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Good morning and happy Thursday, everyone.
Welcome to today's press call hosted by the Republican Party of Wisconsin.
I'm Matt Fisher, communications director for the Republican Party of Wisconsin, and joining
us today are Senator Ron Johnson, Congressman Tom Tiffany, and chairman of the Republican
Party of Wisconsin, Brian Schimming.
I'd like to thank all the reporters for joining us here this morning to discuss how the Biden
administration is failing Americans and Wisconsinites on the economy.
We look forward to taking a few questions as time allows at the end.
As a reminder, everything on today's call is on the record and may be recorded.
This may be recorded.
First, I'd like to turn the call over to chairman Ryan Schimming to kick things off.
Good morning, chairman.
How are you doing?
Good morning, Matt.
Thank you.
And thanks, everyone.
Thanks, Senator Johnson and Congressman Tiffany for being with us.
Look, there's a reason that we're getting all this tourism in Wisconsin from the White
House.
And that is not that we all know that President Biden will lose Wisconsin in November.
It's because he's lost Wisconsin already.
The people of this state and the people of this country have seen a 20 percent increase
in grocery prices, a 36 percent increase in energy prices.
It costs over $10,000 more to maintain the same standard of living in Wisconsin that
it did in the start of this administration, 6,000 manufacturing jobs lost since February
of 2023.
So they're coming back here for a simple reason.
They've lost the people of the state and lost them politically.
They have lost them because they keep telling people in Wisconsin and around the country
that they shouldn't believe their own lion eyes, what they feel at the grocery store,
what they feel in energy prices.
They've lost them and they've lost folks around the country as well.
And very frankly, at the point that we're at right now, I'll always welcome the president
to Wisconsin.
But I would say this, right now, Joe Biden shouldn't be at the northern border.
He should be at the southern border.
We have rampant, rampant problem at the southern border right now that it's affecting crime.
It's affecting communities, not just in the south, but as far north here as Wisconsin.
So if the president wanted to do some good, he'd jump on Air Force One when he's done
here today and head for the southern border.
I don't anticipate he'll probably do that, but it would be a welcome change in this administration's
policy.
One of many changes that people know that we need.
That's why Joe Biden is here this week.
That's why Kamala Harris is here this week.
That's why Secretary Yellen will be here this week.
They've lost the hearts and minds of the people of Wisconsin.
And now they're afraid to lose the election.
Sir, I'll jump over to Congressman Tiffany, Congressman Tiffany, thanks for being with
us this morning.
Yeah.
Thank you so much, Brian.
And it's good to join you today on this press call.
So President Biden's coming to my district up in Superior and Duluth and the Biden administration
is just clearly flailing at this point.
And that's why you see so many visits here.
In fact, in the press release, they put out, they don't even know where they're going.
They listed it as Duluth, Wisconsin.
And that shows you how out of touch the Biden team is.
But you look at the Blackneck Bridge.
This is great that this bridge is going to be improved.
I think that's a terrific thing.
But they're going to have to pump a billion dollars into it.
And it's part of the Biden administration's failings that it's going to cost that much
money.
We have sent bills to President Biden and urged him to get permitting reform.
It shouldn't cost a billion dollars to be able to do this.
We have these permitting situations that happen where it takes 10, 15 years in order to get
a permit.
We're doing something about it in the House of Representatives.
President Biden isn't.
And that's costing people more money.
That's part of the inflation that you see.
Second of all, how do you build a bridge?
You use steel and concrete and stuff like that.
What's President Biden done?
He's shut down mining up on the Iron Range or is attempting to in northern Minnesota so
that we can produce that steel right here in America instead it's going to have to
be imported because the Biden administration is hostile to mining that can be produced
right here in America by Americans.
And the final thing I'd say is that it takes asphalt to build a bridge also.
And the Biden administration is doing everything they can to shut down being able to use or
to be energy independent in America.
He should be calling his buddy Governor Evers and saying get line five permitted in
northern Wisconsin that provides the heating fuel for us in northern Wisconsin and Michigan
here in the upper Great Lakes as well as providing the petroleum that gets turned into the asphalt
that's going to build the bridge.
And we need those things to happen if we're going to have infrastructure built within
the taxpayers means instead we're going to have to spend well over a billion dollars
for a project that really doesn't need to cost that much.
So they're clearly flailing at this point and just desperate to find good news that
they can deliver to the American people.
We need a change of administration.
It's as simple as that.
If we're going to see inflation brought under check and get back to prosperity here in America.
Thank you, Congressman Tiffany.
I'll now pass the mic over to Senator Johnson.
Thank you Matt and Brian and Tom and thank everybody for joining the call.
I've often said that if you were asked to develop a strategy to destroy this nation
you'd be hard pressed to come over the better game plan than what President Biden has implemented.
His open borders, the 40-year high inflation, the war on fossil fuel which obviously fuels
inflation, the embarrassing and dangerous surrender in Afghanistan which is emboldened
tyrants around the world and it's really set the world out of flame.
Brian had mentioned a couple of economic statistics, an article in the Federalist publication
talked about some pretty stunning statistics, nationally the price of a new home was gone
from $246,000 to over $400,000, a monthly mortgage has gone from $1,100 per month to
it's doubled, more than doubled to $2,300 per month.
Again, this economic program of Biden, the 40-year high inflation, I think one of the
best ways to typify it is the dollar you held and started the Biden administration is only
worth 85 cents.
In the Senate we're not doing anything, we're confirming judges and administration officials
who are not addressing these problems and in particular we're not addressing the clear
and present danger that is our open border.
Biden, his open border policy, supported by his Democratic politics including Tani Baldwin
in the Senate, that open border policy is facilitating the multi-billion dollar business
model of some most evil people on the planet, the human trafters, the sex trafters, the
drug trafters and there's no end in sight.
We're in these, what I would consider, sham negotiations negotiating with the arsonists
who put out the fire, we're negotiating with the administration that wants an open
border that caused this problem and they're not really negotiating to secure the border,
they're negotiating to give themselves political cover.
It's a real challenge for James Langford who's knowledgeable, gets along with Democrats who's
doing the best job he can but we're just not seeing Democrats being serious about securing
the border, that should be our top priority, securing America's border certainly before
we secure Ukraine's, as sympathetic as we are with screening people, we need to focus
on securing America's border because it is simply a clear and present danger when you
have FBI Director Ray saying all the warning signals are flashing, the high threat from
foreign terrorist organizations since 9-11, Gee, I wonder how they can get their foreign
fighters into America.
So this is something we must focus on, this is a major, major fail of the Biden administration
although it's really not a failure.
This is what they wanted and this is what they got and now America is having to live
with the results of Democrat governance which is a disaster for America.
Thank you Senator Johnson for your remarks.
Now at this time I'd like to open up the discussion to questions from reporters, as
this is a Zoom webinar you can actually ask this of course in the Q&A feature at the
bottom of the screen, I will make sure to convey the questions to our speakers and if there
were any questions that were not selected feel free to reach out to me at mfisher at
wistgop.org, that's m as in Matthew, F-I-S-H-E-R at wistgop.org, I will now give everyone
about 45 seconds to a minute to go ahead and post your questions in the Q&A section.
All right, here's our first question from Daniel Keating from WPR, we'll go, we'll start
off, here's a question.
What would you say to the President's statement today that the US economy grew 3.1% over the
last year while adding another 2.7 million jobs and with core inflation moving back down
towards the pre-pandemic benchmark. Chairman Shimming, do you want to start off and then
we can go from there or?
Sure, what I would say is Wisconsin has lost more than 6,000 manufacturing jobs since
last February with 72% of employers saying they're having trouble hiring under the Biden
administration, only 10% of the people describe Wisconsin's economy as strong.
So again, the President's going around with these numbers that they're trying to make
things look better after years of neglect, years of policy mistakes, years of political
mistakes, even his own party.
I mean, we started out his race, less than four in 10 Democrats wanted to see him run
for re-election.
And as I say, Wisconsin's, look, the center of it, I always say Wisconsin is not one of
50 states this year, we're one of about five.
The truth is it's going to be a very close election, no matter what, the President's
trip to Wisconsin today is a rescue mission.
He is trying to rescue this state for the Democratic ticket when the recent polling
shows that people get it.
It's not just a matter of what they think of one number or another.
It's what they feel every day at the grocery store.
It's what they feel, as Senator Johnson said, and mortgage rates.
It's what they feel in their reality every day.
And the President's asking people of the state to ignore the reality that they feel
every day and believe him instead.
And what we see now is people have stopped believing him.
Senator Johnson, go ahead.
Okay.
Yeah.
Well, I'll quick just pile onto that a little bit.
When President Biden took office, we were just recovering from the very steep recession
caused by the pandemic.
There was so much pent up demand, you know, with all the COVID relief money, there was
a lot of money in people's pockets.
The last thing we should have done is add a few of the flames, and that's exactly what
President Biden and Democrats did.
So they passed a massive deficit spending measure.
They added to that deficit spending, they've been juicing demand and just inflation.
So Brian mentioned groceries that that average tab on a weekly basis throughout America
has gone from $160 a week to $270 a week, you know, interest rates for mortgage 3.72%
up to 7.06%.
So you can take credit for the fact we're not in a recession, but the damage has already
been done and people are feeling it.
Congressman Tiffany?
Yeah, I've just added just a couple brief comments to that.
First of all, you should take a look at those numbers that are coming out from the federal
government.
They're steadily being revised downward as we go month after month.
I would urge Danielle to look at the revision of numbers that has been going on month after
month when initially they come out with these really good job numbers, 250, 300,000
more jobs.
And then you find out six months later, they've been revised downwards significantly.
And when he says core inflation, he does not include food and fuel.
So if you don't drive your car, you don't eat and you don't eat your home, inflation
has not hit you.
We'll have one more question for you to wrap here from Andrew Mertens.
Well, it's nice to ask you first, Chairman and Senator Congressman, if you want to add
anything out for that, you can.
The question is, it appears a 2024 election will be Trump versus Biden.
What does Trump have to do differently to win Wisconsin?
Well, as you know, we had two very close elections here in Wisconsin.
We've had 12 races in 24 years that were decided by less than 30,000 votes statewide.
So I have said from the get go that I felt President Trump and other candidates can
win Wisconsin because the A because the energy is out there.
Clearly the enthusiasm gap is with the Republicans right now.
And that's scaring the Democrats.
And frankly, the president's presence here is going to be a very beneficial one, not
only for him, but for the ticket.
They have spent years going after Donald Trump on every imaginable angle.
And here they're sitting behind him in all seven swing states.
The president just shook up his campaign staff in Washington.
So they're in a panic.
There's no doubt about it.
We're going to see a lot of Joe Biden here.
But I will tell you, state Chairman of the party, the energy I see in 72 counties across
the state is phenomenal.
Some of the best that I've seen in almost 40 years doing this.
So I'm very excited about our ability to win the state.
And I would just say, in order to defeat President Biden, just point out all the ways
that his policies have been destructed to America and to Americans ought to be a pretty simple
task.
Yeah, no doubt.
And I believe if we stay focused on policy, which we will do in the seventh congressional
district, we win because all you have to do is look back to four to five years ago.
What was our foreign policy stronger?
Yes, we have a stronger America.
Did we have inflation like we have now?
No, we did not have that four to five years ago.
Did we have a border that was headed to being secure, that was much more secure than it
is now?
We did.
And we were energy independent.
We went in the wrong direction on the major issues before the American people and the
people of the state of Wisconsin.
It is time to retire, Joe Biden.
Well, thank you, everyone, for joining us.
Thank you, Senator Johnson.
Thank you, Congressman Tiffany.
And thank you, Chairman Shimming.
And thank you to all the reporters here who joined us this sort of early in the morning.
This concludes our Q&A portion, of course.
And before we wrap things up, again, if your question was not answered, please reach out
to me at mfisher at wisgeop.org.
That's mfisher at wisgeop.org.
And we will provide you with whatever you may need in that regard.
Again, thank you all for joining us and have a good rest of your Thursday.
We're Dave.
Thanks, everyone.
Recording stop.