Speaker 1: And we are back with another edition of the Federalist
Radio Hour. I'm Matt Kittle, senior elections correspondent at the
Federalist and your experienced Shirpa on today's Quest for Knowledge.
As always, you can email the show at radio at
the Federalist dot com, follow us on x at FDR LST,
make sure to subscribe wherever you download your podcast, and
of course to the premium version of our website as well.
Our guest today is Brian Shimming, chairman of the Republican
Party of Wisconsin. Yes, that Wisconsin, That Wisconsin that put
Donald Trump over the top of the electoral vote count
to secure his turn to the White House. This gentleman,
Brian Shimming, had a good deal to do with the
winning in Wisconsin. He joins us on the Federalist Radio. Hello, Sarah,
thanks for being here.
Speaker 2: Hey Matt, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: Wow, we have so much to get into. We have
a crazy election night, of course, and you can't have
an election in Wisconsin without having a crazy night in Milwaukee.
We're going to get into that. We're going to get
into the ground game, We're going to get into all
that had to go into this election. But let me
ask you this question. First, Have you had time to
relax at all since late Tuesday night early Wednesday morning?
Speaker 2: Well, it depends on your definition of relax. Of course,
if relax means occasionally fall asleep, then I bet some time.
But to be candid, there hasn't been a lot for
a couple of reasons. Number one, the canvas for the
state vote actually occurs this week, and that the any
candidates who want to seek a recount have three business
days to do that. So we've been watching that. We've
been cleaning up on election integrity issues as well, and
frankly looking forward because as the clock took down to
eight o'clock on Tuesday night, another clock started, and that
was towards our spring Supreme Court races, and so no
clocks have stopped. Listen to that.
Speaker 1: Way, no rest for the weary. We'll talk about that
in a minute. All eyes will be on Wisconsin because
the Supreme Court election, well, we're learning this week how
critical that Supreme Court election is in life issues, you know,
basic basic life, liberty, pursuit of happiness issues in the
state of Wisconsin going on before a leftist led Supreme
Court this week. Let's talk about canvassing next steps such
a razor thin margin in the US Senate race in
the state of Wisconsin, so close to having yet another
conservative voice in Washington, d C. Two Republican senators in
the state of Wisconsin would have been Eric Hovedy, the
Madison businessman, joining Senator Ron Johnson. Senior Senator of the
state of Wisconsin. Leftist Tammy Baldwin eeks out, a very
narrow victory is from what you're hearing is the Hovedy campaign,
Are they considering a recount because it is so very close.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're holding their options open for recount. As I
say this week, we've got the deadliner, We've got the
canvas what's called the statewide canvas being done, and then
those results are reported to the state Elections Commission. Candidates
have three business days after that report to review that
report and de file for a recount. And so that's,
you know, something that's not up for us to decide.
That's for Eric. How do you decide on his race?
There aren't really any other races, But I have not
heard our attorneys and our election integrity staff, so we'll
see what happens. Ordinarily, thirty thousand votes is not necessarily
in recount range, but I've seen stranger things happen. I
was on the President's President Trump's recount team four years
ago here in Wisconsin. I've done some others statewide and
certainly local recounts. So don't you know, I never say
never until it's really done. So I'll be interested to
see what the canvas looks like. I know there was
a lot of talk about late night ballot dumps and
the concern about Milwaukee County. Election night led Ron Johnson
and I to a trip down to Central County in
downtown Milwaukee, which did not go that well. What's the
liberals that run Milwaukee elections?
Speaker 1: No, but extremely important, as I wrote about at the
Federalist kind of chronicled your journey down there. I remember
being on the radio at WISN in Milwaukee with the
election night team Dan O'Donnell, Dave and Jerry and Ben
the rest of the crew, and they had you and
Senator Johnson on. You were in your car having heard
that there were some problems once again in Milwaukee, and
some very serious problems, quite frankly, with election integrity. You
went down there, you surveyed, you asked some very pointed questions.
Take me through that if you would, because Milwaukee has
long been an area of question when it comes to
election integrity.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it has, and one that we watch, as you know, Matt,
we put together in Wisconsin. By way a brief background,
Wisconsin state parties have to submit their list of poll watchers,
that is to say, the people who actually literally work
for the local clerks, are partisan, but work for the
local clerks in the run up to and during election
day and afterwards. We put together one with six thousand
those people last year by the statutory deadline in November
of volunteer shifts covered this year for old watchers, and
then of course a couple hundred attorneys to help take
care of issues. So during the day we had a
report back that essentially the latches on the back of
the tabulators. We don't have voting machines in Wisconsin. Well
we do. People still vote on paper ballots, which is
the way I prefer, but they are tabulated, that is
to say, they are run through huge machines that are
and as it turns out, thirteen of those machines at
one of the central count locations in Milwaukee had not
been secured in back on this latch on the back.
So we find out during the day that that had
not occurred. Somebody sent pictures of them to us, and
then all of a sudden, Milwaukee County clerk and Ann Jacobs,
the Democrat off the state Elections Commission tweeting out that,
oh gee, we had counted over thirty thousand votes, but
we will now recount them because of the lack of
security on that latch. So we're hearing this all basically
in the afternoon on election Day, Tuesday afternoon. And so
after discussions with staff out at our war room out
in Milwaukee, Ron and I made the Senator Johnson and
I made the decision we're going to go down there
and look for ourselves. So we've loaded up the car
and down with some of our staff, and as you
pointed out, we called into w I A Sun's election
night coverage, which was great to say, hey, we're in
downtown to get a look. We did. We got there,
there was a massive media sprom there that surrounded us.
We actually met had to sign in as election observers.
So when we went upstairs, we literally are you know,
you know, with big pens, were signing in as official
election observers. That is to say, we could walk around
the floor and observe what was going on.
Speaker 1: So you definitely were doing that. You were observing, There's.
Speaker 2: No you were observing, no doubt about that. And so
here you got a member of the United States Senate
and the state chairman of the party rolling in to
Central Count, which is an experience they had not had before.
And and it lit up X lit up Twitter that
we were there, and so we we kind of did
we kind of talked to the press when we walked in,
walked around, asked a lot of questions, did not get
in the way of any count or any part of
the operation of Central Count that night, which was still
going on as we were there. So we spent well
over half an hour forty five minutes there, and then
some did some media on the way out the door too.
And I had said to someone from Fox on the
way in. They said, you know, to sum it up.
On the way in, They're like, what do you expect
to find here? What do you think the problem is?
And my response to that reporter was they had one job,
and you know, it's like, come on here, you know,
they've had two years to get ready for this thing.
So to have thirteen tabulating machines that weren't totally secured
is ridiculous. So when we got questions afterwards from the
local and state and national media there, you know, my
point was, Look, we weren't down here because we had
nothing else to do.
Speaker 1: Today.
Speaker 2: We have plenty to do today. We are down here
because officials with the City of Milwaukee election operation did
not secure these machines. So, frankly, I didn't want to
hear folks with the city copying an attitude with us, going, oh,
what are you guys doing here? We told you we
were recounting them. Frankly, that's not acceptable. So that's why
we went down frankly as there was interestingly, Matt We
left there around eight o'clock or so, so in the
post closed, we did more media and then left, and
all of a sudden, an email goes out from the
head of the operation to city employees begging city employees
to come in and help them.
Speaker 1: Count right firefighters and eyes. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2: So I think you know, the effect of us there,
number one is for us to learn more about how
that operation was working and in this case was not working.
But also the city or somebody went into panic mode
and all of a sudden they're sending emails out to
hundreds of city employees coming with saying, will you please
come down and help us count and help run Central
count Well, why did it have to get to that,
I mean, it's ridiculous. It is not to that point.
They actually made our point for us by begging other
people to come in and help them.
Speaker 1: They did. And I want to ask you this because
I didn't have a chance to ask you this the
other day. I think it's important. In twenty twenty remarkable year,
no doubt about it, pandemic COVID, and we know that
the left in this country, and in Wisconsin Milhawkee in particular,
they used COVID as a cover to be able to
expand laws beyond their breaking point. They used it to
do things that were not in the purview of what
they were supposed to be doing. We know that I'm
not getting into you know, who won, who lost, and
that sort of thing, but it is clear we've seen
the audits, we've seen the reports we've investigated this that
there were a lot of irregularities and there were laws
election laws that were broken. Can you imagine though, because
it didn't happen this way in twenty twenty, can you
imagine heading down there in two thousand? Do you think
that might have made a difference? Because you and Senator
Johnson your eyes and then you this is what I
really want to get into. You had teams of lawyers there,
you had observers, you had Republicans in place. Still, you
know in Milwaukee you're going to have in terms of
observers and poll workers, you're going to have Democrats outnumbering Republicans.
That's just the reality. But you folks were prepared this time,
and that was not the case in twenty twenty.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's why we made this really was a
national emphasis, but certainly here in Wisconsin. And I was
committed when I became chairman, well now about two years
ago to putting together a massive election integrity operation. I mean,
we only had it was in twenty twenty we only
had one thousand observe I'm sorry, twenty twenty two, we
only had a thousand observers statewide. And now we had
you know, you know, almost six thousand poll workers, I
should say, and then had shifted a couple thousand pole
watchers and we had to do that too because you
had the early vote campaign, which we also kind of championed,
and so we knew this was going to be very,
very intense. And Mike Wadley, the RNC chair, has told
me numerous times that the President was like, look i'll
President Trump was like, look, I'll help you with your turnout,
but I really need you, folks. The parties to focus
on is election integrity. And thank god that happened because
we between the observers, the poll workers as well that
worked for local clerks, we had a massive, massive operation
go on that we were a pretty big operation two
years ago, and I think that helped you Johnston myself,
that helped cut down on a lot of different issues.
But I was just on a zoom actually where our
election integrity, our top guy said, in our warm. So
we had a warrem that day election day just to
handle complaints or concerns by our poll workers and poll watchers.
We processed over eleven hundred calls and emails on election day,
and some of it was just kind of dogs and chaots,
general question about operations and things like that. Those of
them were more serious. But as I said to folks
on that call, those types of those that type of
input that we got in the warm an election day
that those weren't get back to me next week. Calls.
Those were not okay, let me know when you got something.
Calls they were like, we have an issue right now
and we want it solved right now. Sometimes they were
very easy, other times they were were we were stepping
in going okay, if this isn't fixed, we're going to
be in the coureum within the hour. And that was
kind of my three legged stool that I have said
literally since I became chairman, and the three legged stool was,
you know, number one leg is we want to work
with local clerks. We think for the most part, local
clerks aren't just trying to run the election, and that's
what they do. I know lots of myself, they're just
trying to run the election. Secondly, if we noticed an
issue either pre election or election day, we would flag
it for them to get corrected in the appropriate amount
of time. But then number three, the third leg on
that stool is if you do not get that issue
addressed that is a matter of state law or local ordinance,
we will see you down in the hall down the
Hall in the courtroom period, and I wanted to send
that signal for two reasons. Number one, so they would
be assured that we would get cooperation, or we could
be assured we would get cooperation. So just to be candid,
it was to send a warning shot out to other
clerks or people around the state that we want to
work together, we will work together, but if you don't
correct issues, we will take you to court end of story.
And I thought that that message needs to get sent
very plainly from me as a state party leader, but
also from our local people. We had a massive, massive,
massive operation going on in hundreds of trainings of local volunteers.
I mean staggeringly large. But that's what you got to do.
And that's frankly where I wanted to kind of take
the party. And you know, Matt, some of the issues
were essentially by state law for pole workers, you need
to have parody plus one right. That is to say,
clerks are to hire and utilize essentially the equal number
of Democrats and Republicans. Well, if that didn't happen or
it was obviously lopsided towards Democrats, we went after them.
We didn't mess around. It was it was like, look,
there is a state law that is super clear on
this issue, and we want you to follow it. And
if you are not going to, we'll put this phone
down and call the lawyer on the other one.
Speaker 1: And it's interesting that that continues to happen though, that
you have to continue to have those fights, But I
think unbelievable. Yeah, but what happened in response to twenty
twenty in twenty twenty two was an absolute turnaround when
it came to fighting for election integrity in the state
of Wisconsin, and I think across the battleground states and
this country. Our guest today is Brian Shimming on this
edition of the Federalist Radio Hour. Brian as chairman of
the Republican Party of Wisconsin that played such a pivotal
role in the big victories racked up for President Donald
Trump across the battleground states and across the country three
hundred and twelve electoral votes, and of course Wisconsin offered
ten of those electoral votes and put the President elect
now we say it, President elect Trump over the top.
What is the secret to success in Wisconsin? If you
look back in November of twenty twenty awarding to the
vote count Donald Trump. President Donald Trump lost Wisconsin to
Democrat Joe Biden by less than twenty one thousand votes,
a fraction of the millions cast. Of course, there were challenges,
there were recounts in Milwaukee County and in Dane County
to liberal enclaves. But it stood what changed? What was
the secret sauce this time around? Or was it a
combination of all of these things? Election integrity and as
you mentioned before, get out the vote.
Speaker 2: Yeah, probably a combination of things. Number one, having the
right candidate, right. I mean, I've been reading various stories
that in some ways we had a mini realignment in
this cycle, and I think there's some treasure to that.
I think, you know, for as much as President Trump,
you know, can get attacked sometimes the Republicans who don't
like him or whatever, he helped a mini realignment, not
only nationally, but certainly in Wisconsin as well. Well. We're
doing much better in some areas of the state than
we have ever done before. So I think not only
President Trump is the candidate and jd. Vance, of course
it's just been lights out great, but also the fact
that they came here. I mean, there was a massive
as you know, Matt I mean, you were practically running
into Donald Trump or JD. Of the Quick Trip Intoma.
Speaker 1: It reminded me of my days in Platteville as a
kid when the Bears used to come to town.
Speaker 2: I remember that this is going.
Speaker 1: To be a bone of contention for we packer fans.
But for a time, the city of Plattville. I literally
was at Quick Trip seeing William the refrigerator, Perry buying
susie ces. So Donald Trump was in Wisconsin so much.
I can certainly understand where people got to know Donald
Trump even better than they thought they did.
Speaker 2: You don't want to do is coming into the Quick
Trip after the fridge was there.
Speaker 1: No, particularly in the quick bathroom as I.
Speaker 2: Can attest, still repainting the walls there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yes, they are.
Speaker 2: So till. Part of it was their commitment to be here.
Part of it was our partnership with the Trump Campaigne's
just was phenomenal. I mean, as I always and I
think I talked about when you and I last talked,
there weren't fifty states this year. There were seven, and
so the concentration of Donald Trump JD. Vance surrogates as
well coming in like RFK. You know, Kennedy, like, you know,
all these other surrogates we had in very very important
I would say early vote. I spent you know, I
kind of a little bit stapled my chairmanship under the
early vote push. It's all I talked about it. I
talk about it in every media interview I've done. I
spoke about it almost every time I spoke in public,
which is now hundreds of times being chairman. And I
felt like I had to go take that message to
Republicans around the state. And the message essentially was you
got a change to win. And the truth of the
matter is early vote, whether you or I or anybody
else likes it or not, is on the books. And
I think when people as we went through COVID, we
needed to cross the bridge on that issue. So and
it made it, frankly, to be candid about it. Here.
It was easier to push early vote because we had
so much election integrity. We had such a huge election
integrity program, and we could reassure people that if they
did early vote that that vot would count. So there
was kind of a part to be candid. There was
kind of a partnership there between those two issues, because
people were much more likely to vote early if they
believed that they could that their early vote would count, right,
So that was a bigger part of it that maybe
was playing publicly, but that I know we'll see as
we examine the numbers. But I'm thanking God that we
started that early vote campaign. We were the first state
in the country to roll out an early vote campaign
on a statewide level, the Banker Vote program, something that
I pushed almost full time since. But if you think
what might have happened, Matt had we not done that,
what would have happened election, I think we might be
at the risk of whatever here. I think we might
be looking at a different result. And the importance of
the early vote thing was number one to get Republicans
to go along with early vote and to get their
votes banked. But also it allowed us to talk to
voters early. You know, voters people had voted before. We
weren't waiting until June or something to start sending mail.
We were sending a mail late last year encouraging them
to early vote for April. And so it actually ended
up being handled to talk to people much earlier than
we otherwise would to get them to vote early for
last April's election. Where we passed two anti Zuckerbucks referendum,
a bunch of local races, knocked off the Democrat mayor
of Wassaw. So there was, you know, there was some
reason to what we were doing, but it because it
allowed us to talk to votes earlier, talk to voters earlier,
and allowed them to sign up for multiple elections, not
just one, but they could early vote in multiple elections.
So I think we we helped drag that across the
bridge here in Wisconsin. And maybe I'll never know the
exact answer, but I thank God that we did it,
because we might well have lost the election otherwise. So
I think Donald Trump and JD prioritizing the state good partnership,
frankly the right issues. I never you know, at the
risk of being too general, I never thought that Kamala Harris,
you know, she we always say we had kind of
the Harris honeymoon. Right when she got put on the ticket.
They pushed old Joe off to the side. She es,
oh yeah, yeah, and she I remember leaving the convention,
I thought, oh, that's Sunday. The day after I left Milwaukee,
I was like, you know, I'm finally going to be
able to watch a ballgame or whatever, and was dressed
to do that in shorge to Polo and a backwards
baseball cap on that Sunday following the convention, and then
my phone blows up that that Biden's getting out of
the race. So I'm running around doing TV interviews dressed
like that. Unfortunately, had a come in the car, you know,
and talking about Okay, there's a new reality, and that
is that Kamala Harris was going to be the presidential
candidate because the Democrats muscled her in as the nominee.
State party chairs on the other side were muscling their
delegates to vote for her. So she had that honeymoon, right,
She had that little honeymoon from the dem convention.
Speaker 1: On sure it was a post coup honeymoon.
Speaker 2: It really was a post coup honeymoon. Ironically, it was
a post coup honeymoon. And so she, you know, she
ends up the new candidate. Then there's the Waltz pick,
which ended up being the worst pick in history and
for other reasons. And then the convention. So she hit
about a five or six week holding honeymoon. But as
I said to people back then, not unlike other honeymoons
at some point you check out of the hotel and
go home, and voters checked out of the honeymoon hotel
and started to get more realistic. It was about a
month ago that her poll numbers or favorables went upside
down and people more people at a negative attitude towards
or less unfavorable view than favorable because of that honeymoon
and so a lot of things came together. The issues
came together. The Trump campaign was pre disciplined operation. They
spent their time in the seven states. We had pushed
hard on early vote. We had coalition groups in the
state that were pushing hard and talking to low propensity
and other voters. It was really this pile of different
things that came together. As I'd always say, we had
twelve races in twenty four years in Wisconsin that were
within thirty thousand votes, and now between Trump and of
course how deep We've had fourteen races in twenty six
years within within thirty thousand votes. So as as you know,
Victory has a lot of fathers, right, and some of
the fathers out there claiming they're the father. I'm thinking
about applying a maternity test.
Speaker 1: Well. As as you said, Brian, one of the Big
Fathers is a mother, well at least a stepmother, and
that's Kamala Harris. I mean that that is a big issue.
And I and again, yeah, I know you're exactly what
you're saying. You're not discounting that the events, the times,
what people were really going through and the fact that
the left in this country, that the Democrat Party, the
Harris Walls campaign tried to explain to the American people
it was voter explaining. You know, we hear all this
talk about man's plaining. This was voters planning. Oh, you
just don't understand poor middle class American things. You should
look at the numbers from our experts. They're actually a
lot better than you think it is.
Speaker 2: Had a convincing argument.
Speaker 1: No, no, it wasn't a convincing argument at all, obviously,
and that's I think made a big difference. But you
don't get there without, in particular the election integrity stuff.
I think that you're talking about that early vote, absentee
ballot stuff. How difficult was that to talk to grassroots
conservatives convince them make that argument, and make that argument
rather quickly when their leader, when the former president of
the United States and understandably so, because he had been
burned by election and integrity early vote issues, by the scores.
You know, he has had spent a long time saying
we need to vote on election day and election day
only in the early voting that's where everything gets rigged.
And there's the problem. He had to have a change
of heart. So how did you go about convincing And
I think you mentioned this with a voter integrity issues,
But how do you make that argument when your candidate
is not making that argument for a long time.
Speaker 2: Well, I think his campaign apparatus, you know, spent a
lot of time talking to him about the issue and
the reality of where we are at early vote. I
talked to him about it a couple of times face
to face, and I knew that we kind of crossed
the bridge, you know, or earlier than it became a parent.
But I was kind of one of the regular warmon
backs for him when he flew into the state. And
I'll never forget. I forget this thing locked in my
mind for whatever reason. But when we did the rally
in Dodge County, had about ten thousand people at the
Dodge County Airport and Juno was outside Junia Wisconsin, and
I walked into the rally site of my spirited guys
walking me around kind of giving me the layup out
of the place for when I spoke at the rally,
and the biggest banner at that rally was vote early,
and I remember I was sitting to stage right of
the President and that rot that banner was stage left,
and he got up on stage after I did my
warm up and others did, and spoke passionately about early
vote and did not qualify it. Did not say, well,
I really wish it was paper ballots and really wish
it all election day and all that he didn't qualify it,
and that was late. I mean, the truth is that
was laid into the race. But I had talked to
the President about early vote in Wisconsin before, not that
I necessarily commisced him of anything, but I reassured him.
He knew that I was the first chair in the
country to go out and push it as hard as
I did. And so, well, you know what was that rally.
I don't know it all runs together now, but you
know that helped. But frankly, you know, to be candidate
also help. Not just that I was pushing up Ron Johnson,
Brian Style, Tom Tiffany, other members of Congress said, you
know what, we got to do this right. And so
to have those voices of reason out there people, you know,
folks that people trust on the Republican side going please
do this. I mean, Ron Johnson made a video of
himself early voting, and so part of it was okay voters,
you know, people that leaders that people trust saying look
as the saying goes, it's okay, vote this way. And
so that really really helped me and the party get
people there. So you look at the uptick and early
vote numbers in Republican areas across this press of the state
read dramatic overall. I won't be able to quantify it
until we get a more deeper dive on the numbers.
But as I say, I shudder to think what would
have happened had we not done that. And when we
win by less than thirty thousand votes, uh, you know,
we're basically three point four million votes were cast.
Speaker 3: Did you know eight out of the last eleven created
jobs never really existed? Watched Out on Wall Street Podcast
with Chris Markowski. Every day, Chris helps unpack the connection
between politics and the economy and how it.
Speaker 1: Affects your wallet.
Speaker 3: Over the course of the past year, the Labor Department
has revised the Jobs report by over a million jobs.
In case you forgot, the Federal Reserve was using this
info and making their policy decisions. Whether it's happening in
DC or down on Wall Street, it's affecting you financially.
Speaker 2: Be informed.
Speaker 3: Check out the Watch Dot on Wall Street podcast with
Chris Markowski on Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1: And I think the party nationally got that idea. I
think the campaign yeah, got that idea, as you mentioned,
and the grassroots were very engaged, very active in that
so active. Of course, we're seeing the numbers out of Pennsylvania,
you know, places like Ohio and Virginia. You know, like
in Ohio's a deep red state, Virginia's been blue for
a long time. But how close was the election for
a long time until you got to that monolith of
Democrats support around DC. But you know, Trump was making
inroads in a lot of different areas, and as you
talked about before, it was a redefining election. I mean,
look how many Hispanic voters turned out Black men voting
for Donald Trump absolutely absolute sea change that went on
in this election. Let's talk a little bit about the
Senate Republican control. Looks like Republicans are in good shape
for the House of Representatives, even if that turns out
to be a narrow margin. There's counting to continue as
always in California, but pretty good shape. I know that
you would also like to have Eric Covedy heading to Washington, DC,
or preparing to do so right now. But I guess
let me ask you this, as a state party chair,
as you work with all of these folks, do you
expect do you expect the resistance movement to pop up
again like we saw in sixteen?
Speaker 2: Well? Interesting about that, And actually I was literally just
thinking about that this morning because I'm an elector for
the state of Wisconsin and for the Republicans, and I
remember being at the electors meeting in twenty sixteen when
a bunch of Liberals came into the meeting and literally
tried to get them to stop from casting their electoral.
Speaker 1: Isn't that interesting? Now? Was there? Let me ask you this,
was there a massive federal investigation into that.
Speaker 2: No, there wasn't. Isn't that amazing? It really is just
really well impact. I was reminded of it the other
day in part of this part I didn't experience myself,
but our electors, including a very close lifelong friend of
mine who was an elector, got thousands of email not
not a couple thousands, multiple thousands of emails and letters
and phone calls telling them not to vote for Donald Trump.
Whateverone was telling me here a couple of weeks ago.
It we stumbled into the conversation. But that he managed
he amounted to having what was a mail cart from
the post office full of this stuff, not you know
those fiberglass hand ones that you carry when you got
a little too many packages, a full sized mail cart
full of mail. And then also the emails and things
like that.
Speaker 1: So they some hate mail, I would imagine, too, right.
Speaker 2: I would, I would think. So he learned a few
new words going through some of that, and so I
don't know that they will try to stop it or not.
What I would say is the fact that you know
there's no recount in the presidential race in the office
here helps, but look it's the Madison, Wisconsin left. So
I suspect that when we have the electors meeting, which
is somebody told me today was in around December sixteenth sometimes,
you know, that's held at the state Capitol and we
have a habit of getting visitors there from the Madison left.
So I, you know, I imagined that we will get called
all manner of names for being electors for Donald Trump.
But it's nothing worse that I've heard in my career
or going to family reunions. So what more can they say?
Speaker 1: You know, Thanksgiving is going to be fun once again.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, isn't that now? So I don't you know,
you know what's interesting about that, Matt is so what
was the discussion a year ago? Oh, the Republican Party
captured by Donald Trump? There was no real primary or
caucuss season because he swept everyone away and and all
that stuff. What are they talking about now? They're taught
Now they're talking about the mess within the Democratic Party
because of the way this whole thing has been handled
and the way that the modern left who runs this
party now, the modern left, this party yanks around to
the call of the modern left, and so the problem
is on the other side now because of this, at
least many realignment that we saw on election night Tuesday night,
the Democratic Party has a lot of soul searching to do,
and that is not one of the favorite things they
like to do.
Speaker 1: They don't.
Speaker 2: But the left, you know, the old you know, we
always kind of say, the old Harry Truman, Fdr Johina Kennedy.
Whatever Democratic Party is gone, it's gone. And to the
extent that remnants are still there, they're afraid to speak up.
And so the left gets their way every time because
they drag the party around on all this crazy crap.
I mean, it gets your point before about oh gee,
you know, the Democrats, they would roll out, you know,
the latest inflation numbers, or they thought, you know, some
you know report about how everyone thinks the economy is
getting better. And I always say, there's a grocery store
test on everything, because people would listen to all that
nonsense on one of the liberal news outlets in the
morning and then go to the grocery store and reality
hit them upside the ad usually right, and so there,
I think the Democratic Party, through their kind of faculty
lounge arrogance, you know, kind of their limousine liberal arrogance,
completely misread the electorate and they spent all their time
sticking pins in their Donald Trump doll and meanwhile Donald
Trump ran around them and ran the table. This in
many ways, was not a close election.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no doubt about that. I think that's well put
really badly, and we're going to talk about this for
a long time. How badly the Democrats read this election.
It happens to both parties over time, but this one
was a doozy. You've been extremely generous with your time,
because I know you're extremely busy. Just a few minutes left,
but I did. I'd be remiss if I didn't bring
us back to what we talked about earlier. There's no
rest for the weary. There's no rest for Brian Schenning
in the Republican Party of Wisconsin because right as you
got the results the day after the election, they came
in confirming big victories for Republicans. Now you got to
think spring, and you got to think two thousand in
twenty six, what's next in battleground Wisconsin.
Speaker 2: Well, totally. I so election and I were in the
war room. We let out the war because we literally
thought Alaska was going to get reported first. Well, Wisconsin
gets declared first, and that pushes Trump over two seventy.
So we're all excited, I asked our lead data guys, Okay,
do all of you agree that Wisconsin is going for Trump?
Because we are not going out on that stage and
I have to eat a pilot whatever later. And so
they all independently agreed, and I said, let's go out
declare victory, which we did. But literally, you remind me
of it, because as I was on the stage, you know,
in this almost surreal moment, literally honestly it was almost
surreal moment, I'm also thinking about what's next and how
this cry. A couple hundred people in front of me,
everybody's chairing, Ron Johnson, and I and Glen Grothman are
on stage, and so I savoring the moment, but also
going what do we keep these people involved for what's
to come in April? Which is the majority of the
State Supreme Court, and you don't have to be a
lawyer to appreciate that issue. In this respect, this court
is going to decide and the court that will be
in place, which again just one seat on the seven
member court, it's the liberal conservative ratio on that court.
This court will decide whether Act ten survives. This court
will decide whether school choice on the South Side of
Milwaukee and statewide survives.
Speaker 1: And for those and for those who who don't know
about Act ten because it's been around forever, that is,
that's the reform bill that the Republicans fought like hell
for in twenty eleven. That almost got Scott Walker, the
governor who came in recalled in this state. There were
a number of recalls of legislators. But it reformed collective
bargaining in the public sector. Collective bargaining by the way,
in the public sector that totally throw taxpayers out of
the room when it came to negotiating very generous contracts
for public sector workers. That all changed in twenty eleven,
and it's been a huge, huge, huge savings for the
taxpayers of Wisconsin.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, and it's at risk. I mean, there's zero doubt
that all of those if you have a liberal court.
That is to say, if the liberals saved the seat
Justice aand Walsh Bradley's seat liberal retiring, if we replaced
her with another Liberal, it will be till twoenty twenty eight,
three years past this April, that we will have the
opportunity to take the court back. Well, I'm telling you
have liberals a four to three majority liberal court on
the Supreme Court, and I'm telling you those things are
gone and it is just going to happen because this isn't,
by the way, this I mean, I've been around court
politics for thirty years. This isn't the old court where
you'd have traditional old white haired Democrats. You know, who
are you know? They were definitely Democrat and didn't always
vote with us, but they weren't crazy. This court is crazy.
And you look hard hard for leftists now on this
Supreme Court who will damn the torpedoes and will say
we're going to take these votes. My suspicion is they
won't take some of these votes before April to get
people genned up. But if you value school of choice,
if you value the labor reforms and the reforms that
we got under Act ten under Scott Walker, I mean,
I don't know how many dozen laws going clear back
to Tommy Thompson that will be on the chopping block,
not because they're on the chopping block and the legislature
where these issues be decided, but we will have a
second legislature over in the other wing of the Capitol
called the Wisconsin Supreme Court. And if people aren't worried
about that, they need to get worried.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and we've already seen that court in action since
August of last year, when, by the way, the left
dropped the most the mountain of money. I mean, this
was record breaking, unprecedented amount of money for a state
Supreme Court race, any court race in the history of
this country. I am seeing a bigger expenditure coming up
as we moved toward April.
Speaker 2: So I was in DC last month and talked to
a group of conservatives who meet every Wednesday at Grover
Norquest Wednesdate group, a center right group, and I used
to be the chair of that group here in Wisconsin,
and I gave them a very blunt warning about what's
coming in this state all and frankly there was is
you know, Matt, there's a school choice Scott Walker's reforms
with that that was not something that got done here
in stayed here that those are reforms in Wisconsin that
got used and modeled in other states exactly. So the
risk here is extremely high, and I am going to
be spending an extrordinary amount of time going out in
oververe fashion all over the state saying to folks, look
this it's up to us, so.
Speaker 1: Not so many football games then.
Speaker 2: Will not be I will not be. I'll be what
little football and baseball I'll be watching, will probably be
in quick for your parking lots on my laptop something
like that.
Speaker 1: Well, say hi to the fridge for me. I will
I really hear there.
Speaker 2: If I see him pull in, believe me, I'll run
in ahead of them to make sure there's something left.
Speaker 1: You bet, he's got, He's got all the sus E cues.
Just don't get behind him in line for the bathroom.
As we noted before, well man, what a performance on
election night? See change. Maybe that doesn't even say enough.
It's it's I know it's a big term, it's all encompassing,
but a lot of things changed, a lot of things
went right for conservatives, but it was a lot of
work that went into getting that done. I want to
thank our guest today, Brian Shimming, chairman of the Republican
Party of Wisconsin, joining us on this edition of the
Federalist Radio R. Thank you, sir, I appreciate it.
Speaker 2: Thanks Matt. Great to be with you, you.
Speaker 1: Bet, and we will do it again soon. I hope
you will enjoy it and join us. You've been listening
to another edition of The Federalist Radio Hour. I'm Matt Kittle,
senior correspondent at the Federalist. We'll be back soon with more.
Until then, stay lovers of freedom and anxious for the
fray