Elon Musk Is Trying To Buy The WI Supreme Court (Hour 1)

Live from the Civic Media World Headquarters in Madison, Wisconsin, it's the Todd Alba Show.

And now, pursuing truth wherever it may lead, here's your host, Todd Alba.

I'm Chris Wisconsin on the Civic Media Radio Network.

and streaming worldwide on the Civic Media app.

Good afternoon, everybody.

I'm Todd Albault along with Mr. Aaron Zommers on the board, our chief engineer, producer of the show.

It is six past the hour of 12 noon on this Tuesday, February 18th.

2025.

It is a great day to be a Wisconsinite.

Welcome to everybody at the World Headquarters of Civic Media in downtown Madison, sunny skies, blue skies above.

But boy, howdy.

It is chilly out there and not something to necessarily even joke around about.

Some cold weather warnings are out for much of the state.

I know people in northern and western parts of Wisconsin, many school districts today called off classes simply because

one of course partly because you know cars and buses don't always start when it's 30 below zero but I think more importantly a lot of young kids are at bus stops and this sort of thing and boy you get down to 30 below you're outside more than 10 or 15 minutes you could freeze or get real serious frostbite and so out of health concerns for kids many school districts in northern and western Wisconsin

closed schools for today.

Those cool temperatures will continue on.

Our meteorology service says many of those watches and warnings for cold temperatures last into tomorrow, but then things start to get a little better.

Maybe the temperatures in the teens and mid-20s towards the end of the week and might even break 40 degrees by the time we get to Sunday in some places.

So that's good news, but if you have to be outside today,

Please prepare for it, bundle up.

If you're driving, as mom says, make sure you got a full tank of gas, your cell phone is charged, and be safe out there today.

Also, it is election day, primary election day.

Todd cut it close, getting into the studios today, but I wanted to go vote.

because I want to make sure that I could come on the air today and say I voted.

And of course, I'm not going to lie to you and make it up.

So I cut a little close and but I got in.

It literally took me.

I don't even know if it was five minutes to get in there, get my ballot vote and get out.

And I got my little sticker this time around.

They have a new sticker this time.

It says every vote matters.

So I have my voting sticker on today.

I was voter number 134 in my ward on the near south side of Madison about half an hour ago.

Back in the producer engineer chair today, he's feeling better.

We're glad to have him back.

Of course, I always enjoy Sam Davidson when he.

steps in, but nothing better to have.

Mr. Zahmer is back in the chair.

Welcome back, Mr. Zahmer.

How are you feeling?

Thank you, Todd.

Feeling a lot

better.

I had a swollen throat over the weekend

and

lymph nodes on only the left side were swelling up really big, making it like painful to swallow.

And I was like, I should probably see a doctor now that it's getting difficult to swallow.

But then today, after sleeping basically all day yesterday and a lot the days before,

I feel much better, and most importantly, I am no longer contagious, so I'm good to be in the office.

That's why I'm very happy to hear you.

Well, I'm happy to hear you're better.

My grandma all by used to say, I think you were just done in.

I think I was.

You were just done in, and you needed some rest.

But now we're good.

Good for you.

Glad to have you back again.

Many thanks for Sam, Davis, and the first step in.

But great to have Zommer's back in the chair.

You have not voted yet today.

Correct.

I'm going to after the show.

All right.

Very good.

And then Zomers, I'll be back a little bit later this evening as a big night tonight here on Civic Media.

We're going to be covering the Wisconsin biennial budget message from the governor.

Of course, he had his state of the state last month.

This focuses on the the biennial budget.

Not only that, it only happens once every other year.

So it's the biennial budget.

We will cover that live along with Dan Schaefer is going to be along and helping me.

He's actually going to be at the Capitol a block away, giving us live reports from the state Capitol and joining us here at the anchor desk a block away afterwards.

So Dan Schaefer, founder of the Reconpopulation Area.

And Civic Media's political editor will be here tonight along with me.

I think we also have current Democratic State Senator, Kelder Royce, who is on the Joint Finance Committee.

And we have a former Republican State Senator, Rob Coles from the Green Bay Area.

They're both going to be joining us amongst other guests.

And I believe maybe the Lieutenant Governor as well, Sara Rodriguez.

So a big lineup tonight, looking forward to that.

And then, of course, we will have continuing coverage tonight after the polls close.

at 8 p.m.

We will be along with Wisconsin Decides 2025.

Again, the big race across the state is for school superintendent.

You have Brittany Kinzer, the Republican back candidate, challenging incumbent Democrat Jill Underly, and also Democrat Jeff Wright.

And so two of those three.

We'll go on to the April 1st general election.

Also a big mayoral primary up on the cross.

Our own Jimmy Cusca is following that race.

And also in a Boston, Boston for those that don't know a smaller town or city, 10,000 plus or minus, maybe a little bit fewer than that.

Anyway, just maybe 40 minutes north of Wisconsin Dells and Boston.

school district has gone to referendum at least twice maybe three times they're going back to referendum today to Boston voters in Juneau County and school officials school board is saying if this one does not pass

they are going to have to consolidate and dissolve the current Boston school district, which would be losing a lot of identity for the county seat in Juneau County.

So we'll be watching that school referendum amongst many others.

So invite you all along tonight.

Should be a great day and evening here at Civic Media.

Speaking of that at 12.30, our very own Luke Mathers is going to be joining us here for a little Tuesday tangents with Lukester.

And I'm very excited in hour two, what's worse today.

having to do with one of my huge loves of life, passionate about it, coffee.

So tune in for that.

Certainly one

of Todd's favorite things.

This today's what's worst is perhaps the easiest what's the worst for me that we've ever had.

And I'm thinking we agree.

Probably.

So we'll, we'll be on that as well.

Big news day today, of course, just after we got off the air yesterday, that breaking news in Toronto as a Delta regional jet left the Minneapolis airport and flew to Toronto had what to downplay it would be a hard landing, better characterized, I think, as a crash.

But miraculously, this this plane, if you've seen the video, it looks like it just had a

overtly hard landing it appears the landing gear was out investigators are going to find out there were reportedly 40 mile an hour winds but this plane just crashes right into the runway and then flips over both the wings the tail break off but the fuselage remains intact it started on fire

fire crews got there and started dousing it right away with the fire suppressant.

And thanks to the fantastic crew and the passengers, every single person on that plane was able to walk away.

There are a couple of people who at last check were still listed in critical condition, but so far, no fatalities, absolutely miraculous.

Yeah, thank goodness, especially after some of the tragedies we've seen recently.

obviously horrible to see you crash, but good to see that everybody is still around.

And I saw this morning, one of the passengers was being interviewed and he said, they asked kind of what his big takeaway was on something like this.

And he said for him, it was that we all became just one people.

Nobody cared about who you voted for or what your skin color was or what religion you were.

We were just all there to help each other get off that plane.

If only we could get that without

having to go through the

plane crash.

Yeah.

I've talked about this program before.

I mean, for a brief time after 9-11 in 2001, that was the sense across the entire United States of America.

And it lasted, I don't know, a couple of months.

But I mean, it's just, it's euphoric and it proves that we are all capable of it.

and then you have to ask yourself, including me, what prevents us from continuing that to your point, Zomers, without tragedy.

Anyway, thankfully everybody on that plane got off safely.

That's of course the big news story.

More nonsense continues out of Washington.

Many more people being laid off.

There we may get into that a little bit later with Luke Mathers.

But I want to start today in our news stories with something much closer to home.

and much more impactful story today in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel by Dan Bice.

It was actually came out yesterday afternoon.

Headline and Elon Musk backed group buys at least $670,000 of TV airtime to support Brad Schimmel.

Story by Dan Bice says conservative Supreme Court candidate Brad Schimmel

Said just recently he was hoping conservative third-party groups would start buying up TV time in the state quote very soon Ask and you shall receive right spice now.

This is Tana mom number one member when Trump was running the first time in 2016 remember what he in a news conference?

He said Russia if you're listening I'd check out Hillary's emails you're telegraphing things

And this is how you get around the law because it's illegal to solicit directly third party money like this.

But you could be at a press conference and say things like, you know, well, I really hope that some third party groups start, you know, buying up ads very soon.

That's telegraphing without technically breaking the law.

So back to this article, Byte says, asking you should receive federal records.

show Building America's Future.

Doesn't that sound nice?

Building America's Future.

An Elon Musk backed dark money group began buying TV time in Wisconsin on Monday.

The ads are expected to be in support of conservative Supreme Court candidate Brad Schimmel, who is running against the liberal Supreme Court candidate Susan Crawford in the high stakes April 1st election.

The conservative nonprofit has already purchased more than $670,000 of airtime for the next two weeks, over a 3 quarters of a million dollars for two weeks on TV stations throughout the state, according to Federal Communication Commission.

That includes

$255,000 in the Milwaukee market, $136,000 in Madison, and $104,000 in Green Bay, plus lesser amounts in La Crosse and Wausau.

Building America's future commercials are scheduled to begin airing tomorrow, pardon me, Thursday, and run through March 5th.

The amount of the group's buy is expected to rise in upcoming days.

Also purchasing airtime on Monday was Fair Court America.

a super PAC largely funded by Republican mega donor, Richard Uline.

His wife, Elizabeth Uline, has already donated $650,000 to the state Republican party money that was transferred to Schimel's campaign.

Another loophole for those that might not be familiar, how to get around and see there are caps on how much an individual could contribute to a candidate.

But it turns out an individual can contribute it as much as you want to a party.

And then that party can transfer that same money right into the Canada's coffers.

See how that works?

As the church lady said over the weekend on the 50th anniversary of SNL, well isn't that convenient?

Come on back.

Talk more about Brad Schimmel.

By the way, he supports the January 6th insurrectionists.

We know that.

It's the all ball show.

Back with Zombers on the Civic Media.

Radio

Network.

I'm doing it, welcome back to the title of all show on the Civic Media Ready Network 21 now, past the hour of 12 noon on a Tuesday election day, February 18th, 2025.

Remember the polls are open across Wisconsin until eight PM, eight o'clock tonight.

So I'll make sure to be a voter, as our friend Luke Mather says, who's gonna be on the show here just after the bottom of the hour break, big race for state school superintendent,

You have Jill Underly, the Democratic incumbent.

Technically, it's a nonpartisan race, but supported by the Democratic Party.

You have Jeff Wright, also a Democrat endorsed and supported by teachers.

And then you have Brittany Kinzer, who is the endorsed Republican in the race.

Private, voucher person.

So you have those three.

Two of the three are going to get through tonight.

We'll have coverage later on tonight here on Civic Media along with Dan Schaefer and others.

I'll be anchoring that.

So join us a little bit later on tonight.

Right now, talking about this story, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel written by Dan Bice that Elon Musk is now playing in Wisconsin politics and not just in a small way.

$670.

Pardon me, 670,000.

Pardon me.

Big difference our time.

Quite a bit.

A partner, a quarter, a three quarters of a million dollars that Elon Musk is putting into the Supreme Court race between Susan Crawford, the law and order candidate, and Brad Schimmel, the extremist who supports January 6th insurrectionists.

So that's the difference the race and we've seen this now in Washington and this is kind of how we can put what's happening in Washington and put it in a perspective that we can understand here in Wisconsin because a lot of people are saying I don't understand these Republicans out there in DC they're not all idiots or schmucks and Why aren't these people speaking up?

It's because and also why aren't some of these people?

Now, we did see people resign from the Justice Department last week and into this week.

Today, there were three or four Democratic deputy mayors in New York that resigned because they are not gonna support this indicted Democratic mayor, Eric Adams, in New York.

But a lot of people say, why aren't people having a bigger backbone?

Well, a lot of it is Elon Musk is the richest person in the world.

And he is threatening people and saying, I will use my money to come after you politically, legally, and personally if you cross me.

That's what's going on.

And now we're seeing that here the chickens come home to roost in Wisconsin.

Now, what does Elon Musk have to do with Wisconsin?

Far as I know, he doesn't have a home here.

Doesn't pay taxes here.

I know there are Tesla dealerships, but I don't think that any of his businesses are located in Wisconsin.

But yet he's spending almost three quarters of a million dollars in television time to decide who our next Supreme Court justice is.

And it's not just Elon Musk.

It's also the U-Lines putting in $650,000 as well.

at least they have some connection to Wisconsin.

According to this article in this journal sentinel by Dan Bice, FCC records show that Elizabeth Uline has put in $200,000 worth of airtime between February 24th and March 10th in Milwaukee.

Of that sum, 79,000 will be spent on WITI TV, channel six, a Fox affiliate.

and 49,375 on WTMJ Channel 4, an NBC affiliate.

Fair Courts is also buying this pack, also buying Time and Green Bay in Madison, but those numbers are not yet available.

Susan Crawford Spokesman, Derek Honeyman, great name by the way, Derek Honeyman says, quote, Musk is trying to buy off Brad Shibble and take over the Wisconsin Supreme Court so that Shibble

can rubber stamp an extreme agenda of banning abortion and cozying up to corporations.

The shimmel campaign declined comment on the outside spending in the race.

I bet they did.

855-752-4842, 855-752-4842, if you would like to weigh in on this.

We've talked before in this program and a lot.

on campaign spending, Citizens United.

But this is even taking it one step, it shows you how this could get out of control real fast.

Because you have people that have virtually no connection, or perhaps a Musk's case, no connection to Wisconsin, and putting in so much money that it drowns out other people's voices.

It's one thing to say look my voice is bigger than you because I raise more money if you want to do the same thing go raise more money It's another thing in my opinion To say I have so much money.

I'm the richest person in the world.

I Mean think about this think if you know you went down to your local county fair

And you were gonna go out to the racetrack.

Some county fairs have demolition derbies or still have horse races or the grease pig contest or whatever.

And you went to your local track at your county fair and you stood up on a soapbox and you screamed at the top of your lungs and you said, this is my opinion.

And then somebody who disagreed with you came in with 10 jacked up four by fours.

with amplifiers and speakers on the back all playing the same song and went around that track.

Do you think that your voice would be heard?

That's essentially what's happening here.

Only this time it's our Supreme Court who's getting drowned out.

Your voice.

By the way, whether or not you're gonna vote Republican or Democrat or similar Crawford, your voice is getting drowned out.

by Elon Musk, a guy who has no beenness in Wisconsin.

And you don't think that Brad Shimmel is gonna be in Elon Musk's pocket?

Here's what they get out of this, is when big decisions get made, such as, we only just got the new fairer maps recently.

Well, doesn't it behoove Trump and Musk to have that undone?

Of course it does.

Doesn't it behoove Trump and Musk to take away rights in Wisconsin that we already have?

Of course it does.

So it's going to affect us in Wisconsin if Musk and Schimmel win.

And by the way, if you support law enforcement like I do, don't you want a judge who's going to stand up against insurrectionists?

Because Brad Schimmel's on the record saying he won't.

Susan Crawford is a law and order candidate.

Let's be clear about that.

Back with Luke Mathers on the other side.

It's the towel ball show on the Civic Media Ready Network.

on the Civic Lead Your Ready Network is 34 minutes now past the hour of 12 noon on Tuesday, February 18th, 2025.

A renewed, a revigorated, a genetically improved Aaron Zommerz on the board stake.

Let it have him back after being off a couple of days.

And that music on Tuesday only means that someone else has returned to our airwaves.

Also looking refreshed, tanned and genetically improved.

Our very own Luke Mathers is time for another edition of Tuesday Tangents with Lukester.

Luke, welcome back.

Yeah, I mean, I don't know about genetically improved or tan, but I got some sun.

It was very dangerous, Texas and New Mexican sun where I was.

Very intense,

right?

It was.

So anytime that we were in the beating sun, we had long sleeves and kind of...

taking precautions.

You have where I was at the Dillville National Park Tour, which is fantastic.

I wish more people, including myself, would take advantage of our national parks because they are a treasure and institution.

Yeah.

Anybody that has the opportunity to do so, I highly recommend it.

Knocked off four more off of our list.

We hope to see them all.

And just an excellent time to be in place to be able to unwind and kind of disconnect and recharge.

It's a

lot of

fun.

Glad to have you back.

Now you're working from home today.

Is that are you taking care of the dogs that are paused?

That's very, very cold out.

People have to take care of themselves.

Or is it just that you instead of putting it on a sweat

for those watching on the stream, you have two pups on either side.

You just cuddle them with your dogs to keep warm.

No, they're the other room.

They're there.

Aurora is a young pop.

So this is one of her coldest days, probably her life still.

Oh, yeah.

And she does not care.

So I have to be very important, like to try to get her back inside after a certain amount of time outside because she's just laying out in the snow and enjoying

it.

But

it's it's frigid.

Remy, on the other hand, is like he does his businesses right back in the house.

Very good.

Let's get a little bit of this more serious news.

the day before you have some fun here, Luke.

A couple of callers waiting.

We'll get to you in just a minute.

This story by Dan Bice came out yesterday afternoon in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

And I think this is certainly disturbing to me, but I think it's helpful.

We hear so much about what's going on in DC.

Elon Musk, the richest person in the world using his wealth to intimidate people.

And now here the chickens have come home to roost in this story by Bice.

So far, this Elon Musk backed.

PAC political action committee is spending $670,000 on TV airtime to support Brad Schimmel in the Supreme Court race.

Yeah.

And it's put it in context for folks as well.

Like that to Elon Musk is pennies.

Sure.

Pizza

money.

He's

not even going to

know

to

him.

Yes.

Like an exorbitant amount of money for any campaign to be able to spend in a two week period, uh, outside interest or campaign itself, regardless.

Like it is a lot of money to spend.

There's going to be a lot of ads, Wisconsinites that were sick of these political ads all November.

It's going to be more of those in the tune of almost what, two thirds of a million dollars.

And

go ahead.

And for somebody to be able to drop that amount of money and it make no difference to them But be able to influence and sway an election here in the state of Wisconsin That's something that I We got to talk about it more because the richest man in the world coming in and trying to put his finger on the scale For how we determine who makes up our state Supreme Court is a really big deal and it's important for Wisconsinites to be aware of where those ads are coming from and who's paying for that

I agree with you.

And I think, you know, we've talked to this show before.

We've had a callers call in.

I certainly wish we did not have the current campaign situation we did in terms of how much money basically unlimited could go into these campaigns.

I wish that were different, but set that point aside for a second.

you can at least make some, I shouldn't say you, but a general person could say, well, you know, a rich Wisconsinite has some vested interest in the game.

And so, hey, they're putting money.

What really disturbs me is that Elon Musk, to my knowledge, has no residence here.

He has no business based here.

He has no interest here other than his larger political agenda to bring the Trump agenda, the Musk Trump agenda of influence into our state to your point, Luke.

And he doesn't care a wit about any Wisconsin.

night here this is all about absolute power and and putting up an amount of money that's nothing to him but could mean a whole lot to people in Wisconsin.

Yeah and it is it is very telling over the weekend had the opportunity on Valentine's Day to go watch the new Captain America movie and it made me think kind of if you had Elon Musk money not necessarily Captain America but the look

Equating to a superhero would be Iron Man or Batman.

You have these billionaires that go and they're vigilante crime fighters and they they do good as superheroes.

Elon Musk is that kind.

He's the richest man in the world.

He could be going and saving people.

There was a...

online thread a while back where somebody told Elon on Twitter I think this was before he purchased it or shortly after he purchased Twitter that he could instead spend that money and Be able to end world hunger and Elon's like prove it

send me the numbers, I'll write the check, prove it.

And the person did, they worked for like, I forget if it was the World Health Organization or what international organization worked to solve hunger problems around the globe.

And they presented like this plant, you put this much money, these dollars behind this organization, this entity, and you could end world hunger.

And Elon was like, oh, that's cute, but I'm not gonna do it.

Like he could be a hero and instead he's choosing his time to get involved in politics at all levels including seemingly now here in Wisconsin with our state supreme court race and trying to tip the balance in a way that he believes ultimately when the chickens come home to roost that it's going to be beneficial to him.

Right, and I think if people are being tonight, we're gonna hear from Governor Evers, reportedly on a new proposition to address PFAS in our drinking water in Wisconsin to the new maps that we have now, the current Supreme Court has put on to make districts more competitive.

We have women's health on the ballot in a indirect or a direct way, however you wanna look at it.

I guess those are the things that I think that Wisconsinites should decide and debate amongst ourselves.

We should have those debates.

on both sides of viewpoints, but amongst Wisconsinites.

And what really bothers me to your point is this dude that has no interest in me.

I'm sure he's probably hasn't even been here, but anyway, 855-752-4842, 855-752-4842.

Let's go quickly to Mark Impertisak.

Mark, thanks for holding on, my friend.

Let's see.

Yeah, I just, for Judge Schimmel, I can't imagine the screaming that be going on among Republicans.

George Soros is often the same amount of money, like Tobacco, Tobacco Judge Crawford.

I mean, I have this image in my head of, it was a Simpsons episode where Prince, they were kind of back in Dixonian times where Principal Skinner was offering a bark or some other was little school chums for sale, you know, boy for sale, boy for sale.

I can just imagine him standing there, you know, holding, holding Schimel in his grubby little judge's robes.

You stain them from his corruption and then judge for sale judge for sale Because that's kind of what that's the image that just you know, these guys are just Crop to the core.

I mean, it is just sad and Bradshaw when you're cutting deals for his buddy, you know, Scott did I said more Scott Johnson and reducing out three felonies to a misdemeanor when they got a change of venue for him and Now the guy can make hundreds of thousands of dollars a year is a lobbyist and

shovels by taking money from the firms that Jensen has lobbied for and from Jensen himself.

Thanks, Mark.

I appreciate the call.

8-5-5-7-5-2-4-8-4-2.

It's going to whisk up Paul.

Whisk up.

Thanks for holding on.

What's to you?

Thanks for taking my call, Todd.

I, for one, don't want to go back to the Walker agenda.

It's nice having fair maps.

It proves democracy is working in this state.

And I think Eli

with all his money he just wants to scare the republican party more than they already are and put his finger on flipping the supreme court race here you could correct me if i'm wrong about that citizens united is just an awful thing and i just can't go back to the walker agenda it's just too much anyway

You know, I want

the bumper, I guess.

Thank you, Wisco.

Appreciate it.

Luke, I want to get this cut for a second, but first of all, a quick take on Wisco's point there.

I think he brings up a good one.

I mean, I know a little something about this Shimmel guy.

I don't want to tell the story again, but I had to face the guy in a federal court in a direct way, actually.

He did Scott Walker's bidding, Shimmel did when he was attorney general on suppression of voter suppression in Wisconsin.

Now, Scott Walker is not, I mean, he has about as much intimidation as Elon Musk does in his hangnail on his big toe.

I mean, Walker doesn't have the power that Musk does through finances.

And so if Schimmel's gonna count out a walker, thinks what he's gonna do if he owes his election a musk.

Yeah, and we've seen just this on display, though, where there are, there's kind of the, it's how Brad Schimmel originally got appointed to be a judge.

It's kind of a...

Insider baseball that if you if you scratch my back, I'll scratch your back And so for for a politician who was the former attorney general to then be appointed by the outgoing governor to be a judge and is now running and and seemingly Doing a little wink wink nod nod aspect of oh, yeah that outside money I think it's the the spickets gonna turn on soon and then we see reporting that all of a sudden the Spickets are on for outside spending in favor of

Shimmel or against Judge Susan Crawford.

It's pretty obvious, but unfortunately we got to talk about it because...

For the sake of our the way that we elect our highest court It needs to be talked about more out in the open.

Let's go brought this point of fear I want to play if you didn't see it go back and check out 60 minutes from this weekend and other other things going on But Scott Pele sat down and did a great piece on what's happening in Washington and one of the people that he interviewed was a guy who was a

a Republican, a former administrator of USAID.

I know this is focusing on USAID, but there's a point here that WISCO brought up about fear and what Musk and Trump are doing in Washington.

Here's this Pele report from 60 Minutes on Sunday.

I think we're creating a system that violates the separation of powers and the checks and balances that are intended in the Constitution.

Republican Andrew Nazios, former head of USAID, spoke to us in Washington in part because he is not hearing public appeals to reason from fellow Republicans.

I am not a moderate Republican.

I am a conservative Republican and a strict constructionist.

The reason they're not saying anything, I think they're afraid.

Musk has said that he would

spend a hundred million dollars in primaries on anybody who opposed the president on anything.

So I think there's a lot of fear in the city right now.

How do you view this

moment in

history?

I don't want to be too pessimistic, but it does appear we may be headed towards some sort of a constitutional crisis.

I hope that doesn't happen.

I pray it doesn't happen, but...

It's certainly concerning to me what's going on in the city right now.

Is the constitutional order breaking down?

We'll see if they refuse to enforce a court order by the Supreme Court.

If it gets to the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court rules against the administration on something and they refuse to enforce it, then we will have a constitutional crisis.

What happens then?

I don't know.

No one knows.

No one

knows.

Andrew Natasio, so Republican former administrator of USAID on 60 minutes this weekend, Luke Mathers again going back.

This is somebody who knows Washington DC and saying that Musk is threatening city members of Congress with $100 million in primary money if they don't do what he and Trump want.

Yeah, and I think we're already seeing that this isn't just a hollow threat I think the the first go-around of the Trump administration there was a lot said and and You had to kind of parse through all of the different rhetoric But now we're seeing that Elon Musk is willing here in the state of Wisconsin to put the private money into these races and and it's very telling that Wisconsin with this first April 1st election could be the test case to

folks around the country, not just here in the state of Wisconsin, but around the country that Elon Musk is not kidding.

He's willing to do it.

That's a great point, Luke.

That is absolutely spot on.

You're right.

This is, this is the, you know, I'm not messing around here.

I mean business.

And if you want to see it, look at Wisconsin.

I think you're absolutely right about that.

And I think this is a time for Wisconsinites to say, we're going to reclaim our voice in our own state, not let this happen.

Yeah, and it's very pertinent to be everybody that can go be a voter and and make your voice heard We've got the spring primary today, but April 1st Tuesday April 1st is our general election here And it's more important now than ever to vote.

We'll be back after this Dosta don't go anywhere Luke Mathers and I talked a little fun Well, that was fun too, but more fun on the other side on the civic media already a network

I'm looking into

my camera, my monitor, because Luke is joining us from home and I see a bright light.

I'm talking.

I hear Luke's voice.

I'm being drawn in.

I feel lightheaded.

I feel like I'm making a transition.

I'm being taken into the warm, open arms of Luke.

No, he just, he has his window open.

It's the light behind you, Luke.

You look angelic.

Thank you.

I don't have any blinds for this one, so it does complicate the setup from home sometimes, but if you're in the sun, it's nice and warm.

If it weren't for that wind, it would be a gorgeous February day here in Wisconsin.

Right, man.

It's beautiful and sunny, but yeah, very cold.

Bundle up out there.

Many school districts in northern, western Wisconsin shut down today, just simply too dangerous to have kids waiting outside the buses, and it looks like it's that cold weather.

will continue into tomorrow morning before maybe some 40s.

Our meteorology team is saying by the weekend, Luke, you're always busy keeping your hands in the mix.

All things civic media, a couple of big things happening tonight.

Coverage begins tonight with the state, pardon me, the budget address.

Tell folks about that.

Yeah, we're gonna have coverage of both the budget address as well as if you haven't already made a plan to be a voter polls closed by 8 p.m.

So you can Go between now and 8 we're gonna also bring live coverage of those election results along with coverage of the biennial state budget address Not only is it gonna be anchored by Mr. Todd Alba himself, but we're gonna have contributions from Civic Media's political editor

and founder of the Reconpopulation Area, Dan Schaefer,

on

the scene at the Capitol.

Jimmy Koska, Civic Media News Bureau Chief is going to be contributing for some of the election coverage as well.

And we're going to have a tremendous slate of insight from current and former state legislators.

So you're going to want to tune in that coverage beginning at just before seven o'clock this evening.

Sounds good.

We'll stay on a little bit after that and then they'll be bringing election night coverage Wisconsin decides 2025 in this DPI race.

As Luke likes to say it be a voter.

I was number 134 member Ward today.

Luke, did you vote beforehand or did you vote in today?

I'm going to head to the polls shortly here when my wife gets home from work.

We're going to go together.

We like to vote together and make sure that we're we're both able to.

Um, cast our civic duty.

So

they say the family that votes together stays together.

So I think that's what they say.

I'm not so sure.

855-752-4842.

Let's go quickly to the phone lines.

Craig, listening via the app, I assume, in beautiful Chicago, the Windy City.

Craig, thanks for calling in.

We'll see.

Um, you know, I'm a little bit, I'm sorry about my voice.

I'm a little sick, but I'm a little bit disappointed by everybody being so alarmed.

at how much money someone's going to spend.

I can just tell you for me, when I look at a candidate or candidates, I look at experienced track record and I won't consider somebody for state or federal office if they've never been in a lower level position to look at their accomplishments.

I don't care how much money they spend.

Well, I would only hope that money thing is not overplayed by

a voter being a little bit more involved in picking a candidate rather than responding to an ad.

I couldn't agree more.

I really appreciate the call, Craig, and thanks for your leadership.

I hope your voice feels better there.

Luke, I agree.

It sounds like Craig is a very informed voter.

My issue, as you can speak for yourself, my issue is when so much is exorbitant amounts of money, like Elon Musk putting in three quarters of a million dollars in two weeks to Wisconsin, what it does is it muddies the water to say the least, and it gives false impressions of two voters that might not take the time or just sick of elections and doesn't.

but they see this terrible ad against one candidate and just say, well, I guess I voted for the other person.

If political ads didn't work, you would not see a multi-billion dollar industry built around these campaign ads every single election cycle.

And so for some voters, yes, the ads that they see throughout the cycle

aren't going to make a difference to them.

But the elections are decided on the margins, especially here in the state of Wisconsin.

And these political ads make a difference on those margins.

And so I think it is very important to know that's why we need to have transparency.

It shouldn't just be some fluffy, special sounding group that can put their name on these ads and then attack candidates or promote other candidates.

It should be clear.

And thankfully, we can still see through FCC reporting that the

who is behind this, but there's gonna be a lot of instances where there's filing deadlines leading up to right before the election where there's gonna be an onslaught of money spent and you don't get to find out until after the election.

Who paid for that?

And that's not right for a democracy.

Not much time left, but also on a couple of our civic media stations tonight will not carry our special election campaign government coverage.

They'll have Wisconsin men's basketball.

The fighting a lion eye will be at the Cole Center tonight.

Pregame show starts at 6 30.

And then the tip off, I believe, around 7 30 tonight in Amory, Wisconsin Rapids, Racine Kenosha and Richland Center.

Those stations will carry that game.

You can also listen to it on the civic media app.

Big game, Luke.

for your alma mater.

Yeah, the Badgers looking really good mid-season form is special.

I think it's important basketball here in the month of February and This game could have some implications for for what's gonna come for the Badgers in March So definitely a big game you want to stay tuned to the budget coverage as well with the

budget address

election results, right?

Yeah, it's just If you've got a smart speaker and a smartphone have the Badger game going on in one and then the election special coverage this evening on the

other

I don't know a lot of time, but the Bucks all-star break Dame got beat up by an 18 year old kid in the three-point shooting The kid with a hundred

grand could he beat out Dame?

If I was Dame and it seemed like he was kind of playing around with him, but all the good Dame doesn't need the money The kid can make the shot let the kid make the shot and

be a winner

I think what bothered

me is after the kid made this shot Dame just walked away He didn't go shake his hand or like say congratulations.

He acted like he was ticked off about

it

We'll see.

We'll see how it goes.

But it's all in good fun, I think.

That's what all Starter Weekends for.

Can the Bucks get this

together, Luke?

I think so.

I think they're going to be able to take care of some business.

All right, come on back.

Thank you very much, Luke.

We appreciate you.

What's worse is next on the Civic Media Ready Network, involving coffee.