
Transcript
Congress: War Powers And Election Security (Hour 1)
Daybreak w/ Brian and Jamie · Thu Jun 4, 2026
This is Where Wisconsin Wakes Up.
It's Daybreak with Brian Noonan and Jamie Martinson.
Here are your hosts, Brian and Jamie.
I'm... I almost said good morning.
I'm Thursday morning.
Good morning.
I am Thursday morning.
I am everything that Thursday morning brings to you.
I'm Brian Noonan-Gledger here.
8-5-5-7-5 Civic.
If you want to get ahold of us, 8-5-5-7-5-2-4-8-4-2.
Here, we're going to throw this question right out immediately.
What?
But you probably need to make some plans because this is a really exciting week There's a I said yesterday if you were listening to the show there is so much going on over the next couple of weeks in in Wisconsin If you literally can't find something to do you are
not
trying hard enough or you just want to sit inside and watch TV and veg out for a little bit because there's just so much going on this is
But this is a big weekend if you love to be outdoors because it's Wisconsin's annual free fun weekend.
It will actually run the sixth and the seventh and it gives residents of Wisconsin or even just visitors free access to the state parks, the trails, and it's also free fishing weekend across the state.
There's no park admission stickers.
You don't need a fishing license this weekend.
You don't need the trout stamps.
You don't need trail passes.
You just get to go use all of the amazing facilities and check out all that Wisconsin has to offer.
I always loved this weekend.
This is one of those weekends.
We're in the past.
And when we were living in Baraboo, we would literally pick a state park around us.
And yes, when I say that, that sounds ridiculous because we had Devil's Lake in our backyard.
lake and we spent tons of time at both.
Don't try to go to Devil's Lake this weekend.
Okay, good pro
I have several state parks in Wisconsin that I love.
Devils Lake, always going to be special to me.
I actually am a huge fan of Mirror Lake State Park.
It's very serene.
It's very quiet.
to hike and do walks.
It's amazing.
There's kayaking available on Mirror Lake.
You can actually rent kayaks right there.
I love that.
Yeah, it's awesome.
Now, do
They actually have a boat dock at Ishtnala.
So you can actually just boat right up, dock the boat.
get your drinks, go wait on the beach until it's time for you to go sit, and then you can enjoy a beautiful dinner at Ishtnala as well, the most famous supper club in all of the state, of course.
And they're right in the park, correct?
They are.
They were grandfathered in very, very long ago, because Ishtnala existed before Mirror Lake State Park existed.
So
they got grandfathered in.
The
best part about Ishtnala being there is in certain areas of the park, if you're doing a hike, you can smell everything cooking from Ishtnala.
It just permeates across the entire park.
It's awesome.
That's
Yes.
Kohler Andre State Park over by Green Bay is also beautiful.
I'm also a huge fan of Governor Dodge State Park.
If you do a little hiking there, there's a path where you can go down and you kind of, it feels like you go into another world because you...
Kind of go down into a valley and there's a beautiful little waterfall and little like Ponds and things.
It's just absolutely gorgeous.
So this is a really fun time of year and you can partake in all of it Alisha pointing out yes high cliff and point beach state parks two of my high cliff
She's also pointing out on our YouTube chat this morning since it is dairy month in the state of Wisconsin all of those farm
breakfast start this weekend.
Oh, wow.
So
you
can go buy your tickets, see how an actual dairy farm works.
You're going to get some amazing farm fresh food.
I mean, it is it really truly is like two of the busiest weekends in a row in the entire state.
This starting tomorrow.
I know
Because pontoons are very different, right?
So if I want to relax and I just want to meander around for the day and take in a whole lot of sun and hang out with family and friends, then pontoons are definitely probably my better choice.
If I'm just wanting to have a whole lot of fun and, you know, need a little wind in the hair, then of course you pick the speedboat because it's a little different.
So it really depends on my mood.
I'm more likely to say pontoon, but I love
good speedboat ride too.
They can be a whole lot of fun.
So
A leisurely boat ride, I love it.
Anna is texting in this morning listening on WMDX in Madison.
She says, I love Peninsula State Park in Door County.
Yes, another really, really good one.
The view from the new officer day evasion deck is beautiful.
Just actually had a chance to check out Peninsula State Park in last fall, like early fall before all
We bought it used.
I named her Gertie.
Why?
I don't know, but that's her name.
So it has stuck.
And so we periodically take Gertie out.
husband thought this was going to be a lot better than tent camping until he had to do it once and realized it's just a glorified tent.
So, yeah, those are
This is true.
We're still on the fence about what we want to do with Gertie if we want to like upgrade Gertie and get something a little less tent like or in small or so
but we use state park weekends to, you know, cause sometimes you'll see photos from a state park and you're like, ooh, that's beautiful.
What are their camping facilities like?
So we use this weekend to go check out the campgrounds and things to see if we like it, to see if they're shade and all of that.
Are you going to anywhere this weekend?
We actually have to be in Iowa City tomorrow.
I'll be doing this show remotely and then we'll be back tomorrow night.
So we might try to venture out Saturday and Sunday to a couple of state parks we haven't been to.
There's also a couple of
One of my other favorites is over by Eau Claire.
It's a Burnett State Park.
It's actually like a little island.
So you, as you drive to Burnett, you actually cross like this little piece of land that takes you out onto this island and then you're surrounded by beautiful water and forest and it is, it is just absolutely gorgeous.
But we are, we are really truly lucky to have all of that at our disposal in the state.
So if you have the opportunity to get out this weekend and enjoy and check out some of the
places around you.
Please do.
This is a great weekend to do so.
Again, no park admission.
So that's like a bonus.
But still, then you don't have to pay for anything else.
You don't have like JB said earlier, no fishing licenses, no trout stamps, nothing.
You just go and fish.
I haven't fished in a long time.
One of my brothers is an avid fisherman.
And my my wife, who grew up in Michigan, she used to fish all the time when she
And as we got older and smarter and wiser and our boys got older, when we would go visit the UP, we wouldn't stay in motels.
We would do like a Virbo or an Airbnb and usually do something right on water so that when people were visiting, our kids could go run around and still play.
Now, it usually ended up being cold and rainy and defeated the purpose, but we usually got a couple
of nice days out,
right?
couple of nice days out of it.
Everybody would come to us.
And then Corey's dad would bring all of his fishing gear and then he would take the boys fishing.
And that was always a huge, huge thing for my boys to go fishing with Grandpa Mike.
They
loved, loved doing it.
My dad passed away when Max was only three.
He also loved to fish.
So they didn't get to do it with my dad ever, but they got to do it with Grandpa Mike a few times.
Now I'm not going to say they're avid fishermen, but they still talk about fishing with Grandpa
Now back to more of Daybreak with Brian and Jamie.
I'm Brian Noonan.
What do you think finally made the house and Mike Johnson stand up and speak out against the war?
85575 Civic, 8557524842.
Well,
I can't believe it.
It's not nothing legal, nothing binding, but the U.S.
House voted 215 to 208 to approve a resolution aimed at limiting President Trump's
authority to continue military action in Iran without congressional approval.
It's the fourth time the House has tried to curb the U.S.
war against Iran.
Mike Johnson had tried to prevent an outcome that would show the mounting opposition to the war.
He shut down floor action two weeks ago when the resolution was on the verge of approval.
But guess what?
Displeasure has grown.
People will not be silenced and the conflict drags on and on.
There's no plan for peace.
Trump said negotiations.
bore him.
Well, four Republicans jumped ship Thomas Massey, Brian Fitzpatrick, Tom Barrett and Warren Davidson.
They joined the Democrats in supporting the measure.
It reflects bipartisan concerns about the president's war powers.
It's about time.
So he really has nothing to lose at this point.
However, Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, Tom Barrett of Michigan, and Warren Davidson of Ohio,
This is notable because all three of them are running for reelection in November.
And so what this tells me is that they're actually listening to their constituents back home.
They're seeing the fact that there is frustration over expanding military force.
They're seeing frustration over the economy and what this war has potentially done to their state's economy and to their constituents.
And they actually are listening.
And they're probably in safe districts anyway.
So they probably felt like they could do this because there's always some
sort of motive behind this, but the fact that they did it is good news.
And it does show that there's facts.
They could
also be also be looking at the results from some of the elections on Tuesday, where Trump's endorsed candidates did not do well.
And, you know, at some point, if you if you've been in politics this long, as long as these guys have, and those are all pretty familiar names to a lot of people, you have to realize the guy at the top
is not going to be there forever.
You have to start making contingency plans because as much as he wants to be there forever and as much as there are people working behind the scenes to keep him there forever, it's not going to happen.
And let's also be clear, thanks to Marquette University and the poll that they released yesterday, he's not a popular president.
He's not a popular president at all.
In fact, his approval rating is at 38% nationally.
That's the lowest of his second term and net approval rating of negative 24.
And here in Wisconsin, in case anybody's wondering, his net approval rating is negative 14.
That's the
lowest.
That's not good, right?
No, no, it's
not good at
all.
It's
the
lowest recorded for him in the state across both of his terms.
And it's notable because he's actually going to be in the state tomorrow.
He's going to be in Chippewa Falls.
Yeah, yeah.
And it's the economy and inflation.
And he can say all he wants, that inflation and affordability are made up terms by the Democrats.
But when it's so easy to disprove your lies, you're either
dumber than the Democrats, in his words, to try to make the change, or you just really, really are so out of touch that you have the mindset of let them eat cake.
Because affordability is not a made-up term.
Affordability is looking at your paycheck every week, looking at what you have to put out and going, I don't have money to
The basic things that you need to live that people are struggling to pay and are basically deciding from month to month what is most important, right?
That's literally
what
people are doing right now is trying to figure out, well, if I skip
this
at the grocery store, this will give me a little bit more to pay for this this month.
That's literally what's happening.
everybody is in that situation right now.
There's so many people who are in that situation trying to figure out what they should pay, how they should pay it.
And it solely falls on tariffs, which by the way, the president yesterday announced that he wants another 10% tariff.
So that's being looked at now by this administration.
The fact that Marco Rubio yesterday tried to tell us at a committee hearing that the war is essentially over and peace has been achieved, but yet there were bombings yesterday.
And the fact that there is no end in sight to any of these policies.
And that is, I think that is what is so frustrating.
And I guess when I read this Marquette poll, the thing that frustrated me the most is that...
Trump does have a lot of influence yet over the GOP 71% of voters in this new market poll said that they would support a Trump endorsed Republican candidate now that
is
obviously in just the GOP Independence and Democrats are that's where the number where his numbers keep falling is with independence especially right and and he still has he has still a strong Republican support the independence though not so much this is where you start getting those negative numbers when you look at how they're
seeing things.
Okay, it's a daybreak.
If you're listening in Madison on WMDX or in Wausau and WXCO in the cross on WLCX or in Hayward on WBZH, we thank you so much for joining us.
And hey, Brian, this is our little morning reminder where you're about a half hour away from being able to qualify for more cash and prizes at our Accelerate Your Summer Multi-State Text Wing Contest.
So get that app ready because we would love to give you some cash and qualify.
for some really big prizes.
Love that.
But anyway, how do you feel about your name?
being turned over to the government as part of a voter roll.
Well, your name's already on the Wisconsin voter rolls, but now we would, oh, let's get federal because once again, our illustrious dear leader and many Republicans are pushing for stricter voting laws, including proof of citizenship requirements saying that changes are needed to protect, oh, the million dollar term, election integrity.
That's right.
The elections have been just fraught with fraud and cheating and everything else.
No, they haven't.
So where does it end?
Where does it, where do we finally get to stop using the term election integrity when it almost never came up before?
No.
Before 2016, we just, yes, you would find, there'd be little things here and there.
Sure.
Maybe once in a while.
Right.
You know, but now if you listened, if you were just like, if you just came to this planet or if you just moved to this country and you listened to Republicans, you would think, oh my gosh, what kind of what kind of weird banana Republic are they living in?
These elections are a farce when in fact.
they are not.
they keep making it harder and harder and and that's the entire point of it is that they are trying to make it harder and harder and with the midterms coming up and then another presidential election in two years
Where are we going to be and let's be real?
I mean the states are supposed to run the elections They keep
They want states rights.
This is what the GOP continues to tell us They want the states to be in charge They want the states to determine this but then the states are trying to determine their own elections They're trying to run their own elections and yet you're making it harder by continually cutting funding for the states to do that it's
And election work is year-round work.
Our elections commissions from state to state and here even in Wisconsin, they do the work.
It's not just every four years.
And the election commission in Wisconsin, they're always busy.
I mean, we vote all the time in this state.
We constantly have an election.
The man who's crying the most about election integrity brought in Elon Musk, who may or may not depend.
on what report you read and what day it is had some sort of influence over the last election.
But yes, you do need cybersecurity.
You need equipment upgrades.
You need all of that.
But then you don't cut the funding.
Right.
Yeah.
It's nobody is disagreeing with you that, well, let's just leave the doors open
They can't, and a lot of these election offices not only use the grants for upgrading basically infrastructure and keeping staff around, but it also helps pay for security cameras, security ballot drop boxes, the software updates, and all of those protections against hacking attempts.
It's literally a year-round responsibility, and it can't be maintained only during the presidential elections.
And I don't know if that's what they're assuming, maybe this
is another one of those ploys that they're like, well, you know, if we make it harder than we only have an election every four years, because it turns out that Republican voters are stronger during presidential elections than they are during other parts of election season.
So who knows what the thinking is here, but it really, it's so disturbing because...
That's part of a basic right of being a citizen of this country is being able to vote.
So the fact that this has been an ongoing war against voting and making it harder and taking away people's rights and basically determining who should be able to vote and who can't, and by the way, .0003% of fraud happens in an election.
because anything else if you were point zero zero zero something it wouldn't even be worth mentioning no it but this whole thing just like gerrymandering it is to he talks about rigged systems and rigged this and rigged that man the republicans are they are union level riggers these guys are
always trying to do something, redrawing the maps, making it harder to vote, cutting funding and then never letting go of the fact that the elections are not secure, even though everything points to it.
And the gaslighting that goes on that we are not only subject to, but some people are victims of because they buy into it is
embarrassing in a society where we should have evolved from being simpletons and yet there are a lot of people who are just either too tired, too lazy, too dumb, or just blinded by whatever to make rational decisions.
Listen, I'm not saying that Republicans in general are misguided or dumb or anything like that, but if you are presented with facts,
And you're presented with evidence beyond a reasonable doubt.
It's good enough for court.
It should be good enough for this and you still Nope, it's you're the equivalent of a child covering their ears and going la la la la la la.
Yeah, that's that's what you are and do Just look around pull the pull the wool off from over your eye your eyes and see what's happening see what they're doing and
You might be in favor of it now if you're on that side, but remember anything you put in place now.
Yes once power shifts Man payback is well, you know what
payback is this is the thing I don't understand right is where is they're continually trying to make voting harder, but it doesn't just affect
one side, one party.
This affects all voters.
So if you're essentially trying to make it hard for certain people to not vote, because let's be realistic, it keeps being targeted around certain groups of people.
If you're trying to do that, but these are blanket rules.
So it actually affects everybody, including your own voters, which is something I really, really don't understand.
Greg, over on our YouTube chat this morning, says that we also need to fund the poll workers better.
Go through.
what they go through during an election season.
It's crazy.
I've been a poll worker several different times in several different areas of the country, depending on where we were living.
And I will honestly say that I've been very fortunate.
I've never had any major incidents.
Now, one of the only things that we ran across was in 2016, or in 2020, I apologize, in Wisconsin.
you know, you can register at the polls.
And that was my job, that particular election.
So I've been fortunate when I've been a poll worker, but I agree.
I agree with that statement.
But this also, when you start,
are you even going to be able to pay those people?
Or are you going to just expect them to volunteer their entire day now to help run elections?
Because you're not going to have the funding.
But we
I can appreciate that.
Isn't that enough to do, you know?
Yes, yes.
Now, what I appreciate about this conversation is that not only are they cutting funding, Brian, but the U.S.
Postal Service has also now proposed this new
some new nationwide rules for absentee voting by mail, speaking of making things harder.
Including the creation of a new federal list of voters who are eligible to receive and return mail ballots.
And under this particular proposal, against state election officials, gonna be at the brunt of it, would submit the names of eligible absentee voters and barcode information for their ballots to the postal service.
And the goal of this is to help track male ballots and allow law enforcement to then compare the
Can't disagree with that.
Now, with the postal service and the absentee ballots, Wisconsin election officials have already weighed in.
They say that they're not going to rush to make any changes because the proposal is going to face legal challenges and may never take effect.
But this is it.
If you're going to turn it over to the states, they're going to push back because states run their own elections.
You don't have a say in what these states do.
You can't continue to change the rules and say that the states run it, but the states actually don't because we're going to impose these laws at a national level.
You can't keep changing the rules.
People are going to keep questioning.
But Jamie, if we
Network.
We hope that your morning is going well.
Gorgeous start to the day.
Thank you so much for joining us today on the Civic Media Network.
We are just about 10 minutes or so away, just over 10 minutes from giving you your first word of the hour with our Accelerate Your Summer multi-state text-to-ing contest.
So get that Civic Media app ready and be listening for your new word coming up after 7 o'clock this morning.
My name is Jamie Martenson.
I'm Brian Noonan.
If you ever want to get ahold of us, we'd love to talk to you.
8-5-5-7-5 Civic.
8-5-5-7-5-2.
4-8-4-2.
Be nice to Parker.
He is always under stress because I give him so much to worry about.
What's he going to say?
Is he going to get out on time?
Does he remember his name?
All the questions that Parker has to worry about as he sits there.
We always talk about how the Democrats have to toughen up, and we need to fight fire with fire, and we got to do the dirty tricks that the Republicans do to keep us in the game.
Well, kudos to Alaska, because it appears, at least according to a Senate Republican, that the Democrats are engaging in, dare I say, chicanery, shenanigans, underhandedness.
So Alaska's U.S.
Senate race has taken an unusual turn.
A second candidate named Dan Sullivan entered the race against incumbent Republican, you guessed it, Dan Sullivan.
That's right, two Dan Sullivan's, no waiting.
Senator's campaign is accusing Democrats and former Congresswoman Mary Pultolda
of recruiting a second Dan Sullivan to confuse the voters, although through Petola's campaign denies any involvement.
We don't want anything to do with the Dan Sullivan.
So the newly announced Daniel J. Dan J. Sullivan is an elementary school teacher and cancer survivor who says the current senator has failed to put Alaska first.
Both candidates are registered Republicans, and the senator's campaign claims the new candidate's campaign branding looks similar to his own, raising concerns about voter confusion, as if voters need any more help being
Right?
I love this, though.
This is so great.
And the fact that it's not even a Democrat, a registered Democrat with the same name running against the current Dan Sullivan.
That's right.
It's another Republican is just...
like another, just another little like knife twist in all of this, right?
It really is.
But I love that he's
Alaska uses ranked choice voting, meaning their top four candidates in the primary advance to the general election, regardless of their party affiliation.
So really,
Senator Dan Sullivan's campaign, the current Dan Sullivan's campaign says that it's reviewing possible legal options and argues that the situation could actually undermine voter confidence in the election process.
No, I don't think it does.
Hey, this
He's allowed to run.
It's rank choice voting.
They're allowed to put in whoever they want in their rank choice.
So there really is no confusion here.
The Alaska primary, in case anybody's wondering, is scheduled for August 18th.
The race is expected to draw.
national attention because Republicans and Democrats are competing for a really key Senate seat.
This is great.
I mean, you know, here's the thing, and you're right, we talk about the fact that Democrats do a lot of, you know, nicely worded letters and strongly
that it's all done by rank choice voting in Alaska is even better because people are going to just fill out the ballot.
They're gonna put their one, two, three, fours in there.
They're gonna pick their favorites.
And it's gonna be interesting to see which Dan Sullivan prevails.
But Dan Sullivan, I did do a little digging into.
To the second one.
Second one.
He really does have an outstanding career teaching children.
He was, his cancer survival story is pretty,
pretty epic as far as the surgeries that he had to undergo and some of the things that he went through to still be in the world and to fight cancer.
And so the fact that he actually has a story that resonates with the voters is also pretty cool.
I
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