A Ghoulish Turn, Even for Ron Johnson (Hour 3)

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Now, for my Lake WSOTA studio, here is the founding editor of Up North News, Pat Craiglow.

It's it's packed quite low.

Yes.

Good morning.

It's 806, but it's it's apparently so much more than that as well meteorologist Brittany Merleau is here and in in Madison as Tony puts on YouTube How many people does it take to produce this show in there?

You have Parker you have Dom you have Sam aka Luke has a new entourage is basically what this comes down to and the guys are happy to be here and and here's if there weren't enough Brittany and the boys

Chad Holmes is with us as well.

Oh,

very nice.

How's Brittany this morning?

Pretty chilly.

How are you?

Yes, it's pretty chilly.

Whereas in the in the Madison control room, it's just chill.

Look at these

guys

vibing out there.

So Parker and Dom and Sam and Luke see what happens when it's actually it's a reflection on Greg Bach when he has to take the eight o'clock hour off.

How many people does it take to replace a legend?

like Greg Bach, right?

I don't think it's up to cause him a handsome and capable or anything.

Extremely handsome, extremely capable.

And I don't know if I have enough people yet.

I'm going to go find a couple more.

Just

just give me a give me a second.

I'll be right back

cram into the control room here.

So Chad and I will be talking about Ron Johnson's latest ghoulish descent into conspiracy theories.

And we'll but we'll start off by revisiting a clip from Derek van Orden now that the House of Representatives has just passed.

Donald Trump's big, beautiful bill to cut all kinds of things to pay for billionaire tax cuts.

Let's refresh our memories on what Derek Van Orden had to say about cuts to snap benefits and things like that.

That's after we get the forecast from meteorologist Brittany Merleau, who, yes, still chilly, but the sun's out.

That's a big deal.

It is.

Finally, we have been patiently waiting for it after two to three inches of rain fell into parts of Wisconsin.

We were soaked.

drenched and stuck under those clouds with breezy winds and now everything is much calmer except for without the clouds.

We don't have blankets keeping us warmer at night.

So we've had a frost advisory ongoing up north.

That's probably going to happen again tonight.

and again tomorrow night and probably through Saturday night as well.

Chances for frost still linger, but that means the sunshine is taking over.

It's in abundance.

It's even headed down towards the south.

You're going to see less and less clouds as the day goes on and temperatures today will make it to the mid to upper fifties, flirting with about 60 in some spots south.

And of course, we're going to keep getting warmer by a few degrees every single day.

We're still looking at a ton of sunshine tomorrow, Saturday, Sunday, even Monday.

We'll see partly cloudy skies with maybe a chance of a light shower later in the day.

But a lot of that rain stays down to the south as this high pressure system controls everything for us and gives us a beautiful Memorial Day weekend.

It couldn't get any better.

Maybe warmer, but it

could be warmer.

But yeah, compared to like the center of the country, it's just going to be, it's going to be a wet holiday weekend all the way through for them wet and stormy

and

icky.

So I will be very, I would love the warmth, but I'll definitely take the sunshine for a long weekend.

Thank

you, Brittany.

Appreciate it

so much.

We'll talk to you tomorrow.

Chat Holmes is with us from 98.9 WXCO and we'll talk about a couple of stories he's following.

Then Sean O'Malley isn't far away to talk about money and markets.

And then Joseph Pecky, one of the candidates for a state party chair.

We'll talk to him about his race for that position and reaction to that House bill that passed.

But speaking of the House bill that passed, Mr. Holmes, we'll first off, how are you?

Doing great.

All right.

Beautiful morning.

It is and you are you're busy outside covering all the spring sports as well.

But let me let me start with a little piece of tape here because this was Congressman Derek Van Orden when it was pointed out that the House Republican budget bill, the one they just passed a little over an hour ago, would do tremendous damage to cuts to Medicaid and to snap benefits and the things like that.

And Derek Van Orden was not hearing any of it.

Here he was a couple of weeks back.

I want to clear the air.

And I'm going to dispel some things.

If you're receiving benefits from the federal government lawfully as an American citizen, your benefits are not going to be reduced by a nickel.

Okay, I'm going to say it again.

If you're an American citizen that is lawfully receiving benefits from the federal government, your benefits will not be reduced by a nickel.

Write that down, okay?

I

was raised in abject rural poverty by a single mother.

We're on welfare, food stamps, we had a stamp, stick it on a card, go to the grocery store.

I had subsidized lunches and government cheese.

I was the hungry child that my colleagues are talking about.

Things have

changed.

And the same

people that told you during the last budgetary cycle that Republicans are gonna cut Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, WIC, SNAP, they lied to you.

They lied.

openly to the American public.

They're the same people that lied to you and are fear mongering with hungry children and those most in need in our country and it's unacceptable and it's despicable.

This should be a non-partisan committee.

They're lying!

Over it!

Stop it!

Okay, thank you Congressman Van Orden.

Chad, you remember that sound clip, don't you?

Yeah, and it really...

It makes me angry when I hear The gaslighting that these folks do over and over and over again if this man is so concerned about the truth You have a person that has Probably told more fibs to be kind about it leading his party and everybody down the line It's it's sad it's a it's a sad

statement and Van Orden again is just you know he thinks that by yelling at us that makes it a little more true and it's not and frankly

He's a scary dude, isn't he?

Well, you

definitely I wouldn't want to cross that I could I mean it makes me think back to those those teenagers that got screamed at him I've been scared out of my mind.

Oh, he's been a screamer that way.

And again, is it just going to continue to deny and say it's all waste, fraud and abuse when everything points other way.

So that's one

way.

Yeah, I mean, let me really quickly there.

Go for

it.

I mean, the idea that they keep on pounding on raised fraud and abuse, wait, and then they

They try to hide everything that Doge has done.

They've gone to the Supreme Court to try to hide everything that Doge has done.

They should be thrilled to let it all out if there's so much waste, fraud, and abuse.

Where's the list of all the prosecutions that Pam Bondi is going to be pushing forward because of all this phrase, waste, fraud, and abuse?

I haven't seen it yet.

No, and you and you won't don't don't hold your faith.

I'll make believe it.

I mean at the very least we should have a base of realism in this country when it comes to trying to figure out very important issues I'm not saying that everything that Democrats say are right when it comes to budgetary items But at the same time if we have then that's a scary part of this this era The the whole idea of of the lies that come from the top with Donald J Trump right down through everybody that

is on that side of the aisle, we can't have a battle of ideas anymore.

That is the scary aspect.

The whole democratic system is based on having a battle of ideas and then getting the best ideas to make for the best for the American people.

And when you just start with a basis of lies, it's very difficult to get anywhere.

It's frustrating and it makes me angry.

It's a way to distract from the actual impact, which we talked about with our guests in the last hour.

But there's another way to do it, and that's through distractions, shiny objects and things.

And that takes us to...

Wisconsin senior senator and foremost conspiracy theorist, Ron Johnson, who could have been content wishing President Biden a full recovery from his battle with prostate cancer and instead has announced a committee investigation of Biden's health and questioned his fitness for office.

Chad, any validity to this or is it another ghoulish effort to distract from Johnson's work slash services and fund tax cuts for folks in Johnson's tax bracket and above?

Well, that's the whole point.

I mean,

Let's make a list of what Ron Johnson has done for the state of Wisconsin, the people of the state of Wisconsin.

Uh, I think that's it.

Yeah.

I mean, Ghoulish is the word.

He's an embarrassment.

I've said this before.

I think I may have said it to you.

If this man was of any capability, he would have been on the shortlist to become vice president of the United States in the last cycle.

The state of Wisconsin obviously very important if he was of any kind of talent at all He would been at this point among the leadership of the Republican Party in the United States Senate What's the old saying that Ross Perle made it back in the days, you know the old crazy ants in the in the in the cellar That's what Ron Johnson is right now to the Republican Party and I think they're thrilled whenever he does this kind of stuff because it's adds fire

It kind of reminds me of this headline story this week where Patel and also, who else was it?

All the Magans are upset because they said that Jeffrey Epstein killed himself.

And they're all saying oh, how could you be saying that it's all I mean there's this wing of the party that is full of these kind of folks and And they like to have Ron Johnson out there once in a while to kind of keep them in line a little bit Hey, hey, we still got our we got one of your own here in the United States and but again He has done nothing for us in what now it's 14 years.

I mean Our long national nightmare our long Wisconsin nightmare, but but that's a point

What is Ron Johnson actually doing for the people of Wisconsin?

It's not a whole lot.

And this, again, is just, like you say, shiny objects.

I mean, it does nothing for anybody.

You can only talk about Ivermectin for so long here.

So one more thing I wanted to ask you about, and I probably haven't given you enough time to talk about it, but a another housing plan in Wausau has been vetoed by the mayor, Doug Denney.

And while I hear Doug Denney and I don't like, you know, some of the things I've heard in the past,

I don't want to jump to conclusions in that maybe there's validity to the concerns about this latest plan to build some duplexes on land that you know has been or might still be contaminated to some degree.

So is this something you're you're you're following?

I am I I I a little bit I don't want to step out of line because I don't

know

enough to be at this point to be able to you know to say right or wrong but what I will say

is that I've talked to other folks here in this community recently.

One of the things that's jumped out about the mayor is this idea where he's gone from a guy that was going to be tending the store at City Hall.

So a guy that really has come out and is really acting like he knows everything.

And again, obviously the mayor has certain power and certain responsibility and a certain position within any community, but it's really been surprising.

And again, I think a lot of that's one of the things that a lot of folks have been talking about.

It was not the far right that got Doug Denney elected in this community.

This is a community that is very balanced.

And, and, and I think in some of the, I had, I talked to somebody who said that she'd had a meeting with Doug Denny and said to him into his face.

He said, he said, it was, it was the people in the middle that got you elected because you were just going to say you're going to go back and, and be just a very straightforward executive.

And now he is really stepping out and he is using the veto.

And again, you have a veto power.

But he is really not working with the board and with the, with the city council.

He is coming out as I know everything.

He's a very Trumpian point of view of the executive within this community.

And I'm curious to see if that's going to continue because he really has been, I think a little different than what he was running on.

And that's, and I think that's causing a lot of confusion for a lot of folks here in Wausau.

That somebody runs saying they'll be a centrist when it turns out that people who said they were going to actually be from the far right were correct.

You want to see my shocked face?

Chad Holmes.

You're smarter than I

am.

I gotta say, I mean, he had to pull the war over.

There's a certain talent to that.

I'll tell you that much.

Again, that reminder, Scott Walker did not campaign on Act 10.

It just magically appeared afterwards.

Chad Holmes, 98.9 WXCO.

Thank you, buddy.

Talk to you a little later.

Thank you to Pat

still ahead this hour.

Joe's pecky as we continue our conversations with the people running for chair of the state Democratic Party from the heart of America's up north live from Lake Wissota.

Thanks for making this the place to spend part of your mornings.

I'm packed right low.

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The Milwaukee Brewers were losers in extra innings to the Baltimore Orioles.

They still took two out of three and now they head to Pittsburgh for a four game series that starts tonight.

Pre-game coverage at 505 on Civic Media stations in Richland Center.

Oshkosh was seen Kenosha Park Falls and Hayward head to Civic Media dot US for more.

Again, 505 for pre-game.

Brewers against the Pirates tonight and again 505 tomorrow.

The bond markets are looking with some unease over the implication for the national debt under legislation that passed the House of Representatives after a debate that stretched into the Wee Smalls today and in the House on the narrowest of margins, the final vote was 215 to 214 to approve legislation that would

steer much more money away from the middle class, away from Medicaid, food assistance, education, clean energy, and run it toward tax cuts, and bond markets looking at the way that this bill would push up the national debt and budget deficits are not really fond of it, looking for a little bit more fiscal discipline.

Let's talk to Sean O'Malley, a financial compliance and economics expert with us now.

Sean, how are you today?

I'm doing well, Pat.

Thanks, yeah.

I'm guessing you didn't stay up all night to watch the entire debate on the House floor.

No, I think a lot of the points that were going to be made are things that we've all heard before.

And that's part of the uneasiness that you were talking about in the bond market is that we're seeing the fact that the US is having problems actually agreeing on a budget and getting a budget passed and has a rather long history of doing so is part of what's sort of feeding into the problems that we're seeing now.

Well, and it's led the major credit rating agencies to reduce their ratings on US government debt.

What was that about?

Yeah, that's correct.

And that's a great lead in, thank you.

So because there have been problems passing a government budget in the US, there have been

downgrades from all of the three major credit rating agencies.

For those of you listening who don't necessarily know what the credit rating agencies are, tough to say it.

Sometimes they are basically entities that will evaluate the financial risk and creditworthiness of any particular entity.

It can be a government, it can be a corporation, it can even be a municipality.

And for the US government,

we've seen the credit ratings, which historically have been AAA for the vast majority of the 20th century, have now started to take a hit.

So the first hit was when Standard and Poor's or S&P downgraded US debt from AAA to AA+, back in 2011, largely because of the budgetary holdup assigned to what was then the Tea Party Republicans.

And then in 2023, Fitch also joined S&P downgrading the U.S.

debt from AAA to AA+, again, largely due to MAGA Republicans.

And now, just recently, we've seen Moody's, the third of the three big credit rating agencies, downgrade U.S.

debt from AAA to AA1.

They have a slightly different schema for their credit ratings.

But anyway, it's...

It's basically a downgrade now across the board, so there is no major credit rating agency that rates US government debt AAA.

And even if there were concern, and there is about government debt as a percentage of gross domestic product, the fact that there is

There's not even the illusion that this new bill with its massive spending is being done for fiscal discipline reasons.

This is all going toward tax cuts, predominantly, you know, focused on the highest tax brackets, where, again, the markets see no fiscal discipline here.

It's spending cuts without the savings.

Correct.

And I think what you have to do in this case is we have to look at not what the rhetoric is.

Not what people are saying or even economists are saying.

Look at what the markets are doing.

Actions always speak louder than words.

And what we're seeing is that something that we've actually talked about on your show a couple of weeks ago, this whole idea of people losing faith in the United States because of actions that are sometimes politically motivated.

We're seeing a lot of things.

We're having issues with our two nearest neighbors and closest trading partners.

We're increasing tariffs across the board without any necessarily economic need or strategic purpose behind it.

And now we can't pass our own budget.

And if we do pass the budget, as you point out, the upper income is going to benefit greatly at the expense of the middle class and the lower income folks.

So what we're seeing is the investors are voting with their feet.

And there is this new thing called sell America.

And that's the phrase that they're putting behind it when investors basically avoid bonds as well as stocks.

And what happened yesterday is there was a 20-year territory note auction that yields gapped out significantly because there was reduced demand, lackluster demand for these bonds because people don't want to buy American assets, they don't feel confident.

In basically the economic future of the United States right now and it by adding this budgetary Deficit and increasing the debt basically on on a rate of about a trillion dollars every three months It's not gonna make it better.

It's gonna make it worse.

Yeah, and again, it's

not so much about the economic fundamentals of the country as it is the politics, the decisions by policymakers that are causing so much uncertainty, even with tariffs, which we won't have time to update today, but, you know, there's still the uncertainty, even with the recent drop in tariffs from China.

But I have a pretty good feeling when we talk next week, these will still be relevant issues to discuss.

Sean O'Malley follows it as a financial compliance and economics expert, Hudson native, always great to talk to you, Sean.

Thank you so

much.

We'll talk to you, check in a little later.

Very good.

Thanks very much, Pat.

You bet.

All right.

Have a great Memorial Day weekend too, by the way.

And coming up, we are going to be talking to Joseph Pecky.

He has been here regularly to talk about things that are in the news, but now he's also wearing the hat of running for chair of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin.

We talked to Devon Remaker yesterday, William Garcia tomorrow.

Joseph Pecky is up next.

Remember, sign up for our newsletters.

Plurl, head to that homepage up northnewswi.com.

Live from Lake Wissota, what a great place to spend part of your mornings on the Civic Media Radio Network.

I'm Pac Rightlow.

Let's see, coming up here on the Maggie Dawn Show, we're going to talk about veterans health and benefits with a guest from the Center for American Progress.

Jeremy Janine from Urban Milwaukee will be on the program as well.

Todd Alba is on location in Eau Claire.

Oh my gosh, Todd Alba is creeping closer.

He will have Paul Nunez, sports writer for the Acme Packing Company on.

He'll be talking to, oh, I'm sorry, that is...

That is for matinee on air.

I didn't scroll properly there.

So Paul Newton is part of matinee on air.

Then Todd Alba is on location and he will be talking with somebody from the Nature Conservancy about support for conservation in Wisconsin, which I would imagine as well is threatened by the

Republican budget plan that passed the House earlier this morning after an all night session.

And that's where we're going to begin things with Joseph Peckie.

And then we'll get into his run as one of the three candidates for chair of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin.

But with the work that he does with Protect Our Care and with other groups, it's fair to say that

Joe's got a thing or two to say about the the bill that passed the House and the damage that it could do to people all across Wisconsin.

Joseph Peckie, good morning.

How are you?

I'm OK.

How are you doing?

Good

to

see your face.

We missed you last week.

Well, thank you.

It was great to get away.

It is really great to be back.

It's nice to have the sun out again.

And we saw the note this morning that Georgia Senator Rafael Warnock is going to be the keynote speaker at the State Democratic Convention next month in Wisconsin Dells.

Good get.

Oh.

tremendous get one of the most compelling and dynamic leaders within our party.

You don't have to be religious to know that when you are listening to Rev Warnock, you are going to church.

And so anybody who is not already signed up to attend the Wisconsin State Convention for the Democratic Party and the Wisconsin Dells on June 14th and 15th, don't miss out.

You can still get your tickets and you can still get a little, a little, a little bit of.

preaching in your soul.

It'll be good for all of us.

And I don't doubt he's going to have some things to say about where they are in the federal budget process, which I hasten to add is far from a done deal.

Uh, it now goes to the Senate where Republicans there are not necessarily in alignment with Republicans in the house.

But regardless, Joe, the final product probably isn't going to be great for a lot of folks in Wisconsin, but let's start with what we know.

And that's what passed the house early this morning and just

How bad could this thing be?

I want to start by quoting the distinguished gentleman from Where is Tom Massey from Kentucky?

Thomas Massey last night on the floor Said the following about this monstrosity quote We are not rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic We are putting coal in the boiler and setting a course for the iceberg

If something is beautiful, you don't do it after midnight."

And so that was one of the two Republicans who voted against this.

There were other Republicans who took what is sure to go down in the annals of this country's history as profile and courage moments where they voted present, which made it a 215 to 214 vote.

which means that every single Republican member of Congress was the deciding vote for legislation that will make healthcare more expensive, make your energy bill more expensive, explode the debt, make it harder for people with low incomes to feed their families.

Also, Elon Musk can get another tax cut.

And that is, you can't argue with any of that.

And Republicans

know it.

And so I will stop pounding on them and congratulate Hakim Jeffries on becoming the first African-American in history to serve as Speaker of the House, because there is a reckoning coming in this country next fall, and that is that Republicans are going to be wiped out.

Derek Van Orden, Brian Stile, heck, Fitzgerald and Grossman are all on notice.

because they passed the deciding vote for this monstrosity of a bill.

It seems though as I look at the statement that just came down from Derek Van Orden that there's still this feeling like the only people they work for.

are the people who voted for Donald Trump.

The Van Orden statement says, this bill takes great strides in fulfilling the mandate that was given to President Trump by 77 million Americans.

Without this bill, Wisconsinites would have seen a 25% tax hike.

As the Democrats spend time fear mongering with lies that this bill will cut benefits, Republicans got the job done by delivering tax savings and benefit protections for the American people.

Near as I can tell, Joe.

The only fact in that entire statement was that President Trump did get 77 million votes.

There was one other fact.

Derek Van Orden is a member of Congress for now.

I'm sure it said, you know, said representative Derek Van Orden and we can come back to DVO in a second, but he's lying.

He's lying, lying and lying.

He said he would not vote to cut food stamps.

He said he would not.

vote to cut Medicaid.

CBO scores, that's the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, have laid out the facts that millions of Americans will lose health care, that this bill is an incredible redistribution of income in this country, where those at the bottom will be hit the hardest and have a harder time getting by, and those at the very top

the Mark Zuckerbergs and the Elon Musk's and the Jeff Bezos of the world will get extraordinary benefits.

So I guess my question is, what the hell is populist about any of that?

About redistributing wealth from the working poor, from working families, from people working their tail off to get into the middle class?

Just so Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg can buy, I don't know, another Hawaiian island, another mega yacht,

This is madness, and it is not what people who voted for Donald Trump voted for.

Maybe some of them.

Maybe those Uber rich.

But I'm here to tell you, man, if this thing becomes law, which is not a guarantee because we've got the Senate to go, and then we've probably got a conference committee between the Senate and the House, if the Senate doesn't pass exactly the same version.

But if this...

Looks like we've lost Joe.

It looks like we did.

I wanted to make sure that it wasn't me here, but it looks like we may have lost Joe's signal here for a bit.

So we'll look to have him re-establish that.

And in fact, what I'm going to do here quick is just...

go.

That way, I'm gonna hit a button so he knows to click another button and come back in.

So our apologies for that.

Thank you, Sam, for updating where the problem was that you're still hearing me.

You're still seeing me.

I haven't been lifted out of, you know, my chair here in Lake Wissota.

So hopefully we'll catch up with Joe again.

But again, the point that I was about to make to Joe and you're

You're going to hear this from me a lot is and I think we've got Joe back now after a little signal interruption here, Joe, but the the point you were getting to and that I was going to follow up with is we're going to hammer this point a lot about how this isn't actual the spending cuts aren't actually any kind of savings because they go to tax cuts because we're going to take nothing for granted all throughout 2024.

I said, you know, people should know that Trump killed that immigration bill just so he could campaign on the issue and yet

it worked for him even though he killed the bill he campaigned on the issue and he won on it so how do democrats avoid making that mistake again where we we point out the obvious that this isn't going to you it's going to millionaires and billionaires and yet somehow i think everybody fears that republicans are just going to get away with what derrick van orden just said that somehow this is this is about cost savings when it's anything but

have you been watching and or

I've not

oh my god, it's the greatest thing on TV you've seen in quite some time whether or not you're a Star Wars fan, but I want to I want to share something remarkable.

It's that this is of course a spy thriller just before you know Luke Skywalker saves the saves the galaxy but Andorra is this interregnum and there's a speech from Mon Mothma Who is one of the leaders of the the Rebel Alliance?

And so for the first time in the last couple of weeks, people saw her speech to the Galactic Senate.

And I want you to listen to this quote and tell me if any of it sounds familiar.

The distance between what is said and what is known to be true has become an abyss of all the things at risk.

The loss of an objective reality is perhaps the most dangerous.

The death of truth is the ultimate victory of evil.

When truth leaves us, when we let it slip away, when it is ripped from our hands, we become vulnerable to the appetite of whatever monster screams the loudest.

Well, that doesn't describe what you see on C-SPAN every day.

I don't know what does.

Donald Trump is the monster who is screaming the loudest, and he's got his little lackeys like Derek Van Orden, who are lying to your face, whether they know it or not.

This bill

cuts Medicaid, makes it harder for people who are working, who are working their tail off to provide for their family and maybe a parent, an aging parent in a nursing home, or maybe a kid with special needs.

There's a woman who appeared with Senator Baldwin yesterday to talk about this.

She and her husband both work full time.

They have health insurance through their employer.

They are living the American dream.

and their son was born with special needs.

They didn't know it until he was born.

And if they did not have Medicaid as a supplemental, one of them would have to leave the workforce and be the full-time caregiver for their nine-year-old.

On what planet is making it harder for those parents to recertify their child's permanent special needs?

Good public policy.

There's no explanation for why

they should

have to go twice a year instead of once a year when there is no growing out of the challenges that this young man faces.

So when we talk about CBO saying between 10 and 20 million Americans could lose access to health care, that's not rooting out fraud, waste, and abuse.

That's making your and my health care cost more.

That is making it harder for rural hospitals to stay open so that people, if they're injured in an accident, either on the farm or driving on the highway, they're now at greater risk of dying because they can't get to a hospital that's actually open and staffed.

And that is going to be the cost of this.

I got just over a minute before we have to take a break here, so I have to ask you where you are in the campaign for a state Democratic Party chair.

We had all the congressional district conventions.

What's up to these days?

Working my tail off, running around like a head with its chicken cut off.

I'll be up north next week.

Going up to Washera later today was in Ozaki County last night.

It's going great because people know that all is not well with the Democratic Party of Wisconsin.

People know that as Bernie Sanders says, change never comes from the top down.

And while, you know, we certainly are surprised that Ben Wickler went back on his word and commitment to stay out of this race, which no one made him do, by the way.

to do that on its own and then a month into it decided he knows best and frankly I think they and I have been a little surprised by the response which is people going wait a minute you said you were gonna stay out and it is the delegates to the convention who should decide this thing so I'm feeling great picking up support every single day and if you're going to convention I'd be honored to earn your support as well.

I think we'll be talking a lot about this a few more times before the state convention next month in Wisconsin Dells as Joe continues to travel around in his campaign for state party chair.

And again, we'll talk to William Garcia tomorrow in our eight o'clock hour about that as well.

First to remind you here that tomorrow on the program, it'll be Friday.

It's our Friday in review panel with Jennifer Scholesi and Mark Jacob and former U.S.

Attorney Jim Santel.

We'll talk to Kia Vakil from Courier Newsroom as well.

We'll talk a little sports heading into the weekend and we'll get Brittany Merleau's weekend forecast.

I'm Pat Critello reminding you that our Pledge of Allegiance says it all down to the very last word, liberty and justice for all.

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Joe Speck is with us.

We've been talking about his run for state party chair.

And before we get back to that, I did want to ask you about one development during the week here.

And that is appeals court judge Chris Taylor, a former state legislator.

announcing that she'll be running for Wisconsin Supreme Court.

Most likely conservative justice Rebecca Bradley will be running for a reelection as well.

A lot of folks see that that matchup between Rebecca Bradley and Chris Taylor as, you know, the best possible.

If you're a progressive view, you want to see this election.

I'm sure a lot of people on the right feel the same way about Chris Taylor.

What's your early view on the way the race looks right now?

Well, I'm not sure that Chris Taylor will be the only candidate, but Chris is certainly a proven progressive with a track record.

What I want to focus on is telling folks why this matters.

I know it seems a little strange that seven weeks after the last court race, we're at this again, right, with a 45-week campaign.

Because we all just heard that after Susan Crawford

won,

we've locked in the progressive majority on the state court for a while.

And we have, and here's why I would ask,

folks to buckle up and strap in and lock in and get ready to go again.

That progressive majority is guaranteed through August of 2028.

In November of 2028, there will be a presidential election in Wisconsin.

We have seen Republicans try to steal elections before, try to strike at the very heart of our democracy.

And if you care about that, if you care about the will of the people being reflected through elections,

We need you to, you know, saddle up and ride one more time to ensure that progressives control the Wisconsin State Supreme Court through the next presidential election.

So buckle up, folks.

We got to do this all over again.

And coming out of the convention next month, whatever the outcome of the chair's race, that will certainly be top of mind for the next state party chair, is knowing that before even the midterms, before we wonder if Governor Evers is running or isn't running for a third term, that there is this state Supreme Court race that's going to be coming up first.

So we got an overall update on your run for chair about Ben Wickler deciding to make an endorsement in the race.

You've been making these tours around the state and I've asked you all all three of you the same kind of you know

Don't let yourself be boxed in question.

You know, Devin Remacher as the party insider or the Madison person.

And like he said yesterday, he's actually from the La Crosse area and he's worked around the state.

I'm sure William Garcia tomorrow will say, don't just think of me as the out state candidate from La Crosse.

I've done, you know, a whole lot and know a lot about the party.

So likewise, we have to ask the question again.

Joe Pecky's the guy in Milwaukee.

He's from outside the party.

You know, he's done this work as a strategist consultant.

You know, how do you as well break out of that?

Pigeon hold box and say hey look, I'm I'm the full product over here.

Well, I nobody nobody ever succeeds when they try to put me in a box

Okay, baby, no one's putting you in a corner.

Yeah, let me tell you that's

right.

No, I listen I think our differences as candidates are most clearly visible when you look at the totality of our experience There's only one candidate out of the three of us who has worked in other states and that's me

I've worked on the ground in places like Nebraska and Iowa and Nevada.

There's only one candidate who has worked nationally in the headquarters of a federal agency managing 30 staff, 26 of whom are career federal civil servants, and then across 68 district offices around the country.

at the U.S.

Small Business Administration for President Barack Obama.

You know, Devin and William are great Democrats and good friends and their experience is not equivalent in terms of what I have done and the experience that I will bring to bear on this.

And so that's the case I'm making to delegates is that, you know, talk is cheap and easy.

And what actually matters is making change.

Making change is really hard.

And listen, if folks think that everything is A-OK and hunky-dory within the Democratic Party, there's a candidate in this race whose message is stay the course and who comes from inside the party.

I don't think that that is how Democrats are feeling.

And if I thought that the right approach to curing what ails our party,

was to have the same people in the same positions of leadership in the same rooms.

I wouldn't be doing this, right?

Because if that's what the appetite for Democrats was, then I would have said, okay, then those candidates, you know, that candidate's in the race.

But I don't think that's what people want.

And that's what I'm continuing to hear around the state.

Well, and that's where I don't mean to take it in a negative direction, but I'm going to wrap up by asking this.

When you talk to people, among party members, what is their top

fear or worry or concern about switching chairs and what do you tell them?

What are their concerns?

Well, I don't think there is any concern.

Right.

I mean, like people, everyone is, is worried about the ability to sustain the fundraising challenge, but none of us know whether we'll be able to raise money like Ben Wickler until we're in the chair.

But what people are asking is, you know, and concerned about is a top down approach, a one size approach.

you know, fits all that doesn't work for county parties, right?

And so that is a real frustration among the grassroots of our party and real challenges with how it comes to communicating our messages and our values, right?

Our brand is busted.

The communications aren't landing.

People know that we need to be better and do better.

And the more I talk about the ways in which we can do that, the more support

I'm getting.

And that's the case that I'm going to continue to make, which is we have to make changes.

Listen, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

And there's things within the party that aren't going well and going strong.

But there's also a ton of work to do.

We've lost two out of the last three presidential elections.

Ron Johnson is still our United States Senator.

So we've got work to do.

And if you're listening to this and you agree with me, come on board.

We'd be we'd love to have your support.

Joseph Pecky, thanks.

It's always safe travels to you.

Talk again soon.

Thanks, Pat.

All right.

Hey, tomorrow again, Keava Keel, Jim Santelli, Jennifer Schulze, Mark Jacob, coming up next, Matt Nair on air.

My thanks to today's guests, Joseph Pecky, Sean O'Malley, Chad Holmes, Zab Martinez and Michelle Velazquez.

I'm Pat Crichtlow founding.

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