Is the economy about to have a degrowth spurt?

KCRW's Left, Right & Center

KCRW

352865, News

4.2 • 4.8K Ratings

🗓️ 4 April 2025

⏱️ 51 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Democrats have been struggling with low favorability since last November, but recent special elections in Wisconsin and Florida might suggest things are looking up. Liberal judge Susan Crawford won a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court this week, despite Elon Musk investing $25 million towards conservative Brad Schimel’s campaign. Two House seats went up for grabs in Florida. Both went to Republicans, but Democrats lost by smaller margins than previous polls suggested they would. Can Democrats spin these results as a win?

Over at the White House, President Trump declared April 2 as “Liberation Day.” He introduced steep tariffs on countries across the world, promising to “make America wealthy again.” While Trump promises an American manufacturing boom, economists predict the tariffs could slow the U.S.’ financial growth. Some on the left and the right argue that might be a good thing. “De-growth,” the idea that reducing growth could create a more sustainable economy, has been gaining traction across the aisle. Are these tariffs what people want?

Trump continued to stir the pot this week when he used an NBC News appearance to float the idea of running for a third term. Despite the two-term limit outlined in the 22nd Amendment, Trump told NBC’s Kristen Welker that “there are methods” around it. How legitimate are these “methods?” Should voters be concerned about a third Trump term?

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Welcome to left, right, and center. I am David Green. You know, since Donald Trump's re-election, Democrats have seemed in the political wilderness, looking for any shred of evidence that their world is still okay.
0:14.8	Senator Cory Booker this week gave an emotional speech on the Senate floor trying to frame the existential dangers of this moment.
0:21.6	He went on for more than 24 hours admitting that he dehydrated himself to avoid needing to use the bathroom.
0:28.6	Then there were a couple of elections, not huge ones, but they could not have come soon enough for Democrats.
0:34.3	In Wisconsin, liberal judge Susan Crawford defeated Brad Schimel, a conservative.
0:39.8	Elon Musk came to Wisconsin to try and sway this election. He invested a whopping $25 million,
0:45.8	yes, in a single state judicial race, which made the victory especially sweet for Crawford and
0:52.6	Democrats. So today, Wisconsinites fended off an unprecedented attack on our democracy.
0:59.0	Yeah!
1:04.0	Our fair elections and our Supreme Court, and Wisconsin stood up and said loudly that justice does not
1:14.9	have a price. Our courts are not for sale. That was Wisconsin. The results in Florida were
1:21.5	murkier for Democrats. Republicans won two special house elections in dark red districts. These were seats vacated by
1:28.6	Matt Gates and by new national security advisor and notably sloppy texter Mike Waltz. Democrats are
1:34.9	trying to spin this as victory because the margins were smaller than expected, and Republicans are
1:39.4	trying to counter that narrative. Florida's governor, Ron DeSantis, said one of the candidates,
1:43.5	Randy Fine, is just a
1:45.3	squish who underperformed. It wasn't some anti-Maga backlash, the governor said. Whatever the margins,
1:51.6	Republicans were able to increase their slim majority in the House. And that's where we're going to
1:55.4	start today. Sarah Isker is here, as always on the right. Moa Lathie is away this week, but we are very excited to have
2:00.8	Rebecca Piercy with us on the left. She's a partner at Bryson Gillette, an L.A. and Washington,
2:05.5	D.C., based political communications shop, also a veteran Democratic strategist who is political
2:09.9	director for Elizabeth Warren's presidential campaign. She's also a fellow at Moes Institute at
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from KCRW, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of KCRW and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.