Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2: I'm here with Senator Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin. We were
Speaker 2: in Green Bay, Wisconsin. You call this state the battleground state.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're not hedging on this.
Speaker 2: You say your race is fifty to fifty. The presidential
Speaker 2: race here is fifty to fifty. One of the reasons
Speaker 2: I wanted to come here was see if the polling
Speaker 2: sort of is meted out on the ground, how close
Speaker 2: is it and what's your path to victory as you
Speaker 2: see in Yeah.
Speaker 1: So we've been a battleground state for some years now.
Speaker 3: If you think of twenty sixteen, Donald Trump won the
Speaker 3: state by seven tens of one percent and it was
Speaker 3: the tipping point state for him to win the presidency.
Speaker 3: But four years later, Joe Biden won Wisconsin by six
Speaker 3: tenths of one percent. That's like one or two votes
Speaker 3: per precinct in our state. And this looks like it's
Speaker 3: going that same path. So now everything comes down to turnout.
Speaker 3: Which side really gets their voters out, does the hard
Speaker 3: work for those who are still undecided there's a handful
Speaker 3: still and helps them get to the polls and reminds
Speaker 3: them that their vote is their power.
Speaker 2: I should say, we're sitting on your campaign bus and
Speaker 2: your multi day buster on you. You acknowledge that that
Speaker 2: the balance of the Senate sort of hangs on this seat.
Speaker 2: How do you navigate that and does it push you
Speaker 2: maybe more moderate as a result. Is you kind of
Speaker 2: think of just the rule or the importance of this
Speaker 2: seat to Democrats?
Speaker 3: You know, I think really the choices here are really
Speaker 3: between somebody myself who's been fighting for the working people
Speaker 3: of this state and a candidate who is much more
Speaker 3: interested in multimillionaires and big corporations. And that couldn't be
Speaker 3: on clearer display when you look at the fact that
Speaker 3: he supports a four trillion dollar tax cut that would
Speaker 3: disproportionately impact and benefit multimillionaires like himself in big corporations,
Speaker 3: whereas I'm trying to get working people to tax cuts,
Speaker 3: the child tax credit, the deduction for those who are
Speaker 3: starting up a business, deductions to make home ownership more
Speaker 3: available to first time home buyers.
Speaker 1: Those are the things that I want to see through.
Speaker 3: But that that contrast couldn't be on sharper display between
Speaker 3: myself and Eric Hovedy. And then you know, how would
Speaker 3: he pay for that? Fortrillion dollar tax cut. He proposes
Speaker 3: a plan that would reset federal spending to levels from
Speaker 3: the last decade, and if we did that, it would
Speaker 3: mean cuts to Social Security about six thousand dollars a
Speaker 3: year for the average beneficiary. I mean, we couldn't be
Speaker 3: more different on the economy and fighting for working people.
Speaker 3: I think wisconsinates want somebody who is working every day
Speaker 3: for them.
Speaker 1: On the economy.
Speaker 2: We look at our poll, the Bloomber Morning Console poll,
Speaker 2: we look at other polls, the economy is the number
Speaker 2: one issue in each and every one of them.
Speaker 1: Is that true?
Speaker 2: As you talked to voters here in this state, is
Speaker 2: that the thing that they want to hear about from you,
Speaker 2: that they and you'd care the most about.
Speaker 3: It is certainly top of mind for voters who haven't
Speaker 3: seen any relief from the inflationary prices that were caused
Speaker 3: by the pandemic and the screwed up supply chains. You know,
Speaker 3: those supply chains have been addressed, but the corporations haven't
Speaker 3: buy at the grocery store every week or you know.
Speaker 3: So while inflation has gone up over three years by
Speaker 3: fourteen percent, corporate profits at the same time have gone
Speaker 3: up seventy five percent. My voters who are really squeezed
Speaker 3: by these prices want a cop on the beat helping them,
Speaker 3: and so I support legislation that would empower the Federal
Speaker 3: Trade Commission to go after corporate price gouging, investigate it,
Speaker 3: try to have a champion for consumers on the job.
Speaker 2: We were in Sheboygan yesterday and after you gave your speech,
Speaker 2: I talked to somebody who's supporting you, and I said,
Speaker 2: tell me about this place. And he began to pour
Speaker 2: out places where there were companies who have been there
Speaker 2: or had reduced their footprints, and Cohler is chief among them,
Speaker 2: and he sort of wondered what would bring them back.
Speaker 2: This is stock and trade rhetoric for your opponent, for
Speaker 2: former President Trump as well. He's telling voters that these
Speaker 2: companies will come back. Are there mechanisms by which you
Speaker 2: can do that? Or is it time for voters to
Speaker 2: sort of recalibrate their expectations for what a manufacturing renaissance
Speaker 2: would look like in this country.
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 3: So, first, Cohler is still an iconic business, very very
Speaker 3: close by to Sheboygan. Have, I believe sold one of
Speaker 3: their divisions, but they're still making sinks.
Speaker 1: Flawsets shower heads.
Speaker 3: Writing that area of the state, and they have a
Speaker 3: very strong workforce. So but I want to answer your
Speaker 3: question because I consider myself one of the buy America
Speaker 3: champion of the United States Senate.
Speaker 1: So when we're passing.
Speaker 3: Big pieces of legislation, like we got to make sure
Speaker 3: there's buy America rules attached to this. And I was
Speaker 3: successful in getting permanent by America rules attached to the
Speaker 3: Infrastructure Bill, to the Chips and Science Act, to the
Speaker 3: Inflation Reduction Act. That is bringing jobs back to Wisconsin
Speaker 3: right now and keeping some jobs here that might otherwise
Speaker 3: have left. Give you an example in Kenosha County, there's
Speaker 3: a company called san Mina that makes circuitry type of things.
Speaker 3: We needed a specific type of circuitry for our broadband
Speaker 3: build out. The Infrastructure Bill pledges to get every residence
Speaker 3: and every business hooked up to high speed Internet, and
Speaker 3: so our Commerce secretary, because of the Buy America rules,
Speaker 3: was able to go overseas engage the CEO of a
Speaker 3: company and say I need your product, and he said,
Speaker 3: go ahead and buy it. Well, there's this problem buy
Speaker 3: America rules. It means that you have to produce them
Speaker 3: in the US while they found a compatible company, sand
Speaker 3: Mina in Kenosha. Two hundred new jobs right now being
Speaker 3: created because of buy America rules. I think that's one
Speaker 3: very powerful tool to bring jobs back and to actually get.
Speaker 1: A leadership role in some industries that we have.
Speaker 3: Previously given up and given away to other countries.
Speaker 2: I want to ask you about healthcare, which of course
Speaker 2: complements the economy. You've talked a lot about the Dobb's decision.
Speaker 2: Mike Johnson, the Speaker of the House, promised massive reforms
Speaker 2: to Obamacare at a speech earlier this week. How critical
Speaker 2: is that an issue for you? How much is that
Speaker 2: resonating with voters? Sort the viability of the Affordable Care
Speaker 2: Act of Obamacare.
Speaker 3: Yeah, my opponent, Eric Company has said he wants to
Speaker 3: repeal it in its entirety. I helped write it when
Speaker 3: I was in the House of Representatives. The achievement of
Speaker 3: getting health insurance companies to cover people with pre existing
Speaker 3: conditions was life altering for millions of Americans. Millions of
Speaker 3: Americans have insurance today because the companies can no longer
Speaker 3: say no and cherry pick their customers right. And I
Speaker 3: wrote the provision that allows young people to stay on
Speaker 3: their parents' health insurance till they tell turned twenty six.
Speaker 3: That's another game changer for folks right out of high
Speaker 3: school whose first job probably isn't going to offer full
Speaker 3: health insurance. And so we have to strengthen and build
Speaker 3: upon the Affordable Care Act. But we cannot go through
Speaker 3: another period of time where Republicans are threatening to repeal
Speaker 3: it and people are feeling the lack of certainty about
Speaker 3: their future, their ability to have the basic security that
Speaker 3: health insurance provides.
Speaker 2: We have women that left. Vice President Harris delivered a
Speaker 2: big speech yesterday, her closing argument, and she acknowledged the
Speaker 2: fact that there were still voters who don't know her.
Speaker 2: I feel like they don't know her what she stands for.
Speaker 2: Could you just give us some anecdotes, some sense of
Speaker 2: who she is that might help those voters understand how
Speaker 2: she operates, what she's like as somebody who worked with
Speaker 2: her so closely in the Senate and now with her
Speaker 2: as Vice President.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, I just looked at her resume. She was
Speaker 3: the top prosecutor for the largest state in the country
Speaker 3: and held perpetrators to account. She on the Judiciary Committee
Speaker 3: was masterful at holding power to account. I think that
Speaker 3: that's one thing that you need to know about Kamala
Speaker 3: Harris is that's been her history, and I think she's
Speaker 3: going to be a really really strong president.
Speaker 2: On the bus with Senator Tammy Baldwin in Green Bay, Wisconsin,