US Sen. Ron Johnson on Issues Congress Faces as 2026 Opens

Frederica Freyberg:
Fallout from federal immigration enforcement in Minneapolis continues this week with six federal prosecutors there resigning over the assignment to investigate the widow of the 37-year-old mother shot and killed by an ICE agent. And Thursday was the last day of open enrollment for marketplace Affordable Care Act plans, with early indications showing 1.4 million fewer enrollees than last year. But the U.S. House last week voted to extend those credits, with 17 Republicans joining, including Wisconsin 3rd Congressional Representative Derrick Van Orden. To check where that measure goes in the Senate, we turn to Wisconsin’s U.S. senators, Democrat Tammy Baldwin and Republican Ron Johnson, who joins us now. Senator, thanks very much for being here.

Ron Johnson:
Thanks for having me on.

Frederica Freyberg:
So what do you know about any compromise to be had on the extension of these ACA enhanced credits?

Ron Johnson:
Well, I appreciate you reporting it accurately. We’re talking about the enhanced credits for the supposedly 24 million people on the exchanges. More than 22 million will still get the Obamacare original subsidies, which were very generous. The only people losing subsidies are people making over 400% of the poverty line. That’s about 1.6 million people. And I’m actually working with the couple Democrat senators to address those individuals because they are facing unbelievably high premiums because of Obamacare. It is so destroyed, the individual market. Some of these folks close to retirement are facing premiums of 36, $38,000 a year. So I’d like to help them. But again, I really have — there’s no reason to extend the enhanced temporary pandemic subsidies for people who still will retain the Obamacare subsidies.

Frederica Freyberg:
What kind of traction is that getting? Your proposal to maintain credits for those at 400% above poverty?

Ron Johnson:
Well, what I’ve been told is there are enough Democrats who will co-sponsor that. But right now, I think they’re still holding out hope that they can extend all the subsidies. I just believe that’s dead on arrival here in the Senate. We voted that down multiple times during the shutdown. That’s just not going to happen.

Frederica Freyberg:
Were you surprised by the 17 Republicans in the House who voted to extend those enhanced credits?

Ron Johnson:
No, I think the issue has been so misreported. It’s been so misrepresented that I think there are people in very close districts were concerned about that misrepresentation. They wanted to be showing their constituents that, no, they want to help them handle the extremely high premiums. But remember, the reason premiums are so high is because Obamacare is just flawed. It’s, it’s, it’s an awful structure. It forced a very small percentage of the American population, those 24 million people on the individuals exchange to completely bear the cost of covering people with preexisting conditions. So that’s the reason why premiums, since the implementation of Obamacare have increased four times the rate of inflation. So again, it’s completely failed. And the only thing the subsidy is doing right now is they’re masking that. It’s certainly helping people. What we ought to do is we ought to fix Obamacare, repair the damage done and transition to a system that would actually work.

Frederica Freyberg:
Like?

Ron Johnson:
Well, the root cause of our health care financing system is the third-party payer system. Somebody else is going to pay the, the provider, the, you know, the costs of, of the procedures and, and the medical services. All we pay for is insurance. It’s way too high or we pay our taxes. So until you actually reintroduce consumerism, where consumers know what things cost and they’re concerned about what things cost. Right now, doctors don’t know. Nurses don’t know, patients don’t know. The only people know are the bean counters, so that’s a completely flawed system. You’ve removed all the benefits of a free market, competitive system out of health care. So you don’t have lower costs. You don’t have better quality. You don’t have better service. So again, return to consumerism, free market competition in there. Now providers aren’t going to like it. Right now every incentive in our current health care system is to increase prices because everybody is taking a percentage cut off it. They’d rather take a percent cut off something cost $10,000 rather than five. So it’s about consumerism. That’s the only solution.

Frederica Freyberg:
On immigration enforcement, Minneapolis obviously continues to be a powder keg. How does the president, invoking the Insurrection Act, bringing in U.S. military help or hurt? What’s going on there in your mind?

Ron Johnson:
Well, what you ought to do is take a look at different states, those that are actually cooperating with ICE as we try and — as the Trump administration tries to clean up this enormous mess left behind by Biden and Democrats who opened up our borders versus those states that are resisting. Where local law enforcement actually holds illegal immigrants that have committed crimes so that ICE can pick them up peacefully at the jails. You’re not seeing a problem. Where you’re seeing a problem is where you have insurgents like Governor Walz and the mayor inciting people to resist and obstruct justice. And that led to the tragedy of that one woman’s death.

Frederica Freyberg:
Do you have concerns that Wisconsin will be similarly embroiled?

Ron Johnson:
I would hope that Wisconsin county sheriffs and local officials would cooperate with ICE. I think generally they do. We don’t — we do not have, you know, pockets of large illegal immigration, immigrants in the state of Wisconsin. So it’s not as big an issue here as it is with the Somali population and others in Minnesota and some of these other big cities.

Frederica Freyberg:
Do you feel like public benefits fraud in Minnesota justifies the Trump administration to surge ICE there?

Ron Johnson:
That’s not why they’re doing it. They’re two totally separate issues.

Frederica Freyberg:
And yet that has been something that the president has spoken to.

Ron Johnson:
Well, again, you have a, you know, large Somali population that now we are seeing evidence of how much they are defrauding the federal government on a host of government programs, you know, flying $700 million of cash out of the Minneapolis airport. Again, there’s some real problems there, but that’s separate from the illegal immigrants. And quite honestly, the sanctuary cities, sanctuary states like Minneapolis and Minnesota, where you don’t have local officials working with ICE to peacefully turn over people they’ve detained, have committed crimes. Other states that do it. You don’t have these problems.

Frederica Freyberg:
You stated this week that you do not want to see immigration enforcement action on farmers. Do you have any assurances on that?

Ron Johnson:
Just that, you know, for example, President Trump was not happy with the raid, I think, at the Hyundai plant. So people here that are working, contributing, that is not the people that ICE is, is primarily going after. Right now, they’re going after the criminals. Now, if you’re associating yourself with people who have committed crimes, if you get caught up in those enforcement actions, I mean, if you’ve come to this country illegally, you’ve committed a crime as well. But that’s not who the Trump administration is targeting.

Frederica Freyberg:
Do you support on the kind of world stage, do you support the administration’s actions in Venezuela, or threats against Iran, or even looking at Greenland? Do you support that kind of foreign policy?

Ron Johnson:
It’s undeniably good that Maduro is no longer the illegitimate leader and destroying Venezuela. Now, what comes next? I don’t know. If the mullahs could be replaced by the Iranian people, that would be a good thing for the world. They are a menace. Greenland, from my standpoint, I’m not worried about a military invasion there. I think it’s appropriate for President Trump to understand and point out what a strategic — how strategically, strategically important Greenland is. And I think there’s probably more and more intelligence coming out, exactly what Russia and China may be doing there. And we need to make sure that Greenland is protected for NATO and for, for America and for our own national security.

Frederica Freyberg:
What do you think average Wisconsinites care most about right now? Do you think it’s the cost of living?

Ron Johnson:
Sure. Always has been, always will be. And it’s difficult to, you know, once you’ve devalued the dollar to the extent we have over the decades, a dollar held in 1998 is only worth $0.51. As recently as 2019, that dollar’s worth $0.80. And so the 40-year high inflation incurred during the Biden administration that permanently devalued the dollar. So, you know, those — a lot of those prices, they’re not going to go back down. Now there are certain commodities like energy, gasoline, you’re noticing because we actually are encouraging drilling and energy production. Gasoline prices are going down. You know, I think a more rational approach to bird flu is probably bring down the price of eggs. So there are certain things we can address. President Trump right now is and I had a briefing in terms of what he’s doing to make sure that European countries or other developed countries pay the same price we pay for drugs. So they don’t free, free, free load off of our innovation. That will also help things, you know, in terms of pharmaceutical pricing.

Frederica Freyberg:
All right. Senator Ron Johnson, we’ll leave it there. Thanks very much for your time.

Ron Johnson:
Have a good day.