00:00.47
Sam Shirazi
Hi, everyone. I'm Sam Shirazi, and this is Federal Fallout, the 2025 Virginia elections. This is a special bonus episode where we we will go over another type of fallout, and that is the breakup between Elon Musk and Donald Trump.
00:14.96
Sam Shirazi
And we will see how all this will impact the 2025 Virginia Okay, so for some background, obviously during the last election, Elon Musk was one of the biggest supporters of Donald Trump and cheerleaders of him.
00:29.16
Sam Shirazi
And after the election, Donald Trump appointed Elon Musk to be the person in charge of some of the government reorganization and layoffs that were going to be happening.
00:41.54
Sam Shirazi
And there was an entity create created called Doge. And in the early days of the a second Trump administration, Elon Musk really took a leading role in some of the things that happened in terms of cutting funding, cutting people and agencies,
00:57.12
Sam Shirazi
and laying off workers. And that was a lot of what was going on in the first couple months of the Trump administration. And obviously, this podcast was called Federal Fallout because we were seeing all that in Virginia. And obviously, it was going to have an impact in the Virginia elections in 2025.
01:12.61
Sam Shirazi
So a lot of the premise of this podcast, at least initially, was that much of the federal fallout from Doge specifically was going to have a big impact here in Virginia for our elections this year.
01:23.46
Sam Shirazi
Then there was a big Supreme Court election in Wisconsin where Elon Musk went all in for the Republican candidate for the Wisconsin Supreme Court, and that didn't end up well for the Republicans. the Democrats had a big win in that Supreme Court election and won by 10 points.
01:39.45
Sam Shirazi
And after that, I think Elon Musk really started to fade a little bit into the background. I think he was a little disenchanted by what happened in Wisconsin. So the sense was – Everyone kind of got a message from Wisconsin, Elon Musk, the Republicans, that it was probably time for Musk to move on. And it was announced at the end of May he would be stepping down from his role with Doge.
02:05.86
Sam Shirazi
And even as late as last week, there were indications that, know, the relationship between Trump and Musk was not... maybe as close as it was during the election, but, uh, president Trump had Elon Musk and in the Oval Office last week. And, you know, there was a sense maybe Musk would just move on and this wouldn't be that big of a deal.
02:26.72
Sam Shirazi
uh, he'd go back to doing his various businesses and Trump would go back to being president and they'd all just kind of move on. But, um, If you know Donald Trump and Elon Musk, it's not their type of personalities to just quietly fade into the background after something happens.
02:45.90
Sam Shirazi
And I think there was a lot going on with this new bill that the Republicans were trying to pass in Congress. So the House of Representatives passed a version of what called what Trump calls the big, beautiful bill.
02:58.59
Sam Shirazi
And Elon Musk started speaking out against the bill. And I think there was a big moment when Elon Musk posted on X that he the bill was a disgusting abomination because it raised the deficit.
03:14.79
Sam Shirazi
And anyways, so that was kind of the beginning of obviously the the latest feud that was going to explode because neither Elon Musk or President Trump are the type of people that when There is criticism of them, though we'll just take it quietly.
03:32.16
Sam Shirazi
So President Trump started pushing back on Elon Musk. And long story short, after a while on X, Elon Musk started posting a lot of things. And but it turned into a full-blown feud between Donald Trump and Elon Musk.
03:48.22
Sam Shirazi
Elon Musk would say stuff on X and then Trump would say something on Truth Social and Trump would threaten to remove some of the contracts to Elon Musk's company. And Elon Musk said that there was something with the Epstein files and Trump's not releasing them. And just a lot of back and forth that is going on on social media and a lot of posting about this big feud.
04:08.28
Sam Shirazi
And honestly, I have no idea how all this ends. It's just a lot of stuff going on. Pretty chaotic scene. in terms of what's going on with Elon Musk and Donald Trump. And this is like a huge change from January, February, when Elon Musk and Trump still seem very close and Musk was dominating the news.
04:25.65
Sam Shirazi
And there was a sense that maybe this year in Virginia, it was going to be all about Elon Musk and Doge. I think things are changing a little bit. And it's a little bit unclear where things are going right now in this whole thing that's been happening.
04:40.68
Sam Shirazi
And I think there are like two scenarios about what could happen. There's maybe the Republican hope for what might happen. And then there's a Democratic hope. And I'll first go over the Republican hope.
04:52.08
Sam Shirazi
So I think even before this latest fallout between Trump and Musk, there was a sense that among Republicans that Doge was fading into the background by November. Most people wouldn't really remember Doge.
05:04.80
Sam Shirazi
it wouldn't be a big part of the Virginia elections. I mean, frankly, I think that was a little bit of wishful thinking because there were hundreds of thousands of people in Virginia affected by what Doge and the Trump administration have done.
05:16.72
Sam Shirazi
And so the idea that a couple months later they won't really worry about it anymore not really realistic. But I mean, it certainly was going to be true that you were going to hear in theory less about Doge and Elon Musk if there was kind of this scenario where Musk quietly rode into the sunset.
05:33.72
Sam Shirazi
So in theory, that could have been better for the Republicans if it played out that way. And I think there's also a hope probably among the Republicans that Elon Musk, he was not going to be able to be used as a boogeyman by the Democrats.
05:47.04
Sam Shirazi
And if anything, maybe the Republicans will start running against Elon Musk at this rate. So, I mean, one scenario is essentially Doge and Musk are out of the picture. And that's generally good for the Republicans because they're not tied to Musk. And he's made a very public break from the Republicans.
06:04.68
Sam Shirazi
And so that means that the Republicans can run. their own race and not be tied to Elon Musk the way the Republican in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race was. I think part of the problem with that calculus is, well, that yeah yeah, the Republicans are probably not going to be tied to Elon Musk, but they're going to be tied to Donald Trump. And so I think that's still going to be a big challenge for the Republicans this year in Virginia, because as I mentioned in another podcast, almost and certainly Trump is going to have negative approval in Virginia. so Even if the Republicans don't have Elon Musk hanging around their necks, they will have Donald Trump and they'll have to deal with that.
06:40.40
Sam Shirazi
And now they're going to have to be dealing that with that in an environment where you have Elon Musk potentially going nuclear and attacking Trump on X So that takes us to basically like the...
06:52.88
Sam Shirazi
democratic version of what might happen or or what they hope might happen. And that is that this basically turns into a full-blown Republican civil war. Elon Musk is maybe more with the tech bros slash fiscal conservative side of things. And then you have Donald Trump with the economic populace and the MAGA movement, and they kind of go all out war.
07:15.81
Sam Shirazi
This bill that the Republicans are trying to pass in Congress is not going to go anywhere because there's all this infighting and They can't agree how big should it be you can't and how much should be cut, how much should be left.
07:26.62
Sam Shirazi
And so there's just a lot of chaos. And this generally adds to the sense of chaos with Donald Trump that he is not able to kind of orderly manage the government. And now he's got this feud with Elon Musk. And I think one of the things that hurt Trump in the past in his first administration is when the country has a sense that things are chaotic and that that he's not in charge of things. And, you know, that was certainly true, I would say, in 2020 when COVID came. And, you know, realistically, that was a ah hard thing for any president to have to deal with.
07:56.68
Sam Shirazi
there was a sense that the Trump response was a little bit chaotic. And if here we get a similar situation where Trump is going after Elon Musk and, you know,
08:07.15
Sam Shirazi
app a few months after endorsing all everything Doge was doing. And does Trump come in and reverse what Doge did? Does he try to get rid of the Musk loyalists that are so some of them still in the government working on Doge? So, I mean, it just kind of adds to the sense that the Republicans don't have their act together and the Republicans can come in and you know what are they going to campaign on in Virginia if that's going on in the background?
08:32.75
Sam Shirazi
And it makes it pretty easy for the Democrats to come in and say, you know actually, we offer a different vision. We're going to run the government effectively. We're competent. And for the average voter, when they're seeing Trump and Musk fighting on X all day, and then you see the Democrats running a relatively normal campaign with relatively normal candidates, I think there's a sense that maybe that would be a more appealing message to Virginia voters.
08:57.63
Sam Shirazi
And This doesn't even get to the Republicans who are running this year in Virginia. So obviously the top of the ticket, you have Lieutenant Governor Winsome Sears. What does she do? Is she asked about Musk? Is she asked about Trump?
09:09.14
Sam Shirazi
I mean, my sense is she will have to back Trump because he's the president. And does that mean she has to throw Musk under the bus if she's asked directly about it? My sense ah Sears is she's just going to try to avoid the topic. I think she knows it's a no-win proposition to be talking about Elon Musk, so she'll probably just try to avoid it.
09:28.50
Sam Shirazi
I mean, the more interesting question is what does the Lieutenant Governor nominee for the Republicans, John Reed, do? Because he is pretty hardcore MAGA guy and he's pretty big supporter of President Trump. And so does he come in 100% behind President Trump? And does he spend time talking about Elon Musk and bashing Elon Musk?
09:47.41
Sam Shirazi
And what what is going on with the attorney general in Virginia, and Jason Meares? Is he talking about this? and And not to go too off sidetrack, but there was some questions to – Winsome Sears this week about whether she was going to campaign with John Reed and the whole ticket would campaign together. And it was a little unclear. And, you know, we still don't have an event where the entire Republican ticket has appeared on the same stage. And is that going to happen this year?
10:14.21
Sam Shirazi
And that's a little bit of a separate drama, but it's related in the sense of there's kind of this identity crisis, i I would say, with the Republican ticket, because You have Winston Earl Sears, the lieutenant governor, obviously not distancing herself from President Trump, but also maybe trying to run her own campaign and trying to show a little bit of independence and not wanting to be perceived as being 100 percent the Trump candidate, because that's probably not going to work in Virginia when Donald Trump last year lost Virginia by six points.
10:44.93
Sam Shirazi
And then you have John Reed as the lieutenant governor of candidate who's almost have to the exact opposite strategy where he's going to run as the MAGA candidate. and you know really tie himself to President Trump.
10:56.85
Sam Shirazi
And that's not a clear picture if you're trying to run as a ticket and you have the governor and the lieutenant governor candidate not wanting to appear with each other, not clear that they have similar political ideas.
11:09.43
Sam Shirazi
So I think though things have been changing in Virginia, but the one consistent theme I would say that the the Republicans constantly are facing these problems in Virginia. So first problem was when trust Trump and Musk were close and Doge came in and started firing federal employees.
11:26.57
Sam Shirazi
There was definitely a lot of hit, a big hit to the Virginia economy. And the Virginia Republicans didn't really know how to respond to that. And and their response was basically, well, this was kind of necessary.
11:37.76
Sam Shirazi
One, two, three. So that was like one big crisis the Virginia GOP already had to deal with this year.
11:43.100
Sam Shirazi
And then there was like the second crisis that happened when John Reed became the lieutenant governor nominee. And then Governor Youngkin called him and asked him to drop out. And John Reed said, no, I'm not going to drop out. And there was kind of that drama that had lasted a couple weeks.
11:58.66
Sam Shirazi
Seemed like the Virginia GOP had moved on from that and they were hoping maybe Doge was less in the news. And now they're just being hit with this turmoil where the Republican Party is being...
12:10.75
Sam Shirazi
in a lot of chaos right now. And there's a fight between the Trump and the Musk people. And, you know, realistically, I would say most Republicans are loyal to Trump. And as much as Elon Musk thinks he has influence out there in the world, I'm sure there he does have a fair amount of followers. But Donald Trump won the Republican primary in 2024 pretty handily.
12:28.53
Sam Shirazi
Anyway, so all that's to say is there's a lot going on right now nationally with the Republican Party. And that's going to have an effect here in Virginia. And I call this podcast Federal Fallout. And the fallout itself has been changing over time. So the initial fallout was really the firing of the federal workers and the cuts the federal government.
12:48.94
Sam Shirazi
That's still going to have an impact. But I think the federal fallout now might be this kind of weird conflict between Elon Musk and Donald Trump. And there's a unclear who's going to end up on top and what it's going to look like. And Elon Musk, you know, he has a lot of money. He has a social media platform on X, so he can do a lot of things. He can say a lot of things.
13:09.23
Sam Shirazi
And the Democrats faced that for a while last year, and it certainly didn't help them in the 2024 election where you had Elon Musk posting all day ah negative things about the Democrats. And it's very possible he will start posting all day negative things about Donald Trump and the Republicans.
13:25.50
Sam Shirazi
And then what what happens with the the bill the Republicans are trying to pass? I mean, all that is happening in the background. And, you know, these state elections, I've said it before, really are impacted by national politics.
13:37.93
Sam Shirazi
And so as much as the Virginia issues are important, they're not always center stage in the governor's election. And I'm mindful of, you know, this election may not exactly always be the same topic.
13:52.03
Sam Shirazi
Maybe it's going to shift a little bit from the beginning of the year when it was really about the federal cuts to maybe now it's going to be about other things. But I think the constant in the Virginia election is the federal fallout.
14:03.43
Sam Shirazi
And that's kind of the constant throughout this election. And ultimately, the election, if there's anything that it's going to be about, it's probably going to be about Donald Trump. And it's going to probably be a referendum on Donald Trump. but And almost every Virginia election, with maybe the exception of 2013, going back all the way to 2005, has essentially been a referendum on the incumbent president.
14:25.91
Sam Shirazi
So 2005, it was in a referendum on ah President Bush. 2009, it was a referendum on President Obama. 2013 was a little bit of an exception for various reasons. 2017 was a referendum on President Trump.
14:41.49
Sam Shirazi
2021 was a referendum on President Biden. It seems likely one way or another that 2025 is going to be a referendum on President Trump. And if his his approval ratings in Virginia are negative, that should be good news for the for the Democrats. So the Democrats are assuming, at least right now, I think that they're probably in the driver's seat for this election. We'll see if that's true in November.
15:01.89
Sam Shirazi
But certainly right now, this chaos between Donald Trump and Elon Musk it does not help the Virginia Republicans. And they've already had to weather a lot this year And, you know, the Democrats, not that they're everything's perfect for them, but relatively things have been pretty clean for them this year in Virginia.
15:20.55
Sam Shirazi
They do have a primary coming up on June 17th. The candidates are starting to throw a little bit more jabs at each other. I'll probably talk more about the primary next week on the podcast, because I think that's going to be a big deal as we're going to come up into the run of the June 17th primary in Virginia. But After that, the Democratic ticket will be set. The Republican ticket has been set for a while. And, you know, we can really focus on the general election. But I just want to do this emergency podcast, talk about some of the stuff going on, because it's been really crazy.
15:48.13
Sam Shirazi
And, you know, i appreciate everyone who's been listening and following along on this crazy ride that is the 2025 Virginia elections. And I'll try to do my best to keep everyone updated. But for now, that this is Federal Fallout, and I'll join you next time.
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