I don't hear you right now, Zach.
It kind of went away.
Alright, can you hear me now?
Now I can, yep, something happened,
but we're good. All right.
All right, that sounds good.
I'm getting ready.
Okay, yeah, we're
pushing buttons and dials somewhere
in the building, so we'll be ready
in a minute or so.
I don't know where he thinks.
Did you get in last night?
Yeah, it's hard
for two weeks you're home,
you're doing a bunch of stuff,
getting things done, you get back
out there, there's nothing of
consequence to vote on.
You know, your life
legislatively is utterly
meaningless, so it's been a bit of
a challenge kind of reorienting
after a couple weeks, but that's why
just getting home is good.
I'm sure. All right, we are ready,
so they will give me the role and
we'll start.
If there's one constant with Donald
Trump as president, it's that he
creates a firehose of news.
And just as it appears one topic
will dominate the national
conversation, another issue pops
up.
Joining us now to talk about the
Democratic response to the first 100
days of Trump's second term in
office is Congressman Mark Pocan.
Thanks for your time today.
I appreciate having me.
So from Doge to immigration to
tariffs, have Democrats really found
an issue to focus on when it comes
to responding to Trump?
Well, I mean, I think we all should
be focused on the economy,
right? That was the number one issue
for Donald Trump when he got
elected. Half the people in exit
polls said they voted on the economy
and it's also the number one issue
hurting Donald Trump right now,
whether it be. The indiscriminate
use of tariffs that's blowing
the stock market up and causing
prices to continue to rise.
His inability to lower costs, he
promised to do it day one, it's been
just the opposite in most areas.
And the rule of law and the chaos
and the flooding the zone of so much
is really hard and it's kind of
exhausting for people who are
calling into the office trying to
keep up with what's going on.
Well, so many of Trump's actions
have come through executive orders,
and many of those are now being
fought over in court.
And even on the topic of tariffs,
some of them are announced and then
rolled back.
So do you think the general public
actually understands what's happened
versus what is just being talked
about?
One of the things Donald Trump does
well for himself, and that's usually
how he does things for himself is
he floods the zone with a lot of
different messages on any given
issue. So you may hear what you want
to hear, but just take tariffs.
I would defy anyone to tell me
exactly where we're at on tariffs
right now, because I don't know if I
could tell you. They're on, they're
off. Some are on, some are off.
A bunch are on.
Penguins are paying tariffs, and I'm
not sure where we are at today,
right? I think tomatoes just got
tariffs in Mexico, so you really
can't keep up with it.
But the problem is, we're hearing
from a lot of business people, their
costs are going up because of
tariffs, and things that aren't even
tariffed are going up, because this
is a backdoor way for people to
raise other costs.
So at the end of the day, people are
going to start paying more and more
for things as Donald Trump throws
these tariffs out without a real
plan.
And targeted tariffs can be done
well. If China is dumping cheap
steel in the United States, we
should absolutely respond with
targeted tariffs. It's a very
effective tool.
But if you use a screwdriver to
pound a nail in, it's not as
effective. You can't use the same
tool for everything, and that's what
Donald Trump is doing.
And at the of the end day, it just
costing people in Wisconsin and
across the country more money out of
their pockets, which is the opposite
of what he promised.
I mean, historically, you don't have
to go back more than a few decades
to the Democrats were the party of
targeted tariffs and protecting
certain American industries.
So how do you message that when
there are still members of your
party that remember when tariffs
were part of the democratic
platform?
Yeah, I think just the way I did,
you wouldn't use a screwdriver to do
every single job in your house,
right? If you're pounding a nail in
to put a picture on the wall, you're
probably not going to use the back
end of a screwdriver for that,
right, and he's using one tool,
tariffs, for absolutely everything.
We should renegotiate trade deals.
We should use targeted tariffs.
Those are all valid ways
of addressing the economy.
But when you throw them out on all
kinds of countries, including major
trading partners that we rely on
in Wisconsin, like Canada and
Mexico when it comes to agriculture,
for example, you're not
doing tariffs the right way.
You're just throwing them all out
there. I mean, when a country that
only has penguins gets tariffs,
someone's not really thinking
through this. And that's
the real problem right now.
They're used in a way that becomes a
tax on all of us.
And people are going to see their
costs keep going up.
And that's the opposite, again, of
what we are promised.
We had your colleague Republican
Congressman Tom Tiffany on last week
and he said tariffs are a
negotiation tactic that will
ultimately lead to lower tariffs
globally.
He said quote, you would hope over
the next couple of months that with
these active negotiations going on
that we're going to see some good
things happen.
What would you make of his
assessment?
You know, I think he's going to
Minnesota and getting some medical
marijuana or something, because I'm
not sure that is an answer that
anyone else honestly believes,
including other Republican members
of Congress I talked to, they're
concerned about tariffs.
I just had a company from in
our area, I'm gonna say the name of
the company, but they sell a lot
to China.
It's a higher medical device,
let's just say.
And because of that,
with the tariffs right now, they're
leading market, they're gonna have a
much harder time.
Of selling to that market.
And most of their stuff, 70%
here is sourced in the United
States, 48% just in Wisconsin.
So if you start stopping those
sales because of the response
tariffs and the indiscriminate use
the way the president's doing,
they're feeling a real impact.
And I hear that from manufacturer
after manufacturer in the
area. So it's not just that
consumers are paying more, it's that
companies are going to start feeling
this. And we've even heard of some
building projects starting to be
canceled. Because of increased costs
on tariff goods,
like some of the lumber that has
been coming from both Canada and
Mexico, and aluminum costs.
So right now, there is not a
plan, right? I think when Donald
Trump answered the question in the
debate about health care, they said,
you have a plan. He said he had a
concept of a plan—everything seems
to be a concept of a plan,
not a plan.
At some point we really need plans.
Eight years ago, it was Paul Ryan
leading the House during Trump's
first two years.
And Republicans were largely focused
on passing tax cuts and
really seemed to ignore most of
Trump's other agenda.
A lot of those Republicans have been
replaced in Congress with Trump
loyalists. So what, from your
perspective, what is the difference
between then and now when it comes
to the Republican majority in
Congress?
Well, let me clarify one thing.
The holy grail for the Republicans
is still this tax cut for the
wealthiest.
That's what they're trying to get
done by Memorial Day.
I don't think they'll get it done by
then, but the trillion and
a half dollars that trying to steal
from the middle class and those who
aspire to be in the middle-class
through things like healthcare and
long-term care through Medicaid,
food assistance for kids, the number
one program that keeps kids out of
poverty, a 45% cut to
federal funding for education.
All of that is to pay off this tax
cut that originally was estimated
at $4.5 trillion
to extend it.
Now, the Joint Committee on Taxation
said, no, it's $5.5 billion,
and that's all money literally
stolen from working-class
people to go to Elon Musk
and Donald Trump and people who can
afford to go Mar-a-Lago.
So even though the faces may have
changed, the Holy Grail has not.
But when you flood the zone and make
people think that, you know, we're
going to talk a Greenland or Canada
becoming the 51st state, things that
are never going to happen, then
you're not talking about the money
that's being stolen out of your
wallets in order to give Elon Musk a
tax cut. And that's why I think it's
really important that we remember.
There is no difference in their
agenda. It is always about their
donors and the wealthiest in this
country.
Even more so now that you've got
Donald Trump in office and Elon
Musk, an unelected billionaire,
turning on and off federal funds,
turning off funds for programs that
middle-class people rely on.
So I really just wanna keep the
focus on that.
You've been part of a trend of
Democratic members of Congress
holding town halls in Republican
districts.
And part of this is to call out
Republicans for not holding their
own public forums.
But what are you hearing from
people? Are they just local
Democrats coming to talk to a
Democrat or are they other
constituents?
This is the ultimate common
sense test, right?
It doesn't pass the smell test.
If you say you're doing something
good for the American people.
But instead of doing town halls to
share that information, you'd want
to go on the rooftop, right, with a
megaphone and scream it if you're
doing something good.
You're hiding in your basement and
not doing town hall.
And Republican leadership has told
Republican members not to do town
halls. Well, I smell that.
And that smells pretty bad.
What they're doing, again, is
stealing money from us to do this
tax cut. So I'm going to make sure
that people in Wisconsin aren't
getting ripped off. So, I've done
several town halls in Derek Van
Orden's He's never done an open
public town hall in two and a half
years.
So, you know, people want to be
heard. I did one last week in La
Crosse, and 350-plus
people showed up.
They want to talk about those cuts
to Medicaid and long-term care.
Don't forget, that's 1.3 million
people in Wisconsin.
55% of seniors in nursing
homes get help from Medicaid.
One out of three kids in Wisconsin
gets their health insurance.
From Medicaid.
So, you know, that's why they're
hiding in their basements, because
they don't want to talk about what
they're actually doing.
And just the opposite needs to
happen. People need to be heard.
That's why the turnout was so big in
that April election.
People just want to be hear.
And that's we're doing the town
halls to make sure people can be
heard."
When it comes to people being heard,
if the economy continues to slow
down as people really feel the
pain of these cuts and the tariffs,
do you think your colleagues in
Congress will be more responsive to
their voters or more loyal to Trump
in that area?
Well, you know, that's the problem.
I was told there were four
Republican senators that would have
voted against some of these bad
cabinet picks, but they
had death threats against their
family members, not just them.
You know, unfortunately that's part
of what we sign up for, but when
your family members are getting the
death threats, they just said that
was a step too far and they couldn't
vote against the nominees.
And that is part of the problem.
Republicans privately will tell you
that they don't know what Doge is
doing either. And they'll tell you
some of this, but they'll never say
it publicly because of retribution,
whether it be from MAGA or Donald
Trump or Elon Musk directly by
putting money against you.
So that's the problem, what we need
is some backbone right
now and we don't have that in the
Republican party. You're not gonna
add a lot of profiles and courage, I
think this next two years in the
republican party, but we need more
Liz Cheney's and Adam Kingzinger's.
And maybe fewer sycophants, which
is what we've got a lot of people
right now in Congress acting like.
Last week, the FBI arrested a
Milwaukee County judge.
She faces a felony charge for
obstruction for allegedly helping
a suspect avoid immigration
officials who wanted to arrest him.
What message does that send, both in
Wisconsin and nationally?
Well, it's a very targeted message.
I mean, Donald Trump, where he's
losing the most.
Uh, has been in lawsuits.
There's over 160 lawsuits because
he's doing so many illegal actions
and there's been positive
adjudications in over 60 of
those cases by over 40 judges.
That's not like it's one court, 40
different judges, including judges
appointed by Donald Trump are ruling
against him. And he is by and
large following those.
There was a couple of high profile
cases, Mr. Garcia in El
Salvador and I think the AP news
case, but everything else, um,
you know, he is the caver in chief.
He is following the court orders as
he should, because what he's doing
has been against the law.
And I think that's what he is trying
to do, is send a message to the
courts, because he's not happy that
this is a nation that follows the
rule of law, and that's why he's
losing. So he's trying to now target
and go after the courts.
And this is an action that is
kind of over and beyond,
I think, what anyone would expect to
be the reaction for what happened.
But he wants to send a
chilling message that the courts
cave to him as well.
And, you know, the reality is it's
Donald Trump who's caving over and
over as these courts are saying
this is a rule of a nation that
follows the rule of law.
And that's by conservative and
liberal and moderate and every kind
of judge that's out there.
And, at the end of the day, I think
that's a positive thing and people
really should celebrate that we have
an independent branch of government
following the law and that's
Democratic supporters have been
comparing Trump to Hitler and
even presidential nominee Kamala
Harris said Trump was a fascist last
fall. Should Democrats be more
careful in the language that they're
using as part of the rhetoric in
this debate?
Yeah, I mean, what I use is,
you know, we don't have kings, we
don't need an authoritarian leader,
because that is what Donald Trump
wants. He likes those folks around
the planet that can just make
decisions. But again, we are a
nation that follows a rule of law.
And that's what every leader,
including myself, has to follow.
So for Donald Trump to be doing what
he's doing, and so often breaking
the law without regard for
what he is doing,
he does think he's
a king. And I think people should
call him out.
So, you all that we've had.
Quacks like a duck and walks like a
duck. I think it's fair to call it a
And in Donald Trump's case,
just by the sheer number
of court rulings he's lost to
show you that his actions are often
illegal.
All right, Congressman Mark Polkan,
thanks for your time today.
Yeah, thank you.
Cut it down? I can't hear you.
There you go.
Thank you again. I really appreciate
it.
Yeah, no worries, Zach.
Take care, all right?
All right, see ya.
Yeah, bye.