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Eric, Tony, thanks for joining us.

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It's great to be with you to talk about the Attorney General's race and the importance

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of it for Wisconsin.

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So give me a sense of why you decided to run again.

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It's not often we see repeat candidates for these statewide elections.

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You know, within a week of that race back in 2022, I had so many people already encouraging

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me to do it, but it wasn't sure it was something that I would want to do because there's a

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lot of time and energy that goes into these statewide races.

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But for me, I really had a clarifying moment in 2023.

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I ended up in probably August when I later learned to have a mini-stroke in the office,

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lost control of my legs for about 20 seconds.

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I was impatient at the hospital here in Fond du Lac.

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The next day, cardiologist at some testing came in and said, your aortic valve is destroyed

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and you need open heart surgery.

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I was starting to think about what do I want to continue to do if this surgery goes well.

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But I was, at that point, just trusting God through the hands of my medical team that

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hoping and praying things would go well, and as it got closer, knew that I would want

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to run again.

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When we're looking at a rematch in this environment, what should voters be thinking of in terms

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of how did I vote last time or what's different about this match up this time?

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One of the things people can look at with me is what I've done since then, as the president

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of the District Attorneys Association, I've always talked about putting public safety

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over politics.

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I stood with our attorney general after that 2022 race, helping him get more crime lab

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positions in that state budget, working with Republican legislators behind the scenes.

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I helped get a transformational investment into prosecutors, public defenders in our

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judicial system in that budget that the Wisconsin Law Journal awarded me as an unsung hero for

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what they described as helping and a constitutional crisis.

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Those are all things we do together, working with the Democrat governor and the Republican

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legislature to deliver those results.

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And then in contrast, you see, during the tenure of our attorney general, we've seen periods

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of record homicides in places like Milwaukee, record drug deaths, and other increases in

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crime.

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And I've never been one to say it's one individual person's responsibility when that

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happens because there are so many different factors that go into why crime happens in

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different areas.

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But what we have to look at is what are people doing with the resources they have.

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And so what we saw our attorney general do during this period is put a hiring freeze

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in place.

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And so I mentioned those crime lab positions I helped him get.

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Well, over a year later, we saw a nonpartisan audit released of our crime labs, and they

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said he hadn't even filled those positions.

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We saw that he had less DNA positions filled compared to 2020.

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And we see that they're taking for DNA, for example, taking on average over twice as

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long to test less from when he started to where we are now.

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So the attorney general points to crime statistics being down in Wisconsin as they are across

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the country.

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He also singles out that crime statistics in Fondolac County are up.

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Why should either one of you get credit or blame for crime statistics when as the, you

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know, either the prosecutor or the attorney general, you don't control whether crimes

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are committed or even how they're investigated.

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That's a great question to ask the attorney general because he's been the one trying to

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take victory laps when he see crime numbers go with what he thinks is in his favor, despite

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cherry picking what those stats are.

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I don't think anybody heard from him when we were seeing record homicides in Milwaukee.

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But now because we're seeing crime down in many areas, including Fondolac County, crime

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is down overall.

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And I've never taken credit for the crime numbers we've seen during my almost four

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or 14 years as a district attorney because I know it's a team effort when we do these

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things and crime doesn't stop at county lines.

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When we look at attorney general's races in the past, historically they followed right

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below the gubernatorial election.

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The last time there were members of different parties was 2006 to win these races.

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So are you trying to separate yourself from Tom Tiffany in his race for governor or do

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you think you're going to follow right along with him?

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I'm running my own race from when I got into this back in October of 2025, I talked about

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the forensic testing failures, the fentanyl epidemic, and how partisan our attorney general

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has become.

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I mean, we have driven home issues that affect people in all 72 counties, and that's what

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I've been focused on is what our Department of Justice can do to help protect everybody

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in Wisconsin by putting public safety over politics.

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Again, it all comes back to what do you do with the resources you have?

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And so what we're seeing is broken promise after broken promise from our attorney general.

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He campaigned on the fentanyl and opioid epidemic, and there is accountability for

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pharmaceutical manufacturers, but talk to anybody in law enforcement or public safety,

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and they will tell you the overdoses that we're seeing by and large are coming from

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fentanyl, which is coming across the border, and then here into Wisconsin, and parents

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are burying their child, and our attorney general's broken that promise, he won't even

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talk about that issue because it doesn't maybe be popular with his liberal base.

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We look at the forensic testing, he actually promised back in 2020 that we were going to

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see a dramatic improvement in DNA testing because he had more analysts in his predecessor

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and he had improved technology, and his own policies were the reason that they were testing

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less, limiting what law enforcement can send in, and now on average, he's taking over

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twice as long, and he campaigned against all of the political lawsuits when he first ran,

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and now that's effectively what he's running his entire campaign on is those lawsuits where

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he's putting politics over public safety.

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Well, let's talk about those lawsuits.

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Obviously, the Department of Justice has filed and joined a lot of these federal lawsuits

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against the Trump administration.

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If you were the AG, would you have joined any of these?

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So one of the things I've always talked about is putting public safety over politics, and

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when we see the attorney general, he's not filing lawsuits.

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What he's doing is called joining them.

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So the vast majority of those lawsuits, whether he signs on to that or not, are going to continue

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to move forward because other attorneys general across the country have actually done the

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legal work on those.

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And so what I will be doing as attorney general is making sure we are prioritizing our resources

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for public safety, ending the hiring freeze that's been put in place by him to make sure

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we have those crime lab positions filled that we're always filling our DCI and other public

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safety positions, and we'll evaluate any case that's been filed on a case-by-case basis

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to make sure that we're following the facts and the law.

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One more question on the federal lawsuits.

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In some of those cases, if you weren't a member of those, you didn't get the benefits.

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And Wisconsin has seen some of those benefits from being a part of those winning cases.

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As AG, would you have joined any of those cases?

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So one of the things that we have to do at our Department of Justice, it can't be who's

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in the White House or who's in the governor's office.

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We have to look at these on a case-by-case basis, and unfortunately, we haven't seen

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our attorney general do that.

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He's talked about joining over 60 of these lawsuits in the last 18 months or so, compared

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to probably five or less during the four years of the Biden administration and has effectively

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given a free pass to Tony Evers.

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So to me, it's not going to matter who's in the White House or who's in the governor's

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office.

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We're going to make these decisions based on the facts and the law.

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So I would expect, whether it's a Republican or Democrat governor, president, that we

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would be joining lawsuits when it's needed to protect Wisconsin.

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One of the issues that Josh Call says is interesting about this rematch is looking at some of

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your position statements from the last race, and he brings up abortion specifically.

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At that time, he had filed a lawsuit that eventually was passed by the Wisconsin Supreme

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Court, which guaranteed the right to abortion in Wisconsin.

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He, at that time, you criticized his part of that lawsuit.

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Do you still think that was the wrong choice for him for the state to file that lawsuit

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against the 1848 abortion law?

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Well, the original Dane County judge actually didn't support the ultimate legal finding

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that was made by the Supreme Court, but we have to look at where the law is now, and

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there are five-month protections in place for women.

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I have not, and I'm not advocating for any changes to the law in Wisconsin, and if there

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is going to be any change, that's something that needs to be voted on by the people of

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Wisconsin, and not decided on by politicians in Madison.

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We need to create an environment that supports women and girls in our state in every corner,

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and you look at what our Attorney General's comments have been in recent years on this.

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He was actually asked about those five-month or 20-week protections in 2024 in the fall,

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and he said it's not a protection, it's a restriction.

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He said there should be no government intervention calling for the legislature to take action,

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effectively arguing for a nine-month abortion here in Wisconsin.

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Eric, Tony, thanks for your time.

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Greatly appreciated.

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Thank you.