Here & Now

U.S. Rep. Pocan Talks About The Latest In Washington

Frederica Freyberg:

On the opposite side of the aisle, Congressman Mark Pocan of Dane County and how his progressive caucus will make its way in a Republican administration. He joins us now. Thanks very much for being here.

Mark Pocan:

Absolutely. Thank you.

Frederica Freyberg:

So you were elected first vice-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. How will that caucus respond in the Donald Trump administration?

Mark Pocan:

Well hopefully in two different ways. First of all, we’re the largest values-based caucus within the Democratic Party. It’s easy to say no. And some things we just have to say no to that are bad ideas. But I think equally important is we have to put proactive policies out there that show the American people an alternative. So when it comes to infrastructure, hopefully what President-elect Trump is talking about is investing in roads and bridges and schools and broadband. That’s good. We’ll have a package like that too. But if it turns out he’s just going to have tax breaks for private contractors to go to public land and do things, then that’s not really an infrastructure package. We want to show people what the alternative is. So I think we’ve got to do both. Fight the bad things, but then put together some alternatives that, again, I think people can really see and compare and contrast where the two policies might be different.

Frederica Freyberg:

Is there some kind of new energy behind all of that?

Mark Pocan:

I’ll tell you. I think we all had our period of shock with the election. We went through grief and now we’re in action. So we’re ready to do what we’ve got to do. I just think too often people say, “It’s easy to say no to things,” but I think it’s really important that we have a positive alternative to put out there as well.

Frederica Freyberg:

So far given the President-elect’s picks for cabinet secretaries, what stands out to you?

Mark Pocan:

It stands out that this is not exactly what he promised us when he said he was going to drain the swamp. Instead, he’s built a high-rise luxury condo on the swamp with a bunch of billionaires and multimillionaires and Wall Street royalty. I saw a statistic on the first 17 picks he’s made for cabinet choices. Their total net worth is as much as one-third of the entire country’s net worth. So this is a very monolithic sort of group in many ways. Not especially diverse and when you start at looking putting Rick Perry in charge of the Department he wanted to get rid of but couldn’t remember the name of or Betsy DeVos in charge of a program where she’s never went to public schools and wants to take money from them to put to private schools. These are very odd picks. And I think we’re hoping that that doesn’t necessarily indicative of all of the policy choices that are going to come out right away.

Frederica Freyberg:

So not really the populous message he might have carried during the campaign.

Mark Pocan:

No, not at all. I mean this is a very, very different cabinet. When you look at the head of Exxon Mobil is the Secretary of State, with the ties to Putin in Russia with everything that’s going on with the hacking, it’s been very difficult. I have to say the first day when he announced Reince Priebus, a very mainstream establishment Republican pick and Steve Bannon, who’s a White Nationalist, that pretty much sent the message that I think we’re all going to be very surprised at how he governs and I don’t think we really have a great idea where he’s going to go.

Frederica Freyberg:

What is your response speaking of the Russian hacking, to that?

Mark Pocan:

I think that issue needs to be elevated as how we look at it because there’s a couple fronts to it. One, if another country legitimately hacked emails and put them out to try to influence our elections, we have to respond. And President Obama did say that he’s going to have a response. Not laying out exactly what it is yet, because you don’t need to show the cards so to speak. But we need to respond to something like that. Even Julian Assange from WikiLeaks has said clearly some of this did come from Russia. So we just need to know was the Russian government involved? And then if we find out anyone in the U.S. was involved as well, those are all things we’re going to have to figure out because it will affect the legitimacy of the election ultimately. I just hope the Republicans take it more serious. So far in Congress they said they’re not going to do hearings other than people like John McCain and Lindsey Graham to be fair have been very strong on this. But most of them have rolled over like puppies to get their bellies rubbed. And instead we should be worried about another country trying to influence our elections.

Frederica Freyberg:

Another thing that’s coming up, of course, is the repeal and replace of the Affordable Care Act. What are you telling your constituents about what to expect and what kind of changes they might see?

Mark Pocan:

This is one where I think we really have no idea, right? Because all of a sudden — everyone said they wanted to get rid of it on the Republican side. But now they’re like, “But wait. We to want keep the fact if you have a pre-existing condition you can get insurance. We want to keep adult children on their policies.” Those are the parts that cost money. If you get rid of other parts that brought in the revenue, I don’t know how they’re going to do that yet. We have to see if they’re going to stay true to their word and keep those important aspects of the Affordable Care Act or how they’re going to do it. The other thing we’re hearing is the Tea Party is saying, “We’ll repeal it, but we don’t want to replace it” and they need those votes to repeal it. It could be a wild and woolly issue when we first get back. That’s one of the first things they want to do. My guess is they may sunset getting rid of it down the road and deal with a replacement farther down the road, which they may or may not ever get to because I don’t know how politically they can get it done within their own party.

Frederica Freyberg:

Following the election, there's been a lot of reflection about how and why Hillary Clinton lost, particularly Wisconsin. Why do you think she did?

Mark Pocan:

Well, I think anyone who looks at that campaign, it’s easy to look backwards, first of all, when you say that. But she didn’t come to Wisconsin. She took Wisconsin for granted. I saw a statistic that more money was spent by the Clinton campaign in Omaha, Nebraska for one Electoral College vote that they split out than Wisconsin and Michigan combined. She was down in Texas and Arizona and all these places. I think they thought they were going to have this big blow out and they forgot their base. And quite honestly their message was not that core economic message that Donald Trump I think gave very simple answers to. He didn’t have a lot of policies. But when my home town of Kenosha went from 13 points Obama to one point Trump, I understand that. Three decades ago they made $20 an hour making cars and now you can make $13 an hour distribution centers down there. If your kids aren’t making as much as your parents, they feel like no one’s had their back. I think we needed to have a more clear economic message than we did. You can’t just say I’m not somebody. You actually have to offer something.

Frederica Freyberg:

Representative Mark Pocan, thanks very much.

Mark Pocan:

Yeah. Thank you.