot about the fact that this came
from a trial court initially.
There was a trial on whether or not there was an insurrection, whether Donald Trump
was involved, the trial court judge finds an insurrection.
Curiously, she finds that Donald Trump is not subject as an official of the government
to be removed.
That is overturned by the Colorado Supreme Court, they go in for the entire, entire argument
here.
That's one of the things that the Supreme Court can take a look at.
My sense is, once again, among the various things you're going to hear, this is not insurrection,
maybe not covered as an official act, there may be some due process arguments to be made.
This is another question about whether or not the 14th Amendment is self-affectuating,
self-inforcing.
Do you need a conviction?
Do you need a prior criminal conviction to be removed?
What about a legislative act?
Is the legislature?
Are there the only ones who can do this?
All kinds of things that the Supreme Court can embrace and talk about tomorrow.
My prediction, again, proved me wrong, I very well could be wrong about this, but they
probably will embrace something called the political question doctrine.
They've done this before when it comes to partisan gerrymandering.
Say, you know what?
As a federal court, we shouldn't be involved, perhaps very much pursuing to a judge Gorsuch
said when he was on the 10th Circuit, this is a matter for the States.
The Supreme government should not be involved in a political matter.
Federal courts shouldn't be involved in political matters, and therefore we're just going
to punt.
We're not going to decide this.
We're going to let the lower court stand.
That's a possibility, too, going in the opposite direction.
But Jim, that would create a patchwork of differing eligibility because differing states
have differing interpretations of whether or not Trump is an insurrectionist or B should
be ineligible because of the 14th Amendment Section 3 is referenced.
But Jim, this cannot be just a Colorado, you figure it out because everyone's trying
to figure it out through their own states' prisms.
That's exactly right.
And we know already that the state of Maine is out there.
Remember the Secretary of State?
She was one who also tossed Donald Trump off the ballot, a high court there in that state
said, you know what?
We're not overturning the Secretary of State's decision, but what we're going to do is
going to wait to see what the Supreme Court does on Colorado.
And then we're going to come back and revisit this.
If indeed, if indeed, the Supreme Court does permit the Colorado position to stand and
he has thrown off the ballot, then you've got Maine, you've got many other, I think, by
my account.
Some around 30 states, various stages of reviewing this and you could have that patchwork.
That may also, that may also be argued tomorrow morning and that may also be a very compelling
argument for justices on all sides of the political aisle to say, you know what, we want
to have some consistency in national elections, even though they're conducted by states and
state clerks and county clerks and local clerks around the country.
That could also be a very attractive sort of non legal response to this.
We simply have to have consistency across the board.
We don't want to have this patchwork out there.
And for that reason, we are going to overturn Colorado, say he's got to be on the ballot.
We've got been a straightforward vote across the nation.
Every single state has Donald Trump's name on its ballot.
That they could do to lots of, lots of options here for them and it'll be fascinating to
listen to all the justices arguing about this, perhaps among themselves.
Also questioning plainly the attorneys for both sides tomorrow morning.
Folks, you're listening to the devil's advocates radio show that is James Santelli, the former
US attorney and a host here at Civic Media and catch his show, 9 to 11 on Saturdays.
Jim, always, always a pleasure to talk to you, man.
Absolutely.
I'm going to be with you.
The DC appellate court.
This one came up.
Yes.
The absolute immunity.
Yes.
Zinedine, 57 page beat down of everything that the Trump attorney threw against the wall was
rejected.
What's your sense on where this goes now?
They put a deadline on for him for Donald Trump and his legal team to appeal to the Supreme
Court by Monday, which seems pretty quick.
What's your sense of the quality of the ruling and how do you think the timing will go
on this?
The quality is great.
And again, it's sad.
As we've talked before, only that it took a month, a whopping month to get this position
out there.
Plainly, they could have done something simpler.
They plainly wanted to write something that's going to stay on the test of time, not
only immediately if this thing does end up in the Supreme Court, which it should not.
But also for history, right?
They're writing as a part of our American history and we'll be talking about this for decades
of not generations to come.
And so some great language in there, former President Trump lacked any lawful discretionary
authority to defy criminal law and he is answerable in court for his conduct.
All sorts of phrases like that begin presidents are not kings, those kinds of things.
We cannot accept Trump's claim that the president has unbounded authority to commit crimes
of a neutralized, most fundamental check on executive power, the recognition and implementation
of election results.
Some great, great language there.
My understanding he, most bothered Trump, defend on Trump, most bothered by them calling
him citizen Trump.
Yes, right.
Right.
He is now a citizen.
Subjector, you can make all the defenses, offer all the defenses he wants to just like
anybody else as a defendant in a federal criminal trial, which is exactly where he is.
And that language again, it's unequivocal.
All three of the judges came forth and said, nope, nothing here to see and also discouraged
and what's called in this on bonk review by virtue of setting this very quick deadline
to get to the Supreme Court.
They're saying, you know what?
We're not going to be calling all of our colleagues into review this.
This is not a close question.
Indeed, they're right about that.
This is not a close question and it is upsetting, frankly, in the history that we are still
spending time discussing this.
And that's the reason why a truly integrity-filled Supreme Court, if we have that, we'll see, should
look at this and say, you know what, this lower court opinion is compelling.
We're going to deny Sir Sherrera, which basically says Donald Trump.
Thank you very much for your submission.
We're not going to hear this case.
The D.C. Circuit holds and then this goes back to Tanya Chutkin for her trial.
Yeah, but Jim, what if they say, but we're the high court of the land, we should have
the final say on this and want to take it up for posterity sake.
Let's say they're of the highest principles, but it will also create a delay jump and
they can effectively create immunity for this man, this sort of timed immunity by not
taking this up or by taking it up and not ruling on it in a timely fashion, Jim.
They could, in essence, create the immunity and still rule against the immunity.
Absolutely, right.
They could issue an opinion in September or whenever they want it, presumably by June or
so, but even there, going to be too late before the election.
And you're absolutely right.
Just suppose they put this on the regular docket.
You'd like to think that what they do, if they decide to take this case, you'd like to
think that what they would do is say, okay, when expedite this, we want briefs in 10 days,
we want a response in five days, we're going to have oral argument five days after that.
They can do that if they want to.
That would be a sign maybe, maybe that they're interested in getting this expedited.
The real horror show here would be if they put this on the regular docket and say, okay,
tell your brief on March 1, file a response on April 1, we'll entertain the oral argument
in May.
We'll issue a decision in June then they have done exactly Mike, but you just described
which is grant him really procedural immunity by virtue of what they're doing in time.
But if they issue the decision in June and presumably they don't need an off ramp, Jim,
if they don't take the case, right?
That's right.
Absolutely.
But if they issue the decision in June and say, yeah, okay, now Chuck can go forward.
I mean, that can still get done before the election, could it not?
And maybe, maybe so, pretty, pretty close.
She needs a couple of months to try this case, needs to find the time to do that.
It be every passing day becomes less likely the tiny truck can get this done, get a conviction
by a jury by the time that November rolls around.
You know, I'm going to ask you to make some prognostications.
I'm in a gambling city right here in Las Vegas, Nevada.
We got to find guest.
He is James Santel.
Jim, I'm going to put, I'm going to put you to the test.
Let's do it.
That's it.
I got to know what the bet down at the MGM grand later.
More doubles advocates, a special edition for the love of democracy tour 2024.
Thank you to our fine sponsor, Chad's Design Build.
Well, I'm on the other side.
The devil's advocates, because freedom.
What's the need for the doubles advocates to radio show James Santel from a U.S. attorney
friend of ours, host at Europe Civic Media Network Saturdays 9 to 11, Jim.
Thanks for sticking around.
Just to kind of recap here quickly, Supreme Court of the United States here in oral arguments
tomorrow on whether or not Donald Trump can be eligible to be on the ballot.
The DC appeals court this week turned Donald Trump away.
We do not have absolute immunity.
And obviously there's some delays and lots of things in the air regarding the calendar.
But what's still on the calendar, Jim, is March 25th.
Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan DA case, the Stormy Daniels, the election interference case,
that thing.
Do you think that's going to be the first one out of the gates?
I think it's increasingly likely, right?
As we are gathering here and talking about all this in early February as we are doing here.
And so what can happen is, of course, Alvin Bragg.
This is being presided over by a judge there in the Manhattan criminal court.
His name is Juan Merchin.
And both Alvin Bragg and the judge there have said, you know if he's other federal trials,
you federal folks who can't get your act together, we'll slip in here and we'll get this
tried.
Bragg has said, I'll do it.
If the judge has said, he's got a scheduling conference coming up very soon who is well.
He's going to talk to the attorneys about that.
If it gets entirely possible that in the history of our nation here in the next few weeks,
that could be the first trial to go to the criminal trial, that is also the first one
indicted about a year or so ago.
Not a small trial, but not the scope of the trial, the insurrection trial or the Mar-a-Lago
case, those kinds of things.
Certainly not the Georgia trial, which is very huge in its scope.
The Alvin Bragg trial in Manhattan could in fact go and it sounds like Alvin Bragg
is ready to get his witnesses on the stand.
You have to do some jury selection there as well.
This is not a small trial, but it's not the kind of thing that that Tanya Chutkin has
got before her or you've got probably weeks and weeks of litigation before her.
Jim, assuming Donald Trump has found guilty in this Manhattan DA trial, what's the worst
that could happen to him?
Sure.
So he gets convicted.
Go to the record, get you, right?
And so what happens is a get a pretrial report written at some point, again, this calendar
that will happen.
That will happen sometime after.
Let's assume that there's a conviction saying in March, even April or so.
Then you'll get a sentencing long before November.
It's not going to take all that much time after a conviction and you'll have this judge
entering a conviction presumably based upon what he has seen, not only the New York guidelines
but also the evidence in this case could, in fact, sentence Donald Trump to a term of
imprisonment and maybe in post some fines as well.
That will then certainly be taken up on appeal where to the New York court of appeals and
that will still be pending while the election is going on here in November.
But a significant event, if indeed for the first time in our history, a president, a former
president is convicted of a crime admittedly post presidency.
That's unprecedented.
And as the polls say, maybe your next guest will talk more about this, that could have
an impact upon people going to the polls and deciding whether or not Donald Trump should
be there next president having suffered even one criminal conviction in state court in
the criminal court in New York.
Folks, you're listening to the devils.
Amcats Radio showed that fine former US attorney and soon to be polished broadcaster.
Do you hear him teasing our soon to be fine as Charles Franklin, Marquette University
law school polling joins us next, Jim, couple of practical questions.
Will the New York trial of Donald Trump assuming it goes first?
Do you know if it'll be televised and if so, could we play it on the radio?
Right.
I don't.
I haven't looked again at the rules there.
We've seen an awful lot of sketches coming out of previous proceedings to suggest to
me that the judge has not permitted cameras in that courtroom up to this point.
But we'll see about that.
And remember also the other thing that's going on in New York and anticipate this sometime
soon again, not a criminal case.
We're still waiting for Judge Arthur Ngeron to issue his, but I think it's going to be
a $350 million civil judgment.
That could come out also sometime very soon.
He promised it in early February, all these things happening right in the midst of the campaign
going on.
We'll see how all these judges handle these various civil and criminal cases.
Now Ngeron had promised us a ruling earlier this, Jim, and somehow apparently the perjury,
a new prosecution of one of the witnesses at trial, one of Trump's witnesses, apparently
lied on the stand and we're talking about the former CFO, Ellen Weiselberg, I believe
his name.
And Ngeron apparently wants to know what was said, what crime was committed, but this
could get really, really disastrous for Trump.
I mean, this could affect negative inference, how it goes far worse than that.
If there's perjury, I won't, I won't throw the Latin attitude counselor, but my understanding
is everything that Weiselberg said could suddenly be thrown out, negative inference, and
Trump could be looking at a massive disengagement, I thought the term was right.
Exactly.
Lots of things could make this even messier than it already is.
And it is messy undeniably.
You've got this possibility being floated out there, certainly the prosecutor looking
at this.
When you take the stand, you take this oath of commitment to tell the truth, right?
And it's got to be something as we talked before, perjury is a tough thing to show, but
it appears at least with respect to Weiselberg that he may have made some very clear statements
about some of his understanding of the financial books there.
And if you can show that at the time, not only is that wrong, but he knew, he knew in making
those statements that those things were wrong, that could support a perjury prosecution,
again, not an easy thing to do.
The judge looking at this, of course, because he is also concerned about his own judgment
and his own entry of an order here, that could impact that as well.
If indeed, there is something in some reason to believe that even even Donald Trump's witnesses
are not credible, that can go into the factoring that the judge will be making here when it comes
to entering this huge, presumably huge judgment coming up soon.
Absolutely.
Jim speaking of messy, the Fulton County case, the prosecutor sleeping with an investigator,
whatever.
I mean, all this thing came out.
Now, Fawni Willis, they put their document in front of the judge very long and telling
the judge there that this was not a relationship that they had prior to, et cetera, where does
this one stand?
How do you think this is going to play out?
Of course.
So the judge's scheduled a hearing on this, which, again, I think is somewhat interesting
for reasons that go back to my own sense of what judges can and cannot do.
I regard this as we've talked before, not an unimportant issue in the public domain.
I understand that completely, but it doesn't affect, it cannot affect, the legitimacy of
the grand jury indictment against Donald Trump, this rico indictment there.
All of this, I don't want to say it's inside baseball.
It has to do with personnel issues inside the DA's office, whether or she or other prosecutors
have relationships or not.
That doesn't impact the thing that's pending right now before the judge.
He may take a look at this.
My guest is, he will say, thank you very much for bringing all this to my attention.
I find that I have no jurisdiction over the personnel issues inside the DA's office.
Take care of those, tend to those, but it's not going to affect the prosecution here.
And I think that's the big takeaway.
And so it's one of these things that once again, the nation is looking at Donald Trump.
So at least one of the attorneys there on behalf of one of the defense of advocating for
this as a reason to dismiss the case.
There's really no connection between the two of them as serious as this might be for an
internal issue having to do with the DA's office there.
Jim, I'm here in Vegas.
I'm looking for some bets.
If you had a bet, will the US Supreme Court give us an off ramp from Trump?
They will find one of them and they will basically permit or permit him to be on the ballot.
Yes, in Colorado.
That's my prediction.
Yes.
Damn it.
Well, my appearance anyway.
Thanks for joining us.
You're pushing my buzz here.
You're in Vegas.
And one more, Jim, will the US Supreme Court take up the DC Court of Appeals immunity issue?
I believe in the integrity of the Supreme Court.
I'm going to say no, but that's one that I'm not going to bet more than lunch on because
they could do anything here.
I'd like to think my Supreme Court in charge of the judiciary here is not going to embrace
that notion.
Let this wonderful order stand and send this back for trial.
Thank you, James and tell tune in Saturday mornings for his fine show.
Stick around, Charles Franklin, our next fine guest, Marquette Poehler.
Warning.
Listening to the devil's advocates may expose you to opposing views.
Look back to the devils, advocates, radio show, Wednesday edition, a happier, happier
hour.
Thank you to our most recent guest, James and tell fine former US attorney, friend of ours.
And now we're joined by another good friend.
He is pollster extraordinaire Charles Franklin, Marquette University Law School poll, Charles.
I love when you come around with the new polling.
Welcome to the devil's advocates, sir.
Hey, Charles.
Good new election year.
Lots of polling still to come, but looking forward to talking about this one today.
You know, at some point in the future, we're going to have to have you poll greatest radio show
ever.
But I mean, it's obvious in the means of an ask in the mean time.
We'll talk about the mundane politics.
Top line here, the presidential race.
I'm here in Las Vegas, in Nevada, because there was a quote unquote presidential primary.
There's something of a rigged caucus tomorrow night.
But you have taken a snapshot of the of the Wisconsin voters.
What do they think Trump be Biden?
Where do we stand?
49 49 with registered voters, 50 for Trump, 49 for Biden with likely voters.
When we add in third party votes, it stretches to a three point Trump lead with the third
party is taking a lot of the vote, 16% for Kennedy, four for Stein and a couple for West.
Those numbers will surely change over the course of the campaign.
But I think it reflects the broad dissatisfaction with both Trump and Biden as the matchup.
And so people unhappy with that are expressing it by saying at this point they vote third
party.
Well, Charles, let's talk about Nikki Haley.
I'm here in Las Vegas, in Nevada, Nikki Haley finished a distant second to none of these
candidates in a primary where Donald Trump wasn't on the ballot.
How did she hold with Wisconsinites on the current market university poll?
Well, not a whole lot better.
In fact, a little worse.
She got 22% against Trump's 64% here for the primary matchup.
But with about 15% undecided.
Now that's double what Haley got in November, so she has come up.
But Trump has shot up from 38 in November to 64 now.
So the consolidation in the party has gone on.
It's just Trump has consolidated the support.
Haley has consolidated the people in the Republican party that don't like Donald Trump.
She's getting 77% of the vote from people that don't like Trump in the party, but it just
ain't big enough.
Well, Charles, enthusiasm, again, we're, well, I guess we're not a year out anymore.
We're about nine months out from the general election.
But currently, there seems to be a real enthusiasm gap between those that say they support Donald
Trump.
They seem quite enthusiastic.
And those that say, I would have vote for Joe Biden, you know, probably, there's a gap
as they're not.
There's a huge gap there with those voters who say they're very enthusiastic about voting.
Trump has a huge lead over Biden.
But for those that are somewhat enthusiastic, not very enthusiastic, not at all enthusiastic,
Biden has a big lead with each of those three groups.
So you really do see the sense that Trump supporters are really behind him.
Biden supporters, yeah, we've got some reservations.
I'm not that thrilled with the election, but despite those lack of enthusiasm, they're
very heavily pro-Biden.
So the question is going to be, as always, can you get those less enthusiastic voters to
turn out?
Biden's got to have them despite their reservations or lack of enthusiasm.
Is this just where to come down to the folks most fired up right now?
It would be Trump in a walk.
But the less enthusiastic folks like Biden quite a bit, they're just not thrilled with
him.
So, I'm sure listening to the devil's advocates radio show Charles Franklin director
of the market, University Law School, Charles, always a pleasure.
I noticed in your poll here, the reluctant voters, what does that mean and what does it
tell us?
It means for us, people who, when we initially ask who do you want to vote for for president
say, none of the above, I might not vote, you know, maybe I'd vote third party, that's
about 12% in this sample, which isn't huge, but on the other hand, it shows you that if
the race is tied, but really 12% are kind of up for grabs, that could move things around.
Now those initially undecided in this month's poll are splitting kind of evenly when we push
them and say if you had to choose, who would you pick?
So there's not a lot of, you know, lopsidedness among the undecided, they're kind of evenly
split.
The other thing is 18% say they have an unfavorable view of both Biden and of Trump.
And so we want to watch that number over the course of the year and see if people ultimately
decide they actually do like one of these people, or if that doesn't happen, what happens
to the votes of those people that dislike both?
That's a recipe for these third party candidates to potentially do better than normal.
In Wisconsin, in 2020, we had less than 3% vote third party, but in 2016 it was almost
6% that voted third party, and of course, a very close race that Trump won.
So I do think there's a question of how strong the third party vote can be this time.
Given the unhappiness with the two leading contenders, you'd think you'd be pretty big.
Charles, the economy always a big topic during election time, the national economy, the
Wisconsin economy.
Jobs reports from last month revised up 100,000 currently, we're looking at what, 350,000
inflation seems to be down.
I think some folks are feeling like it's getting better, the numbers, but it's not really
resonating perhaps down to the voters yet, what did you find on the national and Wisconsin
level?
Well, for the first time in a while, we actually saw views of the economy pick up by about
10 points better this month than it was in November.
That matches the national polling that has shown increases, and in one closely watched
measure of the economy.
They had their biggest upticks since the 1990s in their December poll.
Now here's the fly in the ointment.
It is steadily up since, say, 18 months ago in June of 2022, but it's still well below
where it was in late 2019 before the pandemic.
And so while it's moving in the right direction, public opinion about the economy remains well
below where it was.
Now you cite the economic statistics, and we are seeing that begin to filter through
to people.
Also in Wisconsin, views of the Wisconsin economy are quite a bit better than views of the
national economy.
About half as many, say, Wisconsin is doing poorly compared to the national.
And even among Republicans who are quite negative about the national economy, they're negative,
but they're half as negative in Wisconsin's economy.
So here at home, things look better than when we cast our gaze on the country as a whole.
Well, the economy might be the economy stupid, as James Carville once said, but the age
of the incumbent is certainly an issue, and I don't like doing math on the radio.
But up to 83% of voters expressed some concern with Joe Biden's age, they didn't have the
same concern, at least not to the same percentages, about Donald Trump's age, and they're nearly
the same age.
But please tell us what the electorate thought.
Four years of age doesn't seem like it should be that big of a difference.
I tend to focus on the ones that say is too old to be present, describes Biden very well.
That's up to 65% in this poll.
That's up from 55% before.
That's an enduring issue, and he's not going to get any younger.
Only way to make that issue go away is to prove that you can campaign vigorously and effectively,
and to get voters to quit thinking about that personal characteristic.
And look at Donald Trump's personal characteristic, where 49% say he's behaved corruptly, 53% say
he committed a crime or did illegal things between the election in January 6th.
So I really think the picture here is Biden has this big weakness on his age.
Trump has a big weakness on the corruption side.
And the area that I'm looking for the campaign to matter and change these poll numbers is only
17 or 18% say Biden has a strong record of accomplishment, as President, 35% say Trump
had a strong record of accomplishment.
That's the kind of numbers that you would think the campaign will work really hard to change.
And then we'll see whether that's effective or not over the coming nine months.
Well, perception obviously becomes reality at least in the polling numbers.
Charles Franklin, our fine guest, Marquette University, law school, pollets, fresh off
the presses today.
And I've got to ask about my favorite senator from the state of Wisconsin, Tammy Baldwin.
He's on the ballot in 2024.
It's her turn.
And the Republicans, I'm not sure who they've got.
I've heard Eric Hudvey, I've heard this other Scott Mayor, I think, businessmen, and
I've heard Dom's buddy, David A. Clark Jr. might jump into the race.
What is your polling tell us about this fine matchup to be?
Mostly we were waiting for there actually to be a Republican candidate before we asked
about a horse race between the two.
But what we did ask was those three Republican maybe candidates and Tammy Baldwin on a favorable
rating.
Baldwin's just slightly underwater on that, four points more unfavorable than favorable.
But Hudvey and Scott Mayor in particular are over 80% who say they don't know who these
people are.
It's a little lower, but still 65% for David Clark.
This is just why I don't try to poll until somebody is a declared candidate and running.
Because this is not unusual.
These very high don't knows are true of almost every non incumbent candidate when they first
get in a race.
But until they get in, we really and start campaigning and introducing themselves to voters.
We really can't learn very much about how they're going to perform over the summer and fall.
They certainly got to introduce themselves.
That's clear.
Although you didn't give me a preview of the numbers, you did give me a small insight.
You told me after a couple of years, you guys were polling on the question of legalize
in marijuana.
Dom's favorite question, he asked of John pedestrian Vegas one time, but Charles, what is the current
voter sentiment and legalizing recreational and medicinal marijuana?
Medical is huge.
It's 80, I think, seven percent in this poll.
Just gigantic and 78% of Republicans favor legal marijuana.
Now we didn't ask about the details of the Republican proposal that they were talking
about just in general, but when you go to just legalization straight up, not for medical
purposes, it's 63% in favor, Republicans split dead evenly on that, but big majorities
of independence and Democrats favor legalizing.
That has been the case for several years now, four years ago when we asked about medical,
it was about the same level.
This is a case where the majority of public opinion is very clear, but the legislatures
unwillingness to act on legislation for years now just prevents anything from happening.
Charles, while I'm thinking of it, today's issue is the biggest loser and the most unpopular
politician in the state of Wisconsin.
If I did the math properly, it's on the ballot this fall.
Hell, he might be on the ballot suitor if they clear up the recall they're threatening
them with speaker robin Voss.
Am I true in saying he is the most unpopular Wisconsin politician you pulled this time?
In this sample, yes.
The thing with Voss is that, first of all, a lot of people don't know who he is, state
of life, which is just stunning, but there it is.
And the people who do know he is, mostly Democrats.
Republicans are less aware of their speaker of the assembly than Democrats are, and what
Democrats think is not nice to speak of Voss.
Republicans are not positive, I should say, but just not aware of who he is, not able
to venture an opinion.
Notice the guy is elected by 199th of the state, one legislative district out of 99.
So it's not surprising that folks outside of this district don't know who he is, but
it is from a public policy point of view and informed citizenry really kind of disturbing.
Yes, indeed, Charles.
Charles Franklin, our fine guest market university law school poll, Charles, always appreciate
when you come down and go inside the numbers.
When's the next time we're talking Charles?
We're coming out with a national poll in two weeks, two weeks from today, and then the
next state poll, if we still have a primary, we'll probably do one before the primary, but
we'll see what developments come up in the Republican race to see if it's worth polling
before the primary.
Charles Franklin, thank you so much.
More Devils Advocates.
Thanks, Charles.
The Devils Advocates may not agree on much, but funny is funny.
Right.
I said it.
Going to say something.
We're listening to the Devils Advocates radio show.
Thank you, Charles.
Franklin director of the market university law school, polling the, the, the crudey, the
robin boss numbers really below my mind.
I mean, number one, how do most people poll, not know who the leader of the assembly is?
Number two, especially Republicans, no robin boss is to dislike robin boss.
He has a 17% favorable rating, a 39% unfavorable rating, and 43% haven't heard of him.
And apparently most of those folks are Republicans.
Didn't it just speak to the power of the Devils Advocates radio show because we don't
like robin boss.
Not one damn little bit.
But we have been quite expressive and telling you our fine audience why you shouldn't like
robin boss either, some of bully this boss boss.
But I find it, I find it sort of redeeming down that we better educated our side to the
malfeasance of speaker robin boss than the right is in support of this, what the, the, he's
the guy that appointed Janelle branch in the head of the crazy election committee.
And she would bring in right wing talk radio hostess expert witnesses, but nobody else.
And then she became a little too much when she charged the mound, meaning she brought
a bunch of protesters down to robin boss's office.
She got stripped of her assembly gabbled them.
And he also hired the gable men, that was to what live out this fantasy of the big lie.
And did not show proper loyalty to the cheat old Messiah, the cult leader, Trump.
So Trump came to walk a shot county and stuck it in Rebecca Clayfisher's ear and stuck
it in robin boss's ear.
And you know, it couldn't happen to a nicer guy robin boss.
The fact that he didn't lose the primary last time, we're gonna, we're gonna make that
a reality this time.
Well, now they're trying to, you know, his, the old side, the mega republicans are trying
to recall him.
I think yes, also was a little, a little stun by the lack of knowledge of folks about
robin boss.
We both are really 43% have don't know enough about him, haven't heard enough.
And I think that goes to the general awareness and I know, granted, we do this every day, we
live and breathe and eat this stuff.
But come on people, hey, you know what, know who your legislators are and know who the
leadership is because those are the ones that are setting the table, eight, four, nine,
six, seven, two, seven, eight, nine, maybe a redistricting would re reset the table.
But I will remind our audience that robin boss will be on a primary ballot.
I strongly suspect that Adam steam will run against him and, and here's the good news.
If there is no competitive primary on the Republican side, it'll be all the mag of supportive going
out there to vote for, for Trump, right?
And in that district in the Pleasant Prairie area, well, he almost lost the last time in
the primary 320 votes, well, here's what I would say down our fine audience members listening
on W R J N 1400 AM, or maybe on the big W A U K, the beast of the East, well, if they
live in robin bosses district, there's no good reason not to go participate in the partisan
primary because Joe Biden's got this, right?
Joe Biden's got this.
You can't cross over.
You can't vote for Biden and then vote for robin bosses Republican opponent, but you
could take boss out this summer, August, you'd be on the ballot.
That's actually not the same time as the presidential primary is I think allowed.
So this, this little scheme will have to execute that later in the summer.
Eight four four nine in the primary I say this time is the last time.
Look at a float chart for your folks.
Let's get to the lines.
Let's go.
Paul, you're up.
Welcome, Paul.
What do you got?
Hey, devil's a good afternoon or evening now.
It's getting dark.
Oh, it's bright and sunny here.
Vegas.
I'm two hours behind you.
Paul.
Oh, yeah.
I forgot about that.
You're lucky.
Yeah.
I can call you a lucky devil.
Man, that's awesome.
I forgot about that.
Hey, yesterday proved that Trump has total control of GOP, like you just call up Senator
Johnson.
He goes, Hey, let's kill our own border bill.
Okay.
Donald, we'll kill our own bill, you know.
Well, if you were talking about Ryan Johnson, Ryan always wanted that border deal, dad.
He was the biggest obstructionist.
You're talking about speaker, bag of Mike Johnson, probably over in the house.
Yeah, both of them, actually.
Yeah.
They killed their own bill.
That's just a crazy thing.
Hey, as far, I always trust the market, Paul's pretty, pretty good because they are hardly
never wrong.
I don't know what Charles does, but he pretty much gets it right.
But one would think, except that whole Hillary thing, but please continue, Paul.
Yeah.
That's the sound of all that.
I've been corrected twice today already.
You would think Biden would be up by 10.
It's troubling.
He's 5 to 10 because Trump has so much baggage.
It's like, I can't believe this guy is even, but that's very troubling news to me.
And I certainly don't want a Trump president to say, I don't know what people are looking
at.
Maybe it's because Biden, he does look old, but Trump looks just as old as now and older.
I mean, it's, uh, uh, uh, Polly 80, is that the
three percent of the pulled Wisconsinites expressed at least modest concern with Biden's
age.
This is not a crudey bringing it up because he wants to rub it in.
No, there's an age issue and there is an enthusiasm gap.
And that's very concerning to me because as much as I like the hammer on all the legal
problems of Donald Trump and assume that at some point it's going to catch up to him,
it's going to weigh him down.
Be it the civil suits, the financial foreclosures, the, the, the criminal stuff.
I figure at some point it's going to catch up to the man.
But when you look at all the polling, the enthusiasm, even in the state of Wisconsin,
the enthusiastic are voting for Trump, the, uh, I hope I make it to November.
I hope I lived that long sort of, eh, those voters are firmly in the Biden column.
And it's our job, Dominic, to make them more excited.
Ah, you know, I'm not even worried about them being excited.
Just go pull the trigger, pull the, pull the lever for Joe Biden.
Man, I tell you what he could be the weekend of Bernie's candidate.
And I'm still voting for him over the fascist orange guy down from Milwaukee.
You're up.
Welcome down.
What do you got?
He done.
Uh, yeah.
Good afternoon, Devils.
Uh, yeah, you guys are making such a big a deal out of the age.
Well, I just read a couple of days ago that there's a guy at, uh, by a lot of this graph.
Lee.
He just found out my patient babies 90 years old.
He's going to be 100 years old by the time he gets done.
So what's the big deal about this age crap?
Nah, not for me, Don.
I get you out double for by no matter the age, especially considering the alternative.
And these are, this is what other folks.
This is what the general is a polyman.
This is what people think.
Folks, we are the devil's advocates for the love of democracy to her 2024.
It rolls on tomorrow.
I'm still in Vegas.
I'm not leaving till Saturday, damn, so I'll be doing live radio all week long.
Take you for tuning in tomorrow.
We got a rig caucus and then I'm going to a Trump event and then I'll tell you about
it on the radio.
That's what we do here.
Stick around.
Substance coming on next.
