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Erin Burnett Outfront
Tonight: First Major Elections Of Trump's Second Term; Senator Booker's Protest Speech Breaks Senate Floor Record. Aired 7-8p ET
Aired April 01, 2025 - 19:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Voting is about to end in the very first big race of the night. That's the special house election in Florida's sixth congressional district in northeastern Florida, on the coast there.
[19:00:06]
Can Democrats make any inroads in Trump County?
We are going to bring you a key race alert in about five seconds. We will bring that to you.
And -- here's the key race alert. It's too early to call.
Right now, if you look at this between the Democrat and the Republican, we do not have enough information to tell you exactly what the likelihood is of either candidate winning.
Right now, just to remind you, Democrats have 213 House seats. Republicans have 218 House seats. The very narrow majority for Republicans right now.
For more on the race in Florida's sixth congressional district, let's go live to our Steve Contorno, in Daytona Beach, in the southern part of the Florida sixth congressional district.
Steve, what can you tell us about turnout in this election? Do Republicans get the numbers they needed in order to hold on to this seat in a -- in a ruby red district?
STEVE CONTORNO, CNN REPORTER: Well, Jake, I'll tell you, heading into tonight, they were very nervous. If you take a look at the early vote totals, the Republican turnout, Republicans made about 48, 47 percent of the people who showed up. And Democrats were at 38 percent. That was a much narrower margin than what we saw in Florida's first congressional district, where the gap was about twice as much.
In talking to Republican Party officials in Florida, they said they believe that they needed to get an advantage of about plus 13 to feel comfortable. Well, they believe that they blew that out of the water today with this election day turnout, and they feel very confident heading into this evening that they are going to hold on to this seat. They believe that the push by Republicans, by President Donald Trump early on has -- in the last couple of weeks has really made a big difference. The teletown halls that they did, getting some of these people like Ben Shapiro and Elon Musk involved, has been very critical for them. And their voters showed up today to vote in strong numbers.
Talking to a Democrat who has been closely watching this race, he conceded that the Republican turnout today was very strong, Jake.
TAPPER: All right. Steve Contorno, thank you so much.
David Chalian, we should note it is not as though Democrats are not trying hard for this seat. And in fact, for both the Florida sixth district, with the voting disclosed and Florida one in the panhandle, I think Democrats raised and spent more money, right?
DAVID CHALIAN, CNN WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF & POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Well, these fundraising numbers, Jake, are astonishing giving -- given how red these districts are. Take a look at just the candidates and candidate fundraising first in the sixth congressional district in Florida. You see Josh Weil, the Democrat, basically 10 to 1, outraised the Republican candidate, Randy Fine, $9.5 million to $1 million. This is as of March 12th.
Look at the other Florida district, the first congressional district, again candidate to candidate fundraising. I'll add in the outside groups in a moment. You see, Gay Valimont, the Democrat $6.5 million raised. Jimmy Patronis, the Republican, $2.1 million raised.
So, both districts saw the Democratic candidate outraising the Republican candidate, a sign of Democratic enthusiasm, no doubt.
Let's look at the total ad spending, what they do with this money, the candidate money and the outside group money in Florida sixth, $8.5 million total spent, $4.7 million. In the pro-Fine world, on the Republican side, only $3.8 million, despite the candidate advantage of fundraising, $3.8 million on the pro-Weil side, the Republicans have out-advertised Democrats in Florida six because they came in to rescue him.
And if you look at the total ad spending in Florida one, you see a little different story here, $5.5 million total spend. So not as much money as Florida sixth, $3.3 million in the pro-Valimont area. And less than that, sorry, $2.2 million. Thank you for pro-Patronis groups. And that is because that was seen as a safer district, Jake. So there wasn't as much of a rescue operation from Republicans to come in there and spend.
TAPPER: All right, fascinating stuff, David Chalian.
And now we have a key race alert for you, because we are actually getting real votes because in states like Arizona might want to pay attention to this, Florida knows how to actually count their ballots as they come in. The very first votes are coming in, 23 percent of the estimated vote in.
And Democrat Josh Weil has 53.3 percent of the vote. Republican Randy Fine has 45.7 percent of the vote. Weil is just over 3,500 votes ahead of Randy Fine. Again, that's with less than a quarter, 23 percent of the vote in.
John King. Let me ask you, I am guessing that a lot of this vote is coming in from more Democratic parts of the district?
[19:05:03]
JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, there are no Democratic parts of the district. That's the --
TAPPER: Well, there have to be some Democrats.
KING: Well, there are -- there are Democrats that the Democrat tends to get 30 to 40 percent of the vote in congressional races in these districts. So you're seeing blue on the map. I know, it's been a few months since we've all done this, right. You at home and us here in the studio, what you see at the beginning of the night is not always what you see at the end of the night. And it's important, important, important to remember that especially here because this is a plus 30 advantage for Republican district.
So, so, however, however, that's math. That's real votes right. It's -- you know, it's a margin we think about this is about 23 percent of the vote. Early votes tend to get counted first. I don't have direct information that that's what it is. But that's what tends to happen in these things.
So, you're looking at this right now and you're saying aha, well, the Democrat is leading in Volusia County, leading by ten points there. He's leading over here in Lake County by just barely two points there. However, you want to round that up one point really when you look at it again its early. We're looking at preliminary votes.
The Democrats, look, they would love to win this seat. That would be an earthquake if that were to happen. If they keep it really close, it will still give House Republicans and the White House some jitters about early reaction to Trump.
Now, we have some more votes up here coming in. Let's move up to St. Johns County again. The Democrat is ahead in these early votes.
Now, we'll have to see what happens as we play it out. But you're looking at this now. You don't normally see blue on this map, right? This is the special election the votes were counting live right now, let's go back to this same seat. Let's go back to this in 2024. It's the same county lines. It's all red, right?
We just showed down here, Volusia County. It was 60 percent was, you know, 20 points, right? It was 20 points. The Democrats ahead right now, right now, just remember early on the presidential night, for example, you know, Kamala Harris was winning Ohio. Kamala Harris was winning Texas at this point of the night, early voting, meaning after those polls closed.
So, we need to wait to count more votes. But you see, Waltz was winning huge there, Waltz was winning huge there. What was the other county we were looking at? We were looking at St. Johns County up here. Waltz was winning huge there, 40 points plus right there.
And you come back to where we are right now. Again, you look at the special and let's put the counties back up here, come back in, come back out, pop it up. Doesn't want to -- the county, so there we go. We see them there.
So he's at 52 percent, 47 percent. So, it's closing a little bit just as were here. But again, a Democrat up five points early in the count, Democrats will be celebrating that margin. Even if it's not the final margin, they'll be thinking, okay, we think this is going to be competitive, but we got to count them all, Jake, as you come out to the whole district.
TAPPER: So, one thing that's interesting just for people at home is Florida is very good at counting votes.
KING: Yeah.
TAPPER: They have when they get early votes and they have a big early vote process in Florida, when Donald Trump votes early, however much he is derided for early voting, they are allowed to count them and release those numbers the moments the polls closed.
KING: Yes.
TAPPER: And in addition, I should note anecdotally, this is a district where people tend to vote early, Republicans and Democrats, and they saw a lot of vote at the voting booths today, anecdotally.
So maybe sounding the alarm by Republicans a couple weeks ago, talking about got -- got the vote out today.
Erin Burnett?
ERIN BURNETT, CNN HOST: Shermichael, let me just start with you on that point. So, you know, you see a Democrat up right now and it's early. It's not anticipated to see how it ends as Jake said, it'd be an earthquake if it did.
However, you still, as a Republican, you're looking at the people who turned out today and you're still feeling very good.
SHERMICHAEL SINGLETON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I'm feeling good at early voting. Absentee voting suggests that the Republican is going to perform well tonight.
And, Erin -- and I were just talking about this. If you're a Democrat and you underperform and we win by 15 points or more, what is the argument to your donors? What's the argument to Democratic voters out there who are expecting some type of argument or direction from the party in terms of something to energize them to get behind?
If we don't see that tonight, I think Democrats have a really, really tough, tough road ahead.
BURNETT: Because they had set the goal they had. They spent a lot more money Democrats, and they sort of set the standard of single digits in a district that Trump won by 30. VAL DEMINGS (D), FORMER U.S. REPRESENTATIVE: Yeah. And, you know, as I
said earlier, Erin, we're not in the dark about this being a tough district. I like the numbers that I've seen early. Yeah, it's early, we can say that.
But I'm liking the numbers. Right. We take what we can get, but I can't help but think historically, you know, America has done some pretty impossible things against the most impossible odds. I think back to women's rights, civil rights, voting rights, rights of equality, all those pieces of legislation that no one ever thought we'd ever get crossed the finish line.
BURNETT: And you feel that you can get this?
DEMINGS: Well, I'm not saying that, but what I am saying for Democrats, we are fighting on behalf of the people, you know, the economy. Do you think most people in district sixth think they're better off now than they were before January 20th?
The president said that he was going to lower the cost of goods and services on day one.
[19:10:03]
Things have gotten worse. So, we have to continue to fight the good fight. And regardless of what the outcome is tonight, tomorrow. I don't know if Senator Booker will still be at the microphone, but tomorrow, we will still be fighting.
BURNETT: Pull up. Let's pull up Cory Booker. Senator Booker is still speaking. He is about any minute from now. I think in the next 4 or 5 minutes. Am I right here? Abigail, I think close going to set the record which was set by Strom Thurmond in his fight against Civil Rights Act.
Okay. And Cory Booker is doing this you know, I mean, its a thankless job in the sense if you're a Democrat, I mean, nothings going to come of it, right? But they've been saying, look, you're a bunch of eunuchs in Washington, Democrats. You're not getting anything done.
So he's doing this to take a stand. Does it have effect?
KATE BEDINGFIELD, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I think, to kind of to respond a little bit to Shermichael's point, I mean, I think the Democratic base and Democratic donors are looking for signs of life. And so, I think what Senator Booker is giving them here are, is some signs of life. Is it going to have a tangible impact on business? And.
BURNETT: I mean, if he is still alive after this.
BEDINGFIELD: No, it's not, may have a tangible impact on Senator Booker, but it won't have a tangible impact on business in Washington. But he's giving them signs of life. And I think, you know, even if -- if the Republican winds up winning -- winning in Florida by 15 points rather than nine or eight or seven, you know, I think Democrats are energized to have seen some fight, to have seen the White House clearly on its -- on its heels.
I mean, they pulled Elise Stefanik's nomination to -- to the U.N. because they're concerned about defending her seat. I mean, they have been sending -- their body language has been that they're concerned about some of these marginal or more marginal districts.
BURNETT: All right.
BEDINGFIELD: Or even -- even Republican districts. So, you know, so I think no matter what, I think the Democratic base is going to be --
BURNETT: I'm sorry -- I'm sorry to be jumping on you, but we have a key race alert.
So, Jake, what do you got?
TAPPER: Thanks, Erin.
We have a key race alert because we have more votes coming in from Florida's sixth congressional district. Democrat Josh Weil has 50.8 percent of the vote. Republican Randy Fine has 48 -- it just changed again, 48.6 percent of the vote.
You see, as more votes coming in, Randy Fine just flipped it. He is now in the lead there, 50.6 percent of the vote. And the Democrat Josh Weil 48.6, as the vote count went from 46 percent of the estimated vote in, to 49 percent of the estimated vote in.
Randy Fine, now in the lead. He is more than 2,000 votes ahead.
And, John King, I see a lot more red on that map you have there of Florida's sixth congressional district. So, more votes have come in.
KING: You made one of the key points earlier. Florida tends to be pretty rapid in how it counts votes, and that's a Republican state. Some Democratic states do it, too. That's not a partisan question. That's an efficiency question. And Florida is good at running elections.
Now you see, this is what we expected because this is a plus-30 Republican district. The Republican candidate is ahead by two points right now. He'll take a two-point win. A win is a win. And Randy Fine would get a seat in the United States House of Representatives.
If it stays anywhere close to that, Democrats are still going to say voters are sending a message. But let's get the vote count done first. Then we'll talk about when we know the results and what the margin is, what it means.
But earlier when we were down here in Lake County, it was blue again. Those were the first results. It often happens on election nights. The end of the night is what matters. The middle of the night and the beginning of the night, it's interesting. We're doing the math, but it's the end of the night that matters.
Randy Fine, the Republican now ahead by 2,049 votes. And again, well watch if these stay blue, if any of the counties these counties all voted lopsided Republican just a few months ago for Mike Waltz if they stay blue, we'll analyze that later.
But at the moment, we're going to count votes, Jake. And the Republican has taken the lead. We'll see if he can grow it.
TAPPER: All right. And we expect more votes tallies from Florida at any moment.
We're also keeping tabs on Democratic Senator Cory Booker, who is giving a marathon speech against President Trump and the Trump agenda. That speech is about to break a record on Capitol Hill.
This election night is just getting started. We have another poll closing more results in the next hour. Don't forget that Wisconsin race.
Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:18:32]
TAPPER: Democratic Senator Cory Booker giving a historic speech. It's about to become the longest speech ever delivered on the floor of the U.S. Senate.
Let's listen in.
SEN. CORY BOOKER (D-NJ): My colleagues of when the man that beat him savagely drew blood, cracked bones. Decades later, he was a congressman. That man brought his grandson with him to ask for forgiveness from John Lewis.
I heard about this story when I was in the car in Georgia with him. What did you do, John? This man that so viciously beat you, wounded you, bruised you, battered you. What did you do when he came to ask you for forgiveness? What did you do?
And a good Christian man, man of faith, simply said, every one of us needs mercy. Every one of us needs redemption. I forgave him, I hugged him, we wept, and I looked at the boy. This nation needs you, too.
John --
SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY): Would the senator yield for a question?
BOOKER: Chuck Schumer is the only time in my life I can tell you no.
(LAUGHTER)
SCHUMER: I just want to tell you a question. Do you know you have just broken the record? Do you know how proud this caucus is of you? Do you know how proud America is of you?
(CHEERING) (APPLAUSE)
[19:20:44]
BOOKER: Ladies and gentlemen -- ladies, ladies and gentlemen. Ladies and gentlemen. Ladies and gentlemen.
SEN. JOHN CURTIS (R-UT): Order, order! The chair -- the chair does not wish to take away from this moment, but I think the best way to honor this great accomplishment. To our guests in the gallery, to make a rare exception and let you stand to show your appreciation. I will not constrain my fellow senators.
BOOKER: Thank you.
Chuck Schumer, I have -- I have yielded for a question and you asked me, did I know? I know now.
I want to not quite wrap this up yet.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Twenty-four more.
BOOKER: I want -- I don't want to wrap this up yet. My mom, senator, my moms been watching. I know Catherine Cortez-Masto has a podium in front of her. She can give me a rest. I'd like to go a little further if we can. Just a little further. I love and again, I know people are trying to train each other and are all of our media operations. They give the worst images of the people of the other party.
But I want to tell you one of the funny tweets my staff gave me is something Ted Cruz said is he's around 19, 20 hours. He said, maybe I should pull a fire alarm. He's going to break my record.
(LAUGHTER)
BOOKER: I'm going to pause in a moment if -- if she has a question for me to Catherine Cortez-Masto, because she's my mother. But I do want to just say again, two points to make if I can. One is how grateful I am to the -- to my staff. When we decided to do this many days ago.
(APPLAUSE)
BOOKER: When we decided to do this days ago, they were like, we have to do this. And we started preparing and working on this and they did an extraordinary job. They were with me late nights writing, writing, writing. I just feel guilty because they wrote about ten books of -- and we didn't use all of them.
They were really substantive stuff, pulling from Republicans and Democrats and critique of this moment, pulling from Democrats and Republicans, Republican governors that are saying do not cut Medicaid, states that know as, as my colleagues do, that are at have a trigger that if the Medicaid funding goes below 90 percent, they stop the Medicaid expansion.
My staff really worked hard to not make this just Democratic voices, to make it people in our country that Republicans and Democrats you heard mentioned in this speech, the Cato Institute, the Manhattan Institute, all people who are honest arbiters and are saying that what Trump is doing is wrong, that a budget like this that blows massive holes in our deficit, it will be something our children are trying to pay for.
And what are they ultimately paying for that's caused this big deficit? It's trillions of dollars of tax cuts that people like DOGE, multimillionaire, multi-billionaire Musk will benefit from. But children won't.
They did such a good job bringing together authorities on both sides of the aisle. I just want to thank them.
I want to thank my cousin Pam and my family. Cousin Pam, like Chris murphy was here for the whole time. I want to thank Chris Murphy again.
(APPLAUSE)
BOOKER: Who never stopped telling me we could do this. We can do this, we can do this and said, I will stay with you. He's been with me on the floor. I hope you don't look as tired as I look, because you look beat, man.
Do I look that bad? No.
All right. I want to go a little bit past this, and then I'm going to -- I'm going to deal with some of the biological urgencies I'm feeling.
(LAUGHTER)
BOOKER: But I'm going to wait here because I have the power. I have the floor. Somebody has to ask me, perhaps from my mom's state, the way that it's supposed to work.
[19:25:06]
SEN. CATHERINE CORTEZ MASTO (D-NM): So, will the good senator from New Jersey yield for a question?
BOOKER: My mom would be so upset with me. My Aunt Marilyn, my Uncle Butch, my Aunt Shirley, all the people that are your constituents, not mine. They would be upset with me if I didn't yield to you for a question while retaining the floor.
CORTEZ MASTO: Well, first of all, Senator Booker, I have to say we in Nevada are so proud of you.
TAPPER: All right. As Senator Cortez Nasto gives Senator Booker a break, although technically, he's still, giving a speech because this is how he got relief throughout this more like 24 hours and 25 minutes and going it's still technically his speech, because when senators come up to give him a little questions to him to give his voice a break, although he's not allowed to leave the floor and he's not allowed to sit down.
Really, a remarkable moment. I'm looking right now at a -- at a newspaper from 1957, when this record was set by Strom Thurmond ignominiously against civil rights.
Congresswoman Stephanie Murphy, former congresswoman from Florida, is here.
Just as a Democrat, tell us what this moment means to you as somebody looking for a face under the age of 100 to represent your party.
STEPHANIE MURPHY (D), FORMER U.S. REPRESENTATIVE: You know, it is really an incredible moment. I think the Democratic Party has been looking for somebody who's willing to be a fighter. And not only is Senator Booker a fighter, he represents youth in vitality.
I mean, the ability to stand for 24 hours and to speak and to tell stories and to underscore the things that the Democratic Party stands for protecting Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid and -- and fighting for the American people to have lower prices at the grocery store, doing all of that with the youth and vigor that he presents, I think is probably refreshing to Democrats and to the American people to see somebody other than a septuagenarian representing our party.
TAPPER: Or don't -- don't short shrift those octogenarians, right, your party, too.
Coming up, Republican Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin is going to join us to talk about the stakes of tonight's election in his home state of Wisconsin and his concerns, concerns about President Trump's trade war. We have a lot more ahead. We're counting down to the next poll closing in Florida. Results from that high stakes Supreme Court race in Wisconsin and more from the Senate floor with Senator Cory Booker.
Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:32:01]
TAPPER: Welcome back.
And CNN can now make a projection in the Florida special election in the sixth congressional district. CNN projects that Republican Randy Fine will defeat Democrat Josh Weil. This is in the special election for the sixth congressional district in Florida. We're projecting that Fine will defeat Weil, despite concerns within the Republican Party about Fine's campaigning and fundraising.
Fine, a former state senator, holding on to the seat previously held by Republican Mike Waltz, who is now President Trump's national security advisor. Before Waltz, the seat was held by Ron DeSantis, the current governor.
The win gives Trump's party a little more breathing room in the closely divided House of Representatives, the GOP now holding a 219 seat majority compared to 213 seats for the Democrats three vacancies still remain to be filled. One of them tonight.
Let's take a look at the margin right now. Randy Fine in the lead with 53.7 percent of the vote against Democrat Josh Weil, who has 45.6 percent. Thats 73 percent of the estimated vote counted. Randy Fine almost 12,000 votes ahead.
John King, what are you -- oh, look at that. A lot more red has shown up on that map of Florida's sixth since we last spoke. I guess some of those early votes weren't indicative of where the county's ultimately would end up.
KING: No. And so, the question is, number one, you know, let's just look at Volusia County right here. It's getting closer. Can the Democrat hold a county? Is there a little bit of moral victory in that?
Number two, we've now projected the race. The -- Randy Fine is coming to Congress as a new Republican congressman. We'll watch this for the end of the night, because that's all that's left now for the Democrats in this district is to say, you know, this was a 30-point district five months ago, right? So, can you keep it within ten?
And you still lose if you keep it within ten. But what does that do to Republicans in Washington who this is a plus-30 Republican district. So, if Randy Fine wins by 8 or 10, there are going to be Republicans in plus two plus three plus five plus ten districts going, okay, is there something in the water? Is there?
Hard to answer that based on one race, but it will cause some jitters in Washington if the margin is really close. However, to your point, if I could just slide over next to you here, we just do this. This is one of the joys of having two walls, is this -- you mentioned this right now. This is where we are today with four vacancies. And two of them are in Florida tonight.
And so, you know, if you're Speaker Mike Johnson, you know, that's a plus, right? So, you get one. You say it's only one. But this majority is so narrow that isn't even more Republican district.
Again, we need to count the votes when the polls close there. But he expects to get that one as well, 220 to 213 beats 218 to 213.
And just one other point on that, Jake, if you come over here just to look at it again, Donald Trump is the president. Republicans control the Senate, Republicans control the House, but they're trying to write his budget. They're trying to write his tax cuts and all this other agenda items into the big spending plan.
It's hard to do when you don't have a lot to lose when you don't have a lot of margin. And this is what Speaker Johnson has to deal with and what President Trump tries to manage is, in recent history, by far the smallest margin.
[19:35:02] So, this will go up two tonight, right? They get they get two more tonight. It goes up a little bit.
But that is a very tight room to navigate in. You can't lose many votes. Thats why if there are jitters that would matter. Speaker Johnson still can't afford to lose too many votes. The question is, do your moderate House Republicans, your purple district, your just red Republicans? Do they see anything in this so he gets two more votes? The question is does he get any jitters with them?
TAPPER: Yeah. And, Erin Burnett, if Speaker Johnson ends the night with two House Republicans, the big question, I guess, is then is Elise Stefanik the only real Republican casualty of what were the narrow polls in Florida a couple weeks ago?
BURNETT: Yeah. Yeah. Right. Is she the only as -- and Mike Johnson today, the speaker saying they'd have to get creative to even find her a role because there's nothing left in leadership. That was pretty painful to see, I'm sure, for her.
All right. So, Erin, when you look at the numbers as John King and Jake are going through them, this eight point margin with, what, 73 percent of the vote in. So we'll see where it settles. But Democrats had said if were under ten, we're doing really well. Republicans said we're going to hold the seat.
So, who wins in that war?
ERIN MAGUIRE, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST, AXIOM STRATEGIES: Well, ultimately, who wins are the Republicans because we maintained the seat. And as Mitch McConnell likes to say, winners make policies and losers go home. So, the ultimate winner here are the Republicans.
But in Democrats' attempts to tea leaf a participation trophy victory for themselves out of a loss this evening, they're going to try and say, look, we're in this space where its less than ten points.
Yes, this was an underperformance, but you got to look at it in the larger context of Trump's not on the ballot. It's always different with Donald Trump on the ballot, he remains the largest enigma in U.S. political history. He defies every rule and norm anybody has ever seen. And he's the sitting president of the United States.
You also look at the fact that it is a special election, turnout, Democrats, all of that. The money that's come in, it all matters when you look at the larger context of this. But ultimately, Republicans still won.
BEDINGFIELD: But I think another important factor here, even with all of those caveats, you know, it's not just journalists and politicos who are going to be watching the outcome. It's also members of Congress and members of Congress in Republican -- marginal Republican districts. I mean, this was a plus 30 Trump district that it now looks like this candidate is going to win by 10, maybe a little more.
If I'm a Republican sitting in a district that Kamala Harris won in 2024, I'm nervous. And so, I think the impact that this will have. So yes, Mike Johnson is going to get more numbers and that's important for him. But the impact that this might have on the way, some of these moderate Republicans particularly think about their votes, I think is significant. It's all -- it's all a psychological game.
BURNETT: Well, Shermichael, look, Trump just won this district by 30 points. Mike Waltz won it, you know, you look at last time, 33 points.
SINGLETON: Yeah, yeah.
BURNETT: So, if you're going to come in 8 to 10 or wherever this is going to ultimately settle, that sure would be a warning sign in a district that Trump won by maybe 10 or 15 points.
SINGLETON: I got to be honest. I mean, Erin, a win is a win, but I've worked on a lot of races as a Republican strategist. I'm personally not happy with just winning by 8 or 9 points. Thats why I've been saying 15.
Now some of my Republican friends aren't going to like me saying this. Losing by half of what the president's performance was. I can deal with that. I think it does defeat the Democrats message and ability to say that this is somehow a mandate. But when you get that close, you now enable your opposition to go to their donors to say, if imagine what we can do with this type of financial support and moderate leaning purple districts, imagine how we could potentially flip.
You don't want to cede that ground going into midterms next year. And my worry here is that if we don't perform at least close to 15 as close as possible, you give Democrats that opportunity on a silver platter. I'm not comfortable with that.
DEMINGS: Erin, it's a story tonight, really, that a Republican ran in a -- I mean, won in a ruby red district that Donald Trump just won a few months ago by 30 points. And I've seen the goalpost move even as we've been here at this table tonight.
First, it was 30 points, then it turned into 15 points as a win. Now it's eight points. A win is a win and a --
(CROSSTALK)
DEMINGS: It's okay, it's okay.
MAGUIRE: I mean, a win is a win.
DEMINGS: A win is a win, no doubt about it. But if I was in the Republican Party, I'd be real concerned about a well-known Republican who served as a state senator in the state of Florida, only win in a ruby red seat that he should have owned by eight points.
MAGUIRE: You know what? I will say --
DEMINGS: We'll see what --
MAGUIRE: I agree with you. DEMINGS: What the end of the night reveals.
MAGUIRE: I completely agree with you.
DEMINGS: But let's call balls and strikes here. Let's be real about what's right in front.
MAGUIRE: And that's why I'm going to say, I completely -- I completely agree with you. Republicans should be scared and you want to know what?
(CROSSTALK)
MAGUIRE: You know what? They should be worried. They should be -- they should be concerned. They should be. Any number of words you want to use to describe it.
You want to know why? Because this is a safe district. They did dump a bunch of money in ads early on, Fine's head, and that was able to drive down those numbers. It's hard to keep your positives up, but they should.
[19:40:03]
So, Republicans now for the midterms, start fundraising. Get moving because it's going to cost a lot. It's going --
(CROSSTALK)
BURNETT: We're talking about Florida sixth which right now looks to be a margin of about 8 percent. But you only have about three quarters of the vote in. What about Florida One, which was also almost as ruby red? So, what are we going to see there? Those results are coming in in just the next few minutes.
So much more ahead as we await results from that race and the state Supreme Court race in Wisconsin, and the potential verdict from voters there on Elon Musk.
And how long will Senator Cory Booker talk? What about those? What did he say? Biological urgencies? I mean, come on, doesn't he have to go to the bathroom?
We are keeping an eye on him and the clock. We are back in a moment.
BOOKER: -- said enough. There are big ideas in this country. I want the best.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:45:26]
TAPPER: And welcome back.
We are covering the first major election night of President Trump's second term with two special House elections in Florida and of course, a critical Supreme Court race in the battleground state of Wisconsin.
Joining us now is Wisconsin's Republican senator, the senior senator from Wisconsin, I should say, Ron Johnson.
Senator, good to have you here.
I remember when you were the junior senator of Wisconsin. Thats how long I've known you.
So, first of all, the polls are projecting a very close race in Wisconsin. Do you think -- we heard from the Wisconsin Democratic chair, Ben Winkler, earlier -- do you think that there is a risk in having Elon Musk play such a public role? He is obviously beloved by a lot of people, very successful.
He's also not, according to polls, not the most popular person associated with the Trump administration.
SEN. RON JOHNSON (R-WI): No, I think Elon's role has been very positive in Wisconsin during the 2024 election. He helped finance the ground game and to win statewide in Wisconsin.
It's ground game, ground game, ground game. Got a knock on doors. You got to follow up and make sure people get to the polls.
He's doing similar things here for this race as well. So, I think his net effect has definitely been positive.
TAPPER: Do you see what happens in Wisconsin tonight? And the polls don't close for another hour or 15 minutes, but do you see it as indicative, as a reflection of how popular Trump and Wisconsin and Musk are? Or is it really about these two candidates in the Wisconsin Supreme Court?
JOHNSON: No, I think it really is -- has national implications. And I think certainly from the Democrat side, they just want to lodge their displeasure with Donald Trump winning in November. And you see it with Cory Booker on the floor. They just again they -- Trump derangement syndrome is alive and well. And they're lashing out. And they want to make that point.
From our standpoint, it's important that we regain a conservative majority in the Wisconsin Supreme Court so that we have justices that apply the law. They don't alter it. They don't make it. They don't legislate from the bench.
And that's, again, we're seeing that play out across the country. We're seeing, you know, the -- you know what I would consider radical left judges that are busting out of their constitutional constraints. They're issuing these national injunctions.
Now, personally, I think the Supreme Court needs to weigh in. I think John Roberts has to, you know, bring these justices back within their constitutional constraints. And that's kind of what's happening here in Wisconsin. It was Elon Musk's point. I mean, he had asked people to sign a
petition on judicial activism. And that's -- that's really the key issue here.
TAPPER: Do you think that Musk has a potential conflict of interest in the race? Because we should just note Tesla is challenging -- Tesla, which Musk owns -- is challenging a Wisconsin law that prohibits auto manufacturers from owning dealerships. It's a case that could end up in front of the Wisconsin state Supreme Court if Schimel wins tonight, the Republican backed by Trump, backed by you, backed by Musk. Do you think he should recuse himself from that case?
JOHNSON: No, I don't think so. And again, I have a great deal of confidence. The judge, Justice Schimel, in that case would apply the law impartially.
TAPPER: I want to ask you about tariffs, because I know that you have had some concerns about tariffs as they're applied in the past. President Trump set to impose some more tomorrow, calling it "Liberation Day". We don't know exactly what he's going to do, of course. You have worried about the effect the tariffs will have.
Have you conveyed those concerns to President Trump, who is -- who is a friend and ally of yours? How much do you think these tariffs could theoretically hurt Wisconsinites?
JOHNSON: It's hard to say. You know, President Trump realizes there will be pain. He realizes that tariffs are a double-edged sword. He's wielded it pretty effectively.
He used tariff threat against Mexico to get the president of Mexico to cooperate with his remain in Mexico policy, which secured the border in his first term. Without doubt, we have not been treated fairly by many of our trading partners. And so he's trying to use it to get free and fair trade.
But again, there's -- there's a risk here. He understands the risk. His economic team understands the risk. I'm a little less concerned about the inflationary impact because, you know, even if those prices increase, it's still reasonably small percentage of our GDP.
So, trade is an incredibly complex issue. I think it's -- it is somewhat of a high risk. Approach that President Trump is taking. He is thoroughly convinced this is what we need to do to bring back manufacturing into America.
Right now, I'll give him the benefit of the doubt, but -- but I'm concerned, like the stock market is concerned.
TAPPER: All right. Wisconsin Republican Senator Ron Johnson, good to see you. Thank you so much for being here. Appreciate it.
JOHNSON: Good to see you.
TAPPER: Voting about to end in that other special election House race in Florida on the panhandle. We're standing by for those results from Florida's first congressional district.
[19:50:02]
We're continuing to look ahead to the marquee race. That, of course, is the state Supreme Court race in the Badger State of Wisconsin.
Stick with us. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:55:03]
TAPPER: And welcome back.
We are just minutes away from the end of voting in another U.S. House special election in Florida, this one to replace the scandal plagued former Republican congressman and ill-fated attorney general nominee, Matt Gaetz. The Democratic candidate is named Gay Valimont. She's an athletic trainer and gun violence prevention activist who challenged Gaetz in November and lost handily.
The Republican candidate is Jimmy Patronis, the former chief financial officer for the state of Florida. We expect the first votes in that race to drop in about five minutes.
We're also awaiting results in the marquee contest of this evening, and that is the battle for control of the state Supreme Court in the critical battleground state of Wisconsin.
Elon Musk, the so-called first buddy has poured lots of money and lots of energy in support of the Trump backed Republican-leaning, I guess, or conservative candidate hoping to flip the court majority put conservatives in charge of that court. Liberals are now in charge of it.
The outcome could be a telling referendum on the extraordinary political power President Trump has and the popularity he has, and also the power that he has given to Elon Musk.
All of this playing out at the same time the Democratic Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey is trying to send a message of his own, speaking against President Trump's agenda for more than 24 hours, he has now made history. He has broken the Senate record for the longest floor speech, a record set in 1957.
And Senator Booker is still going.
Let's bring in CNN's Kaitlan Collins at the White House.
And, Kaitlan, do we know if Cory Booker's marathon speech, his history-making speech is on the radar at all at -- in the Trump world, at the White House?
KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: No, Jake, it definitely is. And for -- for people who don't know, when you go back to the press office or even to offices in the West Wing, people often have up four TV screens at once showing each of the channels. And so they've seen this speech, obviously, as he's been going now for over 24 hours and watching people dip in and dip out, because the reason that he's there is protesting the president and protesting his policies.
And so, the White House is not putting a lot of stock in this. They don't think it's ultimately going to make a huge difference with voters based on what we've been hearing from them throughout the day, but obviously, they are recognizing what Cory Booker is doing. And that is because after a few other Senate Democrats voted to advance -- to push and advance that Trump backed spending bill, it infuriated Democrats who argued their representatives on Capitol Hill were not doing enough to stand up to the White House and to protest their policies.
That is in part, why you saw Senator Cory Booker taking this moment to go to the Hill for more than 24 hours, as he's still been speaking on the Senate floor in this protest of the president and his speech.
And Jeff Zeleny is here with me at the White House, Jake. And obviously, Jeff, this is something that, as Chris LaCivita was just saying, that no one cares about what Cory Booker is doing, but the White House is registering it, even if, you know, the president himself has argued that Democrats have lost their confidence, that they don't really have a strong footing right now, that they are looking for momentum as they are in these races tonight.
JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: For sure. I mean, the White House may not care about this, and they probably don't, but Democrats do. And here's why -- Democrats are looking for someone to stand up, someone to sort of be fired up, and what is going to be coming later this year in New Jersey is a key governor's race. And that is exactly why things like this matter, because it gives Democrats sort of a sense of cohesion that they aren't out in the wilderness.
So, no, there's not one speech that is going to stop the Trump agenda. Of course not. But it does show one senator that Democrats still have some fight in them. And that's what we have our eyes on as were watching these races in Wisconsin tonight. That New jersey governor's race is going to be a fascinating one to see if Democrats can hold on to that seat.
The White House will be watching that, because those governor's races in the off year, Virginia and New Jersey, are always so important as a foretelling what could happen in the midterms.
COLLINS: Yeah, and I know also as what they're watching tonight to see what that means for, for the midterms is everyone's kind of reading the tea leaves here with Elon Musk. I mean, this is someone who has virtually unlimited wealth. He has the president's ear. He now has relationships with Republicans here in Washington.
And he's really inserted himself in this Wisconsin Supreme Court state race tonight. And there's real questions about what the impacts of that are, not just if it is a boon for Democrats, but also it could be something that really fortifies Elon Musk and his role in politics here in the United States.
ZELENY: It certainly could. And this is being done with the presidents blessing, there's no doubt about it. And here's why, though -- the only chance that the Republican, the conservative candidate in the Supreme Court race in Wisconsin has is to recreate the Trump coalition, if you will.
And I talked to one top official today, a Republican official who said yes, Musk fired up Democrats. But he also reminded Trump voters that they needed to turn out.
One pattern that we have seen again and again, if Trump's name is not on the ballot, the people don't vote necessarily. So, Musk helped with that.
COLLINS: Yeah. And you saw the -- the more liberal candidate in that race saying that he is essentially her opponent, as she was saying about Elon Musk.
