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Now, for my Lake Minnesota studio, here is the founding editor of Up North News, Pat Craiglow.
Nice to have you back on a Tuesday morning, last day of September, here in 2025.
We're going to flip the script a little bit here.
Cam Stevenson normally joins us in this half hour.
and Dan Schaefer in our 830 half hour.
Cam Stevenson working at the US Capitol and actually there as we speak and will be joining us at 835, getting all the very latest on the potential for a federal government shutdown, which means that Dan Schaefer has graciously agreed to come in a little bit early and we'll have him coming in just a moment.
First reminder that you can sign up for our daily newsletter head over to upnorthnewswi.com.
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And of course, there's also the brand new civic media daily newsletter civic media today.
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Brittany Merlot is off today.
Temperatures around the state range from some of the low 60s down south in places like Kenosha where it's 64.
And of course up north, we still have some upper 40s in Merrill and Manitowish waters in Tomahawk.
It's 55 here in the Chippewa Valley and in the Fox Valley area as well.
55 in Madison and 61 degrees at the airport in Milwaukee.
Where are we find Dan Schaefer?
Not at the airport, but in Milwaukee covering
things in the state capital as part of the Reconbobulation Area and as political editor for Civic Media.
Mr.
Schaefer, good morning.
How are you?
Good morning, Mr. Critell.
Always wonderful to join you here on Mornings with Pat Critell.
And yes, even though my publication is named the Reconbobulation Area, I do not actually live at the airport, Pat, just to be
clear.
Yes, although you get more photos tagging you from the airport than probably anybody who actually works at the airport.
That's
probably true, you know, and they've even set up this little like selfie board for the recompobulation area there, which I think I should take full credit
for.
I think you should, absolutely.
I think that's genius.
That's brilliant because, again, no other airport has a recombobulation area outside TSA screening the way that Milwaukee does.
That's right.
I know if I get everything else wrong, I got the name right
because I love the recombobulation area.
That is exactly it.
There's also no bigger Milwaukee Bucks fan.
And so let's start with a conspiracy theory.
Oh, good.
Always my favorite topic.
Yes.
Let's go with Yanis.
Oh.
I have COVID.
I have to stay here in Greece a little while longer and miss media day.
I'm just kidding.
We don't, we don't think it's an actual conspiracy, but you know, if I were to want to skip media day and I were in Greece, I wouldn't be running for the airport necessarily.
But we're not, we're not reading too much into this.
Yannis is a, is a team player all the way.
That's right.
Uh, he, you know, he was, um,
who's on the stream though.
So he was still participating in Media Day.
So my friends who covered the team and all of that still were able to add Pepperyonis with some questions.
And it's kind of the unofficial start to the season and everything else.
You get all the players and all the new players and their new uniforms and they're meeting with the media and they're taking just the goofy photos.
They're going to end up on the Jembo Tronder in the season.
NBA basketball, it's just a few
weeks away I'm getting excited already.
I know you are and I know we're following the Packers of course as well and the Badgers and all of that but isn't it just a little bit tougher when you still got the Brewers doing so well and they get to play some bonus baseball?
That's true.
We're going to be very much dialed in on the Brewers here in Milwaukee for the next few weeks.
I know we get a little bit of a break here during the week while the wild card games are going on.
But come this weekend, Milwaukee's going to be nuts.
It's absolutely going to be nuts.
Do you consider yourself among the group that really does not want to play the Cubs because you hate the thought of what could happen?
Do you relish the thought of playing the Cubs because you really want to take it to them?
fairly agnostic when it comes to Cubs Padres?
In terms of just like rooting interests for the Brewers, I'm fairly agnostic.
I think it's going to be much harder to get to a game if it's the Cubs because you know the...
You know the fibs.
I'm sorry if
I can't
say that on the show.
You know the fibs are going to come up for the American to flood American family field
because it's
so hard to get to a game in Chicago.
And there are so many Cubs fans in northern Illinois.
And so I think that I guess I'd kind of prefer the Padres
to win just
because I think it would be easier to find a ticket Milwaukee if it was the Padres versus the Cubs.
But in terms of just like the rooting interest, I think
You look, when you got the best record in baseball, you got the number one seed in the National League.
You're not really worried about, you shouldn't be worried about who you're going to play.
You just should be coming into these playoffs saying, hey, we're going to beat any team that's put in front of us.
Let's go.
There you go.
Dan Schaefer is not just following sports in Milwaukee for us, but we just had to get a little chit chat out of the way for all of our favorite teams before we
dive back into politics here, which we must.
Are you sure we can't just talk about sports for a half hour today?
We could.
We could.
But then we wouldn't learn more about the newest candidate for governor, Missy Hughes, and the now former candidate for governor, Bill Berrien, over on the Republican side.
But let's start on the Democratic side with Missy Hughes, who I think is the sixth or seventh Democrat to get into the governor's race right now.
And you know, what what you can give us in terms of an overview on her?
Yeah, you know she has been Yeah, you like you said it's a growing Democratic field and and so Missy Hughes grows adds to that field And I think it's just gonna make it a and these are it's not a field of just like
these half-baked candidacies of people that you've never heard of.
It is a lot of legitimate candidates and people who we should be paying attention to, and I very much think that Hughes falls into that camp, and she has been
the head of the WEDC, the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation, really as part of the Evers administration for the past six years.
Before that, she was an executive at the company Organic Valley.
She was there for 17 years.
And so she's really running to say, I think the line was, she's running as a Democrat who understands the economy.
So her message, at least in the announcement video and the initial press release and all of that,
was very much an economic focused message.
I think a lot of other Democrats talking about other issues, they've talked about abortion, they've talked about a variety of different things when it comes to healthcare, what not.
This is very much keeping it an economic focus.
I think the first line of the video was, Missy's a Democrat who understands the economy.
And I do think there is a story to be told here too with her candidacy because the WEDC under Scott Walker
It was very much in shambles from time to time.
entity that I think a lot of people viewed as somewhat corrupt and doing favors for Scott Walker's political donors.
But in the years since with Governor Evers at the helm and with Missy Hughes leading the WEDC, we haven't seen those problems.
And I think in the recovery from COVID, I don't have the exact figures in front of me, but I think Wisconsin was among the national leaders
in
routing some of that federal dollars to small businesses instead of the kind of Foxconn style giveaways that we saw.
under Scott Walker.
So I think the way that she has led that organization has been a big departure from the previous administration and I think has been a successful departure at that.
Yeah we've spoken at length on this program about Wisconsin having you know pretty much the strongest state recovery coming out of COVID in large part because of
that mindset of getting that federal assistance to as many small businesses as possible through Main Street grants and things like that.
So, Missy Hughes will have a real story to tell on the economy, and it will lead a lot of Democratic voters to do what they did in 2018 when they look at the whole field and go, if we could just take all of you, the best of all of you, you're pursuing healthcare, you're pursuing women's reproductive healthcare rights, you've got education over here, and now you've got business development over here.
And one of them who emphasizes one issue more than the other will be the eventual nominee.
But it is a good reminder that the best governors are the ones who can keep more than one plate spinning at a time, even if it's
rhetorically.
Maybe the field right now looks almost like a cabinet.
You could have different people in these various different roles.
you know, and so I think, you know, Hughes had a had a good announcement video, you know, and I think it's she adds to the field, I think in another way as well, where most most of the candidates that we've heard from so far are from Milwaukee and Madison, or from, you know, kind of surrounding areas and whatnot.
I think she brings a little bit of a different perspective being from southeastern or southwestern Wisconsin, excuse me.
And I think that, you know, helps that's going to help the debate here, I think in the
primary field, too, to have somebody with more of a connection outside of Milwaukee and Madison.
As compared to, you know, we had State Senator Calderoy's and State Representative Francesca Hong from Madison.
We had Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley.
You know, Sarah Rodriguez is from Brookfield.
That's right over the border from Milwaukee County.
So I think adding to that field in that sense is giving some, I guess, geographic diversity would be a good thing in the primary, too.
Dan Schaffer's joining us, political editor for Civic Media.
And over on the Republican side, of course, the big addition to the race was Congressman Tom Tiffany a few days back, and then the departure of businessman Bill Barion, who I think actually performed a public service, not the kind maybe that he was expecting to perform.
But I think when this happens, and occasionally it does happen, it's a public service that reminds us that just because you were successful in
business does not mean you are going to be governor or a good governor or a good candidate to get to be governor.
The same goes for you know your military record.
I'm not saying that every governor has you have been say a county board member or something but that kind of public service does mean something and it's not an easily transferable thing just to say I'm good at business I must be the next governor.
Wisconsin politics is a very different animal from working in the business community.
And yeah, I think Barry very much saw that, especially over the past, you know, kind of week plus here, when the Milwaukee Journal something over supporting on some of his social media activity, following these sexually explicit accounts, following a transgender porn star, while he's kind of making anti-trans messaging a core of his candidacy.
And you throw all of that into the mix in a candidate.
to see that it was already going nowhere.
I mean, that's part of this story too.
That even before the buy stories from last week about his social media activity.
He was not resonating with the Republican base at all.
I think the fact that he backed Nikki Haley and not Donald Trump in the 2024 primary was coming back to bite him.
He seemed to be open to some democracy reforms like rank choice voting and things like that.
Conservatives very much against that at the current moment.
And so, yeah, I didn't think his candidacy had much of a chance before.
And then when you add in everything else,
You know, all issues aside, that's...
It's not gonna help him in a Republican primary
to
be having this kind of social media activity Be made public and so he he dropped out and he had some things to say in that
very well statement
You know getting getting mad at everybody and trying to rationalize these things and But you know, he's he's out of the race.
What is it less than three months before he since he launched his campaign?
Didn't really think he had much of a chance anyway unless he got a trumpet
endorsement, and I think that's the key thing in the Republican Party.
But, you know, we will remember Bill Barion's candidacy a little differently now.
Yes.
And what do we always say?
Don't go away mad.
You know, just go away.
Anyway, you can get more from Dan Schaefer at the Reconpopulation Area at the Reconpopulation Area dot news.
So catch what he's writing there.
And of course, all across the civic media landscape as well as civic media's political editor.
And as we mentioned, Dan normally heard in the second half
but he's flipping spots with Cam Stephenson from Courier Newsroom who will be joining us live from Washington DC to talk about the potential for a shutdown later tonight.
I'm Pat Krightlow.
This is the Civic Media Radio Network.
You're listening to Civic Media.
Stay up to date on the latest news and information for your local community and Wisconsin by signing up for our free email newsletter.
Visit civicmedia.us slash email to get started.
So the way that I worded an article at up north news wi.com last week Certainly got some folks attention.
It was about Tom Tiffany getting into the governor's race But as I noted Tom Tiffany gets into the race without the endorsement of You know the president of the United States the person that he's he's best buds with whereas In talking to Dan Schaefer here from the recombobulation area, you know, Tony Weed got the Trump endorsement before he even got in the race he got into the race with Trump's endorsement and yet
Tom Tiffany who is you know completely in line with him has been a true foot soldier for Trump not so much well Dan I can't I I did not ask this person if I could give them credit so I'm not going to name him on the radio but in all my conversation in Madison this week last week rather heard this great perspective from somebody
who said about Tiffany not getting Trump's endorsement.
This is what Trump likes.
Trump still thinks he's a game show host at The Apprentice.
And knowing that Josh Schoeman's there, he can continue to just, you know, hope that Josh Schoeman talks him up.
Tom Tiffany talks him up more.
Josh Schoeman, you know, and if Josh Schoeman feels like he's got to take some shots at Tiffany, which might weaken him, but it makes him look better to Trump to maybe get the endorsement.
That's what Trump likes.
He doesn't care if it damages one or the other, so he doesn't have any incentive to endorse Tiffany as long as he can keep playing him and Shulman off each other.
Yeah, he wants to be kingmaker.
He wants to be the guy who who everything flows through for the Republican Party Which has been you know very much the case and so I think you know you mentioned the example of that Tony weed running in that eighth congressional district primary once he got the Trump endorsement which was basically his whole platform was he's endorsed by Trump
that cleared the primary for a complete political unknown running against two current and former state senators who had some backing from people within the state in various endorsements from legislators and other groups and what have you.
But none of that mattered
because Donald Trump's endorsement in it crowded primary.
Was the thing and I think the that's what we're gonna see in the Republican primary for this is if Tom Tiffany is able to land the Trump endorsement I think he clears the field for this Republican primary
and yet if he doesn't does Tony notes on YouTube if all that matters is a Trump endorsement Could we see someone jump in late and win the primary?
I mean conceivably again if Trump's gonna withhold and somebody else thinks they have a chance of getting it Alicia asks us if we're gonna mention
and Sean Groerich, running in the First State Senate District in Northeast Wisconsin.
There you go, Leisha, we just did.
So we have a Democratic candidate in Northeast Wisconsin's first congressional, first state Senate district.
Lots of the state Senate Democrats have been busy.
They
have
quite a few candidates that they have already announced with and there's another one that just announced this week and they're going to be making a run for that state Senate majority and they are taking this seriously and that's yet another one that we should be paying attention to.
and they continue to be aggressive in their messaging.
Today, for example, later this morning, they are going to
call out republicans because this is the the day that veterans services for homeless veterans in chip will falls and green bay are closing and again setting the record straight on how you know this is something that could have been funded in the budget republicans decided not to and by the way dan uh they're savvy in another way as well they take note that congressman derrick van orden
could have specifically requested federal funds for the Chippewa Falls homeless veterans operation in his district.
And Van Orton did not.
This is just one of those stories of there is not a both sides problem here happening.
This is Republicans choosing to let two veterans homeless shelters shut down.
That's what's happening.
because Democrats have proposed a variety of different ways to keep this open, whether it was in Governor Evers' budget, whether it was in these Democrat...
Democratic-led bills in the state legislature, talking about the connections to federal funding that Republicans control, these two facilities are closing because of what decisions that the Republicans in Wisconsin and the representatives in Congress are making.
And these places are closing today for a percentage of the budget.
There would be a very small percentage of the budget, a few million dollars to keep these two places.
to keep places open, to keep places for veterans to get back on their feet if they have come on hard times and they are choosing to let these places close.
We always hear so much rhetoric from various politicians about what we're going to do to take care of our veterans.
And here's an example that's right in front of us that Republicans have blatantly ignored.
And it is very, very frustrating to see the process get bogged down with this and to see the inaction and incompetence of the Republican leadership in Wisconsin allow this to happen.
and it's furthered by their choice of response.
They could have met, they could have held a session over the past month here and appropriated funds and they chose not to.
They chose instead to say, well, we've appropriated money in all these other baskets and the governor could just go pluck money out of one of those other baskets like he did with the COVID federal relief funds.
That's not how you budget for a government where you say, well, we'll let the governor babysit us.
And if we neglect to fund something, the governor will ride to our rescue.
It's that kind of a failing that is going to lead these things to be closed today.
And state Senate Democrats are right to be putting these candidates up in these other districts because a lot of the state Senate districts
weren't in play last year because, you know, those are four year terms instead of two year terms.
And so there's some big changes in Senate districts that we're going to see in 2026.
The state Senate is very much in play down.
Very much in play.
I'd even make Democrats favorites at flipping the chamber at this point, because
I
think there's some disarray among Republicans on this side.
This is an example of an issue that they are going to be vulnerable on.
And I think there's going to be many of those.
And I think the state Senate Democrats, if they flip, I believe, two seats, they're going to be able to flip the chamber.
I think they're going to be able to have the opportunity to flip even more than that going into next year, given how things have been going.
And again, this particular issue, I was tweeting about this last week.
State Representative Amadra Vera Wagner said, yeah, the veterans have already moved out.
They're expecting this to close.
And it's a real political problem here.
And it's really too bad.
Thank you very much.
Appreciate it.
Get all that he's doing at the reconpopulationarea.news.
We'll talk to you later.
Have a great day.
Thank you.
Sam Stephenson coming up next.
You're up next.
Tomorrow on the program, we'll be meeting Ellie Bardot.
She is our new newsletter editor, and she'll be telling us all about her new duties and what she's been doing to get acquainted with folks who read our Up North News daily newsletter.
So Ellie Bardot will be joining us tomorrow, just after the seven o'clock news here on Mornings with Pat Kratlow, powered by Up North News, here on the Civic Media Radio Network.
Up North News is part of Courier Newsroom.
has state outlets all over the country, newsletters, podcasts, and a reporter up on Capitol Hill who's helping us track down whether there's going to be an agreement to prevent a government shutdown.
Of course, to do that, it'd have to pass through Congress.
Congress would have to be in session.
And I'm looking at a very empty, long-worth house office building where Cam Stephenson is standing by because
There ain't no Republicans around basically and Tony heard us during the commercial break and puts up, you know, he's just beside himself.
They aren't even there.
No, Tony.
They're not.
Cam, how are things looking at the Capitol?
Yeah, no, it's like a half day as in half the people are here because the Republicans decided not to.
stick around after the calendars were canceled.
And so nobody's really here.
They're not banking on their being a deal.
I don't know how there could be because there's no one here to negotiate.
Democrats are here.
I'm speaking with different members of the House all day and a few senators who are trying to convince people to get back here.
Republican senators are in town, but there's nowhere near enough House Republicans to
I put in a lunch order, let alone negotiate a budget.
No, because they've made clear that they won't negotiate with Democrats, even though they haven't got the votes to pass a budget on their own.
They have to have Democratic votes.
And so, yeah, as Alicia puts up on YouTube, so they don't want to do the jobs they are being paid to do.
That is correct, Alicia.
I'm just not aware of many places where you can get away with not negotiating with the people whose votes you need, but for the few people that you are finding there on Capitol Hill, what are they thinking?
I mean, obviously it seems like a shutdown is inevitable, but what are they thinking in terms of, well, then what?
Yeah, well, it's very...
People are supposed to be very frustrated because they are trying to do their job.
They're trying to negotiate.
Of course, nothing that Republicans have proposed.
It's not ideal for the Democrats that are here, but they're just hoping to get three or four concessions, compromises, because that's traditionally what Congress is supposed to do is compromise and represent everyone, not just a portion of people.
So they're frustrated.
They're trying to let people know what's going to happen.
once a shutdown does take place and who is at fault, which in this case is the people who aren't here to do their job.
That's right.
And look, every public opinion poll so far this week has showed that by double digit figures, the American public, they know who's to blame for this.
They know this is congressional Republicans and the president who are responsible for the shutdown.
They can protest all they want.
But, you know, they are the ones who
made all these big cuts to Medicaid and to the Affordable Care Act, premium subsidies, and that's the thing that Democrats want restored in at least some part.
But Republicans, it sounds like they're not working on that end of things.
What little bit can they give in order to win over some Democratic votes?
It seems more like they're at the opposite end of how much pressure, how much pain can we bring that will get a couple of moderate Democrats to give up
and just go along with the Republicans.
So it really feels like they're trying to somehow put pressure on squishy Democrats rather than negotiating with all the rest of
them.
Yeah, that's actually a pretty fair assessment.
Is there waiting for a few to break instead of trying to meet anyone?
Not even halfway.
I would say the majority of things that Democrats are looking for are things that their Republican voters want as well.
You know, maybe Republicans didn't like the Affordable Care Act, don't like the subsidies, but what they're really not going to like is when their health insurance premiums go up next year.
Because without those subsidies, everyone's insurance goes up, not just people who are using ACA marketplace insurance.
And so by pushing out...
all Democrats, not even trying to get anyone, all they need is seven votes.
And by not even attempting to compromise with at least seven people and just hoping that they break under the pressure is, I think, a very cynical take on how to govern.
Yeah well what we're hearing from Republican leadership and I understand why is they look at the potential for a shutdown back in March I believe it was when you know House Democrats wanted to hold firm and then Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer
said, okay, we don't want to shut down.
We will keep things going for a little while longer.
And you've got Republicans saying, well, Senate Democrats caved in last time, so why don't you just be reasonable and cave in again?
And I certainly didn't get that vibe from Chuck Schumer nor from House Democratic Leader Hakim Jeffries after their White House meeting yesterday.
No, I think they're past that point.
I think they saw that they got nothing.
There was no actual benefit all of the bad things that happened from the budget went through anyway You know a lot of the things that are being threatened if the shutdown takes place are things that the Trump administration is planning to do regardless
And so there really is no incentive for them to cave to Republicans.
And in fact, it's something that not only is very unpopular with their voters, with Democrats, but it, again, would cause pain that can then be blamed on them instead of the people who are pushing all these things through.
Yeah, they basically, it's time now for the Republicans to own the pain that they are already inflicting through the, you know, the big bloated bill that was passed earlier this year, which is ending those affordable care act subsidies to keep premium costs down.
And of course, the looming Medicaid cuts that are coming as well.
Cam Stevenson is joining us live from Capitol Hill from Courier Newsroom, where again, if you missed the top, I mean, there's...
hardly any Republicans to be found.
And so it's looking like a certainty that there will be a federal government shutdown coming up at midnight tonight.
And can we hear that the White House has been making all these plans, not just for the furloughs that would come through a normal shutdown?
But they're basically trying to, it sounds like they're trying to supercharge the layoffs.
And this wouldn't be just furloughs where employees are sent home and they don't do their job and they don't get their paycheck for a while.
These are just flat out layoffs.
Like they want people fired.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And that's been something the Trump administration has wanted to do the entire year is just get rid of as many federal workers as possible so that they can privatize public services and public industries.
And this would be a way for it would be a way for them to supercharge it, but it's not like it's something that they're not trying to do anyway.
And in a lot of instances, the courts have given Trump broad authority beyond what people thought he should have to fire and close federal agencies and remove federal workers.
And so they are trying to use the shutdown as a way to speed up some firings and layoffs.
But again, it's something that they're planning to do regardless.
This is just, I guess, an opportunity for them.
An opportunity would be the right way to put it from their standpoint.
And yeah, it's a great point that you make that courts to this point have done.
two different things either they have somewhat surprisingly upheld the Trump administration's ability to just flat out fire you know a bunch of federal workers in different areas or they have said that these cuts these firings they can go on while the legal challenge is proceeding here and as much as you probably thought you'd be covering a lot of congressional stuff it it almost sounds like
You're going to be doing more work across the street at the Supreme Court as this stuff eventually works its way through.
This is becoming an administration that is becoming increasingly familiar with the courts because of all the challenges that are being filed.
Yeah.
Well,
and it's interesting because as much as I would love to cover the Supreme Court weighing in on these things, they've been using something called the shadow docket so much since Trump came into the office that there aren't even
hearings necessarily to sit in on they make these decisions quietly they make them in private they make them without opinions sometimes and so they're issuing these orders without any justification or any precedent presumably so that if a Democrat is reelected as you know put in the presidency they can kind of reverse these things without explanation
It is akin to, you know, imagine Congress if Republicans could agree among themselves and if they had solid majorities, you know, imagine them not even holding floor sessions and just announcing the votes saying, you know, we got the votes and so we're just going to put this out and that's.
That's basically what you're seeing from the Supreme Court.
You know, the three liberal justices are absolutely beside themselves that say there should be these arguments.
There should be these very detailed opinions that explain, you know, how these decisions are rooted in law.
And you've got the six right-wing justices saying, no, we took a vote.
This is how it's going to be.
They slap it on a piece of paper without any kind of legal justification behind it, any legal arguments behind it.
And we're like, yeah, we're good.
Wins dinner.
And that, again, I can only imagine the frustration you're hearing from people as you make your rounds there.
Yeah.
Well, it's, you know, there's supposed to be, this is public office.
It's supposed to be all very public.
It's supposed to be transparent.
The people are supposed to be able to know why things are happening and have recourse if they don't like it.
And by doing things.
shrouded in secrecy by letting the government close without explanation, without even showing up to vote against it.
It's one thing for the government to shut down after a lot of debates, and there's a genuine effort.
But for Republicans to just drop the ball and head home, while the Supreme Court says, we don't really need to issue orders, we don't really care about precedent, we're just going to kind of let...
the White House do what it wants.
And then the White House puts out more lies than anything.
Then yeah, it is, it's very frustrating to try and get to the bottom of anything.
Any idea how things will change for you from the standpoint of coverage once a shutdown begins?
I wonder if they're probably won't be much for meetings.
I don't know what there will be for access.
You'll have elsewhere in the city.
You'll have museums being closed.
I sense tomorrow is going to be almost, I'm not going to say a zombie day, but there's going to be people wandering around going, well, what the heck do we do now?
Yeah, well, there are a lot of things planned with
federal workers who are furloughed, laid off, whose jobs are put on pause.
So I'm going to be seeking out people to talk with who are directly impacted by the shutdown.
There still are people here who will be working, who are trying to get a deal done, whether or not they have enough people to put anything to a vote or to discuss it is another question.
You know, the thing about a shutdown is it gives a lot of people a lot of time.
And so in lieu of our elected representatives showing up and doing something, there's a lot to be said for the general public to be able to come out and voice their displeasure.
Oh, and I don't doubt that they'll do that.
And they'll be doing that toward a lot of people who, those who still have to work, aren't getting paid for it.
and that's a whole different dimension from the military to TSA to all kinds of other workers, and they may be willing to do that out of a measure of service to their country, but when they're asked to pick up, say, an extra shift here and there, nobody's gonna be racing to do
that.
Right, yeah, that's not... I would invite anyone listening to...
Think about their lives and think about how long they could go without a paycheck.
And then add to the fact that they're still working full time.
And I don't know how anyone
can.
No, a
lot of us would not be necessarily volunteering to work for free, but you're going to see some of that starting tomorrow.
Cam Stephenson following it for us from Courier Newsroom on Capitol Hill.
Thank you, Cam.
Very much.
Appreciate the update.
Yeah, anytime, Pat.
All right, hey, good luck to you out there.
That's going to be quite the adventure.
Some final news and notes from Lake Wasota coming up after this.
I'm Pat Krightlo.
This is the Civic Media Radio
Network.
Matt and Aaron are coming up next with Jane, Matt and air and Greg Bach and the nine o'clock hour is your next chance to enter in win in the go for the green and gold text to win contest and I'm sure that there will be Conversations there and throughout the day on the coming government shutdown and I believe we can say the coming government shutdown because there does not appear to be any Any end in sight
to the ridiculousness that is coming from people like the president, from the vice president.
We're hearing a lot about, for example, Democrats want, was it $1.5 trillion for healthcare for illegals?
Always a favorite when you hear the illegals.
No, no, it's Republicans and the president who have cut more than a trillion dollars from Medicaid for all Americans.
including the undocumented immigrants who pay taxes that's deducted from their paychecks.
And yet they can't access that system.
They can't enroll in Medicaid.
They can't purchase health insurance.
And so as more of them are being rounded up and deported because, you know, they're such terrorists, they're also not paying into the system, which further strains it.
It's strained even further by the cuts that are coming from the Trump Vance van Orden big bloated boondoggle and one of the other talking points that we're hearing out of you know the regular stream of GOP gas lighting is that there's this 50 billion dollar fund that's gonna help rural hospitals and that Democrats are putting that at risk again just to protect healthcare for illegals
No, the $50 billion fund that they're talking about for rural health care is a sliver of the money that they're cutting from rural health care by a trillion dollars in cuts to Medicaid.
A trillion dollars in cuts to Medicaid is going to be an absolute death spiral for an increasing number of rural hospitals.
But what Trump and the Republicans came up with was, well, okay, of the trillion dollars we're cutting, let's
pull 50 billion of it back.
Again, just a fraction of that.
And let's advertise that as a 50 billion dollar bonus pool that's going to rural health care when it's really just crumbs compared to all the cuts that they're making and doing it all while hiding behind the race based policies of blaming everything on undocumented migrants rather than
being honest with the voters and saying, look, we're cutting a trillion dollars from Medicaid, because we got to pay for these tax cuts for billionaires.
In fact, we're giving them tax cuts that are so big, we're actually going to run the deficit up another $4 trillion.
That's the part to me that I really kind of surprised more people don't hop on is just taken on just the one sheet of paper.
And it's most basic is that the big bloated boondoggle from all these people who love to say, we can't afford health care.
We can't afford education.
We can't afford infrastructure.
But apparently we can afford $4 trillion in tax cuts to the very wealthy to blow up the deficit that way.
So those are the talking points they're going to try to advance.
But as I mentioned, most public opinion surveys already show that people know
that this is something Trump and Republicans have been pushing for.
They know that this is going to hurt Americans and they know that they want it to hurt Americans and hope that Democrats will back down.
And there will be some squishy Democrats who are going to say, we've, we've, you know, they're going to wring their hands and say, we've, we've got to do something.
Well, to do something means to go along with.
their plans to rip away a trillion dollars in Medicaid and all of the Affordable Care Act premium supports that go along with it and the cups to nutrition programs.
And look, if you want to be a part of that, that's fine.
But can you please keep the name Democrat off your label from now on and actually fight for people going forward?
I mean, I'd appreciate that anyway.
One last story I want to talk about, and I don't have the exact location where it happened.
I believe it was in Wisconsin, but I heard a story that was playing on the TV recently, and it was another one of those heartwarming stories about a mom-to-be who couldn't make it to the hospital in time.
Labor was much shorter than expected, and so, you know, she delivered at home.
You see the same stories about women who are delivering on the side of the road.
And again, there's always this warm, heartwarming story about the state trooper who delivered the baby or the firefighter who delivered the baby.
Or in the case of the story I heard this morning, you know, the two-year-old toddler who comforted his mom while she gave birth on the bathroom floor.
These are not heartwarming stories.
These are stories of disaster narrowly averted.
When people have to drive much longer than they used to, because our small rural hospitals are closing, if you are nowhere near Eau Claire or Rice Lake or Duluth, if you are anywhere else in that upper northwest quadrant of Wisconsin, you have got a long ride to get to
a regular labor and delivery area where people are trained and the equipment is there to make sure that you can deliver safely.
And so when we head into this government shutdown, just think about how many more rural hospitals, if they don't close, are at least going to give up doing labor and delivery and OB care.
And they're going to stop being heartwarming stories.
And I don't mean to be alarmist.
I'm being realistic here.
We're going to hear about some bad outcomes.
the road and at that point we're gonna say how did we get to this point we got to this point because some people in office wanted to pay for four trillion dollars to push up the debt to pay for tax cuts for the very wealthy rather than take care of basic health care for their own constituents.
So remember these stories and the stories of real people you're gonna hear over the coming days who serve our country but are not gonna get paid because you've got some politicians in the White House and running Congress that would rather have people suffer first so that they can take care of their buddies through just a few more tax cuts.
We can't afford any more tax cuts for billionaires in this country.
I'm Pat Critlow from Up North News.
Thanks for tuning in for this morning.
We'll catch you back here bright and early tomorrow morning, 6 a.m.
here up north.
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