Feel free to tell them there's no prompter rolling.
We need prompter?
Yeah.
We need prompter, yeah.
We need prompter.
Do you know which one you're looking at?
It's Shawn in two or three.
I think he has something to do, right?
Yeah.
Go ahead.
You can raise it up a little bit right there.
Just kind of hold the base and pull it up and it came up for me.
I mean, just pull the arm up.
You're much stronger than us, apparently.
I also couldn't do that.
Put your hand in there and pull that arm up like so.
Just like that.
Does that work?
Thank you.
Okay.
Also, will I be turning to talk to you during the experience?
Yeah, you will.
You just kind of got to remember where that is and when you turn and talk to Zach,
just kind of like keep your, just, that's like a magnet that's drawing you in a little bit.
Okay.
That seems like a potential learning curve.
Yeah.
Essentially, other than the opening clothes, we're never really addressing camera.
Yeah, I guess, right?
Well, you are rich, but I'm going to not address the camera.
Reminds me of the story.
I like that.
This is my classic pose.
Rich, when we go to you, I think you should have your back to us and then you just slowly spin in your chair.
And you should have like a mustache that you wear sometimes, but not always.
Yeah.
Every time you spin there, it's done.
I'm going to do that spin move.
You can with three and get ready to read copy.
All right.
Thank you.
I can give you a cue as well.
Okay.
All right.
Today on Wisconsin Politics Weekly, Wisconsin leaders react to the shooting in Minneapolis.
A presidential endorsement shakes up the governor's race.
And top leaders in Wisconsin state government hint that they're open to some kind of deal
on lowering property taxes.
Maybe.
On WPR, Capitol Bureau Chief Sean Johnson joining me today to talk about these issues
are PBS Wisconsin Political Reporters, Zach Schultz, WPR Capitol reporter Anya Van Wechtendank,
and WPR political reporter, Rich Kramer.
Hey, everyone.
Hey, Sean.
Hey.
So let's start the conversation with the news that has just been front and center everywhere
this week in Wisconsin and nationally.
The shooting of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, we've heard everyone from the president to
protesters react to this.
Anya, I want to hear what our local leaders and candidates are saying in Wisconsin.
What have we heard them say about what happened in Minneapolis and where we go from here?
Yeah, the one sort of unifying word that's been used is tragedy.
Both sides are describing the event as tragic.
But Republicans have really by and large been placing the blame at the feet of Democratic
leaders in Minnesota and Minneapolis.
And so Ron Johnson, for example, had he appeared on Wisconsin today earlier this week.
And he really kept saying that the issues were created by Democratic presidents, immigration
issues were created by them, exacerbated by Democratic leaders.
By contrast, Tammy Baldwin, our other US senator, took to the floor of the Senate to read comments
about Alex Pretti's life.
He was, of course, a Wisconsin native and really condemned this action.
And then on the gubernatorial trail, all seven Democratic candidates have in some way denounced
I several of them have called for the disbanding of the agency.
Then at the other end of that, you have Tom Tiffany, who is at this point, as of just
a couple of days ago, the only Republican left in the race for governor.
And he spoke at an event here in Madison on Monday.
And I asked him, have you seen the video of this event?
And he was caught kind of off guard and sort of hedged it a little bit.
Another reporter followed up, well, did you watch it or no?
And he said, no, I did not.
So what are we to make of that?
I mean, that's the response that got everybody's attention was kind of his lack of a response.
You know, I think that he has to really kind of thread this needle, right?
He comes from, he's currently a sitting US Congress person in a conservative district
up north, but he is running for governor in a purple state.
And so that means that he has to appeal to a kind of wider audience.
And so I think we saw him try to thread the needle and maybe not quite know how to do
that in that moment.
Rich, we also heard from the president in reaction to this shooting in no uncertain
terms that you can't bring guns to protest.
He said, you heard similar comments from members of his administration.
You talked to a number of Second Amendment advocates here in Wisconsin, gun rights advocates
in a state where guns are a big deal.
What were they telling you?
I'd say the overall theme that I heard from them is that those comments that a person
can't bring a firearm to a protest are just not true.
That the Constitution guarantees a person's right to bear arms.
That's the Second Amendment.
And that they just shouldn't be saying that, but that's essentially where the unity ended.
There were some different interpretations that I heard about maybe what the administration
was trying to say, that maybe that they were focusing on safety and taking into account
that each state has its own laws with regard to guns.
So they were kind of doing a blanket statement.
Others were just outright opposed to what they were saying and said it's just not tethered
to law or the Constitution or anything like that.
I also talked with a gentleman named Dan Markon.
He owns a gun range near Eau Claire.
He's been an instructor for concealed carry classes for 10 years.
And he gave me a scenario where he lives in a neighborhood, let's say, and he's walking
down the street.
There's a protest.
He said he carries his pistol all the time.
He's licensed and he said, I'm not supposed to have it.
If there's a protest, he used some colorful language to describe that idea to me.
There's a lot of candor there in terms of their critiques of the president that you
don't normally hear.
Have you heard that same kind of commentary from anybody who's elected in Wisconsin?
The Republican Party has really aligned itself with the gun rights over the years and the
NRA.
Have you heard anybody who's elected saying similar things here?
I certainly haven't and maybe the others on the panel had different experiences.
We've heard radio silence from social media, from all the Republicans, so that's a big
statement all by itself.
If they're not commenting and going back to what you're talking about, Tom Tiffany,
throw that needle, we've seen that from Republicans in Washington for a decade now with Donald
Trump, where anything that they don't want to have to respond to, they haven't seen.
You can take him out of his word or not in his word, whether he actually did not see
or did see the video, but he certainly is aware of the protest because Tom Tiffany's
been tweeting and commenting about it repeatedly.
As for elected officials, I interviewed Maria Lazar, who was a Supreme Court candidate.
She is an appellate court judge.
And I asked her about Cash Patel, the FBI director, who made the first set of statements
on air about you can't bring a loaded firearm to a protest.
She kind of hedged a little bit saying, well, I'm not really an expert in Minnesota law,
but since they have concealed carry, I kind of doubt that under the Second Amendment,
which surprised me because, to me, it seems pretty clear.
We don't need to go beyond our own highs when it comes to all the video we've seen of protests
over the years.
Think back to COVID.
Think back to January 6, 2021 at the U.S. Capitol.
I mean, there have been guns at protests for years and years, and people have been asserting
and claiming this right.
And this is the first time that anyone at that, especially from the Republicans, have said
that you don't have that right.
And if that's the case, then it really is incongruous with what their supporters have
been acting on for a long, long time.
So one thing we did here, Congressman Tiffany and other Republicans talk about this week
was President Trump's endorsements in Wisconsin's governor's race.
And we say this, you know, every election cycle, like, there's nothing more powerful
in today's Republican politics than an endorsement from President Donald Trump.
I think there'd been kind of an open question about whether he would jump in this time.
He did.
He endorsed Tom Tiffany.
Talk about a quick reaction to what happens, Zach.
I mean, what unfolded after that?
Well, his only primary candidate opponent, Josh Schonman, Washington County exec, dropped
out immediately, pretty much.
And what's interesting is I interviewed both Tiffany and Schonman back in December, and
I asked them about what impact Donald Trump would have on their primary.
And Schonman at that time said, well, of course, I would love his endorsement, but otherwise
I hope he doesn't endorse.
His goal was to take this primary as far as he could to show that he was a legitimate
challenger in the eyes of Republican voters against Tom Tiffany, who has more money, more
name, recognition, closer relationship with President Trump, having been a member of Congress
and supported him at that level with his votes for a long, long time.
So clearly, Schonman knew that an early Trump endorsement was pretty much going to end
his campaign, and he made that clear when he dropped out the next day.
So, Rich, I know one thing you were kind of keeping an eye on was whether it would
be another Republican jump into the race, you know, somebody like Tim Michaels, who we
know Donald Trump likes and who can sell fun, you know, whether they would jump in.
This kind of says, no, that's not going to happen, right?
Yeah, it certainly seems like we're down to one for the Republican primary, essentially,
and that gives Republicans an advantage in some ways.
They don't have to pay a lot of money in a messy primary.
They don't have to carry that baggage into a general election.
But at the same time, Democrats now have their target.
They kind of were acting like that.
Tiffany was the target anyway, but now it's, that's it.
So I guess anything could happen, but at this point, it seems like we've got our Republican
candidate for the gubernatorial campaign.
And now we have to have that debate.
We have every election cycle too.
Do you want to have a big primary or don't you?
And I think this time, Republicans are going to be the ones saying, no, we're glad we
don't have a primary to deal with because those have kind of bitten them in recent years.
You just look back at 2022 and the primary between Tim Michaels and Rebecca Clayfish
was very bruising.
Tim Michaels did not win that general election.
You have a big primary among Democrats, about seven candidates give or take.
I imagine though, they are saying, hey, that's actually good for us.
We're going to dominate this news cycle.
But what are you hearing from them in terms of how they view the race now?
Has it changed anything really?
Well, there's nobody in the Democratic field who has that level of name recognition as
Tom Tiffany.
There's not, for example, another Congress person or somebody with that level.
And so a lot of Democratic candidates are still just trying to register outside of whatever
their current lane is, whether it's that they're currently a state representative, they need
to register more broadly across the state or they are a former lieutenant governor who's
trying to kind of build back up his profile or a current lieutenant governor is trying
to build her profile.
So there's nobody who really kind of has that momentum behind them, such as it is.
And so I think we're going to see just a very different type of primary race among Democrats
because it's not just about being able to sell yourself to voters.
It's also about being able to stand out in what is basically a field that has pretty
shared values.
There's people further to the left and further to the center, but they really are Wisconsin
Democrats and there's a lot of shared values there.
So how do you kind of emerge and make enough of a splash to carry you through to November?
It will be interesting to see if this has similarities to the Democratic Senate primary
for Senate when Mandela Barnes came out ahead because his opponents at that time in the
Democratic lane all dropped out essentially before the primary saying that our only option
at that point was to go negative.
And so I think what will be interesting to watch among these Democrats is which ones
are holding themselves above the fray and focusing exclusively on Tom Tiffany as someone
like Mandela Barnes as from the start or someone who's maybe, like you said, trying
to gain a little more name recognition outside of their lane.
Do they start taking shots at their own field or do they focus all of their fire collectively
at Tom Tiffany?
And that will determine whether a primary is helpful or unhelpful.
If they come out of it bruised because it turned negative because someone was trying
to win with 23% of the vote in the Democratic primary, then it will leave a bruised candidate
on the other side.
But if they all focus on Tom Tiffany and may the best candidate win and some of them
graciously drop out as we saw before, then yes, they could have a more cohesive Democratic
party with a stronger, more battle tested candidate coming out in August.
So I do think that we'll see the field narrow, but I wonder if some of them would look at
that example from the Senate race and say, yeah, they took one for the team and look
where it got them.
Imagine if you're Sarah God-Luski thinking, hey, I could have been Senator if it was
me on that ballot.
You would assume that everyone who runs for office that level thinks they can win the
general election.
That could be a factor in whether or not they decide to sort of bow out this time and you
could have potentially a race going up to August, especially in this cycle, you know,
we've got a Democratic cycle potentially.
I think every Democrat feels like they want to be the one standing when that's over.
Are they going to have money?
Is a question after every primary?
Are they going to have enough money to deal with Tom Tiffany who doesn't have to worry
about running ads to build up his conservative base?
Yeah, right now the Democratic sort of donor field is divided among seven people.
And we've seen in past election cycles where people run out of money leading up to the
primary election.
I think even Tony Evers started to run out of money before successfully winning his first
gubernatorial campaign.
And so to the extent that they can, if people start moving out, that will also coalesce
the donor base both inside the state and outside because also, I mean, national attention
is on this governor's race.
And we do have, while this race is going, and it does feel like all of our attention is
on November at this point in some ways.
But we have a state legislature that is still meeting here in Wisconsin.
They could still potentially get things done.
You know, the assemblies, whenever they're meeting, they have like a hundred bills on
the calendar and they rip through them as you all know.
There are some big outstanding issues there that I guess are question marks and whether
they could cut one more bipartisan deal with the Democratic governor.
One thing I wanted to ask you about was property taxes.
Is that one where there could be some kind of deal at this session?
Because we're hearing both Tony Evers and Republican leaders, at least Speaker Robin
Voss, say, hey, you know, we're open to something on property taxes.
Who here thinks they could get it done?
I mean, it sounds like there have been talks in private caucus and you've even heard sort
of lower level Republicans alluding to this, you know, maybe speaking a little bit out
of turn and so doing.
And so that gives us a little bit of a sense that there are conversations happening between
at least Robin Voss and Tony Evers.
I'm not sure where things kind of stand on the Senate side of things, but it's also interesting
to hear Republicans talking about using the state surplus for this because what they have
always said is that the surplus is only for tax returns, essentially.
And so if you say, okay, property tax relief is like kind of in that field of things that
Republicans would approve of using that money for.
And Tony Evers can use that that fund because he's been saying, let's spend on the surplus
on all these other priorities that I have.
Maybe that is a place that they say, okay, we have two and a half billion dollars or
whatever to play with.
He wants 1.3.
What is the horse trading that's going to kind of get them both there?
I don't know, Zach, what do you think?
Is this something that can happen this year?
Well, we've seen this game before.
As you said, there's been a surplus pretty much covered Evers entire time because they
can't agree.
They want spending on education, Republicans want tax cuts.
This time it almost feels like it's a marriage of the two concepts because Evers is framing
this and Republicans are framing it in relief of Evers so-called 400-year property tax veto
in which he allows school districts to spend extra per pupil and conveniently both sides
declined to fund that in the last budget.
That was a bipartisan solution to not fund that additional thing, which raised property
taxes at the local level because districts need that money and they took it, which saw
the property tax bills go up, everyone saw the sticker shock in December and they're
feeling it.
This is a solution there.
What's caused this problem not to be solved in the past is that there's always another
election and someone always has the mindset that if I allow you to get a win, that hurts
me.
There's a zero-sum mentality in politics when it comes to elections and there's always been
a fear that if we give you this, then you'll come out looking better than we will in the
end process.
The difference here is Evers is not running for re-election, so he's not the one that
would stand to be able to run on this in the fall, so that gives you an idea why Republicans
might consider this.
If they can pass it, claim they helped solve the property tax issue, but then that leaves
open the question, is there someone in the Senate or is there someone that would want
to spike this bill because they don't want anyone else to get credit for it or conversely,
do they want to spike this bill because they want that surplus there thinking that maybe
Tom Tiffany is the winner and Republicans control legislature next year and they can
come into office and have all this money to do in the way they want to spend rather than
having to compromise.
Those are always the questions to look at when it comes to motivations.
It's not just about what makes sense now, it's what makes sense in the fall.
Rich, this is a problem for both of them arguably.
You could argue that the 400-year veto caused the property tax increase.
You could argue that the underfunding of schools by Republicans caused it.
Does that make them want to come to the table here before Tony Evers leaves office?
Well, I don't know if the blame game makes them want to come back to the table or come
to the table together.
We've seen those arguments you just laid out all over the place.
Republicans, of course, saying, Evers, you caused this shame on you and then Democrats
are saying that schools have been underfunded.
This is a decade-long problem at the hands of the Republicans, but I keep thinking about
some of the bipartisan examples we've seen.
There was the state budget where Republicans in the Senate were not all on board with the
proposal and they used Democratic votes to get around some of those Republican members.
There's all kinds of examples.
Even the press conference with Assembly Speaker Robin Voss and Greta Newbauer regarding funding
for Wisconsin I, the public affairs network down in Madison.
There's been a few examples of surprises to me, having remembered the earlier years of,
say, the Walker administration and the legislature had total control.
Republicans had control of the legislature.
They just weren't really open to compromise much at all back then.
I guess we will find out very soon whether compromise is still in the air with now a
lame duck governor and these particular legislators or whether it is on to November for everybody
at this point and that one just kicked to 2027.
That'll do it for today.
Thanks for joining us.
Make sure to follow the show at wpr.org pbswisconsin.org on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.
If I'm talking to you, then I'm turned away, you know, and so it doesn't feel like I'm
able to include.
I can almost guarantee it's like, I just look weird when I'm in the right on these stages
sometimes.
Can you guys hear me?
Yeah, we can hear you.
Can you hear us?
Yes.
Can you hear us?
I just stopped moving my hands.
Oh, you were good, man.
That was tough.
I don't know.
They told me that the hands get bright if I put them out.
They do this.
When I was a kid, we went to Diddy World and we saw Michael Jackson's Captain EO in 3D
and the scariest thing was the fingers coming at us and that's what I kept being reminded
of.
Every time your hands went up to the screen.
We're talking about that yesterday.
I am also a hand talker, so I like put my hands down on the table, like physically.
I did, too, but I just caught myself talking with my hands again and then I also caught
myself waving.
Oh, my apologies for not having your wrap ready to go.
Oh, it's okay.
I mean, like we just kind of, yeah, we're winging it.
Would you like to run through your other leads?
Sure.
I mean, if you want, yeah, if you think it'd be useful, that's kind of what I did it for
just to see if short or, yeah, and then do you want to try prompted and unprompted?
So unprompted would be kind of winging it.
Yeah.
Just go prompted.
Yeah.
Once you've done this 50 times, then like we can try both.
Okay.
Yeah.
Okay.
Also, I am sorry.
My phone was buzzing to start.
That is, that is my news call alarm that goes off every to her like editors call and
I'm so sorry about that.
Apparently, I could see you guys.
I was saying that it was a really good, but you always say that.
Sometimes say something negative.
So we believe you when you say something positive.
I never say nice things.
Okay.
I will believe you.
Don't laugh too much, guys.
I'm not.
Like you guys are totally professional.
Oh, just like that.
I mean, yeah, I think we expected to maybe have like stops and starts and stuff, which
is just went straight into it and so it wasn't really good.
How did that time feel?
You hit it.
Oh, yeah.
I mean, we just went through the first part faster than I was thinking.
And so we kind of spent more time on the governor's race, which is fine.
And we spent more time on like the did property taxes.
Did the script get changed?
I made my notes earlier today or my bullet points and it felt different than because
I didn't mean to start talking about it seems like I kind of stumbled over something that
you were going to read in terms of a next question, Sean.
I don't know.
You have to tell me like I'll watch it and see, but I noticed it at the time.
I wasn't listening to you, man.
I'm kidding.
But probably I was a little bit nervous and likewise, yeah, I'm just so used to the way
we were going.
Oh, he just he was wondering if the he was wondering if like we changed up the script
or the order like that maybe because yeah, because you have more time for something.
Yeah.
More topics in your back pocket.
I like I feel like the topics were like.
We had more to say on each other.
We hit about 10.
I mean, when I heard the 10, I was thinking like, oh, they just forgot to give the time
cues.
And then 10 minutes happened and I thought, oh, you know, but I really think it was okay
to just talk like not having a laundry list of things.
Let us just talk a little bit about the governor's race, which is kind of I think we could just
talk about the governor's race every week a little bit.
I felt like I actually felt better as we got to that point.
You know, I felt okay, loose.
We're talking about yeah, pre-step halfway through like, oh, here we go.
We know we know how to do this.
Oh, just like at the beginning, I felt like I wanted to not speak for too long because
I didn't want to like take up too much time or whatever.
And I feel like as I got a sense of like just how things were progressing and more comfortable
just like saying everything I wanted to say, it didn't feel like I was like taking up too
much.
It's part of our weekly ritual.
We have, you know, this four minute segment.
So we know, come on, hurry it up, hurry it up.
So we just have to get on a different clock.
Yeah.
So every, every week on here and now we end up doing a segment where we cut stuff out.
Yeah.
Like with Trent, it is really easy to figure out how long of a bite you're to get exactly
the time.
Yeah.
So if it helps to just like not be so tight about time, then we can do that.
I'm not personally worried about that.
I think we still want it close to time though.
Close to time.
Yeah.
But as long as it might even be easier just to time it out to like 15 seconds longer because
I felt like you were like, you got the 15 and then you went right to the rap and if the
rap's not going to air on Wisconsin today, I think there's more of a risk that we come
in five to seven seconds light, then there is if we consistently time out 15 seconds
longer, come in seven seconds light.
Sure.
What's your comfort level with like, let's say you're talking about something and zax
says something and you want to jump in and go, you know, I mean, you just did that a
little bit.
We were just talking about that.
Well, good.
I like that.
I think we'll get better at it.
You want to ask your question about about seating?
Yeah.
I was thinking that it might make sense for Sean to be in the middle because like every
time I was answering him, my back was to Zack and so it was harder to feel like I was including
everyone.
Whereas I think if I were there, I could be talking to Sean, but then like signaling
to Zack to pick up or like to what you said or to what, you know, like it feels easier
to adjust her, which we can, we can accommodate for as we're, like, bigger in his chair,
but also release that you're at the Capitol.
This will be a double box.
Yeah.
So one of the thoughts was, well, then Sean and Zack are just always in the same position
roughly.
And Fred was saying like that also might help with comfortability if you're just like, this
is my spot, you know, but we can switch it up.
Do you want to, I don't know, try riffing on something, switch it up a little bit.
Like we can, that's part of the rehearsal is all about.
Yeah.
We can try something else for a few minutes.
I'll do you guys want to try?
I'm open to trying anything, sure.
Do you want to try Sean in the middle?
Sure.
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah, my only, we can try it, but I think my only concern would be if we're counting him
to be a ringleader.
Yeah.
And he's in that position of turning away, then it's harder to signal to Sean.
Hey, I'll go next.
You don't have to answer.
And I think.
I think you can pretend.
Look, Zach, a little bit, just like even a glance, even if you can't quite see him.
Yeah.
If you watch some of the playback, most of the time you were talking, you were, it's the
two of you in a two shot.
And then otherwise they would come in over here in a three shot.
So it wasn't as bad as it felt like.
Sure.
And a lot of times what we end up doing staging wise, we're looking past the person anyway,
just because of the camera lines.
So my concern of you being over there and Sean in the middle is Sean's going to do the
same thing you do.
Right.
And then when you're done, if like Rich or I are signaling if he's, but the audience won't
know that it feels uncomfortable for you in the middle.
Sure.
That's what I would say, but we can certainly try it.
Okay.
It would just be more work on his part to make sure he's doing the swivel.