Welcome to our three of the truth with Sherwin Hughes.
Highly anticipated, highly publicized.
Joe Brennan, candidate for governor of Wisconsin, running in the very crowded and unorthodox Democratic primary first.
Joe, welcome to the program.
I think this is the first time that we have spoken on one on one seven.
The truth, correct?
Well,
years.
Yeah, we got a quarter century worth of history.
So when you decided to enter the race, somewhere's around December 11, 2025, you were at the time the last person to join what was already a crowded primary.
Can you take us through what you believe your glide path was in December?
Francesca was in, Kelda was in, Mandela was in, David was in.
You decided to jump in.
What did you see that maybe other candidates and other people did not?
election.
relatively popular figure in politics in the state of Wisconsin.
You held the Secretary of Department of Administration position, which is probably one of the most significant cabinet level positions in government.
And for all intents and purposes, you did a really, really good job in that position.
Do you believe that you're working in the Eras Administration while those successes were mounting can be utilized?
to your credibility as a candidate, if Tony Evers remains popular and you were the DOA secretary, do you think that some of that will transfer to you and aid in your popularity as a candidate?
You know, what I think is that it certainly gave me credibility from the start and the work that I did as DOA secretary, especially during COVID because a lot of that was
on the ground with local elected officials, whether they be county executive, village board president, mayors.
It was, how are things going on the ground?
How can we help?
And what resources can we bring to make sure that you're getting stuff done?
And to be honest, Sherwin, it was some of the least partisan work that I have ever done.
It was more pragmatic.
We just lost, and I know a number of people here at the station were friends with Paul Farrow, who's the county executive in Waukesha County.
Paul and I became better friends during that time because it was not about ideology.
It was about how do we actually demonstrate that we can make government effective?
What can we do to get...
things out to people who are in need.
At that point, it was masks.
It was PPE.
It was, you know, what's happening on the ground.
And those were the very pragmatic things.
And you have to do that during times of crisis, like what we lived in during COVID.
And these are anything but normal times and the dysfunction and the chaos that we live in and what Donald Trump is wrought on America.
But the same thing applies now.
We've got to be in a position where we're getting stuff done, instead of just being consumed with getting even and
That's who I have been throughout the course of my career and my life.
That's, you know, I think that is what what I bring to this race that is distinctive from other people.
And it's a 20 year career of having been in executive leadership.
And that's different than being Lieutenant Governor, where you don't manage a whole bunch of people.
It's different than being in the legislature.
Like those are things that are different from the field.
And I think a distinction that I bring from anybody else in the
race.
You have a new add out.
We played it on this program a little while ago and you essentially are giving your opinions on Your opponents one is a democratic socialist one has lost statewide before One technically is the newest entrant into the race for governor as of last Saturday and that's David Crowley You've been taking some heat because oh Joe you're going after the going after the people of color, but isn't
Isn't being in a primary supposed to be a competition, but didn't you also take some heat for something that you said?
I'm gonna paraphrase a little bit you said at some point in some podcast that you didn't think that was constant was ready for a non male Person of color governor.
Can you clarify
Sure.
Sure.
Happy to clarify one one the commercial I put out I mean, I think the things you said are facts that the what I laid out was facts proud socialist
Somebody who lost in 2022, somebody who was out of the race just a few days ago.
Those are not things to be questioned.
And yes, primaries are about making sure that we get everybody has a chance to weigh in on who the candidates are, what their backgrounds are.
I've also, and I hope we'll talk about this, I've been as transparent as anybody.
I paid somebody to do opposition research into myself.
100 pages and I put it out online and I think that makes me probably the most transparent candidate running for governor in Wisconsin and maybe the only person willing to do that who's running for governor all around the country because people deserve that level of transparency.
Getting into the comment or what was said months ago, somebody asked me, I think the question was being a white guy, being the only white male in the race, is that a positive, is it a negative, is it something we shouldn't be talking about?
And you know, what I should have said is there are capable, qualified candidates running.
Every one of us has a chance to win and govern in the state of Wisconsin.
Wisconsin has elected Vell Phillips, who was my, you know, former neighbor in the 1970s.
We've elected Tammy Baldwin, Barack Obama.
So Wisconsin has shown that we will do, we will give anybody a chance.
Like, that's what I should have answered, you know.
And I'm a big fan of the musical Hamilton.
One time, Aaron Burr advises Hamilton to talk less.
But it took me like four minutes to answer that question.
And what I should have said was that.
The words that I used at the end of that were, we're not there yet.
And that's what people took is to say, well, we're not there in being able to elect anybody but a white guy.
I mean, here's what I would tell you.
Over the last couple of months, we have seen the gutting of the Voting Rights Act in the South.
We have seen people having the representation taken away.
I would still affirm that as a country, we're not there yet in terms of who we want to be and what we want to be.
That's why I have been in the positions that I have been over the course of my career.
That's why I have fought for everybody.
That's why I was the first person when Donald Trump said he was going to come to try to affect the elections in Wisconsin.
I was the first one to stay.
We got to stand up and protect democracy.
We got to make sure we're protecting the right to vote early to vote by mail.
People who work at the ballot box like that's who I want to be.
And I think we need allies that look like me that look like you.
We need everybody in the community, everybody in the state to stand up to do that.
And that's what that's why I'm in this race.
That's why I want to be governor.
That's that's who I would be as governor.
Joe Brennan, Democratic candidates for governor is in studio.
I look at the.
the demographic profile of Wisconsin.
And I look at the the racial makeup of this state, which, you know, when you travel around the state, Wisconsin is not small.
It's vast, beautiful forest.
I know you've been we've all be good.
You could ask any one of these candidates.
We've been doing it over the last year and it is.
I'll be in superior tomorrow.
I was in Bayfield.
a couple of weeks ago and I drove back home on a Saturday night from Bayfield to my home here in the city of Milwaukee.
I think it took about six and a half hours.
I think Bayfield is, by the way, one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen on earth.
But I think I did see a sign that said five miles to the end of the earth.
Like I was very close, very close to there.
But it is a big, beautiful state.
And we have spent a lot of time and we have traveled it forwards and backwards.
And that's something that I respect every person in this race who has put themselves out there.
and how hard they have worked to do.
There's a forum tomorrow in Superior.
There was one last night in Sock Prairie.
We did another one in Madison a couple of days ago.
We have continued to do this.
People are doing it on their own.
We're doing these together.
This is what primaries should be about.
And I'll tell you, one of the things that's changed in the chaos and the dysfunction of the last week that's kind of seen in this primary and in campaigns and in the democratic process is people are finally paying attention.
For a long time, we were doing all this.
We were rolling that stone a pill and it didn't feel like people were paying attention.
And now people are starting to lock in.
There's early voting that has started.
People are going to start doing the early vote in person.
And I think this is a case where lots of people were waiting for things to happen in the race and they now have.
And that plays to my advantage because my challenge from day one has been not that people don't believe that I have the qualifications, capabilities to do the job.
The job that I had as the secretary of administration
Top-appointed job in the cabinet, really the job is to help the governor run the executive branch, build the state budget, do all the procurement, human resources across the administration, across the enterprise.
have the connections to local government getting four and a half billion dollars of resources out from COVID money.
Like all of those things were things that I did.
My challenge has never been that I have the capability to do the job.
My job, my challenge is that just not as well known as other candidates in the race.
And now if this is why people start to pay attention because somebody's campaign imploded because somebody was out and then they came back in, you know, when there are people who are trying to tell you how to decide, I think people now are starting to figure out that
One, there's a very important race on August 11th.
The most important thing is to win in November because the problems that we have around health care, around education, around housing, around child care, we're not going to be able to solve those unless we win a general election, unless we beat Tom Tiffany and Donald Trump.
And I will still maintain, and I will say this until I'm blue in the face, but that I think I am the candidate who's best equipped to win the primary, to win the general election, to govern on day one.
And that's based on who I have been throughout my career.
It's based on comparing who I have been throughout my career against the other candidates.
And so it's inevitable at some point that people make a comparison about this candidate versus that.
What have they said?
What have they done?
What are the things that are their liabilities?
That's going to be part of the conversation.
We are currently living in probably the most anti-affirmative action, anti-DEI political and social climate that I've ever seen.
Things were a little bit different during the era of George Floyd when there were marches and protests in Black Lives Matter.
It seems like we have done a complete 180 from that.
And I got to be very realistic in this anti-affirmative action, anti-DEI climate.
The state of Wisconsin is 80 percent white, 20 percent of the people in the state are not white.
So you being the only white guy in this race, it does make an awful lot of sense demographically.
But here's where I'm at with this.
Do you have commitments to...
affirmative action and diversity.
Will you have a diverse cabinet?
Will you surround yourself with people who have connections to communities that you may not be very familiar with?
That's number one.
Number two, can you be Tom Tiffany?
And I would say, look at who I have been throughout the course of my career.
You know, when we had COVID relief money and it was going out to.
local communities, to small businesses, to family farms, to people who couldn't keep a roof over their head.
I was working there with every possible ally around the state of Wisconsin.
We also did, and it was driven in large part by people here in Milwaukee, we did diverse business assistant grants to the tune of about $75 million.
We put money into the community development financial institutions, the CDFIs, tried to get money to local chambers all around the state.
All of that was an effort to try to make sure that
that, yes, we were responding to COVID, but we were also making sure that over the course of the coming years that it wasn't just about the immediate response.
What could we do that's going to have long-term impact in the city where I live, in the Milwaukee community?
Those are the things that I have tried to do in the course of my career.
In addition to that, part of the responsibility that I had
in state government was around supplier diversity at the Department of Administration.
And, you know, this is a program that... Which
Will is suing to eliminate.
And it's a program that's been around for 40 years, and it doesn't have enough teeth in it.
And there's only been about four times that the state has met even the levels of what we try to do.
You know, twice.
Two of those were the years that I was at the Department of Administration.
I'd like to think that those are the types of things.
And that wasn't just me.
That was Governor Evers setting a tone.
It was the other people who...
who are working on that diligently.
It was the people who coordinate and cooperate with us to do that.
But that is demonstrated impact of who I have been.
And it has been an honor for me.
I was at, there was a forum in Madison a couple of weeks ago.
It was actually the day before that David dropped out.
And that was the, I think the last forum he did before he went out and then he came back in.
But at that event, I had a couple of people who I had hired.
It was around issues of diversity.
It was in Madison.
It was at the hub.
If you haven't seen it, it's a great spot in Madison that they have created with the Urban League.
And there was a lot of energy there.
But I had two employees of mine who had worked with me, who were there, and who are working with the Urban League.
And to have people like that, who I had hired at DOA, one has gone on and is now working in the private sector.
Having their support, having them come up to me, somebody stopped me on the street the other day while I was in Madison and say, hey, I knew you were going to be around.
I just wanted to come by and tell you how much I'm looking forward to voting for you because of who you were as my boss.
And I would like to think that that's a good reflection of who you are.
So will I surround myself with people like, I have never done anything but that, and that's who I have been.
The group that I work with at the Creative Milwaukee Committee is a strong, diverse group.
We have, I'm building, we have built leaders there that look like Milwaukee, and that's who we should be.
That's who I have been throughout the course of my career, and that's what I would do.
Second question.
Second question, can I beat Tom Tiff?
Yes
or no, because I got to take a break.
I want to come back and talk to you about another very important topic, which is education.
Sure.
So can you be Tom Tiffany?
supporter.
We're going to take a break.
I'm going to come back more with Joe Brennan.
I'm going to ask you about education because several of the candidates in the race are vowing to if not on day one.
to eliminate an educational option for a lot of parents right here in the city of Milwaukee, but then there's something else that is that needs to be discussed in this race and I haven't heard enough of it from other candidates.
Joel, your success if you become governor is only going to be as productive as the legislature you can bring with you.
Don't answer it now.
I want you to give details on the other side.
Can you bring other Democrats into the majority and the assembly and the Senate, especially in areas that may have voted for Donald Trump in the past?
More with Joel Brennan, Wisconsin Democratic candidate for governor.
You are listening to The Truth with Sherwin Hughes.
Don't go anywhere.
I'll
be right back.
You are listening to the truth with Sherwin Hughes on 1017 the truth the truth app and 1017 the truth comm
Joel Brennan is in studio.
He's a candidate for governor and there's a lot of other candidates for governor as well But he happens to be the one I'm talking to at the moment Joel you need to have
a democratic legislature in order to maximize, I guess, your policy ideas.
Do you believe that you can pull other Democrats running across the state?
Really, every assembly district is competitive.
It looks like the Democrats have a good chance of getting a majority in the Senate.
All this bodes well for you, but we need somebody at the top of the ticket that can get...
What maybe we're Trump voters or Republican voters, moderate voters to vote for those legislators.
Can you get a Democratic majority in the Wisconsin State Legislature?
That's the fact that I have worked in government.
I've worked in business.
I've worked in the nonprofit sector.
You know, you don't go raise money in the nonprofit sector.
and make it all be about ideology.
You saw the work that I did at Discovery World.
The biggest donor to the expansion we did at Discovery World was Roy Ryman.
Roy has now passed away, but he was very generous.
But I can guarantee you that Roy and I, we canceled each other out in every election since I was 18.
But he cared about kids, he cared about STEM education, cares about Milwaukee kids, and he and his wife Bobby contributed about $7 million, $8 million to the expansion that we did at Discovery World that serves our entire community.
So can I be somebody who appeals to that?
When I was the secretary nominee...
The State Senate had to approve me and I was approved by 33 to nothing vote.
Now that shouldn't be a big deal.
A governor should have the ability to appoint people who are capable, qualified, but in, you know, in the last eight years, there have been like 25 appointees for Governor Evers who have been pushed out.
It happened four times in the 40 years before that.
And so, you know, I'd like to think all of that is a reflection of the fact that I can do it.
The fact that, again, you probably have seen your Republican friends in mind saying the candidate who is mostly
I'd like to see more of my democratic friends agree with that, but that's an indication of the fact that I could actually bring people down ballot along, and I have the ability to, because of the work that I have done, because I've been a pragmatic leader and demonstrated effect, that's the thing that I can bring that I think sets me apart from some other candidates, and it makes it less about ideology when you get to the general election, and more about pragmatism, and more about who is
actually capable of dealing with the problems we have with health care with education with housing with child care like who is going to be the candidate who can do that.
And I will stand toe to toe with Tom Tiffany on that issue and any other issue.
Yes or no.
Do you have a track record of success of negotiating with Republicans and winning?
Okay.
I mean, I got I think there are things we had to do at the state capital budget that you know And and how do you make that the job that I had in state government was how do you actually make the executive branch work?
We need to have a strong legislature We haven't had the ability to have a legislative majority in almost 20 years for the Democrats We were frozen out starting in 2010 by Scott Walker and they've gerrymandered these districts so that we have had almost no chance and now we've got fair maps
and the ability to have a legislature that can come along.
But the main thing that I have done is I have been somebody who's been responsible for making things work inside the executive branch.
I think that is as important as anything because, yes, we want the legislature to be along with us, but we better be in a position to squeeze as much as we can out of the executive branch.
There are several of your opponents who are against...
a parental choice program, which is an option for many families in the city of Milwaukee.
I don't know if you've seen the statistics, but they are abysmal for African American children, and I think that personally, if parents have options, including wanting to send their children to schools in which other educators may send their schools, I believe that that legal, that legitimate, that constitutional option should continue to exist.
You're familiar with the troubles that we have in education and also hampers the future of Wisconsin's workforce if we don't have a well educated Group of folks coming out of high school and beyond your thoughts on the parental choice program and do you want to end it on day one like several of your Opponents want to do
well the answer that for the question do I want to end do I want to end it on day one the answer is no
You know, so one, let me tell you this.
My wife and I have lived in the city for the last 25 years.
We have two kids.
They're now both in college.
Our two kids went to the Milwaukee Public Schools for a total of like 22 years, from K3 through 8th grade.
And then we paid for them to go to private high schools.
So we've run the gamut in the experience.
And let me tell you about our personal connection to school choice in Milwaukee.
You know, my wife and I have been involved in the Big Brothers Big Sisters program for more than 20 years.
Eric is my little brother, and Shanika is Audra's little sister.
And so we've been doing that.
Shanika is now a parent, and her daughter is 14.
And her daughter went to Milwaukee College Prep.
And through a charter school, and then she got a voucher to go to Wisconsin Lutheran High School.
I think this will be her sophomore year.
She's now 14.
They actually lived with us for a few months after she was born, because Shanika wasn't in a relationship that was very healthy for her.
So these are people who we have been involved with over the course of their lifetimes.
And I'll tell you, you know...
Killani goes to Wisconsin Lutheran because she can get a voucher.
Otherwise, they live way out on the northwest side.
Maybe she'd be going to Vincent.
This is a real thing.
We need to make sure that Vincent, that we are increasing the outcomes, making better outcomes at Vincent, but are we in a position where we're going to tell somebody that they can't send their kid who has an opportunity to thrive at Wisconsin-Lucin?
Like, that's not something that I want to be able to take away, that I'm in any position to take away from families in Milwaukee.
And so, you know, there are distinctions that I make about the school choice, the voucher program in Milwaukee versus the rest of the state.
To be honest, it's a conversation piece.
much more outside Milwaukee now than it is inside Milwaukee.
There's levels of transparency.
The city of Green Bay puts on its property tax bill, here's how much money is going to the voucher program.
I think that that'd be good to do statewide.
I think that there are levels of accountability that can be increased.
The largest recipient of vouchers statewide is a virtual school now, or largely a virtual school.
That's different than I think the people who are going to some of the schools that you and I know are pretty
reducing really great results in Milwaukee.
And the results aren't great everywhere.
We need to hold everybody to account.
The other thing about the statewide program is that...
Data will tell you that most of the kids who are getting a voucher to go to those schools, their parents were paying for them to go to a private school before they ever had a voucher.
That's different than the bedrock of how the school choice program was created here in Milwaukee.
So, again, I make a distinction, and I will tell you, this is not a black and white issue on education.
It's one where there is lots of gray area, and we need to make sure we are managing in those gray areas, because ultimately, this is about outcomes.
We talked about the difference between outcomes for fourth graders in Milwaukee for white kids versus black kids is the worst in the country.
It's not much better as you go up.
There are all kinds of ways where we should just say that the outcomes here are not ones that we are going to live with.
In the recovery from COVID.
There were 38 states that measured how they were doing in the recovery on math.
Wisconsin finished 33rd, 35 states in terms of how we were covering on reading.
Wisconsin finished 30th.
If we think that those are tolerable results, if we think that the system we have now is good enough, then, you know, I don't know what state you're living in.
And so I'm not going to be somebody.
I want to make sure that we are doing right by the kids who are in the public school system here.
We should redo the school funding formula.
It's been flawed since it was introduced 33 years ago.
But to come in and say, on day
one, we're going to yank out kids from the schools that they've been in and schools that we know are demonstrating value.
Now, you know, here's one thing I would tell you, I'm for accountability.
I think the people who don't want accountability are the people who are running lousy schools, whether they're whether they're public schools, whether they're private schools, whether they're chartered schools, like we need to be in a position where people are held to account for results.
And we're saying that we are not going to any more just withstand results that are not tolerable for us, not acceptable in Milwaukee or anywhere else around
Speaking with Joe Brennan Democratic candidate for governor and a crowded primary then they got a little less crowded Then last Saturday got a little bit more crowded.
I'm gonna take a break when we come back I want to ask you about what seems like a shift of the at least the Democratic primary electorate to the left.
There's a very anti establishment theme that seems to be permeating through the Wisconsin political universe.
I want to talk to you about that
But then also general elections are a lot different than primaries.
If the Democratic primary voter has decidedly shifted to the left to get as far away from Donald Trump and his policies as possible, what does that mean for a general election where I believe that the majority of people who will show up to vote are not that far left?
They are much more centrist and moderate.
Joe Brennan is my in studio guest.
Don't go anywhere.
We'll both be right back.
The truth with Sherwin Hughes returns after this on 1017 the truth the truth app and 1017 the truth comm This is the truth with Sherwin Hughes on 1017 the truth the truth app and 1017 the truth comm
Joel Brennan's in studio.
He's a candidate for governor running as a Democrat
Joel, do you think that the Wisconsin electorate, I mean, general election voters, not primary voters, have they shifted to the left is Wisconsin a deep blue ultra liberal progressive state?
I mean, let's look at the Fox Valley.
Let's look at Warsaw.
Let's look at, you know, Woodruff and Monaco and Iron County.
Let's look at Western Wisconsin, some of the rural areas.
Do you think that the whole state has shifted far enough to the left that they would vote for a democratic socialist?
Or do you think general election voters are going to be much more practical and pragmatic about electing a policymaker that can get stuff done?
Your thoughts?
Pragmatic, but they're also with Wisconsin voters are mavericks too now You know the spring elections while it's a different election the spring elections give us some idea of where people are in Wisconsin and there were Counties that went blue for the first time in a generation for Chris Taylor So there's opportunity out there and I and I've been talking to farmers who have just gotten absolutely their hats handed to them by Donald Trump every input costs going up, you know
feed seed, transportation, fertilizer, all of them have voted
for Trump.
And now they're saying to us, Okay, Democrats, you know, now we're giving you a chance, we will give you an opportunity to listen and to help us.
And, and again, in Wisconsin, we have an example in Tammy Baldwin, if somebody who has absolutely been that and been there and done that, she goes to those places, she has demonstrated that she can be effective, like
That is a model for us to follow.
But here's the other thing that you see is that Democrats are seen in statewide polling.
They're trusted less than the Republicans are here.
And part of that is around too much ideology, too much people thinking that we're too focused only on social issues and not on kitchen table issues.
I think those are the things that we need to make sure we're getting away from.
Because part of the reasons why Democrats poll so low in the state of Wisconsin is that Democrats hate other Democrats.
like there's a there's a food fight going on inside the party and it has been for a while and so again we're where general election voters are and this is what I have heard time and again in every place I have gone around the state.
They want to get stuff done.
They know that things are bad when it comes to education.
They know that we are pitting property taxpayers against kids in this endless cycle of referendums that are going on all around the state.
They know that health care costs are blowing people out of the water, that the people are having a challenge staying in their homes, and they're saying, OK, tell us how you can practically fix it.
Don't promise us everything and then not deliver, because I think that's part of what our challenge is.
If we are just so angry that we're going to over
promise and under deliver, this is going to be a very short time for the Democrats to be in the majority.
What I'd like to do is, you know, 2010 was probably the most consequential election of my lifetime in Wisconsin.
Scott Walker won gerrymandered maps, Act 10, all the stuff we've lived with over the last 15 years, a disinvestment lack of focus in places like Milwaukee.
I'd like to say.
2026 is when we close the book on that.
And for the next 15 years, we usher in a Wisconsin that closer to the one that some of us knew when we were growing up.
Now there are still problems for us to fix that haven't been fixed in 50 years, but we're only going to get to those if we can actually be the Wisconsin that I think we have been in the past with our progressive values, with investments in the right way and pragmatically trying to get stuff done.
The most popular candidate as of right now per the polls is undecided.
If you look at poll numbers, Joel, you're not up there.
You're not in double digits.
David Crowley is not in double digits.
How much stock do you put in polls when still, even at this very late hour, the most popular candidate is undecided.
So number one, how much stock do you put in polls?
Number two, can you convince the undecideds to support Joel Brennan in a primary and general election?
Well, one, as long as the largest segment is undecided, I think that is a good harbinger for somebody like me.
for whom the problem has been not being well enough known.
Because when people get to know who I am, then they become supporters.
If time and again in this race, as I have walked into rooms where there were really undecided voters, whether it was in a forum or whether it was just a presentation, I'm walking out with 60, 70% of those people being for me.
So that is something that is valuable for me.
The fact that we have undecideds this many, undecideds this late, I think people have just started to pay attention in this race.
All of the stuff that's happening
happened in the last week, the Sarah Rodriguez and the campaign finance issues that she had.
All of the other tumult that's happened in the last week, I think that has gotten people's antenna up.
It's gotten them watching what's going on in the race.
It's having them thinking about what's going to happen in a general election, who's the best general election candidate.
And I will continue to make the argument that because of the level of transparency I have had about who I have been over the course of my career, because of the fact that I have
executive experience going back 20 years leadership experience about getting stuff done and delivering results.
I am the best candidate to move on to that general election.
And so, you know, Wisconsin has a history of taking candidates from the back of the pack and elevating them to the front and then that candidate going on and winning in a general election.
I worked on a campaign.
You might have been working on the same same campaign in 1992 for Tom Barrett and Russ Feingold came out of having had less than 10% of the
of the polling data a month before the election and ultimately winning the primary with like 70% of the vote and winning a general election that year where, you know, coming from, almost coming from nowhere.
So is there precedent in Wisconsin?
Is there opportunity for me?
I say absolutely there is.
As you travel around the state, I think you're pretty well versed on what the major issues are because Wisconsin issues are also national issues as well.
health care costs, affordability, inflation, gas prices, etc.
But as you're traveling around the state and talking to different groups of people, is there something that you heard that you never thought of or never accounted for or something that maybe has slipped under the radar that a lot of voters are discussing that you may not have thought about?
Well, you know, it's different in different places, but people, it's around affordability, but it's also about responsibility, the issue about what people care about related to Wisconsin's environment.
Like I have had opportunities in every part of the state, urban areas and rural areas.
You know, in lots of the areas people are mad about the potential, they're angry at government about the potential of data centers and what they're going to do to scar the landscape.
We had a, you know, you had a conversation here in Milwaukee even.
At the old capital court about this and you know like that happens in urban areas it happens in rural areas But but I think people feel still that there is a fundamental connection between us and the land and there's an opportunity We have had this false choice between can we you know have?
Good things and maintain a good environment or can we have economic development?
You know and people in Milwaukee here have seen Disinvestment have seen you know some of the the worst outcomes when it comes to health being directly
related to the fact that we've disinvested in communities and neighborhoods around Milwaukee and let those be scarred for the long term.
Those are things that I think people, no matter where you are around the state, believe that we have a connection and we have a responsibility and we can do something about it.
I think that there are ways that we can start to bring that back.
And I want to do that.
I want to be in a position where we are creating jobs in the green economy in Milwaukee and in Wisconsin.
We have an opportunity and an obligation.
to rebuild and make our energy grid more efficient.
There's opportunities to do that.
There's weatherization that happens in communities here in Milwaukee that there are jobs that are associated with doing this that are also going to be about how do we make sure that we have a Wisconsin that we want for the time being.
I think I just saw yesterday that July here has been the driest since the Dust Bowl since 1936.
This is what we're living in right now.
that there's no climate change happening and when you get thousand year floods and this kind of stuff happening within a
Got one more segment.
I wanna ask you about how you, if you become a governor.
How do you sell Wisconsin to industry leaders?
How do you encourage them to come to Wisconsin and hire our people and see Wisconsin the future of jobs of business and industries won't ask you about that but also I was I'm watching the television because I sometimes watch the TV and There's an ad that's in very heavy rotation.
It's in one of these third-party groups that's very closely aligned with both Trump and Tom Tiffany.
It's a restoration pack
Commercial and I'm starting to see it several times a day and they name Mandela Barnes and they name sir Rodriguez of course is in that commercial and Francesca Hong is in that commercial, but they also pit those individuals with Bernie Sanders and AOC and I found it interesting that you were not mentioned in that commercial because what I think the right wants to do is put these Democratic Socialists in one box and they can't put you in that box and I have heard
from many a Republican.
Sure, when we're sure glad that people aren't really talking much about that, Joe Brennan, because we are afraid of him.
It reminds me a lot of the 1996 reelection campaign of Bill Clinton, where the Republicans could not use anything against Bill Clinton because his campaign was so incredibly inclusive politically that the Republicans did not have much fire to throw at him.
So take break.
Come back.
going to ask you about, of course Milwaukee being the economic engine, but then how do you convince other businesses, companies to come to Wisconsin to find a comfortable home here and really develop our state economically because you know that we need jobs.
The truth with Sherwin Hughes featuring an interview with Joel Brennan, candidate for governor.
We'll be right back.
The truth with Sherwin Hughes returns after this on 1017 the truth the truth app and 1017 the truth comm This is the truth with Sherwin Hughes on 1017 the truth the truth app and 1017 the truth comm
Joel how do you
Sell Wisconsin and all of our great people on our assets and our resources to convince, you know Milwaukee's economic engine, you know that Freshwater Sciences, we've got great institutions of higher education go Panthers proud UW-Milwaukee graduate here How do you convince other people to see the value in Wisconsin to bring jobs opportunities and employment to the state?
Yeah, well, you know, I think I do what we do best and what we should be doing, which is grow our own, you know, with the first year that I spent with Governor Evers as Secretary of Administration, I spend most time almost every day trying to figure out there is anything there with the Foxconn deal.
Like you remember that it was the eighth wonder of the world that Donald Trump and Scott Walker had said, you know, this is what's going to happen 20 million square feet is going to just
come at like a spaceship and land in Racine County and 13,000 jobs and very quickly we found out that you know for the three billion dollars we had promised them they were much better at putting out press releases than they were ever going to be at producing flat screen flat screen TVs.
Are we still paying them and do we claw some of our money?
We brought we brought that down from three billion dollars to about 80 million and I think they're you know they may have been continuing to if because if they grow like any other company they should have the ability to get something but but
What they have gotten is much less and much closer to what every other company has gotten.
So instead of that being the strategy that we're going to somehow go out and believe me, I want to be a salesperson for Wisconsin.
I think that that would be the most fun part of the job is trying to open markets, trying to make sure we got $4 billion that we send out in agriculture every year.
Can we do something to increase that by 25%?
What can we be doing out of the universities, the technical schools?
creating opportunity there.
That's the kind of thing that I would want to make sure we're doing.
And I know it's not a Milwaukee story, but it's one that we should all appreciate and understand.
The Oscar Mayer plant in Madison used to have 4,000 people working there, and the Oscar Mayer wiener mobile, creating that.
Now it's going to be the next home potentially for nuclear fusion that comes out of the UW, where...
imagine its first life was feeding people physically, the next life could be around what are we doing in this technology to create jobs, to try to do things around medical research and all those.
States and communities are living and breathing so that's the kind of stuff that I absolutely want to do and I still live here in this community and and I am going to retire I'm gonna stay in this community and so if I can be anything it's gonna be somebody who wants to grow that it goes back to the conversation we had around education and how do we make Milwaukee a real use that engine use the engine of opportunity it starts in early childhood that then you know you have to have a robust and a great K-12 system and
get kids into either right into the workforce or getting into the UW, the technical schools, and actually going out and building the future.
Growing that, making sure that that infrastructure is in place, that's as good as we can do even as we're trying to get people from outside Wisconsin to come here.
But growing our own is something that I feel is so much more important than believing or praying that another Foxconn is going to come and land here in southeastern Wisconsin.
In a perfect world, you're elected governor, you've got a democratic legislate legislature and they say, Governor Brennan, you can do whatever you want with a surplus.
I don't even know what the surplus is down to.
I know it's been dwindling.
If you had the ultimate wish list of things that you would invest in with our surplus, that you help build and create.
Where would you prioritize at least some of those resources?
So I'll tell you where the first hundred million dollars of it would start and I agree We need to be cautious of it because this is we live in a Donald Trump economy It was supposed to be two point four million dollars as of next June 30th Like I think we should be very cautious about that but no matter what we're gonna have a hundred million dollars It should go automatically right into early childhood education around the state of Wisconsin Wisconsin was one of the last states to invest in early childhood as of June 30th
the money that we have been spending, the paltry amount we've been spending on early childhood is going away.
And so there are 25% of childcare providers who say they may close around Wisconsin in the next six months to a year.
Every every one of those daycares is going to have waiting lists the people who are paying for it their costs are going up There's a more than a billion dollars and Milwaukee sees this too more than a billion dollars of productivity that sits on the sidelines every year mainly from women because they can't find accessible affordable or quality daycare and so one of the first things I will make sure that as an emergency come day one of My administration that we are doing that but but we also need a long
term fixed for that it can't just be that we're limping along from one crisis to the next this is a situation my kids went to neighborhood house I ended up you know first I was a parent then I was on the board then I was the chair of the board at neighborhood house like I've been engaged in this for 20 years and I've watched how we have what should be the springboard to having kids do well in school we are using we are treating as an afterthought those are the kind of things we absolutely have to do will have impact in Milwaukee but only have impact statewide where 70% of kids live in a child
care desert around the state.
I would like to make a request in the event that you get elected governor.
I'm going to hold you to this a part of that surplus or whatever is left be invested here in Milwaukee as the economic engine of the state in small business development and opportunities for minority owned businesses so that they can build capacity in a very anti DEI anti supplier diversity climate is that something you
If you're a candidate you're over here.
If you're a governor, you get to sit in the
Fair enough.
I only got a couple minutes left.
Your initial reaction when you heard that Sarah Rodriguez was.
little upside down her campaign finance reports, and then when she dropped out of the race, what was your initial thought?
So my initial thought was I am certain that I was the first candidate to lay out five questions that she needed to answer, you know, because these are the idea that you would mismanage $600,000 or a million dollars and then be expected to be handed the keys to put together a $110 billion budget.
I think that's something that lots of people would have very suspicious of.
You know, when she decided to drop out, I sent her a note.
I appreciate everybody who's in this race.
I appreciate what this means to her family.
I don't wish ill on her.
I hope that she is doing well, and I hope that she, you know, that she serves honorably the rest of her term as Lieutenant Governor, as she has done over the course of the last year.
And that she does well from there.
Like, we are friends.
The people who are in this race together, we are all friends.
We'll be friends afterwards.
We will unite to make sure we beat Tom Tiffany and that
We can be the Wisconsin we want to be no matter what.
Got one minute left.
When you found out the governor Evers was endorsing David Crowley, you say, dang it, Tony, Tony, Tony.
Does that make you mad?
Are you OK with it?
I'm not a hell yes I'm mad you know and and you know what what I was I was the same as every other Democrat and most other voters in the state of Wisconsin and every other candidate who thought he was never going to endorse anybody in this race because that's what he had said over the better part of the last year and I caught up with him when he was on a plane to Africa when he was telling me he was going to say governor I didn't know you were going to do this and since you are since I know you are endorse me because I'm the one who's got 20 years of demonstrated leadership experience I'm the one who's been there to solve problems I was there
alongside you to make sure Wisconsin navigated its way out of COVID.
You know, I must not have been, I must not have convinced him, but the good thing is the people who are listening here, voters in Wisconsin, they still get to decide.
It's not somebody else putting the thumb on the scale that does this.
It's individuals still making their decision.
More people are paying attention today, and I still have the strongest argument about being the best candidate to be Tom Tiffany and the best candidate to hit the ground running on day one and be the kind of governor Wisconsin can be proud of.
Joe Brennan, give them your campaign website, please.
Thank you, sir.
Good luck to you on the campaign trail.
Thank you guys for listening.
Lunch break is up next.