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Bayfield County. Thanks
very much.

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>> Thank you.
>> Our political reporters

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covered Tom Tiffany at the
state GOP convention, as he

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was officially endorsed as
the Republican candidate

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for governor. Tiffany was
also in the mix during last

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week's failed vote at the
Capitol over tax relief and

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public school funding,
purportedly calling

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lawmakers to kill the deal.
A new report out of the

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Legislative Fiscal Bureau
says if it had passed, it

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could have put the state's
budget in a nearly $3

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billion deficit in a few
years. Let's hear what they

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had to say about it on this
week's Inside Wisconsin

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politics.
>> I think when you're

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looking at a 2.95 billion
projected budget deficit at

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the end of the next two
year budget, not the one we

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are now, but the one after
that feels real to me. And

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I mean, just looking
through those numbers,

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right?
>> And, you know, the sort

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of important caveat is that
that number from the

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Legislative Fiscal Bureau
doesn't take into account

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the fact that we are in a
period of sort of

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remarkable economic
so it says that we would

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have that deficit, that
sort of almost $3 billion

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deficit were this to have
passed. And that's not

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accounting for potential
changes to tax revenue, to

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the fact that there's like
a war going on right now

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that is affecting oil and
gas prices, all these

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different things. And so
from all of the Democrats

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who voted against it, and
then also from the

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Republicans who voted
concern about the cost of

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this thing, which was kind
of nebulous. And so even

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with those kind of firmer
numbers, it, you know,

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justifies, I think, what
some of those lawmakers

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were saying on the floor.
But it also kind of points

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to this, again, political
gamesmanship that we often

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see when it comes to
appropriations, which is

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what is what is our money
for? What is our state

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surplus for? Is it for
things like this? Is it to

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have kind of in our back
pockets? And so there was

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that was really the
contours of the fight.

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>> We had a state GOP
convention over this past

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weekend. Tom Tiffany is now
the endorsed candidate. He

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doesn't have to worry about
a primary the way that the

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candidates had to in 2022,
so he can focus on the

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general election now. And
yet, Zac, we're talking

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about the 2020 election
here. What is Tom Tiffany

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talking about?
>> He cannot get away from

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Trump's main grievance,
which is the fact that he

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lost to Joe Biden in 2020.
And because he still has

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such a powerful grip over
the Republican Party

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nationally, which we just
saw in Republican primaries

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in Kentucky and in
Louisiana, Senate races,

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that his people have to
fall in line on his beliefs

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or his incorrect beliefs
that the 2020 election was

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stolen. So Tom Tiffany is
still answering questions

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about election fraud
investigations and whether

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Joe Biden won the election
with, you know, kind of

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diffusing or deferring and
trying to get away from it

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because he can't come out
and honestly say, no, of

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course Trump lost. That's
been warranted over and

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over. Every Republican
group out there, from Vos

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to the Wisconsin Institute
for Law and Liberty has

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already said so. And that
is something that Democrats

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love to hear, because they
will continue to hang that

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around his neck all the way
to November as much as they

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possibly can, the closer
they tie him to Donald

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Trump. And these grievances
from four years, six years

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ago now that the better off
it is for them.

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>> And Anya, just real
quick, I mean, it seems

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like this is an issue where
as much as he wants to go

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for those handful of voters
who are in the middle, this

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is a line that he can't
cross as far as Republicans

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are concerned.
>> Yeah. I mean, I think

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one of the lessons from
this week is that in state

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politics, it's not the time
if you are a Republican to

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be bucking Trump. And so we
are seeing him sort of tie

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himself again to this issue.
himself again to this issue.