After enduring almost three months of the Trump-Musk agenda, Democrats finally gained a victory last week, after voters elected Democratic-backed judge Susan Crawford, defeating billionaire Elon Musk’s attempt to flip the court to conservative control. Musk spent $25 million on the race, and even handed out $1 million checks to Wisconsin voters during a rally for the Republican candidate, to no avail.
In this interview, Congressman Mark Pocan of Wisconsin joins Mehdi to discuss that victory, as well as Musk’s increasingly alarming role in US politics.
“People don't like him and didn't like him trying to buy an election – an outsider coming into Wisconsin like that,” Pocan says to Mehdi. “At the end of the day, this was people saying, ‘I don't like what's going on right now with the Trump-Musk agenda. And my only way to express that is to get out and vote in this April normally sleepy election.’”
Pocan slams Musk for showing “corruption to a degree we have not seen” – not only by spending millions of dollars on elections, but also for making decisions about federal funding despite his companies receiving their own funding from the US government.
This is a moment, Pocan says, “where billionaires are being seen as Dr. Evil type villains. They're not just making tons of money and paying little tax, they're also basically decimating the government.”
“He's [Musk] getting $8 million a day in federal contracts while the average person on social security is getting $65 a day and he is going to get even more with that CR that just passed,” the congressman tells Mehdi.
Mehdi also presses Pocan on the state of the Democratic Party after Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer – as well as nine other Democrats – allowed Trump’s spending bill to pass last month, causing outrage among Democratic lawmakers and voters.
“People are pissed, they're concerned, they are nervous. I am pissed and I am concerned and I'm nervous. And they want to know that we share the exact same feelings they have, and they want us to fight. And if we're not doing that, we're really not rising to the moment,” Pocan tells Mehdi.
Paid subscribers can watch the full interview to hear Mehdi ask Pocan whether or not Schumer should resign, what Pocan makes of Trump’s stock market crash, and if AIPAC is creating a disconnect between Democrats and their voters.
Free subscribers can watch a 6-minute preview. To watch the full interview, consider upgrading to a paid subscription.
