>> Fallout from federal immigration enforcement in
Minneapolis continues this week with six federal
prosecutors. They're resigning over the
assignment to investigate the widow of the 37 year
old mother shot and killed by an Ice agent. And
Thursday was the last day of open enrollment for
marketplace Affordable Care Act plans, with early
indications showing 1.4 million fewer enrollees
than last year. But the U.S. House last week voted
to extend those credits, with 17 Republicans joining,
including Wisconsin third Congressional
Representative Derrick Van Orden. To check where that
measure goes in the Senate, we turn to Wisconsin's U.S.
senators, Democrat Tammy Baldwin and Republican Ron
Johnson, who joins us now. Senator, thanks very much
for being here. >> Thanks for having me on.
>> So what do you know about any compromise to be
had on the extension of these ACA enhanced credits?
>> Well, I appreciate you reporting it accurately.
We're talking about the enhanced credits for the
supposedly 24 million people on the exchanges.
More than 22 million will still get the Obamacare
subsidies, which were very generous. The only people
losing subsidies are people making over 400% of the
poverty line. That's about 1.6 million people. And I'm
actually working with the couple Democrat senators to
address those individuals because they are facing
unbelievably high premiums because of Obamacare. It is
so destroyed. The individual market. Some of
these folks close to retirement are facing
premiums of 36, $38,000 a year. So I'd like to help
them. But again, I really have there's no reason to
extend the enhanced temporary pandemic
subsidies for people who still will retain the
Obamacare subsidies. >> What kind of traction is
that? Getting your proposal to maintain credits for
those at 400% above poverty? >> Well, what I've been
told is there are enough Democrats who will
co-sponsor that. But right now, I think they're still
holding out hope that they can extend all the
subsidies. I just believe that's dead on arrival here
in the Senate. We voted that down multiple times
during the shutdown. That's that's just not going to
happen. >> Were you surprised by
the 17 Republicans in the House who voted to extend
those enhanced credits? >> No, I think the issue
has been so misreported. It's been so misrepresented
that I think there are people in very close
districts were concerned about that
misrepresentation. They constituents that, no, they
want to help them handle the extremely high premiums.
But but remember, the reason premiums are so high
is because Obamacare is just flawed. It's it's it's
an awful structure. It forced a very small
percentage of the American population. Those 24
million people on the individuals change to
completely bear the cost of covering people with
preexisting conditions. So that's the reason why
premiums, since the implementation of Obamacare
have increased four times rate inflation. So again,
it's completely failed. And the only thing the subsidy
is doing right now is they're masking that. It's
certainly helping people. ought to fix Obamacare. We
repair the damage done and transition to a system that
would actually work like. Well, the root cause of our
health care financing system is the third party
payer system. Somebody else is going to pay the the.
Provider, the, you know, the costs of, of the
procedures and, and the medical services. All we
pay for is insurance. It's way too high or we pay our
taxes. So until you actually reintroduce
consumerism, where consumers know what things
cost and they're concerned about what things cost.
Right now, doctors don't know. Nurses don't know,
patients don't know. The only people know are the
bean counters. So that's a completely flawed system.
You've removed all the benefits of a free market,
competitive system out of health care. So you don't
have lower costs, you don't have better quality, you
don't have better service. So again, return
consumerism, free market competition in there. Now
providers aren't going to incentive in our current
health care system is to increase prices because
everybody is taking a percentage cut off it.
They'd rather take a percent cut off something
cost $10,000 rather than five. So it's about
consumerism. That's the >> On immigration
enforcement. Minneapolis obviously continues to be a
powder keg. How does the president, invoking the
Insurrection Act, bringing in U.S. military help or
hurt? What's going on there in your mind?
>> Well, what you ought to do is take a look at
different states, those cooperating with Ice as we
try and administration tries to clean up this
enormous mess left behind by Biden and Democrats, who
opened up our borders versus those states that
are resisting where local law enforcement actually
holds illegal immigrants that have committed crimes
so that Ice can pick them up peacefully at the jails.
You're not seeing a problem. Where you're seeing a
problem is where you have insurgents like Governor
Walz and the mayor inciting people to resist and
obstruct justice. And that led to the tragedy of that
one woman's death. >> Do you have concerns
that Wisconsin will be similarly embroiled?
>> I would hope that Wisconsin county sheriffs
and local officials would cooperate with Ice. I think
generally they do. We don't we do not have, you know,
pockets of large illegal immigration, immigrants in
the state of Wisconsin. So it's not as big an issue
here as it is with the Somali population and
others in Minnesota and some of these other big
cities. >> Do you feel like public
benefits fraud in Minnesota justifies the Trump
administration to surge ice there?
>> That's not why they're doing it. They're two
totally separate issues. >> And yet that has been
something that the president has spoken to.
>> Well, again, you have a, you know, large Somali
population that now we are seeing evidence of how much
they are defrauding the federal government on a
host of government programs, you know, flying $700
million of cash out of the Minneapolis airport. Again,
there's some real problems there, but that's separate
from the illegal immigrants. And quite honestly, the
sanctuary cities, sanctuary states like Minneapolis and
Minnesota, where you don't have local officials
working with Ice to peacefully turn over people
they've detained, have committed crimes. Other
states that do it. You don't have these problems.
>> You stated this week that you do not want to see
immigration enforcement action on farmers. Do you
have any assurances on that? >> Just that, you know, for
example, President Trump was not happy with the raid,
I think the Hyundai plant. So people here that are
working, contributing, that is not the people that Ice
is, is primarily going after right now. They're
going after the criminals. Now, if you're associating
yourself with people who have committed crimes, if
you get caught up in those enforcement actions, I mean,
if you've come to this country illegally, you've
committed a crime as well. But that's not who the
Trump administration is >> Do you support on the
kind of world stage do you support the
administration's actions in Venezuela, or threats
against Iran, or even looking at Greenland? Do
you support that kind of foreign policy.
>> Is undeniably good, that Maduro is no longer the
illegitimate leader and destroying Venezuela. Now,
what comes next? I don't know if the mullahs could
be replaced by the Iranian people. That would be a
good thing for the world. They are a menace.
Greenland. From my standpoint, I'm not worried
about a military invasion there. I think it's
appropriate for President Trump to understand and
point out what a strategic how strategically,
strategically important Greenland is. And I think
there's probably more and more intelligence coming
out, exactly what Russia and China may be doing
there. And we need to make sure that Greenland is
protected for NATO and for for America and for our own
national security. >> What do you think
average Wisconsinites care most about right now? Do
you think it's the cost of living?
>> Sure. Always has been, always will be. And it's
difficult to, you know, once you've devalued the
dollar to the extent we have over the over the
decades, a dollar held in 1998 is only worth $0.51 as
recently as 2019, that dollar's worth $0.80. And
so the 40 year high inflation incurred during
the Biden administration that permanently devalued
the dollar. So, you know, those a lot of those prices,
they're not going to go back down. Now there are
certain commodities like energy gasoline you
noticing because we actually are encouraging
drilling and energy production. Gasoline prices
are going down. You know, I think a more rational
approach to bird flu is is probably bring down the
price of eggs. So there are certain things we can
address. President Trump right now is and I had a
briefing in terms of what he's doing to make sure
that European countries or other developed countries
pay the same price we pay for drugs. So they don't
free, free, free load off of our innovation. That
will also help things, you know, in terms of
pharmaceutical pricing. >> All right. Senator Ron