All right, Friedrich, let's go.
Let's try it.
Let's rock and roll.
And I know you have never let me
down.
Likewise.
As Wisconsin and the nation gear
toward midterm elections,
what are voters to make of what goes
on in Washington and how it affects
them? Or are they tuning out
because of the daily crush of
headlines?
There's the ongoing war in Iran,
prices at the pump and in the spring
planting fields.
There is the nearly $1.8 billion
anti-weaponization fund
that the president could give to
people who stormed the Capitol on
January 6.
There is the significant narrowing
of the Voting Rights Act by
conservatives on the U.S.
Supreme Court and the list goes
on and on.
We regularly like to touch
with our Washington delegation
by way of meeting up with
them for interviews, for their news
and views.
Over the past couple of weeks, we've
invited Wisconsin Republicans to
share their viewpoints without
success.
Tonight, we turn to 4th District
Democratic Congresswoman Gwen Moore
from Milwaukee.
And thanks very much for being here.
Always great to be with you,
Virginia.
So of all the news that is swirling,
what stands out for you as you
represent your constituents?
Well, the thing that is obviously
standing out to me is
just the unending
economic crush
that people are facing.
Combination of the
tariffs,
the war on Iran,
the erratic, mercurial
functioning of this
president,
him freezing funds
for essential services.
Uh, like daycare and
child care.
Uh, these are things that are
disrupting, uh,
every day, Wisconsin, nice lives,
the crisis with healthcare, uh
and the doubling sometimes
of people's healthcare premiums or
the loss of their healthcare
premium, you know, just the
aggregation of all these things is
placing a huge economic,
uh, crush on families.
And so that's the thing that sort
of stands out to me
as the background
for all of the very particular
things that have happened.
As to the ruling related to
the Voting Rights Act that a
majority minority district was an
unconstitutional racial gerrymander,
what does that mean to minority
representation?
It means an awful lot.
You know, the 13th, 14th,
15th Amendment, the 14th Amendment
of the Constitution in particular
really guaranteed African-Americans
equality.
And we have seen throughout history,
this is not new people,
we've seen throughout the history
a sort of lost cause
of, you know,
Democrats and Republicans grieving
over
uh... African americans having
access to the ballot access
to power and their
willingness to sort
of interfere with that power and by
any means necessary you know
the rise of the kooklicks clan
came as a result of africans being
enfranchised uh...
And so this is absolutely no this
is a backlash uh...
For the power that africana
americans have achieved And
this could have an impact.
On a minimum of 19
sort of voting voting rights
districts in the country.
Already, we see,
for example, in Texas,
the primary that's coming up
this week between Al
Green, my classmate, and
a newcomer, Christian Menafee,
where they're battling it out for
one black seat where there
were two.
We see the
these.
Storied Jim Clyburn
from South Carolina,
the only African American
elected in South
Carolina because of gerrymandering.
And they're threatening to
take his seat away,
take that seat away and
so on.
And so we see the historic
district in Memphis, Tennessee,
that was ably represented
by Stephen Cohen.
67% African American
district where they,
African Americans elected Stephen
Cohen, but now they
have torn that district up and
there's a, and the Memphis district
now moves out past
Memphis 300 miles away
from the city
center.
So it will mean that
African Americans will not have a
choice and the ability
to elect.
Members of their choice,
like in Memphis, for example, they
chose to
elect Stephen Cohen,
a white man, time and a
time again, but they
will now lose the power
to elect someone of
their choose, and I suspect that
Memphis may be lost as
well.
And yet we shouldn't anticipate
changes to Wisconsin voting maps
as a result of this Supreme Court
ruling, right?
Not for this term at
all.
Although, if you look at
the reasoning under the Roberts
courts, we could easily get
two more seats out of Wisconsin.
And then Wisconsin, you
know, is 50-50.
It's a purple state.
Everybody knows that.
Every single vote counts.
We've had elections that
Democrats and or Republicans
have won by the hair of
their chinny chin chin because
this is a 50-50 state.
So that does not explain
why, up until
they did a state redistricting
last time, that we had only
one third of our 99 member
assembly be Democrats.
That was clearly a result
of partisan gerrymandering.
But if we had used those same
principles to redistrict
in Wisconsin, we could
have had.
Districts and maybe even more
in Wisconsin, two more,
excuse me, democratic districts,
and maybe a 4-4
distribution of members of
Congress in Wisconsin.
Turning to the war in Iran,
the U.S. And Iran are reportedly
negotiating.
Are members of Congress on both
sides tiring of this
ongoing war and wanting a say?
Well, I'll tell you, we have been
putting up War
Powers Resolutions
repeatedly,
privileged resolutions,
which by the way, the Republicans
did not or yesterday,
we had yet another War
Powers resolution ripened and
they didn't put it before us because
they in the House did not
have the votes to
defeat it. We've seen more
and more and more
Republicans join us.
Uh, and
putting forth this war powers
resolution.
To this day, we don't have
a concrete reason that we went
in there.
We don't see any path
toward a resolution
or victory.
And of course, the president
campaigned on
getting out of these forever wars.
And you really can't blame
constituencies and voters
for being attracted to that concept.
And this is one of the biggest
disappointments of his presidency,
that and of course, increasing
prices through his tariffs
and this war.
On another matter, in your
mind, should Congress have a say
over the nearly $1.8 billion
fund that resulted out of a
settlement President Trump made
with the IRS that would
pay people the administration
believes were unfairly
prosecuted?
It's all very ludicrous.
I bet, Frederica, you can't even
believe that you're asking this
question.
This $1.8 billion
slush fund for
his cronies and his buddy.
It is separate from our
judgment fund that the
United States has for legitimate
sort of
overreaching of the federal
government. This is a slush fun
that is set to
expire.
When he leaves office in
December of his
final year of office.
And of course, these January 6
rioters, people who bludgeoned
police officers.
Police officers died one
day after, I'm thinking of Brian
Sicknick, who died
and lost his life.
The officers who died by suicide
because of their apprehension about
what happened on January 6.
All of these people are lining up.
To get their payout.
And also,
another part of that agreement is
that Donald Trump and his sons
should never, ever, ever be
audited again.
That is absolutely the
pinnacle of corruption.
We saw one
person,
Chang Pei Chao,
who was
convicted on
SEC securities fraud,
but bought $2 billion
worth of
Trump's,
and Eric Trump's
coinbase or
cryptocurrency, and
he was pardoned.
And so, you know, so Congress
doesn't have any oversight
over who he pardons,
but I mean, it is so obvious and
so clear.
That this is more than quid
pro quo. I don't know what you would
call it. But as a member of the Ways
and Means Committee, we did offer,
in our markup yesterday,
which was on corruption of
TANF, for example, corruption,
we did author amendments
to try to get rid of
this $1.8 billion fund.
Are your voters overwhelmed by the
crush of everything that happens out
of Washington on a daily basis?
You want to know something that
I'll say.
The whole political strategy
of the Trump administration has
been to flood the zone,
to just keep us
running like a rat on
a treadmill so that we won't be
able to respond to
their chaotic, mercurial
governance strategy
to keep things going.
But you know what?
In the words of my former colleague,
the late, great John Lewis,
We're going to keep our eye on the
prize.
And the prize is
that Democrats would
resume power, and we would resume
regular order.
Who knew that the thing we
would want more is just
some normalcy?
We are hoping to get back into power
to really resolve some of the major
threats to our
community of interests.
That is the ability for people
to vote.
The ability of people to be
able to go to a doctor, the
ability of the people to afford
both the bacon and
the eggs,
and to be to live
a productive life, to be
be able put gas in their
car so they can get to work.
This is the American dream,
just to have normalcy.
And so.
This is what we're offering
voters in the future.
And that is, we're keeping our
eye on the prize.
I can tell you with the voting
rights debacle,
the message that black
legislators have is
that this is not just a problem
of black legislators.
This is an American problem
that African-Americans
like me represent
districts that are filled.
With non-African Americans
who have hopes and dreams and
aspirations for
their present and their future.
We represent so many
families that are not African
Americans, and so
squashing the voting rights of
African Americans will ignore
to the detriment
of all Americans.
Congresswoman Gwen Moore, we leave
it there.
Thank you so much.
Are you done?
Yes.
Thanks.
Okay. Appreciate it.