Transcript
Jackpot Ron Johnson Attempts To Fleece Taxpayers (Hour 1)
The Todd Allbaugh Show · Wed Nov 12, 2025
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Good afternoon, everybody.
Todd Alba, along with our producer and engineer, Mr. Aaron Zommers on the board.
It is six minutes past the hour of two o'clock on this Wednesday, November 12th, 2025.
It's a great day to be a Wisconsinite and it is hot.
That's right.
We've made it to the middle of the week.
Welcome everybody to World Headquarters in downtown Madison, Wisconsin at the crossroads of State and Fairchild Street.
Mr. Zamers, let's take a quick look out there at the old Sam Davison Street Cam.
It is a beautiful.
beautiful fall day, a little warmer today.
Look at that people milling about downtown Madison, the one remaining tree across from our studios, turning a golden yellow as the fall is upon us.
A beautiful day.
Get out there and enjoy it.
Gonna be cooler after this weekend.
Temperatures may hit 60 degrees by Saturday.
and then cooling off.
So looking forward to some nice fall weather here.
Big show today.
Stay with us.
Lots going on at the bottom of this hour.
In studio, we will talk to former state representative and now a candidate for Congress in the 7th congressional district, i.e.
the North Woods.
Fred Clark is going to be here in studio talking to us about all things congressional and up North.
And speaking of that right now, our normal panel.
Joining us from the up north studios of Lake Wastoda, you can hear him every morning from six until nine.
With mornings of Pat Kraitlo, the aforementioned Pat Kraitlo, Patrikawari.
Oh, I'm fine, but never mind me.
I'm looking at the monitor.
Trigvie, you have never looked more handsome.
I mean, you are like a dead ringer for Matt Flick.
Oh, wait, Trigvie just popped up on my monitor here.
I thought there'd been this big old upgrade.
He had a
hair transplant with that
cloth of
hair.
hair transplanted.
I mean it's been quite, yeah so meanwhile on the right side of our screen is team hair and on the left side of the screen over here.
That's
okay.
For
those watching on Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter, yes, we have a packed quite a lot.
The right and above is like Hollywood or the Brady Bunchier or Hollywood Squares.
In the right hand square, we have a playing along Matt Flynn, two-time chair of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin and author and US Navy veteran and an attorney joining us via stream yard in Milwaukee.
Matt Flynn, welcome back to the program.
game.
This game show look here because Matt and I have been accused of having game show hair like Wink, Martindale.
Right.
You don't say you used to have this kind of stuff, you know.
Well, you both
look fantastic on the left hand side.
As Pat said, you have me and Mr. Baldine and Trigvie, who is a little bit more advanced, although he I think he shaves his head now.
Yeah.
But he has a great beard.
Former Republican like myself, River Falls native and now a senior advisor on the Lincoln
joining us from the Tony suburbs of Washington D.C.
Trig Vilsen.
How are you?
invited some 16 year old to come
right?
doesn't
It's amazing.
It's amazing how much better and younger you look when you stop doing a 6 AM radio show.
Healthiest decision that guy ever made.
Look
what it's done to me.
No, no, you both look fine.
Speaking of things that do not look fine though,
Gentlemen, I want I want you all here at the top of the show to talk about this story that I'm just astounded I think Pat you might have I started listening to Pat this morning about 7 15 So you probably talked about it earlier, but I know our friend Jane McNair and Greg talked about it on their show But other than those two programs I have not seen any national media as far as television or radio talking about this today
although their husbands were great reporting for the New York Times and other newspaper organizations.
What we're talking about, folks, if you missed it last night, he had to be a nerd like me to have Wisconsin basketball on one screen and C-SPAN on the other.
Last night, the US House of Representatives in a committee hearing were going through this basically deal that the Senate passed a couple of days ago to reopen the government and tucked away sneakily is a provision.
which would allow eight U.S.
senators, all Republican, including Wisconsin's U.S.
Senator Ron Johnson, to be paid out up to $500,000 in, I guess you'd say, remuneration damages?
I don't know what.
Because they were egreged.
Because, you know, there was that little thing of Ron Johnson being a vote mule.
trying to take illegal votes from the Wisconsin State Capitol out to Mike Pence to overturn the election.
And you know, Pence, I'm not sure whether it was the gallows, Matt Flynn on the lawn, or whether it was the chance of hanging Mike Pence when he had a moment of clarity.
And he said, no, no, no, no, even that's too far for me stealing an election.
So he told Ron Johnson to keep his votes in his pocket.
And they certified Joe Biden as they rightfully should be President of the United States.
And now.
Now we see that there is this deal for $500,000 and what's worse to me is there seems to be language in this bill, whatever you want to call it, that would hamstring the U.S.
Department of Justice from winning if Ron Johnson and the other seven senators sued.
Matt, let's get right to the details as far as legally as an attorney.
Do I have this about right?
And let me just say a couple of things.
This bill on that provision is fraud on the hoof.
It's pure fraud.
What it says is that Ron Johnson can get $500,000 because there was a subpoena for his phone records, a lawful subpoena.
That gives immunity to the judge issuing it and to the agent executing it because he had not just Wisconsin, he had the Michigan.
fake electors in his pocket.
Try to feed them to Pence's chief of staff.
He should have been prosecuted.
He should have been prosecuted.
He was not.
And now he should get, what, 500 grand?
Two things to keep in mind.
One is Trump says he's going to take 250 million grand, remember, for the execution of the search warrant in Mar-a-Lago.
But number two, they baked in this poison pill that says that the Justice Department can't even defend the suit.
Now, that is fraud.
If I'm a federal judge and I see that, I would appoint a special federal prosecutor to defend the suit, because you can't just use the courts to steal $500,000.
apparently now you can the grift is very real here and it's no surprise that you know Ron Johnson is leading the way on this I would note as the New York Times does in their story that seizing someone's phone records
It does not mean investigators could listen to the conversations or know the contents of them.
This is metadata.
Like in your phone bill, the numbers that were called, how long the call lasted, from where the calls were made.
And what you're looking for there is not...
necessarily the contents of the call, but for patterns that might connect the dots, you know, the way that all the dots connect Ron Johnson and ways that he continues to deny as being, like you said, a ballot mule as part of the fake electors plot.
Trivielson, four Republicans, Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger were part of the bipartisan January 6 commission that found obvious wrongdoing that Trump instigated this attempted insurrection.
And you have the U.S.
Department of Justice under Biden.
doing what they should, investigate to make sure nobody did something wrong.
And for that, and clearly Johnson participated in this, he said, oh, well, I just, I had for just a couple of minutes, but he doesn't deny being a part of this.
And now he wants 500 grand because the US Department of Justice did what they should.
individuals to even suggest that they would be willing to take it is just outrageous.
And last time I checked, Matt, where would that money come from?
Whose money would the $500,000 times four be?
Or eight?
U.S.
taxpayers.
That's who'd be paying it.
It's outrageous.
It's outrageous.
And I think...
What I think it's really about is they probably are afraid of Jack Smith testifying openly.
There are attempts going on to try and undermine what Jack Smith was doing, because remember it was Jack Smith who requested the phone records because he was doing due diligence as an investigator.
Of course, he would be looking at trying to see who was calling who.
I
wouldn't you Matt Flynn you've talked about Jack Smith's network a lot I mean he was doing what he was supposed to do was he not to trigger his point
by taking money and damages is trying to change the narrative about what really happened, giving money basic.
He fired the prosecutors who prosecuted the wrong, and then he's paying money to the people who perpetrated the wrong.
And as Pat Kratlow said, it's a great point.
So far, it's only a subpoena for metadata.
But I got news for you.
Even if the subpoena had been, you can wiretap his phone.
Quartz can do that.
And if they do, they have
Complete immunity and so does the agent listening to it.
This is a scam It's a fraud to simply stick their hands into the taxpayers money and take out 500 grand Pat Crite.
Well, you are a
democratic play people for fools Pat you are a democratic state senator Trig V you've worked for guys like Ray and Paul and and John McCain and others Pat you then Trig V last night
Nobody seems to know where this came from.
I don't know.
Who put this in there?
knows.
Nobody knows.
As a legislator, I know how easy it is to slip something into a bill at the last minute and hope that nobody's catching it.
And again, by and large, at the legislative level, it's a lot easier to catch.
The bills aren't quite as complex.
It still happens.
But with a federal bill, these things are just so monstrous.
If anybody's listening out there that can put AI to good use, let's put AI to good use and somehow devouring these bills quicker so that we can find slimy stuff like this before it comes up because now you've got a lot of Republicans.
They're squirming.
They don't like this at all.
They're going to get an earful, but it's too far down that the train is too far down the track.
Now you'd have to start over.
Trig V. Olsen, I work for Scott Kluge at the congressional level and Dale Schultz at the state Senate level.
If I would have been a top staffer at that time and let my boss vote yes on that.
knowing that was in there or didn't know it was in there, I'll be gone.
I mean, there's, agree or disagree, Trig V. There is almost no way that these people, both Republicans and the eight Democrats, by the way, who voted for this in the Senate, that they didn't know this was in there.
I mean, it's possible only the yeah, maybe I mean to Pat's point there already is the AI machine reading all the bills like there's there's there's people selling that but No, I can't imagine that they would have gone along with it.
They would have broken earlier.
I think had they no one
I don't
know why
I think somebody slipped this in.
I think, you know, to Matt's point, it's all about the PR because then what they'd be able to say afterwards is, see, none of this was true.
In fact, Justice Department had to pay $500,000 to each of these people for, you know, tapping their wires or whatever it was, Trump's famous quote back in 2016.
But here's the thing, for people who are listening at the end of the day, like, do you think Ron Johnson should be getting $500,000 of your money?
Like, I mean, Ron Johnson's
pretty good.
God, he married well.
Yeah, right.
He married well.
Ron Johnson didn't create anything.
He married into the wealth.
It was his wife's parents and family that had the company.
Ron Johnson never created anything except a good deal for marriage, right?
he married he married up that's what that's what might Matt Flynn tells me all the time we do shows together and his lovely wife Mary is there he says they married up
it's the only way to do it buddy all the way
all right come on back we're gonna talk a little bit more about this and there is more breaking news on hemp
And one of the guys speaking out against it is somebody that Trinkley Olsen used to work for.
We'll tell you who and discuss it after this.
We have Matt Flynn, Pat Kretland, Trinkley
Olsen, and you as we all post, John Cross, Wisconsin, on the Civic Media Radio.
Welcome back to the Tunnelball show on the Civic Media radio network.
It is 22 past the hour of two o'clock to sit around smoking a bowl with Matt Flynn packed quite low and Trig V. Olsen here in the middle of the week.
No, no, we're joking, for goodness sake, we're joking.
Little Bob Dylan there, man.
Because we're talking about not necessarily getting stoned, but hemp, gonna get to that in a minute, but quickly let's go to Spooner.
Spooner, I barely knew her.
Paul and Spooner, thanks for calling.
555-752-4842.
Paul, go ahead.
What do you got on Ron Johnson?
Well, what I'm thinking is that what we have here is Ron Johnson and Donald Trump just basically going to line their pockets as they're on their way out because they know that they're not going to run for reelection and get reelected.
So line the pockets when you can.
But what I would really like to see the Democrats or Republicans instead of do is to face off with each one of these eight and just ask them, who put this in?
Did you put it in?
Do you want us to continue or pull this?
and see what they say.
Put them on the spot.
That's a great point.
Thanks, Paul.
I appreciate the call.
Pat, thoughts on that?
I think it's perfectly fair.
Don't expect an answer.
We always get that because again, we've got we've got the oh, I pardoned this guy Oh, I don't even know who he is and the speaker of the house saying I don't even know who this guy is So of course they're all gonna say I don't know how this guy in here It's it's it's amazing that people are cynical about politicians this way
We're talking about what happened last night in the US House of Representatives and a subcommittee where they're going through this the bill would reopen government the Senate already passed including Ron Johnson basically voted for $500,000 for himself if he goes to
court and gets it along with seven other Republican senators but guys also tucked into this little bill that nobody knows where this came from apparently it basically would outlaw hemp production in the United States of America including here in Wisconsin and
Hem, for those who don't know, we're not talking about the THC raising marijuana to smoke.
This is a hemp that's used in rope, it's used in clothing, and somebody that used to be involved in Rand Paul world, our own Trigvielson here on this panel, went to the center floor to speak about this, saying, look, Kentucky makes a lot of money on hemp production.
We should take this out of here.
None of his colleagues, very few supported him on this, but Trigvielson, what do you know about Rand Paul?
and his support of hemp.
And according to Bob Lang's paper from the Wisconsin Fiscal Bureau on this, Wisconsin makes a lot of money in hemp production as well.
And so has McConnell, for that matter.
I mean, it's a huge business in Kentucky.
And what you're seeing here is...
I mean, he's doing what senators do, which is, in theory, what they should always be doing, which is fighting for the interests of their constituents.
I'm not sure how taking 500 grand for being part of effort to falsify elections counts as taking care of your constituents, but more like giving it to your
constituents.
Pat Kretlow, you know agriculture in Wisconsin very well, of course, from your time in the state Senate, but again,
This is another instance where, look, Ron Johnson already voted for himself to trigger his point on this already.
But we have all the House delegation that's going to vote on this tonight, including this provision to get rid of hemp in Wisconsin.
It would seem to be packed quite low that people should be calling their congressional offices throughout Wisconsin and saying, don't hurt Wisconsin's ag community.
Yeah, but to the larger issue is something else that they should tell, especially the senators who are involved in this.
Read the bill.
I mean, we hear this all the time that they're going to do this, that there's going to be like this 24 hour wait before they vote on anything.
And then things get rushed right on through.
It happens in Washington, DC.
It happens in Madison.
And they know how to ram these things through, sneak things in.
And we just, we need more people who will say like any one of these eight Democrats.
could have said, I am getting lots of heat, but I'm going to go along with the Republicans on this, but you got to give me time to see what all is in here.
And they didn't.
And it doesn't mean it's all their fault, but we got to have more due diligence, including the ability to vote no on something if you're not given enough time for a decent summary of what's actually in the damn thing.
Matt Flynn give you a dealer's choice.
You could talk about this or you could also talk about the other big story today, which is there's new evidence on the Epstein files that Trump from basically Epstein from the grave saying that Trump knew about these girls.
He was spent a lot of time alone with him.
Is there anything legally here new that's that's useful or does anything matter on this subject anymore?
We're assuming that a that the
the bill that's going to pass tonight passes.
But if there are three defectors, it's not going to pass.
And the fact of the matter is, there are some people that are angry as hell about this.
The second thing is that with regard to the Epstein files, the thing stinks to high heaven.
I mean, Epstein committed suicide when he was on Suicide Watch.
Does a guy walk the way for it?
Supposedly.
Supposedly.
So the Russian mob you didn't
get
give
But the second thing about it is that
Some of these emails that came out today suggest that Trump was alone with a couple of these victims, or at least one of these victims for I think a couple of hours.
So at some point, at some point when the vote comes up to disclose the entire file, Republican congressmen are going to be very, very hard pressed.
to vote against it.
They really are.
It takes a much larger vote to pass.
But some of these guys are going to have their hats handed to them if they vote against it.
Yeah, it's a big political issue.
Aside from the tragedy of the victims here, it's also a big political issue.
And we'll find out tonight because this new Congresswoman from Arizona, Pat,
is getting
sworn in hopefully today.
Finally, after what?
How many days waiting?
Yeah.
And it's a crime.
It should never have come to that.
And again, what are we talking about here?
If Derek Van Orden and Tony Weed and all the rest vote for this, they're voting for a cover-up.
And so let's not wait for the 218 votes.
Let's get 400 plus votes out.
Get this out here.
Get justice to the victims.
Doesn't matter if it's a Democrat or Republican in those files.
Let's do the right thing.
You can hear at Pat Crite Law every morning from six until nine on the Civic Media Writing Network.
Morning to Pat Crite Law and go buy Matt Flynn's new book.
Wherever you find your books, Matthew J. Flynn.
It's a great read.
Thank you both very much.
Trigby, I'll come back with Fred Clark after this sitting right here in the studio on his congressional run.
to the 7th district is the all balls show at the Civic Media already number.
Pursuing truth wherever it may lead and having fun doing it.
Welcome back to the Toddleball show on the Civic Media Ready Network.
Glad to have you along.
35 now past the hour of two o'clock on this Wednesday November 12th, 2025.
Trigvie Olsen, Senior Advisor at the Lincoln Project, a River Falls boy and a former Republican like myself joins us from the suburbs of Washington, DC via StreamYard.
And Trigvie, I know how passionate you are about your home part of the state, Northern Wisconsin.
pleased to have our next guest here in the studio.
He is a former state representative for the state of Wisconsin.
That's where I first met him during my time as a political flack.
That's a spokesperson and a staffer working for Dale Schultz.
Former State Representative Fred Clark joins us here in studio and now a Democratic candidate for Congress in Wisconsin's 7th Congressional District, comprising much of northern Wisconsin.
And now all of it, the now district of Tom Tiffany, of course, who is running for governor.
Representative Clark, welcome to the show.
It's great
have you here as we do with everyone on the show for the first time.
Tell us a little bit about yourself, where you grew up, your time in the legislature, and how you ended up in Northern Wisconsin.
from
And since then, most of that time, I've worked as a forester, conservationist, land manager.
working all over the state from a home base in Baraboo.
We spent three terms in the state legislature representing Baraboo, parts of Sock, Columbia, Marquette counties.
Got to know your former boss Dale Schultz really well during those years and like any anybody elected office a crash course in public policy.
I served on the council and forestry served on natural resources board during that time.
And after 2014, I took a step back, ran a couple of different nonprofits doing conservation and environmental work.
And four years ago after going through a divorce, I decided to
take a move to the northern part of Wisconsin.
So packed up my sailboat and the fishing rods and the hunting rifles and moved up to Bayfield County and just loved it up there.
Well, I'm glad to have you here because I don't know, Trig V, I can't think of a better candidate to be running for Congress regardless of party.
than you.
And I say that only because when I first got to meet you, Dale Schultz, of course, Republican, and I remember one of the first times when he met you and he came back and he goes, do you know Fred Clark?
And I said, oh, I know he's in the legislature.
He goes, man, he's impressive.
And I know because Dale does manage forest on his land.
And that's where he really bonded with you.
And I think just he has a great deal of respect for your knowledge of forestry and of conservation.
And
you know, Trevi, you like to say on this show all the time, there are two kinds of politicians, those that want to be and those that want to do.
And Fred Clark, your time in the legislature, you always struck me as someone who wanted to do.
And your former boss, Dale Schultz, he was a mentor to me because I watched Dale stand up on principle time and again.
And he was an embodiment, I think, of the kind of
Public service ethic that we need to see more of today.
So what would and you're I've been out of politics for a while Why on earth on these crazy times?
What what motivated you to get back into this and run for Congress on the 7th district?
Watching the unfolding of the poison pills that have come out of this administration since this January, the way it's affecting people throughout Northern Wisconsin, it really hit home for me.
I spent quite a bit of time on the road this summer with a few friends, because we wanted to take the temperature of the 7th congressional district.
And we visited over the course of a couple of road trips about 20 counties.
Talked to Democrats, talked to independents, walked into bars and restaurants and just started talking to voters or regular people, I should
say.
And the fact of the matter is the pain being distributed by this administration is being felt by people in so many different ways across the political spectrum.
What's clear to me right now is that people are paying attention in a way they hadn't before.
And I think people are open to an idea of better representation.
that's the case we're going to be making in the next year.
And Todd knows this every time we have candidates on, the thing I'm saying to them, you know, I spent my life doing campaigns in Republican politics and now I find myself talking to Democrats more often.
So take it for what it's worth.
But you know, in Wisconsin...
I really think, and I think about my best friends back in St.
Croix County, my beer drinking buddies, right?
What's important to them is politicians who will come and talk to them.
The success of Tommy Thompson and Tammy Baldwin is based on the same sort of get out and talk to people.
One of the things though that I think about the seventh district that's so interesting, right?
You have everything from Twin Cities suburbs in St.
Croix County, where I'm from, up to Bayfield and places like where you're from that have a lot.
fewer people, did you see that same kind of pain across all parts of the district or was it?
There's certainly some more, call it more prosperous areas with higher incomes and suburban bedroom communities like you might find in Hudson or parts of St.
Croix County.
Even the region where I live around Lake Superior, there's certainly a lot of recreational focus there.
A lot of property owners live out of state, as you know.
Northern Wisconsin is predominantly rural.
It's dominated by small communities and small businesses, farming and forestry and small manufacturing.
And there, I think the impacts are being felt really widely.
You know, those affordable Care Act subsidy, the elimination of that tax subsidy is just a gut punch for people who are going to see their premiums quadruple or even more.
They got to figure out whether to either mine their retirement savings or drop their health coverage altogether.
And that's the kind of pain that I think has people's attention.
And it's why we're going to make the case that.
that we need better representation for the North.
We're talking with former State Representative Fred Clark, who is now a Democratic candidate for United Congress in the 7th Congressional District of the state.
The seat is currently being held by Tom Tiffany, who, of course, is not running for reelection because he is going to be running for the Republican nomination for governor.
We have him here in studio and joining us via stream yard as he does every Wednesday.
Trigvielson, Senior Advisor of the Lincoln Project.
Representative Clark, Trigvielson, I talk about this in Trigvielson.
Puts a big, you know emphasis on this politics north of highway 29 and the Democrats more recently With the exception of Tammy Baldwin have had trouble winning up there But you you're familiar guys like Bob jowk and Roger Breski and Trigby.
I'm sure I'm missing people along the way Democrats Dave Obie
I mean I mean Democrats who did win up there.
I'm looking at your website
Here, Trigvie, here's Representative Clark's agenda for Ready for Congress.
Rebuilding a rural economy, border safety and immigration, health care for everyone, a future for our farms and forests, our constitution and the rule of law.
That does not seem lefty to me.
I mean, it seems pretty mainstream.
It seems like that meshes well with Trigvie's barred drinking buddies in northern Wisconsin.
Maybe we can say that's a common sense platform.
But I mean, absolutely, if you look at what makes these communities prosperous, it's a productivity of our forests.
It's a productivity of our farms.
And certainly the recreational outdoor sector, hunting, fishing, outdoor pursuits is all important, but we've got to take care of that resource.
Nowhere in this state is that more important than here.
So to see the national forest system, for example, have a large number of their senior employees fired,
while they're trying to supply the timber that helps make businesses work, just an example of policies that are completely out of touch with what we need here in the North.
Trig V, you put on this however you want to do it, but again, those values that Fred Clark is talking about here for Congress, you know this better than I do.
being from there, it just seems to me that that's how you connect with people.
And you find where they really are at, whether it's their bar, their kitchen table, or VFW.
And how many times, Trigby, you more so than I, because Trigby is much more successful politically than I am.
But you get candidates and you're like, oh, man, we got to put him in a hunt.
We got to make him look like a hunter here.
We got to put it.
And, you know, I remember Bob Cast and former Republican U.S.
Senator came to the Grant County Fair one time and he came right from D.C.
in his.
And he went into a tent honest to God he came out his staff and bought him a pair of Wrangler jeans from JC Penney and a flannel shirt and the jeans still have like the size Yeah, the label on it and and here you got your friend Clark the real deal.
You don't have to shine them up
Yeah, I mean at the end of the day, right authenticity people people spot a phony from a miles and miles away, and I think
I think you're seeing more and more.
There's a hunger.
I'd be curious when you're out and about.
I just think there's a hunger for authenticity.
And I say this all the time when it comes to the governor's race in Wisconsin.
I would take somebody who I disagree with 70% of the time on policy issues if they just get out and be a cheerleader for the state, right?
And people want authenticity.
I
representing a split district in in Saqqani, where I beat an incumbent Republican by 16 points in my first election.
And what I learned from that is, A, you've got to be committed to representing everybody and being willing to talk with everybody.
And and people want to size you up, they want to look you in the eye, they want to shake your hand and and read that authenticity and
For a lot of folks, it's about 15 seconds.
That's your opportunity to make your case.
It's not even so much as what you say, but it's how you relate to people and show respect.
So I'm a retail politician.
I'm sticking my nose into every bar and restaurant and Chamber of Commerce that I can, and I'll be doing that for the next year.
And of course, with a congressional district, unlike an assembly district.
you've got a lot of ground to cover, but that's where the digital campaign and social media gives us the ability to really show people what that work really looks like.
We're talking with Fred Clark, candidate for Congress in the 7th District of Wisconsin, i.e.
the Northwoods, essentially.
One of the things, Fred, that I've came, the Marquette Law School poll, which is really the gold standard, in my opinion, Wisconsin came out a couple weeks ago, I didn't really get into the whole head to head because people aren't paying attention.
What I found interesting in our political editor, Dan Schaefer,
out on social media, the issues.
And to me, these, you know, I hate this term, but it's overused, but the pocketbook issues, you know, the affordability things, that's what most Wisconsinites are really saying in this poll they care about, not so much the things that Trigby and I's former party are talking about, crime, immigration, whatnot.
If the affordability, have you found that as you traveled the 7th District?
And this is just...
flip completely from the argument Republicans were using a year ago.
But, you know, we know the impact of the Affordable Care Act cuts and the impact on the rural health network that that's causing for everybody.
We know what the elimination of the SNAP benefits did, even if it's temporary.
The cruelty of that is not lost on people.
The tariff war, I mean, the president's tariff war, what we're talking about here is a national sales tax that is changing almost daily.
And when I talk to business people, nobody,
can make an investment that requires a predictable policy environment when their knowledge of what the cost of imports is going to be or their ability to sell into an export market is constantly changing.
And
That's what is a wake up call for farmers.
hardwood lumber manufacturers, if you're growing ginseng and wasa and Marathon County, you just lost your market to China this year.
Your crop's going to sit in the ground.
That's the kind of impact that's being created, and that's a wake-up call.
And trivia, that seems to be a much better agenda to connect with people than with all due respect, than coming out of the suburbs of Washington, D.C.
with a high-priced consultant.
Obviously economic issues are always the predominant sort of barometer from which you judge things, but I also think there's other things going on like there is an awful lot of people.
who believe that what we're seeing is just a failure of political elites and they're looking for something
different.
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I believe is a cheese edition.
Sure is.
Yes.
Trigby want to stick around, but Trigby is an important guy.
So he he he he he comes and goes as he can.
We have a state former state representative Fred Clark, who is now a congressional candidate for the 7th district, the North Woods of the state of Wisconsin.
But quickly, Trigby, let's get this in quickly.
You're a graduate of River Falls High School, big, big football game.
People tell it, tell people about it.
Yeah, so they're playing to go to the state finals they get to play in Camp Randall at in in Wausau against Notre Dame Academy from Green Bay apparently Notre Dame Academy has some division one kid who
Who's ran in the first two games for over a thousand yards good like but River Falls has got this kid who's going to Indiana?
Alignment chose Indiana over, Wisconsin like a four.
I think
he's a
Please tell people Pete beat the Notre Dame guys because this is John guard former Speaker of the Assembly Republic.
This is his Private school over there in Green Bay.
My dad used to coach across country at Seanal Public High School and would coach against guards
and Shauna would show up at a little, you know, yellow school bus, and here comes Gard with a big, fancy coach bus.
Yes, and they're tensed, and they have caters, and so please, River Falls beat the crap out of Notre Dame.
Public schools over private schools.
We'll see what happens.
All right, very good.
That's true.
That's more than you want to get into, Representative Clark.
But anyway, let's go to the phone lines, 8-5-5-7-5-2-4-8-4-2.
Jack and Merrimack.
Jack, quickly, if you can, please, go
ahead.
I have a question for Mr. Clark.
How do you work across the aisle when you have essentially a dictatorship in Washington and
you
have, in the state legislature, you've got Robin Boss who is so arrogant that even though he can see that this is losing him support and he's had several of his teammates unseated, he still
keeps on doing things like blocking bipartisan legislation that has their states done it that has enough sponsors to pass on the assembly.
How do you get around people like that?
We don't have a real political system unless we can do that.
Fred.
Great question.
Going to Washington.
No doubt that a new Congress person is gonna have a lot to learn and all your instincts to work in a bipartisan way are gonna hit a lot of walls and I learned that during the first two terms of governor or the first term of governor Walker But what I'll say is this what we're doing at home right now We've got to make a distinction between the Republicans and Congress that parties essentially become a cult that oxen yoked to the carriage of Donald Trump between the folks at home who cast their vote
Based on their own values and their own beliefs and and we've got to be respectful of every single voter's decision and make a case for why we can do it better And there are a whole lot of people at home who are willing to have that conversation We've just got to create the place to do it.
I think it's a great attitude Immigration a big.
Yeah, I would just point out to the listener one only needs to look at Roa Khan who's one of the most liberal members of the US Congress and Justin Amash who's a libertarian and from Kentucky and is
pretty far to the right.
On Epstein, they're the ones who are working together to get it
out.
So
The discharge petition for the Epstein files right now has got a number of Republicans and Democrats together on this, and we're going to see how that lands today.
Yeah, absolutely.
Tom Tiffany's.
Not on the record.
He's staying quiet on that one.
But he's going to have to own the result of that, too.
A little less than two minutes left, Representative Clark, immigration.
You've been going to bars, talking to people in northern Wisconsin.
What have you heard?
You know, this is where you actually really get to learn what people are thinking at home who don't think politics 24-7.
But, you know, I had a conversation last week in a resort near Crandon.
This guy was a Marine veteran who had
Sunk his life savings into this resort.
We talked for a while about politics.
We talked about immigration We talked about how Democrats really have failed on the border in a way that that we need a Better way to protect our border.
There's no question about that But we got talking about these raids and he was a marine veteran and I asked him what he truly thought about seeing you know agents and masks Unidentified hauling people off of city streets and he said
that looks like flat out racism to me.
So even people that have pretty strong conservative views about immigration are recognizing that what's happening now is not making us safer and it's not dealing with the problem of immigration that we recognize, which is, you know, truly criminal behavior.
Fred Clark, what have we not asked you so far that you want people in some of the congressional district to know about you and your candidacy for Congress?
having as many conversations as I can have with people across a political spectrum.
I'm willing to do that.
I'm willing to hear different opinions.
I want to learn as much as I can offer people a form of representation that they haven't seen.
Tom Tiffany, despite whether people have voted for him or not, will tell you time and again that they haven't seen him, that he doesn't listen, that his policies don't reflect what people are asking for here at home.
And I want to change that.
I want to see government work in a way that serves a unique
attributes of northern Wisconsin.
If you're listening to us on WXCO and Warsaw, CFW, the tap in Chippewa Falls, if you're listening to us in Amory, if you're listening to us on WBZH in Hayward, get to know this guy.
Go and Fred Clark has a public meeting or he comes to your community, talk to him because if you meet him and you talk to him, you're going to like him.
And I say that based on personal experience.
I really appreciate you being here.
Yeah, absolutely.
Trayvie, it's always a pleasure to have you along on a Wednesday as well.
Are you sticking around for, as he calls it, this or that, or are you out of here?
o'clock.
Now he has
He used to be a flack like me.
See, did
You saw how he laughed.
He gets it.
Fred gets it.
That's what Tony Zimmerman said.
Fred gets it.
Maybe that's your campaign
Fred Slark, appreciate it.
Stay tuned.
Hour 2 is next.
Stay with us.
It's the Town Hall Bowl show across Wisconsin.
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