Friends for Life: Earl and Tom Barrett (Hour 1)

This is a new recording, man.

Welcome to the Earl Ingram Show.

As always, you can join us at 855-752-4842.

That's 855-752-4842.

You can text us at that same number.

Good morning to you, Cardi.

How you doing, man?

Man, I am so happy, man.

414 Days was yesterday, man.

Huge turnoff for us in the city of Milwaukee.

And today is Tuesday, man.

The weather's just fluctuating back and forth.

Good day.

Crazy

days.

Well, so let me make this announcement before I introduce...

My guess, beginning Wednesday, April 23rd, the Earl Ingram show will be shifting its focus to local community content on 540 AMWA UK in Milwaukee, as well as special reporting starting with the limited podcast series focusing on the issues of lead in drinking water.

Earl will continue to be a voice for local content on 540 AMWA UK throughout Milwaukee with local spots that were broadcast during mornings with Pat Crichtlaw.

Crite low.

Additionally, as a correspondent with civic media, Earl will appear as a regular guest on civic media network shows to share details about a special reporting and podcast.

Subscribe to the Earl Ingham show, wherever you listen to podcasts to stay up to date with all the digital exclusive content Earl would be releasing in the coming weeks and months.

And I just want to say, uh, good morning and welcome to a good friend.

And I don't even know who to call you anymore.

This is, let me say this, former state rep, former state senator, former mayor for the city of Milwaukee for 17 years, and former ambassador for Luxembourg, none other than what I really want to call him, and we'll always call him as a good friend, Tom Barrett.

Good morning to you.

I'm still, I gotta call you, man.

That's

fine.

Well, good morning,

Earl.

It's great

to be here.

It's great to be at your show.

Go ahead.

And I wanna hijack your show and return the favor, because I was sick as I was driving here this morning, for your listeners.

When I became a huge...

Earl Ingram fan was probably around 20 years ago and I was mayor And he did the most amazing program that I ever saw as an elected official and that was this Saturday morning football program

for kids in the city of Milwaukee.

And there are countless people who tell you what to do and there are countless people who have strong opinions.

But the number of people who take an idea and make it a reality because they're passionate about it and it helps people is very few.

And Earl, you, our mutual respect, I think,

began then because I became instantaneously a lifelong Earl Ingram fan when I saw what you were doing for those kids.

You know, Mayor Barrett, I wanted to say, and it's amazing, because my thoughts went along that same line.

You had faith and belief in me and in us, and you supported us, and we were able to for over 20 years.

It's still going on, by the way.

Impact just...

thousands and thousands and thousands of children and lead them down the right

path.

It was amazing to see.

It was amazing to see.

And it was great.

So thank you.

Well, you know, at the at the height of it, we had 800 boys.

Wow.

May have buried 800 boys that we impacted with their families.

Four days a week would practice.

And then those Saturday mornings that were epic, right?

I mean, we eventually moved it to Lincoln Park and

on Saturday mornings, it was just a spectacle.

It was a wonderful spectacle.

Yeah, and you know, you made all that happen, but that's not about Earl.

This is about Tom Barrett.

And I wanted to begin, Tom, with you and I, same age.

We're

both

getting closer to middle.

Well, actually, actually, I think both of us have become our fathers.

I

think

probably that's a good thing though.

Right.

Yeah.

It's a good thing and life has been good.

And so a lot of different things I want to talk to you about.

I wanted to begin with the early years of Tom Barrett.

You know, middle school, high school, where'd you go?

Well, I grew up in the west side of Milwaukee and went to grade school about four blocks from my house to St.

Sebastian's Grade School.

And one of the things that I've said is a lot of time you'll have politicians who talk about what a difficult upbringing they had and how challenging it was and all these things.

That wasn't me.

I honest to God had to leave it to be for childhood.

where on my block there probably were 60 or 70 kids.

We'd go out and play.

And it was a wonderful childhood to the point where right now the home where my wife and I raised our family is about 150 yards from the house I grew up in.

And when I wanted to move back to that neighborhood, we had four kids.

for kids at the time, small kids in a two bedroom house.

And I said, well, let's look in the neighborhood, the Washington Heights neighborhood where I grew up.

And her response was, you're already fixated in your childhood.

I don't want to

relive your childhood because she knew I had a happy childhood.

So I don't, like you, I feel blessed in my life.

I really do.

And there are things that I get ma...

very angry about and agitated about on the world stage

or on

the national

stage.

So before we get into all that.

Yeah,

but I understand.

But personally, I'm not an angry man.

No, no, listen, I know you're not.

But okay, so you grew up in this really a scenic and beautiful area of the city.

It's still that way today.

High school, high school.

I saw at the market

high school a mile and a half from my house.

And I was a pretty good student.

I love sports, but I wasn't a great athlete.

So that's unfortunate.

But I still like to play sports.

In fact, I'm going to be tomorrow my first ever.

senior softball.

Oh, really?

Yes.

I'm just going to show up.

I have no idea whether I'll play or not, but it's like, okay, I liked playing softball when I was a kid.

Maybe I'll see now that I'm older.

Maybe I'll take another lick of softball.

So, you know, if you're just joining us, my guess is Mr. Tom Barrett.

Tom Barrett, again, former state representative, former state senator, former mayor of the city of Milwaukee for 17 years and recently the ambassador of Luxembourg.

And so,

When you got college, so.

Well, actually one of the key things that happened, believe it or not, was when I was a senior in high school, my next-door neighbor, who had been my best friend growing up, and we had sort of sometimes grown a little apart, but we're still very, I'd say still best friends.

About a month and a half before we graduated from high school, was killed in a car accident on a.

sort of a class trip out to South Dakota.

And that had a profound impact on me.

And it made me grow up a little faster because all of a sudden it was like, oh my gosh.

So I went to school in Madison and studied economics, primarily some political science.

And nobody in my family had ever been involved in politics.

And then I decided I would be interested in that.

And my mother thought I was crazy for many, many years.

So, so Tom, so you graduate from blessing from UW Madison.

Right, right.

How did you wind up?

become the state rep.

Well, then I

decided I came home.

I actually went and the first job I got out of college was working on the assembly line at Harley-Davidson.

Oh, come on, man.

And just sort of a summer.

I didn't know what I wanted to do.

They were hiring.

So I went to Harley-Davidson and work there.

And that was a great experience.

And then I decided, oh, I'm going

to go back.

Not to mention you filled your pockets with gold.

Yeah.

Well,

no, it was paying

well.

It did pay well.

It did pay well.

So then I went to law school and then I

actually clerked for a federal judge.

But then I thought, I'm running for office.

I'm going to run for the state assembly.

And the way I describe it is the reaction of all my friends was exactly the same.

They said, you're crazy.

Nobody knows who you are.

You're not this, you weren't Joe Kool in high school

and

all stuff like that.

I didn't come from a wealthy family.

I didn't come from a politically connected family.

Um, and I said, just I'm going to do it.

And so I went out and a lot of my friends helped me and knocked on doors the whole summer and then came back and, and, and turned out they were right.

I lost that race, but I lost it by 39 votes out of about 8,000.

Um, and, and that was a tough time.

And I, and I thought, okay, I have to be pleasant and present.

I can't give up.

Uh,

This is something I'm interested in.

I'm going to be pleasant and present.

I'm not going to be a sore loser.

And then as fate would have it, the fellow who beat me his father.

passed away and he moved on to a different job.

And so then I got another shot two years later.

And that was the state assembly did that.

And then doors opened up the Senate and the Congress for 10 years and then mayor's job.

So you're running down the road.

I know your speed walking all those things.

But so state assembly back in 1984 1984.

Governor Tommy Thompson.

Governor Tony Earl.

Tony Earl.

Yeah.

Last

two years at Tony Earl.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So you walk into the assembly.

Why'd I, young guy, did you know what to expect?

No, no, I didn't.

But it was a wonderful experience.

It really was a wonderful experience.

the state assemblies, it's like the school cafeteria, kids throwing food back and forth and things like that.

Then you get to the state Senate and that's more like the teacher's lounge where the teachers yell at each other in quiet.

So you had to be one of the youngest guys.

I was 30.

Oh, you were 30.

Yeah.

So I wasn't, I wasn't some, I mean, there were people younger than I was.

I was on the younger end, but I was not a babe at that point.

Yeah.

So let's do this.

855-752-4842.

I am joined by my good friend, you know, former mayor of the city of Milwaukee.

When at 17 years, I couldn't believe that.

I got

a lot of wounds

to show.

Mayor Tom Barrett, but really with all those different things, man, you know.

You're my friend,

but we're

friend.

I'm excited about that and we've got him in studio We're gonna have a great conversation about you know his life and where he's headed and all the different things that he's done on the Erling room

show

So you can see

You

So may I bear it?

That was the music of our time.

I know this song.

Welcome back to The Earl Ingram Show.

As always, you can join us at 855-752-4842.

You know, I've had the chance to interview a lot of people in my time in radio.

And I would have to say former president Joe Biden was

at the top of the list.

Absolutely.

And Tom, you are up there because

of all the times that you and I had conversations and the work that you've done and the commitment that you've made.

And so I'm so excited to have you here after your stint in Luxembourg.

And I just wanted to walk down that valley of what happened in your life and my life and the impact and the way we see the world.

and especially today in politics.

So that's why I'm so excited to have you on board.

But anyway, so state senator, you weren't, I mean, a state rep, you weren't there very long before you wound up jumping to the next level.

State senator, how did that come about?

Well, there was a gentleman by the name of Mordecai Lee, he's still in town.

And he had served for a number of years and he just decided he was done.

And so he resigned midterm and there was a special election.

And I won that.

But quite honestly, within three months of winning that, I got a phone call from Jim Moody.

Jim Moody,

a great guy.

Who had been the congressman for about seven or eight years at that time.

And he asked to meet with me and said, I'm going to be leaving this job in 1992.

This was 1990.

And he talked about it and asked me to be a co-chair of his reelection effort with Martha Love, which we did.

And then I just thought, okay, that's gonna provide an opening there.

So I was in the state senate even shorter period of time and I never...

I never mentally unpacked my bag there because I knew this opportunity was coming up to run for Congress.

So that was 92, so I went in when Clinton went in.

So there was a lot of hope and enthusiasm, hope coming out of hope Arkansas.

It was a young president and a lot of enthusiasm there.

And just a month before that election, my wife gave birth to our first child, our son.

So here I was, a brand new congressman with a brand new wife and a brand new baby, and a much different color hair

at that time.

But you became a congressman.

You can't skip over that.

That's a major accomplishment for anybody.

Oh, it was

wonderful.

How was that race?

Who did you run

against?

It was a contested race and some really, really, really good.

people, Terrence Pitts, finished the second, and he had run once before and had done pretty well and done even better this time.

Fred Kessler, a man I have tremendous respect for who recently passed away, he ran Mark Murata, a basketball star.

He was obviously well respected also.

Those were great

names.

Tom Barrett's name was not...

on the same radar as Marada and... But what I had going for

me was I was a west side kid and I had spent literally years knocking on doors through the neighborhoods of the west side.

And most of the time I was single, so I didn't have a family.

And I really did spend a lot of time knocking on doors during the time I was in the state legislature.

And so,

Those roots become pretty deep when you know people at their home, because my theory was always when you knock on someone's door, if they're in a bad mood, they don't answer it, which makes sense.

If they're in a good mood, they answer it, and you can build, I have many friendships that I formed by knocking on people's doors when I was in the state assembly and state

assembly.

So hard work as opposed to today, pockets.

It's full of money.

Oh, it was definitely shoe leather.

It was definitely shoe leather.

And it was a different time, obviously.

Right.

But there's different people get in different ways.

But it clearly worked for me.

And I was honored to have that role as a congressman for 10 years.

And I loved it.

But then the Gingrich revolution came.

And I basically voted no for a living.

You know because it was no no no Ronald Reagan.

Yeah, and then I took an unsuccessful shot at governor in I know but

you're moving too

fast.

Okay.

Okay, so so you became a congressman and Very young man to be a congressman.

That was a pretty young man to be a congressman.

Yeah

And so did you feel I mean you hey you wind up you're in Washington, DC You're sitting in the hallowed halls of Congress and you're you're sitting around these

people that are bigger than life.

It was exciting.

There were times when you felt like you were sitting in Time Magazine.

Seriously, or the eating news, because you would see these people that obviously were on the national news every night.

And you had the exposure to it.

And it was very exciting.

Because it was the way I describe it, that was major league pitching.

Right.

Because nobody, and it was funny.

The other thing I would say is there was a gym there.

There still is a gym there.

And on almost a daily basis, you'd have basketball games.

And it'd be about 3.30 in the afternoon.

And Democrats and Republicans would come down.

And I used a joke that I went six weeks before I saw the first assist.

Because

this is not a group of people who want to make somebody else look good.

It's like, I got the ball, I'm shooting.

I got the ball, I'm shooting.

So, some of you, 855-752-4842, my guess is Mr. Tom Barrett.

And we're going down, you know, history lane, and we're going to get to, you know, what's up.

in the future, but I'm so excited to have him in the studio.

We're going to take calls.

You'll take some calls.

Sure.

A little bit later.

Easy questions.

Yeah.

All right.

855-752-4842.

You're tuned into the Earl Ingram show.

So, so.

politics caused sky-high inflation and a crisis at the border.

Michigan families are ready for change.

That's why we need Tom Barrett in Congress.

Tom will bring common sense solutions to lower inflation and get our economy moving again.

He'll put partisan politics aside to secure the border and he'll get government out of the way.

That's the results Michiganders deserve and that's what Tom will deliver.

Vote Tom Barrett for Congress.

and welcome back to the early interim show.

As always, you can join us at 855-752-4842.

You can text us at that same number, my guess is, you know, Mr. Tom Barrett.

And if I start talking about all of his titles, you know, we would not be able to get the subject in, but, you know, recently, the ambassador of Luxembourg, and we're gonna talk about Luxembourg and all of that.

what all of that was, uh, to you and, uh, but we were going back down memory lane and so Tom, you became a congressman.

And at the time there was, it was kind of upheaval in Congress cause you know, um, we wound up bringing ushering in after, uh, after Bill Clinton, no, Ronald Reagan.

after Ronald Reagan, and you were in Congress during Ronald Reagan's years.

Actually, no, I

came in with

Bill Clinton.

Oh, with Bill Clinton, yeah.

And so the changes that were taking place in the country at that time.

Well, some significant changes.

Obviously, after two years, there was the Newt Gingrich Revolution, and the Republicans took control of Congress for the first time in 40

years.

The contract on America.

Contract on America.

He didn't call it on America, he said the

country.

And that changed things dramatically.

And then of course, President Clinton was impeached for the Monica Lewinsky episode.

And so there was a lot of drama, a lot of drama

at that

time.

But again, it was very interesting.

It was challenging.

It was rewarding.

It was an honor.

But I also, that was a time when my wife and I had our family.

And so it got harder and harder.

physically for my wife to take care of four kids

by

herself.

And it got harder and harder emotionally for me to be gone.

Right,

especially during that growth.

Yeah, during that

growth.

And so that's when I decided, okay, I love this job.

It's an honor of a lifetime.

I got to leave.

So you made the decision to leave?

I made the decision to leave and then to run for governor in 2002.

Jim Doyle won the primary and thank God he won the general election.

And my plan then was to be a dad and work in a law firm.

But within months, I realized I still had, as I describe it, the

needle.

Fire in the belly.

The needle in the hour is how I

describe it.

And that was right after John Narquist announced he was not gonna run.

So I threw my hat in that ring and 14 people and I was fortunate to emerge.

So for people across the state who are listening to us right now, who may not know, once you become the mayor of the city of Milwaukee,

It's kind of a life sentence.

I remember Mayor Meyer as a young boy.

You and I were both young boys.

He was the mayor for 28 years.

28 years.

28 years.

28 years.

Mayor Meyer was the mayor.

and and followed by John Norquist for

he did 15 almost between 15 and 16 15

16 years and then you 17 years.

Yeah.

So in my 70 years of living in the city of Milwaukee, there's only been three mayors.

Well, Marvin

Pratt

was in for a short time.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But now Cavalier Johnson, four

mayors.

It's a different, it's very interesting because by the time I left being mayor, I was by far the longest serving mayor of a major city

in

America.

Something that I never talked about because my thinking was, well, if people saw that, they'd say,

well, then let's

get rid of him.

He's been around too long.

So Tom, you, for people who are listening across this nation and across the state especially,

those early times, the city of Milwaukee was what?

One of the 17 largest cities in the nation.

Well, at one point it was as high as number nine.

Number nine.

Number nine.

Number nine.

Yeah.

And so for people who don't know, we were an industrial metropolis.

And we just, when we were off air

and

I want to share this with your listeners and viewers, you showed me that page and I've referred to that and this is relevant.

for our conversation and for you directly.

In 1970, and it references 1970 in that page, Milwaukee had the highest per capita income for African Americans

in the country.

I tell people that all the time.

It had the highest because of all these great factory jobs, foundry jobs, and brewery jobs.

And so people could get a job where they could support their family.

And we saw, now over the last 50 years, that just disappeared.

Well, you know, Tom, I was able to live

the American dream and many like me in the city while you were the mayor.

And so the taxes weren't as high because industry paid its fair share.

Let's talk a little bit about the difference when business can pay its fair share and what that means.

And because many of those barons of those major corporations still set on the boards of

Oh sure.

And those companies and they were civic minded.

Right,

right, right.

And so when you, when your spouse wants you to do something and you're rich, you do it.

Right.

You know, so you had a lot of men and a lot of women who were part of our community.

Yes.

And so, so they were huge, generous benefactors for many things in our community because they were here.

They were part of that community.

And we have witnessed a seismic change in that.

And just even now, you look at the largest employer in Milwaukee and it's Aurora HealthCare.

That's no longer a local company.

You know, Tom, I always tell people the story as a young boy growing up, if there were any cracks in the street.

They were fixed immediately.

There was no crack pavement sidewalks.

They were all pristine.

You could go to the parks, no dandelions anywhere.

Beautiful, beautiful city, right?

I don't care.

There were no slums.

There were businesses, the storefronts.

in many of the areas, communities around the city of Milwaukee were vibrant.

And so it was a wonderful, wonderful time.

It was a wonderful time.

I agree.

It was a great place for both of us to grow up.

I agree.

Absolutely.

And so, but you look today and you see all of these changes that have taken place, your thoughts on what has happened because Bill Clinton was in office.

when NAFTA came into existence.

So you can't solely blame that on Bill Clinton and Democrats.

It was the one thing that both Democrats and Republicans agreed on was NAFTA.

Your thoughts after all these years on what's NAFTA?

I think that was a

tragic mistake.

I voted no, and I'm happy I voted no.

And I still remember getting a phone call from the trade representative.

And I said to him, you know, that that's a hundreds and hundreds of page document and every I is dotted and every T is crossed.

The only thing it doesn't have in there is that the workers will get increases in pay.

The workers in Mexico as well as the

workers

in the United States.

And because my theory was if the workers in Mexico become middle class, they can buy goods made in Milwaukee.

And specifically I was thinking they could buy lawn mowers made in Milwaukee.

if they got a living wage in Mexico.

And he said, well, the president of Mexico said he's gonna raise their wages.

And I said, I know he said that, but it's not in the document.

And he said, are you saying you don't trust the president of Mexico?

And I said, I'm saying that if a politician says something and doesn't follow through with it, I'm not shocked.

I wanna see it in writing.

And of course it never went in writing.

And ironically, now 30 years later, there aren't...

basically no lawnmowers made in Milwaukee.

They're gone too.

So the North American Free Trade Agreement, it intersected my life because I worked in a plant for 34 years that stood for over a century and employed so many people and we watched that come to an end.

I

watched it come to an end, driving down Capitol

Drive.

But you know that there was at one point in time 7,000 people working there.

And that neighborhood that I grew up in, it was buttressed by A.L.

Smith.

Well, the way I describe it, and we may even have talked about this before, because we lived for a while on...

40th and capital right so we drove down capital drive all the time and I was a little boy and I loved going past there because you had row after row after row of frames and for a little boy it was it was almost like it may be for some little girls too a combination of of Lincoln logs and Tonka trucks

If you remember Lincoln

lives

in Tonka trucks, because it just, it was an amazing sight to see.

And then those stacks got smaller and smaller, and then they disappeared.

You know, you know, Tom, and so when we see kind of where our nation is today, um, and having lost all those major manufacturers, not just in Milwaukee or in Wisconsin, but the Rust Belt.

But all across our nation it started with the steel mills and all of those things and so If we could have seen foreseeing those things was there any any thought in your mind the magnitude of the impact of what those decisions made I think in

retrospect Going back to NAFTA because I could say I had a Democratic president who was pushing it that and that murder Democrats

Who were in favor of it and I I understood trade could be a good thing But I thought but my community is gonna get massacred by this that was sort

of

my ultimate

my ultimate decision.

And it wasn't like I was, I really toiled over that.

I really did.

I really did.

And I just thought, I can't do this.

It might work for Seattle, Washington that has trade routes.

It might work for El Paso, Texas.

But it's not working for Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

And so I voted no.

And again, looking back, I don't know how I'd live with myself if I hadn't voted that way now 30 years later.

Well, you know, it

It is tied into what is taking place in our country today with the debate.

Very much, very much tied into it.

So, so, and then, and I'll say this and then we'll, and then we'll move on.

You got a couple minutes to hear.

Sure.

Okay.

You know, I'm just so excited to have you in the studio.

These are questions I've been wanting to ask of people who are in government, you know, for all of, all of these decades, I've been wanting to ask the questions.

Why?

You know, why this decision was made, I do know that initially these companies were allowed to move down to non-union shops first before they jumped across and then moved on to Mexico and then on to China.

But they couldn't have moved without the blessings of our Congress.

The companies, they didn't just do this out of the clear blue.

They were given the right to make those moves.

And I think it coincided to them with the fact that the patriarchs of those companies were all getting old and they were starting to move away.

And once that happened, those things combined is kind of what made this happen.

I think so.

And I think a lot of soul searching that has to be done.

And this goes way beyond the show, obviously, is, okay, what do we do now?

What do we do now?

And as critical as I am of President Trump, and I could just go off on that, I understand this whole notion of we gotta make more stuff in America.

Clearly, we have to make more stuff in America.

What troubles me is, how do we get those jobs to come to Milwaukee?

Because...

because of the union issues, and I've got a strong union background and union voting record.

Clearly, when you see these major announcements, they're going to parts of the country where you don't have strong unions.

All right, 855-752-4842, my guess is Tom Barrett, and we're going to keep moving.

We're going to come to the phone lines in a couple of minutes.

You're tuned in to the Arlingroom show.

So, I mean, thank you.

Number one.

So

I wanted to make sure we thought of this was during our time.

We were very young and this is music selection.

All right, welcome back to a very special edition of the Earl Ingram Show.

As always, you can join us at 855-752-4842.

855-752-4842, Texas, that same number.

I'm joined by my good friend, former Mayor Tom Barrett, the former Ambassador of Luxembourg, and Chief Cooking Bottle Washer for everything in the state of Wisconsin over the last, I don't know, 40 years.

So, so Tom, we were talking about the impact of the North American free trade agreement.

Let's let's let's move on to.

You had a mayor for 17 years, our city.

And I used to constantly say our city was one of the last to to redefine itself after.

the loss of all that industry.

Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Kansas City, similar cities redeveloped their communities.

And we were kind of late in getting it done, but if you look at it today, Milwaukee is, I was looking at something the other day and they said the skyline of Milwaukee is one of the most beautiful

in the entire country.

You had a lot to do with that.

The Riverwalk, let's talk about something called the Riverwalk, but people who don't know what that is, that was on the Milwaukee River, and there were tanneries and all sorts of other companies that were allowed to, and you'd hate to even go down that stank to high heaven.

You didn't go down that.

You didn't go down.

It stank to high heaven.

Yeah.

And if you go there now,

It's a burgeoning area.

What happened?

Well a couple things and I give a lot of credit to John Norquist

my predecessor.

He began and I worked with him I was a member of Congress at the time and we worked with him to get federal funding and then but most of Riverwalk fortunately was done during the time I was mayor and we made a commitment and

Again, there's sort of a bitter sweetness to this because a lot of those foundries and a lot of the discharges that went into that river that was ugly stuff

that

also created jobs.

You know, let's be honest about it.

They'd create jobs and those jobs disappeared.

The river was dirty and we made a commitment to just

incrementally, whenever we were doing any type of development to add Riverwalk and just extend, extend, extend, it just became part of the formula.

And literally there was a formula and there is a formula for property owners to get funding to do that.

And now, and even more amazing, and I'm not this big boater, so I really had never looked at the city from a boat.

until several years into the time I was mayor and then I took a boat ride up the Milwaukee River and if you haven't done that it's it's an amazing experience because now then you see all the homes along the river and you see the buildings from the water side and it's a

100% different experience.

And there's a wow factor.

There's a wow factor as to how well we've done that.

Now, having said all that, and I'm very proud of what we see with the skyline, where I continue to be unsettled is, I think we did a solid, solid job of making sure the heart of Milwaukee is strong.

And my argument always was, I don't care what.

Oregon you are, you have to have a strong heart.

And the downtown's a heart.

And so we did a lot of heart.

We still need to get these jobs into the neighborhoods.

We still need to do that, which was, again, when you were growing up, when I was growing up, Alice Chalmers, Capital Drive,

the

South Side, you had these jobs.

We don't have that now.

That's the challenge now is how do we get these jobs close to where people live?

And so when Walker was in and Trump was in and they were doing that.

Foxconn stuff, and they were talking about people taking buses 50 minutes to a job.

I'm thinking you're a single mother, and you're telling her she's gonna take a bus 50 minutes to a job, and then you're gonna complain when she doesn't show up for the parent-teacher conference?

You have to have jobs closer to where people live.

That's part of my argument.

So Tom, so since we're heard across the entire state of Wisconsin,

Those same decisions that impacted cities across this nation also impacted rural.

Oh, totally, totally.

Yeah, and you can see that where now if you're a family in rural Wisconsin and you want your kids to stay, what are they going to do?

I mean fewer and fewer farms.

Many times it was

Dad was the farmer, mom got health insurance by working in the school system or maybe in health care.

And those jobs have disappeared.

And that has created this huge area of discontent clearly.

And you do see, without a doubt, a political schism now between rural areas and urban areas in America.

But not just in America, I think throughout the world, you see a schism between urban areas and rural areas.

You know, Tom, you talk about

possibly, and Donald Trump is talking about, he had to bring these jobs back in.

Is it realistic to believe that we can bring many of those jobs back?

We have to bring some jobs back.

Because technology has advanced.

But we as a society, we have to, particularly for people who don't have a lot of education.

What are they gonna do you you have to have a society where people can have the self-respect can have the ability to support their family You have to have

that is that discussion being had in your opinion?

Not nearly as much as it should

be all right eight five five seven five two forty eight forty two my guess is one and only Tom Barrett on the Earl England show

She packed my bags last night, free flight.

Zero hour, 9 AM.

And I'm gonna be high as a kite bite.

to a very special edition of the Earl Ingram Show.

As always, you can join us at 855-752-4842 as much as Tom Barrett and I want to listen to Elton John.

We've got a show to do.

I'm so excited to have, you know, Tom in the studio.

Tom and I are good friends.

We go back a lot of years.

And, you know, I've always supported you, Tom, in all the different...

areas and races that you took some took some slings and arrows.

Yeah, thank you.

I'm sorry.

No, that's all right because I knew you were the right guy.

And so I was always supportive of you because you saw it from the perspective of the average guy.

Let's talk a little bit.

And so there's some questions that that others have and you got people.

We got people on the line, but I just wanted to get a few more questions from you.

And then

Turn it over to others who want to ask you questions.

So, Tom, we see what's happening today in this country.

And you are a congressman.

And we're watching a man.

And we're watching Project 2025.

And our nation is being conquered from within.

And so the American people...

and the bill of rights and the Declaration of Independence, and all the things that this nation stood for is in jeopardy of being taken over.

Your thoughts?

Well, I'll just say, and this is probably the most topical, is I never thought I would be cheering so strongly for Harvard.

But Harvard was the first one yesterday to stand up and say, no, you're not taking over this university, unlike Columbia and others who just their knees buckled because they were getting all this money.

Harvard at least said, no, we're not going to do it.

And again, I never went to Harvard and I never had any connection with them really.

And the fact that they're standing up, you've got Democrats standing up.

You had a number of Democrats yesterday speaking up about the unbelievable

situation involving El Salvador and the El Salvador president and Mr. Garcia, I think his name from Maryland, who was never charged with a crime and now was in that country.

And the smirk and the scoffing at the United States Supreme Court from the president of the United States and the president of El Salvador, just the smirks.

It's unbelievable.

Having said all that, I remain an ardent believer in our democracy, and we, the people, have to have our voice heard.

And it's clear that the Republican members of Congress, of the House, and almost all of them in the Senate, are terrified by Donald Trump.

We have to get new people in it's that simple.

It's that straightforward.

And so so the challenges up to us and democracies To do what we can to change the makeup of Congress and I was there when it went from 40 years of Democratic rule to Republican rule So it you can have these seismic changes, but it's gonna take people to get

so time that we're in a representative government so by the time we can change the Congress will be conquered

We can't give up.

And

I'm not giving up.

There's no way I'm giving up on any of this stuff.

I've been around this long enough to know that there's a pendulum, and the pendulum goes back and forth and back and forth.

And I don't like where the pendulum is right now.

And in my own career, I've joked, I know there's a pendulum effect, because I've been hit by that pendulum in a race or two, you know, where just the mood of the country was such like, whoa.

And so...

The next election is around the corner.

It's it's in 2026 and so it's the time for people to get involved and mobilize now and in 2028 Because if you can't take yourself out of the game, you just cannot take yourself out of the game The only the only thing that happens if you take yourself out of the game is the game goes on without you

so so you get a call from the White House like I did and

Mayor Tom Barrett, are you interested in becoming an ambassador?

How did that play out?

Well, I got the call, exactly.

It was more specific.

Would you like to be the ambassador to Luxembourg?

And ironically, the first thing I wanted to do was call my wife.

to share it with her, but

I

couldn't because she was at that second.

She was at her retirement luncheon.

She was retiring as a teacher, from being a teacher.

And so I knew I couldn't call her because she was at her luncheon.

So I said, well, I'm very interested.

I got to check with my wife and we'll get back to you when I didn't accept the job.

But I had shown interest in becoming an ambassador.

And

They then say, okay, well, this is where we'll ask you to go.

And so I was very pleased.

It was obviously a small country, but I literally went to Wikipedia and looked at the population of Luxembourg and a little over 600,000.

I thought, well, they're a little over 600,000.

Milwaukee's a little under 600,000.

I can do this.

And so that was my thought process.

You know, as I've looked at these things, scenic.

One of the safest places in the entire world.

It's Princess Diaryland.

It's very safe.

It's very safe.

And you talk about things that break your heart.

Two things that I did not see a pothole in three years as Lexa Burke.

And I am not kidding.

And the other one was I had been there about four or five months and I was visiting with the mayor of Lexa Burke City, which is about the size of Green Bay.

And she was talking about an environmental project she was working on.

And I said,

because I'm a former mayor.

I said, you're going to have to incur a lot of debt.

And she said, oh, we don't have any debt.

And then I checked and the city of Luxembourg with 130,000 people had a surplus of

basically a billion euros.

It's the richest country in the world.

There's different indicators, but it's a wealthy place.

There's no question it's a wealthy place.

And so crime is not a major issue.

And it was a wonderful experience, but I learned a lot.

I did learn a lot.

And I learned how much they love the United States quite

honestly.

Well, they've got the highest minimum wage in the world.

Yeah.

So what is it?

I mean, what is there?

So they did

a masterful job.

And this is where Ayl Smith comes in again.

In the southern part of the country, they had a lot of steel and coal.

And it was sort of what I described as the Pittsburgh of Europe, the southern part of the country.

Well, just like the United States saw an exodus of a lot of the steel and coal, they did too.

And so there's a site in a community in the southern Luxembourg where there had been a big steel and coal foundry, if you will, that...

that basically closed down and they've now invested over a billion dollars on target to invest three billion dollars to create a university there.

And I've been there many times and I've looked at it and I thought, oh, to do this at the A.O.

Smith site would just be a godsend because they've been able

to

do it.

They've got the money to transform it.

And they're committed to doing that.

And we don't have those resources coming out of the city of Milwaukee, clearly.

And they do have it there because it's a huge financial hub,

huge

financial hub.

A lot of money flows in and out of that country.

So you know, Tom, I could talk and ask you questions forever, because I just love conversing with you, but we got others who've got questions.

All right, let's go.

And let's go.

So one of them is Mr. Dan Schaefer.

Let's see, where do we have it?

Okay.

Punch Bowl News reports, 10 embassies and 17 consulates would be shuttered under the Trump administration plan, including Luxembourg.

That's more of a general statement.

The question poses right there at the top.

Question for Tom Barrett.

What is your reaction to reports that the Trump administration is looking to close the embassy in Luxembourg?

So my reaction is the happiest person in Luxembourg, if that happens, is the Chinese ambassador to Luxembourg.

Why?

Because they are ready to just step in and fill any gap.

And I saw this throughout Europe.

I saw this throughout international organizations.

When the United States pulls out, China moves in.

It's that straightforward.

And so if President Trump thinks his main rival is China, taking these steps that allow China to move in is insane.

It's just insane.

And that was one of the major issues we faced.

in our embassy in Luxembourg was the Chinese investment in Luxembourg, the economic ties, and to the point where in my final week I was visiting with Luxembourg officials and I said, I want you to watch a video.

It's a Michael Buble video.

I like videos, I believe it or not, I like Michael Buble.

Save the Last Dance for me.

It's a tango number, it's stuff like that.

I said,

That's how I view our relationship with Luxembourg.

We were there for them in World War II.

We saved their country.

We've supported them economically.

We have huge financial ties.

And now they're being wooed by China.

Donald Trump is just opening up a huge barn door to let China drive in all over the world.

You know, Tom, I always say to people at the root of this is this America first.

believe that Donald Trump has and we should lock out everybody else is really insane when you only make up 4% of the global population.

What he's doing is isolating us and we can't win that battle if we only make up 4% of the global.

I agree with you.

I agree.

And insulting the people that have been our allies for 80 years.

It just doesn't make any sense to

me.

It doesn't make any sense and yet

There are people in this country who think that what he's saying is he's fighting for them.

But it's because, Tom, they don't understand.

China, with that 1.3 or 2 billion people, and on the ascension, is going to take the place of what we used to do.

Right.

And

they're eager to do that.

Yeah, and their position to do it economically and in all other ways and and and one guy is sending and changing all of this and You know, I you said the pendulum is gonna swing back Hopefully it won't be too late right 8 5 7 5 2 40 8 42 I'm coming right to the phone lines guys.

So we'll get you right after the break It's it's what it's Tuesday

and Tom Barrett is with me.

you

Welcome back to The Old England Show.

As always, you can join us at 855-752-4842.

Text us at that same number.

My guest is Tom Barrett, and thank you guys for hanging on as long as you did.

We'll go right to the phone lines.

Mike from Kenosha, good morning to you, Mike.

Thank you very much for the call.

You say what?

Sure, sure.

Thank you.

Thanks, sir, for making yourself available, Mr. Barrett.

You know, I find your resume fascinating.

I would think it's...

it offered you a very clear-eyed, very unique perspective of, you know, our politics evolving or devolved over the years.

And my question is kind of around the fundraising aspect of it.

A lot of us, probably walks out here, we're beside ourselves.

We don't know how in the world some of our elected officials who are incumbents

in today's nonstop fundraising in the electioneering era that we're in, how is it even possible or better way to frame it?

The challenges of today's nonstop electioneering in order to be a successful politician in doing their day-to-day jobs, how can you do both?

Both run for office and do your job as an incumbent at the same time and be very effective.

Well, thanks for the call and I appreciate it.

And I agree with you that that is a huge, huge, huge part of most incumbents jobs.

Not all incumbents because you have some who are independently wealthy.

You have some who have decided they're not going to run again, which lifts a huge weight off their shoulder because they don't have to raise the money.

But it does consume time.

It consumed time when I was a member of Congress, that's for sure.

It consumed some time when I was a mayor, that's for sure.

When I was ambassador, it consumed no time other than having to raise some money for our Fourth of July event at the embassy.

So it was a much different world there.

And I would be lying if I said I missed it.

I didn't miss it because it's also watching.

the elections in Luxembourg, there were local and national elections there.

And seeing that there was not the focus on fundraising was a real eye-opener to me.

It was a breath of fresh air that they didn't have to do it.

They would get grants and that would limit the spending that they could have.

So again, you're spot on.

It's true.

It's part of the system in the United States.

It's gotten worse rather than better.

And the way I describe it,

This is just the reality.

If someone gives you $10,000 and I'm just pulling that number out of thin air, it doesn't mean you're going to do exactly what they want you to do.

But it probably in most instances means that if they call you and say, hey, do you want to get together for lunch next week?

Your response is great.

What day?

You know, Tom, and that's why I call it politics because because it, you know,

It just is.

And no matter how good a person you are, you know, if that person has done that, you're gonna listen

a little bit more.

You're thankful.

You're thankful.

If someone gave me that much money, I would be thankful.

And then they said, you want to get together for a cup of coffee or lunch?

I'd say, sure.

And that's just the reality.

Now, again, that doesn't mean I'm gonna do what I want to, but it gives them an opportunity to say, what about this?

What about that?

All right, Jim from Brookfield.

Thank you very much for hanging on, Jim.

You say what?

Good morning, gentlemen.

It's a pleasure to speak to two individuals who have done a great deal of service to not only Milwaukee, but Southeast Wisconsin.

So thank you both for all you've done.

Mayor Barrett, your resume obviously is very impressive with how diverse it is, state, federal, even international.

As we know, that is dependent on how effective it can be in those positions as a politician.

What parties and power?

So my question to you is what period in your career or was there a period in your career where the stars were aligned and you really felt, you know, I can get something done.

I can really be productive.

I mean, you were productive throughout your career, but there were roadblocks.

You know, you mentioned Mr. Gingrich.

Was there a period where you really felt you were able to get a lot of things done?

And just a quick side question, did you ever really have a one-on-one encounter with good old Newt, you know,

high in the hallway?

But it was the last question first.

I'm sure he doesn't remember this.

And I just remember there was one day on the floor where I said something and he just went after me.

And I'm thinking, I didn't even know who I was and where he took off after me.

I will say this at the residence in Luxembourg.

When I got there, the library was named the New Gingrich Room.

And I thought, it doesn't have to be the New Gingrich Room.

So I took that plaque down.

I just thought it doesn't have to be the New Gingrich Room here.

But to your point, there certainly was the first term that I was in Congress with President Clinton, the Democrats were in control, but in all honesty,

I was a freshman member of Congress and I was in the majority party, but I was in the majority party that had been in power for 40 years.

And so the chairs of these big committees probably wouldn't have known me if they had stepped on me because they were pretty disengaged and they had their fiefdoms.

And they were almost all, they were all gone within two years.

I mean, so that was the final days of that.

There was a period in the state legislature where I was pretty successful in getting legislation through dealing with things ranging from healthcare powers attorney to 911 to juvenile crime, things like that.

And as mayor, obviously, there were different times when I could work more closely with the council.

So I've been blessed.

And I would say one of the things that I do come away from my career is I've looked at life from all sides now.

to quote the Joni Mitchell song that both sides now all sides now because I've served with Democratic presidents and Republican leaders and and vice versa so I have I have essentially seen almost every permutation and you're right there it's more difficult when you're in the minority it's still at times possible to get things done but it clearly you want to be in the majority

all right eight five five seven five two forty eight forty two uh you can get in now if you have a question comment for Tom Barrett

on the Erlingroom show.

You must be special lady You gotta be special lady

All right, welcome back to the earliest very special edition of the Earl Ingham show.

I'm so honored to have my good friend, the former mayor of the city of Milwaukee and ambassador of Luxembourg and all those other different things, Tom Barrett.

It's really good to see you.

It's great to see you around.

Yeah, and so let's go to the phone lines.

Tom from LA.

Good morning to you, Tommy.

I have a question to comment for Tom Barrett.

Good morning.

Good morning, Earl.

Good morning, Mayor Barrett.

First, I'm from Durant, Wisconsin, Mayor Barrett, but I live in Los Angeles.

And I worked my butt off getting elected for governor.

Thank you very

much.

I do believe that you're elected.

I hope you're welcome.

I do believe that you're elected as fallen, just

like Joanne Klappenberg was.

It will never make sense to me that you could be up six points one week before the election.

and lose by six points the following week.

Now for my question.

My next question would be why you and others who get beat by the big money in politics but nearchates by the Koch brothers don't become like warriors to get this money and lobbyists out of politics?

That's a very good question.

That's one question.

Okay.

And my next question would be

We as Democrats need to start talking about who brought us Social Security and Medicaid.

That was Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

We need to be FDR Democrats again, and Medicare.

That was Lyndon Johnson, another Democrat.

It seems to me that the Republicans do a good job talking about St.

Ronald Reagan all the time, but we don't do anything to talk about our roots in the Democratic Party.

that really could make a difference.

What do you think of all of that, sir?

Well, let me go to the money part first, because I think that you're correct in the concerns about money.

And I would simply ask you not to confuse, maybe that's not the right word, conflate, the fact that I am not by nature a person who has, Erlen and I were talking about this.

offline I don't have an angry disposition I'm just I'm just not an angry person if you met me in a store I'm not an angry person don't confuse that with a lack of passion or a lack of determination or or a burning inside because I don't take myself personally seriously but I take these issues extremely

personally and seriously.

And so at every juncture in my career, I have tried to work to get that money out and to correct it.

But when I go home, I want to be a normal person and be with my wife and when my kids are going with them.

So I do draw a line between my professional life and my personal life.

And sometimes I think people look at me and others with our dispositions and say, well,

How come he's not screaming every moment of the day?

I think I think that if you're screaming every moment of the day it

dilute your strength.

So again, I don't know, I feel like I'm talking to my psychiatrist more than someone calling, but I feel like I need to defend myself to say, I am very passionate about trying to get democracy back into democracy.

And I have never wavered.

And when I talk to people who waver on that, my response is, you don't give up.

You don't give up.

You can't give up.

If you take yourself out of the game, the only thing that changes is the game goes on without you.

Again, my passion burns as fiercely as it ever has to make this a better democracy.

Hey, Tom, thank you very much for the call.

So, so, so, so, so Mayor Barrett, I need to ask you about Democrats today.

You're a lifelong Democrat.

You clearly led the party when, right?

Yeah.

Time you were the mayor and so.

Here's what I had to say when the Democrats lost this last election, the presidential election, and there was all of this hoopla about we've got to change the Democrats.

They're old-fashioned in the way of thinking.

They've lost their way.

They don't care about the average American, and so Republicans have taken over.

And so the average American who wants states that were blue are now red because the Democrats are dealing with the high brows and you heard right,

of course,

of course, and I said to people Here's what I don't understand the Democrats should be worried about a guy like me who's voted in every election Always voted Democrat because Democrats stood up and fought for the things that were right

Right all my life they were fighting for the things that were right and so you know as a person of color civil rights and and and certainly The downtrodden and the poor that's who the Democrats fought for that's who they've always fought for but to somehow say They don't care about that anymore.

We've got to change

the identity politics, which is the conversation I was hearing from Democrats.

And we've got to go back and kind of outrepublic the Republicans.

What are your thoughts about

my thoughts?

I'll go right to D. E. I on this because there are people that would say to me, sometimes personally, sometimes speaking of Democrats, you've got to do more.

You got to do more.

You got to do more.

You got to do more.

You got to do more.

You got to do more.

OK.

And there'd be times when then I think the Democrats or myself personally would say, well, this is what we can do.

This is what we can do.

And probably for some people, that wasn't enough.

That wasn't enough.

And so there was disillusionment.

Now, people watching what's going on where Donald Trump is trying to literally erase any reference to race.

throughout our society and succeeding and succeeding tells you How bad it could be and maybe some of us who were saying look this is what I can do This is what I can do.