We're back with another edition of the Federalist Radio Hour. I'm Emily Jasinski,
culture editor here at the Federalist. As always, you can email the show
at radio at the Federalist dot com, follow us on Twitter at fdr LST.
Make sure to subscribe wherever you download your podcasts, and make sure to
subscribe to the premium version of the Federalist dot Com. Today we're joined by
Wisconsin Congressman Tom Tiffany, who represents the seventh Congressional District Up there. Congressman,
thank you so much for joining us. Emily, it's good to join
you today. Absolutely Now. You were elected back in May of twenty twenty
and a special election. You are on the Judiciary and Judiciary and National Resources
Committee. You long served in the Wisconsin State Assembly and the State Senate for
the twelfth district. But you also grew up in a dairy farm around Elmwood,
Wisconsin. You have a degree in agricultural economics. So I wanted to
see Congressman if you could just start by telling us a little bit about the
story that took you from that dairy farm to the United States Congress. Yeah,
I grew up on a dairy farm seven brothers and sisters Western Wisconsin,
you know, Clay kind of a classic big farm family that used to see
back in fifteen sixty seventies. And so when I got to graduation out of
high school, my dad looked at my brothers, who are younger than me,
and he said, hey, I got better stock coming up. You
should move along. They were more soda different to the farm than I was,
so I went on. So, So I went on, got an
agricultural's degree a River Falls and actually used it for the first seven years of
my working career in southern Minnesota, and then I wanted to get back to
Wisconsin, moved up to the Minoquo area kind of on a whim my wife
up here and settled here, moving up here in nineteen eighty eight, been
here ever since, and love Wisconsin's Northwoods. You know, I was going
to ask you to tell us a little bit about the seventh District because it's
one of my favorite places in the world. This where my mom grew up
and I've spent a lot of time there. But it's also just politically a
fascinating place. Was represented by Democrat David Obie for a really long time and
then flipped in twenty ten with Congressman former Congressman Duffy and has been very pro
Trump and deep red on Trump issues ever since. So if you could tell
us just a little bit about, you know, what it's like. You
mentioned the Wisconsin Northwoods. People might not be familiar. What is Wisconsin seventh
District. What does it look like? Yeah, so people are familiar with
the geography of Wisconsin. So you kind of go from Florence in the northeast
part of the state, right next to Iron Mountain, Michigan. So Florence,
Wisconsin, draw Lyne, down to Wasaw, over to Marshfield, and
then over to Hudson, which is basically a suburb of the Twin Cities and
everything north of there. Now there's a little bit more than that, because
there's a little bit that goes down to the Nielsville area and the Ceda places
like that. But that's generally. The geography covers forty percent of the landmass
of Wisconsin, so one of eight congressional districts covers forty percent of the landmask.
So small towns, very rural, you know, a lot of logging,
forestry, tourism. As you know, Emily, this area that I
live in Manaqua, Rhinelander, Eagle River, lots of lakes as well as
you go over to Hayward. I mean, it's really big tourism area,
but a lot of manufacturing also, so it's really diverse like Wasaw and other
small communities, Marshal others. There's just a tremendous amount of manufacturing, just
like there isn't the rest of Wisconsin. All these you know, some big
manufacturers, but there's also lots and lots of small manufacturers. Also very diverse
agriculturally, so you've got dairy crop beef, but you know, we also
have the Gin Sang growers that are here in north central Wisconsin. We also
have My district contains almost all the cranberry growers in Wisconsin. So it's really
it is it's the best district in Wisconsin and it's best district in the country.
Well, I'll basically always talk to somebody from any lawmaker from Wisconsin seventh
because I think there's so much about it. Epitomizes so many of the different
political conflicts in the country right now, especially on economic issues. And to
that point, you mentioned, Hey, you grew up in a Yeah,
you know, if I could yeah, I could do it. Just another
quick second on that. So we think about I mentioned Hudson basically suburban twin
cities, you go up to Superior and that's as blue collar as it can
get, as well as much of the rest of the district. So you
have this combination of urban and our suburban I guess you would say in rural.
So it is a really diverse district, just in so many different facets.
So yeah, it's interesting. It's an interesting place. And the shift
from the years too, and presidentials too till to Trump. I think you
can learn so much about where a lot of rural Americans have shifted over the
years. And I wanted to ask you. You mentioned growing up on a
dairy farm in the fifties, sixties, and seventies, and when I hear
stories about, you know what Rhinelander you used to look like when the paper
mill was more robust, or we can talk about how private equity basically drove
that Brokaw I think it was a hedge fund actually drove that Brokaw paper mill
out of business and entirely closed Brokaw. It's a crazy story. I have
Republican policies been problematic for the people of your district. And it's not just
Republicans, of course, it was Democrats over the years, Bill Clinton,
plenty of Democrats were involved in some of these decisions too. But does looking
around your district now, do you wish other Republicans would maybe reflect on some
of the policies and how things might be worth changing or shifting for human flourishing.
Yeah, so you know you're right. Dave will be represent this district
for forty one years. I mean, a liberal lion in the House of
Representatives for decades, then all of a sudden it turns Republican. And it
actually it is what a lot of people call a trumpa district. But it
was moving in that direction before Donald Trump. So, I mean, this
is twenty ten when Sean Duffy was elected here, so that shift was beginning
to happen. And I think probably the watershed moment for a lot of people,
even though they may not be able to put their finger on it,
is when President Obama in his first term said I'm going to trade blue collar
America. I'm going to trade the unions for the what I would call the
environmental elites as well as the postal elites. Your big tech companies, which
he was always very close, you know, with Google, Facebook, all
those people. And there was basically that trade that went on, and so
many people found that they no longer had a home in the Democrat Party and
so they've come over to the Republican side, and there's been the trade off
also that's going on with Donald Trump. I would say to me, Donald
Trump had this influence on me. I always went along with the Republican thinking
for decades in regards to foreign policy and war, and I was very supportive
of US going into the Middle East twenty years ago, and Donald Trump really
made me rethink that. And the other thing that he really made me rethink
was trade policy. I always was like, hey, free trade, let's
just trade whatever. But he really hit the nail on the head when he
said, you know, if it's not fair trade, then how can it
be free trade? And so that really hit a nerve with a lot of
the American people, especially in blue collar districts like I have that have a
lot of manufacturing. You've seen the same shift in Minnesota's eighth which is Duluth
and North which peace Star Wars there. Now they had Democrat for years.
Look at the Upper Peninsula Democrat for years, you have a Republican there,
So you've seen this shift in districts light hours, including the seventh And are
you confident, you know, are you confident that Republicans have kind of other
Republicans have learned those lessons so that when you get to these kind of statewide
elections that it's an appealing message that the working class is not just when Trump
is on the ballot, but when other Republicans are on the ballot feels heard
by Republican politicians. Do you think that change is taking place, that the
shift has sort of really happened, or do you think it's still you know,
members that represent districts like you are still you know, in the process
of trying to get that message out to the rest of the party. I
would answer your question this way. I'm like, I think that this shift
in political dynamics is continuing as we speak. So as I said to you,
this started before twenty sixteen. I mean, you can really go back
to Scott Walker being elected in twenty ten, which I came in the same
year as he did. When I was when I entered the state Assembly,
and you saw that shift happening at that point. For example, one of
the big criticisms of Governor Walker when they were trying to recall him back in
twenty eleven twenty twelve is there was a lot of people said, he doesn't
even have a college education. He's a governor, he doesn't even have a
college education. I think that hit the nail on the head. So I
think that was what's the word that I would use. I just think for
a lot of people that hit home for them, and they're like, hold
it, why can't somebody be governor that does not have a college degree.
And it was this kind of elitest view that people had that if you don't
have a college degree, then you certainly can be a governor, And especially
in my district, where you have fewer people that are college educated, probably
than any of the other eight districts. The third might be, well,
that's got all the college towns in it, so certainly the seventh has probably
the fewest percentage of college educated people. And so for them, they were
like, you're really looking down on us. And so that shift I think
began through that whole period of time, and there were other things that were
going on too besides that, But I think that's a really good metaphor for
what was happening and the message that was to be sending to people, and
they started to move to the Republican side. Wells, some on the college
educated front started to move on the Democrat side, especially in regards to the
cultural issues that we saw play out in twenty twenty two, especially with the
issue of abortion. But I would just say this, the shift continues,
and that this shaking out where the electorate is going to end up for perhaps
a few decades, which happens in American history. You can see it.
It's happened a number of times throughout American history. I think that is still
going on as we speak. You know. That's so interesting on a lot
of levels, and one of them, I don't mean this as a leading
question. I'm genuinely curious because the working class the left likes to depict is
being unanimously pro union, unanimously like they're they're all, they all are just
completely on board with everything unions say at every given turn. And we have
seen union organizing increase, We've seen support for unions hit high and as opposed
to recent history, right now it seems to be creeping towards a high that's
really interesting. But it's also I wonder does it make it Is it a
hurdle at all for Wisconsin Republicans who sort of were used Act ten or saw
Act ten as like a cornerstone of Republican policies for a lot of I think
fair reasons. Does it create a barrier to talking to working class voters at
all? And I'll preface that as I toss it to you by saying,
I think the left would say, of course it does. But the real
answer is probably a lot more complicated, because it's not you know, they're
not as monolithic as the left probably says. Yeah, it is more complex
than that. So certainly, when you saw the Act ten reforms that were
put in place a decade ago, there were certainly a lot of people that
were supportive of unions that I mean, that was a watershed moment for them.
But if you look at you look at especially blue collar people, whether
they belong to a union or not, and you'll see the union leadership for
examply supported President Biden in twenty twenty. They've supported Democrats nationally in twenty twenty
two also, But you see the rank and file they'll just tell you we're
voting Republican. We know, we know who supports us and who doesn't.
And another reason that's so interesting, as you mentioned abortion, and there was
this national media narrative after the election that there's a Supreme Court election last month
that did not go in the conservative direction, that Republicans have gotten trounced specifically
because of the issue of abortion. And you know, maybe there is some
truth to that, but point aside, in a district like yours, again
just at a genuine curiosity, what do you think or how do you think
Republicans should be talking about the issue of abortion. So I think one of
the problems through twenty twenty two is that the decision came down in regards to
the jobs case, and I found many of the pro life groups we're not
in the same place as far as what they should do host jobs, and
so I don't think that there was a good consistent messaging, whereas the other
side the messaging was very consistent. Women, they're taking away your rights,
they're taking away your rights. In fact, you still hear that yet today,
and it was a powerful message. I mean, Republicans should not be
in denial on this This is a very potent issue and it will continue to
be a potent issue that Democrats are going to continue to drive a wedge because
when you look, when I look at so I have three daughters, all
adult, and you know, I think about my sisters that I grew up
with and stuff like that, and they're not monolithic about that issue. And
there's other issues that we didn't emphasize enough. I think crime we did a
pretty good job on. But crime is a very big issue, especially for
women because they're more often than not the victims of crime. The other thing
is Title nine. I talk about it all the time. The Biden administration
is fully on board with allowing biological males to play girls sports. I mean,
what woman believes that is correct. There's a few, but not very
many and certainly not the seventh District of Wisconsin for sure, But also allowing
men in women's bathroom stuff like that. I mean, the Biden administration and
the left is fully on board with that. And I think that's probably where
our failing was Emily is we perhaps did not have the firepower to be able
to get that message out, or we failed to get the message out,
regardless of how it happened. We didn't, and it cost us voters in
twenty twenty two. So I think there are ways to go about this too.
I don't believe that any segment of voters male, female, you know,
whatever racial makeup there. I just don't believe that they are monolithic and
how they view the world. And you got to you got to message them
with things that are important. Yeah. Title nine is such such such a
good example of where Republicans have failed to carry that banner and take that message
into districts like yours and races by the way, Emily on that issue.
So when we pass legislation each week, we go out and do a quick
survey from um from constituency, we ask them, you know, what do
you think of this the So the eighty seven thousand IRS agents was the most
potent issue that we had pulled here, which was the first week if you
remember back in the congressional session, and there was the first week, and
that one was at the top in terms of the most people that said we
really support you not funding eighty seven thousand more IRS agents. Well, it's
now number two because we messaged Title nine. When we did the Title nine
bill, just a couple of weeks ago, and it was overwhelming. I
mean, it was like ninety two to eight where people are like, Noah,
that's just wrong allowing man to play girls sports. And by the way,
the Obama administration did that in twenty sixteen, and Republicans could have been
running on it ever since, but rarely talked about it. So it's good
that you know it's in the mix now. Another question on that note that
I have is what happened. I think last week with the debt ceiling bill
among House Republicans was a remarkable feat and I think it quite a testament both
to Tuesday Group folks, Freedom Caucus folks and the Speaker's Office Speaker Kevin McCarthy
himself, that you guys are able to get a sort of consensus build together
on that. I want to ask how you think people in your district feel
right now about the debt ceiling a potential default, about how Republicans and you
know President Biden doesn't want to negotiate at all, there should be no conditions
on a debt sailing raise. As you talk to folks, how do you
think they're going to respond to all of this? If potentially Republicans. You
know, Biden doesn't negotiate with them, He refuses to come to the table.
Republicans get blamed unfairly by the media for causing a default. How are
you sort of explaining this to constituents and how are they responding? So there
is quite a number of constituents, and I asked my staff to give me
their names and numbers of people that said, we don't want you to vote
for any debt sailing increase, because as you know, it was one point
five trillion with the various trade offs that we're in there that if we're able
to hold of them, they get us to four point eight trillion dollars of
savings over the next ten years, as well as other good stuff that was
in there. And there are people and I call those people and I explained
why I voted for it, and to a person, they understood what we
were attempting to do after having explained that, you know, you have these
provisions to the student loan bailout, that that will not become law, that
there'll be work requirements, and there are a couple other provisions. And they're
also flowing back some of the COVID money that's still out there. There's various
things like that. So when they heard that and I explained to them,
you know, this is why I voted for it in exchange for the increase,
they were like, yeah, okay, we get it. And so
I think people understand it, and I think we're actually in a strong position
if we hold tough. Give Speaker McCarthy a lot of credit for bringing people
together. I belong to the Freedom Caucus. I give my fellow Freedom Caucus
members a lot of credit on this because immediately after having accomplish what we wanted
to in the Speaker's race, to make sure the House of Representatives is more
transparent and accountable, because that's ultimately what we did. And I always tell
people that that was good not just for Republicans but for Democrats also because when
you had the rules in place that Nancy Pelosi had, you had no role
in the minority. You had no role at all. Now you can offer
an amendment from the floor if you're a Democrat, whereas we could not do
that as Republicans with the rules that Nancy Pelosi had in place. So that
part was really good, And then Freedom cauc has shifted immediately two things like
the debt limit debate as well as the upcoming budget, and these are good
things that we helped accomplish. I give Speaker McCarthy a lot of credit for
putting together the two hundred and eighteen votes to get us there. Yeah,
it's been that I think really strategic how he's and actually very impressive how he's
been able to build up the level of goodwill that he has with the Freedom
Caucus. He's very very intentional about it, so I think that's obviously played
a huge role in it. But you know, it seems that like when
push comes to shove, if the negotiations go further and he has to negotiate
with President Biden, which means he might need to negotiate with the Freedom Caucus
again, he really does have good He's starting from a place of goodwill with
the Freedom Caucus right now, which is very different than past leaders. From
Ryan Abayner, Well, I think the thing that he understood about this is
that you've got to get if you get a bill out of the House that
everybody and that we can get I'm enjoy that we can get the votes if
you get that over and to the Senate and the President Biden and say,
you guys, we passed a bill. What are you going to do?
And that's really the point that we're at at this point, What are you
going to do, Chuck Schumer? I mean, we've sent this bill over
and by the way, you have some members like Joe Manchin that like some
of the things that we did. What are you going to do about this?
Don't just come back to us now and say we're going to do a
clean debt sailing increase. And that's good enough, because I mean, even
Met Romney, I don't know if you saw it in the last couple of
days, he said, I support the House bill. So how is he
going to get Republicans at this point to be able to vote for it,
which he's going to need nine or ten to get to cloture. And so
it's time for President Biden and Chuck Schumer to pony up here, to get
to the table and let's be fiscally responsible, because that's exactly what we did,
and we really hit the right issues in terms of the additional things that
we put in there, like like the work requirements. I don't know if
you saw the referendum that was held in Wisconsin on the same day as the
Supreme Court election eighty eighty twenty, people said that while they're voting against a
conservative justice, they're voting for work requirements. And it past eighty twenty.
This is such a strong issue with the American people. They agree with us.
The lowering energy costs. The American people agree with us. HR one
is going to be such a good bill because it gives certainty, does not
compromise our environmental standards in any way, but give certainty so that we could
be energy independent in America. People agree with that. I just think we're
in a very strong position at this point, and I think we need to
stand tough. If Chuck Schumer and Joe Biden aren't going to say, now,
you guys got to give us just a clean clean, debts increase because
to think about, what are you saying that, Okay, we're gonna give
you another credit card. Well, we've been printing credit card after credit card
over the years. Why do you think that the thought of a default goes
on because we've been profligate. Stop the profligacy, right, especially when inflation
is where it is and we have all kinds of indications that the mounting debt
is contributing to these pocketbook issues for average families. And it's interesting you mentioned
the work requirements section because a lot of people on the left like to sort
of sneer at people on the right who care about issues like that, despite
the fact they don't live in a border state, or they're just obsessed China,
despite the fact, you know, this is what the left says,
despite the fact that they have no reason to worry about our foreign policy with
China because they're from a state, but it has no issues involved. You
actually have a bill you introduced late last month that would force Biden to close
the Chinese Consulate General in Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office in New York.
And I can see the left asking, you know, it's in New York.
What does this have to do with Congressman Tom Tiffany's district in Wisconsin.
Can you tell us just a little bit about those issues, in particular immigration
in China. You've taken hard stances on them, why it does matter to
people in northern Wisconsin. Yeah, So, first of all, every state
is a border state. I had one of the components in the bill that
came out of Judiciary to secure the border, the part in regards to immigration
parole, which by the way, the Biden administration is looking at really ramping
it up here as we speak. And so every states of border state,
especially when you look at like Fantanel human afficking, it goes on in every
state. So what happens as the sheriff's down in Arizona say to me,
what comes in our front door is going to end up in your backyard.
And that is exactly that is exactly what's happening. But you look at the
Communist Chinese government setting up these police stations around the world, and now we
find out once in New York City, and so they're going after especially Chinese
expatriates that trying to keep to them under their thumb. And that's just the
way that President she and the Communist Party acts at this point. You mean,
all you gotta do is look at Hong Kong. Is Hong Kong a
free place anymore? It is not. Look at what happened to the weakers
in western China. They harvest their organs, their slave labor. And then
you look at Taiwan with them threatening Taiwan a week after week over the last
number of months. This is how they operate. They are the bully of
the world, and now they're coming to America and trying to bully in our
country. That should be unacceptable. You know, if they want to do
it in communist China, you know, that's their choice, if that's how
they want to act. But this is in the United States, where we
believe in freedom and liberty. We believe in the Bill of Rights, we
believe in the Constitution, and that people should be able to stand up if
they disagree with someone's particular political view, whether it's mine or somebody on the
other side of the aisle. And they're trying to stifle that with these police
stations that they're building around the world, including in the United States. And
by the way, there's one in Minneapolis right next door to my district.
And so we're just sending the message, Biden administration, you need to be
serious about this. The bully is taking another step in their effort to seek
world domination. President she is made actor in the twenty first century. That's
what they want to do, and we need to say stop at some point,
because as a neighbor told me once when I was going personal Antois going
through something like this, he said, they're going to step on your toes
until you tell them to stop. If you don't tell them to stop,
they're going to continue to step on your toes and cause you to take another
step backward. You need to decide when you're going to stop taking a step
backward. And that's the decision that we need to make, and I think
it's right now. We appeasement doesn't work. History is littered with the bones
of people that had been part of the appeasement process. We should not appease
communist China at this point. And actually, on that note, with immigration,
the opioid crisis seems to be taking on a different face on a weekly
basis now because cartels, which get to combine both of these issues. Cartels
get the precursor chemicals from China and have started mixing things like trank, mixing
things into fentanyl that make it almost hard. It limits the use of narcan,
and that's been extremely problematic around the country. Can you tell us a
little bit about what you're seeing in your district and why that makes this border
issue so much more urgent As Title forty two is set to expire on May
twelfth, talk to any sheriff across America, including right here in my district.
They will tell you that fentanyl and those drugs that are coming across the
Southern Order border, in particular fentanyl and methamphetamy, they are killing people.
I mean my home county of Oneida County. One of the lieutenants said it
is now the number one killer of young people, even higher than traffic accidents
in Oneida County. So it's happening all over the country. And the Chinese
know that they're sending these analogs to Mexico and then the cartels brew them into
the fentanyl and all the other stuff that we see all over America. And
I got to say, Emily, I don't feel life of me understand those
folks on the other side of the aisle that will not sign on to securing
the board if for no other reason, you know, Set aside that we've
had more people come in on the Terror Watch than ever in America in the
last two years. Set aside the human trafficking that's going on in an incredible
scale. Set those aside, just vegam All alone, number one killer of
young people ages eighteen to forty five in America. If for no other reason,
we should secure the border. Because of that, I, for the
life of me cannot understand why this national emergency is going on. What truly
is We hear crisis used all the time, right, what is truly a
crisis is not treated that way by people on the other side of the aisle.
Right, they don't want to call it a crisis, but they'll send
fifteen hundred troops to the border when they realize it's about to get snowball as
on May eleventh, eleven fifty nine pm. They know that that's going to
be a pandemonium, and so they'll they'll do their little pr well, yeah,
yeah, exactly, And it is a pr stunt because you don't have
to send fifteen hundred troops to the border. You don't have to. They're
doing some more drug interdictions. Now I've seen something came out from the Attorney
General's Office in regards to that. You don't have to do any of those
things. All you got to do is secure the border. All you have
to do is support the bill that came out of the Judiciary Committee where you
have to have your asylum hearing in Mexico or a safe third country. If
you just do that, the border is secured, because you will stop the
pull of all these people that want to come from around the world to America.
I'd be remissive. I didn't ask about a report from my friend John
Gizzie over at Newsmass Max last month. He said, quote, you are
increasingly considered a likely carrier of the GOP banner against sitting Senator Tammy Baldwin.
John goes on to report, you recently told the reporters that you would do
quote what's best for the state of Wisconsin. You got a career politicians,
Tammy Baldwin. Why do we have the highest inflation since the seventies? Cost
of living has gone through the roof for people in Wisconsin. You said there
needs to be changes made in the Senate, so that obviously is a big
question here. But do you have a timeline on and you expect to have
that decision? You know? Sincerely, I am so busy right now.
Judiciary, Natural Resources are such they are the best committees. We have so
much action that's going on. I mean, think about it. We want
to get to energy independence, and a lot of that happens in natural Resources.
I was just in a hearing yesterday with my colleague Pete Stauber up in
northern Minnesota in regards to producing minerals here in America rather than with slave labor
and other places around the world. And then of course Judiciary. I mean,
we have all the hot I mean, the hot topics are there,
whether it's the FBI and all the rest. So I am so busy doing
those things. But there'll come a time over the next number of months that
I'll be able to evaluate what I want to do there. And that is
heartfelt. In regards to going back to my days in the Assembly when people
were asking me if I wanted to run for State Senate, I just said,
I'm going to go to the place where I think I can do the
most good for the people of state of Wisconsin. And that's what the decision
will be for the United States Senate. I look forward to talking to other
candidates that may be interested on the Republican side to see what their plan is,
because one thing that needs to happen at this point in Wisconsin is that
you got to give credit to to Ben Wickler, the head of the Democrat
Party of Wisconsin. He is convinced the rich coastally leads that Wisconsin is where
it goes through, especially with the presidential legend. If you don't win Wisconsin
as they saw in twenty sixteen, you got big trouble. So he's convinced
them to pour all this money in what we need now our candidates that have
a plan immediately after the primary from day one. You've got to be ready
to go toe to toe and have enough money to be able to do that.
If you don't, then you should reconsider whether you're going to run for
a statewide office. And that certainly factors into my thinking. I want to
make sure that I have the resources available if I were if I were to
choose to do this. And by the way, there's one other baby if
in there, and that does have to be clear by the family. I
was just gonna ask, yes, I imagine it does. That's probably the
most important hurdle. And that's right. You know. I'm glad you brought
up the Wisconsin Democratic Party because yeah, I remember they were able to fund
raise just insane numbers for someone like Randy Bryce back in when he was trying
to get at Paul Ryan's seed. And I wanted to actually ask I remember
about covering the Senate race in twenty eighteen. I covered that race pretty quote
closely, interviewed both of the primary candidates on the Republican side, and my
own like sort of tough news take on the Wisconsin Republican Party or just like
constructive criticism is that the winning streak they went on in the Obama years,
which was very impressive, made some folks a little bit too confident, maybe
a little bit too insular. And that's interesting because Trump's successes in districts like
yours really brought some new voters over to the Republican Party and got Republicans talking
about things in different ways. Meanwhile, where I'm in the Wow counties,
we saw less than stellar numbers in this last election. So it just kind
of creates this interesting question of, like how Wisconsin Republicans can appeal to the
rural working class and also maybe appeal to some of the suburban voters that were
uncomfortable with Donald Trump. You know, they mostly went for Ted Cruise in
Wisconsin Republican presidential primary. How can the Wisconsin Republican Party sort of get into
good shape so that it produces candidates in the Senate race that you may or
may not enter and others that are really able to bridge that gap. Yeah,
so I mean to take a look at it. So what did President
Biden say when he announced just in the last week, he said, We're
going to finish the job. Finishing the job is finishing America to mean,
think about it. If you have former years of Joe Biden in regards to
the border, six million people have come in illegally. Do you want another
six million? Go talk to the mayors of Chicago in New York City right
now who are basically saying no moss. And even they who said, hey,
we'd love to be sanctuary cities, they don't want to be anymore because
they're seeing the practical impact of this. And if you look at energy security,
energy independence, we lost that with President Biden. Our foreign policy is
in shambles at this point, and so you have all these things that President
Biden has not done well. We need to make sure that we're focused on
the issues. But then we also need to make sure we have the resources
to be able to deliver that message, because that is one place that we
have been lacking. Is I look at the governor's race twenty twenty two,
I look at the Supreme Court race. Here just a month ago, and
we were we were we were overwhelmingly outspent by the Democrats because they the coastal
elites, the billionaires are on the Democrats side now and we're going to have
to find a way to close that gap in order to be successful. I
would say one other thing, and that is we do need to try to
compete in Dane County. Dane County is fastest growing county, basically added fifty
to sixty thousand voters in the last ten years from twenty ten to two thousand
and twenty. We had to go compete in Dane County. I believe I
heard that our gubernatorial candidate did not one add on Madison Television in the final
thirty days of the governor's election. You can't leave the second biggest marketplace in
Wisconsin without any message getting out. So I think we've got a good message.
We just need to make sure we get it out and we need to
go compete in Dane County. It's a really interesting point, and I wanted
to before you've been really generous at your time, before I let you run,
Congressman, check in on the situation over in lock Flambo. Obviously you're
very close to where all of this is unfolding up in Manaqua, where non
tribal residents have basically been trapped in their houses. Of folks haven't heard of
the story. It's it's absolutely unbelievable. Bowl on the Edgeboa reservation over this
land dispute about who controls the roads. You've been following the situation really closely.
You've talked to some of our reporters of Vita Daffy about it. Can
you tell us where things stand right now? Yeah, So I'd say we're
kind of in the second phase now of what's going to happen. So the
lack of Flambo tribe has a legitimate claim in regards to the easement that they
have that's been expired and they're not being compensated for. So they have a
legitimate issue there. What I think is illegitimate is how they go about negotiating
when you barricade people into their homes at on January thirty first, and a
week that the temperatures were twenty five below here in northern Wisconsin, and you're
basically threatening people's lives by barricading roads at that point, And so I don't
agree with the approach they took there. Also, they went from asking for
ten million dollars for just a couple of slivers of these easements to twenty million
dollars after they announced, after they put the barricades up, so it really
just appeared to be extortion. And I think the biggest thing though, is
they won't produce the appraisals that have been done on these easements. And I
suspect we know why they don't want to produce those appraisals, because if you're
ever going to have a negotiation and they say they want to negotiate, the
tribal Council does if you want to negotiate, then you got to negotiate a
good faith and that includes having those appraisals. And by the way, I
do put this on largely on the tribal Council. There's a number of tribal
members that do not agree with this. This is not monolithic and the tribal
Council really should be taking a different approach. And I'm hearing that there's frustration
now that they went and pulled out of the agreement they had with the Monoqua
Chain of Lakes, which they agreed not to spear for five years to be
able to rebuild the walleye population. They kept can line anglers off as well
as spearing and largely has not been fished. It's catching release people have not
been taking and that's been going on for about five years. I understand that
they're going to pull out of that agreement. So you really wonder at what
point are they going to negotiate in good faith? They being the tribal council.
I believe the tribal Council is not being served well at all by their
attorney out of Minneapolis. I mean, he sits there far away over in
the Twin Cities, and you know, such a place where you know,
law and order is certainly high on their list over in Minneapolis and Saint Paul
as far as their strengths at this point, and here he's bringing it to
our neck of the woods over here with this very confrontational attitude. And I
don't get it why the tribal Council would use somebody like that that he just
wants to stoke things up between neighbors. And they've gotten support from the Biden
administration. Correct me if I'm wrong, but they have, haven't they?
Yeah, the was that the Department Justice came in and said, yeah,
we support them, and so, but I mean, what would you expect
from the Biden administration at this coin. So I'm hopeful that there will be
some legitimate negotiations that go on here at some point. But at this point,
the tribe's just being really intransigent, and I think there's a solution to
it. It's but they're really not coming to the bargaining table with a reasonable
approach at this point. Congressman Tom Tiffany represents Wisconsin's seventh district. He's a
member of the Freedom Caucus, and he's been very generous with his time here
today. Thank you so much, Congressman for chatting. Emily great to join
you and give us a call anytime. If we can help, we'll do.
You've been listening to another edition of The Federalist Radio Hour. I'm Emily
Dashinsky, culture editor here at the Federalist. We'll be back soon with more.
Until then, be lovers of freedom and anxious. Heard a favor,
it's a reason and then it faded away. M