‘Facts and figures on my side’ in reconciliation fight, Johnson tells ‘UpFront’

U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Oshkosh, says he has “the facts and figures on my side” as the U.S. Senate returns to Washington and he prepares to take on President Donald Trump and his “Big, Beautiful Bill.”

“I don’t want it to come to that. I want to work with this president,” Johnson said on WISN 12’s “UpFront,” which is produced in partnership with WisPolitics. “I want to see him succeed. I want to see America succeed. I want us to stop mortgaging our children’s future, and that’s the promise I made in my three elections.

“I’m happy to engage on the conversation,” Johnson added. “I just can’t support something that actually increases the deficit, and that is what’s going to happen right now as the bill is currently written.”

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Johnson said he has not talked to Trump since publicly opposing the House version of the bill.

“I’ll let him reach out and talk to me,” Johnson said. “This is our once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. We can’t blow it right now. We are blowing it.”

Johnson said he shares Elon Musk’s criticism of the bill as he pushes for deeper cuts and praised Musk’s work at DOGE as he departs the White House.

“I give Elon Musk a great deal of credit for literally the sacrifice he made, but also he exposed so much waste, fraud and abuse, just outrageous examples of it,” Johnson said. “Now we need to codify it. I’m disappointed that the White House hasn’t sent up rescission package after rescission package and have the president get behind those. And if he’s going to twist arms here in Congress, twist arms to members of Congress who aren’t willing to cut these grotesque examples of waste, fraud and abuse.

“I don’t know what’s happening internally,” Johnson added. “This is where we need presidential leadership. He’s got to get behind it.”

Johnson also said he hopes Milwaukee County Judge Hannah Dugan is convicted and “sentenced to the maximum penalty as an example.”

The FBI arrested Dugan and a grand jury indicted her, accusing her of helping an undocumented migrant evade federal immigration officials after she appeared in her courtroom on local domestic violence charges.

Dugan’s legal team is asking the case be dismissed, citing judicial immunity, and a group of nearly 140 retired judges are requesting the same.

“Those individuals should be condemning the obstruction of justice it appears that she engaged in as an officer of the court,” Johnson said. “I think that was outrageous. She should be prosecuted. I hope she gets convicted, and I hope she gets sentenced to the maximum penalty as an example so other judges don’t abuse their authority.”

Milwaukee Health Commissioner Michael Totoraitis says there is absolutely no federal team on the ground from the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention to assist with the school’s lead crisis, as Robert F. Kennedy Jr. recently claimed in testimony before Congress.

“No one could speak to any of this mythical team that doesn’t exist,” Totoraitis told “UpFront.” “We have been kind of in the dark as to any communication from the CDC. The last formal communication we received from the CDC was back in April, so I’m at a loss for what the secretary is referring to.”

Milwaukee Public Schools has been forced to close several schools to deal with a deepening lead crisis within the district, and beyond RFK Jr.’s comments, the city’s formal request for federal assistance was recently denied.

“That was, from what I understand, the first time in 75 years the CDC has denied an epi aid request,” Totoraitis said. “And it wasn’t to help clean up the mess. It was help to actually investigate the epidemiologic investigations, so essentially the detective work to help discern whether or not a child had been poisoned at their home, at the school or some combination of both.”

U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Oshkosh, said last week the city and district should fix the problem on its own without any federal assistance.

“Is there really some secret expertise the CDC has inside the federal government? I doubt it,” Johnson said. “Just clean it up.”

“I appreciate Sen. Johnson raising the issue and attention to this really important moment in our city’s history,” Totoraitis responded. “I think the part he fails to realize is the support and the technical assistance had been ongoing for months where the CDC helped us validate our site investigations, our physical assessment of the schools, they were helping us with medical toxicology expertise, tangible expertise that we don’t have internally within our health department.”

Totoraitis said the city will continue working throughout the summer on a list of target schools.

“As Secretary Kennedy continues to talk about this issue in the national media, he says the right thing,” Totoraitis said. “So I will continue to hold out hope that they will show up and be present here in Milwaukee.”

Rich Thau, the president of Engagious, which recently conducted a focus group of 12 Wisconsin swing voters, says a majority are sticking with Trump roughly four months into his second term.

“They like what he’s doing,” Thau told “UpFront.” “They may not like the way he goes about doing it, but they swallow the things they don’t like about him and get to the things that they do like about him, and that’s one of the most important aspects of understanding how they view him.”

Thau said nine of the 12 swing voters, who voted for President Biden in 2020 and President Trump in 2024, still approve of the president’s policies. None of them said they would vote for former Vice President Kamala Harris if given the chance again.

“It’s so important to talk to these swing voters because they often hold in their hands the ability to determine the outcome of the next presidential election,” Thau said.

Thau added the group was incredibly talkative about their views on politics and the president.

“For the first time ever, these folks would not stop talking,” Thau said. “I think they’re feeling a lot of pressure in terms of what’s going on in the world, pressure from friends and family. They’re thinking about these issues. They’re challenged on them, and also because they’ve taken an odd position in terms of their voting behavior. They’re atypical. Most people stick with one party, whether it’s D or R, and just keep going. These folks have changed their minds, and I think they feel in a certain way they have to defend what they’ve done.”

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