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Thanks for having me.

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So I think let's start with kind of the precursor to this race, is your decision to

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stay in this race.

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There was a lot of speculation you might run for governor.

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How do you feel about your decision to stay in the race for Attorney General now?

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I feel great about my decision.

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It's something I thought about seriously, but there are a few factors that wait on my

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mind.

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One is I'm really committed to having an impact through the work that I do, and of course

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a governor can have a ton of impact, but we're also having a huge impact through the

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work that we do at Wisconsin DOJ, and I don't think that the work that I've been doing is

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done yet.

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You know, family considerations played a role as well, but ultimately I'm really excited

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about seeking an additional term and about the work we could do in an additional term.

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So this is unique in that it is a rematch of the last election.

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We don't see that too often.

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How do you think that will influence things?

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One of the things that's interesting about a rematch is you can look back at what the

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candidates said in the prior race and see how those things held up, and I think that that's

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really instructive here.

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In the last campaign, it was shortly after Roe v. Wade had been overturned.

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I had filed a lawsuit seeking to block enforcement of a law that dates back to the mid-1800s.

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Eric Tony, my opponent, had attacked me for that case.

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He called it a partisan stunt.

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He said it should be dismissed, and so we now can look and see how our claims held up, and

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what we know now is that the Supreme Court sided with the argument we made in that case,

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and ultimately we won that case and access to abortion is safe and legal in Wisconsin.

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So will voters separate the Attorney General's race do you think from the rest of the ballot?

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As we've seen historically, there's usually a few fewer voters for the AG race than for

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governor, and you've trailed right belong.

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We get to go back to 2006 the last time they were AG and governor from separate parties.

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So how does that all work together?

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The results tend to be fairly close, but in Wisconsin we have a lot of close elections,

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and so sometimes those small differences can make a big difference in the outcome.

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I'm running based on my record and my time as AG, and the focus can be different.

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My top priority as Attorney General has been public safety, and we've made significant

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progress on really important public safety issues.

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One of them is fighting the opioid epidemic.

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My administration has helped to secure over 800 million dollars from companies that we've

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alleged contributed to the opioid epidemic and from others.

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Many of those dollars will be going to communities across the states, some already have, and

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we are seeing a real impact.

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Opioid overdose deaths in Wisconsin from 23 to 24 dropped by over 40 percent.

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That's a more than 600 percent difference.

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We need to keep making progress, our work isn't done, but I want to build on the progress

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we're making.

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One of the other high profile things your office has done is filed lawsuits against the Trump

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administration along with other attorneys general from around the country.

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Can you give me maybe a short list of some of the most important cases that maybe the

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public isn't aware of the significance of some of those?

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Well, I think you can look at them by category.

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So a lot of these cases involve the Trump administration either putting illegal conditions

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on or cutting or freezing funding that would otherwise be coming to Wisconsin.

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There's a huge amount of money that has been impacted by this, and it's vital programs,

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things like funding for education and or for mental health programs in our schools, funding

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for disaster relief and mitigation, funding for the AmeriCorps program, which the Trump

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administration tried to cut, transportation funding and public health funding.

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We have consistently fought back and we have one case after case, and what that has meant

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is that those funds either are not illegally conditioned or they're not frozen or ultimately

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cut, and instead they can come to our communities and support critical programs in Wisconsin.

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Now, I know we've spoken there are some of those cases where if only if you're a plaintiff,

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do you actually get the benefit?

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And in some cases, some of the other states have gotten the benefits just because you've

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won overall.

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What would have the impact have been if Eric Tony had been the attorney general and had

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discretion on whether to file these cases?

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Yeah.

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Well, of the 60 plus cases that we've been involved in, I don't think any single Republican

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AG has joined us in challenging the Trump administration in any of those cases, and

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I'm not aware of a single case where Eric Tony has said he would have challenged the

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Trump administration.

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What that would mean in some cases is Wisconsin wouldn't get the relief that happens in court

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because in a number of these cases, it's only the states that have brought the challenge

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that get the relief.

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And so it could be that we no longer have protection for critical programs if an AG

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is not part of one of those challenges.

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Do you think the public understands the stakes there?

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I think the stakes are huge, and so I think the more we talk about it, the better.

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One thing that is unfortunate, I think, in the Trump administration is we often see the

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president's actions get lots of coverage that's understandable.

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But what I think there's been less coverage of is the fact that in case after case, actions

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have been blocked and he's been stopped from moving forward, in part because of these suits

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that we're talking about.

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But for a lot of people that don't follow your office very closely, one of the ways

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that they hear about the Department of Justice in the AG every four years is crime lab statistics.

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Obviously, that's one of the major things you campaigned on when you first got elected.

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It was one of the issues in the last election.

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Your opponent's talking about the crime lab and unfilled positions and slow turned around.

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So defend your record and where the crime lab is.

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Yeah, well, first thing that's important to separate two things out.

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One of the issues I talked about back in 2018 was untested sexual assault kits, and we

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worked to get legislation passed, which ultimately passed through the Republican-led

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legislature that's going to help ensure that Wisconsin never has another backlog of untested

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sexual assault kits.

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Now, in terms of the labs themselves on a day-to-day basis, one of the things I've

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been clear about is where we need resources from the state legislature.

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And in the last state budget, my office requested 19 additional positions for the labs.

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Eric Tony's allies in the state legislature provided zero positions.

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Look, that's not an accident.

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This is politics being played here.

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But the overall picture, I think, is important not to lose sight of.

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Wisconsin last year in 2025 had the lowest number of violent crimes that we have had

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any year since 2011.

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Fondelac County, where Eric Tony is DA last year, had the second highest number of violent

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crimes that the county has had in decades.

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And so if you compare our track records overall, there's a clear difference.

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We need to keep doing what we're doing to keep our communities safe.

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How do you think that the DOJ gets credit for lower crime statistics statewide?

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Well, there are lots of folks who play a role in what we do statewide, and the Department

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of Justice is involved in investigating crimes of statewide importance.

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We oversee the crime labs.

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We work on every felony criminal appeal in the state.

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We also work in partnerships with lots of other law enforcement agencies.

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What I think is important is that we recognize that lots of folks contribute to overall safety

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in the state, and that certainly includes local law enforcement and others.

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What's notable, I think, though, is Fondelac County has gone the opposite direction from

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the rest of the state under the leadership of Eric Tony.

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That, I think, is not the kind of failure I want to see taken statewide.

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You brought up abortion earlier, but I want to bring that back as a topic.

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How relevant is that still to voters?

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Because it's not a constitutional right in either the nation or in Wisconsin, despite

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lawsuits that have attempted to make it so.

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So how important is it who the next attorney general is?

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It remains to be seen.

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One thing we saw, I think, over the last four years is it certainly can have an impact because

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my administration was fighting to protect access to safe and legal abortion, and Eric

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Tony called the case that we brought up a farce among other things.

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Now, fortunately, we've got a ruling in place that currently protects access to safe and

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legal abortion in Wisconsin, but we, as you said, there's no state constitutional protection

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in place right now.

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There's no federal constitutional protection specifically for abortion access, and what

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that means is that if there were a Tom Tiffany and a Republican legislature, you could have

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further restrictions put in place, and you could see an attorney general, Eric Tony, if

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he were in office, aggressively working with them to restrict access to abortion.

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The other thing that's going on right now is the federal government is potentially going

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to restrict access.

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The new attorney general had a meeting with an anti-abortion group where he signaled that

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he wanted to restrict access, and I think making sure that the states are prepared to

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fight back where there's a legal basis for doing so is going to be important to protecting

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people's rights going forward.

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Josh, call.

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Thanks for your time.

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Thanks for having me.