Shownotes Transcript
I'm Shannon Green. President Trump ramps up efforts to reshape decades of U.S. trade policy on a global scale.
This is the beginning of Liberation Day in America. With the speed bump for foreign and domestic carmakers and key tariff deadlines about to kick in, the stock market is taking notice. White House trade guru Peter Navarro joins us exclusively on the president's approach. Then we made a mistake. We're moving forward. There was a crime here. I plead guilty.
an intentional crime. Mounting calls for investigations and resignations after details of U.S. military strikes were unintentionally shared with a reporter. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, weighs in on Signalgate.
And it might be the might be the biggest revolution in government since the original revolution. Doge and the rest of the Trump agenda face their first major temperature checks in a highly contested judicial race in a key battleground at a pair of congressional special elections raise red flags in the Sunshine State. We'll discuss with Florida Congressman Byron Donalds, a Trump ally who just made his own campaign debut and with one of the candidates in Wisconsin's make or break judicial race. All right.
All right now on Fox News Sunday. Hello from Fox News in Washington. Let's start with a look at some of your headlines. Just two days after Friday's devastating 7.7 magnitude earthquake in Burma, the region was hit with a 5.1 aftershock this morning. Rescue workers have been struggling to reach victims, hampered in part by Burma's ongoing civil war. At last check, the death toll was at more than 1,600, with thousands more injured.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth wrapping up a trip to Japan today, calling America's ally, quote, an indispensable partner in deterring Chinese aggression. Japan has doubled its military spending, including money to buy longer range missiles. And check your tickets, Powerball players. One ticket sold in California hit the jackpot in last night's drawing, raking in an estimated $527 million before taxes. Winning ticket was sold at a 7-Eleven in Anaheim.
And those new 25% tariffs are set to go into effect Wednesday, targeting foreign cars and auto parts, along with an expected round of additional reciprocal tariffs kicking in this week as well. In a moment, we'll take a closer look at that with White House Senior Counselor for Trade and Manufacturing, Peter Navarro, and get reaction from Democratic Senator Mark Warner. But first, we turn to Lucas Tomlinson covering the president in Florida. Hey, Lucas.
Shannon, the Republican majority in the House is so small, President Trump has been forced to pull the nomination of his ambassador to the United Nations.
She's doing me a big favor. Congresswoman Elise Stefanik will remain in the House over concerns New York's Democratic governor will not hold a special election in a timely manner to replace her. I have been proud to be a team player. The president knows that. Right now, House Republicans have a narrow 218 to 213 majority with two special elections here in Florida on Tuesday.
Both GOP strongholds to replace Trump's national security advisor, Mike Waltz and Matt Gaetz, who withdrew from consideration to be Trump's attorney general. Randy Fine is the Republican nominee in Florida's 6th district, Waltz's old seat.
The race is tight, with fines four-point lead over Democratic challenger Josh Wheal within the margin of error. What we worry about is Republicans voting. In Florida's first congressional district, Jimmy Patronis is expected to win, despite massive fundraising from Democrats. They're outspending me seven to one. Dollars are coming in from all over the country.
Also on Tuesday, the most expensive judicial race in the nation's history for a seat on Wisconsin Supreme Court.
Some are pitting the race as Elon Musk versus George Soros, after tens of millions of dollars have poured in from both parties. Musk says the race might determine the fate of America. We're trying to stop the Democrats from gerrymandering Wisconsin to remove two House seats. One day after these elections, President Trump's new tariffs go into effect, what he's calling Liberation Day. But the details remain unclear.
In an interview Saturday, Trump said he's not concerned about U.S. car CEOs charging more to consumers, saying in part, quote, I couldn't care less if they raise prices because people are going to start buying American-made cars.
The stock market was down last week in anticipation of the tariff news. Shannon. All right. Lucas Tomlinson in Florida with the president. Thank you, Lucas. Joining us now, White House senior counselor for trade and manufacturing, Peter Navarro. Welcome to Fox News Sunday.
It's great to be here with you, Shannon. Okay, so let's start with those auto tariffs. 25% tariff kicking in on foreign-made autos and the auto parts that end up in U.S. cars. Investopedia says this. If dealerships pass on the full cost to consumers, that would mean an additional $5,000 to $15,000 on imported cars.
And because parts that are imported and end up in U.S. cars, they could go up substantially, some estimates by thousands of cars as well. You heard Lucas's reporting there where the president says he doesn't care if the prices go up on U.S. cars. So what's the message to the U.S. consumer?
The message is that tariffs are tax cuts. Tariffs are jobs. Tariffs are national security. Tariffs are great for America. Tariffs will make America great again. And Shannon, we have a couple of nice historical examples, I think, to give some comfort to your audience. I mean, first of all, during the first term,
When we imposed historic tariffs on China on steel and aluminum, the same people, Investopedia and on down, who were saying there was going to be inflation and recession, were dead wrong. We got price stability and we got prosperity, and we're going to get that again. But the interesting thing historically, and particularly for auto tariffs, it's up called the chicken tax. Let me tell you the history of this. Back in the 60s,
We had what was then West Germany and France raising tariffs on our chickens, our poultry. And Lyndon Johnson responded with what would be called the chicken tax, a tax on light trucks.
And we saw almost immediately that the imports here of Volkswagen vans, the old hippie van, started going down. And what happened was we had this just renaissance of light truck development. And then in 1980, when the Japanese were trying to dump light trucks into our market, President Carter raised that to 25 percent, which is exactly what President Trump is charging, 25 percent.
And everyone agrees, Shannon, everyone agrees that light truck tariff, that chicken tax, was the best thing that ever happened to the auto industry. It basically has created a beautiful industry. I want to clarify, chickens aside, when you say a tax cut, how exactly is that going to work? If you're talking about credits for people who are buying new cars.
cars, those kinds of things. Millions of Americans are not looking to buy new cars, but they are worried about the thousands that are estimated to turn up in their everyday costs for things because the tariff cost has to be passed on by these importers somewhere. Well, all right, let's work through the economics of this. First of all, we're going to raise about $100 billion in
with the auto tariffs alone. What we're going to do is in the new tax bill that has to pass, it absolutely has to pass, we're going to provide tax benefits, tax credits to the people who buy American cars. This is a genius thing that President Trump promised on the campaign trail.
So that's going to happen. In addition, the other tariffs are going to raise about $600 billion a year, about $6 trillion over a 10-year period. And we're going to have tax cuts. It's the biggest tax cut in American history for the middle class, for the blue-collar deplorables.
And that is going to, if you look at this, but basically holistically, as they say, consumers and Americans are going to be better off, including all the jobs they get. And then you have gasoline. I don't know if you know this, Shannon, but during the Biden administration, gasoline prices were close to 40 percent higher, a full dollar higher. If you take a working family,
And you add that a dollar off, if we get our gas prices down, that's more than $1,000 in their pockets.
Here's the problem. It's a national security problem, and it goes something like this. We've got 16 million cars we buy every year. Half of those, half of those are imported with virtually no American content. And the other half, Shannon, 50 percent of that is foreign content. And it even gets worse because what the Germans and the Japanese and the South Koreans are doing
is they're turning this country from a manufacturing nation into an assembly nation. What the Germans and Japanese do is they send us the most important high-value-added, high-wage parts of the car here for us to assemble. Nineteen percent, only 19 percent of the cars we drive here and buy each year have American engines and transmissions.
Germany and Japan alone account for 50% of that. So what we're trying to do is get back our manufacturing capability. But let me tell you where the average American is about this. And I know you said you want to reassure them, but our recent polling shows that people believe that tariffs on imports are going to make their products more expensive. 69% believe that. And they think
that it's actually going to hurt the U.S. economy and hurt U.S. jobs. That's according to our polling. So what do you say to people who say, listen, we hired the president to make the economy better, to make things cheaper. They believe the economists, the analysis that show these prices are going to show up somewhere. And President Trump himself has said there's going to be some disruption in the short term because of these tariffs.
Trust in Trump. We have the example from the first term. We know that we imposed historically high tariffs on China. We imposed aluminum and steel tariffs. We imposed on washing machines, on solar. And all we got out of that, Shannon, all we got out of that was prosperity and price stability. And the reason why we're not going to see inflation is because the foreigners
are going to eat most of it. They have to. We're the biggest market in the world, Shannon.
And they have to be here. They have to be here. And so they're going to cut their prices to absorb that. But the bigger picture here, the bigger picture here is restoring the American manufacturing base. We don't have that. We're an assembly thing. You remember, look, something called the Arsenal democracy back in World War II. That was how we beat the Japanese and the Germans with our military might. When Patton went to Berlin, it was with trucks, trucks.
jeeps and tanks that were made in the auto plants of the Midwest. And right now, the only thing that looks like the Midwest back then is Mexico. You go across the diaspora of cities in Mexico, there's football field size, 50 football field size assembly plants that are down there making the engines for here. We can't do that. The Germans and the Japanese and South Koreans are
And the Mexicans have taken our manufacturing capabilities. So we've got to get that back. We're going to do it in a way which is going to protect American consumers and create jobs for American workers. There's going to be over a million new jobs created in the greater auto industry. This week they roll out, and then we will see the reality as it plays out. We've got your prediction. And, Peter, come back once we have a few more months of these tariffs kicking in. Appreciate your time.
Great to be with you, Shannon. OK, so we bring in now Senator Mark Warner, Virginia Democrat, who also is the ranking member on the Intel Committee. And we'll get to some of those conversations. So let's start here with tariffs, because this week, the president of the United Auto Workers, Sean Fain, praised these tariffs, saying we applaud the Trump administration for stepping up to end the free trade disaster that has devastated working class communities for decades.
Reuters also reporting that India is open to cutting to tariffs. It would be the biggest cut in years aimed at fending off the reciprocal tariffs, which come in addition to the auto. And we've talked about the success the president has had when it comes to Mexico, getting their cooperation on the southern border in light of the threat of tariffs. So do you give him some credit for how some of these things are working? What I would let's go back to what your previous guest, Mr. Navarro, was talking about. One hundred billion dollars they're going to collect from auto buyers. Six hundred billion.
from the other tariffs. That is a tax. That money doesn't come falling out of the sky. That money comes because these products will go up, Americans will pay more. The idea that they hired this president to bring down costs
And you've got the market crashing because they think the tariffs are stupid. Selective tariffs? Absolutely. Across the board, we're talking $700 billion tax. The American people get it. Your own survey pointed that out. And the curious thing about Navarro was he's talking about tariffs in the first Trump administration. He should have looked a little bit more at history. I think they were called the Smoot-Hawley tariffs.
In the 1920s, that policy led to the Depression. Now, God willing, what Trump's doing is not going to lead the same place,
But it insults the intelligence, the American people, when he's saying the government's going to collect $700 billion a year. And somehow that's not going to show up. Well, what about the idea that it will bring American jobs back? I mean, that obviously is the cudgel here. You want to get them back on shore. Sean Fain also talking about that this morning on another network, saying there are all of these operations that have moved to Mexico, but there are plants here that are idled.
they could quickly move them back, or it's going to prevent some of the people who are thinking, these companies, about moving to Mexico. So those are American jobs, and that makes a difference. If we are going to say Americans are going to be willing to pay more for every good, beyond even the tariffs, because, listen, I'd love everything to be built right here in America, but there are cost reasons that component parts are built elsewhere. So if you want to bring this all back and...
This will be, in effect, higher cost on top of the tariffs. That's where you've got to weigh these things. The notion that we had trading partners where one country might be better than another in certain goods. Remember, we sell a whole lot of military equipment because we do the best on that. Although some of that now is even being rethought as America seems to be
turning so against our allies. I mean, America first should not mean America alone. And that's why I'm afraid we're headed. What about these concessions, though, India, Mexico and others and even Canada, other countries that are coming in saying like, whoa, whoa, whoa, when they hear what the president is throwing out, they are willing to make deals and concede territory and do things that are actually good for the American economy. Again, you said it to your last guest. Wednesday is
whatever they're calling it, Liberation Day, Tax Day, Wednesday is the beginning of $700 billion that Americans will pay to pay for these tariffs. If suddenly the rest of the world surrenders and says, okay, we're going to give up on all of this, fair point. We'll see. The other side will be, no, we're going to go ahead and jack up tariffs even more. And let's take a relationship like I thought we'd never could get in such a bad status with Canada. Mm-hmm.
I mean, the Canadian prime minister, the new guy, Mark Carney, said our relations with America will never be the same. They did have a call after that. And President Trump seemed to indicate that they had a good conversation. And he said after the election, they're going to talk about possible changes to the tariffs for Canada as well. All I can say is when Trump threatened to kick Canada out of the five eyes in terms of information sharing,
when the new prime minister says our relationship with America will never be the same. Again, you may think that's fine. I think getting in a trade and goes beyond trade war kind of insult contest
with our longest long-term ally, Canada. I think that's a mistake. Okay. While you're here, I want to ask you about this too, because there's been a lot of conversation about the Democrat party being quote in disarray. Who's running the show? Who's leading it? Is it progressives? It isn't the old guard. Politico says this, quoting your colleague, Senator Fetterman, if we don't get our bleep together, then we are going to be in a
permanent minority. Democrats are deeply fractured, rudderless and struggling to figure out at the most basic level what their message and strategy should be. Gavin Newsom this weekend said, we talk down to people, we talk past people. The Democratic brand is toxic.
I believe we've got to do a better job of connecting people where they're at. And that means not just through Sunday morning news shows, but it does mean a lot more social media. I think I want to be part of a Democratic Party that's forward-looking, that's pro-growth,
That's based in the idea that we can make anything in America and do anything. And part of that means acknowledge where we've made mistakes. The Democrats have been way too much on the overregulation side. It shouldn't take five years to get a new project started. But what I think is going to so I think we there will be an affirmative Democratic message. But what we saw this past week, Shannon, was the first time.
I think, since the second Trump inaugural, where the Democrats were on offense because of the repeated, sloppy, careless approach to classified information. The fact that they put
Someone they didn't know who was who he was, this journalist on a classified call where discussions were going on about an attack on the hoodies, specific time type of equipment. And I can just tell you, I was down in Hampton Roads. This is around Norfolk, Virginia, yesterday, two town halls.
The aircraft carrier Truman is the aircraft carrier that is deployed to the Mediterranean where the jets were took off that attacked the Houthis. That was home ported in Norfolk. So I was with friends and families of folks on the Truman. They were so angry because there had been such sloppiness because if that information had gotten out and the Houthis hadn't been able to redirect their defensive activities,
chances are we would have lost American lives. And that kind of careless approach, that kind of repeated pattern, we've had them give up CIA names, they gave up, frankly, the full budget and headcount of a classified organization. They continue to do this, especially with the Doge Boys. I don't know if that's just sloppy or malicious. But this pattern of not treating classified information with appropriate respect and recognizing that people's lives depend on this
This is the time, this past week, as I think is the first time the Democrats have been able to really push at something that an overwhelming number of Americans realize is a mistake the way these guys have handled this. Was CIA Director Ratcliffe wrong in saying that Signal is approved for government use for these conversations? You've used Signal. Oh, absolutely. For sensitive information. Yes, Signal is better.
than your normal cell phone. The Chinese through salt typhoon have penetrated most of our traditional telephone networks or wireless networks. But if you read any intelligence,
Our intelligence community has said the bad guys, China and Russia, are trying to penetrate signal. And one of the things, I use it, but I would never have a classified conversation. They maintain it wasn't classified. Senator Blumenthal says it was criminal. But I mean, if this is information that they say is not classified and that that is a approved use, that app, criminal? This was so inappropriate. This was so sloppy.
You know, you signal fine. Don't put classified information on it. If this had been any military officer or intelligence officer and they'd done that, they'd be fired immediately.
Let me just again point out, at least in public reporting, look at how upset the Israelis are because it appears that part of the classified information they were giving up in this call included stuff we'd gotten from Israel. That was in public reporting. The fact is countries don't have to share their intel with us. We lose that. If it's America alone, then we are not we are made less safe.
So we know that there's a bipartisan call in the Senate for the inspector general at the Defense Department to look into this. So we're going to track that. As we know, the administration says the team is sticking together and they're moving on. We'll see what could be just could be at least acknowledge this. Let's at least get the phones that were used and make sure there's no malware. Yeah. And it sounds like a judge has asked for preservation of those messages as well.
We've got to get the phones, got to check for malware. Bad guys can do a lot of stuff with our devices. We have to be safer. Senator, thank you. Always good to see you. Thank you. Up next, the heads of National Public Radio and PBS in the hot seat in Congress this week confronted with past statements.
and positions they often seem eager to distance themselves from. This time as they face potential Doge cuts. Our Sunday panel is here to weigh in, and we hear firsthand from Elon Musk and some of his Doge team. Plus, I'll take you down to the Tidal Basin in D.C. for a stroll around the iconic Cherry Blossom. This program is brought to you by Charles Schwab. Own your tomorrow.
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can be done without affecting any of the critical government services. Ilhan Mosk and the Doge team looking to reassure Americans as they carry out sweeping cuts to the federal workforce and polls show a lukewarm reception from the public, at least about how it's being done. Let's talk about it now with our Sunday group, Wall Street Journal White House reporter Annie Linsky.
Mark Thiessen, American Enterprise Institute resident fellow, Fox News senior political analyst Juan Williams, and Howard Kurtz, host of Media Buzz. Welcome, everyone. I don't know how much of the interviews you guys got to see with Brett Baier and Elon Musk and the Doge folks, but very interesting and sort of a different group, Mark, than I think a lot of people think. I thought these guys were going to be showing up in hoodies and be all 19 years old.
And then when you hear from these guys who are very successful, very wealthy businessmen in their own right, maybe the Doge team should have had them out there sooner, making the case about we're bringing our business acumen to something we think will serve the country. Yeah, it's a great collection of people. And look, Elon Musk said during that interview that this is the greatest revolution in American government since the American Revolution. This has the potential to be the greatest partnership between a president,
and an inventor since George Washington and Benjamin Franklin. To have somebody like Elon Musk, who thinks outside the box, who isn't held by conventional wisdom, a guy who makes the impossible possible, like landing a rocket, putting him in charge of reinventing government, and cutting a trillion dollars
Out of our of our spending. I mean, that's a that's a 70 30 issue. The Harvard Caps poll shows 70 percent of Americans want to cut a trillion dollars out of federal spending. He may be taking a little bit of more of a hatchet than a than a than a than a scalpel. Chainsaw was on his way. But the goal is right. And this gets to our Fox News polling, because, again, people believe there is a ton of government waste and they want to see it go. But here are a couple of our polls.
Elon Musk's job performance on working with Doze, 58% disapproval. And then do they think that not enough concern has gone into planning the government spending cuts? 65% say yes. So, Annie.
You know, you may have them on the underlying issue, but you're losing them on the execution. Yeah. And I really do think that was the power of the Brett Barrett's interview last week is you had, you know, this collection of people, you know, to Mark's point, who are so impressive and you're seeing the adults in the room. I mean, you aren't seeing the kids and the kids exist and the kids are real and are smarter than all of us. Yes.
But, you know, they have they have the adults in the room. And and I think that was a good look. But they were also there. I hate to use the word messaging, but their messaging was different. I mean, they were talking about how impressive this cabinet is and how the cabinets, how they're working with the cabinet. And, you know, I've reported on this. Others have reported on this. There have been clashes behind the scenes with the cabinets.
But they were showing a different face and they were showing, you know, that that this is getting solved potentially. But they were also talking about federal workers a little differently, too. They weren't, you know, casting them as all lazy and wasteful. But saying, you know, which I think is a little closer to the truth, that there are some people who, you know, perhaps are not working as hard, but that there are others who are high performers and who the country needs. So there may be some redundancies.
Yes. It seemed like from what they had specific examples of that. And they were, you know, they were talking about it in a very, you know, adult fashion. And I think that was a shift that was necessary. One of the places that may be headed for some Doge cuts and PR and also PBS, there are CEOs more on Capitol Hill this week. Here's a bit if it if you missed the hearing.
Is it up to you and NPR to crack down on bad information or decide the truth? Answer the question. Yes or no, Ms. Moore? Absolutely not. I'm a very strong believer in free speech. Why did you call President Trump a fascist and a deranged racist sociopath in 2020? Congressman, I appreciate the opportunity to address this. I regret those tweets. I would not tweet them again today. Howie, there's some awkward moments.
Yes, there were. Look, President Trump has made clear he wants to get rid of federal funding for NPR and PBS. That may be a little harder than you might think. I mean, these were both created in 1970 when there was no Internet, otherwise known as a series of tubes, and people weren't getting information on their phones. At the same time, when you get out from the toxic Beltway atmosphere...
It's pretty popular out in what I call the real America. For example, New Pew survey says 43 percent favor continued federal funding. This is particularly true in rural areas. And 33 percent are not sure. Twenty four percent say no. And if I could just circle back for one minute to the Doge budget cuts, Brett Baer told me this was the most streamed program in the history of special reports.
but for Elon Musk to say he's going to save a trillion dollars, I don't usually make predictions. I'm a shy and retiring guy. But as the impact is starting to be felt at places like HHS and all of these other cutbacks, Social Security, that's going to be very hard to do. Juan, you are not shy and retiring.
Thank you. That's true. That's my calling card. I think when I think about Musk and Doge, I do think about the chainsaw he's brandishing. And yesterday was supposed to be big Tesla protest, Shannon. And you think about this, you know, there's so many people saying, oh, we have to we shouldn't allow vandals. Nobody supports vandalism.
I'm not nobody. I don't support vandalism. Not you. I hope you don't. But, I mean, Musk is no victim. He's the richest man in the world, loves to diminish and demean people on his X platform. He's offering money to stir up voter turnout in Wisconsin. He has damaged the brand by becoming such a high-profile player in terms of a polarized political atmosphere. I think...
All these cuts in government reform, it should be a chip shot. It should be a layup. So many Americans say, yeah, who likes bureaucrats? Who likes bureaucracy? Until you get down to the details. Right, but high-handed chopping, that's what I'm getting to, Howie. If you just start chopping and you take away jobs and you celebrate people losing jobs, I think a lot of Americans just think, what happened to lower egg prices?
You don't want one, though? You have them now. Inflation, tariffs, and the signal gate, the way you put the military in danger, I think people think this is out of control. We've got to go. But pay-per-view during the commercial. Don't be back. Don't go too far. But first up, Congressman Byron Donald setting his sights on the Florida governor's mansion. I'm here to announce my candidacy to be the next governor of the great state of Florida. He's with us live next.
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Florida Congressman Byron Donalds has officially kicked off his campaign to become the Sunshine State's next governor, and he's already scored President Trump's coveted endorsement. Congressman Donalds joins us now. Welcome back.
Good to be back with you. Good morning, Shannon. Okay, I want to get to your race, but first these two House races in Florida this week, closer than Republicans would like them to be in the race to fill Mike Walsh's open seat. Florida politics says this, the polls show that the special election is within the margin of error. Wall Street Journal is recording that Democrats say you are in full-blown panic mode, meaning Republicans. Why is that race so close?
Well, look, special elections are always different. Democrats obviously are highly motivated because they took a shellacking last November. They don't like Doge. They don't like that Donald Trump is making America great again. And so they're going to the polls as long as Republicans turn out in Congressional District six in Florida, which, by the way, the voting reports from the last couple of days show.
show that Republican votes are surging in that congressional district. But as long as Republican voters get to the polls and vote, they're going to be just fine. And I'll be remiss if I don't add the Supreme Court race going on in Wisconsin. Same dynamic. Democrat voters, because of their dramatic losses last November, they're motivated. Republican voters, we have to get to the polls. We've got to show up and vote in Wisconsin for the Supreme Court race. And in Florida, Congressional District 6 votes.
congressional district one republican voters have to turn out they got to show up election days tuesday and if you want donald trump to be successful in his mission to make america great again republicans have to continue to go to the polls yeah we've got one of the judges in that wisconsin race coming up in just a little bit in the show to look at that as well part of this this week the concern about what's going on in the house and the makeup there we've got a chart to put up for folks just to see how close this is there are four seats
They're empty for various reasons, but otherwise the GOP can't afford to lose anyone. Elise Stefanik, congresswoman out of New York, her ambassadorship nomination, which was smoothing, you know, smoothly sailing through, that has now been pulled. And Politico says this, it now leaves unaccompanied.
Leaving that seat at the U.N. unoccupied risks weakening America's position at a global institution that many countries turn to for everything from financial assistance to airing grievances. Are you worried about the lack of a strong voice at the U.N. for the U.S. because of that?
I'm not as concerned about it right now. And listen, I want to thank Elise for making that decision to stay in the House for a little while longer. I would fully anticipate that she's going to find her way to the administration sometime soon. But I think when it comes to the U.N. in particular, we have a definite shift in
in leadership here in America. Donald Trump and his team, from a foreign policy perspective, are infinitely better than the previous administration. It's really not even a comparison. So I think even though we don't have a U.N. ambassador at this point, that does not leave a vacuum where America's strength and America's leadership is somehow not on the world stage. You can clearly see that America is leading once again because President Trump's back in office.
So let's talk about your race there in my home state in Florida. You've praised Governor DeSantis. You actually stood with him in some really tough moments and defended him. You said you'd like to pick his brain and win over his support or endorsement. Still talk that his wife, Casey, may get into the race. What do you think your odds are of getting that endorsement?
Oh, well, look, I would say they're pretty good. A lot depends on what's going to happen over the next couple of months. But listen, I'm a conservative before anything else. That's how I came into politics as a political activist in the Tea Party movement. So the last 15 years I've been in politics.
I've done everything from being on street corners, holding signs, knocking doors. When I was in the legislature, I defended constitutional rights. I've been a stalwart for parental choice and options when it comes to education. And in Congress, I've been really at the tip of the spear of battling the Democrats and some of the radical media outfits
on their own networks. So I think that my track record in the Republican conservative movement is something that lines up with Governor DeSantis. He has his own decisions to make. But as being successful in this race, being the state's next governor, my goal is to build on the foundation that he's laid and then step into the other things that Florida is going to have to accomplish, in my opinion, for the future of our state.
And you know, the minute that you officially announced the gloves come off. So there's this reporting from NBC News. They quote someone that they identify as a DeSantis aligned Republican operative saying this quote. I'm not sure he's ready for what's coming. I don't think he will be able to withstand the onslaught when a huge spotlight is put on his past. The article goes on to quote opponents of yours saying that you've never had the vetting of a really serious race. Your response.
My first response is I laugh. They weren't paying attention to my congressional primary in Southwest Florida, where $3 million of negative ads were spent against me trying to attack me in Southwest Florida, and I won that race. Secondarily, to any of my critics, let me just be very clear with you. I'm not going to be intimidated.
I know about everything that happened when I was 18 and 20 years old in my past. I made a lot of mistakes, Shannon. I don't shy away from them. They're part of my story. And if you look at who I am today, 46 years old, in Congress, having the support of Donald J. Trump, polling very well in the state of Florida, and my track record as a conservative in the movement who has fought in a lot of the major issues in this movement, been around the country standing up for conservative principles, common sense principles,
My critics are probably more upset about the fact that I'm here, but I'm not going anywhere. I'm not going to be intimidated. We're going to campaign for the future of Florida, not get caught up in petty Republican fights because somebody else wants to have their preferred candidate. Well, it's a long race, so we will cover it to the primary more than a year away and the general as well. Congressman Steve back here in D.C., thank you for your time.
Thank you. All right, we're going to take a deeper dive into those critical House races when the panel returns. Plus, that Wisconsin judicial race drawing nationwide attention. We've got one of the candidates next. The cherry blossoms are one of the most magical things about springtime in Washington, but there's an important historical story behind them. We'll tell you about it coming up. It's that time of year again.
This week, there are several special elections. Democrats say they are optimistic they can win. They predict voter backlash to President Trump's aggressive executive action two months into his second term. Now, one of these elections is technically nonpartisan, but there are clear ideological divisions. The race for a seat on Wisconsin's Supreme Court. We repeatedly invited both candidates to join us. Judge Brad Schimel accepted. I started by asking him why he thinks there's so much national attention on his race.
If you told me any of this 16 months when I first got into this race, I would have laughed. But what's happened is my opponent got caught by the New York Times, of all places, with an email that went out to national billionaire donors that said, come on to a Zoom call and we'll teach you how taking the Wisconsin Supreme Court can change two Republican congressional seats into Democrat congressional seats.
And then earlier in the week, last week, our House Minority Leader, Hakeem Jeffries, got caught saying the same thing, that we have to win this race because we can turn these Republican congressional seats into Democrat congressional seats. That has tipped off all this money. My opponent has gotten money from all across America, and four out of five of her donors don't even live in Wisconsin. Well, and you know her...
accusation back towards you is that there's a lot of money that's flowed in from Elon Musk and that he's got a case involving Tesla that could potentially come before the Wisconsin Supreme Court. I want to play a little bit of what she said in your debate that was earlier this month. It is no coincidence that Elon Musk started spending that money within days of Tesla filing a lawsuit in Wisconsin. He's trying to buy access and influence by buying himself a justice on the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
So how do you respond to that and would you recuse from a case involving Elon Musk given the amount of money he's poured into support efforts for your campaign? I don't control any of the spending from any outside group, whether it's Elon Musk or anyone else that has an organization spending money in this race.
I've run a 72-county race in Wisconsin. I've campaigned in every county for 16 months. I'm not running for anything for Elon Musk or any other person. And frankly, the only thing that anyone, including President Trump and his endorsement of my campaign...
All he asked of me was, Brad, do you reject activist judges? Are you going to follow the law? That's exactly what I've committed to anybody, whether it's President Trump, Elon Musk, or any donors or supporters or voters in Wisconsin. That's my commitment. And in terms of recusing, I'll look at the lawsuit. If I have a problem that I can't be objective in that case...
then I'll recuse from the case. I don't know what the lawsuit says right now. It deals with Wisconsin automobile franchising laws. It's interesting that I'm actually the one who defended Wisconsin law as attorney general, and I give a heavy presumption of constitutionality to Wisconsin statutes, which is what they're entitled to under the law. So if he's thinking he's supporting the person that's going to strike down statutes,
left and right, he's supporting the wrong candidate. Quickly, I want to ask you about your background as a prosecutor and a judge. Your opponent had this to say also at the debate. She said that you've given dozens of people convicted of crimes like domestic violence, sexual assault and abuse of children, short jail sentences or no jail sentences at all.
And she said many of them went on to re-offend. Can you quickly answer that? Yeah, here's a new thing. Liberals lying in campaigns. My opponent has given terrible sentences in sex offender cases. Every case that she cited in an ad, when I was a D.A.,
I made a recommendation that the judge didn't even follow and gave less time than I recommended. So I didn't give anybody a sweetheart deal. And now as a judge, all the cases she cited, every single one of them, I followed at least what the DA recommended and at least what the victim recommended in those cases. I've never come up short in any of that. She is lying to voters.
Well, Judge, this race is going to get a lot of attention. We'll be tracking it this week. And again, we invited your opponent on, and she was welcome to join us but declined today. Judge Schimel, thank you. Thank you.
OK, so that Wisconsin judicial race, of course, just one of the critical battles this week. Those pair of elections in Florida also going to serve as a potential early temperature check on the Trump agenda. We're back now with our panel. OK, so to that Wisconsin race, the AP puts it this way. The April 1st election will affect looming cases on abortion, voting rules, congressional district boundaries and more one.
It's up to, at last check, nearly $80 million in spending for this race, the most expensive state judicial race ever. A record, yeah. It's astounding. And the reason is that we are in this age of polarized politics.
in which if you continue the sort of horse race politics analogy, Shannon, we're at 70 days, almost approaching 100 days into the Trump administration, and everybody's looking for the sort of where are the horses at the quarter mile post as they come around the track. So everyone wants to know what's going to be the ruling from voters in these small districts on President Trump, on Doge, on the Signalgate controversy and the like.
and on Elon Musk, because as you pointed out in your, I thought, really good interview, what you saw is that voters are reacting to Musk as much as they are to the candidate. And Musk has put millions into this race. And, you know, to me, Musk...
is the top donor to President Trump. The president is advertising Teslas on the White House lawn. I've never seen anything like it. The Commerce Secretary is telling people to buy stock in Tesla. We're at a very strange point, but it's all about national politics, even though it's a local state Supreme Court race.
And that's why you get the big money. Well, yeah. And Howie, to those Florida races, those house races, which are so critical for control of what's going on and trying to get anything done on the Hill. And that also requires hurting the cats and keeping every single member together, which is a whole nother thing.
You know, we're talking about districts where President Trump won by double digits and convincingly that they are nervous about what's coming potentially on Tuesday. They are nervous. I mean, in the increasingly red state of Florida, Ron DeSantis country, the two Republican candidates who are endorsed by President Trump should win easily. One of the reasons they're nervous is in that one of those districts, Shannon, you have Republicans.
the Democratic candidate out-raising State Senator Randy Fein by 10 to 1. I still think the Republicans will easily win. The Wisconsin race reminds us, look, it's Elon's America now. We're all just living in it. And he...
It's back to doing this. If you sign a petition, two of you will get picked and I'll give you a million dollars each. The problem, the inconvenience there was that it's illegal. You can't buy votes. But you can pay people potentially to sign up for a petition or to register to vote. But there have been questions about that. Well, a million dollar checks would, of course, raise a few questions. Sign me up. Register in all 50 states. No, we would never do that.
But, Mark, there's a lot of money from the left. I mean, tens of millions that's flowed into that Wisconsin race as well. Yeah, it's a little bit of a waste if you're trying to create it as a bellwether. I don't think these are off year. This is look, this is a low turnout off year race. In 2023, the Democrats won the Wisconsin Supreme Court race by 11 points. And then the next year, Trump won and they lost the Senate race. If you look at Virginia, where Glenn Youngkin won, well, everyone thought, oh, maybe the Republicans have a chance in Virginia. No, it didn't happen.
that way. So these off-year races are not really bellwethers of anything. They're important in their own right, but they're not some kind of a sign that this is going to be some kind of a national trend. One of the things I do think is really interesting, though, about that Wisconsin race is Democrats initially were going to run the same playbook that they've done in the last few cycles in Wisconsin and in other races were
which is on abortion. I mean, that was going to be like that was the sort of strategy going into the race. But they pivoted to Elon. And I think it's this in that way. It will be a test of Elon of, you know, does he need to do does he need to sort of be more of an adult? Or is his sort of his behavior going to be, you know, a drag on the Republicans?
You know, one thing we didn't say was that Stefanik is not going to be right. And that's definitely tied into the Florida race. Yeah. OK, we got to go. But panel, thank you very much. We'll track all those elections this week. We'll see you next Sunday. All right. We've officially hit peak bloom here with the world famous cherry blossoms. I'm going to take you for a private tour. Next. This program is brought to you by Charles Schwab. Own your tomorrow.
I brought in Insure Max Protein. With a cheer, more than a million visitors flock here to D.C. to see the world-famous cherry blossoms. And there's a lot more to this story than you might know. It's this week's Sunday special.
It is first and foremost Washington's grandest springtime tradition. It's a rite of spring here in D.C., a gift more than a century old from the people of Japan to the people of the United States. This is the 113th year that we have cherry blossoms around the Tidal Basin, and it is so hard to describe what 3,500 people,
cherry trees in bloom looks like. You got to come experience it for yourself. You know, this is really one of the oldest international gifts of friendship in the nation's capital. In fact, last year, the Japanese prime minister was in D.C. and announced the gift of 250 cherry trees next year for the 250th anniversary of America.
The new trees will replace the hundreds that were removed to make way for a much-needed restoration. We are now in the middle of a $113 million contract funded by the Great American Outdoors Act to restore the tidal basin. The improvements will prevent flooding and expand walkways for the crowds that surge into the nation's capital every spring.
not only these gorgeous blossoms, but look exactly at where we're at as we're enjoying these blossoms. I mean, the Jefferson Memorial and the Tidal Basin here. And no matter where you move around the two-mile walk around the Tidal Basin, it is near impossible to frame a bad shot when the trees are in bloom.
We are now officially at peak bloom, when 70% of the blossoms are open. It's the last phase of a six-stage cycle. You don't know how long you have that you're going to experience these blooms. And to the Japanese, that's one of the things that's so sacred and so special about the cherry blossoms. It is a reminder of mortality and the fragility of life. And the beauty in that, too. Absolutely.
That's it for us today. Thank you for joining us. I'm Shannon Bream. Have a great week. We'll see you back here for next Fox News Sunday.