What does the Republican
Congressional delegation in
Wisconsin think about changing
tariffs, federal spending cuts,
and tough new immigration orders?
We ask Seventh Congressional
District, U.S.
Representative Tom Tiffany, who
joins us from Minackwan.
Congressman, thanks very much for
being here.
Good to join you today, Frederica.
So you have long called out China
for unfair trade practices.
President Trump had imposed a 145
percent tariff on China.
What's your reaction to the
president now talking about pulling
back from that?
You know, I think he came out with
really broad-based tariffs
initially, and now is
the part where there is negotiation
going on.
And so we will
see where this all leads.
All I know is that I just introduced
a bill about a week ago in regards
to the World Trade Organization.
I think we should have a vote in
Congress whether we should
continue to belong to one of these
multinational organizations like
the World Health Organization, in
this case, the World trade
Organization. So I don't think it's
served America's interests.
I think it served the interests of
China. And as we've seen
main streets across Wisconsin and
America get hollowed out,
Part of that is because we've given
up making things here in
America. We got to bring some of
that manufacturing back here to
the United States.
As to tariffs, how
hard is it to keep up with
them moving around so much?
Yeah, there's a lot of moving parts
that's been going on.
My understanding is there's about 60
to 75 countries that are in
active negotiations.
And so while, you know,
the elephant in the room is China,
there's so many other countries
that...
There are active negotiations that
are going on. Here's my hope at the
end, Frederica, when the dust
settles, is that we're
going to see lower tariffs across
the table around the world as
a result of this negotiation.
I think the threat of higher tariffs
may be able to get some countries
to say, okay, maybe we're better off
with a lower tariff regime, because
ultimately that would be the best
for the world.
How long do you think it will take
for the dust to settle given
the repercussions that we've
seen?
Yeah, I don't have any prediction
there, but 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. I can tell you
there's a couple of things really
germane to Wisconsin that I'm
watching closely.
One, China has used ginseng
and the ginsem farmers as
a political football.
I'm really hoping our trade
representative and I've passed this
message on to him that, for example,
ginsang tell
China to stop using
that as a political weapon.
Because those ginseng farmers
are right now facing some really
unpredictable and difficult
markets.
Yeah, there's no doubt about it.
China has done this before.
They did it in the Trump's first
administration.
And I also point out Canada.
Canada has dairy tariffs that are
over 200% at times.
I mean, that has a real harmful
effect to America, but especially
America's dairy land.
What kind of feedback have you been
getting from your constituents about
Elon Musk's Doge cuts to
federal programs and personnel,
everything from the USDA to
the VA, Social Security,
even the CDC now
unable to help Milwaukee with its
lead crisis?
You know, I would say both on the
issue of tariffs and
Doge, the Department of Government
Accountability,
that it leads to uncertainty.
And, you know, we all prefer to
have stability in our lives,
especially when it comes to our
finances. And
But it's important what is going
on to have some fiscal
responsibility.
Congress has not done its job over
the last 30 years really
making sure how these expenditures
that are going out, that they're
going out appropriately.
Now we finally got to the point with
$36 trillion in debt,
somebody has to do something about
it. And to the credit of the Trump
administration, they are saying,
we're going to identify this stuff.
And now you, Congress, got to
decide if you're going to
have some, if you are going to
engage in some fiscal
responsibility.
What about Congress's role to kind
of get a grasp of
what has happened with
Doge and these kinds of
cuts?
We're watching very closely what
they're identifying, because
ultimately DOJ does not make
the decision.
It's the executive branch or
Congress that makes the decision in
regards to this. And they should
help guide some of the things that
are out there that we can deal with.
I mean, I'll give you two really
quick examples that are one small,
one large.
$5,600 to water eight plants in
a Department of Defense facility.
$5600 to Water Eight Plants.
That's crazy.
$200 billion in
duplicate payments that went out
via the Medicaid program to
insurers.
Those type of things really need
rigorous review, so there's ways
large and small.
We need to do a better job in
Congress in going through these line
items line by line.
If the Doge cuts don't
offset enough spending,
how will the GOP budget get
the spending cuts needed to
prevent Donald Trump's 2017
tax cuts from deepening the
deficit?
Things we did in the House and in
particular, those of us that are
members of the Freedom Caucus, we
wanted to couple additional
tax reductions to
deficit reduction.
So to a certain extent, we will
not get additional tax
savings or tax reductions
unless we find those spending
reductions. And I think it was
appropriate to couple those two
things to a certainly extent.
So as to spending reductions,
would you vote for a budget that had
cuts to Medicaid?
Only if they're done appropriately.
I just identified for you $200
billion in duplicate payments that
went out over the course of a number
of years, a few years back
to insurers that were involved
with the Medicaid program.
That should not be happening.
The other thing that I've been a
strong advocate for is
for work requirements.
If you are able-bodied and you
can work and you're taking
Medicaid, in other words, you're
accepting getting
your health care from your fellow
taxpayers when you could have your
own job, I believe work requirements
should be put in place.
And I think that's one place that we
could say billions of dollars with
the Medicaid program.
So what's your comment on the
universities of Wisconsin already
losing millions in research funds
with the threat of tens of
millions of dollars more?
Make the case, make the case
because, I mean, for example,
the Bureau of Indian Affairs, their
facility up in my district in
Ashland was on the chopping block
to close that facility.
They made their case and the
administration restored it.
That's an example of make the
cases of why that research is so
important and I think you will see
this administration be very open
to restoring that.
The other thing that I would mention
is there was a specific
example in UW-Madison where
55%
of a grant went for
indirect costs.
When you look at the leading
research grantees
like the Gates Foundation, Johnson,
others like that, they
put a cap of 15%
on indirect costs.
I think something like that
similarly should be done at the
federal level with these federal
grants, because we want good
research done.
UW-Madison does great research,
Wharf does great research, but
the taxpayers should have some
accountability for those dollars
going out.
The UW-Madison says in terms
of those indirect costs and
the reduction of money that
would go toward those potentially,
that's in court right now,
would really hamper the
research because it goes to things
like building labs and
maintaining labs and the
infrastructure that's needed to do
the research.
Just having spoken with you.
Yeah, if they think it's vital, they
should make the case, because this
administration will listen, as the
example I gave to you in regards to
the BIA facility in Ashland,
and there's other examples going on
around the country.
Make the case of why that money
should be funded, and I
think the administration will listen
very closely to the case they wanna
make.
Meanwhile, as to the UW,
some 40 international students
have had their visas revoked.
Officials with the university say
that it doesn't appear that
that had anything to do with any
kind of political activity on the
part of those international
students.
Do you support those removals and
revocations?
You know, I would want to see the
specific examples, because I have
not dug into these, Frederica, to
see what their background is.
But it's clear that there's been
students around the country that
have abused
the privilege of being here in this
country. And that is what it is
to get a green card to come into
this country, it is a privilege to
be here, it is not a right.
And so I think there should be
a certain code of conduct that they
should comply to.
And if they're doing things that are
undermining the United States of
America, as we've seen in a couple
examples where, for example,
there's been intellectual property
theft, or if there
has been violent anti-Semitic
actions taken,
it's a privilege to be here.
You don't have a right to be here in
the United States.
Certainly that's true.
We know the one most recent
case that was before
a judge, the international student
had a speeding ticket and
that was reportedly the
basis for the revocation
of their visa.
So, and it's difficult to kind of
get in there and get the specifics
on each case.
But on immigration, you've been
super critical of Governor
Evers for his guidance that
he has given to state agencies
around what to do in the event
of ICE agents kind of showing
up at a state building.
He suggests that people
should notify a staff attorney,
not give out paper files or
computer access, not
answer questions, or allow
ICE officers access to
non-public areas.
So why so critical?
Governor is encouraging state
employees to break federal law
and, um,
as the leader of the state of
Wisconsin, you should never,
never do something like that where
you're encouraging people to break
federal law.
I mean, if you, if you want to see
something done differently than
advocate for doing something
differently, but don't tell state
employees that they should break the
law.
How is it breaking the
law?
Um
ability and interdict that
person.
And so they, if
there has been a
deportation notice
that has been put out, it's ICE's
job to remove that person
and that is what should be
happening is that the person should
be removed.
And Governor Evers is basically
saying, no, you're
not, you are going to
impede ICE from being able
to do their job.
That is in defiance of federal
law.
You're on the Judiciary Committee
and many Republicans, including
President Trump, have openly decried
activist liberal judges in
maligning their rulings over
executive orders and other things.
Does this fray the separation of
powers?
No, it is our responsibility
as the Judiciary Committee
to make sure that we are doing
proper oversight, not just
over the administration, like the
Department of Justice and the FBI,
but also the judicial branch.
We write bills all the time that
affect the judicial branches.
So I think it's appropriate, but
what's really disconcerting
at this point is you have these
activist judges that are
out there issuing nationwide
injunctions for what are narrow
cases that affect just a few people.
But I believe they're getting
outside of their lane.
They're over over reaching the
bounds of where they
should be in in carrying
out their job as the judiciary.
Congressman Tom Tiffany, we leave it
there. Thanks so much.
Did you join your Frederica?
Thank you for your indulgence in
answering all my questions.
No, they're terrific questions,
Frederica. And by the way, I
had a brief flash on my screen
for about five seconds that said I
had an unstable connection.
Did it hold?
It froze but
we didn't stop and
we can,
we picked up
your answer to my question,
I mean I can confer with Marissa
but I think that's right, that we
can just kind of slice that
If I made this request,
if it's an important part of the
segment, if you
want
to say, this is what
the congressman said, we had a brief
glitch in the video,
is that okay?
Um, I, I think...
I do know that the
answer that we got after the
froze resolved was really
good, right?
And so that's why I was like going,
oh, okay, we're fine.
But I can certainly re-ask
it.
You know, if you think it,
I thought the answer was succinct
and to the point.
And so if you just want to run with
that, Fred, it's just fine with me.
Okay, all right.
Marissa, how are you feeling about
that?
And you know, we do that all the
time. I'm sitting here going, okay,
this is the question I asked.
Oops, he froze.
Oh, look, it's picked up again.
And oh, that works, you know.
So all these things going through
my head at the moment.
Yeah, so Marissa, you have my sign
off on this to do it in the way that
we just discussed.
Thank you.
Thank you, appreciate
that.
Well, you enjoy the
weekend up there in Managua.
We're going to.
We're gonna.
It's been a good week off after
Easter here.
I bet.
Good. All right. Well, again, nice
to speak with you again.
Thanks, Federico.
Thank you, Marisa.