Make Beer More Expensive? Trump ‘Can’ (Hour 3)

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You're listening to Mornings with Pat Craiglow powered by Up North News.

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

Hey, good morning.

It is 8.06.

Nice to have you here up north on this Thursday morning, June 5th, 2025.

You're just moments away from visiting with Chad Holmes about stories that he's following in the Wausau area.

We'll talk to Sean O'Malley in a bit about your money and the markets.

and the latest Trump tariffs that are on the way.

We'll talk to Joseph Peckie as well this hour.

Parker Olson standing by in Studio A2.

Still kind of walking on air after UW Whitewater won the national title yesterday in baseball.

I'm a happy camper, Pat.

You should be, you should be, absolutely.

Although there are some people that think your job may be suffering as a result, as you know from our earlier discussions, Parker, not much of a coffee drinker, and so Tony putting up on YouTube, I will blame all of Parker's mistakes, none yet, on his lack of coffee.

Well, none yet is generous, but.

Parker's very much into hydration.

Yeah, and the need for water.

And to make the record clear, he's in the right.

That's we should all be drinking more water.

I'm just choosing not to follow it right now.

You should always drink more water, Pat.

And and then because you know what, in a water cup, you can't have witty sayings like my coffee mug here that says I am silently correcting your grammar.

Chad Holmes joins us from Warsaw coffee, water, something else in the morning.

Something you shouldn't admit to on

here.

I I I usually Have water But for some unknown reason I'm rotting my insides this morning because I've got a big

I

was over at my at my refrigerator here in our little back area and I brought this because I have a game later today and I usually bring it

bring this stupid as well.

I don't know.

You asked the wrong question here this morning and all my dirty, dark secrets are

coming off.

Oh,

yeah.

Mountain Dew, that's the real hazard here.

Just

rotting from the inside out here.

Yeah, something like that.

So, all right.

Well, Parker, you're right.

We should all be drinking more water.

Yes, he's right.

I hope you guys can be more like me next week.

We will endeavor.

as best we can.

We need

good influences.

That's definitely the case here.

That's it.

Parker Olson, good influence.

All right.

Chad, there's an editorial in the Wasaw pilot and review that one of the subheads is why Wasaw needs a professional city manager.

And it talks about, you know, ethics standoffs.

blurred authority, a broader breakdown in City Hall, undervalued land, murky deals, missed opportunities, excuse me.

We don't even get into, you know, stolen ballot drop boxes and things like that.

But this seems to be, I don't know how prevalent this voice is in Wausau that maybe the current way things are operating in City Hall could use a change.

Basically, it's very, it's timely because I've been

digesting a lot of things recently myself here and we didn't get to it on Tuesday and you sent me a link to a story about complaints against council members concerning this whole warped issue with the Dropbox and with the relationship at City Hall between folks in staff and in council and the mayor.

In the in the story about a 17 year old buying property that almost Snuck through and then all of a sudden someone said hey the person that's gonna buy that property 17 years old There is a lot going wrong right now and the idea of what sharing seaworthy editor publisher the pilot put out yesterday concerning a manager style instead of a

mayoral style is something that I have not been for for as long as I can remember.

But the way things are going is definitely a conversation that should be had because right now things are not working the way they should be working in this community when it comes to the mayor and the relationship with staff and council and everything else.

But at the same time, I was thinking about this maybe even in a bigger way.

If you're going to say this about

the Wausau government, couldn't you just as easily say it about the United States government or the state government?

And what does this road ultimately lead to?

I mean, are we gonna start to basically take out some of the polls that are the base of what our system is right now?

And I'm not ready maybe to go as far as Shareen went in terms of her editorial, but at the same time, I certainly see a lot of the reasons behind it as well.

Yeah, and I'm not, I don't have a firm opinion one way or the other because I've seen them all.

I've seen, you know, strong and weak mayors.

I've seen good and bad city managers.

I've seen strong and weak, you know, city councils around Wisconsin over the years that I've been covering these things.

And I understand the desire for like a city manager or a county administrator is no different than, you know, the chief executive officer

sometimes has the right vision, but can't get it done without a good chief operating officer.

And so I understand the sentiment, but I'm definitely in your camp of thinking we really should allow the people to pick who their leaders are, who's running things.

And if they don't do a great job, then we

replace them.

For example, if I were a resident of Wausau right now, I'd be asking some of my friends, how much buyer's remorse you having right now, you know, letting Katie Rosenberg go and you ended up with Doug Ditty.

And I have a feeling if the election were held again today, maybe we'd see a different result, but at least the people would make that choice rather than having a manager thrust upon them.

So I sighed that way a little bit, but I

It's also not a hill I would necessarily die on.

I think you're kind of saying the

where I am as well and and basically this is a question that goes all the way back I mean in one year and one month we will be celebrating the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence and the formation

of

this country and this goes back to to many of the questions that were brought up in those early discussions when it came to what form of government that the United States of America would have and and and basically it comes down to

Do we trust the people to make the right decisions?

And I think there are a number of examples, whether it's here in Wausau, when you talk about maybe buyers remorse from what happened just over a year ago in that election, and maybe you talk about what happened in November of last year within the United States of America.

Because if you ultimately go down this road, you're saying that.

the people can't make the right decisions.

And I understand it's more than that when what Shireen is talking about here in terms of folks that are able to do the job or the complexity of running city government at this time.

But I do kind of take a step back and I'm thinking, well, again, this would be a step.

And again, it's not like it's not as though this has not been done elsewhere.

I mean, obviously she says that as well, but.

Man, I think it's a rather fundamental question that folks here in Warsaw are going to have to be speaking about.

And basically, I think this is a question that many folks around the country are going to have to speak about as we move into the next era of this country.

You know what I think you've done here is you've actually given me the fodder for next weekend's Sunday Morning Newsletter and our question of the week.

and the whole mayor versus city manager, you know, county administrator, do you want to elect people?

Should they be more management types?

I think we got to put it out there and see what, see what people think.

Because we, we can talk this one all day long, but I'd really love for people to either text in or, you know, drop us an email, put something in the comment section and find out where people are on this.

Are they so sick of politicians that, you know, they do want more professional managers or do they

sense that there might be a harm in that in outsourcing what we're supposed to be doing as voters is picking the best person for the job.

Not necessarily the guy or the gatherer runs the best campaign ads.

Well unfortunately a lot of that is the case and and also again there are examples I know that even in this part of the state.

whether you have the manager system.

And boy, sometimes you see a lot of turnover there

as well.

Finding the right people there.

This is not a panacea.

It's much the same way that you have to pick the right person within an election.

You have to be...

very confident you're picking the right person through the application process.

And

unfortunately, you know, sometimes you have the good manager, but they're getting interfered with and micromanaged by a council that wants to be, you know, more partisan than anything else.

And you know what I'm hearing right now?

I'm hearing every school board member out there going, Yeah, amen, because that's what they do.

They have to pick the superintendent.

You know, superintendents are elected and how many, how many battles have we seen back and forth between school boards and superintendents in some of these districts?

Before I

Let you go.

I know you are so busy with spring sports postseason You're in the last what week or two of everything here.

So

yeah, that's the whole poor down to one team here and Baseball regionals and then next Tuesday is sectionals and then knock on wood if you're lucky enough then the state tournament after that So basically I was talking to somebody yesterday at the game.

I said, well, you know, this could be the last day But I'm said I'm hoping for two more weeks.

So we're in that in that

portion of the schedule.

But yeah, basically, we're to the end of the line for another school year than a school athletic year as well.

Do you pay attention either to the Stanley Cup finals or the NBA finals?

Actually, last night, I wasn't watching the game, the Stanley Cup.

Final but then I saw that hey the game's an overtime.

So I was like in bed now I got out of bed I went and I watched the the end of the Game in overtime.

So yeah, I do like following the hockey But I haven't done it as much because it's just you know, I'm running around all the time But it was it was cool as a you know when you have an overtime game when you get to this level There is a great intensity and I see it whether it's I had an extra inning game a couple of days ago Man, it's it's there's an excitement at this point of the season and and as you

Well, no, these regular seasons of professional sports are so long.

It basically is a build up to here.

And it's almost as so long, sometimes it takes away a little bit of the edge.

Oh, it totally does.

Yes.

Because you get numb to so many games.

But watching the overtime last night was a lot of fun.

And go Canada.

Absolutely.

And I love playoff hockey.

But I really love playoff hockey that goes into overtime.

And I'm so sad that I had to go to bed early last night.

I mean, if I almost kind of wish now I'd like recorded the game and still tell me, don't tell me, but you know, a morning show host actually should know who won before.

So the great part about it last night was they were right to the end of the first overtime.

There was like a minute to go and I'm thinking, oh, come on, end it right now.

I need to go to bed.

And they scored a power play going the last minute of the team.

They're like,

yes.

when they say they're, they're going, we're going to a third over time.

You're like, no, please.

No.

So that's one of the

ones usually neither ends pretty quickly or else it goes a long time.

There's a lot to be said for yes, for one over time.

And yeah, back to the long seasons, obviously, for money reasons, they're not going to change it.

But I've always said if if I

had my way, you'd have your March Madness, okay, fine.

And then like the very next week would be the Stanley Cup finals, the very next week would be the NBA finals, and then the very next week would be the opening of baseball season.

Just have a whole festival of, you'd have such ratings and everything, and you can throw golf and NASCAR and that and everything, but all of it doesn't, doesn't it all pale in comparison to Parker Olson being a national champion now because his Whitewater Warhawks won the D1 baseball title yesterday.

That is

very cool.

Uh,

yeah, I mean, we're, we're really putting all the praise on Parker here.

It's his fandom that pushed whitewater to that national title yesterday.

Obvious.

Do you understand?

He's, he's done nothing this morning so far in two hours and 19 minutes to dissuade us from that notion.

There's not a shred of humility in this guy.

Not to the head, right?

Why would I tell you?

I did it.

I did it.

Of

course I

did it.

Congratulations to you, Parker.

Once again.

You did it.

Thank you.

Chad Holmes.

Appreciate it.

Ninety eight nine WXCO.

Catch him in the Wasaw area or on the Civic Media app.

Listen to what he's doing in Wasaw that way as well.

Still ahead this hour.

Sean O'Malley on Money and Markets ahead of the opening bell on Wall Street and Joe Specky from the heart of America's Up North Live from Lake Wissoda.

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

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After taking two out of three in Cincinnati, the Milwaukee Brewers are heading home.

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Let's talk about your money and the markets and bring in Sean O'Malley to talk a bit about.

President Trump's ongoing trade wars, the impact of them on consumers and on jobs.

I seem to recall before we get to the tariffs, we were promised 90 trade deals in 90 days that everybody was gonna flock to Trump and beg him to negotiate new trade deals.

If you're keeping score at home,

There's a principle of an agreement or concepts of an agreement with the UK and with China.

And that's it.

That's the list.

Sean, I mean, the uncertainty just continues in Wall Street and that can't necessarily be good for things like, you know, the dollar and bonds and things like that.

That's correct, Pat.

What we're seeing is that economically, any sort of deals within the trade environment are essentially getting kicked down the road, just like any sort of finalization with tariffs.

It's going to be coming in July and that sort of thing.

But one thing we have seen with tariffs, of course, is the 50% tariff on steel and aluminum, neither of which are going to be particularly good for the economy.

But what we are seeing is also that a lot of foreign governments are now really avoiding getting involved with US assets.

Less on the stock market side, we're seeing it manifest itself more in the bond market, so for US troteries and in the currency market, so the demand for US dollars.

So normally, we see interest rates

and the demand for the dollar to sort of move in tandem, more or less.

What we're seeing now, and this has been noted by Paul Krugman, who's a Nobel Prize winning economist, that we're seeing in divergence and a fairly significant divergence there where interest rates are continuing to go up, particularly in the

longest maturity, Treasury bond that's issued, the 30 year Treasury bond is going up substantially and you're seeing the demand for the dollar sink substantially.

So what this basically tells us is that the demand to buy US issued government debt has gone down and the demand for dollars in general has gone down.

So this seems to be a way of that sort of sell America.

Trade that has been mentioned many times in the marketplace starting to really manifest itself in a particularly unfortunate negative way What's happening is that people are saying and this is the analysis of many others.

It's not about the just the tariffs at this point It's about the actual policies of the United States one of which is buried in the the big bad budget bill Which has a revenge clause in it

So if the US government unilaterally decides at some point in time that they feel that the government of XYZ country is unfavorable to the United States, they can penalize them, especially on any debt that they may have bought.

So that's making buyers even more reluctant.

because you've got this sort of unilateral authority given to the US government that may or may not be exercised and you don't know what's going to happen.

So uncertainty and chaos are sort of, you know, the watch words up there.

Oh, without a doubt.

And so now you've got these new tariffs on on aluminum, also new ones on on imported beer.

So that's kind of like a double kick.

Because, you know, again, even on empty cans before they're filled with anything, basically, if you if you drink beer, if you drink anything, if you eat anything in terms of canned goods, you know, there's there's going to be that

inflationary aspect to it, but it also seems to me, Sean, but correct me if I'm wrong, but the whole point of tariffs is ostensibly supposed to raise manufacturing in the US instead of having to rely on getting it elsewhere.

But

any help for steel and aluminum jobs in the US,

It sure seems to me it would be offset if a whole lot of people who work with aluminum, food, anything downstream that's affected by these tariffs are hurt to a greater degree than steel and aluminum are helped.

Yeah, that's that's a great point Pat.

There are two things that you want to mention when you talk about those tariffs in particular.

One is that

there's actually a multiplier effect in terms of especially steel production.

Basically, for every one job in steel actual production, there are approximately 80 jobs downstream that are impacted, that are basically created or

not created or basically that go away.

So the minute that you have an increase in the price of steel, that means people are going to be buying less steel, the number of steel jobs are going to be going down, but that's going to have a multiplier effect on those downstream positions that rely on steel production.

And that's about an 80 to one multiplier.

So for every one steel job, that's a big impact.

The other thing is that the inflationary impact that you were mentioning.

So right now, we're looking at, according to most experts, about one half of 1% increase in inflation and CPI in consumer price index.

That is the expectation of these tariffs.

So it's not going to be runaway inflation, but it's going to have an impact.

You are going to see prices going up, and it is going to hit the consumers.

Which is funny for a guy that said prices were gonna come down on day one that he was gonna you know tame inflation on day one And instead now we're being told that you know, these are the adjustments in order to save

save quote-unquote jobs in in one area but again Sean's pointing out you know the the multiplier downstream of all of these things.

Sean O'Malley is here with us and during the break there will be the opening bell on Wall Street and we'll talk just for a few minutes more especially about the trade deficit.

Apparently it came down in the latest report but as we just kind of hinted

That's not the full story.

And then he will be followed by Joseph Peckie.

First day reminder, sign up for our newsletters.

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Tomorrow on the program, former U.S.

Attorney Jim Santel, Chicago journalist Jennifer Schulze and Jonas Pizito.

I was just on Jonas Pizito show yesterday in Chicago, WCPT, if you want to look that up.

Dr. Kristen Lierly will join us and tell us all about what Assembly Speaker Robin Voss had to say to a room full of doctors this week, including telling these doctors, you need to do your research.

Hmm.

I will bet Kristen has some thoughts on that.

And we'll also begin a weekly Friday segment with Mike Clemens talking about the weekend coming up in sports.

That's all tomorrow here across the Civic Media Radio Network.

Mornings from six to nine a.m.

I'm Pat Krightlow.

Nice to have you here.

Sean O'Malley back with us, a compliance financial expert with a long career on Wall Street.

This Wisconsin native is now back.

Well, you're mostly sailing.

boats out of Washburn or Bayfield or Ashland or something like that, right?

Bayfield.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Bayfield.

Yes.

Yes.

But still obviously following things and we appreciate the time that you spend on this and it's time for a part of the segment.

I'm going to call hold on cowboy.

And it goes like this the the headline US trade deficit plummets in April US trade fell sharply as President Trump's global tariffs begin to weigh on imports and so people going President Trump said he was gonna shrink the trade deficit and by gum He has done it the trade deficit has shrunk to which I would respond Hold on cowboy

That's not the full story.

The full story would be if, oh, well, U.S.

manufacturing has made up the difference and that's why it ain't that, Sean.

It's just that there's less on the store shelf right now.

Correct.

Inventories are down.

I mean, we're...

you know, a lot of the shipping as we talked about, you know, in earlier shows had essentially stopped, slowed down so substantially that you're seeing, you know, job cuts in shipping related industries, in trucking related industries, anything that takes a product from one place and moves it to another place because there's less product moving.

So yeah, there was the big sort of, yeah, everybody bought in advance of these tariffs, you know, sort of really taking a bite.

And now everybody's just sort of holding still, kind of waiting to see what's going to happen.

As we know, the tariff can has been kicked to July for the most part.

So everybody's sort of waiting to see what the final result is going to be.

There's one more I want to get to here, and then we'll get to Joseph Pecky.

But again, a New York Times headline, US trimming back its collection of consumer price data.

The cutbacks would have minimal impact, the government said, but economists warned of reduced confidence in inflation data produced by a struggling statistical system.

This seems rather similar to what's happening with the cuts at the National Weather Service and not being able to collect data there.

There's the sharp reduction in data on health statistics that are being released about the nation's health.

seems again, very odd that for an administration that says they want to prove what they're doing with consumer prices, that they're now cutting back its data collection in this area.

Correct.

Yeah.

And what you're seeing is basically a government that doesn't want you to actually have information.

They want you to believe what they're telling you.

You know, don't don't trust your lion eyes, believe what I'm telling you.

So I think that's what they're trying to do.

They're trying to make sure that they can control the narrative.

The one issue that they've got with that is that on the budget bill, which is what is really impacting all of the spending, that narrative is starting to get out of their hands, particularly since Elon Musk has recently come out criticizing the government bill and now has been joined.

There were a few senators before, but now there's a...

a larger group, Newsweek just yesterday published a list of 10 senators, including Wisconsin's Ron Johnson, who are now saying, look, we don't think this bill as it stands is a good idea because it's gonna increase the national debt significantly.

And that's exactly the same reason the deal on Musk is using.

So now with a 53, 47 split for Republicans versus Democrats in the US Senate, the question is, do they have the votes to get the bill through unamended?

or dump

they and that and that's what we were talking about last hour with congressman mark pokehan and it is it's not the kind of mystery we want to deal with in washington dc i'd rather be watching the residents you know a fictitious murder mystery out of the white house but this is the real life mystery that we're dealing with and uh everybody's lives and prices and everything are hanging in the balance shalom alley as always thank you we'll talk to you next week

Thank you bet.

All right.

Hey, let's bring in Joe Specky now as we do on Thursday mornings who's also a candidate for state Democratic Party chair and we've got plenty of ground to cover on all of these things but Joe as part of your run you were recently in in Washburn, right?

Yes, but before we get to that, were you just announcing to everyone that you've been watching The Residence on Netflix?

I watched the first episode and I loved it.

I haven't come to episode two yet.

Melissa and I are about

three or four episodes in.

So once we're done, perhaps we can do competing reviews next week.

I'm loving this idea.

Stay tuned next week at 8.50 when we start that segment.

But you were in Washburn to which Tony on YouTube jumped in and said, you went to Washburn and didn't tell me.

We tried to get the word out,

man,

with the check

dens up there.

We had a nice little conversation on.

When I was near Lake Wissota, we covered a lot of ground last week.

We were in Chippewa Falls and Superior and Washburn and Marinette and Green Bay and Lake Mills and Merrill.

We got around.

And to me, that's the job is go and meet people where they are and listen.

And what I continue to hear is that we're a party that needs to make some changes.

We have real opportunity ahead of us going into next year, but we got to get it right.

Yeah, by the way, oh, by the way, Inside Baseball Check Dems stands for Shawamagan Dems, which is the Ashland Bayfield, the two county parties merged.

And so that's the Shawamagan Dems that we all lovingly refer to as the Check Dems that you saw while you were up there.

So we are, what, about 10 days ahead of the election for state party chair?

Sure.

It's a week from Sunday.

A week from Sunday.

Okay.

So that that's coming up before you know it here.

And so that that's what's led to all of the the travels and the conversations and the discussion about where the party goes from here.

Have you noticed any shifting in the conversations since you got into the race that people feel either better or worse about how how the Democratic Party of Wisconsin is going to be navigating, you know, this upcoming cycle?

No, I think lots of people want us to be better and do better.

They want to do more and are already doing a lot.

And as I've said throughout this race, two things are true at the same time.

The Democratic Party of Wisconsin is as strong as it's ever been, thanks to Ben Wickler and his team.

Democrats have a lot of work to do.

We just do.

When it comes to how we communicate and how we organize, we can be better.

We have to.

Standing still is falling behind.

That's the way the world works.

We talk to our football players not about meeting the standard, but setting the standard.

every single day, every single week.

And that's what the state party needs to do.

We've set a standard under Ben that 49 other state parties around the country are jealous of when it comes to how we fundraise.

Now, I think we need to set the standard for 49 other state parties when it comes to how we communicate.

And I believe we can do that.

People are leaning in and engaged and they want to do more.

especially local groups like the Czech Dems to which Tony jumped on YouTube and says, it's the best democratic group in the state.

You know, many people are saying.

A lot of people are

saying.

A lot of people are saying, especially up north and rightly so.

So, weigh the toot your own horn there.

Let's shift over to some of the state political headlines and of course the big one is that Republicans broke off negotiations with Governor Tony Evers.

I wouldn't necessarily, I would put negotiations in quotes.

The governor did meet them on, you know, their tax cut demands, but they would not, you know, come halfway on what needs to be done for education and healthcare and things like that.

So, I mean, I would have loved for this to succeed, but if it was gonna break down, it broke down pretty much the way almost anybody could have predicted.

Yeah, Republicans are the take your ball and go home party.

Yeah.

They are never happier than when they have some grievance.

Oh no, they won't do this, they won't do that.

They've been in power in Wisconsin for way too long.

This is what happens when one party controls the legislature for as long as they have, which I think we're going on 16 years now.

It is time for a change.

It is time for Democrats to have the wheel when it comes to the state budget.

I believe next year, 2026, we will win the assembly and Senate seats required for Democrats to be in charge of the budget process.

And if that happens...

we can finally deliver as a state on priorities that we know people want.

That's what's at stake next year, and it's why what happens with the party is so important.

Now, I know you're going to say I shouldn't even be talking about these things, but if Democrats do take the Assembly and the Senate next year, which is quite possible now that we have fair maps, but if for whatever reason, a Republican were to win the governor's race and Democrats were to control the Assembly and Senate,

Can I make a virtual guarantee that with that level of split control, the process would still operate smoother than it's operating right now?

It would, because Democrats are interested in policies that move people's lives forward, not tired political rhetoric, which is what we see out of Republicans.

We've talked about this before, but the notion that we can't raise one dime of new revenue,

from the wealthiest Americans because that would be a tax increase.

It's nonsense.

George H.W.

Bush and Bill Clinton and Barack Obama all raised taxes a little bit on the wealthiest.

And you know what it led to?

Economic growth and more economic security for working families in this country.

That wasn't that long ago.

This is all within my lifetime.

I'm not as young as I used to be, but I still consider myself a young man some days.

Look, I mentioned earlier in the program, it was George H. W. Bush, who essentially painted the modern Republican Party into a corner with the read my lips, no new taxes line.

And then he ended up having to raise taxes a bit on the wealthy because again, that's what responsible leaders do when faced with a crisis and you want to balance the budget and you don't want to cut off everybody's health care or education.

You give a little, you get a little.

George H. W. Bush, you know, did that and

paid a price for it and the the Republicans have been rather extreme ever since in saying we're not even like you said gonna raise things a dime because of that that extremist corner that they've painted themselves into.

Yeah, George H. W. Bush did the right thing.

They're you know, Republicans in Waukesha County who want to do the right thing and institute a sales tax to help their municipal government afford the things that their community needs.

But

Republican lawmakers in Madison.

Oh, no, can't do that.

Even when local Republican leaders want to do it.

That's the Gordian knot that Republicans have tied themselves into.

And it's why you see this monstrosity of a reconciliation bill.

I was thinking about it after we talked last week.

They call it the Big Beautiful Bill.

A three-word title.

Only one of those words is not a lie.

Big?

It's not big.

It's massive.

It blows a hole in the deficit and the debt, right?

It is not beautiful.

Beautiful is in the eye of the beholder and anybody who thinks it is beautiful to cut taxes for millionaires and billionaires and make poor kids pay for it because they can't get food assistance or they can't get health care.

If that's beautiful, you need to get your eyes checked.

The only true word in the title is that it is a bill.

But it is a bill that is going nowhere.

Well, exactly.

And for differing reasons among Senate Republicans, but still there.

So I will again say both from a legislature standpoint and a Congress standpoint, there are Republicans out there.

regular Republicans, not currently politicians, the opportunity is there.

Well, hell, even with some of the incumbents as well.

The opportunity is there to be that maverick, to be that guy or that woman who says, yeah, this is too much.

And you can still be a fiscal conservative and yet understand that this is a big bloated boondoggle and insist on some other way to go about doing this if it doesn't hurt so many Americans and also...

isn't such a giveaway to the fabulously wealthy.

Joseph Peckie is here.

We will eventually, I think next week, be talking all about the residents and more TV viewing, because we need some good political TV viewing now and then, and the residents just might be that.

I'm Pac Rightlow.

This is the Civic Media Radio Network.

You're listening to Civic Media.

Find the latest news, information, and archives of all your favorite shows on the Civic Media website, civicmedia.us.

Hey, after the show, you can continue to follow what we're working on at Up North News.

Head over to Facebook, Instagram.

The dumpster fire that used to be known as Twitter and look up up north news wi on tiktok Just look up up north news and you'll see what charita booker is posting on all those platforms and more The work that that I do Christina Laurie and plenty of other folks our national team as well for courier newsroom follow us all day long across the

web on all those favorite platforms.

Do you have a preferred platform, Joseph Pecky, as you're doing your campaign and as you're doing your, your speaking?

I mean, some, some folks left Twitter acts all together.

Others said, well, we need to stay here and have a presence on it.

Others are much more Facebook.

Our family uses, you know, Snapchat more than anything.

Are you, uh, do you have a personally preferred platform?

Facebook and Instagram.

Okay.

Joseph

Pecky.

Just

like,

just like is on the screen.

Joe is a Becky Z E P E C K I and get more there.

How is your

What's the word there?

Algorithm?

You know, Sherry loves to talk about how her algorithm is nothing but cute animal videos.

Whereas mine is so much politics that invariably, I feel like I'm watching the West Wing all over again because the algorithm keeps feeding me clips that people post up of there.

So I would imagine yours is still probably pretty heavy on politics as well.

Not as much as you might think.

swim in the news and information of the day and other places, actual news outlets and podcasts.

My social media tends to be more.

football, basketball,

golf, you

know, things like

that.

Yeah.

Nope, that makes total sense.

And then, you know, Sherry and I were always sending videos to our daughters.

They're sending videos to us.

They, of course, are raising children, which leads to all kinds of funny parent videos, which I know you guys are going through.

You recently had somebody get their driver's license.

So we did.

You have that whole phase to go through there.

We got a

sophomore year of high school coming to a close next week.

Exam week.

Yeah, yeah, very much so.

So as we were talking about the big bloated boondoggle by Donald Trump here, for Elon Musk to be as public as as he's been, look, somebody's got to say, I will say it, I'm surprised he could have just as easily just sulked away.

But for him to be this public about it,

Of course, at the moment, a pleasant surprise, but frankly, it then makes me wonder, well, is there some ulterior motive here or something?

I don't know.

What was your thought when Elon Musk so publicly turned on his BFF?

That the Frankenstein monster has escaped the lab.

The Republican Party did this to themselves.

They thought that Elon Musk could help them.

And they puffed him up and built him up and put him in charge of a non-legal government entity to take a blowtorch to the Constitution and the separation of powers.

And it puffed up his ego even more.

And then when he proved to be politically inconvenient, they kicked him over the edge.

And the guys got a massive following.

He is so vain that he spent 45 billion dollars to purchase what used to be Twitter so he can reach, you know, the hundreds of millions of people around the world.

And now he has more credibility when it comes to government.

And of course, because they kicked him overboard and they're taking away the exact type of government welfare that allowed him to become the richest man on the planet.

and are now making policy choices that will hurt his business, now he's got an axe to grind.

And they have nobody to blame but themselves.

This is an erratic, drug-addled, according to, you know, reporting in the New York Times, loose cannon who they can't control.

And they have nobody to blame but themselves.

From the text line John and Oshkosh says it's all smoke and mirrors Musk is wanting more cuts to government for more tax cuts to billionaires I don't trust any of these billionaires

And that gets us to the current split in the Republican caucus as you probably have a few Republicans.

Maybe it's lip service.

Maybe it's not saying, yeah, we're cutting too much here in terms of Medicaid and things that hurt people.

But then you also have your Ron Johnson's who are saying, no, actually, there should be even more cuts to pay for all of this.

And it brings it back to a question I asked Congressman Pocan and others is to

where this goes in the Senate.

Do they eventually get something passed through at the House?

Also passes to say they did something or is there still a chance that this whole thing falls apart again because of Republican infighting?

Not anything Democrats are saying or doing.

So they have to pass something.

They will pass something.

I do not believe they will pass what an enact what is close to what the House Republican

Conference passed.

Which means we still need to make every Republican in Wisconsin own what they did.

Forget about where this goes from here.

Derek Van Orden, Brian Stile, Tom Tiffany, Tony Weed, Glenn Grossman, Scott Fitzgerald, they all voted to kick 10 million Americans at least off of healthcare so that Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg could get another tax cut.

That's the message we need to send.

Now, what's gonna happen in the Senate?

That's the second chapter of at least a four-chapter book.

The Senate version will be different than what the House did, which means it'll have to go to a conference committee, which means it'll have to pass both chambers once again.

We have a very long way to go.

What everyone needs to do is keep the pressure up.

There is a chance that what ends up passing, because they will pass something, and they have to, particularly as a

pertains to the debt limit.

But what will end up passing and becoming law could be much less worse than what House Republicans passed.

That should be the game plan.

That's why people need to keep up the pressure and intensity.

That's again, that's the mystery we're stuck with instead of the mystery we want, which is the residents, which I'm going to watch more of.

And we're going to talk about that with Joseph Pecky next week.

Joe, thank you so much.

Safe travels.

Have

a great

weekend.

All right.

Coming up next, Matt Nair on Air will be along here on the Civic Media Radio Network.

Jim Santel, former U.S.

Attorney, will be on, as will Assembly Democratic leader Greta Neubauer and also Paul Noonan, writer for the Acme Packing Company.

That's all part of Matt Nair on Air.

Coming up next, I am Pat Kratlow, founding editor of Up North News, the Wisconsin outlet for Courier Newsroom, building a more informed, engaged and representative of America.

Sign up for those newsletters.

news wi.com and follow us as a podcast on Spotify.

Have a great day.

We'll see you tomorrow morning here up north.

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