International Affairs: Trump Does Nothing, Lyerly Observes Peru (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.

8.06 on this Monday.

Good morning.

Nice to have you back here up north.

Parker Olson is down in Madison Studio A2, producing this little party.

And in Madison Studio A1, John and Gordy will be joining us from our Civic Media station there in just a bit, as will meteorologist Brittany Merleau.

I believe we may be hearing from Dr. Kristen Lierly as well, who is traveling back from Peru, where she was at an international OBGYN conference and also did some sightseeing.

And so I look forward to having more to say about that.

Jane McNair is going to join us near the end of the hour to preview her show, but I can tell you her show is going to start one hour from now with Lieutenant Governor Sara Rodriguez.

candidate for governor.

So you're going to want to stick around for that just a one hour away.

But John and Gordy are here now.

Brittany Merleau is here too.

And John and Gordy telling me that out their window right now, looking at State Street near the Capitol Square.

Oh, look, poor Parker's trying to strain his neck

to see

out

the window.

He can't do

that from A2.

You've got

better odds.

You've got better odds of seeing what Catherine's putting in her coffee over there.

I do.

I do every now and then check what Catherine's doing.

Catherine, put the flask down.

Really?

While we wait for Catherine, John, and Gordy to join us, Brittany's going to have an update on that rain.

And from what I can see on the radar, Brittany, maybe no rain in Madison now, but Southern Wisconsin is not going to have a dry one today.

No, no, not at all.

So we've got some heavy rain kind of moving through the I-94 corridor up towards like New Lisbon, Mottton area right now.

Also, just north of Madison, you're looking at some showers moving through the area.

But I am concerned about Madison as we go through this afternoon and into the evening.

In fact, anywhere from La Crosse to Wisconsin Rapids to Appleton.

Milwaukee, all areas south in the state.

You could see the potential for some flooding as we go through this afternoon and evening.

Now, I don't want to scare you.

It's not going to happen to everyone, obviously, but if we get underneath these storms, they could pack a punch.

We could see a quick three to five inches fall in some of these storms.

that will cause flash flooding, that will make those rivers rising.

And we're already looking at the Fox River, Still High, the Rock River, the Bark River, the Trempelo River, starting to hit minor flood stages as well.

So be careful if you are by those streams and those rivers that are rising, and then also in the urban areas, on the streets, right?

The water.

It takes a while for it to get down into the systems and stuff and it overflows pretty quickly and you find yourself in a big puddle.

So two hands on the steering wheel if you're driving out there through this and of course be careful.

I suspect a flood watch will go out for a good half of the state as we go through this afternoon.

Around this afternoon is expected more through this evening.

This evening it targets more southern parts like the state line as that rolls into Illinois and kicks on out of here overnight.

Now tomorrow we could see some lingering showers, very light, very minor, and then we dry things out for the rest of the week.

So this is our last blast of heavy rainfall.

A lot of moisture.

It's very, very warm too.

Down into the Madison area you could reach 90 degrees today.

It's also humid.

Well up northeast in the state, it's only going to hit 60 degrees and a lot less rain expected far north in the state.

And I think the Eau Claire area, Hayward area, you might miss out now on the heaviest rain.

I think you've got that already.

I think this is going to stay a little bit more central and south in the state as we go through today.

But either way, heavy rain, torrential downpours, flooding our concern.

All right, so keep it on your local civic media station for more details.

Brittany, thank you so much.

Appreciate it.

All right.

Brittany mentioned Wisconsin Rapids as part of her weather report there.

And it's my reminder to tell you that I will be broadcasting live from our sister station in Wisconsin Rapids WFHR this coming Wednesday as part of their 85th anniversary celebration.

Yeah, WFHR has been on the air for almost 85 years here.

And so they're going to have some festivities to mark that.

So I'll bring the show out there on Wednesday.

We'll even tell you what WFH

H.R.

stands for.

Don't try to guess.

You'd never be able to.

That'll be Wednesday.

Tomorrow on the program, we're going to have Dan Schaefer from the Recombobulation Area talking to us as well.

Remember, you can follow Up North News on social media.

You can get our newsletter.

You can follow us on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and one of the video clips you'll find there.

is from Tom Nelson from our interview from last week in case you missed it where he's written a book about the Edmund Fitzgerald the sinking of that freighter back in 1975 and a little bit more detail you might not have been aware of about the sinking of that ship the condition that it was in and

how it's become a metaphor for corporate America starting at that time in the early 1970s and carries over to this day when it comes to things like workplace safety and worker protections.

So again, look for that clip from Tom Nelson about the Edmund Fitzgerald book that he's written over at Up North News, find our website, upnorthnewswi.com.

Let's bring John and Gordian.

Now you can hear them weekday mornings in the Madison area on 927 WMDX.

Guys, how are you this morning?

done.

Doing well, Pat.

How are you?

Uh good.

So, so no rain there now but you heard that uh you know, Brittany's a little concerned about things there.

Have you guys uh again, it was nothing like Milwaukee and our hearts

grow out to them but

I mean, have you ever

had anything like that, like a flooded basement or flash flooding issues yourselves over the years?

Not for me in Madison.

We did have flooding here, but we weren't in town.

We were on vacation into Orleans at the time, but it was the biggest flood that we've ever seen in this area in Madison.

And it was just outrageous.

I mean, we did have like a foot of water in our basement, but we weren't there to see it.

So it didn't

happen.

Yeah.

Um, you know, for, for a, for a three year period, we lived overseas.

We lived in the Caribbean and we, but we kept the house here and it was so often people would check on it.

And I recall we were, we were down there on Grand Cayman and we're hearing about the, this torrential rain and everything.

And one of our neighbors came and checked on things and there's really nothing like, you know, being, you know,

a million miles away from home and getting text messages, getting photos by text messages of your basement and knowing.

It's not good.

And, you know, turning to Sharon saying, well, I guess I'm buying a plane ticket and having to get back there to, you know, try to wet back all the damage, get all the damage carpet out of there.

Obviously, it's still going to be bad, even if it's happening while you're there at the time.

But, you know, nothing like being away from home and getting your neighbor going.

Um, you should come home.

There's a problem here.

Yeah.

I know over the weekend here in Madison, uh, I, I did notice that they, that the local officials here put out different locations where you could get sand for your sandbags.

So that was kind of a wake up call.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

You know, so I guess people have, you know, there's several locations they can go and just get some sandbags just in case it gets that bad.

Okay.

What were you guys bringing up today on the John and Gordy show on WMDX in Madison this morning?

We were talking about the Putin-Trump meeting.

That

was the

bromance.

Yes.

That was well laid out on a printer in the hotel in Alaska.

that they left there.

They left the entire itinerary there on a copier in the hotel.

Oh, yes.

Yes, this has just come out.

Really

the people that had classified documents in a bathtub at Mar-a-Lago were careless about the itinerary for a summit.

Isn't that amazing?

This time they didn't invite a reporter in on their messaging, but it was there in the hotel.

I can't believe this is a huge story.

This is a big slip up.

I mean, if there were any spies in Alaska at the time, they would have had an easy time of a field day.

And there was just

I mean, look, hopes weren't high to begin with.

And

I don't think it's something that a lot of people paid close attention to.

So you won't be surprised to hear you didn't really miss anything.

I mean, nothing, nothing really came of it to me.

The biggest news was that Trump

didn't give Alaska back to Putin.

We

escaped that, at

least.

We were expecting that, actually.

Some big announcement.

This is our deal.

At least they can take part of Alaska back.

The

Aleutian Islands, I mean,

who needs

those,

right?

From the text line, Jim in Brookfield says, Putin played Trump like a fiddle and got all the positive propaganda he wanted for Trump to roll out the red carpet, applaud, shake hands with a war criminal was a despicable act by the president of the United States.

Let's hope something positive can come out of the meeting today when adults are in the room.

Well, by adults in the room.

And I love this.

Vladimir Zelensky is coming out from Ukraine to meet in the White House.

And we all remember what happened last time Zelensky was in the Oval Office.

Exactly.

Where JD Vance was like, oh, you should thank us more.

And, you know, it was just so embarrassing.

So this time Zelensky's figured out what to do.

Bring friends.

He's bringing like nine different like.

top officials, heads of state, and things from other European countries.

Gang up, yes.

Gang up to say, oh, I'm sorry.

It's like the anchor fight from Anchorman.

You know,

it's like

they're all going to be in there now.

Was that a Triton?

What did he throw there?

It's going to be a big rumble between, you know, all these European leaders.

And then you've got Vance and little Marco Rubio and Trump in the room.

So when he said, so when Jim says there's going to be adults in the room.

Not all of them.

Not so much.

Not all right.

No.

I mean, what a what a gift too.

I mean, Putin, of course, bombed Ukraine before their meeting today.

Yeah.

And after.

Yeah.

And yeah, as I say, again, again, here's here's my definition of peace.

And I will remind folks again that Trump said over and over again on the campaign trail that he was going to fix the war on day one.

Now, day one, he was going to solve the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Yeah,

still waiting.

He was

surprised at Putin for not going along with it.

I don't

know if he thought by sheer force of will

that

the fact that he was now in office that either Zelensky was going to say, well, all is lost.

I'll just surrender.

Or if.

Putin was going to go, Oh, well, Trump's in office now.

So I'll just pull back because he's my buddy.

I mean, whichever one Trump was thinking.

Yeah, was not a was not a bright thing to think.

Well, we played an audio clip of Trump saying at least Putin acknowledged the fact that he would not have invaded Ukraine if Trump were president at the time.

So there you go.

And, you know, as some kind of, you know, award.

No, it's

yeah.

Well, and Zelensky is, you know, they say the latest thing that Trump has come up with to tell Zelensky is you just give up Crimea and then agree to never join NATO.

And that's that's the done deal.

Then give Crimea back to the Russians and don't don't join NATO.

and sure can be over.

And I'm sure we'll be just fine with that.

Keep keeping in mind that there were some members of Putin's haunt garage in Alaska, who were wearing sweatshirts that had CCCP on there.

I'll be

old Russian acronym

for

ussr.

Right.

because that is, that is Putin's endgame.

He's always said that the breakup of the Soviet Union was a massive mistake and he thinks we should get the band back together.

You know?

I mean, who freed those slaves?

Let's get them back in.

Those were the good old days, you know?

And that's not gonna happen without a whole lot of bloodshed.

So I would like very much for Trump to take this more seriously, but right now I

you know, I think it's going to take all those European leaders to show up and say, look, if you're not willing to do the work, we are.

So

All right.

Thus ends the geopolitical segment with John and Gordy and Pat, the three people that we should all turn to to find out what's happening with the North Atlantic Alliance.

But we'll take a local break next for some of you.

Otherwise, we'll continue chatting here with John and Gordy and catch them weekday mornings at 927 WMDX in Madison.

Catch it on the Civic Media app if you're not in the Madison area.

Dr. Kristen Lierly is along in just a bit and so is Jane Mattenair previewing Mattenair on Air, including this morning's interview.

just after nine o'clock with Lieutenant Governor Sara Rodriguez.

From the heart of America's Up North, live from Lake Wissota, thank you for making this the place to spend part of your mornings.

I'm Pat Krightlow, this is the Civic Media Radio Network.

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And I pick up on what Sean Duffy was saying last week that he believes that President Trump, if he could have any other job, it would be Transportation Secretary because he likes flying and likes beautiful roads and bridges.

So we ask you, what should Donald Trump's next job title be?

And...

You guys have had some interesting answers that have come in so far.

Many of them involving an orange jumpsuit and making license plates, but you've had some other ideas as well.

So again, sign up for our newsletter up north news wi.com.

John and Gordy joining us now.

From Madison where I know one of the stories that we had on our website way back in the spring previewing summer was about the Madison night market And so that that is still going on and that's happening this week right guys.

Yeah, it's happening this Thursday Pat and it's We have a booth that's right across the street from us right on the other side of State Street in front of the overture center

And they do it about once a month, except they skip July because there's too many other things going out of Madison.

But yeah, we'll be back at it Thursday evening.

It starts about five o'clock, goes to about nine.

And we're there to meet and greet people and give away a few t-shirts and some other trinkets, some other merchandise, WMDX and just talk with people to find out what's going on, what's

on their minds.

It's Gordy's turn to be on the John and Gordy dumping tank.

Well, we don't have a dunk tank.

No.

Have you ever done one of those, by the way?

I have.

I have not.

It was torture.

It's torture.

And this was an old, junky dunk tank that somebody, you know,

built, you know, in their backyard or something.

And so it was headed, it had sharp metal inside

of it and the water and the water

was not so clean because people had been in and out of it and you know, it was kind of a rainy day.

So there was a little bit of mud in there.

Oh,

it was

awful.

No.

And you know, and at the time I was a local TV weather person.

This was over in Indiana near South Bend.

So everybody wanted to dunk the weather guy.

Yes.

I was stuck in there.

I think I said originally I was going to do a half hour and then I was in there for a good hour that I said never again.

Thank you very much.

You raise some money I'm

sure for for a good

cause for a good cause.

Right.

Got that gone for him.

I would prefer when I think of TV dunk tanks,

I

would

prefer that I'm just going to stay right where I'm at.

My thoughts about that are all about battle of the network stars on ABC back in the 1970s.

And that's, that's all I'm going to say.

That was those those were fun times.

You'll battle of the network stars clips.

Like them up, you'll find them on YouTube.

John meanwhile, picked up an EV recently.

And we're going

to talk a bit

about that in our next segment as well about how the Trump administration wants to backtrack now on all the EVs that they're supposed

to send to the US Postal Service, which some of them being made by Oshkosh Defense.

But you've got yours now.

And so how is that?

How's that working out with the charging because you want you want a charging station at your home here at some point?

Well, yeah, I feel like I'm inventing the wheel here.

I can't be the only person in Middleton that went out and bought an EV and wants to charge it at their home.

But it

seems like I am the only person that's doing that.

One of the things is you have to have a 200 amp box in your home.

If you have a 100 amp, it

becomes illegal to use a level two charging station or level.

There are three levels.

So lower one is just plug it in into a wall outlet.

The level two is what you do overnight and a level three is fast charging.

So level two is something I can't have because of a 100 amp box in my home.

And I live in an old neighborhood.

Every house has a 100 amp.

box in it.

So I don't know exactly why there's a hold up here in Madison, or at least in Middleton.

See, I would have thought that, and again, I've never studied this, but I figured like, you know, your washing machine is, you know, plugs into a 220.

And I thought maybe there'd be a 220 volt, you know, outlet that you put in the garage, maybe, and plug it in that way.

I didn't I didn't realize that there's actually more of your home's electrical infrastructure that needs to be of a certain level for you to have a charging station there.

Yeah

they only allow for like a 20% extra for amperage in your home where you use 80% and if you go over that it's a fire hazard at that point.

Now we have two stoves in our home and that

should I thought I could use that one for the other stove for my charging station and they won't let me do it.

How many

ramen noodles can a person make at

once?

Why do you have two stoves?

Well, we have an apartment in the lower level, so we had a stove down there, but here's the thing with the charging.

station, you have to charge for at least around eight hours or so.

So when you have something plugged in, running electricity for eight hours, that's a long, long time.

You don't leave a stove on for eight hours.

No, you don't.

That's one of the things that you have to look at.

The city is very, very tough on, you know, what you can load up on that on that 100 amp.

So for now, you've got to what?

Go to the nearest quick trip?

Yeah.

No, you know what?

That's funny.

You mentioned that.

quick trip.

I don't believe have charging stations.

Isn't that odd?

That's weird because they're going up all over here.

Yeah.

Now if you have charging stations a quick trip there, let me know because I

I'm saying that they're not doing it.

You know, they're on very, very conservative family.

So I'm just wondering if they've been

adding them in places like here in Chippewa Falls.

And again, as part of a, you know, a partnership with, you know, funding that was already coming from the federal government.

But that, but quick trip and other places, they're kind of getting into this charging station business, but it takes hours to charge up a vehicle.

So

they're really becoming more like

sit down restaurants almost.

I mean, how much time can you really spend a quick trip after you've had, you know,

some of

the chicken nuggets and the cookies,

right?

Well, one of the things that they're putting in fast chargers at these filling stations, because they have to be fast chargers, they're about 20 minutes,

you can get 80% charge on it.

I was gonna say, yeah, I can only spend so much time in the beer cave there, you know, John and Gordy catch them at 92.7 WMDX and Madison weekdays from six to eight Anna on the Civic Media app.

Thanks guys, appreciate it.

Have a great week.

Thanks, Jack.

All right,

you

coming back with Dr. Kristen Lyrely right after this on the civic media radio network.

Nice to have you back on this Monday morning.

It's August 18th, 2025.

I'm Pat Krightlow here in Chippewa Falls.

And often on Mondays and Fridays, I'm joined by Dr. Kristen Lyrely, who is usually in the Green Bay area, has sometimes been in Northern Minnesota, most recently had joined us from Lima, Peru, and is now trying to get home from Peru.

Emphasis on trying.

And so Dr. Lyrely joins us now from hotel room in Atlanta, Georgia.

where there's lots of planes that fly in and out all the time, but apparently not one that will get her and her son back home.

Dr. Lyrely, how you coping there?

Good morning.

You know, there are worse things.

We're in the Buckhead area of Atlanta, so we're going to do some back to school shopping today.

Oh, okay.

Well, that's because you're not encumbered by things like, you know, your possessions because your baggage has already made at home.

How efficient.

Yeah, they get your baggage there, but you, not so much.

So take us through the ordeal here.

So when did you leave Lima?

We missed a connecting flight between Cusco and Lima because it was because the security was too tight and then we missed our connecting flight yesterday same story So like things that you can't control.

Yeah,

so as frustrated as I was we had amazing customer service from Delta I have a delightful travel companion in my 16 year old son who is done with me He's like please get me to my room and my friends.

Oh, no

get home tonight.

It'll be fine.

Hang in there.

It's almost it's almost done.

And at least, again, at least you have the memories of the trip.

So we'll get we'll get to the conference in a bit because we've already talked about that briefly.

But since we talked to you last, there was Machu Picchu and whatever else you saw in Peru.

So talk about that.

Peru is just an amazing country.

It's so diverse.

The people are outstanding.

Do you want to go on a vacation?

It is so cheap.

I mean, my Uber ride from the hotel to the airport, which was like a 45-minute ride, was like six bucks.

So the food was fantastic.

Again, the people are amazing.

So much to see.

There's ancient history everywhere.

Pre-Incan pyramids are all over the city of Lima.

There are like 450 archaeological sites, and they don't even think anything of it because it's just like the block next door.

But to me, that is

It's incredible the history.

I mean, it was really it was a life-changing visit and to be able to go to Machu Picchu, which is probably going to close within the next five years or so they're saying just because there's been such a human impact on that region.

It was well worth it.

How do we describe Machu Picchu to people that have not been there previously?

It's way up in the mountains.

It's very isolated.

and it's beautifully preserved.

It's a village made of stone on the top of a mountain in this unbelievable setting.

It's hard to describe just because the clouds and the...

It is.

I'm looking it up here.

It's at 8,000 feet.

This thing's at 8,000 feet up in the mountains and dates back to the 14th century.

and is often referred to as the lost city of the Incas and as I told you previously my wife Sherry went with her sister Carla almost 20 years ago now maybe and still calls it the trip of a lifetime to be able to see that place.

It's no joke and it's not easy.

to get there because you have to you know go to Cusco which is at 11,000 feet so there's the altitude and then there's the travel and then once you get there it's a lot of stairs so you really have to be in pretty good physical shape to be able to do it

but

it's really a spiritual experience and you know like I said well worth it if you have the capacity to be able to go.

1.5 million visitors

last year going there.

So you're, you're not kidding about the, the human impact of that place.

But you, you got to see it in part because you were there for a conference.

Let's talk a bit about the conference and then we'll talk about, uh, you know, democracy and, and it's, uh, it's a precarious nature in Peru and now here.

So conference first was, was it a worthwhile trip?

Yes.

The eye opening.

I went to talk about rural obstetrics in the US and for my Peruvian and Argentinian and Colombian colleagues who were there, rural obstetrics is very different for them than it is for us.

And I actually had to take out my slides that talked about maternal mortality or moms who die as a result of their pregnancy.

because we're in a developed country and they're in a very different situation.

So to compare the two is a little like comparing apples and oranges.

But on the other hand, there are so many similarities in so many places where we can learn from each other.

So there are lots of conversations, lots of educations.

I gave a couple other lectures as well.

And just so neat to hear other people's perspectives about how they practice medicine, what their patients are looking for, the different kind of medications that they can get in Peru.

And that was another really eye-opening thing, Pat.

There are Chinese cars there.

So we started talking with people from the UK and Peru about what the relationship is with China.

China is a bigger trading partner with Peru than the US is.

So when you start thinking about tariffs and the impact of the US economy on other parts of the world, to be able to see it from a Peruvian perspective was really eye-opening.

Well, from almost any other country, and I think that

We, there are far too many Americans who still don't understand that this whole get tough on China thing is simply pushing China into other countries who are more than happy to, you know, set up trade agreements with them.

This really is about, you know, spheres of influence and the US's influence in these other countries.

obviously because of everything about Trump, not just the tariffs, but the boisterousness, whatever else you want to call it.

There are plenty of other markets that are like, hey, we'll, we'll set up trade deals with you.

All of those soybeans from Wisconsin farmers that aren't going to China, China's just getting them from Brazil and plenty of other places.

And again, that's not to take China off the hook.

It's just that, you know, there's negotiating trade deals and there's

being overly simplistic to the point of shooting yourself in the foot, which is what Trump has been doing since day one.

Yeah, our influence is waning over there because of what Donald Trump is doing.

And this is South America, right?

Like there's been a lot of chaos with some of these South American governments.

The president of Peru right now has a 93% disapproval rating.

So when we talk about Donald Trump, they just are like...

it doesn't at all bother them because they have a different alternative so they're just turning their attention to something else and they're dismissing America more and more and that makes me sad because there are so many opportunities to work together so many ways that we could

better our lives here in the Americas and we're just turning our backs on those opportunities.

Oh, from an economic standpoint, from a people standpoint, I mean, we spent a lot of time with Selena Heller earlier today talking about Wisconsin Dells, what a melting pot that is, how much the Wisconsin economy would suffer if all of these young people from other countries couldn't come to Wisconsin Dells and work or come to our campuses.

I mean, these these are all the real life impacts that people are not thinking about.

And they're certainly not thinking that our democracy is fragile.

But you look at a country like Peru, where, you know, right now that their democracy is as you put it so well in your video piece that we played on Friday.

I mean, it's tenuous.

There's in this case, you know, what Trump is here, the Congress is in Peru, putting so much under its control that it's almost not fair to call it a democracy now.

It doesn't feel like a democracy,

but

I think for those of us on the ground We're still doing the things that we've already that we've been doing and I saw this in Peru as well people just go about their daily lives because it doesn't affect Much of your daily lives other than of course the costs of goods and services and your ability to access certain things But one thing that I thought was really striking was the disparities between the wealthy folks and the folks who were barely making it people were doing

anything to be able to make a buck so that they could feed their families.

And other folks were hanging out at the country club enjoying this incredible food and life.

And there just didn't seem to be any sort of a middle class.

And I think that's something that we've been so proud of in the United States.

We've created a robust middle class where most people can have homes and feed their families and have a pension and have health care.

But that's fading.

It is and I think again people take for granted this unique notion of the middle class throughout human history

it does not necessarily manifest itself or necessarily stick around.

There's a lot of give and take that allow the rich to get richer, the poor to get poorer.

And America didn't really have the middle class that we know today, until after World War Two, when people worked especially through the union movement to build a middle class to have workers with more rights, consumers with more rights, environmental protections and things that, you know, without the environmental protections, it's very easy for

They're rich to get richer because they can just dump on on everybody else But if you take it for granted you can lose that middle class and that is without a doubt what you're seeing in Peru and what I fear we could be seeing here if we again if people just go about their lives It's a very what's the the analogy the the frog in boiling water and

next thing

you know it's like well You're going about your life, but pretty soon your children don't get to have the better life than you which is always the American dream

I think we're already seeing it, Pat.

And this is what we're seeing in rural areas where resources tend to be low and people are struggling to find jobs, to find health care, to find housing, to find education, to find childcare.

I mean, these are the voices of rural people who are, they know how to make things work.

They know how to make ends meet, but you can only stretch things so far.

So to me,

And this is why I love taking care of people in rural places because they need it and they deserve it.

But they are the canary in the coal mine in the United States.

Yeah.

We're talking to Dr. Kristen Lierly, who is trying to get home from Peru at this point.

Tonight.

Okay.

fingers crossed, from a personal traveling standpoint being able to travel with your son.

So we've covered the conference and democracy and the travel headaches, but to be able to travel with one of your boys had to have been a big thrill for you.

Yeah, he's a really good travel companion even though he's done with me and he's very honest like when I'm you know getting under his skin He's like mom.

I just need some space But we've also been able to just enjoy having some time of our own so he's playing some basketball game on his phone I got to watch a couple documentaries about music Pat.

I watched the new Led Zeppelin documentary on Netflix and then I watched the Abba documentary and guess what I learned

what?

So Abba was, you know, back in the day, you're old enough to remember, people really kind of didn't like Abba, but they kind of really did.

It was like a guilty pleasure.

Okay.

And guess who's guilty pleasure it was?

One very famous band from the UK in the 70s.

The band that you would least expect that their one cassette tape in their boombox was Abba.

I'll give you a hint.

The lead singer's name was Johnny Rotten.

What?

The Sex

Pistols loved ABBA.

It was the one concert that

they brought on tour with them.

Okay, so between Led Zeppelin, the Sex Pistols and ABBA was the mashup we didn't know we needed.

And let's get to work on that musical.

Kristen, thank you for checking in with us.

Please travel safe and get home tonight and we'll look forward to seeing you later in the week.

Have an amazing week.

All right.

Take care, little PK over there.

Oh, boy.

Kristen, thank you.

We'll talk to you a little bit later.

And when we come back, we're going to talk to Jane Mattener, Bob Mattener on air, along with Greg Bach and their special guest coming up after the nine o'clock news, Lieutenant Governor Sara Rodriguez.

That's all ahead here on 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.

One more reminder before we go, you get a double dip of baseball today from the Brewers.

There's a make-up game from an earlier rainout with the Cubs at Wrigley Field that pregame begins at 12.45 on stations across the Civic Media Radio Network and then the regularly scheduled night game.

Pregame coverage begins at 6.30 so it's five games in four days.

at Wrigley Field, Brewers versus the Cubs after hitting a new record 14 game winning streak on Saturday before losing in the series finale at Cincinnati yesterday.

Sometimes, you know, radio is just a matter of pushing a button and you see things and you hear things and other things.

Other times, it's a different beast.

So on our social media camera, we're seeing Jane Matt near Claire Isabel.

She sounds like she's talking into a phone though, because she is.

Hi, Jane.

Hi, yeah.

I am good Patrick.

How about yourself?

What's going on?

I'm good.

I see this

tremendously expensive broadcast quality microphone right in front of you and yet there there are some gnomes on the loose and gremlins who are playing with some of the wires but you're going to hear her clear as a bell in just 15 minutes or so and you're going to have a big a big special edition of Matt Nair on air today.

We are.

We're going to start off the very top of the show Pat with Wisconsin Lieutenant Governor Sierra Rodriguez.

is joining us right after the nine o'clock news.

And obviously we're gonna be talking about her bid for the governorship.

We also wanna ask her where that FEMA declaration for Southeastern Wisconsin is and whether or not that's gonna be going anywhere because obviously cleanup in this area is continuing.

There's, what did I see, $30 million worth of damage down in Milwaukee County alone.

So we will talk to Lieutenant Governor

Sarah Rodriguez, and then also in the first hour, Civic News Director, Shelly Pittman is going to be joining us.

We're going to talk about that train derailment that happened over the weekend that I think a lot of people might not have even heard about.

And then we're also going to talk about the state of THC and RHC and all the seas that are being sold all over Wisconsin, just so we don't sell marijuana apparently.

I guess we have to do everything but actually legalize

it

like other states have done.

Yeah.

Okay.

So this will be an interesting thing that we can talk to Lieutenant Governor Sarah Rodriguez about.

It was one thing to cover the beginning of her campaign.

And that's great.

And she had a great launch and everything.

But if she gets elected, you know, whoever gets elected in 2026, they're going to have to figure out for their their first two years in office will

will overlap with Donald Trump in the White House.

And so Wisconsin's new governor, whoever it is, has to figure out are they like Gretchen Whitmer in Michigan?

Do they try working with the Trump administration and catch some slack for it?

Or are they defiant in that JB Pritzker Gavin Newsom kind of way?

So I'll be intrigued to hear

what Sarah Rodriguez is thinking about, you know, having to, if she gets elected, work with or against the Trump White House?

Absolutely.

And then we also want to ask her about, you know, Donald Trump is very excited about sending troops into U.S.

cities.

And I am curious what her opinion is about that and how, what she would do in that situation if Donald Trump decides he wants to send troops into Madison or into Milwaukee.

He

could of

course he could of course focus his efforts on states where the crime rates really high I don't know like a whole bunch of red states red states.

That's a whole nother discussion.

Yeah

So so now she she's gonna have to deal with that because At this point, I don't think it's it's an if it's a win because again Trump

put troops on the streets in LA.

They didn't really do much of anything, but it gave him the visual.

Now they're in DC.

They're not really doing much of anything, but it gives him the visual.

Now some would argue it gives Democrats a visual as well of troops on the streets.

But I think right now, unless anything unfortunate happens, I think Trump considers it a win that he shows he can look tough and put troops on streets.

And I don't mean to sound, I don't mean to, you know, sound the alarm here, but

Just say, I won't be surprised if slash when we see that happening in Milwaukee or Madison.

And so, yeah, I'll be very curious to hear what Sir Rodriguez has to say about that.

Yeah, absolutely.

And it's really interesting, Pat, when you talk about the visuals.

Last week, there were tanks on the National Mall.

I haven't spent a lot of time in DC.

I was only out there once on an honor flight.

Uh, it's my understanding.

There's not a lot of crime that happens on the national mall in Washington, DC.

And I also saw footage last week.

There was the one guy who threw a sandwich at an ice officer.

They sent 15 people to arrest him.

That seems like a questionable use of taxpayer dollars.

It would seem, but again, you know, it's all about the imagery because this is a guy who, by the way, offered to come in voluntarily.

And they rather than do that, like you said, sent more than a dozen officers after this guy.

But again, that's kind of the way that they roll.

Hey, how are you doing with the cleanup after the flash flooding?

We were so fortunate, Pat.

We had six inches of water compared to other folks.

That's nothing.

That was a blip.

It's still a pain in the neck.

I have a new water heater coming today.

Hopefully they will install it after all the rain we're getting today because I can just see them getting the new water heater set up and leaving and then we're going to flood again, which would put me back to where I am.

And also I have a new dry new washer panel coming sometime this week.

But again, when I see folks who have their basement walls collapsed, I'm like, yeah, we were inconvenienced.

My heart goes out to these people who have lost everything.

Yeah, understandably.

Jane McNair, you can hear her right after the nine o'clock news, starting with Lieutenant Governor Sarah Rodriguez.

Great to talk to you, Jane.

Thank you so much.

Talk to you later.

Good to see you, Pat.

See you next week.

All right.

You will hear her clear as a bell on that beautiful microphone coming up in just a bit.

But my thanks to all of you for being

Part of our coverage these mornings powered by Up North News on the Civic Media Radio Network.

Thanks to Matt Rothschild, Maurice Estrano, Kristen Lierly, Selena Heller, and Jimmy Koska and John and Gordy all for being here.

Up North News is the Wisconsin outlet for Courier, a pro-democracy news network.

We will have Dan Schaefer from the Reconpopulation area tomorrow and we're live in Wisconsin Rapids on Wednesday.

Have a great day.

We'll see you bright and early 6 a.m.

tomorrow morning here up north.

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