Zac Schultz:
If there's one constant with Donald Trump as president, it's that he creates a fire hose of news, and just as it appears one topic will dominate the national conversation, another issue pops up. Joining us now to talk about the Democratic response to the first 100 days of Trump's second term in office is Congressman Mark Pocan. Thanks for your time today.

U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan:
Yeah, thanks, Zac. Appreciate having me.

Zac Schultz:
So, from DOGE to immigration to tariffs, have Democrats really found an issue to focus on when it comes to responding to Trump?

U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan:
Well, I mean, I think we all should be focused on the economy, right? That was the number one issue for Donald Trump when he got elected. Half the people in exit polls said they voted on the economy. It's also the number one issue hurting Donald Trump right now. Whether it be the indiscriminate use of tariffs that's, you know, blowing the stock market up and causing prices to continue to rise, his inability to lower costs — he promised to do it day one. It's been just the opposite in most areas. And, you know, the rule of law and the chaos and the flooding the zone of so much is really hard, and it's kind of exhausting for people who are calling into the office trying to keep up with what's going on.

Zac Schultz:
Well, so many of Trump's actions have come through executive orders, and many of those are now being fought over in court. Even on the topic of tariffs, some of them are announced and then rolled back. So do you think the general public actually understands what's happened versus what is just being talked about?

U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan:
You know, one of the things Donald Trump does well for himself — and that's usually how he does things for himself — is he floods the zone with a lot of different messages on any given issue. So you may hear what you want to hear. But, you know, just take tariffs. I would defy anyone to tell me exactly where we're at on tariffs right now, because I don't know if I could tell you. They're on, they're off. Some are on, some are off. A bunch are on, penguins are paying tariffs, and I'm not sure where we're at today, right? I think tomatoes just got tariffs in Mexico. So you really can't keep up with it. But the problem is, we're hearing from a lot of business people, their costs are going up because of tariffs, and things that aren't even tariffed are going up because this is a backdoor way for people to raise other costs. So at the end of the day, people are going to start paying more and more for things as Donald Trump throws these tariffs out without a real plan. And, you know, targeted tariffs can be done well. If China's dumping cheap steel in the United States, we should absolutely respond with targeted tariffs. It's a very effective tool. But if you use a screwdriver to pound a nail in, it's not as effective. You can't use the same tool for everything. And that's what Donald Trump is doing. At the end of the day, it's just costing people in Wisconsin and across the country more money out of their pockets, which is the opposite of what he promised.

Zac Schultz:
I mean, historically, you don't have to go back more than a few decades to the Democrats were the party of targeted tariffs and protecting certain American industries. So how do you message that when there are still members of your party that remember when tariffs were part of the Democratic platform?

U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan:
Yeah, I think just the way I did. You wouldn't use a screwdriver to do every single job in your house, right? If you're pounding a nail in to put a picture on the wall, you're probably not going to use the back end of a screwdriver for that, right? And he's using one tool, tariffs, for absolutely everything. We should renegotiate trade deals, we should use targeted tariffs. Those are all valid ways of addressing the economy. But when you throw them out on all kinds of countries, including major trading partners that we rely on in Wisconsin, like Canada and Mexico when it comes to agriculture, for example, you're not doing tariffs the right way. You're just throwing them all out there. I mean, when a country that only has penguins gets tariffs, someone's not really thinking through this. And that's the real problem right now. They're used in a way that becomes a tax on all of us. People are going to see their costs keep going up, and that's the opposite, again, of what we were promised.

Zac Schultz:
Yeah, we had your colleague Republican Congressman Tom Tiffany on last week, and he said, "Tariffs are a negotiation tactic that will ultimately lead to lower tariffs globally." He said, "You would hope over the next couple of months, that with these active negotiations going on, that we're going to see some good things happen." What would you make of his assessment?

U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan:
You know, I think he's going to Minnesota and getting some medical marijuana or something, because I'm not sure that is an answer that anyone else honestly believes, including other Republican members of Congress I talk to. They're concerned about tariffs. I just had a company from in our area — I'm not going to say the name of the company, but they sell a lot to China, it's a higher medical device, let's just say — and because of that, with the tariffs right now, their leading market, they're going to have a much harder time of selling to that market. And most of their stuff, 70% here is sourced in the United States, 48% just in Wisconsin. So if you start stopping those sales because of the response tariffs and the indiscriminate use the way the president's doing, they're feeling a real impact. And I hear that from manufacturer after manufacturer in the area. So, it's not just that consumers are paying more, it's that companies are going to start feeling this. We've even heard of some building projects starting to be canceled because of increased costs on tariffed goods, like some of the lumber that has been coming from both Canada and Mexico, and aluminum costs. So, right now there is not a plan, right? I think when Donald Trump answered the question in the debate about a health care, they said, "You have a plan?" He said he had a concept of a plan. Everything seems to be a concept of a plan, not a plan. At some point, we really need plans.

Zac Schultz:
Eight years ago, it was Paul Ryan leading the House during Trump's first two years, and Republicans were largely focused on passing tax cuts, and really seemed to ignore most of Trump's other agenda. A lot of those Republicans have been replaced in Congress with Trump loyalists. So what, from your perspective, what is the difference between then and now when it comes to the Republican majority in Congress?

U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan:
Let me clarify one thing. The holy grail for the Republicans is still this tax cut for the wealthiest. That's what they're trying to get done by Memorial Day. I don't think they'll get it done by then, but this trillion-and-a-half dollars they're trying to steal from the middle class and those who aspire to be in the middle class — through things like health care and long-term care through Medicaid, food assistance for kids, the number one program that keeps kids out of poverty, a 45% cut to federal funding for education — all of that is to pay off this tax cut that originally was estimated at $4.5 trillion to extend it. Now the Joint Committee on Taxation said, "No, it's $5.5 trillion dollars." And that's all money literally stolen from working-class people to go to Elon Musk and Donald Trump and people who can afford to go to Mar-a-Lago. So even though the faces may have changed, the holy grail has not. But when you flood the zone and make people think that, you know, we're going to talk about Greenland, or Canada becoming the 51st state, things that are never going to happen, then you're not talking about the money that's being stolen out of your wallets in order to give Elon Musk a tax cut. That's why I think it's really important that we remember there is no difference in their agenda. It is always about their donors and the wealthiest in this country. Even more so now that you've got Donald Trump in office, and Elon Musk, an unelected billionaire, turning on and off federal funds, turning off funds for programs that middle-class people rely on. So, I really just want to keep the focus on that.

Zac Schultz:
You've been part of a trend of Democratic members of Congress holding town halls in Republican districts. And part of this is to call out Republicans for not holding their own public forums. But what are you hearing from people? Are they just local Democrats coming to talk to a Democrat, or are they other constituents?

U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan:
Yeah, this is the ultimate common sense test, right? It doesn't pass the smell test. If you say you're doing something good for the American people, but instead of doing town halls to share that information, you'd want to go on the rooftop, right, with a megaphone and scream it if you're doing something good, you're hiding in your basement and not doing town halls. And Republican leadership has told Republican members not to do town halls. Well, I smell that, and that smells pretty bad. What they're doing, again, is stealing money from us to do this tax cut. So I'm going make sure that people in Wisconsin aren't getting ripped off. So I've done several town halls in Derrick Van Orden's district. He's never done a open public town hall in 2 1/2 years. So, you know, people want to be heard. I did one last week in La Crosse, and 350-plus people showed up. They want to talk about those cuts to Medicaid and long-term care. Don't forget, that's 1.3 million people in Wisconsin — 55% of seniors in nursing homes get help from Medicaid, one out of three kids in Wisconsin gets their health insurance from Medicaid. So, you know, that's why they're hiding in their basements, 'cause they don't want to talk about what they're actually doing. And just the opposite needs to happen. People need to be heard. That's why the turnout was so big in that April election. People just want to be heard. That's why we're doing the town halls to make sure people can be heard.

Zac Schultz:
When it comes to people being heard, if the economy continues to slow down, as people really feel the pain of these cuts and the tariffs, do you think your colleagues in Congress will be more responsive to their voters, or more loyal to Trump in that area?

U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan:
Well, that's the problem. I was told there were four Republican senators that would've voted against some of these bad cabinet picks, but they had death threats against their family members. Not just them. You know, unfortunately that's part of what we sign up for, but when your family members are getting the death threats, they just said that was a step too far and they couldn't vote against the nominees. And that is part of the problem. Republicans privately will tell you that they don't know what DOGE is doing either, they'll tell you some of this, but they'll never say it publicly, because of retribution, whether it be from MAGA or Donald Trump, or Elon Musk directly by putting money against you. So that's the problem. What we need is some backbone right now, and we don't have that in the Republican Party. You're not going to add a lot of profiles on courage, I think, this next two years in the Republican Party. But we need more Liz Cheneys and Adam Kinzingers, and maybe fewer sycophants, which is what we've got a lot of people right now in Congress acting like.

Zac Schultz:
Last week, the FBI arrested a Milwaukee County judge. She faces a felony charge for obstruction for allegedly helping a suspect avoid immigration officials who wanted to arrest him. What message does that send, both in Wisconsin and nationally?

U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan:
Well, it's a very targeted message. I mean, Donald Trump, where he's losing the most, has been in lawsuits. There's over 160 lawsuits, 'cause he's doing so many illegal actions. And there's been positive adjudications in over 60 of those cases by over 40 judges. So it's not like it's one court — 40 different judges, including judges appointed by Donald Trump, are ruling against him. And he is, by and large, following those. There's a couple high-profile cases, Mr. Garcia in El Salvador, and I think the AP news case. But everything else, he's the caver-in-chief. He is following the court orders, as he should, because what he's doing has been against the law. I think that's what he's trying to do, is send a message to the courts, 'cause he's not happy that this is a nation that follows the rule of law, and that's why he's losing. So he's trying to now target and go after the courts. And, you know, this is an action that is kind of over and beyond, I think, what anyone would expect to be the reaction for what happened. But, he wants to send a chilling message that the courts caved to him as well. And the reality is it's Donald Trump who's caving over and over, as these courts are saying this is a rule of a nation that follows the rule of law. That's by conservative and liberal and moderate and every kind of judge that's out there. And you know, at the end of the day, I think that's a positive thing. People really should celebrate that we have an independent branch of government following the law, and that's good.

Zac Schultz:
Democratic supporters have been comparing Trump to Hitler, and even presidential nominee Kamala Harris said Trump was a fascist last fall. Should Democrats be more careful in the language that they're using as part of the rhetoric in this debate?

U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan:
Yeah, I mean, what I use is, we don't have kings, we don't need an authoritarian leader, 'cause that is what Donald Trump wants. He likes those folks around the planet that can just make decisions. But again, we are a nation that follows a rule of law. And that's what every leader, including myself, has to follow. So for Donald Trump to be doing what he's doing, and so often breaking the law without regard for what he's doing, you know, he does think he's a king, and I think people should call him out. So, you know, if it quacks like a duck and walks like a duck, I think it's fair to call it a duck. And in Donald Trump's case, just by the sheer number of court rulings he's lost, to show you that his actions are often illegal.

Zac Schultz:
All right, Congressman Mark Pocan, thanks for your time today.

U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan:
Yeah, thank you.