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Quotes of the week
We’ve been lied to by the medical establishment and federal health agencies. We’re not being lied to anymore with Bobby Kennedy and President Trump.
– U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Oshkosh, after Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. rolled back the number of vaccines recommended for children.
RFK, Jr. and Donald Trump think they know better than scientists and doctors – and it’s putting children’s lives on the line. This is reckless and will mean more children are going to get preventable diseases and sick.
– U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Madison.
This week’s news
— U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin is backing a bill to prohibit federal funding from being spent on military force in or against Venezuela without congressional approval following the capture of Nicolàs Maduro.
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Baldwin and fellow Dems condemned President Donald Trump for capturing Maduro without congressional authorization.
Maduro was ousted in a U.S. military operation over the weekend after months of U.S. military strikes on alleged drug smuggling boats in the Caribbean and Pacific Ocean. He pleaded not guilty to drug trafficking charges Monday. Trump has said the U.S. will ‘run the country’ temporarily and has vowed to build up the American oil industry in Venezuela.
Baldwin charged the president with drawing the U.S. into “another forever war just to take Venezuela’s oil and enrich his big oil buddies.”
“Simply put, this is not what Wisconsin families signed up for,” she said. “This puts all the men and women who don the uniform at risk, reeks of corruption, and just shows the President is focused on everything except lowering costs and the issues that keep Wisconsin families up at night. The President cannot just start wars at a whim; he needs to get the people’s approval – and that means Congress signing off.”
Meanwhile, the U.S. Senate is expected to vote today on a resolution to block additional U.S. military action against Venezuela unless Congress signs off.
Baldwin is a cosponsor of the resolution and said in a statement to WisPolitics that she will vote to pass it, adding: “the only question is whether my Republican colleagues will continue to roll over and let the President get us into another war, or will they stand up for the people.”
The office of U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Oshkosh, did not respond to an inquiry asking how he would vote on the resolution.
U.S. Rep. Gwen Moore, D-Milwaukee, this week suggested Trump’s move to capture Maduro was hypocritical.
“If he was truly concerned about drug trafficking, he wouldn’t have pardoned a drug trafficker who helped bring thousands of pounds of cocaine into the United States,” Moore said, referencing Trump’s pardon of former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández.
Several Wisconsin Republicans have released statements backing the operation.
U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden, R-Prairie du Chien, a former Navy SEAL, said Maduro’s removal sends a clear message to U.S. adversaries that “harming U.S. citizens carries consequences.”
“Nicolás Maduro operated as a narco-terrorist under the false cover of political authority. His criminal network helped fuel the drug trafficking that has killed thousands of Americans. He is now detained and no longer in a position to threaten American lives,” Van Orden said. “President Trump’s decisive leadership made this possible. His administration has made it clear that America will no longer tolerate narco-terrorists who profit from the deaths of our citizens.”
U.S. Rep. Bryan Steil, R-Janesville, said Maduro contributed to the overdose deaths of thousands of Americans each year.
“He will now face justice for his crimes and the suffering he caused so many American families,” Steil said.
— U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Town of Vermont, repeated Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey’s call for federal immigration officials to “get the f*ck out” of the city after an agent shot and killed a woman.
Video of the incident posted on X by a Minnesota Reformer reporter shows an SUV parked perpendicular on a residential street being approached by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers.
The vehicle backs up and then pulls forward before an officer in front of the SUV fires three shots into the vehicle at close range.
“Donald Trump’s ICE just murdered a woman in cold blood,” Pocan wrote on X.
DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin on X said the driver was a “violent rioter” who attempted to run over the ICE agents in “an act of domestic terrorism.”
State and local officials have rejected that narrative. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, a Democrat, called the shooting “totally avoidable” and Walz and Frey offered condolences to the family of the dead.
Walz has placed the Minnesota National Guard on alert to prepare for a possible deployment.
Investigative outlet The Trace counted 14 occasions where immigration agents have shot people since the onset of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown last year.
That includes a Mexican national in Chicago who was killed allegedly while fleeing arrest and an American citizen, also in Chicago, who was accused of ramming a federal agent’s vehicle before prosecutors dropped those charges.
— Republican Kevin Hermening told WisPolitics he has put $1 million of his own money into his campaign for the 7th CD.
Hermening, a financial adviser and former Marathon County GOP chair, is the second Republican candidate for the northern Wisconsin seat to make a seven-figure commitment to their campaign. Attorney and businessman Paul Wassgren, of Ashland, announced he was putting $1 million into his campaign when he launched his bid in late October.
Meanwhile, fellow Republican candidate Jessi Ebben told WisPolitics she raised $300,000 in the most recent quarter. And a PAC dropped more than $1 million between mid-November and mid-December backing Michael Alfonso, the son-in-law of Sean Duffy. The U.S. Transportation secretary previously represented the seat.
“This race is going to cost a lot more than $1 million to win the primary,” Hermening said in a phone interview.
Hermening formally filed for the deep-red seat last week. He made the transfer before Dec. 31, the close of the fourth quarter, and it will be reflected on the finance report he files later this month.
— Reince Priebus, the former Trump White House chief of staff, says he expects the president will weigh in on Wisconsin’s race for governor and the GOP primary between U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany and Washington County Exec Josh Schoemann.
“My general view is, and I don’t push the president on these things, but my general view is the president’s going to get involved,” Priebus said on WISN 12’s “UpFront,” which is produced in partnership with WisPolitics. “You just have to assume that. He likes to have his fingerprints on things. I think we all know that. I think he is going to get involved. I don’t see him sitting out. I do know that he respects very much Tom Tiffany. Tom has been very loyal, but Tom is his own guy.
“Clearly, Tom Tiffany, he’s got a lot of momentum,” Priebus added. “I think he’s well-known, certainly in the Republican world. I’ve never met the county executive who’s running against him, not that I needed to or he needed to reach out to me; he doesn’t. So what I know is Tom Tiffany has been a great congressman, and it seems by all accounts he’s probably the frontrunner with that.”
Posts of the week
ICYMI
FOX6: U.S. Rep. Bryan Steil on action in Venezuela
WEAU: Congressman Van Orden reacts to rural healthcare funding
Wisconsin Public Radio: Wisconsin political leaders react to US invasion of Venezuela
