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You're listening to Mornings with Pat Craiglow, powered by Up North News.
Now, for my Lake Mesota studio, here is the founding editor of Up North News, Pat
Craiglow.
At 8.06 in the morning on this Thursday, July 17th.
Welcome back.
Nice to have you here up north.
We've got Parker Olson producing this fine program out of Madison Studio 2A.
Or is it A2?
It's A2.
Yeah,
A2.
A1 and A2.
A2, don't say 2A.
There
we go.
And then, of course, we'll talk to Chad Holmes from 98.9, WXCO in Wausau, and meteorologist Brittany Merleau.
All coming up at first, I've got to give an update in the middle of the night.
Shortly before waking up, I heard a clatter and I was fearful of like, I don't know, home invasion or, I don't know, the ice was coming to get me, whatever the case may be.
It took a while, but I finally discovered what it was, Parker.
Yeah.
These lights above the shelf.
What do you mean
those lights?
They fell again.
They're like these four little lamps and Ikea sends them because, you know, I only go for the best idea.
They send them along with either adhesive, a little piece of tape or these little tiny screws.
I don't know how these big old Scandinavians with their lumberjack hands have these teeny tiny screws, but I don't want to monkey with the little tiny
screws.
So I use the little adhesive strips that come with it.
Which which don't work those lights have come down these damn lights have come down a couple of times now and So you do you know what's holding them up right now?
Oh
wait a big old strip of duct tape
Nice.
I like it.
I don't.
I do not need your teeny tiny.
I'm not going to monkey with the teeny tiny screws.
You got to drill the whole pilot hole and all that.
So people who were hoping because we talked about this before like wouldn't it be great if those lights came down like live on air?
No,
they came down at four in the morning and hopefully not on air, but I wanted to thank the sponsor of this hour's program, duct tape or putting it.
That is how the Lake Wasota studio is put together with duct tape.
So.
uh having gotten the housekeeping out of the way quite literally let's get an update on the forecast one last time with britney merleau and i say one last time because every year ahead of ea a we're always fearful that this is goodbye that one of these times she's gonna
hop on a
plane and she's just gonna say i'm i am off to fly around the world they're gonna be two good year blimps
at the EAA this year.
Who's to say she doesn't end up as one of those?
Like out of the movie up, she'll be exploring, you know, someplace in South America before we know it.
Brittany, please don't run away.
Please
don't.
I won't try to, but I am trying to get in that blimp.
Let me tell you.
So I'm hoping for video of
that.
But you're thinking it might be wet next week for this.
I am.
So I am gearing up my tent.
I'm going to be in a tent on the ground all week long.
living through all the rain and the storms that are going to be headed our way next week.
So I am getting the metal stakes.
I'm getting plenty of reinforcement, a lot of stuff to help waterproof that because I'm going to be in the thick of it.
But we were in the thick of it yesterday.
That was wild.
It all started around noon, lasting through about five or six o'clock, even a little bit later on the east side.
Five to seven different tornadoes possible.
The National Weather Service is out there surveying that area.
A bunch of areas over today and tomorrow.
We'll come back with all of those updates later on today, probably.
And of course, we are looking at much calmer conditions right now.
It feels like fall.
across the state.
Refreshing out there.
Temperatures are in the upper forties to mid sixties right now.
A lot more cloud cover down south.
There is some sunshine in parts of central Wisconsin and far northwest.
It will become sunny statewide today.
Gradually those clouds will clear highs only in the upper sixties to low seventies.
Enjoy it because we do get a little bit warmer tomorrow mid to upper seventies and then we'll flirt with about 80 degrees as we go into the weekends.
Now
We're staying dry today, most of tomorrow, but rain does start to spark up far northwest by the afternoon and it wants to slide through the rest of the state into the evening and through the overnight.
No severe weather, no worries there, but extra rain.
We've got flooding ongoing, especially into places of the Fox Valley, so every drop.
adds to it.
Keep an eye on those rivers and streams, especially as we go through the weekend.
More showers and storms are expected early Saturday, then possibly Sunday for south in the state.
And then like we said, next week is pretty active.
And I'll be out there keeping you updated as well.
I bet you will.
Okay.
Well, if anybody can rough it properly, it is you, Alicia puts on YouTube.
I see you're saying bring umbrellas to the EAA.
It also
says
Poncho would probably be better.
Yeah,
she says
that's how equipment in the military was put together, duct tape and well wishes.
Exactly.
And from Colleen OMG, what a great group and talking about Jane and Todd joining us.
Chris Hambock Boyle says love butternut, amazing rural public school district up there.
So we appreciate everybody that's staying in touch with us.
Brittany, enjoy the day off tomorrow to get ready for it all and we'll look forward to hearing from you from the EAA next week, we hope.
Sounds good.
I can't wait.
Have a good weekend.
All right.
We'll check in with Chad Holmes in just a moment as well.
I just want to keep checking through the mailbag.
Alicia says, yes, call, call, call your legislators about funding the programs for homeless veterans and for childcare.
Excuse me while I cough for a second.
Sorry about that.
All right.
And Corinne Hendrickson puts on YouTube about Republican math not being real math and not fully accounting for anything and says of Senator Smith's comments, we got less than 25% for the monthly program that keeps tuition stabilized and our programs open.
So let's bring in Chad Holmes now where I'm sure by you in the Wausau area, you are hearing as well as I am about it's not just what was in the budget, but what was not in the budget and
As I said yesterday, I want to make clear we are not, when we say it was a very bipartisan budget, and people from both sides don't like things about it, so it must be a good budget, that doesn't mean it was a good budget.
We're just stating what it is, is that there were things that people liked and hated about it.
It was still overall a flawed process.
Man, you kind of hit on the head.
we have not discussed what we're going to be talking about today.
But in fact, that's what I've been kind of thinking about.
And partly because of the folks that you've been talking to the last couple of days, it really is.
And I've been going back, you know, and I, you know, in terms of I really not to not to get on the bandwagon of calling you a senator, like some of your colleagues, but at the same time, you've been there.
And I think back to what you've been talking about, not just this week, but over the last number of months.
And you've been talking about the fact that, hey, there
is a lot of opportunity to be a bipartisan budget that there is a lot available in order to have a as close to a win-win as possible and that would be in a bipartisan way but at the same time there is also in a bipartisan way a chance to be
A pseudo law pseudo win or whatever you want to call it and I just think that as we talk about a lot of these specific issues and again I just think that's a couple of the guests you've had this week have been right on the head on it that It shows again
I think the difficulty of the job, that especially those on the Democratic side have right now, and I'll include the governor in this as well, when you have, I think, a Republican party that is so laser focused on one area, that is tax cuts for the wealthy, that a certain amount has to go there, and that they have these philosophical beliefs in not spending more money in even areas that have been proven time and time again, that we do need additional funding for it.
And I just think that the more that we're finding out about this, that yes, there are certain areas that got bumps.
But boy, at this time over the last number of years with the surplus, with the opportunity to try to really make a difference, not just in people's lives generally, but in certain businesses.
When you talk about to one of your guests just in the last hour, calling former provider.
or soon to be former provider, there is something wrong here.
And I just think it's not just Wisconsin Republicans.
We're hearing again, I mean, the idea of gutting public broadcasting and especially for rural areas that we're gonna see so many signals closed down.
And we talk here in this part of the state so often about broadband access.
And I think you can say that it's a similar idea as...
say, public broadcasting or broadcasting in any way to bring information to people, to bring certain aspects of life to them.
And it's all about this philosophical belief that no government is the best government.
And boy, we are in a very difficult spot right now where
I do think that the Democrats in the state legislature and the governor were able to do some good things.
But boy, I think you're making so many great examples of where we have so many shortfalls and so much room to still grow, to truly get to a point that
though a great majority of the people are getting what they need from their government.
Yeah in terms of the when you mentioned public broadcasting and the support for that and people who want you know virtually no government what it is that they want is authoritarian government and there's been news coverage about you know what the Trump administration really wants here and what they want from American radio and TV stations is what they've done overseas with Voice of America.
where they have fired tons of people, and a lot of the programming has been replaced with propaganda from the One American Network.
All this pro-Trump propaganda that is now being put out, you know, by Voice of America, so that when you see them pressuring Paramount to settle over a report on 60 Minutes, when you see ABC settling and when you see other big media companies settling out of corporate interests,
it only takes us one step closer to going to those networks and then taking over, you know, what was public radio, public TV, and again, turning them into propaganda arms.
And for anybody that would say that that is hyperbole,
You're not watching what has happened in other places, and you're not watching what's happening on the ground right now.
And it is, again, just a toot our own horn.
There's never been a more important time for independent entities like a civic media, like a courier newsroom, like an up north news, and voices, local voices like yours to be around.
There are local voices in Wausau that are, you know, rather synchophatic with, you know, whatever it is that, you know, Trump wants.
Hardly in the best interest of the wasaw community and so you know everything that you just said needs to be Said and then some on stations like 98 nine in wasaw
and again, and I know some people I've
disagree with me but man when you I say all the time this idea of a liberal media is the biggest lie that I think I've ever heard in my life I mean when you think about the voices that are out there and and again I think you hit it on the head when it comes to to what the right wants when it comes to the media this totally right in line I want to hear the examples again of where
where Big Bird and Mr. Rogers have been touting the left-wing propaganda, because that's what they seem to say, that it's just been a propaganda arm of the left-wing when that is so far from the truth.
It's exhausting to try to fight back against those kind of statements, because when you look at radio around the country, when you look at cable television, I mean, the so-called liberal cable television has
so many former Republicans on their airwaves, that's considered liberal.
Well, look, it goes way back to that iconic episode of Mr. Rogers Neighborhood, where there was a local, I forget if it was a police officer or a postman.
Police officer.
And a black man who, it was a hot day, and they said, well, let's both soak our feet in this kiddie pool.
it was groundbreaking you know because back then you know black children were not allowed to swim in the municipal pool if if there were white kids in there and it's only grown from there that somehow the liberal value is to be against racism sexism you know misogyny religious discrimination and if that's what the right wants to be in this day and age
Then go ahead, but you know, unfortunately they're winning too many elections with messages of fear because they're allowed to bring all this money into it and
Rogers was a lifetime Republican by the way I just last month and I encourage you folks go onto YouTube Won't you be my neighbors available on YouTube?
I watched it again last month and I had tears in my eyes because again The
the kind of Republican who wants to govern still be frugal but wants to
govern rather than rule.
Chad Holmes from 98.9 WXCO.
Thank you, buddy.
Talk to you later.
We'll
be
back with more after this.
A local update is next for some of you.
You're up north.
Well, tomorrow is Friday.
You know what that means.
We'll be hearing from Courier Newsroom National Correspondent, Key of Akeel.
We'll have our Week in Review panel with former U.S.
Attorney Jim Santel, along with veteran journalists Jennifer Schulze and Mark Jacob.
Dr. Kristen Lyderly will join us.
Mike Clemens will be talking about sports.
Might even have Todd Alba checking again.
Make sure you got the Hayward okay because today again his show and Jane and Greg's show are up in the Butternut Park Falls area and then tomorrow they will be in the Hayward area.
823 right now.
Let's talk about your money and the markets and let's bring in Sean O'Malley to do that.
Sean, how are you this morning?
I'm doing okay myself here, but you know as we look at the the economic news here and we're gonna talk a bit about the inflation and foreclosures and things like that, but let us start with the we talk about the trade wars and and the beating that US reputation is taking overseas and one of the ways it is becoming manifest is the US dollar
uh, not being seen as, as the safe haven that it used to be, uh, in terms of currency.
Now we've talked about that in terms of, you know, treasuries, you know, treasury bills and bonds and things like that.
But the dollar itself has always been king.
Um, well, I mean, not always, but for, you know, for a long, long time.
And that is, there are indications that we're, we're starting to slip off that pedestal.
Tell us more.
So, uh,
Historically, you're absolutely correct.
The US dollar has largely been regarded as sort of the global currency, the world's currency, if you will, because nearly everything that is traded on any sort of financial market, particularly with respect to commodities, notably oil.
gas, gold, those sort of things are all quoted in US dollars.
So it is really considered the currency to go through to transact and virtually anyway.
But what we're seeing now is something that has not reared its head before.
Usually what happens when volatility goes up and there's actually a measure, an index that's used to measure stock market volatility.
It's called the VIX index, VIX.
And traditionally what happens is when that volatility goes up,
the demand for the dollar also goes up.
What we're seeing now is a dislocation with that.
We're seeing now that that trend has actually reversed itself.
So when volatility, when the VIX goes up, demand for the dollar actually goes down.
So what that tells us is that the smart money is saying the US dollar is no longer the safe haven reserve currency out there.
That's a bit shocking.
I think this is one of the ways that we're seeing some of the undesirable effects of this tariff and trade war manifesting itself in negative ways in terms of the U.S.
economy.
There's also this headline from the New York Times this morning.
Trump wants lower interest rates.
Firing Jerome Powell could push them higher.
uh, because investors, not the fed control interest rates that matter most to businesses and consumers.
The time says they might demand higher returns if the central bank's independence comes into question.
So let's break this down.
You had president Trump yesterday, uh, and for months now talking about wanting to fire Jerome Powell and yesterday saying, I can't believe this guy even got appointed in the first place.
not?
Donald Trump who appointed Jerome Powell?
Yeah, Donald
Okay.
All right.
setting that up.
All right.
Good.
So
forgot.
Yeah.
Suddenly because he's not going along.
So basically tell us why make the case for team Powell or team independence rather than just whatever Trump wants interest rates to be.
Well, the Fed has two objectives primarily, okay?
They want to keep employment as full as possible, okay?
And they want to keep inflation under control.
So those are their two objectives.
Now normally, they're objectives that can be accomplished relatively easily by changing the short-term interest rates.
Remember, the Fed Open Market Committee, the FOMC, only controls the short-term interest rates.
The benchmark 10-year territory note,
That's set by the market.
Okay.
I mean the the Fed can want it to be something But it's gonna be as you point out whatever it's gonna be that's gonna be up to investors So what we're seeing now is that there's been the sort of competing or contrasting challenges with inflation going up and we're gonna talk about that in just a minute and concerns that unemployment due to the trade war could also go up and we could have GDP going down which is sort of
the really bad stagflation situation, which we do not want.
But that's what the Fed is basically trying to do.
They're trying to balance employment and inflation.
And they do not control what happens to the benchmark tenure, which is really where most of the valuations for long-term assets derive their values, because that's considered the risk-free rate to discount those cash flows out.
Do you feel like after some of yesterday's pushback that, do you feel like Trump is not going to ramp down that talk of trying to fire Paul?
He'll still complain about it, but was yesterday kind of as close as he got to trying to fire him?
Oh, there's
He can resign, but they are completely independent.
Powell himself has come out and said, I do not serve with the president.
Basically, you can't fire me, which is completely accurate, constitutionally correct.
And yes, even if at the end of his term, which is next year, Trump wants to go with someone different than Powell.
The concern is that regardless of what they do, or particularly, if we look even weaker, I mean, we look weak already, which is why we're seeing the dollar no longer be the safe haven currency.
But if we lose our independence of the Federal Reserve, I think we have real problems then.
The opening bell is next on Wall Street.
We'll check in a little bit more with Sean O'Malley.
We'll talk about inflation and then pivot right after that to talk to Joe Specky about some of the political goings on of this week.
It all happens here on these mornings powered by Up North News.
Look for us at upnorthnewswi.com, our website, our newsletter, and on social media.
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Let's see here.
Let's go first to Sean O'Malley, then Joseph Pecky, Sean Withers to talk about your money in the markets.
The markets have opened up slightly higher this morning, but inflation has also increased slightly, Sean, since last we checked.
to seeing
All right.
And then foreclosures and bankruptcies, another indication of where we're at with the economy.
Well, I wanted to look sort of as a follow up to our earlier conversation with respect to tariffs and how that might be impacting agriculture in particular.
And one of the things we've seen is nationwide, the farm bankruptcies have basically in first quarter of 2025, they have surpassed
all of 2024 nationwide.
Here in Wisconsin, sort of a year-to-date measure, we're up about 70% 2025 versus the comparable period in 2024.
So we are seeing impacts to a lot of farms in terms of profitability.
Some of the things that have been mentioned are increased fuel prices and raw material in prices.
inputs like fertilizer.
So remember
our
Also with the counter tariffs, the demand for agricultural goods has dropped.
So therefore prices have dropped.
So they're making less money there on the farm side.
And there's just this general trade and economic uncertainty that's still pervasive in the marketplace.
And it's
just causing a lot of problems, not the least of which is the stock market, but also in terms of what's happening with farms.
Yeah.
And look for folks that thought, well, there will be stability in 90 days because Trump's going to give us 90 deals in 90 days.
I've got a farm to sell you.
Actually,
a lot of farms that
I could sell.
And I got a bridge to sell you.
Yeah, exactly.
Sean O'Malley, thank you so much as always.
Take care.
We'll talk to you next week.
All right, thanks for that.
I can't make up this next item any better as I make the transition here to Joe Zappecki.
Joe, during the break, I was monitoring the Courier Newsroom Slack conversation.
And we're always coming up with different newsletters and podcasts and other things.
And in one of our states, they are about to release their new
uh podcast and the note here says uh you know shooting an episode of the oh god now what podcast i send a note i'm like please tell me that's the actual name and i think yep it is so be looking for the oh god now what podcast coming real soon i think that's the official greatest podcast name of 2025
It is.
I mean, I, come on.
There's just, there's so much here and I, and Joe, I'm, I, I really sincerely apologize that we're starting the way that we're starting because there's all these other things with the state budget we can go to and everything, but I just want to bounce off of you the whole notion of
What this Jeffrey Epstein thing is and we're not getting into the case because again These are victims who deserve justice and they've been caught up in politics But the fact that Trump is now going so hard after his base calling his voters Stupid for believing the Epstein hoax when he and others were the ones who built this thing up and said there's this cabal of Democratic pedophiles and everything and now when it's time to put up or shut up once again, he realized on that word hoax
I just wanted to know from your strategist standpoint, is this the straw that breaks the back of people in MAGA world that go, they voted for Trump because they were disenchanted by other politicians.
Now to them, does he come off as just another politician?
You cannot, I gotta watch my words here, you cannot urinate.
on someone's leg and tell them it's raining.
For 10 years, Donald Trump has promised transparency, has said that they would release all the files on Epstein, on JFK's assassination, on Aliens at Area 51, on 9-11, on January 6th, on the pandemic.
He said he was gonna shake things up and tell people what really happened.
And now,
He is demonstrating to the world that he thinks his own voters are stupid.
And he will never apologize for that, so I would like to apologize.
To anyone who voted for Donald Trump expecting him to be different, I'm sorry.
I'm sorry that you got duped and that he doesn't think you're smart enough to see what is happening here.
When the Attorney General of the United States says,
The Epstein files are on my desk.
I'm reviewing them right now.
And then a couple months later, they go, what files?
There's no files.
This is a five alarm fire within the Magisphere.
And a thing that my friend Bill McCoschian and I, he's a Republican, but we agree on this wholeheartedly.
Politics is about addition.
If you want to win, if you want to make change, you have to add people to your coalition.
And since he was sworn in on January 20th, President Donald Trump has been practicing the politics of subtraction.
This is only the most recent and only the most glaring and insulting to his own voters example.
There's something going on here and shame on every House Republican.
who every single time they've had an opportunity to force the release of these things, they have voted to continue the cover-up.
It's
which takes us to the Milwaukee Journal sent an article by Lawrence Andrea.
The headline is Ron Johnson and Wisconsin Republicans at odds with Trump over release of the Epstein case documents.
And Ron Johnson says it's a bizarre situation.
He says something doesn't smell right.
Derek Van Orden says he wants quote every bit of evidence to be released.
Tom Tiffany saying information on Epstein should be released so the public can decide what they think of it.
And yet when Van Orden and Tiffany and others other House Republicans
Republicans were told, all right, here's a chance to do that.
that.
And for listeners who haven't been following, there's been a number of votes this week in the House of Representatives.
It's the White House and Republicans were calling it Crypto Week and Democrats led by Ro Khanna.
attached amendments or attempted to attach amendments saying, release the files, redact the victims' names so that they are not re-victimized and re-traumatized, but everything else should come out and every single House Republican, save for one, not from Wisconsin, I think it was an Oklahoma Republican, voted to continue the cover-up.
And to do that, within the same 10-day time period, where we learned that there's like two and a half to three-minute gap,
in the video that they released.
Ron Johnson is right in saying that something doesn't smell right, where he's wrong is he gets to do something.
Like, isn't he some big shot on his GAC?
The House government.
He's always talking about
He
So stop listening to what?
Maga and the right say and start watching what they do because they're saying one thing and doing another in this case They are doing Donald Trump's dirty work for him and continuing to cover this up I want to add one other thing to this because it's the timing on it is just like absurd They fired the prosecutor in the southern district of New York this week
who prosecuted the Epstein-Gisling Maxwell cases, and it's James Comey's daughter.
This is like Magamad Libs triple Yahtzee conspiracy theory stuff come to life.
What are they hiding?
And so this is a problem and it will remain a problem.
And I apologize to the voters who were duped by Donald Trump, who he thinks are apparently idiots.
Yeah, I mean, again, bring it back to justice for the victims and not playing political games while we're talking about Ron Johnson and Donald Trump.
Let's turn to another Lawrence Andrea story along with Dan Weiss from the Journal Sentinel about how
And the way it's supposed to work is Ron Johnson and Tammy Baldwin, when there are judgeship openings, you know, they will work on presenting a list of recommendations to the president, whoever is president at the time.
And they were in the midst of doing that with an upcoming vacancy on the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, only to find out that Trump and White House officials have already started interviewing some conservative Wisconsin candidates on their own.
And according to a White House spokesman, we welcome the feedback from outside groups.
But the final determination is from the president after consultation with senior staff.
We welcome feedback from outside groups like the United States Senate.
Listen, I believe it's now 13 years or so that Tammy Baldwin and Ron Johnson have been our United States senators.
And during that time, there have been real disputes between Johnson and Baldwin.
about these lists, about this blue-slip process, the fact that they have figured it out and have gotten to a place where the two of them, and remember how far apart on the political spectrum Tammy Baldwin and Ron Johnson are, that they can say, here are five acceptable names to look at, that matters.
That means it is a vetted, good list of people with qualifications.
I'm sure there are people who Tammy Baldwin does not,
align with ideologically.
But when you have Ron Johnson and Tammy Baldwin saying, anybody from this list of five, go off of that list of five.
This doesn't have to be very complicated.
Oh, unless you're looking for the, it's all loyalty test and whoever can be the most loyal to Trump will do that.
Contrast what Tammy Baldwin and Ron Johnson are doing with Derek Van Orden and Mark Pokan, where Derek Van Orden interrupted a Mark Pokan presser, revving his motorcycle as he goes past and then, you know, starts charging the microphone and insulting Mark Pokan and it was all
captured by the Spectrum One News.
And just again, Derek Van Orden doing Derek Van Orden things, such a contrast.
The interview that Van Orden decided to disrupt was a joint interview between Democrat Mark Pokhan.
and Republican Tony Weed, who represents the eighth congressional district.
So here you have another example where you have political opponents, one from the left and one from the right, finding common ground on something and doing an interview about it and disagreeing agreeably and demonstrating the way we want this to work.
And Derek Van Orden is so far out of
at the limits of the universe, like the guy is out of this world, nuts.
And he has to come and disrupt the interview and make stuff up about Mark Pocan saying he's never worked a day in his life.
Mark Pocan has owned a small business for more than 30 years.
Like, here we go.
Just once again, insulting people who work for a living, just making it up.
DVO has got to go.
He's out of control.
It is.
Yeah, it is.
It is.
It is what he does.
Joseph Peckie is with us.
A local update is next for some of you.
Others will come back here for some final news and notes from Lake Wissota along with Joe.
Remember, you can follow my team at Up North News all day long through our newsletters, social media, our website, UpNorthNewsWI.com.
And of course, right here, mornings on the Civic Media Radio Network.
I'm Pac Ritalo.
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.
As you know, you can hear this show week.
They're morning six to nine across the Civic Media Radio Network, 10 stations now across Wisconsin.
We're so glad to have you along.
But you can also catch us on social media.
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on the YouTube channels of Civic Media, or Up North News, and the Facebook pages of Civic Media, or Up North News, or my own politics page, facebook.com, slash, Mornings, with Pat Crichtlow.
I also put together a weekend newsletter called Sunday Mornings with Pat Crichtlow.
Bet you didn't see that coming, where we talk about the week in politics.
There is always a question of the week, the question this week, a bit of the Mamdani effect.
in the New York City mayor's race.
There was a spirited primary yesterday or day before yesterday in Southern Arizona where you had again upstarts, insurgents in the Democratic Party ranks.
So is a leftward shift by Democrats?
Is that a refreshing change?
Or is it going to turn off moderates and cost Democrats in 2026?
Or is it a big tent and there's room for everybody?
or are you a Republican and you're just here with a box of popcorn?
Whatever it is, if you subscribe to our newsletter, you can respond there or send us an email radio at upnorthnewswi.com and tell us what you think.
Is a left word shift just right?
Joe's Becky had run for state party cheer.
He's not doing that anymore.
He doesn't have to watch his words.
He can say whatever the heck he wants.
So Joe, question of the week.
Is there room in the Democratic Party for people that want to be more AOC,
Bernie Sanders and those who want to be much more centrist, I guess the word is.
Not only is there, there has to be.
We are a enormous country with people who think all kinds of different things and trying to force the Democratic Party to be a monolith is an appetite or is a recipe for losing.
We talked about it a little earlier.
Politics is about addition.
And the notion that we're going to have cookie cutter candidates who fit some DC consultants worldview of what the ideal makeup of the Democratic Party is, is wrong.
We are the pro-democracy party.
So let's let democracy play out.
And you know what?
In Manhattan and Madison, you're going to get Democrats that are different than Southern Arizona or Texas.
And that's OK.
That's how it should be.
And what Democrats can't do is become the Republican Party where it's all just governed by what Donald Trump says goes, whether it's covering up the Jeffrey Epstein stuff, whether it is cutting a trillion dollars from Medicaid and then pretending it didn't happen or trying to undo it or saying, boy, I'm really not happy with the vote I just passed.
I oppose some provision of the bill that you just voted for.
That's what Republicans are doing.
Let's not be like Republicans.
Let's have the entire range of ideologies within the left broadly represented in our nominees and in our party.
Full stop.
So related to that, and this is again, a little awkward because again, I run for office and I know that there were times rumblings of primaries and I thankfully did not have to go through that.
But that doesn't mean that you should always try to squash any
ideas of, you know, primaries being held.
And there are already some rumblings in some legislative districts about democratic primaries potentially next year and whether those should be discouraged, encouraged, left alone, whatever.
I would simply point to the fact that we just had a good, clean race for state party chair.
We've had primaries for Governor before.
If Governor Evers doesn't run, we're going to have a big primary field again.
The primary is not something, you know, maybe it gives party leaders a little bit of heartburn, but like you said, the only antidote for democracy is more democracy.
And let's talk about it.
Let's talk about what's happening in the 17th Senate District, where you apparently have Democrats in Madison who think they know best and are trying to pick a nominee before the voters have weighed in.
Why do you have to do that in July when there's 13 months before the primary election?
There's no reason for that.
There's energy out there right now.
Let candidates go out there, run, get better at being candidates, and harness some of this enthusiasm.
And I say all that knowing full well.
The calculus might change, right?
When nomination papers get taken out next May or June, which is what, eight months from now?
Okay.
Maybe there's some candidates who haven't caught fire, who haven't been able to demonstrate an ability to raise resources, which means they're not connecting with voters.
The context might be different then, but the idea that in July, the year, you know, more than a year before a primary next year, we're going to pick winners and losers and tell people to sit down and be quiet and that they can't run.
I'm sorry.
That's absurd.
And that's not, by the way, just that one state senate district in southwest Wisconsin, but also we're going to find out later today that there is a new state senate candidate in the Milwaukee metro area, a potential for a primary there.
There are three Democrats announced right now who want to challenge Derek Van Orden in the third congressional district.
And so I think we need to, we need to do exactly what you said, is have this discussion well in advance that
primaries are fine.
There are some primaries that go horribly sideways, but if the alternative is to not have primaries at all, then I don't want any part of it.
But you've got like Bill Barion, this candidate for governor who's already running, you know, $400,000 TV buys and one million of his 1.2 million came from the Winklevoss twins or something.
There's no guarantee we're going to know Bill Barion's name in August of next year.
Winklevi.
Yeah.
Sorry.
I should have should have gotten that right.
So much to come.
Joseph Becky's gonna help us follow it all with our great thanks as always.
You got any good weekend plan here?
Oh, okay.
like
All
was
Eric Church.
All right.
Have a good start to the weekend.
We'll talk to you later.
All right.
Again, tomorrow our weekend review panel, Kristen Lyrely, Mike Clemens and more.
My thanks to Senator Jeff Smith, Kareen Hendrickson, Joseph Pekki, Sean O'Malley, Chad Holmes, Todd Alba and Sharita Booker.
I'm Pat Krightlow.
Have a great Thursday.
We'll see you tomorrow morning, 6 a.m.
here up
north.
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