Latest / Sid & Friends In The Morning / Ron Johnson | U.S. Senator from Wisconsin Reacts to Democrats Dominating the 2026 Midterm Elections

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Ron Johnson | U.S. Senator from Wisconsin Reacts to Democrats Dominating the 2026 Midterm Elections · Sid & Friends In The Morning

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Ron Johnson is one of my favorite people in politics.
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: You guys know that. An amazing senator from the great
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: state of Wisconsin. I guess I'll start with this, Ron.
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: Congratulations on your Milwaukee Brewers winning the World Series.
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: That was a bright spot and puts a smile on
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: my face. It was fun to watch. They were a team.
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: No prima donnas on that. Just a team playing fundamental
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: baseball and they won the World Championship. So, The fans
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: here in Wisconsin are great fans. They've been waiting for
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: this for a long time. So that really was wonderful
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: versus last night, which was awful. And by the way, Sid,
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: I completely agree with you. I think that this election
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: was driven by hate of Trump. But where I disagree
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: with you is when you say that these leftist politicians
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: haven't accomplished anything, They've accomplished a great deal in terms
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: of infiltrating and taking over our education system over the decades,
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: our media, government, the deep state. So, again, they're very,
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: very relentless. They've got a very long-term view. This is
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: a long-term plan of theirs. Dumb down our population. Take
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: a look at these on-the-street interviews with young people. It's
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: frightening to what little they know. It's frightening the fact
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: that a large percentage of them are embracing socialism. A
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: large percentage of the American population. I mean, how can
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: that be? I mean, 100 years ago, I can understand
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: after the Great Depression looking for a different economic model,
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: but now a century later when we see the devastation
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: of socialism, it destroys economies, nations, people's lives, results in
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: the death, the murder of tens of millions of people.
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: And now we in America have a rising tide of socialism. Again, it's,
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: it's so again, no, the left has been incredibly effective
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: at undermining this country, undermining institutions. And the last night
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: was devastating. I mean, it is going to take a
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: long time to claw, to claw freedom back from these guys.
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: You're right. What you said too, about the left, they
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: have done all that. Forget about socialism. Let's graduate to communism.
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about antisemitism and, One candidate alone, Abdul El-Sayed,
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: he represents all of that. And he wins relatively easily
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: in Michigan over Mike Rogers. But you did agree about
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: President Trump. So now Trump comes out this morning. You
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: know how much I love President Trump. He says, nah,
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: I'll work with the Democrats. Two days ago, they were Democrats.
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: Now he's going to work with the Democrats. What does
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: Trump do the last two years to restore some sanity
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: to our Republican Party?
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: It's going to be difficult. I think the question is
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: going to be what are Democrats going to do? You know,
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: because we lost the Senate, my guess is I'll be
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: sitting in another impeachment trial for President Trump, maybe for
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: Secretary of State Hegseth. And that's what they're talking about.
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: I mean, I think one of the Democrat senators, one
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: word to tweet, subpoenas.
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, I saw another one that said two words,
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: lawyer up. That was scary.
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: So again, American people want their lot in life improved.
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: I mean, that is what they want. Socialism won't do it.
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: Big government spending. Democrats' concept of making life affordable is
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: having another government program that will be rife with fraud,
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: mortgaging our children's future, but subsidizing the people they don't
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: want to subsidize. You know, look at Obamacare. It's been
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: a complete disaster. It's not affordable. They protect patients. but
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: they hid what a disaster has been by these enhanced subsidies.
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: You know, like nobody's going to notice. And quite honestly,
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: most people didn't notice. They don't understand the details of
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: these things. So again, we're not educating, we're not educating
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: our children, we're not educating the public through the media. And,
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: you know, again, I'm, I'm not an optimist, quite honestly.
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: I'm not the most uplifting person, but this is... Last
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: night was not good.
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: No, it's terrible. It's awful. I'm with you. I'm not
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: an optimist either. I think we're in very, very, very, very,
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: very big trouble in this country. I really do. And
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: I got to tell you, Republicans, even more than Democrats...
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: that I spoke to Ron Johnson the last couple of weeks.
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: They don't like John Thune. Sorry, they don't like him.
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: Now you got Chuck Schumer, so maybe they will like
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: John Thune a little more this morning. But how's that
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: going to be, walking into the Senate on January 1st
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: and having everybody's favorite Palestinian, Chuck Schumer, as the new boss?
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: It's going to be awful. You know, it's not it's
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: not going to be fun. You know, I said I
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: keep trying to point out to people that, you know,
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: I sprang from the Tea Party. And unfortunately, the Republican
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: establishment pretty well quashed the Tea Party. Yeah, obviously, obviously,
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: I had to join the conference that I'm closest with,
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: which is the Republican Party. not going to caucus with Democrats. But,
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: you know, Republicans did not, you know, in the end,
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: they didn't embrace what the Tea Party stood for, you know,
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: principled patriotism, principled reverence for the values of our founding fathers,
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: the genius of what they set up for us, you know,
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: a limited government, fiscal conservatism. The Republican Party pretty well
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: just ignored that. And, you know, they became big spenders, too.
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: I mean, You know, I was not a real big
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: fan of the one big, beautiful deal because we didn't return.
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: We didn't use that vehicle. Our only chance to return
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: to a reasonable pre-pandemic level spending. We went from $ 4. 4
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: trillion to $ 6. 5 trillion and never looked back. This year
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: we spent about $ 7. 4 trillion. There's no justification for that.
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: But Republicans didn't dig our heels in. It's a huge
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: blown opportunity, one that I'm not happy with at all.
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: And of course, trying to buy votes with the temporary
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: tax cuts and a road to housing bill and the
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: sports bill, that didn't work, did it? No, not at all.
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: We need a serious reassessment. They've scheduled leadership elections for
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: the next Tuesday. Personally, I think that's completely unacceptable. We
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: need to have a discussion in our conference and figure
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: out hey, guys, are we going to finally, like, embrace
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: some principles to guide our conference? Are we going to
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: establish some goals here? Are we going to have a strategy?
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: I've been here now, this is, you know, 16 years,
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: and we haven't had one yet.
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: Wow. I didn't realize that. You know, going back, though,
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: to the tweet that one Democrat put out there, lawyer up,
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: and the other one, which you talked about, which was impeach.
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: He's going to be impeached, there's no doubt about it.
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: But The consensus is that there will not be enough
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: votes in the Senate, even though the Senate flipped last
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: night to actually remove President Trump from office. That sounds right, right?
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: Probably. It kind of depends on what they all find. Now, again,
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: had we retained the majority, we probably would have done
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: what Schumer did with Secretary Marrakesh when the House impeached him.
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: Schumer just dismissed the charges. We probably would have done
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: that if we were in control. Now Democrats are in control.
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: They're going to be happy to have a trial in
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: the Senate for whoever the House decides to impeach. And
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: it will depend on what they find.
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: Why do I keep hearing Ron Johnson that, like you said,
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: it'll be Donald Trump, it'll be Pete Hegseth. Heck, they
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: could subpoena, I know it sounds crazy, Sid Rosenberg. Because
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: I've been in the president's company, we like each other.
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: Do you think it'll be that widespread and that crazy
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: the next two years?
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: Look at it. History shows us leftists are brutal. I mean,
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: they're vicious and they crave power. That's that's their unifying motivation. Leftists,
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: the liberals, Democrats crave power. And, you know, as Lord
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: Atkins said, power corrupts, absolute power corrupts. Absolutely. And they've
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: got a lot of power. I mean, obviously, you know,
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: absolute power because you have Trump as president for two years,
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: threatening video. You know, saying he's going to try and
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: work with them. My concern is the definition of working
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: Democrats is just furthermore, Jerry Kidd's future. Right. Right.
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: I mean, do you think in the end, though, Ron Johnson, that,
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: you know, you talked about how you were a Tea
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: Party guy and the closest thing you had was Republican Party,
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: but they're not the Tea Party. Do you think with
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: all the Trump talk, let's be honest here. that our
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: candidates were good enough because I saw a lot of
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: guys out there, and some women, that I just didn't really,
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: they didn't appeal to me. Now, of course, I'd vote
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: for them if I was in those cities because I'm
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: a MAGA Republican, but to be honest, they didn't really
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: appeal to me. You think that was part of the issue?
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: Without a doubt. I mean, without a doubt. You know, listen,
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: you know, I like Darlene Graham. You know, she was
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: mourning her brother's loss. she admitted, I don't know anything
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: about foreign policy. What was Trump doing all of a
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: sudden endorsing her? Ralph Norman would have been a great senator.
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: He's a true conservative. And he lost the close primary there.
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: I don't know. This is such a tsunami. I'm not
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: sure whether he would have won, but South Carolina did
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: elect a Republican governor. But Ken Paxton was obviously had
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: all kinds of ethics issues. I mean, the Republicans I
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: really respect said they could not vote for him. So
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: that was a real issue. And again, Tallarico won by
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: a large margin. So obviously, that was a problem. But again,
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: the sweeping nature of the loss here, we don't even
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: know whether we're going to win Mississippi.
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: Wow. That is unbelievable.
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: It really is.
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: So, wrapping up this conversation, Ron Johnson, thank God we
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: still love you. I mean that sincerely. You know I
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: love you, but thank God we still love you. Tsunami
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: is the word, not even wave. We've gone to tsunami.
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: Do you expect it to be, and I've kind of
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: intimated it already, but just to wrap this up, a
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: very chaotic couple of years?
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: It's just hard to predict. The problem is, Republicans, we
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: don't like chaos. We don't want government shutdowns because it
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: actually ends up costing us more than anything else. There's always.
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: There always seems to be just enough Republicans to go
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: ahead and sign on to the Democrat agenda. But again,
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: what that means is we're not going to get spending
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: under control. Democrats' only solution is spend more money, throw
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: more money at government programs where they waste it. I mean,
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: we got Aspen as much as a trillion dollars per
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: year in fraud. Democrats have no problem with that. So
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: there's always going to be, you know, we got big
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: spending Republicans too. That's our problem. You know, the Republican
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: Party did not embrace the Tea Party movement. They quashed it.
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: Yep, they did.
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: They, you know, So again, that's what I find and
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: I've always found enormously frustrating. People like me are vastly
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: outnumbered on both sides of the aisle in Washington, D.C.,
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: which is why we're $ 40 trillion in debt on a
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: path to incur $ 26 trillion in additional debt over the
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: next 10 years. $ 26 trillion is the projected deficit.
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: Ron Johnson, would you like to see the Republican Party
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: get very serious about about their next presidential candidate as
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: soon as possible?
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: J.D.
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: Vance announced something. Marco Rubio announced something. Do you want
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: to see us move on after getting hammered in the
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: House and the Senate to the next election sooner than later?
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: We're going to have to, but again, I would like
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: a Republican candidate that's going to embrace pretty much the
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: principles of the Tea Party.
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: Who's the guy out there right now, in your opinion,
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: because you're the smartest you really are, who's the guy
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: out there right now, a gal, that represents that?
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: Who is it? We'll have to see who steps forward
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: and what they say.
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: Well, you're not about to... It's not J.D.
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: Vance, is it? In the end, I will continue. And
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: quite honestly, I'm working right now. I'm the chairman of
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: the Senate Budget Committee for the next couple of months.
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: I'm working on a report. I'll issue it. We'll hold hearings,
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: laying out the fiscal situation. We're going to be talking
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: about why Social Security is a legal Ponzi scheme and
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: how grossly mismanaged it's been. We're going to lay out
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: the facts... Because if you're going to solve a problem,
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: we have this enormous problem to solve. You have to
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: agree on the facts. You have to lay out the
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: principles and goals of what your solutions are. Then you
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: work on solutions. The problem in Washington, D.C. is everybody's
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: got their solution, which is not a solution like the
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: Affordable Care Patient Protection Affordable Care Act. It's got a
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: great name. It was a complete failure because it was
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: a solution before you laid out the reality situation. So
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: that's all I can do is what I can do.
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: I'm going to keep telling the truth. I'm going to
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: keep laying out the facts and we'll see whether other.
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: People running for office are going to embrace him. Or
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: whether they're just going to use demagoguery and rhetoric and
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: just continue to run this nation to the ground.
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: Oh, boy. Ron Johnson, you really are great. You're a
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: great American. I mean that. You know, I really feel
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: that way, too. I'm not just patronizing you. Ron Johnson,
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: thank you so much for coming on this terrible morning.
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: But you were terrific. Thank you so much.
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: Have a great day. Wish I could be more uplifting.
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no, you're great. God bless you, Ron. Don't ever change, man.
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: We need honesty, and you are honest.
• 13:31
  Speaker 3: Thanks for listening to Sid and Friends in the Morning.
• 13:34
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• 13:37
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• 13:40
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  Speaker 3: and X. See you next time for a new episode
• 13:58
  Speaker 3: so you never have to wonder.
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: What the heck is going on here?