How Joe Zepecki Wants To Lead WI Democrats (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.

Across Wisconsin on the Civic Media radio network and streaming worldwide on the Civic Media app.

Good afternoon, everybody.

I'm Todd Albaugh, along with our producer and engineer, the outstanding Mr. Zomers on the board.

It is now six past the hour of two o'clock on Wednesday, April 23rd, 2025.

It is a great day to be Wisconsinite, and it is pump day.

Look at that, Zomers.

Not only did I get the time right, the camel made it as well.

Although, he did send me a strongly worded email.

He was not informed of the time change, and he was waiting here for an hour, and he

got really

hungry, he got hangry.

We've calmed the camel down.

Well, once you get over the hump, everything is down exactly.

Welcome, everybody.

Glad to have you along.

It is from the World Headquarters of Civic Media in downtown Madison, partly sunny skies.

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Maggie will follow us.

We were back to back before, but we were new into two and then Maggie was two to four.

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What are they, what are they, is it on demand?

Is it the proper way to say it?

I don't

know.

I guess, I guess so.

All right.

Tom Hartman comes on now before us, and then from 11 to two.

And then before Tom Hartman is our friend and colleague, J. Matt Nair and Greg Bach with Matt Nair on air.

And then before that, six until nine is the Pat Crichtlow show.

No, it's mornings of Pat Crichtlow.

So Crichtlow is six to nine, then Matt Darron Eyre from nine until 11, Hartman, then us, then Maggie, then Pete.

Indeed, that's- And listen, I listened to some of the, we're gonna talk about this a little bit later.

Mark Pocan, congressman Mark Pocan, Democrat from Madison was on the Tom Hartman show today.

So I listened to about an hour and a half of Hartman.

Here's my big takeaway from the Tom Hartman show.

I had no idea that liberals were so much into cryptocurrency.

There

are

a lot of ads for cryptocurrency.

New AI-powered

cryptocurrency investment

plan.

You can recite it.

So we're going to talk, we're going to talk about some of the things that we're, uh, that Hartman and, uh, um, Congress from Polkana were discussing a little bit later.

We have a big lineup for you today at hour number two at three 35, Matt Solomon, been a minute since Solomon's been on the show.

He is from cracked.com.

Great publication online.

Matt is going to grade Saturday night live, the iconic NBC show at 50.

He has written a column on this, looking back at the past 50 years of SNL and how the 50th season is holding up.

So Salomon's in at 335 with that.

At 306, what's worse where we ask you the not so important question of the day, but your chance to weigh in today's category, shaving or flossing?

You probably don't do that in the same spot.

I hope not.

Shaving or flossing, we'll talk about that in hour number two.

And then it's 2.35 this hour, so less than a half an hour.

Joe Zipecki is gonna be on the program.

He is founder of Zipecki Communications, longtime Democratic political strategist, communication, marketing guy.

And he is now running for the chairmanship of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin.

Ben Wickler chose not to run again.

So there's the open election, talked to Zipecki, really interested.

Here's a guy that I really respect.

I don't belong to any political party, so I've got no dog in the race, no vote.

But it seems to me as a pecky is the kind of guy that you want in these times, but we'll talk to him and ask him some questions.

But right now, joining us via StreamYard from the nation's capital, you know him, you love him.

If you joined us in our old time slot at noon, Trig Vilsen, native of River Falls, former Republican, like myself.

Now a senior advisor at the Lincoln Project and here joining us in the mid-afternoon at two o'clock, which is good news for Trigvie because he gets up at about 1.30.

Trigvie Olson, how are you?

Having the worst day technic wise.

Well, I love the fact for those watching on the stream.

Trivia has positioned the microphone directly in front of his face.

So it kind of looks like that character from the old home improvement show where all he

can

see is his head.

Top of his

head.

Dude, if you knew what a mess, I got a new monitor.

It's in the wrong place.

They sent me this new camera for doing like LP stuff.

It's robotic and I can't figure it out.

how to get the remote to work so I can get myself centered

here.

It's not a very good

day.

I'm sorry to hear that, but I appreciate your being here.

I understand they put one of those robotic cameras in our studio a while back, supposed to follow you around.

And we turned that off.

We basically had to break it because it just didn't work.

So we didn't have to break it.

We just turned off the

following.

Oh, we

turned it off the following, the AI portion.

Yes.

All right.

You know, the one thing I didn't check.

There may not be batteries

in this remote.

There

you

have it.

They

shipped it without

batteries.

They

shipped it without batteries.

That would be why the remote control wasn't working.

How dare they?

How dare they?

God, I'm becoming like kids.

Hey, listen.

I was just going to announce I'm formally here in my role as the owner of the Green Bay Pack.

Well, I was going to say we

usually.

We for for people listening to our old time slot.

Usually we would wait until the last two, three, four minutes of our of our hour together to talk about the Packers or something sports related.

Trig V is an owner of the Green Bay Packers.

But here now here now we we're going.

Well, why don't we just start out with the Packers proper because the big draft kicks off tomorrow in in Green Bay.

Round one very excited about this our sports reporter Mike Clemens is gonna be giving reports from up in Green Bay But as a Green Bay owner Trigby, what are your thoughts about the draft?

Well There's part of me that would like to see him trade the pic just because there's gonna be all those people that are showing up there, but Seems like your settings chose your new camera Apparently your

microphone's a little I don't know muted or something.

I don't know

Oh, it's my microphone.

Do I need to get closer?

We

can wait until the dog.

We'll

figure that out.

We'll worry about that in about five minutes because our breaks now are at 20 after.

So we'll.

OK, I got it.

I got it there now.

Now it's

set to my headphones.

You had you

all this.

Yes, it's all this.

I told you, I'm having a bad day technology wise.

I hope the Green Bay Packers have a better day on the draft.

How is that for a pivot?

Right.

I kind of hope they take the receiver.

I think he's from Arizona, but.

To be honest, I don't have an informed opinion on the draft.

And I think most of these people talking about the draft are just trying to make money off

it.

Yeah.

If I really knew anything, Todd, do you know what I'd be?

Brian Kudukuz.

And trust me, if I could have his, if I were smart enough to have his job, I would rather have his job than my job.

That'd be the greatest job in the world.

It seems like if you look at history and my former boss, Scott Kluge, was always fond of saying, Todd, if you want to.

If you want to know about someone's future performance, look at their past performance.

I've found that to be true.

Goody is not someone who's really, I don't think he's ever traded away the first two or three rounds to move up.

He's always taken a player in round one, two, and three.

He seems a fairly conservative guy.

And I don't think he's going to make a big splash just because it happens to be in Green Bay.

I think he's going to stick with his strategy.

That's just my take.

Yeah, I think that's probably true.

I mean the one year he did trade back a ways and then he traded back up to get Alexander I just I kind of think Gouda Coons is one of these guys whatever it takes to win right like he's just Yeah, I don't know and he certainly fleece those fancy New Yorkers on the air And those and those city slickers out in Las Vegas on the Devante Adams trade

No, yeah, here's to you.

Here's to UW lacrosse.

We may not have to ask what's cooking at lacrosse because They're clearly cooking up good NFL GM's.

Yeah, absolutely.

Absolutely true We had Joseph Pecky at the bottom of the hour trig v really looking forward to this discussion with him learn a little bit more about him about his vision for the Wisconsin Democratic Party in his campaign to be the new chair after Ben Wickler has decided not to run for another term so I want to talk about

some of the national things before we get to is Becky at the bottom of the hour.

Why don't you take a take on a couple of things, Trig V. And for those that don't know, Trig V spent a lot of time in DC working for guys like John McCain and also Mitch McConnell and others has worked on presidential campaigns.

And for those that might not know when this time slot, the only person that I know who has been banned from Russia personally by Vladimir Putin for his work against autocracies and for democracy in Eastern Europe.

I want to get your take on this, Trig V, on this whole Pete Hegseth thing going on, the signal gate stuff, because now there's been a new signal gate on a personal phone.

And again, he doesn't Hegseth or the Trump folks don't deny any of this stuff, that he's talking about military operations on a non non secured personal phone.

So far, Trump is is standing with him, but.

Finally, now we have Republican Don Bacon.

Republican of Nebraska and the House of Representatives was on Jake Tapper's show on CNN.

Let's play a little bit of that.

This is Congress from Bacon on Jake Tapper.

This were your secretary of defense.

What would you do?

Well, I wouldn't tolerate it.

I would hold them accountable and I'd fire them.

You can't put classified information and I guarantee it.

If you're talking about

when you're launching aircraft to attack Yemen, and you do that two hours before the missions, that is classified.

That's operational details that you want to protect.

And it was just wrong to put that on an unclassified application and to send it to people who are not cleared or in the need to know.

We would fire a second lieutenant for doing this.

And so as a military guy, this is not a Republican view or a Democrat view.

I think it's an American view.

that we protect our security, we protect our service men or women, because those details, if they would have got out early to the Houthis, I could have endangered our airmen.

And I guarantee you, Russia and China are all over the Secretary of Defense's cell phone, and they got hundreds of people focused on his phone and what he's putting on that, because he is like the top priority target for their signals collection.

So I just, what I want to see from the Secretary,

is to just be honest, admit you did wrong, take responsibility, and apologize, because that lets us know that you understand that was wrong.

When he does not admit to it and tries to obfuscate, that further lowers his credibility on this.

He's got to come clean and be honest.

And just take, take responsibility.

That's Congressman Don Bacon, Republican of Nebraska and Jake Tapper showing CNN calling for Hanks have to resign or be fired.

Trivia about a minute and a half left here before the first break.

What's your take on this?

He was sizzling.

All right.

Bacon

was

sizzling.

Yeah.

Uh, you know, he's a former general, I think.

Yes, he is.

Although, as it comes to that, he's in a marginal district and it's the university in Nebraska district, so it's Omaha.

He has not really been a profile in courage.

He barely won last time, like he's a little bit, but he's a credible guy.

I mean, it's great that he's speaking out.

I think he's speaking the truth and I think he speaks from a place of caring.

The truth of the matter is, you look at Hegzeth and how he's been responding to this, everything is, I'm very disappointed in the leaker.

We have to find the leaker.

I don't know who's leaking this.

And the irony is the leaker is him.

Right.

Exactly.

He can look in the mirror and find the guy who is leaking.

Right.

So I just think, you know, there's.

Yeah, just because he's on TV, these people were on TV doesn't make you smile.

But by

the way, he redid the green room in the defense department now has a makeup chair and a makeup stylist for his Fox News hits.

That's real.

Back with Trigly Olsen after this, it's a town of all show on the Civic Media Radio Network at our new time.

Same host.

Come on

back.

That's

right, you joined, joined Zoppers and I for a new one.

Now you can join us for some afternoon tonight.

Every, every afternoon now from two until four, our new time slot.

If you'd normally tune in and say, where the heck did Maggie Dawn show go?

Have no fear.

She's just going back a couple of hours.

She'll be here at four o'clock now and now in drive time from four until six.

The Great Maggie Dawn Show every afternoon followed by the Great Pete Schwabba in Nightlight every evening from six until eight.

But the one thing that stays the same, thank goodness, our friend, Trig V. Olsen, ongoing contributor native of River Falls, Wisconsin.

Senior advisor now at the Lincoln Project, like myself, a former Republican joins us on Wednesdays to talk about a little politics, but also some packers from time to time and also what makes Wisconsin great.

Jeff Perry, our ongoing contributor on Facebook says, Todd, is it daylight saving time today?

What's going on?

No, no, Jeff, it's just a time change.

We're in daylight saving time, but we're still changing.

showtimes.

Trayvee Joseph Peckion at the bottom of the hour after our news update.

Joseph Peckion, of course, longtime Democratic political strategist, great marketing guy, founder of Joseph Peckion Communications.

He is running for the chairmanship of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin now that Ben Wickler is choosing not to run.

So I want to get to a couple of national issues before Joe comes on at the bottom of the hour.

you know, two or three minutes here on each one of these.

First of all, and I think for some people are going to say, what's the big deal here?

And yesterday, Bill Owens, the longtime executive producer of the Sunday Evening News program, 60 Minutes on CBS, resigned essentially under pressure.

And there was a big meeting of CBS

folks in a 60 minute, including Leslie Stahl and Scott Pelley and Anderson Cooper and others in which he, and he also put out a memo to his colleagues at CBS and essentially said, look, with the world today and whether it's Sherry Redstone, the now owner yet of CBS Paramount or this new merger they're trying to do, and of course, CBS is signaling they're going to settle with Trump like ABC did for essentially

no reason they didn't do anything wrong.

But now this guy, Bill Owens, who ran CBS or 60 Minutes, is saying, I don't feel I can do my job like I always have done because of pressure at the top.

Is this anything, Trig V, you've dealt with autocracies.

We've seen this in other places where the media starts getting intimidated.

Should we make something out of this or is this nothing?

No, it's kind of a big deal because the reality is...

One of the ways that these guys take control is by bullying the media and getting them to bend to their will through lawsuits or whatever means.

And you know, it really is true.

The best way to confront an autocrat or a bully is to stand up to the autocrat or the bully, and that's not what they're doing.

And you've literally written.

A book or your process I think writing a book on this but tell people about this the seven rules of dealing autocrats, right?

Yeah, so I mean there's seven rules dealing with autocrats the one that's relevant here is always speak truth to power and that's what CBS and 60 minutes were doing and in fact the entire lawsuit was based on a lie it was that he that they had somehow edited their interview with Kamala Harris and I that wasn't

the case and, you know, I mean, Trump's trying to shut them down.

They're venerable.

And I'm sure in Donald Trump's mind, you know, 60 Minutes is the preeminent news, which it kind of is preeminent television news program of, you know, long format stories.

And he's bullied them.

And

if

he can, and it sends a bad precedent because if he can bully CBS in 60 Minutes.

You know, what's the person at the Eau Claire leader telegram think if he comes after that?

Right exactly speaking of papers Milwaukee Journal sent no great paper here in the state of Wisconsin story by Eva when today Entitled what to know about recent immigration arrest in the Milwaukee County Courthouse again about three minutes here before our break The

large 30,000 view here now.

A third person has been arrested by ICE in Wisconsin, the first two at the Milwaukee County Courthouse, this one in Ozaki County Courthouse.

These folks are going because they're trying to do it the quote unquote right way.

They're trying to get their papers in order to become citizens, at least permanent residents, and ICE is staking out these courthouses now and arresting people right here in Wisconsin.

To me, Trigvie, this all comes back.

Our other colleagues here at Civic Media have talked about this.

It's due process.

And if folks aren't given due process, and they're guaranteed this in the Constitution, if that isn't upheld and adhered to, then none of us are really safe, regardless of whether we're American citizens or not, speak to this again in about a minute and a half here, talking about what you've seen in other countries.

Well, I mean the reality is you know They want people to live in fear in what better way than the president can order that you pick up a bunch of people on the street and send them to a gulag and El Salvador and then when the Supreme Court rules nine zip against you you say oh, but we don't have a way to get him back Right like and listen Trump tweeted

the other day or true social or whatever you do on there, that he doesn't have time for everybody to have a court hearing.

Well, what a crock.

I mean, Jeffrey Dahmer was one of the most reprehensible people to ever transverse the planet.

He got due process.

He got a trial.

It's an imperfect system, but it's a lot better than the alternative of some guy in politics being able to decide who

You know, getting picked up and who doesn't?

I'm glad you brought up this this truth social thing you tweeted out about, well, we don't have time for everybody get a trial.

He clearly does not understand the immigration or the legal system.

There's someone who handled immigration affairs for a former congressman in Wisconsin.

What you're talking about here is going before an immigration court and having basically a hearing where the judge says, hey, are you here legally illegally?

You don't have an actual jury trial for every single one of these cases.

It's just not how it works.

And so it's just a bold face lie to gin people up and it's disingenuous at best.

Always genu-

Anyone is Joseph Peckie.

He is a candidate from the Democratic Party Chair of Wisconsin.

Come back and have a conversation with he and Trigby and myself.

Stay tuned.

News, weather, sports update.

We're back after this on the Civic Media Ready Network.

He joins us via StreamYard.

Mr. Joe Zipecki with Trig V. Olsen, the senior advisor at the Lincoln Project, joining from Arlington.

Joe, thanks so much for being on.

And what's it like now that you're an official candidate for chair?

I gotta say, I've worked on a lot of campaigns.

I've worked with a lot of candidates.

And I was right.

It is different when it is your name that's going to be on a ballot.

I don't know if Trivky's had the pleasure, but it's a little different, but it's a lot of fun.

I'm getting around the state talking to people all across Wisconsin, all across the Democratic Coalition.

To me, that is the only way to build a viable pro-democracy resistance against the Trump administration and a Democratic Party that is built to win elections next year and build power going.

going forward for working families for people who want to get the American dream for themselves and the response has been overwhelming.

We rolled out 20 public endorsers on day one.

We've added another more than half dozen in the week since.

I haven't even been at it for a full week.

Tomorrow will be one week in the race, so it's going great.

Wow,

that's fantastic.

You know, you've been on a lot of programs across civic media.

We were talking before we went on the air.

I don't think you've ever been on our show proper, although you were on a panel with Trigby and some other folks about a year and a half ago down in Milwaukee.

What the heck's the matter with Todd?

Number one, not having you on sooner, but I'm glad you're here today.

For those that might not know who you are, we're a statewide audience across 11 different stations all across the state.

tell folks a little bit about Joseph Peckie, where you grew up, a little bit about your history so far, and how you got into leadership or wanting to be a leadership in the Democratic Party of Wisconsin.

Yeah, born and raised in southeast Wisconsin, graduated from the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

And I got the political bug early.

My parents instilled in me very early on that those who have much, much, you know, must give back.

And we were very fortunate and privileged.

My dad worked in county government for 20 years.

My mother is an attorney who was sort of on that first wave of a lot of women lawyers.

And has been a leader in that space, founded things like women, women's judges night in

Milwaukee and so I had the bug early.

I spent the summer before my freshman year of high school volunteering on a congressional campaign and then it was off and running.

I've worked on three presidential campaigns, worked in the Obama administration at the U.S.

Small Business Administration, moved back home to Wisconsin in late 2011 and in 2016 founded Zipecki Communications to really work on issues I care about and I'm passionate about whether that's

funding public schools, protecting health care improvements and reforms that have been made, working with building trades union members to ensure that they build our clean energy future.

I never thought we'd be in this space, but the last few years have had to do a lot of work in the democracy space, trying to lift up the January 6th Select Committee hearings and making sure that people know that the threats to our democracy are very real.

And along the way, I've tried to do some good, tried to give back.

I'm a volunteer football coach at the high school I played at.

in the 1900s is how the kids like to say it.

And that stings pretty badly these days, but they're not wrong.

That's hilarious.

I'm going to bring him in in a second.

But before I do, one more kind of general quote unquote campaign question here.

As a former Republican, I don't belong to any party now.

I've been a big admirer.

I think I could speak for trivia as well.

We both have a Ben Wichler and the job that he has done to build the Democratic Party.

Look, I just personally believe that there's only one major party left that truly supports democracy, and that's the Democratic Party.

So that's why I support them, but I'm not a card carry member.

I don't want to call it weird.

But to people outside of politics, this is not an election for the general electorate.

This is a very insider thing to Democrats.

You're going to meet here in a couple of months for this election for chair.

But speaking to those folks, what would you do to build on Chairman Wickler's successes and how might a Zipecki chairmanship be different and building on that?

Well, first

of all, Todd, we have a place for you.

You can be a card-carrying member of the Democratic Party, even if you're a former Republican.

I

appreciate that.

I just think for the purposes of this show, it's better than I don't.

I don't know.

Fair enough.

I've got some work left to do there.

Listen, Ben Wickler has been an extraordinary chair and has really reimagined what the Democratic Party of Wisconsin can be.

And so I think of this as three main roles that the chair plays and that the party plays.

The first is fundraising.

DPW, WisDEMS, however you refer to it, is a financial institution that raises money to support professional campaigns up and down the ballot.

On that dial, we have to do what's been working.

We have to continue to shine a spotlight on Wisconsin.

I believe that money follows message.

And when we communicate what's at stake, what the opportunities are, and how we're going to organize to push back and win, the resources will be there.

When it comes to the infrastructure of the Democratic Party,

the county parties, the issue-based caucuses, the college Democrats and those chapters.

There are things that we can do to fine-tune and build on what Ben has built.

Not all is well with the Democratic Party.

If it was, we wouldn't have lost to Donald Trump two out of the last three times.

And so...

I'm hearing from a lot of county leaders.

There are things that can be improved.

We have to lower barriers to entry for people who want to be part of the fight back.

And that's what we're going to do.

And then third, when it comes to how the Democratic Party communicates its message, we have been a disaster and we shouldn't pretend otherwise.

burn it down and build it back up.

That starts from my perspective with empowering more local messengers to carry the story.

We no longer live in a world where, hey, these are your three talking points, go speak them at someone works.

Everybody needs to tell their own story about why they are motivated at this time in our history.

So that's the quick one, two, three.

You can read the game plan for yourself at jozapeki.com.

Check me.

Yeah, I mean Joe I was really excited when Todd called me earlier today and said you were coming on and I was I had actually been on a conference call earlier in the day where where I found out that you were running talk a little bit about how Democrats particularly

North of highway 29 do better, you know when you start going north of highway 29 up into Tiffany's district even over to where I'm from in st.

Croix County, which kind of right on highway 29 Democrats have struggled How do you reach out to those people because you know really Tammy Baldwin ended up winning because she ran just enough better than Donald Trump I mean then than Harris in those counties talk a little bit about that

To me, that's putting an economic framework at the center of everything we do.

When we seed so much of the playing field to Republicans to define Democrats and we don't meet them there, it's not the fault of voters north of Highway 29 that they think that all Democrats care about are bathroom bills and trans athletes.

We are going to fight to protect the civil rights of everyone in this country, but at the heart of the Democratic Party,

is that pathway to the middle class.

If you want to work hard and play by the rules, you need to be able to get ahead.

And over the last 30 years, what we've seen is that big corporations are fixing the game against working people.

Oh, you want to work?

Great.

We'll give you 29 hours a week.

Wait, why 29?

I want to work full time.

Well, if you work 30, we got to give you health care.

These big corporations are out of control and squeezing every nickel they can out of us.

And it's made it harder and harder for young people, especially, but also people in rural

communities to feel like there is a path forward.

You know, when the three of us graduated high school, we all probably had pretty high confidence.

Whether we went to a two or four year school, into a trade, into the military, by the time we were 40, we could afford a house, maybe have the start of a little nest egg for retirement.

When I talked to the 20 year old in my house, she looks at me like I'm from another planet, that that was the reality, not 25, 30 years ago.

That's what the heart of the Democratic Party is, is

working for working people.

And we have shied away from that.

There is nothing about fighting for working class people that Democrats should be embarrassed about.

Say it with your chest.

We are here to fight for working families.

Period.

I'm here talking with Joseph Pecky, chair, or wants to be chair, candidate for chair of the Wisconsin Democratic Party of Wisconsin, and also our ongoing contributor and friend, Trig V. Olson, former Republican like myself and senior advisor at the Lincoln Project.

Joe, talk a little bit about that.

I had a conversation, try to be succinct here.

I had a conversation with a friend of mine, known a long time, mid to late 30s guy from Southwest Wisconsin, has voted Democrat as far as Democratic as long as I know, have known him, and we got to this discussion.

And you're not here, you're not running for DNC chair.

I think it was a mistake for national Democrats to pass on Ben Wickler, but that's another bottle of wine.

But this guy, David Hogg, who's now the vice chair of the Democratic Party, comes out here last week and says he's going to spend $20 million from his personal pack to challenge sitting Democrats in safe districts who are either too old, in his opinion, or who don't vote progressive enough and take them out to swing the party.

younger and more liberal.

I mean, I'm not asking you to defend that, but just from Wisconsin, I find it hard to believe that Wisconsin Democrats think that Congressman Gwendolyn Moore should step aside because she's 74.

I just don't get the strategy there.

Listen, it's not about the number next to how old you are.

It's how much.

passion and fight you have left in you.

I was actually with Congresswoman Moore this morning.

We held a roundtable discussion with a half dozen of her constituents who are going to be impacted by the Republican plan to slash Medicaid.

This is going to have a cascading economic impact.

Apart from the morality question of cutting off disabled adults who are living independently, you name it.

Gwen Moore has the fight.

If you have the fight, fight with us in our coalition.

If your time has passed and you've lost your fastball, yeah, it's probably time to exit stage left.

I saw Senator Durbin announced today that he would be stepping aside.

Dick Durbin has been a great Democrat for a very long time, and there is nothing wrong with passing the torch to a new generation of leaders.

That's what Joe Biden said he was going to do back in 2020.

And I think if he had lived up to that in more ways a little sooner, we may not be in such a five alarm crisis when it comes to protecting everything that makes America.

as opposed to what MAGA Republicans want you to believe.

But I'm just fascinated by this as an outsider who's not part of the Democratic Party because in my opinion, I mean, Trigby and I have talked about this before as four Republicans.

They're just better at keeping people in line.

I mean, I don't envy the head of the Democratic Party because to me it's like herding cats, right?

And so I'm just fascinated as an outsider.

How do Democrats moving forward appease the David Hogs and the AOCs that people say, look,

We're tired.

We're ticked off.

We don't want to wait anymore.

We don't care about the institutions.

We want these reforms now.

How do you keep their votes, which will be seen by some people as far left, and then kind of the more traditional Democrats?

While I was talking to this guy from Southwest Wisconsin in his 30s, a Democrat, he said,

This is a great example of why we are going to see a third party emerge, because both parties are too far left and right.

How do you, as the future chairman of the Democrats, keep a third party from emerging and say, no, no, no, we as the Wisconsin Democratic Party, we are a Big Ten?

I don't think we can be a pro-democracy movement if we shy away from democracy.

Everybody has a right to run, and if they want to run against incumbents,

go for it.

We know that's an uphill battle, but there's nothing wrong with more democracy being the answer to the challenges our democracy faces.

My approach is always, you gotta have a big table.

You gotta have room in our coalition now more than ever.

For folks who think, yeah, we should raise the minimum wage and it should go up to $10.10 tomorrow.

And there are also people on the left who say it should go to $25 tomorrow.

We have to be a coalition that's big enough to, you know, to...

Keep everybody on sides, win back power.

And if we want to have those fights and we land at 15, 17, 20, that's the hard work of governing.

But for now, what the Trump administration is doing is focusing our attention and focusing the mind on, you know what, whether you think it's 10, 10 or 25, you think.

working people need a raise, and let's focus on that part of it moving forward.

We can sort some of that out after we win back power and save our

country.

No, I mean, I just think, Joe, the answers you're giving about economics, and I say this, take it for what it's worth from a guy who used to work for McConnell, so I don't know how much credibility I have with people who are working to elect you.

But the truth of the matter is you're spot on.

I saw Mark Cuban had a tweet not long ago where it showed, Wisconsin has more at risk from the tariffs than any other state.

10% of the jobs in Wisconsin are at risk, 73% of the people.

who are at risk voted for Donald Trump.

Like, there's a huge opportunity, but they did it for a reason, and then they did it because Republicans come along and say, as you said, it's about bathrooms and athletes and

whatnot.

across Wisconsin, canvassing from superior to Racine.

Joseph Peckie is running for the chair of the Wisconsin Democratic Party.

With that music in his headphones, he's gonna be...

24 hours a day, seven days a week getting it done.

He is a guest right now along with Trigvie Olson, our ongoing contributor for a Republican like myself, now a senior advisor at the Lincoln Project.

Joe, I still appreciate you coming on here and having this open, honest discussion.

We don't have enough people having these types of discussions, so I really appreciate this.

Looking at the job of state chair, you've got

The legislature now with fairer maps seems to be within reach, especially on the assembly side, maybe the state Senate side.

Going to have a gubernatorial race.

Democrats don't know yet whether Governor Tony Evers is going to run.

for reelection.

And there may or may not be new congressional maps, but you have, you know, I'm going to say a MAGA extremist like Derek Van Orton in the third district.

You almost got knocked off by Rebecca Cook last time.

As you look at the landscape, Joseph Pecky, as a potential future chairman, what do you see as your top priority?

Well, job number one is next spring.

And that's an advantage that we have in Wisconsin.

It helps keep the national spotlight on the state.

It helps us raise the resources to invest in that year round organizing that is so central to the wins that we've had.

So ahead of next spring, we need to be innovating county by county, you know, neighborhood by neighborhood to figure out what works.

There are going to be places in our party where they want to we call it turning the van upside down.

where you stop talking to regular voters who are three out of four or four out of four past performance and elections.

Let's knock some doors where it's zero out of four or

one

out of four.

Let's have conversations.

Maybe now is the time when people are both seeing and feeling what's happening from the Trump administration.

They see their 401k.

They may not have thought about voting last November.

But now they're going, oh, my God, what is this?

I'm going to have to work another three or four years before I retire.

Let's have those conversations.

Let's build for next spring because, frankly, we protected democracy in Wisconsin by electing Susan Crawford and ensured a progressive majority that will honor the will of the people and elections.

And that majority is only insured.

through the spring of 2028.

So I would rather pick up another seat, get to a 5-2 split on the state court, and then have greater confidence that there will not be shenanigans or big live 3.0 when it comes to the 2028 presidential election.

So it starts next spring.

And then when you look at the fall, we've got to do it all.

More is more.

Like this is not a time to say, well, we're going to put all our eggs in this basket.

Tony Evers has been a stalwart defender of policies that would have made Wisconsin Alabama.

Sorry Alabama, but we don't want to be you, right?

And we have this path to flipping control of the legislature for the first time in a generation, right?

It's been since 2008 was the last time that Democrats had a majority.

That path is there and it provides another opportunity for us to raise resources from the types of groups that are only interested in flipping chambers.

Ben's done a fantastic job and there were doors that were close to him and Democrats in Wisconsin because we weren't close enough to flipping chambers.

We can walk and chew gum and win elections all at the same time.

So whether it's recruiting candidates to stand for election in all 132 districts, whether it's ensuring that Tony either Evers or some other Democratic candidate for governor has

what they need.

We have to do it all.

We don't have the luxury of picking and choosing because building power in 2026 is so important.

We have to flip the Congress.

We have to take back the Senate.

And I think given the economic anxiety that people are feeling, there's nothing that's out of reach for Democrats.

We need to flood the zone with candidates who fit their district and can win.

And we will provide the people power that can get folks over the top in districts that even three or four years ago, people never would have thought a Democrat could be competitive in.

Trade me something quick.

Yeah, I mean, I think that's I think that's spot on.

I think, you know, the other thing is.

And I think Ben did a really good job of this.

You know, he was going to the Eau Claire's.

He was reaching out to those nontraditional people and you're exactly right.

Conversation is so essential.

Um, because, you know, the

Hayward, that part of this later this week, that I mean, it's, you got to be everywhere.

Yeah,

you do.

And I mean, if you think about, you know, one thing that, that I pointed out, which is kind of national, but it relates to Wisconsin, five Senate races.

Okay.

All in states that Harris lost.

Jackie Rosen, Gallego, Tammy Baldwin, and Slotkin all spoke directly to the camera and said, this trans ads that they're running against me, it's not true.

You know who I am.

The one who didn't, Casey lost.

Harris didn't do it.

She lost.

You got to have some trust in the people.

And you got to tell the story.

And that's that's what I mean when I say that we're leaving the playing field uncontested.

Right.

I mean, there are more billionaires in Donald Trump's cabinet than there are division one trans athletes in the entire United States.

This is a distraction so that they hope that you don't notice they're fixing the economy for Elon Musk and billionaire special interests while the rest of us are getting nickel and dime to every every turn.

And it just has to stop.

And the only way it's going to stop is when people show up and show out.

I like to say if you have a

government that's of the billionaires and by the billionaires, it's only ever going to be for the billionaires.

If we have a government that is by and for the people, it is possible to have an economy that works for everyone.

That's what we need to the message we need to take to voters, not just tomorrow, not just next year, but moving forward for years to come to build an enduring pro

democracy.

Coalition trivia is always fond of saying that Democrats are great at writing policy Republicans are great at writing narrative It would seem to me having a guy who is a communication and marketing specialist like Joseph Peckie would be a great person to have in charge of writing a democratic narrative But that's just me as outsider.

I'd love to earn people's support go to Joseph Peckie calm to learn more join the team We got a place for you on our squad

Joseph Peckie.

We appreciate you coming on so very much good luck in your bid to be the Democratic Party chair of Wisconsin.

We'll stay in touch.

Thanks for being here my friend

Thanks guys.

Be well.

Yep.

You as well.

Joe

Pecky.

Everybody.

Good luck.

Uh, Trevi, uh, we got, uh, well, 30 seconds

left.

Any final comments from the Packers on the draft?

Well, aren't we playing that game still with the new time where it's either or what is it called?

Which is worse?

Well, you want to stay around for what's worse after that?

I love that game.

Of course, I'm gonna stay.

Shaving versus flossing?

Yes.

All right.

Trigby doesn't want to be a part of that.

Trigby is going to stay around for what's worse.

That's fantastic.

Great tease.

We appreciate that.

Come on back.

It's hour number two of the Todd Omel show at our new time right here on the Civic Media.

Ready

Network.

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.

Across

Wisconsin on the Civic Media Radio Network and streaming worldwide on the Civic Media app,

Good afternoon, everybody.

I'm Todd Albaugh, along with Mr. Aaron Zommers, our producer and engineer on the board.

It is six past the hour of three o'clock on this Wednesday, April 23rd, 2025.

It is a great day to be a Wisconsinite, and it is pump day.

There you go.

Welcome into hour number two of the big program.

If you normally normally listen to the fantastic Maggie Dawn show every afternoon at this time, have no fear.

She's still around.

Just two hours later, things shifted around a little bit as far as scheduling.

Starting today, we are now on from two until four.

Maggie joins us, joins the network then from four until six, the complete two hours of the Maggie Dawn show follows us starting at.

four o'clock, and then it'll be Pete Schwabba and Nightlight from six until eight.

Coming up in this hour, a little what's worse for you.

And then at the bottom of the hour, Matt Solomon is here from Cracked.com talking about the 50th anniversary of Saturday Night Live.

the history thereof, and how the 50th anniversary is shaping up.

Trigvielson's gonna be back in just one moment, but first it is, by the way, Zabers, now that we're doing officially, technically, three o'clock is drive time.

Some people going to pick up kids or whatnot.

Some people getting out of work earlier in the afternoon.

So we thought, you know, we'd throw a little traffic for ya, especially.

Well, I like that little traffic horn very good Checking the 511 this 511 wi.gov traffic around the state of Wisconsin a few slowdowns for you particularly for our listeners on WAUK in Southeast Wisconsin Milwaukee and the suburbs if you're traveling in the walkie area be aware that I 43

heading north from Milwaukee and 94 up to 190 in the Shorewood area going slow right now.

Then over on a highway 41 north and south it is the northbound lane from just north of 94 up to around Mayfair area and just south of the crossroad of 190 that is headed north on 41 that is slow as well.

And then further up on highway 41 just south of 41 or rather just south of the Woodman food market.

there that is going slow as well so basically for highway 41 say from the interstate 94 uh on up to alternate 41 that's going to be slow going there and also 43 as expected this time of day between the I 94 and I 90 up in the shorewood area that is slow as well otherwise most other major traffic areas and roads around the state of Wisconsin are on time for the most part a couple of minor accidents on the sidelines here and there and of course this time of year all roads

are in good driving conditions as well.

Don't have to worry about snow anymore either.

Trig Vilsen joins us for hour number two.

How about Joseph Pecky, Trig V?

I thought he was fantastic, and I think he's the kind of guy that can continue on the work that Ben Wickler has done for the Democrats.

Yeah, I think he's terrific.

And, you know, if Ben built the foundation, Joe is the guy to put the structure on the house.

And, you know, he just, he gets it.

Right?

Like he gets it.

No, he really does.

Here's the other thing, the David Hogg thing.

Instead of spending your money on Gwen Moore, put it in to take it doing something constructive like taking out Van Orden.

All right, that's exactly what Todd said.

Yeah.

And for those that enjoyed this last last hour, we have Joseph Pecky, who's running for Democratic Party chair that now that Ben Wickler is not going to run again.

And I brought up this thing we talked about on this show a couple of days ago.

David Hawick, who's now the National Democratic Party vice chairman, got his claim to fame from being one of the survivors of the Parkland School of Shooting in Florida, which, of course, that's a tragedy and, you know, can't imagine living through that.

He's kind of parlayed that into as far as.

I know the guys never run a race, right?

I don't think he's even run a state house race at all.

But he's parlayed this into kind of a claim of fame amongst Democrats.

And now he got himself elected vice chair of the Democratic Party.

And over the weekend, he said that his personal super PAC is gonna spend $20 million on primarying Democratic incumbents in safe house seats.

And he's gonna target those that he feels are too old.

or don't vote progressively enough.

And I agree with you, Trigby.

I don't get it.

I just don't get that strategy.

And I agree with you.

His organization would be much better off putting that 20 million part of it against guys like Derek Van Orton or other people that

are just very, very extreme.

So look, we're not Democrats.

So I guess that's that's up to them.

I do.

I'm going to ask you this because I was Tom Hartman's on now before before us.

I found this fascinating because Mark Pocan was on that show.

A congressman here and other the other all the other Democrat represents Wisconsin and was on Hartman's show today on the national show, taking questions.

And I this is an order.

I wrote this down.

as I was driving in.

So the first caller wanted, was calling in to say the Democrats should lobby Republicans outside their district to have some courage and join and get Keem Jeffries elected speaker.

And even Mark Pokehan said, look, not so sure about that one because if you try to leave a message or an email,

on my website, you have to enter in your zip code, and if you're not in my district, you can't even leave a message.

So I'm not sure about that one.

The second caller wanted to socialize airlines, thought the airlines in America should be owned by the government and not private companies.

The next caller wanted Pockein to join the, I hadn't even heard of this, the Occupy the White House movement.

a la January 6 only going up against the White House instead of the Capitol.

The next person was in favor of Head Start.

I think that's a good one.

And the final caller wanted, was advocating for the Bernie AOC ticket in 2028.

Now, I get that that's a more liberal program than what we're doing here, but I just found it fascinating that, and again, that's why I was getting, and I appreciate Zipecki answering the question.

I just don't understand.

how you can satisfy that faction of the Democratic Party that's in favor of all those things I just listed, and also kind of more traditional Democrats.

It's a tough job.

I wouldn't want

it.

No, I mean, but that's any party chairmen having to deal with that, right?

Like, but Democrats aren't losing elections because they're too progressive, right?

They won the state Supreme Court race because their base was energized, but they also won the state Supreme Court race because there were an awful lot of those people that voted for Tammy Baldwin and Donald Trump or skipped one or the other who looked at Schimel, looked at what Elon was doing and just said, no.

You know, Elon jumping around in a cheesehead, not appealing.

And so Democrats should have to be really careful within the infrastructure, not to fall into the same traps that Republicans did with not speaking truth.

When, you know, I mean, you and I, during the rise of the Tea Party movement, every Republican who is working in politics would have conversations with people and they'd be saying things and you're like, that's just not true, but you wouldn't correct

them.

Yeah, no

doubt.

And you know, it's that's not necessarily the role of state party chair, but like with what David Hogg is doing, that should be getting called out.

Yeah.

And many, many Democrats.

And I get their frustration, too, because like Chuck Schumer really looked weak.

Yeah.

Right.

But that said.

They, they, the country, they don't want to admit that the country and the places like Wisconsin that decided are naturally slightly ever so slightly right of center.

Do you think there's going to be a, I think Joe gets that.

Do you think there's going to be a major third party movement here before the next presidential election?

You know, there's so many obstacles to it because if the two parties do one thing, it's they protect their own turf and having been around the edges of Howard Schultz looking at it.

It's a really hard thing.

That said, you know, if it's AOC versus Donald Trump running for a third term, I think there's a ton of space if somebody who had the resources and could appeal to that middle were to be the candidate.

I mean, if I just throw his name out, you know, I don't know him well or anything.

But like if a Mark Cuban were to say, I'm going to run as a fiscally conservative business guy who's socially tolerant, that would have a lot of appeal do a lot of people.

Yeah.

Let's go to the phone lines quickly.

855-752-4842.

855-752-4842.

Ollie in the Northwoods.

Ollie, thanks for calling in.

We'll see you.

Hi.

This isn't kind of with your thing that you were talking about, but I heard a little bit on Hartman where he was talking with someone who, and they were discussing how Trump was basically getting, like he got from all the rich people, all the donations for his inauguration.

And then he talked a little bit about

even on Sunday's egg roll, how like Apple donated and different companies had donated and they were getting special compensations in ways like for tariffs and stuff.

And my question is, I would like to see some kind of big protest in

Washington D.C.

on 4th of July and also a silent protest where when they have the 4th of July celebration people could wear certain certain colors or certain armbands or certain t-shirts and protest that way.

Okay.

I'm just wondering what how they actually

What's the funding that goes into that will will?

Will the big businesses be paying for that and thereby we're

paying for paying for what Ali I'm not sure what you mean

Will they you know like when they have the big celebrations at the Capitol?

Oh, right.

I'm for July right, you know, is that going to be a moment for Trump to also be

collecting?

I mean, he wants to have

a big,

he wants

to have a big,

right.

He wants to have a, I appreciate the call.

Oh, like, thanks so much.

I mean, Trigby, I mean, we've seen this, you know, the Easter egg role.

I mean, a lot of different, you know, pause and, and, uh, target, you know, Amazon were sponsors.

And we've seen this, you know, Mark Zuckerberg gives a million dollars to the Trump inauguration.

And guess what?

The tariffs don't apply to them.

Uh, Apple does the same thing.

Uh, it's pay for play.

Am I,

am I wrong?

Yeah.

I mean, I think.

You know, there's a long tradition of things like the Easter egg roll companies pitching in the money so that it's not taxpayers money going to pay for the Easter egg roll that said what's different is you know, Donald Trump is it sure seems that the Trump administration is pay to play and And that is

different

Yeah, indeed.

We're gonna take a quick break here and when we come back to know Jean's on the line It'll take her phone call quickly and then oh actually I see a new clock throws me off.

All right, Jean.

Let's go to Jean Eau Claire 8 5 5 7 5 2 4 8 4 2 Jean you got 45 seconds.

It's all yours my friend go ahead

Anyway, it's great show guys.

This is wonderful.

Um, I gotta say something on behalf of the young man that

chair of the democratic or you know but

you're david hall

you know he was in that shooting and he went to the capital and he was the one that was harassed by marty keeler green follow him around harassing them yelling at these kids who watch their classmates get floddered well you know it's not really played the way he's doing it however

He really cares.

And so I want to support all young people and their voices.

I'm up against the clock, Gene.

Would you be OK if David Hogg put in $5 million against Mark Polkan and Glenn Moore?

Well, I would have something to say about that.

Yes, I would, you know?

Yeah, you know, I get what you're saying, the money, the money.

So I appreciate the call, Gene.

I'm up against the clock.

Come on back.

What's worse is next on Pacific Media's radio network.

I have a sad story to tell you It may hurt your feelings a bit Last night when I walked into my bathroom I stepped in a big pile of shaving cream Lean ice and cling

Shave every day and you'll always look king.

Welcome back to the Todd Hall Paul Show on the Civic Media Ready Network.

Twenty-two now past the hour of three o'clock.

Tribby Olson joins us from our nation's Capital Zombers.

That's a triggering song for me.

Yeah, I guess I know that.

I should not do

that.

The short version is back years ago.

In high school, I worked at W.R.C.O.

Richland Center, now part of Civic Media.

My colleague Phil Knee, who still has the great show, those were the days, every Saturday night from six until midnight, played that song called Shaving Cream.

And our owner, Peter Thales, came back.

And in those days, everybody smoked, at least Pete did.

And he came back and he goes,

Say I was driving back from Madison and Todd played this song and he knew what they were gonna say and Phil says he was what what a guy feel me he goes That was me.

He goes you played it never again So I never played that song but feel me.

All right time once again here.

We go for what's worse.

Let's

go

Time once again for what's worse, no prize money involved, nothing to give away, but it is your chance to have your voice heard across all 11 stations in the Civic Media News Sports Talk Network.

Glad to have you along.

Trigby Olsen stayed around for this.

It's a great category today.

Category today, timely, timely indeed.

What's worse?

Shaving or flossing.

Thus the song that Zomers played.

What's worse?

Shaving.

or flossing, 855-752-4842, 855-752-4842.

What's worse, shaving or flossing, you can also text us on the Civic Media app.

Trigvielson, shaving or flossing, what's worse?

Flossing.

Not even, didn't even think about it.

But it's more important than shaving.

Well, yeah, I think that's

probably true.

That is definitely true,

right?

Now are you one when you go to the dentist hygentist dental hygentist and You know, they'll say well, you really should fly every time that you really should floss more Or are you are you are you a pretty frequent flosser?

The I I am a pretty frequent flosser, but I I am not a fan of

flossing at all.

You don't

like it, but you do.

All right.

Yeah, you just kind of have to.

I'm less a fan of shaving in a way, but flossing, you have to do.

Well, you and I both wear beards both the time.

I've worn a beard for the last two years, over plus three years, probably.

Incidentally, I'm terrified of dentists.

Are you really?

I

have a great.

I had a really

bad experience.

I broke it.

My front tooth playing hockey.

Surprise,

surprise.

Chris listening on W R C E in Blue River says shaving is worse.

I floss every day shaving only what I absolutely has to have to Casper one of our great engineers here in Madison on MDX says shaving ouch I have sensitive skin.

I didn't know that about Casper.

He has sensitive skin.

I

didn't know that either.

Snowflake

Cam in Appleton says shaving.

I don't have to floss my rear end.

Does he shave his rear end?

I don't get the point of that one.

Christie listening on WCFW, the tap in Eau Claire says flossing is worse.

You have to stick your fingers in your mouth.

Okay, okay.

I have to ask a question about this.

How how do you do that?

How do you how do you floss using actual floss?

I only use floss picks because I could not you wrap it around your finger

They go one finger kind of inside your mouth the one the outside you go back and forth.

I don't know I just I never got the hang of that I was like this is so weird, and I I don't think

I

have ever successfully flossed with normal floss All right,

well in our day domers.

We didn't have your fancy I know we were lucky to have

fishing line to use to

pick our teeth.

Back in our day, we killed a deer and used the tendon as a piece of floss, and we liked it that way.

What's worse, shaving or flossing?

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

Matt Middleton on MDX says shaving is worse as I'm still learning to work my beard facial hair and it takes some effort as flossing is easy.

Chris listening on WMDX in Madison says flossing way worse.

Shaving is ritualistic.

Almost cathartic, but flossing is intrusive at a chore and while important the results of flossing aren't as noticeable as shaving is.

Oh, that's a good point.

Uh, Casper says back to Trig V. Get off my lawn, Trig V.

That's fantastic.

Uh, Megan in some prairie on WMDX says shaving is worse.

It's way more time consuming than flossing.

And if I don't floss only the dentist notices not shaving often enough is uncomfortable.

All right.

Uh, Tyler up in Columbia County on MDX says shaving is worse.

Water flossers work well.

With how my teeth are plus the pre-made flossers take the pain out.

Well, there you go.

I to Zomers point I use both I use the pick the floss pick and I also use the regular old floss line or whatever to call it Zomers what's worse flossing or shaving shaving.

I'm never gonna cut myself flossing I Would I would say for me I would say flossing this probably worse just because it just I don't know it takes time to get in there and do it right

or shaming is pretty straightforward for me.

Trigvie, did you have a definitive answer?

I did.

Oh, yeah.

That's right.

That's

right.

We started out that way.

Seems like the audience is pretty split on this one, too.

Yeah, it's a split.

All right.

Well, come on back.

We'll have another edition of What's Worst Tomorrow here in the new time slot.

Trigvie, we'll talk to you next week.

Enjoy the draft, my friend.

You think it's going to be a wide receiver in the first round?

I know.

I might have to call in on Friday, maybe.

I

don't

know.

We'll see.

We could have a little review.

We're going to... Brady

Ewing's going to be here, I think, on Friday, for an NFL player talking about that.

Oh, yeah.

Should be a good time to talk about

that.

Probably be picking Wisconsin to beat Alabama

again next year, too.

Trevor Yoles, everybody.

Appreciate it, my friend.

Stay tuned.

Matt Salomon is next on the 50th anniversary of Saturday Night Live.

Come on

back.

Shave every day and you'll always look keen.

It's Saturday Night Live!

With...

Michael Chang!

Welcome back to the Tell All Ball Show.

I wish it were a Saturday at live story disappointing.

The 35 minutes now past the hour of three o'clock on the Civic Media Ready Network here on a Wednesday.

Gonna get to a little bit of SNL reflection in a moment, but at 35 past the hour.

Quick update for you on Wisconsin Roadways.

One major accident to report to you, particularly for our listeners at WBZH up in Hayward.

If you were looking to go on Highway 27 out of Hayward North,

find an alternative route.

Wisconsin DOT reporting at this hour that Wisconsin 27 north of Camp Eastmore Road, all lanes are now blocked and closed due to a crash there.

So again, this is north of Hayward on Highway 27, both north and south lanes.

The road is completely shut down due to a major crash there on Highway 27.

north of Hayward.

On the opposite end of the state, there are several slowdowns right now, kind of basically normal drive time traffic for this afternoon in the greater Milwaukee area.

Highway 41 north and south right now, north of Interstate 94.

That is going slow right now.

And also, as we zoom in here, I-43 going south as well towards from Shorewood down to Milwaukee.

That is pretty slow going right now as well.

We'll keep you

up to date on any other major accidents that become available due to the 511wi.gov site.

36 now past three o'clock.

We are pleased to have our next guest back on the show.

He is from the great publication of Cracked.com.

He is Matt Salomon.

Matt, thanks for coming back on High and Ben.

I'm

good.

Hurry up.

I am doing fantastic.

It's great to have you on our music our intro music there was the theme of Saturday Night Live Celebrating the 50th anniversary thereof and being 55 myself I don't really I kind of sort of I guess for members some of the earlier episodes my mom and dad watched it a lot in the 70s and

And I'm not sure why they let a kid up that late was the one on Saturday.

But I remember John Blushy and, you know, Gilda Radner and some of those early people that later on Steve Martin.

And then kind of my prime viewing for me personally of Saturday at Live, one of the or the era that I probably is fixed in my head the most kind of the Dana Carvey years.

I mean, those were I think those were really, really well written.

But, you know, guys earlier like Chevy Chase, of course, he was only on what for one season?

Chevy Chase are more

one season.

Well, yeah, he was on a couple episodes of season two, but essentially a once one and done.

But

but I mean, still, you know, his invitation of President Ford and and, you know, the weekend update and things.

But but somebody iconic memories for for guys and gals my age.

And I guess now as we are here at the 50th anniversary, one of the questions is, A, is the show relevant?

And B, how is it held up?

And how is the 50th anniversary going?

And here to talk about all of that, because you've written this great column at Crack.com.

You know, when you were talking about the Dana Carby cast, it was kind of your cast.

There's a cliche about SNL that

Everyone's favorite cast is the cast that was on when they were about 12, 13, 14 years old.

Those were the glory days for everyone.

So is, you know, to your point about is the show relevant?

It still gets makes a lot of money for NBC.

It still gets some of the best ratings in late night.

It's still like

they had the webby awards yesterday I think and SNL cleaned up at the webby awards for all the stuff they do on social media and tiktok and so I don't think it's as relevant as it's ever been but man the people I think any show that lasts 50 years is relevant to me and just in terms of

of longevity.

It's not the star maker that it used to be, for sure.

But I think in a fractured media environment, it's about as relevant as it, as anything can be, I think.

Let's talk a bit about the Lord Michaels, the executive producer of the show.

Talk about relevant in the star maker.

Not only has he overseen this show for the majority of its 50 years, but

But here's a guy who from, you know, Wisconsin's own Chris Farley, and he could go right down the list from there.

Uh, uh, David Spade, other people were, went on to, to either television or, or movie careers that were due a large part to Lord Michaels.

Yeah.

I mean, I think that's why he can.

When we talk about being relevant, that's why he continues to have the influence that he does because he's been a kingmaker for 50 years.

I mean, you, even the guys that you've, you've talked about, so the Belichie and the Chevy Chase and the David Spades and the Chris Farley, those are all 20th century people.

But, you know, in, in this century, the, the Bill Haters and the Tina Faes and the Will Ferrells and, um, Kristen Wiggs, um, it's.

it's just remarked, you know, and then he's, and then he's, you know, got this farm system now where he's completely taken over late night and Jimmy Fallon moves from Mastinel into the Tonight Show spot in Seth Meyers moves from Weekend Update into the Late Show spot.

He's got a big footprint and he has a lot of influence.

He knows, you know, I

I think if you're, if you're, how can you be like a 40 year old NBC executive and not look at this guy and be like, geez, this guy has been like, uh, anointing people since well before I was born.

Um, but, you know, to that point, he's also, uh, you know, 80 ish and this, you know, I, I don't know how much longer it can go on.

Who's the, who's the heir apparent, you think?

He see what you know, the funny thing is about this time last year He was making noise like I'm gonna get to the party I'm gonna get to I'm gonna stay on until I get to that SNL 50 party and then I'm gonna get on my horse and right off into the sunset and the closer it got I think the more he was like Jesus is this is

i get a good table right when i get when i go to the nice restaurant and uh you know all of a sudden he's not so ready to let go of the reins um he seemed to have anointed Tina Fey last year and to me there's only there's two people that make sense it's Tina Fey and Seth Meyers they both um were head writers on the show

They both were performers on the show, and they both have run their own shows that were extremely successful.

Seth Meyers, executive producing his late night show, and Tina Fey with 30 Rock and all of her ancillary, other things.

They're just the trifecta of people that the current cast would respect because they killed his performers.

amazing writers and they've been amazing producers.

So those are the only two names to me that check all the boxes and are also still young enough that you're not turning over the keys to somebody that you're going to have to replace 10 years down the line.

Anyways, so if I were going to go on one of the online betting sites that we can't use here in the state of Wisconsin, my money would be on Tina Fey.

We'll see.

We'll see.

I get the sense he's got at least one more year in him.

I don't think he's ready to step down, but I don't know.

I mean, did

you watch?

Go ahead.

Yeah, I don't I thought he was ready to step down.

But man, everyone inside that building is like, nope, he's kind of settled into that chair and he's not ready to he's not ready to go.

He's going to keep munching that popcorn at his desk for.

Did you I'm sure you did but the I watched the 50th anniversary special the prime time special for SNL and I have to

tell you in a

half hours Yes, I did watch all of it and I went into it with trepidation because I'm like, is this going to be a little cringe worthy?

Yeah, what's your take because I thought wow that was actually More well done than I thought it might be