The Whole World Is Still Laughing At Us (Hour 1)

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.

and streaming worldwide on the Civic Media app.

Good afternoon, everybody.

Todd Alba, along with Mr. Aaron Zammerer, our producer and engineer.

It is Wednesday, the 21st, what's the wrong with me?

The 24th of September, 2025.

Get it together.

Come on, Alba.

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

Pump Day?

That's right.

It must be the change of weather or something.

I don't know.

Little cloudy skies here at the World Headquarters of Civic Media, Downtown Madison, the intersection of State Street and Fairchild.

Glad to have you along with us, Zomers.

I know I'm caffeinated today because you, me, and the wonderful Intel to Luke Mathers, we had some coffee earlier.

We

just got you some caffeine.

Yes, I should be I should be more the show is only gonna get better from here coming up a little bit later in our number two your chance to win in civic medias

green or gold,

I'm

sorry, green and gold, text to win contest, I've already messed it up.

Also, what's worse, big cars or little cars, we'll discuss that, but first on Wednesdays, as we do every Wednesday, joining us from the Tony suburbs of our nation's capital, the senior advisor of the TrigVee, of the TrigVee Lincoln Project, TrigVee Olson, and joining us from Lake Wissota, the leading Democratic candidate

for the 7th Congressional District of Wisconsin, Pat Craitlow.

No, no.

Now, again, based on everything that has happened over the last three minutes, let's put it in the disclaimer, the views expressed by Todd Alba do not necessarily reflect reality.

Welcome, guys.

But seriously, yesterday we happened on the show, we broke the news yesterday.

Tom Tiffany, the current incumbent Republican congressman in Northern Wisconsin is going to run for governor of the state of Wisconsin.

Pat, you've run for Congress once before in all seriousness.

Would you consider doing this?

You're in the district.

If nominated, I will not accept, and if elected, I will not serve.

Absolutely

not.

I have had many good chapters in my life, including that run for Congress in the 7th District in 2012, but that was, as they say, a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.

And now I get the honor, the privilege, and the relaxing by comparison job of talking about these things and providing

encouragement and guidance and information to others along the way.

I respect your, I respect your decision, but Trig Wilson, you've run a lot of campaigns over the years, and I know we, you know, especially you, pick on Pat, good, naturally, but let's just for a moment be serious.

Former Democrat state senator of Northern Wisconsin, a long time.

media personality, television personality, radio personality, his

wife,

his wife is an OBGYN and a great quaff of hair for a candidate.

I think this is the type of candidate Democrats should be running, Trigby.

Yeah, reasonable common sense.

He's got the whole package to contrast with Van Odd one.

Well, but he's in the third

district.

You know, you got to run in Tiffany's district.

Yeah, actually, you know, no, no.

Listen, think about all the legacy people.

There are Pat, like me, who saw you when we were in middle school on W. E. A. U. And now get to be on the radio with you.

I thought I thought he'd be nice today.

I thought he'd be happy.

No, I was your first mistake.

That would be a fantastic candidate in Wisconsin seven.

Yeah.

All right.

So you're saying it's not going to happen, Pat.

I'm, I'm not even saying there's a chance.

Nope.

All right.

Nope.

Uh,

so,

uh, why do you want to get rid of me

like this?

No, no, no, no.

We love you.

I love having you here.

I, I just, you know, uh, Zombers has something to clip.

We're just got a voice message from Troy and Mount Horrib.

Oh, sorry for Mount Horrib.

Ooh, that run, that run.

Look at that.

The people

are calling in

back.

that's a public outcry.

I mean, my goodness.

Try one thing I would say.

Thank you.

I

know.

Thank you, Troy.

Appreciate that very much.

The closest thing that I would say in any form of seriousness, and it's not even that serious.

But I often think of how my life might be a little different if instead of choosing to live in Chippewa Falls and Chippewa County in this mostly red area, what if I had chosen to live in Eau Claire when we moved back to this area 30 years ago?

And, you know, solidly democratic area.

I mean, who knows what I'd be doing right now.

If I weren't in office, what would I be doing right now?

I'd be getting set to run against.

Mr. Van Orden, because he is such an embarrassment to Wisconsin, to the state, to the First Amendment, it turned out, this week, but...

Yeah, up here.

I'm very happy where I am on

like a soda.

I made a good choice.

We're very happy to have you as a part of the network and on the part of the career news service, up North News, of course, Mornings at Pat Crite Low.

You do a great job.

I'm just saying that with all seriousness, as, as, as Trevi said, you're the type of candidate I think could win.

I wish the Democrats would nominate more people like you, uh, to run.

And, and, uh, I think you're a great model.

More

people like me out there, to be honest.

Exactly.

I looked around like Pat Crite

Low.

And we're a better world for it.

Enjoy my one of a kindness.

We certainly do.

All right, let's get to the governor's race.

As we said, Tom Tiffany is now in on the Republican side.

We covered it earlier this week.

And by the way,

Pat Trigby and I do not make a Bill Berrien thrupple, but Bill Berrien, the Republican candidate, one of the Republican candidates, got himself in some hot water, great column by Dan Bice and the journal Sentinel that Mr. Berrien, he does not deny this, subscribes to some, shall we say adult content on the internet that enjoys a good thrupple.

And he claims that, well, they're just coming after me.

So things got a little...

on the Republican side, on the Democratic side.

We had state representative Francesca Hong here.

Madison, get in.

There's the latest entry.

Pat, what's your latest take a year out from the

governor's race in Wisconsin?

I was going to say, from this far out, it's hard to say.

Obviously, the Republican side, I think, just got a lot easier.

Tom Tiffany has from now until next August to, on the one hand,

assure people who vote in the Republican primary that he's their guy.

But then he has all this time to figure out now, after the primary, how do I convince the rest of these folks outside the seventh congressional district that I'm normal, and that I'm not so far to the right, you can barely see me on the spectrum.

Because that's where Tom Tiffany actually is.

He you know, he's against women's reproductive choices.

He's for, you know, concealed carry weapons everywhere.

He there's not an

open-pit mind in northern Wisconsin that he wouldn't support, the list goes on and on.

So he is, although he is a congressman, although he will be well-funded, he is in many ways a dream candidate that you want running for governor if you're a Democrat.

This guy will be very easy to paint in the extreme ways that he is up to and including

going along with Donald Trump's efforts to overturn the presidential election to overthrow the results, to ignore the will of the voters.

He voted to reject electoral college votes even after the riots of January 6th.

They came back to the to the Capitol and he was still willing to go along with

that Donald Trump coup.

So for so many reasons, welcome to the race.

And I can't wait to see what you do for employment after November of 2026, because it will not be governor.

Trig V. Olsen, former Republican like

myself, a River Falls boy, has run campaigns here in Wisconsin, but of course has run national elections of help run them for people like John McCain and others.

Trig V, from a national perspective, Wisconsin continues to be the fulcrum point for politics.

Nationally, how is this race being seen this far out?

You know, I mean, Wisconsin is always on everybody's radar screen because it's

the ultimate purple state.

I think right now, you know, most national people are just sort of taking the temperature of how the two fields are going to shake out.

Democrats seem to be adding candidates pretty much regularly.

The Republican field really, as Pat likes to point out, is about a race to get the nomination of one from outside the state of Wisconsin.

I think Pat's point about Tiffany, though, what Tiffany may find out is the entire state of Wisconsin is not the seventh congressional district in terms of how its politics look at all.

And, you know, Tiffany's candidacy, if he ultimately is the nominee, he's not Tommy Thompson, you know?

He I would argue and Scott Walker was not a particular Scott Walker certainly wasn't the candidate that Tommy Thompson was in terms of politics and campaigning

I don't think Tom Tiffany's campaign skills are Scott Walker's good either.

So there's the real potential that he makes Tim Michaels look like Ronald Reagan or John Kennedy.

And if I may, an example that has just come up in the last few minutes, Matt Smith over at WISN TV has interviewed Congressman Tiffany for the upfront program coming this next weekend, has already released an excerpt of it.

And again, Tom Tiffany, who is as far

to the right, extremist on abortion rights says they come.

It's fun to watch him tap dancing on this where he says about current law versus a six-week ban that he has supported in the past on abortion.

His quote is, I'd have to evaluate it, but it's not my goal to change anything.

Well, that puts that to bed.

There's no way Tom Giffney will sign a bill if it's put in front of him to instill a six-week

Abortion ban in the state of Wisconsin.

That's sarcasm.

Let's go to the phone phones very quickly Matt in Madison calling listening on WM DX Matt you any a question regarding Democratic messaging go ahead

Hey guys, thanks for what you're doing kind of for all of you What I kind of see big picture-wise with MAGA the people that are behind Trump financially and whatnot the tech pros they're kind of

They I think they see progress that China and other countries are making that are beating us now in certain ways and Instead of competing with that or trying to become a 21st century economy and system they're trying to regress back to some magical time when Maybe a few people had everything and they had more control, but it's all about control So I'm wondering if a good message for those of us that don't want that is to kind of

decentralize as much as possible and push local economics, locally sourced economies, working with border states, because I feel that the totalitarianism, the dystopia that we don't want is more about centralized power, everything coming top down, all the economic decisions, so on and so forth.

Right.

I appreciate the call, Matt.

Thank you very much,

Pat.

Do you get the inference of the question there?

Is what he's essentially saying, what I'm getting out of that is Republicans, this is no longer Ronald Reagan's party that warned you about big government.

When he's warning of totalitarianism at the Trump level, he's saying what we've been saying now for months, they want to be big government.

They want to control everything.

They want to control who the talk show hosts are.

It's gotten to that level.

And of course, the trampoline of rights that they used to always be the ones to warn us about.

They warned us about big government becoming big brother.

That's exactly what they want to be now.

Travee, 30 seconds.

Yeah, I mean, I just think we, you know, it isn't really about the messaging, but.

If you look at the period right after the Industrial Revolution, when people like Rockefeller and Carnegie and all those people made vast sums of money and you look at what's happened since the tech revolution, right?

There's sort of a cycle to this about 30 years after that happens, those guys try and do everything they can to protect and consolidate their wealth through government because they're worried about competition.

And that's really what we're seeing right now.

The brains of Pat and Trigvie continue on with us here

on

the other side.

Trigvie and Todd.

Freeze Company

2!

You can eat crackers in my bed anytime.

Baby, you can kick off all the covers in the middle of the night.

You can sleep with the window open wide.

Do anything as long as you're by my side.

You can eat crackers in my bed anytime.

The best bumper music of this calendar year.

courtesy of Pat Kratlow's deep knowledge of Barton Barber Mandrell's playlist and zomber, speedy fingers.

You can eat crackers in my bed as the name of the song.

That's the name of the

song.

Well, the name of the

song is crackers.

Oh, crackers.

Yeah.

The sentiment is there.

Yeah.

Look, I didn't say country music's come a long way since 1979, 1980.

Well, over

the break for those watching on the stream on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, X and the like, Trigvie said that he enjoys a good saltine in bed.

Is that true,

Trigvie?

Well, I.

I usually have my six saltines before I go to bed.

Six.

Sometimes if I'm reading all.

Where did the six saltines come from?

Is that like a doctor's prescription or?

You know what?

The thing is I was doing that maybe about six, eight months ago.

I was I was making my pickled herring and cheddar cheese on saltines before bed.

And I thought, oh my god, I've become my old man.

You

are like the Geico commercial becoming your parents.

Somewhere he's looking down on me and

he's just like, oh man.

I'm just imagining the doctor going, well, you're losing your blandness.

So I'm going to prescribe you some saltines here.

All right.

Enough of three crackers talking about old man problems.

Let's let's go to politics quickly.

And Pat, you've been doing a great job.

A morning is packed quite low every morning from six until nine, holding Republican Congressman in the third district, Derek Van Orton, accountable.

I do want to play this.

And yes, it was put out by the NRCC, but it's a real clip very quickly.

The Democratic endorsed candidate Rebecca Cook at a town hall meeting.

speaking about who she, the question was, who do you support in the New York city mayor's race?

And

then the applause goes from there.

So, so Democratic.

What did she say?

Mondom, Mondami.

Oh,

okay.

Zora Mondami, the Democrat who is, is facing

The other is Cuomo is still in this thing.

I don't know.

Cuomo is apparently still in this thing.

My point is that that I just think it's one of Trigby has his seven rules for dealing authoritarianism.

And one of them is don't give your opponent's battering rams with which to beat you.

And Pat.

I just think the answer is, look, I'm not running for New York City mayor.

I'm running for third congressional district.

I'm a lot more interested in what the mayor of La Crosse has to say, or Mayor Todd Copper at all, Richland Center, than anything else.

And why would you put that out there?

I mean, even like,

Ikeem Jeffries isn't even endorsing this guy.

I know, which is funny because, I mean, that's the guy that I would support, but I'm not running for anything right now.

And if I were running in a district like that and I simply didn't want it to be an issue,

I mean, I don't know how she would phrase it, but in my cranky old-mannedness, I would just simply say about the New York's mayor's race, don't know, don't care.

You know, there's too much to do here, you know?

I,

try to be, again, I don't want to spend too much time on this, but just messaging, it's just why.

I

don't know.

It's not smart.

I mean, what do you want me to tell you?

No, no, it just I get frustrated

real easy way to answer that I care about who's the mayor of Tomah?

Not who's the mayor of New York?

I care who's the mayor of home and not mayor of New York, right?

It's gonna do

it.

I mean, literally she wrote an attack ad.

Right.

I can think of it here.

I don't think the whole thing has legs overall, but

You know, I think I think

it'll come back in the in the general and people will say, oh my gosh, anyway, let's not spend too much time on that.

I want to one thing has gone under reported.

I'm not spending enough time talking about this.

The government going to shut down in less than a week, unless something can be done out in Washington, D.C., packed quite low.

Once again, we find ourselves a crossroad.

And if they can't pass this, these spending bills as budget in D.C., people in Wisconsin are going to be

hurt.

They're they will be hurt a shutdown always hurts people and Donald Trump is counting on that and counting on Democrats to cave to say, okay Well, we don't want people hurting but here's the thing people are gonna be hurting anyway Because of the big bloated boondoggle that they passed earlier this year So now the Democrats have a little bit of leverage because Republicans can't get their act together and pass a budget by themselves They got to have some Democratic votes Democrats are saying hey, we got a little leverage.

You got to put some of these healthcare cuts

back and Donald Trump to his credit put that in quotation marks he's now owning the shutdown he posted something uh today or late yesterday forget what and it's all about him i'm not talking to the democrats you know i he basically is cheerleading for the shutdown

And he's got such a short memory of how the shutdown during his first term completely blew up in his face.

He is constantly the coyote in the Roadrunner cartoons.

When it comes to this kind of thing, go ahead and do it again.

But at some point, he's going to say something where he claims victory, but some of those health care cuts are going to be restored.

90 seconds, Trigley.

The shutdown, I mean, I hate to say this, but I think the Democrats will blink.

where I think it's going to

go.

That's fair.

I'm not going to fault you for saying that.

It's happened enough times.

I just think they will.

Yeah.

I mean, I have zero confidence that they're going to take it to the mat.

Yeah.

Now, there's no Joe Manchin.

There's no Kirsten Sinema.

So I don't know who would play those roles this time.

I'm not saying there's I don't think Schumer can do it this time around.

I think that there was just way too much grief from the last time.

So if Democrats cave, it's going to be a handful of Joe Manchin wannabes.

And at that point, I'm just going to crawl under a rock.

Well, don't do that.

We don't we want to hear you.

You know, I think it just gets frustrating for the average Wisconsinite that says, hey, my son, my daughter, my spouse is in the military.

They need to get paid.

I don't care what those people do in D.C.

But I got bills to pay back here in Wisconsin.

It's people trying

to get their social security payment.

Oh, Trump.

So Trump, Mr. Art of the Deal, craft a deal.

Let's go.

Right.

Yeah.

Where's the deal?

Pat, 30

seconds.

What's on tomorrow morning's edition?

You're here.

Right there in beautiful Madison and looking forward to seeing everybody and I don't know, maybe asking for a raise.

Ask for more

from me, too.

I might have guessed, too, but I mean, I'm going to be down here.

I might as well get something down.

I love it.

Pat Craylow-Demoral from 6 until 9.

Thank you, Pat.

I appreciate it.

Come on back with Triggy and I after this on the Civic Media Already Network.

on the St.

Croix River, even in autumn.

Catch him in his board shorts.

When he's back in Wisconsin, he is the senior advisor to the Lincoln Project, a owner of the Green Bay Packers of a beautiful Green Bay, Wisconsin, and joins us from Washington, D.C.

Trig V. Olsen, senior advisor to the Lincoln Project.

Will you ever water skier back in your day?

Did you water ski?

Was.

I knew you were.

Shell Lake.

But by the way, thank you for he triggered me to surprise guest appearance last week on Friday Well, we had Bill McCosh in here talking about the Jamesville

jets.

I appreciate you doing for Billy.

Yeah Yeah, I mean so much respect for Bill and what he's done for the hockey community in the state of Wisconsin It was it was really great to get to talk to him.

Yeah, I really was a guy appreciate you come on great person

and You know just proves that we cannot not

Not always agree politically, but still agree that great things can be done together for our youth and for the state of Wisconsin.

So thanks to

Bill, thanks to you.

Probably.

I mean, here's the thing with Bill, right?

Where you disagree, you find common ground.

I mean, Tim Cullen would speak to that.

Yeah.

If you're still around to speak.

Yeah.

But he did speak to it.

I mean.

on this show.

Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely.

There was a guy who wears green and gold, man, not red or blue.

Absolutely.

Barb and Deerfield.

Blaze Orange, come the season.

Exactly.

Barb and Deerfield, listening in on the program.

Wanted to talk about earlier, we talked about Congressman Tom Tiffany, Republican of Wisconsin, getting in the gubernatorial race.

Barb, thanks for listening in.

What do you want to say?

Thanks.

Hi.

Yeah, I heard him on your show yesterday and I was a bit incensed.

Did you hear him when he said that schools in Wisconsin are, you know, failing and were as bad as Mississippi?

And he stressed that and I could not help but be incensed about it.

I'm a retired teacher.

And it took me if I'm wrong, didn't he help act 10?

Oh, yes.

Pass.

And of course, the result of that.

as you know, with, you know, demoralizing, demonizing teachers and making the whole thing very shaky.

So, oh my gosh, how could he?

No, I appreciate calling him.

But first, Barb, I come from a family of educators, and so thank you for what you've done and for teaching young people.

I really appreciate that.

And you're absolutely right.

He just, he gets it wrong.

And Trigby, we've talked about this on this show.

It's difficult to vote for someone when what they bring to the table is doom and gloom.

I mean, Tommy Thompson, it used to be that Tommy Thompson's Republican would, you know, talk about, you know, and of course, this is a campaign stump speech, but you know, oh, geez, you know, Democrats get up and they suck on lemons and eat grapefruit for breakfast and go around the sour look on their face.

They're always so down.

Isn't it great to be a Republican?

And now you get to Barb's point, now you got guys like Tom Tiffany going around the state, all the world is terrible or the worst state in the country, like Mississippi, which just isn't true, by the way.

And I think it's going to be hard for Wisconsinites to get behind someone who just has a campaign platform of a litany of votes.

Yeah, I mean, I think that's the case.

I think the other thing is and people forget this, you know.

as it relates to Tommy, and what I always think about is what was happening back when I was working in and around that world in the early 90s, and it was like, okay, we got a reform welfare.

The first thing Tommy did is went and reached out to people in Milwaukee, or the Milwaukee schools were failing, right?

So he went to work with Democrats, Paul Williams, Gary George.

What do you think?

What can we do?

Right, reached out across the aisle.

If you look at Act 10, for example, and the reality is there were some legitimate issues that needed to be solved, but Scott Walker made the determination, which is not surprising if you were at Badger Boys State and you know that Scott Walker's been running for governor his entire life, to be somebody, not to do things.

But that notwithstanding, instead of reaching out and saying, how do we work together?

Instead of reaching out to reasonable people like Tim Cullen and saying, hey, who worked in Tommy's administration?

How do we fix these things?

Reaching out to the teachers union Morris Andrews Scott Walker made a conscious decision to to go about it and say I'm gonna Enraged Democrats and I'll get on Fox News and I can use that to run for president because I've been doing that since Badge Boys State Running for president in the United States.

Well, most of us were trying to meet nice girls from the Ripon College Which was the more normal thing I think for a sophomore junior in high school, but whatever so

It's that contrast that that is key and Tom Tiffany is gonna be a guy who like Derek Van Orden or some of these others really isn't about doing things to help the people of the district They might say that but what they're really about is the the being a congressman being on Fox News being at the event at the White House in the

paved over Rose Garden, which has got to have a lot of other presidents flipping over in their grave, right?

Yeah, like and and I think that's really Tom Tiffany.

I don't hear solutions.

I don't hear how he's going to work together in a green and gold spirit of Wisconsin.

I hear him running to be red team.

Yeah, it's just like I say, it's a

litany of woes.

Speaking of a litany of woes.

Our president.

of the United States, Donald J. Trump was at the United Nations building in New York City yesterday for the annual annual get together of the UN and Trump gave a speech.

I remember last time he was there, he got laughed at.

Remember that when he when he said, I've, you know, I've accomplished more than any president in history.

And the whole room laughed.

He looked up and he goes, that wasn't really supposed to be a joke.

Now, much more serious tone yesterday, we played some of this.

Let's do the first one where he goes off about the building, about the building, and the fact that he claims that he wanted to build it differently.

Here's Donald Trump, the president of the United States before world leaders, and this was his message.

And we have others that we're working on, and you know that.

Many years ago, a very successful real estate developer in New York, known as Donald J. Trump,

I bid on the renovation and rebuilding of this very United Nations complex.

I remember it so well.

I said at the time that I would do it for $500 million rebuilding everything.

It would be beautiful.

I used to talk about I'm going to give you marble floors.

They're going to give you terrazza.

I'm going to give you the best of everything.

You're going to have mahogany walls.

They're going to give you plastic.

So

he carries on, and this goes on for a long time, this litany of how I could have built the United Nations, built him better and cheaper.

But if that wasn't enough, if that didn't offend people enough, don't worry, Donald Trump said, hold my beer.

Do

you have to end it now?

Let's see, I can tell you.

I'm really good at this stuff.

Your countries are going to hell.

In America, we've taken bold action to swiftly shut down uncontrolled migration.

He looks right at people, the leaders of these countries, and says, your countries are going to hell.

As Sean Thoreau, I believe the Washington Post put this on X yesterday, quote, a senior foreign diplomat posted at the UN texted me, quote,

This man is stark raving mad.

Do Americans not see how embarrassing this is?

Unquote.

Trigvier a man of the world.

Thoughts?

They're laughing at him.

Yeah, they're laughing at him.

And in particular, what and us and what's really disconcerting about it.

Well, there's two camps.

There's those who are looking at it really sad.

Those

who are our allies, many of whom.

are thinking about, you know, a litany of presidents who help build the free world into what it was.

Reagan, Roosevelt, Kennedy.

All of them, really.

And they're looking at this and they're like, oh, my God, what has happened?

And then you have G and Putin and the Mullahs in Iran and the North Koreans.

And they're they're just laughing at them.

They can't believe they're good luck because.

quite frankly, it's always about him and he lives in it.

It's pretty delusional.

And to be honest, Todd, what's scary about the entire thing, it's scary what's happening in the U.S.

for a lot of people.

But to me, what's really scary is when you start look at how Xi and Putin, these guys are going to respond.

They're going to.

This is how you end up in.

humanity ends up in catastrophic conflict.

Other than that,

Mrs. Lincoln,

how is the play?

It is.

I mean, it just is.

And you're seeing it play out with what the Chinese are doing in and around Taiwan.

They're thinking about it.

Putin is thinking about.

There's drones going into the to NATO territory, planes flying into NATO territory.

We are in an incredibly precarious position because our allies are unsure of of us and our enemies.

And and I get for a lot of people living in Beaver Dam or in Tom Tiffany's district or whatever, it's hard for them to grasp this.

But, you know, as I've said before, if Vladimir Putin could.

be doing in Beaver Dam or Superior or whatever what he's doing in Ukraine he would be and the potential for miscalculation with somebody who is

as volatile as Donald Trump and the chaos and the disruption that some of his backers think, oh, we're disruptors.

Elon Musk, I'm a disruptor.

What do you want to disrupt?

Peace and prosperity in a world of nuclear weapons?

Is that really something you want to disrupt?

We're talking with Trivia Olsen, Senior Advisor at The Lincoln Project.

If you're new to the show, Trivia has fought authoritarianism, particularly in Eastern Europe.

Happens to be this is real only person that I know who is banned from Russia by Vladimir Putin himself because of speaking out Through his work with John McCain and on his own so I mean that's why I always appreciate your perspective even though sometimes quite frankly it Unnerves me because I know that you've seen this stuff firsthand and as we said earlier You have the seven rules for dealing with authoritarianism based on dealing with authoritarianism

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

Let's go quickly up to Eau Claire, WCFW The Tap Jean, and Eau Claire Jean, what do you

got?

Hi guys, great show as usual.

Thank you Triggy.

This is, I was watching it live and the way he was insulting everybody there.

and the way he was talking in his think-song way and having delusions of grandeur and promoting himself and seeing, you know, how great he was.

I mean, this is alarming.

I mean, psychiatrists and psychologists and therapists and people who make diagnosis, I'm sure, were thinking, oh my god, we're in big trouble.

And the people around him, the people around him, those senators and congressmen,

and his advisors, they're doing a big disservice here by letting this continue because this is really destructive to our country and to the world.

So thank you, Trigby, for saying that.

Really appreciate it.

Keep up the great work, guys.

Bye.

Thanks, Gene.

Really appreciate it.

Trigby, you have one minute left.

Well, I mean, you know,

Here's the thing.

This is the irony of it, too.

Have you seen all the postmortem?

You know, like they know they stepped in it.

So

now it's

about an escalator making it so the teleprompter didn't work.

But that actually kind of makes it worse because the reality is what he was up there unscripted.

He was saying who he is and what he really thinks.

Yeah.

It's just incredibly, incredibly naive, dangerous, and quite frankly, in some cases, just batshit.

Yeah, that

crap crazy.

Yeah, exactly.

That crap crazy.

It is.

We'll keep an eye on it and continue to report on it when we come back.

Dr. Oz, Petal Aiden from the White House.

And also, we'll hear from the owner of the Green Bay Packers.

How can you lose to the Cleveland Browns?

Tree View will tell us how after this.

Don't go anywhere.

It's the all ball show on the Civic Media already network.

Welcome

back to the tellable show this civic media radio network eight minutes for the hour of three o'clock hour number two Goal for the green and gold text-to-wind contest coming up at our two will give you the

secret word next hour, coming up also a what's worse for you and more.

We're talking about Jimmy Kimmel coming back last night as well.

I know Jane and Greg talked about it on their show.

We'll talk a little bit more about it hour two here than Keegan Kelly.

From crack.com great entertainment reporter gonna talk to us a little bit about on his take on Kimmel coming back last night on ABC and what it means for free speech entertainment and late night Moving forward right now.

We're joined by senior advisors the Lincoln Project River Falls native hockey dad extraordinaire and owner of a robotic vacuum trick the Wilson

Joins us from Washington DC.

A robotic vacuum.

Lots of people own robotic vacuums.

But do they name theirs?

Yours

is named.

I think you have to name it.

I don't know.

We named ours Cookie.

I can't remember what my friends named theirs, but the name that's sticking in my head is Ezekiel.

Oh, that's a good one.

I think I told this story before, but there was a time when I drove Uber for about a year.

Great experience, by the way.

And I was doing, right, I was picking up kids down, you know, you kids, I always took kids.

I love taking people to the bar, but I didn't I quit driving before bar time.

I don't want to, I don't want to bar front of my truck.

So I picked up this, I don't know what it was, 21, probably your old guy and his girlfriend.

And they got in really fun couple.

And he goes, dude, sweet ride.

You know, Dodge Ram Uber that goes, what's her name?

And I'm like, I don't know.

I don't.

I don't.

You don't.

You didn't name her.

Dude, you got a name.

Like I name everything like my cactus in the home.

Like I name everything.

So, you know,

trick me, named his vacuum cookie.

So you want to know something funny, Todd?

Sure.

So as you know, I've been working on this project.

Yes.

Anyway, we can't

talk

about it

yet.

I can't talk about it yet, but I built this tool and I'm going down to Dallas with my daughter to see the package playing.

It just so happens our lawyers are down in Dallas like VIP lawyers and whatever.

And they've been kind of using the tool.

And so we built out a full prototype of what it can be.

And I'm going to show it to them and they're going to give feedback and whatever.

And I had to name it.

the guy who's working for me.

He's, yeah, he's out in Seattle, but he's, he's a packed fan too, because his parents are Wisconsin people, good friends of mine from long ago.

Anyway, so we had to name it.

He's like, what should we call it?

And I said, let's call it the Micah Parsons Project.

So I'm going down there and I've got, I'm going to have eight partners from this big time law firm.

And I'm going to, they're all excited to see it.

And it, it opens with the thing calling it the Micah Parsons Project.

Is that going to help you at Dallas or hurt you?

I don't think it's funny.

Yeah, I mean, these are first rate lawyers.

They're used to sticking the knife in people.

So I'm pretty sure they're also a huge cowboy fan.

So I think

I'm going

to be tailgating with them.

They might they might poison my barbecue or my lone star beer and Kyle will have to watch me go down.

Don't say that.

Good God.

Oh, they won't do.

We got to get to Mark real quick in the phone line.

But first, I mean, Trigby, is this just an anomaly?

of the Browns last week, are we gonna be okay?

Tell me we're gonna be okay as the owner of the packers.

I think we're gonna be fine.

I mean, you know, I...

Listen, our defense is really good.

I did not realize that Cleveland's defense was that

good.

They're

good.

Like their front four man is like, they look like the 85 bears.

It didn't help that Zach Tom went down either.

But yeah, I think they're legit.

Here's the more important thing.

I didn't happen to catch it.

Man, the Badgers have got problems.

Major.

You

gotta think that McIntosh and the coach.

All right.

But it's going to cost him so much money to get rid of him.

You wonder if it's McIntosh whose, whose head's going to go on the block.

Yeah.

We talked about it for a half hour plus yesterday.

And yeah, the Badgers have, I mean, I jokingly said at the start of this season, because the over under of Badger wins was five and a half.

I took the under and I said, I predicted that McIntosh, the AD athletic director and fickle head coach would be gone by the end of the year.

And Chancellor Mnuchin would tab.

Former head coach and athletic director Barry Alvarez to coach the team last game of the season in Minnesota to get the ax away from the Goffs.

I was only half joking, but that may be much closer to being reality than I thought.

Let's go to the phone lines quickly.

Mark, you have about a minute.

If you can get it in, Mark, go ahead.

Yeah, I think I actually knew Bill McCosh and sister in high school.

I think she was a year behind me.

Oh, Marianne.

And Maureen, yeah, she was, she was.

she was a sweetheart she was um... you should be playing for the bumper music for him you should be playing with the ballad of Billy Joe and Bobby Sue because Billy Mack was a detective down in texas but i mean for for for a little mister tiffani i mean that the reason he committed against the state of wisconsin and not certifying that election and not condemning the insurrection and actually not condemning the pardon of the insurrectionist is just unforgivable it's completely unpardonable and uh...

You know that I hope he you know comes in I hope he gets his head served to him when he comes in for the election

Yeah, appreciate the call mark.

Thank you very much.

Yep.

Thank you They

need to be yeah, really we got to be careful about that they need to be forcing him to though I wouldn't spend a lot of time forcing him to talk about that I would spend a lot of time forcing him to talk about

uh, free speech, I would spend, make him spend a lot of time talking about public schools and where and how he feels.

I would, I would really try and force him into conversations about specifics and what makes Wisconsin great because he is going to struggle talking about that in an articulate way that resonates with the people he needs to resonate with to win.

Yeah, totally agree.

Trivi, always a pleasure.

Always feel better after talking to you.

Hope you have a good, uh, flight down to, uh, Dallas.

Tell them with the Micah Parsons project.

That's fantastic.

I will have a good time.

Todd, you need to circle back on me.

I've got the answer for you to the question that you posed to me earlier.

So if you reach back out to me after we'll get it taken.

Absolutely.

After the show, as they say, come on back.

We'll talk a little bit about shows.

Jimmy Kimmel was back of air last night and your chance to win in the green and gold text to win contest after this on the civic media radio network.

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.

and streaming worldwide on the Civic Media app.

Good afternoon, everybody.

Ta-da!

Along with Mr. Aaron Zummerz on the board.

It is six minutes past the hour of three o'clock.

Welcome to hour number two of the big broadcast here on Wednesday, September 24th, 2025.

It is a great day to be a Wisconsinite, and it is... Pump Day!

That's right.

Reached it.

Middle of the week.

Glad to have you along with us.

My hair, what's left of my hair is a little messed up, by the way.

I was in the shower, and I just got out this morning, and Trigby called.

We were talking a little pregame show, and I wrapped a towel around myself, and I talked to him, and then I, for about 20 minutes, and then I dried off and got dressed and did things around the house.

Well, then I went to brush my teeth before I left the house.

I looked in the mirror.

I hadn't...

I hadn't dried my hair and it was standing up like Mr. Heatmeister from that old Christmas

animation.

He's Mr. Heatmeister, he's Mr. Sun.

It wasn't dramatic because I don't have a lot of hair to stand up.

I want to see if I can make my hair stand up.

Now you have a lot of hair.

For those of you who don't watch the stream, it is long hair and that standing straight up probably adds like a foot to my height or something.

At least.

Yeah, absolutely.

Many thanks to a Pat Crichtlow of Mornings of Pat Crichtlow.

He will be here in studio tomorrow.

That he will.

At the Old World headquarters doing his show and La Magnatune in tomorrow from six until nine long, Mr. Parker Olson, great producer that he is.

Now, Dom, Dom Lee.

Producer for John and Gordy here at MDX.

He was wearing a mask today feel a little and what a courteous guy he says I'm feeling under the weather and so not dramatic but just out of an abundance of caution as they say Was wearing up now those are kind

co-workers and he did a little bit of disinfecting when he left the studio Did he really yeah get it nice and clean so as to not get me ill We don't

want that.

Well Dom.

I hope you feel better soon my friend.

We gotta have people at full strength

here at the Old Civic Media World Headquarters.

Coming up here in just a minute, another edition of What's Worse for You, and gonna play you a couple more serious clips from Jimmy Kimmel Live last night.

Tomorrow, we're gonna be joined by Keegan Kelly of Cracked.com to talk about what this means for entertainment, for free speech, moving forward, so looking forward to that.

Also tomorrow on the show, time to recombobulate.

But a discombobulating few days and Dan Schaefer our political editor and founder of the recombobulation area will be here as well So that'll be a great show tomorrow.

It is a nine minutes now past the hour of three o'clock

Time once again for Civic Media's green and gold text-to-in multi-stake contest.

Up for grabs, $200 cash and gold jewelry to one lucky winner today.

Everyone will be entered in for the grand prize, which are two

club level indoor seats to Green Bay versus Minnesota for a Green Bay home game on November 23rd of this year at 12 noon.

You also get a gas card to get you to the game at home.

It is a $1,550 value.

Download the Civic Media app, open it up, go to one of the first 10 stations, click on it in the lower right hand corner.

It'll say text and now we'll give you the word.

This hour, the word to text in now is shine, S-H-I-N-E, shine.

The sun will shine on your face.

Again, S-H-I-N is a Nancy, E as an Edward.

The word again for the green and gold text to win multi-stake contest is shine, S-H-I-N-E.

You have until four o'clock until you text it in.

There you go.

the contest continues, as they say.

All right, now 10 minutes past the hour of three o'clock.

Before we do what's worse, wanna play a couple of cuts.

Jimmy Kimmel came back to ABC last night.

Colbert opened up was saying probably the only people watching this show is my wife, Evie, because everybody else is watching Jimmy Kimmel, which I thought that was nice of him.

I had that on my, I had Colbert on my phone on YouTube, but I had Jimmy Kimmel live on my TV watching.

And I thought it was a great balance.

Yes, he told some jokes and I know Jane and Greg on Matt Aaron air addressed this as well this morning.

But there was also a more serious side.

I think a lot of people were waiting to see how he was going to address this whole thing.

And we'll play some more tomorrow on.

He never technically apologized, but he basically said, hey, I get it.

If some people were offended by my remarks, if the tables were turned, I may have felt the same way.

And then he had a very poignant moment in the show.

And Jimmy Kimmel is naturally, if you've watched the show for any length of time, you know, he's a soft hearted person.

He's talked about his son when he was going through illness, when his uncle died, he used to appear on the show.

And, you know, he's a guy who gets very emotional.

And so it was real and it was raw last night.

Here is Jimmy Kimmel live last night on ABC, addressing Erica Kirk.

A moment over the weekend, a very beautiful moment.

I don't know if you saw this on Sunday.

Erica Kirk forgave the man who shot her husband.

She forgave him.

That is an example we should follow.

If you believe in the teachings of Jesus as I do, there it was.

That's it.

A selfless act of grace, forgiveness from a grieving widow,

It touched me deeply.

And I hope it touches many.

And if there's anything we should take from this tragedy to carry forward, I hope it can be that, not this.

So thank you for listening.

And I'll have more to say when we come back.

Jimmy Hill's monologue lasted most of the first half hour of the program last night.

And yes, there were some serious moments like the one we just played for you.

But Jimmy Kimmel also addressed the larger issue and had some jokes as well.

This is Jimmy Kimmel, a different part of the monologue talking and addressing specifically about being pulled from the

network.

fortunate to work at a company that has allowed me to do the show the way we want to do it for almost 23 years.

I've done almost 4,000 shows on ABC.

And over that time, the people who run this network have allowed me to evolve and to stretch the boundaries of what was once traditional for a late night talk show, even when it made them uncomfortable, which I

do a lot.

Every night they've defended my right to poke fun at our leaders and to advocate for subjects that I think are important by allowing me to use their platform and I'm very grateful for that.

With that said, I was not happy when they pulled me off the air on Wednesday.

I did not agree with that decision, and I told them that, and we had many conversations.

I shared my point of view.

They shared theirs.

We talked it through, and at the end, even though they didn't have to, they really didn't have to.

This is a giant company.

We have short attention spans, and I am a tiny part of the Disney Corporation.

They welcomed me back on the air, and I thank them for that.

Jimmy Kimmel last night on Jimmy Kimmel live now they tape this they don't they don't really do it live anymore.

They they they tape it the late afternoon and Before I guess before the taping actually happened in the afternoon.

So this did not make it or address it on air last night Donald Trump tweeted out the following on his true social quote I can't believe ABC fake news gave Jimmy Kimmel his job back

The White House was told by ABC that his show was canceled.

Something to happen between then and now because his audience is gone and his quote unquote talent was never there.

Why would they want someone back who does so poorly, who's not funny, who puts the network in jeopardy by playing 99% positive Democrat garbage?

He has yet another arm of the DNC into the best of my knowledge.

There would be a major legal campaign, illegal campaign contribution.

I think we're going to test ABC out on this.

Let's see how we do.

Last time I went, I went after them.

They gave me $16 million.

This one sounds even more lucrative.

A true bunch of losers let Jimmy Kimmel rot in his bad ratings, unquote, that is a direct quote from the true social account of the president of the United States.

Not exactly a

He was taken off for bad ratings.

Number one, he was not canceled.

He was put on an indefinite leave.

He was not fired.

But, you know, the manga folks, Trump likes to say, well, you know, we didn't, we didn't attack him for what he said.

It was his ratings.

But yet the president of the United States literally going after him personally, Jimmy Kimmel, on this.

Kimmel, as I said, that came out after Kimmel's.

show was taped and in the can.

But Kimmel did address the larger issue of silencing people from political purchase.

Catching in school.

But one thing I did learn from Lenny Bruce and George Carlin and Howard Stern is that a government threat to silence a comedian the president doesn't like is anti-American.

That's anti-American.

And I am so glad we have

Some solidarity on that from the right and the left and from those in the middle like Joe Rogan.

Maybe the silver lining from this is we found one thing we can agree on and maybe we'll even find another one.

Maybe we can get a little bit closer together.

We do agree on a lot of things.

We agree on keeping our children safe from guns, from reproductive rights for women, social security.

Affordable health care, pediatric cancer research.

These are all things that most Americans support.

Let's stop letting these politicians tell us what they want and tell them what we want.

Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy Kimmel Live, last night.

Mark, by the way, brings up a good point on the text line.

I ask you, how much free publicity did Trump get in 2016 during the campaign?

I remember that very well because I was at my first coffee shop and I was cleaning up every night.

We closed at seven o'clock.

I'd usually there until nine or 10.

And the old Don Lemon program on CNN had Trump on every, not every night, but several times a week for a half hour at a time.

You know under the auspices of an interview, but they were glorified campaign ads And I said at the time to my friends, you know the Democrats Hillary's making a huge mistake by not going on television and doing these ads because Trump's getting unlimited time pay their commercials And we all know what happened in 2016 it's a great point mark appreciate that all right 18 minutes past the hour three o'clock time once again to play what's worse.

Let's

go

The

choice is

yours.

You can get with this or you can get with that.

Time to get to play What's Worse.

No prize money involved.

Nothing to give away.

Just your chance to have your voice heard.

On all 10 news talk support stations of the Civic Media Radio Network.

Timely, timely indeed, a lot of people are going to be on the road so we can go to Apple Orchards.

Wherever you're going to go, get in the car.

And so the question today, category.

What's worse, big cars or little cars?

Big cars or little cars 8 5 5 7 5 2 4 8 4 2 8 5 5 7 5 2 4 8 4 2 or you could text us on the old civic media app big cars or little cars

Lots of ways to go.

Lots of ways to take that.

I guess gas mileage, safety, but whatever.

We'll come back and discuss it.

Take your calls.

Big cars or little cars.

What's worse?

855-752-4842.

855-752-4842.

You're listening to a hump day edition of The All Ball Show across Wisconsin on the Civic Media.

Ready number.

She said, baby, can't you see?

I want to be famous.

I startle to scream.

But you can do something in between.

Baby, you can drive my car.

Yes, I'm going to be a star.

Baby, you can drive my car.

And baby, I love you.

Welcome back to the Tell All About Show on the Civic Media Radio Network.

Love that song.

It's so good.

It gets you up and dancing.

All

right.

Rubber Soul is my favorite Beatles album.

Fantastic.

That one goes out to Jerry Paddy.

By the way.

By

the way.

Twenty-three minutes past the hour of three o'clock.

Glad to have you along on the All Ball Show and Civic Media.

Category for what's worse today.

Speaking of cars.

Big cars or little cars.

Big cars or little cars.

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

eight, five, five, seven, five, two, four, eight, four, two.

PJ watching on Facebook says big cars are worse.

They are harder, harder to park and less miles per gallon.

All right.

So there you go.

That's that's probably a big one.

We're probably going to hear that a lot.

Mary on the text line in Tosa says, by the way, listening on MDX, I'm assuming.

or MDX, AUK.

AUK in beautiful Wabatosa says, hands down, worse are the big vehicles, the 4x4s, SUVs, do the most tailgating bullies on the road.

I don't know.

I feel like I don't know if that's my experience.

I think those just usually make people angrier because they're more noticeable because the car is

Physically large.

I appreciate your listenership, Mary.

Beautiful town, Wauwatosa, by the way.

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

Let's go out and speak in a beautiful town.

Sussex, Wisconsin, where we find Gary.

Gary, big cars or little cars.

What's worse?

I like them both.

Like I have a Mercedes convertible I love that car.

I love driving around because I can find place to the park and then my work vehicle is a huge fan.

I love that so They're not neither one is the worst

but if

I had to round in one I would rather drive around in a large car for safety reasons why

See I feel you on that, but I'll tell my what later, but I think that's a great I think that's a great point I know you had something else you want to say about Kimmel go ahead

Yes You can tell a person's character on how they talk about somebody who's been murdered With their friends now obviously Todd you're a nice guy.

I like you I Think that you would never say anything bad or make jokes

About someone who has been murdered, you know, especially when he's so beloved by half of the people in this country I'm talking about really beloved Like almost for some people.

Yes.

I yes

for some people go ahead

for some okay now When when I'm not saying you guys, but I'm just saying the general public when you listen to Comics and you listen to some of the left media when they sit there and they talk about how

bad he is, you know, he wasn't a bad person.

He was a Christian man had, had beliefs.

Now, if I said that I think that abortion is wrong, that's my belief.

Now, would you, would you say that I'm spreading hate because I said abortions wrong?

Well, no, I wouldn't, I wouldn't say that's your opinion on, on that.

I don't, I don't want to go too far down the rabbit hole, but I think you bring up a good point, Gary, because I was with some, I was a lot of different people over the weekend actually.

And and two people I respect a lot, they had never heard or seen the Charlie Kirk podcast.

They had never seen some of these things where he went on and he went beyond stating his opinion on things where he said some things that were, in my opinion, hateful and hurtful to people.

And they never heard that.

And I think you bring up a good point that, yes, for a lot of people.

Kirk was beloved because they only heard the things where he talked about his faith and that's fine But there are also two coins to what he said in public and and I think that But you know, I think that's just being fair out there, but I guess what's your larger point with kill?

My larger point is I think that everybody has to tone things down and This kid that killed him is not a Democrat.

He's not a Republican.

He's just an insane person who is

who was pushed into doing this after hearing over and over again.

It's like Charles Manson.

He actually didn't kill anybody.

He really did.

But he told his girls to go out there and kill and kill and they did.

You know what I'm saying?

So I

think

I think I think we're I think we're an agreement on on the fact that I think everybody out there including myself can can work on making sure that we disseminate truth without doing it in a way that jins people up and makes it makes things worse out there.

Uh, did you watch any Kimmel last night, Gary?

Uh, yes.

I did and and I thought I thought he did fine I thought he did exactly what I expected him to do to save his job You know, I have employees My employees have a right to tell me their opinion, but if they started talking back sassing me or sitting there talking to my customers I'd fire them and I have that right and they're gonna go out there and say Oh, we have freedom of speech.

No, you don't not not not when you work for me you would you don't know

You work for me.

You keep your mouth shut.

You don't talk about politics to my customers.

And if you got an argument with them, I'd fire

them.

And it's an individual business person.

I agree with you.

You have that right to do that when they're quote unquote on the job.

I guess a larger discussion.

We're up against the clock here.

Got about a minute left.

I just think it's different when you have the sitting president of the United States and you have the FCC chair.

Even Ted Cruz came out and said that

car, the FCC chairman, compared car to a mafia boss.

You know, guys like Joe Rogan are out there on conservative radio saying, if you think that was okay, you're, I think he said, you're nuts.

You're crazy.

I don't want to misquote him.

So I think that's a difference, Gary.

It's not just an individual employer saying that.

It's the fact that this came from the government.

And I support free speech on all different forms.

That's my bottom line.

So, all right, Gary, appreciate the call.

Keep up between the lines out there, whether you're driving the big car or the little car.

That's the question.

We'll finish it up after this.

What's worse, big cars, little cars on the Civic Media Ready Network.

Pam Yankee and the Farm Report is next.

I've been doing it.

I'll come back to the title of all show on the Civic Media Radio Network.

Glad to have you along with it.

Zomers on the board.

Aaron Zomers, that is.

Finishing up our What's Worse category today.

What's worse?

Big cars or little cars?

Big cars or little cars?

855-752-4842.

855-752-4842.

Zomers.

Do you think we'll see Julie

Julie

and wass on thank you very much Julie and wass on the XEL big cars are worse They use more gas or resources take up more room in parking spaces Can't see around them when I'm trying to make a right turn next to them All right.

Well, that's a that's a that's a fair point Zombers Big car little

car between big car and little car.

I've caught more fish on big car

Oh, yeah, that's right.

Not the question.

So

up in Lake Tomahawk area, there's

two

lakes right next to each other called the Big Car, C-A-R-R, and Little Car Lakes.

Fun to fish on.

But actually, my real answer, I think I'm gonna have to say little cars are worse.

Now, I appreciate having a small car at the moment living in Madison because I just, the current lifestyle, I don't.

need any of the things that a large vehicle provides, be it towing capacity or the ability to, I don't know, bring around a drum set or extra people.

And so getting into small places in parking garage is very useful for me right now.

But if I had to pick only one, I would want a large vehicle because I want to be able to do those things.

Or if I'm moving.

And you don't have U-Hauls because there's no big cars.

Then how are you going to get your stuff?

I don't know.

I just think I value the utility pretty highly.

But you're still saying the big cars are

worse.

No, I'm saying little

cars are worse.

Our friend Gordy Kopke calling in from the town of Dunn outside of Oregon here in Dane County.

By the way, if you haven't gotten your fall mums yet, your fall gourds, get down to Kopke's greenhouse and get them.

Gordy on the line.

Gordy, thanks for calling in.