Transcript
County Executive Trumps Chief Executive (Hour 2)
Mornings with Pat Kreitlow · Fri Jul 25, 2025
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Now, for my Lake Minnesota studio, here is the founding editor of UpMorth News, Pat Craiglow.
Hey, good morning.
It is 7.06.
It is nice to have you here in Oshkosh live on this Friday morning, July 25th, 2025.
Parker Olson is producing our
Fabulous Show in our Fabulous Studio, Madison Studio A2.
Coming up, we're going to hear from County Executive Gordon Hintz in just a bit.
Also, it is Free Ticket Friday.
Your chance to win some Brewer's Tickets to see the Brewer's Cubs game next Wednesday.
afternoon will give you the keyword to Texas coming up in just a bit.
Our Week in Review panel is here as well, former U.S.
Attorney Jim Santel, journalist Mark Jacob and Jennifer Schulze.
Of course, we'll be talking about reaction to Governor Tony Evers and his announcement that he will not be running for a third term next year, opening up just a wide open primary for Democrats, for Republicans.
And not just for the governor's race, but for lieutenant governor and theoretically, possibly attorney general, secretary of state, state treasurer, depending on what Josh Call and Sarah Gailewski and others decide to do.
could open up some legislative seats if some legislators decide to run for other offices.
So there are just huge ramifications that we're going to get into all put in place by Governor Evers' announcement yesterday.
So that is all still to come along with State Assembly representative Lee Snodgrass and also Mike Clemens with sports.
But first we did get a chance to talk to my former legislative colleague Gordon Hintz, who got back into elected office recently, ran for and won the position here.
in Oshkosh, Winnebago County Executive, and so I started by asking him a bit about the role we get into the level of county government and what it provides, the difference from being a state legislator all with County Executive Gordon Hintz.
And we are joined now by Winnebago County Executive Gordon Hintz.
Gordon, hello, how are you?
I'm good, thanks Pat.
Good to be
It's good to see you again.
It's been a while since we were serving under the big white dome together there and doing other things.
My other thing eventually included radio.
Your other thing eventually included being a county executive.
Tell me about the path to that.
What made you decide to run for local elected office?
I'm older.
About 25 years ago, I went to grad school wanting to be a city manager, you know, and I went out to California after grad school to do a local government management assistant program, was a budget analyst, but then I kind of got fired up about politics, returned to Wisconsin, ran for the state assembly eventually, you know, getting elected serving 16 years in the state legislature.
I took a break after getting myself out working for the Wisconsin laborers, you know, doing a workforce development and partnering with our union contractors, which was a great experience.
But I realized I really missed public service.
I miss being involved in community.
And I don't think I ever lost interest in local government.
I think I was burned out on partisan politics, on legislative politics.
But I still felt the calling for public service.
I got encouraged by people in the community to consider running, thinking we needed more professional government, and got back in running.
It was a different kind of campaign.
And it's really a different kind of role being the county executive than it was sort of being a legislator.
So it's my 100th day on the job.
a challenge but you know I think I've realized certain things about myself and what I'm motivated to do and what what I enjoy in terms of the kind of work I do.
Well you get to do all all sorts of things on on policy and we'll talk about local government but there is that those things that are also front-facing very public this week is is one as big as it gets for Air Venture being in Oshkosh what's the week been like so far?
Great.
The weather has mostly been cooperative, which is what we like to see.
I don't think we've had any major incidents.
On Monday, I've gotten the EAA tour before, where we go out with Air Adventure.
I used to invite legislators up.
to kind of see the world's biggest air show.
I went out with our airport director and did it from a county standpoint since it's the county airport.
It's sort of the big deal to drive around, get an idea of how things work, the partnership between the county and EAA.
But all indications are things that are going well.
We just got an economic impact study that shows what the benefit to the community is.
EAA continues to grow.
um continues to be a part of the community for what has been a great long-term partnership and uh but it's definitely the traffic is is busier in Oshkosh the the businesses and restaurants are are full um but it's uh yeah i think it's a good it's a good relationship even for the community that may not be in the airplanes
yes i mean and a lot of it these are these are nice they're nice problems to have other communities would like to have some of those problems for one or two weeks a year so let's talk about
County government itself and you come at it from an executive standpoint now as a former legislator and I come at it as I mean that that was my first beat was covering County boards I I have long since lost count of how many County board and County board committee meetings I covered you know all throughout
Northwest Wisconsin over the years.
But it's something most people don't think about.
So when you do get that puzzled look, when you tell somebody you're the county executive, what is it about the county level of government in Wisconsin, especially, that is so instrumental to the everyday lives of our communities?
We have mandated services that the state requires the county to implement, everything from administering badger care, child support services, legal services, aging and long-term care, other social services, human services are probably the biggest part of the county agencies.
But the sheriff's office, public health,
you know, the highway department, but it's not, you know, I think people identify with the school district, they know what schools do, they identify with their municipality, they know the, they call the police, the garbage gets picked up, the snow gets plowed, but a lot of the county services, if you don't have a direct interaction with them, you may not be as familiar, you know, if you're not using some of those services, if you're not, you know, using the nursing home.
if you don't know somebody involved.
And I think that's something that we need to do a better job of promoting the work that the county does so that the public gets it and that we make sure that the priorities of the county are in line with what the priorities of the community are.
And I realized that during the campaign and I realized it more being executive.
It's incredible to hear that when you were covering the news on TV that you actually covered
county government given how little attention it seems to receive now and we're you know trying to work on that you know with traditional and non-traditional media but you know we're up against the same challenges in this environment that everybody is.
Without a doubt and yet
You have to be responsive.
You are local that way.
And so let's close by looking at your first 100 days in office and then maybe the next 100.
Tell me something that you've been very happy with that you've done new in the position.
And then what's something that you're really hoping to accomplish in the next 100 days or well into what may be your first term?
Well,
I mean, prioritizing engagement with the public, especially our municipal partners, you know, reaching out to the other local governments in the county.
Winnebago County is sort of the northern part of the county, Nina Monashia, Fox Cities, which probably identify with Appleton more.
And then Oshkosh is its own thing.
And then the Western communities were sort of divided into thirds and trying to get everybody focused on
what can Winnebago County do?
How can we partner as, you know, with municipalities and with other nonprofits?
You know, I've been trying to build those relationships and make everybody know that we are going to be a partner.
Probably the biggest thing that we've been spending time on is the acquisition of UW-Fox, the closed, you know, they closed the two-year campus.
We had a co-owned it without a gamey county.
We've since
My first day, the board bought them out for a dollar.
We were able to preserve the existing childcare center there, maintain the Barlow Planetarium, but we're working on a redevelopment plan for the campus of 43 acres to hopefully not only make it financially sustainable to preserve the theater and the field house and the public amenities people appreciate, but also get some development that increases, that adds tax base for the county and for the community.
getting us to this point have been so far, but we've got a lot of work to do, but that's been what's consumed a lot of the first 100 days.
And the next 100 days will involve a lot of budget development, and that'll be continued to be transparent, engage the public.
We're gonna propose the budget a month earlier than normal, so we can take it on the road, so we can do some town halls, so we can hit the rotary clubs and really use it as an opportunity to promote the good work that county government does.
County Executive for Winnebago County, Gordon Hintz.
Gordon, great to catch up with you.
Thank you very much.
Congratulations on the new job.
Wish you all the best going forward.
Thanks for having me, Pat.
Nice to talk to him as we are here live in Oshkosh this morning.
Just in time to cover some breaking news.
Got here just as Governor Tony Evers was making the announcement that he would not run for a third term next year.
And Parker, I wanted to start a game.
from this.
I wanted to say, OK, look, we're going to get probably a dozen candidates.
I wanted to get a list of like a dozen names or so of potential candidates and then have people guess the order in which they were going to announce.
Oh, I like that.
And then see who is closest.
Unfortunately, the game is already underway.
We already have the first two names on the list as Lieutenant Governor Sarah Rodriguez made official this morning that she is going to be a candidate for governor.
The Lieutenant Governor has been with Governor Evers on this first term.
You'll recall Mandela Barnes was Lieutenant Governor during Governor Evers first term and then left that post to campaign for U.S.
Senate.
Sarah Rodriguez, a former emergency room nurse, now saying officially that she is a
candidate for governor next year.
Right on its heels, Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley put out a statement as well that said, quote, in the weeks ahead, I will be taking steps to I will be taking steps toward entering the race for governor.
The stakes are simply too high to sit on the sidelines.
So there you have it.
not 24 hours removed from Governor Evers' decision not to run for a third term, and you already have the first two Democratic candidates in the race.
You have two announced Republican candidates in the race, Washington County Executive Josh Schoeman and businessman Bill Barion.
And so you have two Democrats, two Republicans, and trust me, many, many more will be getting in the race.
These will be wide open primaries August of next year.
Which is not again a wide open primary is not necessarily a bad thing or a good thing It just is we have an open race for the first time and well over a decade and so when you have that situation come up Expect a whole bunch of people to be introducing themselves to you and asking you for your vote That August primary is going to be super important So as we get approaching that you know just over a year from now
realize the value of not just waiting for November to vote for Governor, but you're going to be asked to pick from a large field of candidates for Governor, for Lieutenant Governor, and potentially for Attorney General, Secretary of State, State Treasurer, depending on who all gets in and how all the dominoes fall, which started with Governor Evers announcement yesterday.
A local update is next for some of you.
Our Week in Review panel is on the way as well, but first it is Free Ticket Friday, so tell you really quick here, get that Civic Media app, go to one of the stations, use the text feature, and text us the word Brew, B-R-E-W.
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From the heart of America's up north, live from Oshkosh this Friday, I'm Pat Krightlow.
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It is a busy Friday morning here live from Oshkosh on the Civic Media Radio Network.
I'm Pat Critello.
If you missed it a bit ago, not only have we been talking about Governor Tony Evers announcing he would not run for reelection, he will not run for a third term next year, but the first couple of candidates have already announced on the Democratic side, Lieutenant Governor Sarah Rodriguez announces she will run for governor and Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley said he is preparing to announce a race for governor of his own.
Of course, there are several other folks that are said to be considering a run in this wide open primary.
And so we will be tracking all of that in the coming weeks and months ahead.
But let's turn our attention to our weekend review panel, former U.S.
Attorney Jim Santel.
We've got journalist Mark Jacob and Jennifer Schulze here as well.
And I'm going to start with our Chicago area journalist first, because even though you're not up here in America's Dairyland, you follow enough news and enough politics, including from here next
door that if I were to ask you to say something about Governor Tony Evers and his significance from a national political standpoint, what he did with a Republican legislature and things like that, I am safely assuming you guys have some thoughts on that.
Mark, let's start with you this morning.
Yeah, I think he's really earned a reputation as someone who's really clear, spoken, and you know where he stands.
He doesn't try to
you know, sneak around or do, he doesn't play politics.
He actually plays government.
And he really, the reputation of Tony Evers down one state south of Wisconsin is really pretty solid.
And in some ways, I feel really, when I heard the news, I was actually, I kind of groaned.
I wanted him to stay governor.
And Jennifer, before I go to you, I think another way of putting it is Senator Tammy Baldwin told us Tony embodies the best of the Wisconsin way.
He knows what is right.
He's willing to fight for it, but is a level-headed Midwestern nice guy always willing to bridge divides if it's right for the state.
Is that the impression that you think others got from outside our borders?
I mean, like Mark said, a focus on government, not politics, I think is what Americans are hungry for.
At least I know we are here in Illinois and we're lucky to have a solid governor also.
But the other thing about Tony Evers is he held the line.
because I hate to think what would have happened in Wisconsin had one of his Republican challengers won in either election.
We see what's happened in Virginia with Glenn Yonkin there, even though it's a purple state at best.
He's done some terrible things there more recently with the universities.
I can't imagine what would have happened.
I know the University of Wisconsin's been facing some challenges with the legislature there, but Tony Evers has been good for Wisconsin.
He's been good for the Midwest and he's been good for the country.
And Jim Santel, of course, you know, you being a former U.S.
attorney here in Wisconsin have seen even closer the impact that the governor's had during what is going to be his eight years in office.
And we sometimes think about these issues plainly at a time when we're going to have lots of candidates.
Remember 2010, I think we had 14 on the Democratic side alone.
The reality is that when you're electing governor and maybe also, as you said, a new treasurer, a new sector of state, maybe a new attorney general, all these other races, it does have a connection to these larger federal issues.
The notion that somehow government between state and federal is completely divided, that's not how our country is organized.
And I will tell you, as U.S.
Attorney for just about six and a half years or so, a system used to be before that, lots and lots of connections between state government, all those entities, and what your federal government is doing, not just in the U.S.
Attorney's office, but in many other federal agencies right here in Wisconsin, it has a direct connection.
with what you think about and what you you perceive to be the role of federal government when you come when it comes to electing all of these state offices too as we begin to identify all these candidates in all these positions likely important for people to remember that as well you want to change federal government these days you can have an impact upon it by your state decisions.
Mark, the first candidate to announce was Lieutenant Governor Sara Rodriguez.
And I see that the quote that that is already being pulled from her announcement goes like this.
We've got a maniac in the White House.
His tariffs are killing our farmers.
And as policies are hurting our kids, that's probably some solid political advice she was given to to lead with Trump, because certainly whoever wants Trump's nomination on the Republican side isn't going to shy away from the president either.
I mean he's below 40% now and You know even on issues like immigration, you know, so it's so well to see what happens between now and the midterms but
I think running against Trump is a smart political move.
And it is refreshing to hear her not like mince words.
I mean, he really is behaving like a maniac.
He's behaving as if there's no constitution.
He's tearing everything down.
Well, he's also been able to, you know, do that and get away with it a lot.
One of the things we'll talk about after the next break is, you know, by having his political appointee at the FCC there to, you know, push Stephen Colbert out the door before they could approve the merger between Paramount and Skydance, something that happened yesterday.
And Jennifer's written about that with her column over in Substack in distinct chatter.
Mark, meanwhile, has been writing about the feeding frenzy.
that finally is feeding on Trump, which is not something we thought we'd ever see, but we also didn't expect really the
the complete 180 that Trump is doing on the Epstein files.
And so we've got a lot of ground to cover there.
Of course, there's no shortage of legal news that Jim Santel will tell us about as well, hosting Amicus a law review on Saturday mornings, starting at nine o'clock across the Civic Media radio network.
But here on the network, some of the stations anyway, there will also be baseball coming up this afternoon, the Brewers versus the Miami Marlins.
Coverage will begin at 235 on stations in Richland Center, Racine Kenosha, Park Falls Hayward, and right here in Oshkosh on WISS.
And again.
It's free ticket Friday if you text brew to us using the civic media app go to one of the stations text the word brew BRW You could be in the running a statewide drawing for four tickets to next Wednesday afternoon's game the brewers versus the Cubs live from Oshkosh this morning to get our weekend going I'm Pac right low.
This is the civic media radio network
Welcome back.
We're live in Oshkosh on this Friday morning, July 25th and back to our weekend review panel in just a moment, right after a reminder that you can sign up for our newsletters here at UpNorth News.
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I will be putting together our Sunday morning newsletter real soon about the week in Wisconsin politics.
Gosh, what will I write about?
Whatever will I find to talk about?
I'm sure there will be something in there, including a question of the week and the responses to this week's question.
which was, what do you think of candidates that run ads super early, like more than a year before the election as Bill Barion is doing?
Well, in hindsight, it's looking like a pretty good move right now.
He's got to boost his name ID as more Republicans start to get into this race.
But does it work with voters or not?
So again, sign up for our newsletter over at UpNorthNewsWI.com.
Yes, Tony, I agree with what he put on YouTube here.
It's going to be a fun year.
Yes, fun.
Let's put it that way.
fun is the way that we're going to go.
Jennifer Scholes is here.
Mark Jacob and Jim Santel as well.
Jennifer, your last issue of Indistinct Chatter in Substack was all about the potential merger between Paramount and Skydance, which would include CBS and Stephen Colbert being shown the door.
But to me, what really
takes the cake is the statement from the FCC commissioner, Brendan Carr, who is a Trump loyalist, when he says in approving the merger quote,
Americans no longer trust the legacy national media to report fully accurately and fairly.
It's time for a change.
That's why I welcome Skydance's commitment to make significant changes at the once storied CBS broadcast network.
Well, knowing what we know about how the leadership at Skydance is also friendly toward Trump, this seems like a particularly sad occasion, Jennifer, taking us one step closer to state controlled media.
I mean, it's a terrible.
terrible decision and we should all be horrified by it.
I can't imagine what's going to happen to CBS or how quickly it's going to change.
It's going to change.
The question is how quickly is it going to change and how will we see it?
Will it be a slow moving thing?
Will it be sudden everybody's gone and but what it is so startling to see one of the grandest
broadcasters and journalism entities in our modern time taken over in this way and We should all be really really concerned about it It's a very bad thing for the country very bad
and so while we're concerned about it mark the question becomes
What does everybody else do about it?
Now, we've seen ABC capitulate in some way, shape, or form.
Meanwhile, we've seen the Wall Street Journal of all places being the one most likely to punch back.
What is it that other media sites are going to have to do once they see CBS change, which, as Jennifer said, it's almost certain that CBS will?
profits than about doing good journalism.
And that was totally the case with Paramount and the CBS thing.
There are some good outlets.
There is ProPublica.
The Guardian is based in the UK, but it does one of the best jobs of reporting on American media of anyone.
Now then, the Wall Street Journal thing is kind of odd because that's Rupert Murdoch, the same guy who owns Fox News.
But my feeling about that is that Rupert Murdoch is just
Serving his customers and the Wall Street Journal said customers want facts and truth and the box news Customers want to be lied to and he's very happy to serve both audiences
In your newest newsletter of stop the presses get it at stop the presses news the headline is a feeding frenzy finally feasts on Trump and that takes us to the the Jeffrey Epstein saga which again is
unnecessarily convoluted when you had a whole bunch of people saying release the files and now the president of the United States is saying actually there's nothing there and it was a hoax and you you supporters of mine you're stupid if you believe it small wonder this is backfired mark
That the news media and actually picked up on it, you know because this has been frankly been an underplayed story for a decade You know and and nothing is nothing that my point is that nothing no none of the Trump scandals have really taken hold the way they should and This one certainly didn't but then he obviously he promised his
followers that he released files and then the client list and then the client list doesn't exist.
And so I understand why they're mad about it.
So I was surprised that the media stayed on it and is still staying on it.
And we're almost up to the third week.
And the other thing I'm surprised about is that Trump has botched the issue so badly.
I mean, when you announce to your followers that stop talking about this, they're not going to stop talking about it.
That's the sure way to get people to talk more about it is when you demand that they stop talking about it.
The one thing here Jim Santel that is troubling to me and I know it is troubling to you though is how they are trying to distract how they're trying to cover their tracks or how they're trying to change the direction specifically a deputy attorney general meeting with the imprisoned Glyn Maxwell who was Epstein's accomplice in all of this
The one who could say with any certainty that Donald Trump did or didn't have any untoward activity along with Jeffrey Epstein, but now he's president of the United States.
So when a political appointee like this meets with her to either issue promises or threats, I mean, that meeting yesterday also crossed some kind of a line in my mind.
How about you?
What are we doing here inside the Department of Justice?
She has already been convicted, as we all know, of this very offense conduct with which Jeffrey Epstein was also charged.
tried, of course, because he committed suicide before that happened.
But what are we doing here in connection with some legitimate law enforcement purpose?
It underscores this notion we've got just not unfounded conspiracies about unfounded conspiracies.
And now we've got the second highest person in the Department of Justice, who apparently the bidding of our president is saying, OK, meet with her to do what?
What is it you're going to accomplish?
We already know that inside the Department of Justice, if they want to
produce it.
It's not the grand jury transcripts.
It never was.
There's a huge file sitting there.
There's nothing more to prosecute.
There's nothing more to investigate, aside from supporting the many victims out there, which this administration needs to do.
If you want to bring this to an end, release all those materials.
Let there be another feeding frenzy about all of that.
Who knows what's inside of that, but be done with this.
A larger issue, of course, Pat, as we've talked about is Donald Trump and getting back to Mark's point.
He set this fire, as Chris Christie is saying, when he basically decided, I'm going to be involved in all kinds of things related to the pertinent justice, tearing down that armist length wall that has always existed between the White House and Ninth and Constitution.
He has basically said, I'm going to tell you who to prosecute.
what to do, who to investig done that and said, you k stuff.
He could have leg
Distance himself instead as Mark and Jennifer said jumped in full full head and now he is set He has set the fire.
He cannot control the blaze anymore to mix metaphors here
Let's move from the
House and from the Department of Justice over to the Capitol building Jennifer where yeah, Donald Trump's having a bad week But boy so is speaker Mike Johnson who actually sent Congress home early to their summer recess to avoid
hoping it would go away.
Jennifer, it's not going to go away when Congress comes back.
This is going to be maybe the worst recess ever for some of these members.
We already know that Republicans are being counseled not to hold town hall meetings again, because remember how well that went when the constituents were upset about the doge cuts.
Constituents are now upset about lots of things.
They want the Epstein information, but they're also really worried about these Medicaid cuts, SNAP cuts, the ACA premiums going up and other things like that.
And I think that Republicans, if any of them do show their face in public now that they have a six-week vacation, it will be a really difficult time for them.
I think it's also a good time for the press to really hone in on some of the specifics of these issues that the Republicans are trying not to talk about, because there are going to be a lot of really drastic impacts on people and very soon.
Mark, when as part of the distraction, you had Trump and others, Tulsi Gabbard, Ron Johnson, Derek Van Orden, going so far as to try to talk about, you know, arresting Barack Obama.
for the 2016 Russia influence in the investigation and Tulsi Gabbard's deliberate misconstruing of documents related to 2016, it all felt very outrageous yesterday and the day before.
And it still is.
But Mark, I feel like by now it's become clear that that's been one more thing they're trying.
Their base has always been wanting to do arrest Obama for some reason.
But if they thought that that was going to be a successful distraction, it doesn't appear to be so.
I mean, their base just doesn't care about facts.
You know, whatever Trump wants to do is great.
But that's not a majority.
It's not even close to majority.
The rest of the people, the people who still have thinking brains in their heads, I think that they see this for what it is.
I mean, when you see them dredging up Hillary and Obama, I mean, that's whole news, folks.
And the Obama thing, that's just dishonesty by Tulsi Gabbard, who we knew that she was, we knew what she was when she was named.
And in fact, Trump knew what she was when she was named, and that's why he named her.
She's very pro-Russian, she really wants
She doesn't really have any respect for democracy.
And so she generally have any respect for the facts, because when you look into the Obama thing, it makes no sense.
And a bipartisan congressional report on the whole issue endorsed strongly by Marco Rubio found that there was no problem there.
Yeah.
And it was, again, when I say ham-handed, it was just so...
apparent and blatant that she took documents that said there's no evidence that Russia meddled in the election and changed votes and voting machines to there's no evidence Russia meddled in the elections.
Period.
Jim Santel, you try something like that from a legal standpoint and I think you're getting a little trouble.
You'll have your head handed to you by any federal district court judge, any appellate court judge would say, Mr. Santel, let me read to you the rest of the sentence, the rest of the report.
And it is a part of, as all four of us are saying, it's a part of the deception.
It is linguistic gymnastics of the worst kind.
It is relying upon the notion which apparently is true for some portions of our population.
They do not have the capacity to do the critical thinking and say, wait a minute, wait a minute, let's figure out what the rest of that sentence is all about.
Let's figure out what the truth is.
And at least on this, I am bright enough to know that this is not the case.
This administration depends on people not understanding everything from how government works to how basic language works to how even inside my world, how criminal charges work, what things happen in the civil courts.
And therefore you can take these little nuggets of words, twist them around and maintain that that's how things have always been.
It is deceptive.
It is really cynical also at the highest level.
The president basically is saying, I know the American people.
are not bright enough to call me out on this, so I can go down this road.
And then the Tulsi Gabbards and the others, including the Attorney General, can follow in the suit.
The President in the past said, you know, I love an uneducated people.
We've seen that now once again.
Yeah, without a doubt.
Jim Santel has amicus a law review.
You can hear it Saturday mornings at nine o'clock on civic media stations and a playback on Sunday morning.
Of course, we've got Mark Jacobs newsletter at stopthepresses.news also through courier newsroom and Jennifer Scholes.
He's in distinct chatter is on substack.
A local update is next for some of you.
Others will continue our discussion here with the panel as we head into the weekend along with Mike Clemens and state
of Least Nodgrass in our next hour.
I'm Pat
Krightlow.
Here's your reminder that it's free ticket Friday and we are giving away four tickets club level seats to see the Brewers Cubs game next Wednesday afternoon Get to that civic media app and be entered in a statewide drawing and if you can text us the word brew BRW before 9 a.m.
There'll be more chances to win throughout the day more keywords and then one statewide drawing to see who gets those great tickets to see the Brewers Cubs playing next week at American Family Field one more
all around with former U.S.
Attorney Jim Santel, journalist Mark Jacob, and Jennifer Scholesi are here as well.
Jennifer, let's talk about having to cover something that you just know is a non-story, but you got to cover it anyway.
And that takes us to Scott Walker, who
cryptically put out a message yesterday after Governor Evers' announcement.
Folks know that Donald Trump is both the 45th and the 47th president and he's got those goofy looking red hats with a 45 and a 47 on the side.
Well, Scott Walker in the worst political coincidence in Wisconsin history was the 45th governor.
And if he were to win next year, he'd be the 47th governor.
So of course he tweets out a picture of a red hat saying 45 47 and says make Wisconsin great again on the front of it.
Now there's no.
incredible indication that Scott Walker is going to run for governor.
He's making something like $800,000 running this right wing organization for youth.
But when he does something like that, I mean, that's the classic definition of earned media because reporters can't help but put that up and say, the former governor is tweeting that he might run again, even if he has no intention of it.
That's how you work the media.
So the press in Wisconsin and beyond ought to take this opportunity to remind people who Scott Walker is what he did and didn't do in the state of Wisconsin and also point out that this is you know like political propaganda if you will but not don't only report on the oh isn't that cute look at the hats oh you know which unfortunately I think a lot of media has a tendency to do but take it the next step further.
So what happened to Wisconsin when Scott Walker was governor?
Let's talk about that, remind people about that, even if it's just a sentence or two.
He had a pretty disruptive time as governor of Wisconsin.
The press should talk about that too.
Yeah, not be afraid to go backward.
Mark, it took you about five seconds for you to drop the word Foxconn when I mentioned
you a little bit earlier as part of his legacy.
Yeah, and I'm sure the people in Wisconsin have heard plenty about Foxconn, but we certainly have here, but sometimes you need to be reminded about the actual facts of things, because if you remember, you know, Walker and Trump, you know, belly hooded, this is some giant triumph of theirs, and obviously it's a boondoggle, and that is just stenciled on Scott Walker's forehead, that whole mess.
And people need to remember that.
The American public has a tendency to forget things.
And that's why the press should be around to remind people of horrible behavior like that.
Yeah, you can't just put out the cute stuff, the entertaining stuff.
And Jim, when it comes to Donald Trump, that that includes things that might sound a little in the weeds, but are so important, taking me to a US Supreme Court story that
talks about the Consumer Product Safety Commission.
Now, we always say that as if it's, you know, an organization that puts out product recalls and things like that.
But there actually is a Consumer Product Safety Commission and the U.S.
Supreme Court, the conservative justices, said that Donald Trump has the right to fire the three Democratic members of the Consumer Product Safety Commission.
That has far reaching impact as well.
It absolutely does, and it follows in the wake of our Supreme Court saying the same thing with something called the National Labor Relations Board that affects unions and labor in America, a thing called the Merit Systems Protection Board.
I know it's very wonky, but those are the people who review, oh, I don't know, the inappropriate firings of people inside the federal government.
All these are under attack, all of them being told that, yes, indeed, as commissioners, the people who make final decisions, you can be terminated.
Even though you're an independent agency, the president is not your boss, not created that way.
John Roberts and the other five members of our Supreme Court say go ahead and fire them, even while the underlying challenges are unresolved.
It is another just happe with the Consumer Product Safety important?
These are not just recalls.
These are th children and your grandchildren goods.
These are the things on the screens right now.
media and in everybody's who keep us safe and when the constitution of the
There's a direct line to making us less secure out there.
There's an issue related to lithium batteries that they wanted to stop coming into the country because of the danger.
And that also got Donald Trump's ire in addition to their complaining about staffing reductions.
We can't do our job, Mr. President.
We keep doing these things.
He gets upset.
He says, you're gone.
That's illegal.
It is not legal.
And yet the Supreme Court puts a stamp of approval on
it.
I don't have a question here for you.
I'm just simply going to say that for the entirety of the Biden presidency, when people said, Louis DeJoy is a Trump, you know, totie, he, why is he, you know, the commissioner of the US Postal Service?
Get rid of him.
And the word we kept hearing from the administration as well to do that, we'd have to fire members of the board of governors and then they would vote on a new postmaster general.
And, you know, that would be untoward.
We, we can't break with tradition and fire those.
members.
Mark I hope we never hear anything like that again.
Yeah well right now you know you got to fight and in Congress you know you even right now you have some members wanting to do bipartisanship and and I just think those days are over right now they they I mean it's it's folder fight time and and let's fight I mean it just it's just seems like
like an like obstruction is patriotic right now if when you're talking about what's happening in our government is is stopping them from doing horrible things is a great act of patriotism
which ends up let's us end where we began with governor evers and his ability to be a hockey goalie for eight years with you know a legislature that was as far right as it was mark jake up jennifer shoalsey jim santel thank you so much as always have a great start to your weekends
everybody.
Take care.
Always good to see you all.
In our next hour, we will have Mike Clemens along talking about sports and first a visit with State Assembly rep Lee Snodgrass of Appleton.
I am Pat Krightlow.
This is the Civic Media Radio Network.
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