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The following program is a PBS Wisconsin original production.

Frederica Freyberg:
Tough times for soybean farmers with no solution in sight. An update on dairy workers and ICE and our U.S. senators trade barbs and blame for the government shutdown.
I’m Frederica Freyberg. Tonight on “Here & Now,” the government shutdown causes political chaos. New candidates enter the races for state Supreme Court and governor. A Buffalo County farmer discusses how immigration laws leave dairy workers behind, and Zac Schultz reports on the dire situation facing soybean farmers in the state. It’s “Here & Now” for October 3rd.

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Funding for “Here & Now” is provided by the Focus Fund for Journalism and Friends of PBS Wisconsin.

Frederica Freyberg:
The federal government shutdown likely rolls into next week after competing funding bills failed in the U.S. Senate Friday afternoon. Some 18,000 federal employees in Wisconsin go without pay during a shutdown. Most essential services and benefit payments continue. The shutdown went into effect at midnight on October 1, after the Senate failed to pass a short-term funding bill, falling short of the 60 votes needed. All but two Democratic senators opposed the bill, including Wisconsin U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin. Democrats wanted an extension of expiring Affordable Care Act subsidies, and a reversal of about $1 trillion in Medicaid cuts. Even as the shutdown started, Wisconsin Republican U.S. Senator Ron Johnson proposed a bill called Eliminate Shutdowns Act. He’s here to explain. Senator, thanks for being here.

Ron Johnson:
Hello Frederica, how are you doing?

Frederica Freyberg:
Good.

Frederica Freyberg:
So you’ve had it with shutdowns. What does your bill do?

Ron Johnson:
Well, first of all, I will ask you. I think it’s pretty obvious. You and your listeners, I mean, aren’t you getting sick and tired of this? I’ve been sick and tired of this for a long time. And all it does is if you don’t appropriate money for government prior to the beginning of the fiscal year or any department, doesn’t shut down government. Doesn’t shut down those departments, just establishes a rolling, 14 day continuing appropriation. So then the appropriators have time to pass an appropriation bill. Again, it’s just — it’s modeled, really is modeled after what Wisconsin did in the ’50s. They’re the same thing. It doesn’t decrease. It doesn’t increase spending. It just keeps it at last year’s levels until you pass an appropriation. I was disappointed that every Democrat voted against that when we voted on it Monday. But we also had 12 appropriators, Republican appropriators vote against it because they said it would undercut the appropriation process but let me just describe that process that’s being undercut. I’ve been here 15 years, 15 appropriation cycles. That means 180 appropriation bills should have been passed before the end of the fiscal year on time. You know how many have been passed? Six. But that’s a 96.7% failure rate. That, that’s apparently what the Alleviate Shutdown Act would undermine or undercut. Again, it’s absurd. I’m not — listen, I would love to see an appropriation process work. It doesn’t. It’s obvious it doesn’t. So let’s, at a minimum, stop playing partisan politics with people’s lives. I mean, this is highly disruptive to people and there’s no reason for it whatsoever. The House has passed a continuing resolution. All Democrats have to do is do the same thing to end the Schumer shutdown.

Frederica Freyberg:
So in this shutdown, again, as you’ve just expressed, you blame Democrats, but why not negotiate it out before it gets to this point?

Ron Johnson:
Well, that’s what I try to do. Just — let’s prevent this. Just pass the Eliminate Shutdowns Act and then we can negotiate whatever wants — whatever needs to be negotiated: individual appropriation bills. You know, there is agreement on many things. For example, the Senate did pass what we call a minibus. The main part of that was Veterans Affairs and military construction that passed the Senate. I’m not sure what happened in the House. We didn’t conference those. It hasn’t been signed into law, but there should be plenty of areas of agreement. The problem is, as dysfunctional as this seems, Frederica, this actually is a very well-honed process on the part of the uniparty where you don’t pass appropriation bills, you put yourself into the shutdown mode. You create deadlines like right before Thanksgiving or right before Christmas. You know, members want to go home. The appropriators or leadership basically writes a 2000 page plus omnibus spending bill. They’ll drop it on our desk and say, vote for it or you can’t go home. That’s one of the reasons we’ve gone from $14 trillion to over $37 trillion in debt since I arrived here in 2011.

Frederica Freyberg:
We know what the Democrats are seeking, and that is an extension of the enhanced tax credits in the Affordable Care Act. You’ve long opposed the Affordable Care Act. I trust you would never vote in favor of extending those enhanced credits.

Ron Johnson:
Well, remember, these were temporary enhanced credits for the pandemic. There’s all kinds of pandemic relief funding that has expired that we’re not continuing. Why do we continue these?

Frederica Freyberg:
As to Medicaid, could you see Republicans backing down on any of the provisions in the big, beautiful bill, including additional requirements around eligibility that critics argue would result in people losing coverage?

Ron Johnson:
Well, first of all, what we did was actually minimal. We’re not cutting Medicaid funding. We’re trying to do is eliminate the fraud. We’re trying to eliminate Medicaid being used by people in this country illegally. Quite honestly, we didn’t go far enough.

Frederica Freyberg:
What is your response to President Trump seeming to use the shutdown as a predicate to put — to cut agency budgets and personnel?

Ron Johnson:
Well, first of all, in the private sector, when your company goes bankrupt, you know, unfortunately people lose their jobs and they have to go find employment elsewhere. You know, except for the fact that the federal government can extract the fruits of our labors and taxation, this is a bankrupt entity. And so I don’t see why public service, public sector employees should be immune to what we all have to experience in the private sector. It’s unfortunate. It doesn’t have to be. Again, Democrats could end this today in about an hour when we vote on the House continuing resolution, we could reopen government. So there’s no sense them wailing about the fact that maybe President Trump will utilize this opportunity to shrink down the size of government, which by and large, I’d be all for. I mean, the federal government is massive. Spent $7 trillion this year. 2019, before the pandemic, we’re spending 4.4. We’re $37 trillion in debt. You got to start trimming this sometime.

Frederica Freyberg:
We leave it there. Senator Ron Johnson, thanks very much.

Ron Johnson:
Good day.

Frederica Freyberg:
For her part, Democratic U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin was expected to join us, but her office told us the senator had a last-minute scheduling change. Earlier, she said, “Republicans who control the White House, the Senate and the House have not only refused to listen to families who need some breathing room, but they also have abandoned working with Democrats to do right by the American people.”
In agriculture market news, soybeans are trading at $10.26 a bushel today. According to Wisconsin farmers, at that price, they’re losing money. “Here & Now” senior political reporter Zac Schultz tells us this is the fallout from the Trump administration’s tariffs on China, putting Wisconsin farmers in the middle of an international trade war.

Zac Schultz:
Combines are rolling all across Wisconsin, bringing in what looks to be a good soybean harvest.

Doug Rebout:
I think it’s going to be a real good year for us on our yields.

Zac Schultz:
Doug Rebout is president of the Wisconsin Soybean Association. Along with his brothers, he farms 4200 acres of corn and soybeans in Rock County. And while his bushels per acre look good, the price per bushel has crashed over the last two years.

Doug Rebout:
The prices that we’re being offered right now aren’t covering the cost — it costs us to put it in the ground.

Zac Schultz:
The decline in soybean markets started last year but it bottomed out this this spring after Donald Trump announced tariffs on China, and China retaliated by refusing to buy U.S. soybeans.

Doug Rebout:
Historically, China has bought more soybeans from the U.S. than the rest of the world combined. And so when China doesn’t buy from us, that’s a huge impact to us.

Zac Schultz:
Rebout’s semi holds a thousand bushels of beans, and the minute he drives it off the field, those beans have now entered the international market, competing with growers in Argentina and Brazil.

Doug Rebout:
They’re growing more and more soybeans every year. They’re clearing rainforest and they’re able to provide that to China.

Andy Bensend:
The facts are, in the marketplace, our beans are cheaper than Brazil’s. So in the absence of tariff, we’re ultra competitive.

Zac Schultz:
Andy Bensend farms 3800 acres in Barron County. He says most farmers don’t have capacity to store soybeans on the farm and have few options in this environment.

Andy Bensend:
Those farmers are going to harvest the beans. They’re going to load them in the truck. If they have a bin, they’re going to put them in. If they don’t, they’re going to take them to the elevator. And when they get to the elevator, they have a couple choices. Take what’s offered or put them in the commercial storage and begin to pay a storage premium, which is so much a month.

Zac Schultz:
But there’s no guarantee prices will be higher next spring. Bensend says there’s a very narrow window for the Trump administration to fix this trade war.

Andy Bensend:
We’re running out of time. Brazil’s planting their beans. They’ll be ready for harvest next winter. And when they start making a new crop, if we don’t have ours marketed, guess what? We’re going to have a lot of beans.

Zac Schultz:
Rebout says farmers that were already overleveraged will likely go under.

Doug Rebout:
Some farmers are going to go under. There are some farms that, you know, are not going to be able to make it, and that’s very sad.

Zac Schultz:
Bensend serves on the Wisconsin Soybean Marketing Board.

Andy Bensend:
We clearly have to build other markets. And I think the biofuels thing is, is a perfect example of that.

Zac Schultz:
The federal government sets the amount of biofuels that must be blended into the nation’s fuel mix, and an increase could create domestic demand for soybeans. That would lead to a new soybean crushing facility being built in. CHS has already purchased land and has permitting in place to build an $800 million facility that could process 70 million bushels of soybeans a year for their oil.

Doug Rebout:
We have this market right here that would help our prices, because all those transportation costs are — a lot of them would be eliminated.

Zac Schultz:
Jason Sergeant is the Evansville city administrator. He says they have a signed contract with CHS to start construction next summer. They’re just waiting for CHS to confirm it will happen.

Jason Sergeant:
We have those dates in our contract, and they’re just obligated to kind of tell us when they’ve got to that next milestone post.

Zac Schultz:
In a statement, a CHS spokesperson said, “CHS is further analyzing the market and biofuel policies to make sure the right mechanisms are in place to support executing further on the investment.” Even if CHS goes forward, the plant wouldn’t come online for a few years, leaving Wisconsin farmers with 100 million bushels of beans this fall and no good place to sell them.

Donald Trump:
You know, you leave your farm to your children, and before I came along, they’d go out, they’d have to borrow money.

Zac Schultz:
Even though Trump started this trade war, Bensend and Rebout aren’t sure if this will change how farmers think about him.

Andy Bensend:
By and large, Trump is a free market person. However, he’s become a little bit protectionist with this, this tariff approach. And I think, I think we’re concerned. I think we’re very concerned because it’s affecting our livelihoods.

Doug Rebout:
You go talk to farmers. There are some farmers that love him. Some farmers that hate him. Some farmers that are a little less optimistic now.

Zac Schultz:
Combining soybeans is a dusty business. But when the dust settles from this harvest, Wisconsin farmers will be on the losing end of an international trade war, and the impact will be felt all across the state.

Andy Bensend:
So to think that it’s just the farmers’ problem is shortsighted. Agriculture is still the basis of our economy in so many ways, especially here in Wisconsin.

Doug Rebout:
It’s not just impacting us. It’s impacting our local communities because like I said, when we have those bad years and we’re not spending that money, that — the local businesses aren’t getting the money.

Zac Schultz:
Reporting from Rock County, I’m Zac Schultz for “Here & Now.”

Frederica Freyberg:
This week, the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency confirmed the arrest of 24 undocumented immigrants in Manitowoc County. One of whom was arrested for sexual assault of a child in May, according to authorities. A few others have convictions for traffic offenses, including drunk driving and possession of narcotics equipment. Immigrant advocates said some of those detained were dairy workers swept up in the raid. Is ICE coming for immigrant farm workers who supply upwards of 80% of the labor milking cows on Wisconsin dairy farms? We turn to longtime dairy farmer who employs workers from Mexico on his western Wisconsin operation, John Rosenow, who joins us from Buffalo County. And thanks very much for being here.

John Rosenow:
Glad to be here.

Frederica Freyberg:
So have you seen or heard about immigration enforcement on farms in Wisconsin?

John Rosenow:
No. So far there hasn’t been any and knock on wood, there’s been one in Vermont and one in New Mexico in the United States since the election.

Frederica Freyberg:
How dependent on immigrant labor are Wisconsin dairy farms?

John Rosenow:
Any farm that employs anybody is going to have immigrants, any dairy farm. And we estimate, I sat down with a CEO of a large dairy co-op a number of years ago, and at that point we determined based on everything that we know, that at least 80% and I would guess 90% of the milk harvested every day in Wisconsin is harvested by immigrants.

Frederica Freyberg:
And so are these workers in the US legally?

John Rosenow:
Well, there is no visa available for immigrants to get to work on dairy farms. The H-2A visas for short term employment – ten months – and dairy is 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. So there is no legal way for them to get here.

Frederica Freyberg:
And so the answer would be that most of these people are not legally in the U.S?

John Rosenow:
That would be my guess. What each employer has to do, whether you’re a dairy farmer or you’re a steel mill, is you have to fill out an I-9 and a W-4 within three days of employment. And you look at the documents and if you’re a reasonable person, according to the directions from the IRS, if you look at the documents and they appear genuine, you accept them. And that’s what we do. And all of our employees have green cards.

Frederica Freyberg:
So the latest version of the Farm Workforce Modernization Act of 2025 would make those H-2A visas year-round and allow for a path to permanent residency for dairy workers. What do you think about this legislation and where might that go?

John Rosenow:
Well, it’s not going to go anywhere because none of them do. And we’ve had probably for the last 25 years that I’ve been involved in this, I think every year somebody introduces something and nothing ever happens. Most of the time, it’s political posturing. People introduce a bill and then they tell their constituents that they’re doing something about it, but it never gets out of committee. Nobody wants to touch it. And so I have no hope. Like I told somebody, I think I’d be better off rather than reading the bill, I’d be better off if I went and walked my dog.

Frederica Freyberg:
So you’re cynical about this. And in the meantime, dairy farmers need to do the work.

John Rosenow:
We have to get those cows milked every day. I’ve been to Washington and I’ve talked to the Republicans and Republicans say as soon as we get the border secure, then we’ll do something and then I talk to the Democrats and they say, well, we got no power, so I can’t do anything. And meantime, we have to get the cows milked. And that’s what farmers do. If Congress isn’t going to do their work, we still have to milk the cows. We still have to produce the milk. We still have to deliver calves. We can’t just sit and wait for some political posturing and reelection things and everything else. So we get things done, and that’s what we need to do.

Frederica Freyberg:
What are your own 13 immigrant workers saying in the midst of the current climate on immigration enforcement?

John Rosenow:
When the current president was elected last time, there was a lot more concern and not a lot happened to them or their friends or neighbors or people they knew. So this time they’re going with, it’s going to be the same as last time. So they’re probably less concerned this time than they were last time.

Frederica Freyberg:
So do you suspect that even in the midst of this kind of heightened ICE activity, that there is a recognition that farmers, particularly dairy farmers, need this labor?

John Rosenow:
Yes, I, I’ve involved in a few calls with leadership in the administration — conference calls, and what I can gather from that is that there are two factions. One faction led by Steven Miller thinks all immigrants are bad, doesn’t make any difference who or where you are. They all got to go. And then the other side is people from like Secretary of Agriculture, Secretary of Labor and Secretary of Homeland Security are on the other side, that there are immigrants that are really helping the country. And I think this is the battle that’s happening within the administration. I hope common sense prevails.

Frederica Freyberg:
We leave it there. John Rosenow, thanks very much.

John Rosenow:
Thank you.

Frederica Freyberg:
In the 2026 race for governor, Democrat Missy Hughes announced her run this week. Hughes was most recently the CEO of the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation. She joins six other Democrats and two Republicans lining up in the primary election.
And a conservative candidate entered the race for Wisconsin Supreme Court this week. State appeals court judge, Maria Lazar, is running to replace Justice Rebecca Bradley, who chose not to run for reelection. She will face liberal appeals court Judge Chris Taylor. The court currently has a 4 to 3 liberal majority.
The world is an increasingly scary place. Political assassinations, mass shootings at schools, churches and on the street. Even though some of the violence is close to home, the sense is it won’t happen to me. But that’s what survivors often say. And how are people to make their way in the face of it? We ask Sydney Timmer-Murillo, assistant professor at the Medical College of Wisconsin and psychologist treating trauma and traumatic injury. And thanks for being here.

Sydney Timmer-Murillo:
Thank you.

Frederica Freyberg:
So is there such a thing as collective trauma, where people generally feel a sense of foreboding in the current climate?

Sydney Timmer-Murillo:
Yeah, absolutely. I think especially with the frequency that we’re seeing violence and such highly broadcasted events of violence, we can absolutely, as humans feel the weight of so much profound trauma.

Frederica Freyberg:
So watching the deadly mayhem of the fire and church shooting in Michigan was so much. And then it’s on endless loop in social media. How much does that endless loop wear on people?

Sydney Timmer-Murillo:
Yeah, we know that the frequency of how much you see trauma or experience trauma, so that repetition of violence really can impact somebody quite significantly. And it’s normal for them to then start to experience anxiety or fear or really a threat to their sense of safety. Even if it wasn’t you who experienced the violence per se.

Frederica Freyberg:
How injurious is this exposure in people’s day-to-day lives, perhaps especially children and young adults, things they see on screens?

Sydney Timmer-Murillo:
Yeah. So, you know, everybody is different. We can see a range of different reactions from an understandable spike in your emotion when you first see that violent event, but it can grow and really build a cascade into mental health concerns or mental health diagnoses. And so an individual, you know, especially kids and children and adults, when they’re trying to make sense of it, it can really start to shape your worldview and whether or not you feel safe operating in the world. So maybe you start to avoid certain things that used to be normal for you. It might be difficult for you to go to work or go to school.

Frederica Freyberg:
And so the shock of assassinations and school shootings is obviously so deeply disturbing. Should people not directly involved sit with that or move along?

Sydney Timmer-Murillo:
Yeah, we would encourage that — you know, you can’t necessarily always escape the bad things happening in life or media and you want to be informed, but it’s definitely important to take breaks. I would argue that, you know, taking those social media breaks and really making sure you’re engaged with your day-to-day life, your loved ones and family can really keep you grounded when navigating so much tension in this world.

Frederica Freyberg:
How does trauma affect people who have experienced it?

Sydney Timmer-Murillo:
What we know from the research is that if you have a history of trauma that puts you at greater risk of developing psychopathology after any subsequent types of trauma. And so if you, let’s say, even we’re in like a motor vehicle collision, and then now you’re dealing with new exposures to violence, it does tend to put you at a greater risk or it’s something that I would be looking out for when I’m trying to help treat somebody for, let’s say, post-traumatic stress disorder or depression.

Frederica Freyberg:
In what feels like a violent world and is, is the practice of trauma treatment a growing field?

Sydney Timmer-Murillo:
Absolutely. Yeah. I think, you know, a majority of people will experience at least one trauma in their lifetime. But we know that a lot of people can — are at risk for more than just one traumatic experience, or they live in communities with high rates of violence. And so because of that, you know, I think mental health providers really do need to be prepared for addressing trauma in whatever they’re doing with their patients. But we are definitely growing in terms of specializations as well, that we need these providers to really be able to hone in on the root of somebody’s trauma reactions, and that tends to need some pretty specialized treatment to be able to do that effectively.
Frederica Freyberg:
What makes someone resilient to trauma?

Sydney Timmer-Murillo:
Yeah. What a great question. You know, I think it is important to remember that there is resilience in the face of trauma. And there are so many things that can contribute to that. There can be individual factors. So how you regulate your emotions in the face of fear and threat to your safety. But I also think social support is such a profoundly important resilience factor. Really connecting to your loved ones when you have been exposed to violence, it’s so critical for trying to move forward and cope with the reactions.

Frederica Freyberg:
All right. Well, thank you so much for your information.
For more on this and other issues facing Wisconsin, visit our website at PBSWisconsin.org and then click on the news tab. That’s our program for tonight. I’m Frederica Freyberg. Have a good weekend.

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Funding for “Here & Now” is provided by the Focus Fund for Journalism and Friends of PBS Wisconsin.