- [Steven] David Schroeder, Republican candidate
for US Senate.
Thank you for joining us.
- Thank you.
- [Steven] You're a former educator and a Republican.
Why are you challenging fellow Republican, Ron Johnson,
in the US Senate primary race?
- For the first six years of his tenure in the Senate,
he's a deficit Hawk.
He's figuring out how to, you know,
reduce the deficit, get rid of, you know, social programs,
things like that until Trump gets elected,
and all of a sudden he's passing a tax cut
that adds $1.7 trillion to the deficit.
And I'm thinking, well all that deficit talk
was just smokescreen stuff and he benefited quite a bit
from that tax cut, as did large manufacturers.
Then COVID hits and he's passing out, or promoting
false and harmful information
about the vaccines and about COVID.
Then he volunteers to take to the vice president
a fraudulent list of electors to overturn the election
and in the process, by doing that, if he had succeeded
he'd have nullified my vote.
So I feel that he's not a qualified person to be running,
he's violated his oath of office at least once.
- [Steven] All right.
If elected, what would your legislative priorities be?
- Campaign finance reform.
I mean the freedom to vote act and the John Lewis act,
you know, those are the three I would start on
because I think if we're gonna try to save this democracy
those are the three priorities that need to
be dealt with right off the bat.
And I think they transcend party lines. Quite frankly
- [Steven] On the economy, inflation has reached
a 40 year high,
how should federal lawmakers address inflation?
- I think that inflation is a worldwide problem.
Now you've got oil companies that have made 300% profit
this quarter from the last quarter,
which is 35 billion dollars.
These are multinational corporations that really can't be
touched by an individual country or an individual.
So there's gotta be some way to deal with that
but that's where your inflation is.
I mean, you got all these people that are just
gouging because they can,
and it's got nothing to do with national issues.
We're all getting hit.
- [Steven] Shifting now to gun violence.
There have been a number of mass shootings
and other gun deaths of uptick as well.
President Joe Biden recently signed into law
new gun control measures.
How would you address gun violence as a US Senator?
- If you can get money out of the campaign system,
you can get a lot broader field of candidates
because they don't need as much, you know,
like some countries have
what you would call federal funding for campaigns.
That way you'd have a much broader perspective of people.
And it wouldn't be beholden to these big money people
like the NRA.
And the second thing I would do is,
I understand people like to collect things.
I like to collect things. So people like to collect guns.
Okay, you wanna collect 14 AR-15's
and hang 'them on your wall. Good.
But if you wanna start buying ammunition for that thing,
there better be some qualifications on it.
And I think that's where you restrict it.
You charge a dollar for the bullet and tax it $99,
and the same thing with high capacity clips.
- [Steven] The Supreme court has overruled Roe vs Wade.
What should US senators do on the matter of abortion?
- The only thing they've stopped is legal abortions.
There's still gonna be abortions.
And I remember what it was like before there was Roe vs Wade
and it was not pleasant.
So I don't want to go back to that.
And what they've done is they've taken 50% of this country
and turned them into second class citizens
in one fell swoop. And who's next?
- [Steven] There have been claims of election fraud.
How would you reassure Wisconsin voters to have confidence
in the election system?
- Well, I worked elections, so I defy anybody who thinks
that there's election fraud going on at polls
to go work them.
You'll see all of the safeguards and
things that are in place to stop
anything like that from happening.
Each one of these county clerks has
a fantastic system of judging
what's a valid vote, of what's a valid ballot,
and what is not.
I don't care how you think you can stuff a ballot box.
It's impossible.
Now there are ways to rig an election.
In the state of Wisconsin, It's called gerrymandering.
That's where you're getting, you know, election fraud.
I mean, voters aren't causing that.
And it's ridiculous
if you think you can, you know, vote five times
and change an election. It's just not worth it.
Even if you could get away with it, which you can't,
and the federal crime for that is years in prison
for crying out loud. So why would anybody risk that?
- [Steven] Ron Johnson has won election twice.
What do you think your chances are
of making it to the general election in November?
- That depends on the voters.
I'm here to give them an opportunity.
The whole reason for me running was to give them
an opportunity to make their voice heard.
Do you like the job he's doing?
Do you like the fact that he represents maybe 5%
of his constituents? I'll represent 95% of you.
- [Steven] How do you respond to those who
may question your motivation for running as a Republican?
- I'm a legitimate Republican.
The people that are in Trump's Republican party,
that's not even a party anymore.
It's a cult personality.
Listen, Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses Grant,
James A. Garfield and Teddy Roosevelt could not,
And Dwight Eisenhower could not get
in the Republican party today.
You know, Robert LaFollette, great Wisconsin Senator,
there's no way they would take him.
Howard Baker, Everett Thurston,
even Barry Goldwater could not get
in the current Republican party.
They would throw them out.
So it's time for Republicans to take their dang party back.
Come on guys. Let's go.
- [Steven] David Schroeder, Thank you again for joining us.
- Oh, thank you.