Welcome to our weekly DC Wrap, where we write about Wisconsin’s congressional delegation. Sign up here to receive the newsletter directly.

Quotes of the week

I don’t think this is a partisan issue. I think Americans want to see this issue addressed. … Passing it with the numbers we did, with the bipartisan support I think shows a strong push to the Senate where we hope we can get it all across the line and signed into law. 

– U.S. Rep. Bryan Steil, R-Janesville, touting the House passage of his Stop Insider Trading Act. 

There’s other measures that are just much weaker than a stronger bipartisan bill that would have been a real ban and would have covered the executive branch as well. This feels like a fig leaf rather than a real attempt at addressing what is a serious problem.

– U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Town of Vermont, who voted against the bill.

This week’s news

— U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson questioned Anthony Fauci on his role in an alleged conspiracy to suppress information about COVID-19 vaccine injuries.

Fauci’s testimony before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee yesterday afforded Johnson, R-Oshkosh, the chance to press the former top public health official on Johnson’s theory that government officials and the medical field have dismissed or concealed injuries caused by the vaccine. 

Fauci’s pandemic diary was made public by Republicans over the weekend. In questioning, Johnson asked Fauci whether a pulmonary infarction – a serious medical condition where part of the lung dies because of a loss of oxygen – the physician suffered in 2021 could have been the result of the COVID vaccine. 

“I was just wondering if it ever went through your mind that maybe that injection, all those boosters you took might have caused that,” Johnson said. 

He also asked Fauci if he was involved in the Food and Drug Administration’s “attack” on hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin, asserting the latter drug is effective, saying: “it works.”

The FDA has not authorized either drug for use treating COVID and revoked an emergency use authorization for hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID after finding the drug did not meaningfully reduce mortality or impact recovery in patients. 

Johnson’s remarks came as part of a broader attack on Fauci by the committee’s Republican members, who cast Fauci as an egomaniac who lied to Congress and the American public to burnish his image and protect his public reputation.

Fauci invoked the Fifth Amendment throughout his testimony. In his opening remarks, he said his many appearances before Congress throughout his career “proved” he believed in congressional oversight but that he would not humor committee chair Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul’s “unhinged obsession” with Fauci. 

“The only conclusion I can reach is that the sole reason he is calling me before this committee is to get me to say something that could vindicate his repeated public pledges that I end up, in his words, ‘behind bars,’” Fauci said. 

The committee’s ranking Dem member, Sen. Gary Peters of Michigan, also criticized Paul’s conduct, saying that the chair had excluded Democrats from the oversight process and that the hearing was to “basically legitimize a predetermined conclusion that was reached years ago.”

“It’s not just what we investigate that matters, but how we investigate that matters,” he said. 

— U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin at a Senate subcommittee hearing on AI called for supporting entry-level workers.

At the hearing yesterday for the Senate committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, Baldwin specified the need to build AI policy to protect people.

“Wisconsin is all too familiar with the disruption that comes when Washington makes the wrong decision or fails to plan ahead. So as we consider policy and regulation on AI, we have a responsibility to working men and women to get this right,” Baldwin, D-Madison, said. 

Baldwin also said that while AI can be used for enhancing productivity, there needs to be steps taken to ensure people are still given career growth opportunities.

Additionally, the senator asked for more information regarding improving data collection to better assess AI’s impact on the workforce.

– Baldwin is continuing to highlight the impact of Medicaid cuts following the passage of Republicans’ One Big Beautiful Bill act last year.

The legislation, formally known as the Working Families Tax Cuts Act, permanently extended individual and corporate tax cuts while also cutting federal funding for programs like SNAP, Medicaid and clean energy incentives.

“These cuts were never about fraud, waste, or abuse like Republicans claim. Their big ugly bill was designed to kick eligible people off of Medicaid to help pay for tax cuts that overwhelmingly benefit big corporations and special interest donors-the very same corporations that jack up the cost of healthcare on Americans in the first place,” Baldwin said on a press call Wednesday morning.

This follows a roundtable hosted at Baldwin’s alma mater West High School in Madison last week. At the roundtable Baldwin met with school administrators, parents and teachers about how Medicaid cuts would impact Wisconsin students.

— In the second ad of her campaign for the 3rd CD, Dem Emily Berge says she’ll stand up for the people of Wisconsin, not “the people who write the biggest checks.”

The ad will run in the La Crosse and Eau Claire media markets and is part of a $45,000 broadcast buy, a Berge spokesperson said.

The 30-second ad begins with Berge walking over a bridge and saying, “I believe the people of Wisconsin get to decide what happens here, not the people who write the biggest checks.”

It continues on the show Berge at multiple campaign rallies and speaking in a megaphone at a protest. Signs in the background of the protest say “Derrick Van Orden is hazardous for our community,” referencing the Republican incumbent from Prairie du Chien.

The former Eau Claire City Council president is then shown talking to residents, speaking at a park and huddled up with a group of canvassers. 

“In Congress I’ll stand up for us, because this seat belongs to the people of western and central Wisconsin,” Berge says.

Berge will face off against Rebecca Cooke in the Aug. 11 primary. The winner will face Van Orden, who beat Cooke by 2.7 percentage points in 2024 as he won a second term.

— President Donald Trump reiterated his “complete and total endorsement” of 7th CD contender Michael Alfonso in a “tele-rally” for the Republican.

Meanwhile, 7th CD GOP candidate Kevin Hermening has loaned his campaign another $100,000.

Read more in Thursday’s AM Update.

— Northwoods Future PAC reported a $405,270 media buy backing Michael Alfonso as the PAC rolls out a new ad in the 7th CD touting the former podcast producer.

The $398,250 for media placement the PAC disbursed or obligated on Friday is the largest individual expenditure the committee has reported since the PAC began its effort to boost Alfonso in November.

This latest disbursement brings the PAC’s total spending to $2.9 million this campaign, making it the leader in outside spending for the 7th CD race.

Read more in Monday’s PM Update.

Posts of the week

ICYMI

Spectrum News: Wisconsin senator set on ‘achieving what’s possible’ as Budget Committee chairman

Cincinnati Enquirer: Lawmakers decry ‘inhumane’ ICE conditions in Campbell County jail

Stevens Point Journal: Meet the Democratic candidates for 3rd Congressional District seat

Cap Times: Tammy Baldwin, school leaders say Trump education plans hurt students

Washington Examiner: House Administration Committee chairman doesn’t rule out mail-in ballot restrictions in third party-line bill

Fox Business: Congressman blasts ‘big government socialism’ as Republicans strategize for midterm elections 

Hudson Star-Observer: Why Fred Clark is running for Wisconsin’s 7th Congressional District

The Hill: GOP senator ahead of Fauci testimony: ‘I don’t expect to get much out of him’

The Hill: Key Senate Republican: Passing reconciliation 3.0 ‘a very small needle to thread’

The Intercept: Rubio’s paranoid Cuba report designed to “justify a military attack on Cuba,” says Democratic rep.