In a radio debate, Democratic challenger Mitchell Berman attacked 1st CD GOP incumbent U.S. Rep. Bryan Steil as a rubber stamp for the Trump administration, while the Janesville Republican repeatedly accused Berman of lying.  

Berman hammered Steil throughout Tuesday’s debate for his vote for the GOP-authored budget reconciliation bill that Berman said cut spending for safety net programs and increased the national debt while lowering taxes for wealthy Americans. 

“He’s been running year after year on lowering costs and bringing down health care costs. He says we have a lot of work to do,” the Raymond emergency room nurse said. “Well, you’ve been in Congress for seven years, going on eight years. When is the work going to start?” 

Steil, on the other hand, disputed Berman’s characterization of how Republican policymaking was affecting Americans and attacked Berman as a liar “desperate to get to Congress.”

He latched onto Berman’s claim that he had not accepted corporate PAC money, noting the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee was running ads backing Berman.

“What do they take? Corporate PAC money,” Steil said. “My opponent is actually using corporate PAC money to look straight into the camera to say he doesn’t take corporate PAC money.” 

The two candidates engaged in an acrimonious tit-for-tat throughout the hourlong broadcast on Janesville’s WCLO, moderated by station operations manager Tim Bremel.

One such instance came in their responses to a question over health insurance.

Berman noted the $1 trillion that Republicans’ One Big Beautiful Bill Act is set to cut from Medicaid spending over the next decade, and he cited a state Department of Health Services estimate that some 270,000 Wisconsinites would lose health care coverage as a result of the bill. 

Steil said the Medicaid cuts only targeted illegal immigrants and employable, childless young adults, accusing Berman of “fear-mongering.” 

He also claimed credit for a change to Wisconsin’s Medicaid reimbursement formula expected to increase federal healthcare funds by $1 billion per year. 

“Increasing the funding by a billion dollars when you’re looking at a loss of more than that is what we call in the ER putting a Band-Aid on a bullet hole,” Berman said. “That is not going to cover the gap in loss of coverage that people are going to be seeing, and that is not going to be able to keep services available for people in our hospitals.”

“So we agree it increased by a billion dollars,” Steil responded.

Steil was on offense throughout the debate, repeatedly interrupting Berman during the latter’s speaking time to challenge the Democrat and invoking the dispute over Medicaid spending and Berman’s DCCC support as proof of his opponent lying.  

Steil also sought to tie Berman to national Democrats, saying he opposed tax cuts for working families and would support “reckless spending” in Washington. 

Berman charged that Steil had overwhelmingly backed President Trump’s policies, including the president’s tariff policy, and accused him of “sowing seeds of distrust” in the election process.

Asked about addressing the national debt, Steil said Congress should shift to a biennial federal budgeting process and pass legislation that would preempt government shutdowns by automatically authorizing continuing appropriations. He also called for a bipartisan debt commission to force reforms to congressional budgeting. 

Berman said he would reform the tax code “so that the richest are not paying an effective tax rate lower than our teachers” and dinged Steil for what Berman said was the $4.5 trillion the reconciliation bill is slated to add to the national debt. 

On immigration policy, Berman advocated for “comprehensive immigration reform with a path for citizenship” for migrants in the country who had not committed crimes, while Steil said he backed tying immigration to workforce needs instead of a “happenstance” lottery system.

Steil also touted the Trump administration’s immigration policy, saying it had made “real strides and real progress on fixing the broken illegal immigration system,” crediting it with a decline in fentanyl deaths – though that decline began before Trump took office. 

Berman, who criticized former President Joe Biden’s “open borders,” did not challenge Steil on the administration’s immigration policy, though he called for “dignity and respect” in the immigration process.

Listen to the debate here.