The Sara Rodriguez Scandal

On Monday's "Dan O'Donnell Show," Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez holds a disastrous press conference in which she is forced to admit her campaign is broke and overinflated its donation totals by "hundreds of thousands of dollars." Plus, Sen. Chris Kapenga makes an exclusive announcement that he is running for Waukesha County Executive.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Let's go live right to it right now. This is
Lieutenant Governor Sarah Rodriguez Manager.

Speaker 2 (00:05):
That did not make sense. By Thursday afternoon, I saw
that the total cash was far lower than I had expected.
I will generally say that there were hundreds of thousands
of dollars less than I thought. I am not going
to put a precise dollar amount on that today because

(00:26):
we are still reconciling our books and I want the
next number out of my mouth to be one hundred
percent accurate.

Speaker 3 (00:34):
By Friday, I.

Speaker 2 (00:35):
Had assembled a small team of political communications, legal and
compliance experts to do a deeper analysis of what was
going on with these accounts and reports. That initial analysis
took all day Saturday, as the compliance expert began to
reconcile the bank accounts MGP, which is our financial system,
and the public reports that my manager had filed. We

(00:57):
still do not know everything yet and the analysis is ongoing,
but we did learn a few key things. There was
clearly a double counting of contributions that inflated how much
money we had raised. There was also a significant failure
to report certain expenses that had been paid. We are

(01:17):
still looking to see if there's any additional discrepancies beyond that.
But those learnings were enough to know that my manager
needed to be fired, and she was fired on Sunday.
First thing this morning, my campaign lawyer contacted the Wisconsin
Ethics Commission to report what he discovered and to make
a plan to correct the mistakes and file amended reports.

(01:41):
I now stand here today in front of you being
as transparent, honest, and accountable as possible. So moving forward,
these are the steps we are taking. We will cooperate
fully with the Wisconsin Ethics Commission on any information they need.
My campaign will be working closely with an accountant and
complying transfirm to rectify our reports as quickly as we can,

(02:04):
and we will take any necessary follow up steps based
on the guidance of the Wisconsin Ethics Commission. Let me
close with this, This race is moving forward because the
stakes are too high. My mom was a teaching assistant.
My dad worked for the telephone company. I grew up

(02:24):
watching two people work hard, do everything right, and still
worry about money, still make those trade offs, still carry
the weight that working families carry every single day in
this country. And that's what's still happening right now. Families
getting crushed by healthcare costs, not because they're irresponsible, but

(02:48):
because the system is broken and nobody in power seems
to feel the urgency to fix it. So I am
not here because this is easy. I am here because
I know what's at stake, and I know who gets
hurt when people like me decide it's not worth the fight.
I attend to put my heart and soul into this

(03:11):
race over the next month and until November, every single
day of it. There are people who get knocked down
and don't get back up. I'm not one of them.
With that, I am ready for your questions.

Speaker 4 (03:28):
Why would your campaign manager filing out still? You know
campaign finance reports.

Speaker 2 (03:33):
So my campaign manager has been with me for several years.
Her entire career has been in compliance. As we are
trying to make sure we have a lean campaign, it
made sense for her to do the compliance report since
that was her expertise, and that was one thing I
had full trust in for her because she had done
it for so many years. And clearly that trust was misplaced.

Speaker 4 (03:56):
You can pay back to January. Why is it just
Nowaday becoming aware of this issue?

Speaker 2 (04:01):
So I had been giving reports on a regular basis
about what type of finances we had in this campaign,
and based on everything I know with my fundraising as
well as what I was told by my campaign manager,
and knowing what expenses were on this campaign, we were
moving forward. Everything looked right. Unfortunately, just this last Tuesday,

(04:24):
when I noticed the ads were not up, is when
I decided to take a deeper dive into those finances.
And once I did, and once I uncovered those errors,
I took immediate action, pulled in an accountant right away,
made sure that we were working with compliance experts, and
eventually yes, firing my campaign manager because she was the

(04:45):
one who submitted these reports.

Speaker 5 (04:47):
That's why.

Speaker 6 (04:52):
Rors on this do you regret not having If you're
a campaign manager has been with you for several years,
are you worried at all about preview is reports previous
campaigns that she's run for you?

Speaker 2 (05:03):
So we're going to look at every report that she
has ever submitted. But right now we are focused on
making sure these reports are accurate for the governor's campaign,
and that's what I'm committed to. We are not going
to submit another inaccurate report.

Speaker 7 (05:16):
Do you.

Speaker 4 (05:18):
Or is it something you believe she did to fall asleep?

Speaker 6 (05:20):
Play your numbers to make you look more competitive against yours.

Speaker 2 (05:25):
We are working with compliance, the Wisconsin Ethics Commission, and
an accountant to uncover all of these facts. Right now,
this is what I know. There were double counting of
donations and there were expenses that were not put into
that finance report. That's what I know today. We're going
to continue to work to be as transparent as possible

(05:47):
and to make sure that this next campaign report is accurate.

Speaker 4 (05:52):
Do you regret?

Speaker 8 (05:56):
Do you regret not having more oversight over your own campaign?

Speaker 4 (06:00):
And does the book not stop with you?

Speaker 8 (06:01):
And secondly, do you apologize to David Crawley He got
out of the race based on your perception of strength
which was false number.

Speaker 2 (06:11):
So what I will say is this is that I
met regularly with my campaign manager about how the campaign
was going, and based on the information that I received
and the information that our partners received, it looked accurate.
I trusted her to do the job that I had

(06:31):
hired to to do that she had done for her
entire career, and I regret placing my trust in that individual.

Speaker 4 (06:39):
What does that say about you as a leader?

Speaker 2 (06:41):
It says that when I find something, I take immediate action.
When I found that there were discrepancies and inaccuracies in
that report, I immediately took action to bring people in.
This was literally from Thursday when I found out permanently,
like when I found out what was going on within
the accounts, it is Monday today.

Speaker 4 (07:01):
It took six months, though, to get to this.

Speaker 2 (07:03):
Point, because I was continually getting inaccurate reports from my
campaign finance person. For my campaign manager, what was.

Speaker 4 (07:11):
Her response, though she's done with you for a long time.

Speaker 8 (07:13):
You guys have them walking in a relationship, But what's your
response when you've brought these to her?

Speaker 5 (07:18):
So that's what we're trying to uncover.

Speaker 2 (07:20):
We are going through line by line on these accounts
to make sure that they are accurate for the next
finance report. That is my commitment to this campaign. It
is my commitment to my supporters, and that's what I'm
going to do moving forward. We've called our supporters all
across the state. We are talking about the positive message
that this campaign is going to bring because we know

(07:40):
what's important for Wisconsinight's. We know that they want us
to lower costs on healthcare, to lower costs on housing,
to lower costs on childcare. That is what I am
committed to doing, and what I think it shows is
that there are not many political leaders who would stand
here today in front of our five six I don't
know twelve cameras to be as transparent and honest as

(08:04):
I am being because I think that we owe that
to the people of Wisconsin as elected leaders, and I
think I owe that to my supporters. When I found this.

Speaker 9 (08:14):
Error state budget, your campaign goes a million dollars budget
is billions of dollars out of the base Russians happen
in the campaign.

Speaker 2 (08:24):
So I, as Lieutenant governor, I have gone through the
budget process consistently with the Evers Rodriguez administration, and that
is what I'm going to continue to do as governor
of the state. But once again, if I find something
that is wrong within the budget or the budgeting process
within the state of Wisconsin, you can count on me

(08:47):
as governor to be fully transparent about it. That is
why I am standing here today in front of you.

Speaker 8 (08:52):
What do you want to say to David Crawley who
got out of the race based on a perception of
your strength based on numbers that were not true.

Speaker 2 (09:00):
So I have spoken to supporters all across the state
and they are continuing to be with me. I am
grateful for that. I am grateful for their support, and
I know that we are going to win this August
and then we are going to win in November against
Tom Tiffany a.

Speaker 4 (09:18):
TV at All.

Speaker 2 (09:20):
Yes, we will be going up on TV is going
to be next week. So right now, fully transparent. We
have about a little over two hundred thousand dollars cash
on hand in the bank, and over the time that
we have been raising, we've raised almost a million dollars.
That is an accurate assessment. I'm not going to give

(09:41):
you the exact number, because again I want it to
be accurate, but that is what we have right.

Speaker 6 (09:45):
Now, an advantage coming into the finance reports and moving
forward as your campaigns seem to be picking up some momentum, picking.

Speaker 2 (09:53):
Up endorsers, you know, I think we still have that momentum.
I think we're still moving forward. This is a bun
in the road for the campaign, but we are going
to be as honest and transparent as we can be.
That is why I am standing here in front of
all of you, in front of all of these cameras,
in front of all of these microphones, and telling you
when I see something that is an error, I make

(10:16):
sure that it gets fixed, and I am taking full
accountability for what's happening before and moving forward.

Speaker 4 (10:27):
What was your campaign management's reaction you brought up these allegations, So.

Speaker 2 (10:32):
We went through line by line and showed what was
wrong within the reporting that she had completed. And we're
going to continue to work with our compliance expert, with
our accounting individuals with the Wisconsin Ethics Commission, and we're
going to follow their process to see what the next
steps moving forward need to be.

Speaker 4 (10:56):
Between you and on one conversation about.

Speaker 2 (10:58):
This, I have spoken to my campaign manager. I have
made sure that she has given getting all the information
that she needs. We addressed her termination noticed through our
lawyer to make sure that everything was a book board
and that this campaign is going to move forward and

(11:19):
we are going to win this August and then we're
going to win in November.

Speaker 4 (11:24):
You tell someone to seep or made respects.

Speaker 2 (11:30):
I cannot tell you what was in her mind about
why she did what she did. I will tell you
that when you work with somebody for as long as
I have, it was an enormous shock that this happened,
and it took me a little while to believe that

(11:51):
these reports were erroneous. But once I was able to
look within the system, to look within the bank accounts,
to look at the reports that were filed, it was
clear that these were egregiously in error and that she
needed to be let go. But it is it is
a breach of trust, and it's a breach of trust

(12:13):
of myself, and it's a breach of trust of my
supporters who are standing here with me today. And that's
why I had to make sure that I went as
quickly as possible to terminate her as campaign manager.

Speaker 4 (12:27):
Wisconsin, I who are hearing.

Speaker 6 (12:29):
This news today, and maybe you're now questioning your ability
to lead due to these inscrepancies as well as a
balance of the budget.

Speaker 2 (12:39):
So politicians don't normally stand in front of all of
these cameras and be as honest and transparent as I
have been with what I know was an error in
those financial transactions and those financial reports. That's what I
would tell wisconsinight's you want a leader who's going to
be transparent and who's going to take accountability when things
go wrong, And that is what I am here today

(13:01):
standing in front of you. Doing is taking that accountability.

Speaker 4 (13:04):
Did I know what ever raised questions about across this
with whatever concern raised in the.

Speaker 2 (13:12):
Past six months, No, I I have not there nobody
else has raised a concern within the past six months.

Speaker 4 (13:17):
Do you believe she took any of this money or
did this money actually ever exist?

Speaker 2 (13:20):
We are continuing to review what is going on within
those finds. It's going to take some time to be
able to go through with accountants, to be able to
go through with compliance experts, and working with the Wisconsin
Ethics Commission to uncover if there are any other discrepancies
within those finance reports. We're gonna continue to do that,
but it's gonna take some time.

Speaker 1 (13:43):
And then him.

Speaker 8 (13:44):
So as of right now, the one million dollar ad,
but does that exist?

Speaker 4 (13:48):
Is that happening or so we.

Speaker 2 (13:52):
I I understand that there was a press release indicating
that we were going to do a one million dollar
add by that decision was made by my campaign manager,
and I cannot get inside her head as to why
she made that announcement. But I know that we're moving
forward with this campaign and that we are going to
make sure that we are bringing that positive message all

(14:14):
across Wisconsin and We're going to get this done.

Speaker 4 (14:17):
Does the book stop? I want to get Sarah? Does
the book stop with you? If the buck stops with you?

Speaker 3 (14:22):
Want your reaction to your compedator, Joe Brennan, who asks, how.

Speaker 4 (14:25):
Is this not this qualifying? What do you say to that?

Speaker 2 (14:28):
I would say that most people are not going to
stand in front of this betty cameras and microphones to
talk about fixing an error. That's what I am here doing,
and that's what you want to see in leadership and
what you want to see in your next governor, and
that's what I'm going.

Speaker 4 (14:46):
To be.

Speaker 6 (14:48):
Your campaign.

Speaker 4 (14:49):
Or you say you didn't know about the press release,
You didn't know about this.

Speaker 2 (14:52):
Oh no, I know about the press release it was
going through. But she was her decision based on the
information that she had given me that she was going
to put out a press release for a million dollar
add by. I am unsure why she would have done
that given what she knew to be part of what
the accounts were like. All right, when you guys, thank you?

Speaker 3 (15:13):
All right.

Speaker 1 (15:13):
It should be noted as we wrap up this Sarah
Rodriguez press conference that before we went to it, before
the show started at exactly three zero six. There was
a group of supporters behind Sarah Rodriguez. You heard the cheering,
You could see signs Sarah for governor. Somebody asked, do
we cheer when.

Speaker 3 (15:34):
She walks out?

Speaker 1 (15:36):
That should give you a pretty good idea of just
how well this press conference went for her. Of course,
am being facetious. This was about as disastrous as it gets.
For those just catching up, I understand it must have
been very jarring to hear me sort of introduce, Hey,
there's a massive campaign finance scandal involving Wisconsin's lieutenant governor.

(16:00):
Late last night, Sarah Rodriguez was forced to fire her
campaign manager, a woman who has been with her for
a long time by the name of Kara Spencer, after
it was discovered that, going back months, Spencer, who was
the one putting together the campaign finance reports, the publicly

(16:20):
available documents that indicate how much a campaign has raised
how much it is spending, that those reports, the January
report in specifically, was completely falsified that there were double donations,
and subsequent investigation into that by Jason Calvey of Fox

(16:41):
six has revealed that it does appear that these were
intentional double counting of donations. Ie, someone would donate, say
ten thousand dollars, but that ten thousand dollars would be
reported twice, so it looked as though Rodriguez was taking
in a lot more money than she actually was. Now,

(17:02):
the key questions here were all about intent. If this
was just as Rodriguez reiterated, an oversight that led to
just negligence that needed to result in Spencer's firing, That's
one thing. It is not criminal if, in fact, though
there was an intent to deceive donors, an intent to

(17:23):
deceive voters, an intent to deceive Democrats who are trying
to coalesce support around one of at the time eight
or nine candidates in this race, to try to show
that Rodriguez was the one who was making the most money.
Then that becomes a serious crime and can possibly result
in felony charges. If it is a deliberate attempt to deceive,

(17:47):
it rises to the level of fraud. So what happened
late last night at about nine to thirty pm, press
release goes out, and you can tell that this is
a very serious issue when big news like that is
broke at an odd time like nine to thirty PM
on a Sunday night, the hope there is that reporters

(18:07):
are not at work, that the rest of the state
is sleeping, that nobody is really paying attention to what's
going on. Well, this news dropped like a bomb and
pretty much everyone involved in Wisconsin politics immediately started to
try to figure out what exactly was going on with
the Rodriguez campaign. Remember, Rodriguez is sort of seen as

(18:30):
the Democratic Party of Wisconsin's only chance, only hope of
stopping socialist Francesca Hang or possibly left leaning socialist adjacent
I guess Mandela Barnes, neither of whom the Democratic Party
of Wisconsin wants representing them. Well, just last week, Milwaukee
County Executive David Crowley dropped out of the race and

(18:53):
endorsed Rodriguez, saying that Rodriguez was the best candidate to
lead this state and that she was going to be
the grown up choice, as opposed to say, the socialist
children who gravitate towards Francesco Haun. You need an adult
in the room, and Rodriguez was that adult. Well, to
have this story break is devastating, and that brings us

(19:17):
to how much money Rodriguez actually has. And ladies and gentlemen,
this may actually be a much bigger deal than anything
that Kara Spencer, the now former campaign manager, might have done.
While it was reported to big fanfare last week that
Rodriguez was making a one point two million dollar television

(19:39):
ad buy to try to compete with not only Hong
and Barnes and even Kelda Roys who's polling at about
one to two percent but is making big campaign ad buys,
but also Tom Tiffany in an attempt to show that
she has been able to raise enough money that she
would be able to go one to one and go

(19:59):
tit for tab with Tom Tiffany, who essentially has been
running a general election campaign for the last four months
while all of the Democrats have been trading fire, and
now this primary has gone absolutely thermo nuclear with this
scandal today. For Rodriguez to be forced to admit that
she has just two hundred thousand dollars in cash on hand,

(20:22):
and the rest of the numbers that she was reporting,
the rest of the numbers that she was basically trying
to use to show how strong a campaign she was running,
that those were essentially fake, that sort of makes her
entire campaign look like something of a Ponzi scheme. Now,
she was relying I think on a lot of national
donors coming in at the last second realizing that the

(20:44):
Wisconsin Democratic Party can't nominate a socialist like Francesca Hong
because a it would be the easiest chance for Tom
Tiffany in an otherwise big Democratic year, to win the
governor's mansion and to prevent Democrats from getting their long
dreamed about trifecta winning the governor's mansion, the state Assembly
as well as the State Senate. But also given the

(21:07):
ideological war that's going on within the Democratic Party for
control and the soul of the Democratic Party, for the
Democrats to nominate a Democratic Socialist of America in hang
this would mean in the ultimate swing state in the Midwest,
a state that is seen across the country as otherwise
level headed, as a deep shade of purple that seems

(21:30):
to decide every presidential election over the past decade, for
it to nominate a socialist. That would send the very
strong signal to the National Democratic Party that and to
the rest of the country that the Democratic Party is
a socialist party. Now Democrats are terrified of the socialists
taking over. They're almost more scared of the socialists winning

(21:54):
than they are of the socialists getting nominated in swing
states like Wisconsin and potentially some swing congressional districts that
haven't yet held their primaries and getting blown out in
the general election. Because if they win, if Francesca Hong
were to win and become the first socialist governor in America,

(22:14):
that this is what's at stake here, folks. There have been,
of course socialist governors. She would be the first one
in history to call herself a socialist. She would be
the first member of the Democratic Socialists of America and
critically the first governor in the history of this country
to say, yes, I am an open socialist. Pretty Much
everybody else, Sarah Rodriguez included, is much better at sort

(22:37):
of hiding the fact that they are socialists. Francesco Han
openly says it. Rodriguez was seen as the only candidate,
especially with Crowley dropping out of the race and endorsing
her as having a chance to stop the spread of
socialism here in Wisconsin. Now, her primary argument that she
is the competent candidate, that she would be able to

(22:59):
go in and on day one immediately take over a
multi billion dollars state budget, which, by the way, the
budget process here in Wisconsin begins almost as soon as
the new governor and the new legislature is sworn in
in early January, almost immediately the very first address typically

(23:21):
first or say, there's a state of the State address,
which is sort of just like the president. When it's
a new governor, as it will be this winter, it's
an address to a joint session of the legislature. But
then there is the budget address, and in early to
mid February. Unlike other states where the budget is just
the budget, the budget outlines legislative priorities for the new

(23:43):
governor over the next two years, Wisconsin is unique in
that a whole lot of policy gets done not through
the traditional legislative process the legislature writes a bill and
the governor signs it into law, but it is done
with this collaborative budgeting process. That budget is several billion dollars.

(24:03):
Sarah Rodriguez apparently couldn't manage a campaign budget of a
million bucks or apparently much much less than that, without
apparently being taken to the cleaners by a campaign manager
who potentially was embezzling this money.

Speaker 3 (24:23):
We don't know right now, We don't know.

Speaker 1 (24:25):
Rodriguez would not say how much money was actually not
real how much She said hundreds of thousands of dollars,
but made a point to say, I am not going
to say in this press conference exactly how much money
was actually not real. She did herself, no favorite, folks. Yes,
I know, I know. We have got to get to

(24:45):
a commercial break. My producer Doug is frantically waving his hands.

Speaker 3 (24:49):
Folks.

Speaker 1 (24:49):
This is a huge, huge development in the gubernatorial race
here in Wisconsin, and frankly, I think there is going
to be significant pressure for rodrigegl Is to drop out.
There is now going to be jockeying between Kelder Roys
and Joel Brennan to be the non socialist candidate that

(25:10):
the establishment Democrats get behind. Once that happens, though, that
sends a clear signal to rank and file Democrat voters
that the fix is about to be in suffice it
to say, it is a mess in the Democratic primary.
All right, All of that sort of pushed back what
was supposed to be our big announcement today, and that

(25:30):
is that the Citzland Summer Cash Contest is back each
and every hour between nine am and five pm. We
have got a chance for you to win a thousand
dollars in cash nationwide.

Speaker 3 (25:42):
Keyword is pre.

Speaker 1 (25:44):
Set pr ees e t as in you can have
the Dan O'Donnell show on your preset list on the
iHeartRadio app wisn Wiva should already be on your presets
on your car radio. She apparently this campaign manager Kars Spencer,

(26:06):
overstated Rodriguez's fundraising numbers by several hundred thousand dollars and
the January campaign finance reports, so every I believe it's
every quarter, candidates and campaigns they need to report with
the Wisconsin Elections Commission.

Speaker 3 (26:26):
You need to report or is it the Ethics Commission.

Speaker 1 (26:29):
Either way, you need to have on file how much
money you raised, how much money you spent, so that
there is a record that the public can see of
donations that it's making to your campaign. The January campaign
finance report was apparently completely fraudulent, as Spencer, who was
the only one on the Rodriguez campaign who was doing compliance,

(26:53):
who is putting together these reports. I'll tell you, folks,
this is highly unusual. Candidate of Riguez is magnitude someone
who is trying to pass herself off as the leading
candidate for governor would almost always have somebody doing this
for her.

Speaker 3 (27:11):
It wouldn't be the campaign manager.

Speaker 1 (27:13):
There would be somebody who's it would be like a
compliance officer. Maybe it's the campaign treasurer. There would be
somebody who essentially their entire job is making sure that
the money that is coming in is matching the reporting
that is going out. It didn't, and in fact, according
to Fox six reporter Jason Calve who spent the day

(27:36):
looking through this campaign finance report, there were at least
sixty instances in which there were entries. There were donations
that were listed twice. And this is the critical part
about those double listings. They weren't identical listings. So it
wasn't say Stephen J. Jones at one two three Adams

(27:59):
Street donated ten thousand dollars listed twice.

Speaker 3 (28:03):
It would be Stephen J.

Speaker 1 (28:05):
Jones one two three Adams Street, but then there would
be another entry for Stephen Jones one two three Adams
Street or Steve Jones. You see, there appeared to be
an intentional effort to deceive, to make it look like
the one ten thousand dollars donation from Steven Jones, and
I just made that one up to illustrate what it

(28:28):
appears was going on here. There was an intent to
try to make it look as though there was much
more money coming into the Rodriguez campaign that was actually
coming in. Now, while the Rodriguez campaign boasted about a
big one point two million dollar ad buy at about
the same time, Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley dropped out

(28:49):
of the race and endorsed Rodriguez midway through last week,
she didn't have anywhere near that much money in cash
on hand, and it appears that there was no one
point two million dollar ad buy because all the Rodriguez
campaign actually had was two hundred thousand dollars in cash

(29:10):
on hand.

Speaker 3 (29:11):
That is an abysmal total.

Speaker 1 (29:13):
That is a total that you would see from a
candidate who has already dropped out. Is it possible that Spencer,
the campaign manager, whether at the direction of Rodriguez, which
I'm going to give her the benefit of the doubt,
that that wasn't the case, or just took it upon herself. Remember,
the campaign manager isn't just responsible for compliance, isn't just

(29:36):
responsible for logging fundraising. She also wants to make it
so that Rodriguez is seen as a front runner. The
best way to do that is to say, look at
all the money that is coming in. The idea here
is to get as much of the institutional establishment Democrat
money from say unions, from say big Democrat billionaire donors,

(30:00):
the Sorows, Open Society Foundation and the like, to try
to ward off the socialists who are banging at the
doors of the Democratic Party in trying to take it over.
Best way to show that you, rather than Crowley or
Joel Brennan or Missy Hughes who also dropped out and
endorsed Rodriguez or killed Roy's the best way to show

(30:23):
all of this institutional money, all of these institutional and
national Democrats that you're the best candidate is you're the
one who is getting the most donations. Only she wasn't
She was getting half. She was getting hundreds of thousands
of dollars less than what was being reported. And the
fact that Rodriguez refused to answer, okay, so how much

(30:47):
money was actually over reported?

Speaker 3 (30:51):
That is that's a big omission.

Speaker 1 (30:53):
And it is my very strong suspicion that if you
look just slightly closely at what it was this campaign
manager Kara Spencer was doing it will be very quickly
revealed that this was an intentional effort to make it
seem like the Rodrigaez campaign was a lot stronger than
it was, was taking in way more to because why

(31:15):
else would you do that unless this was a criminal
embezzlement scheme where Spencer was trying to skim money off
the top and was the money was gone, and she
was trying to make it seem like, well, we were
taking in so much money and some of it was
it just the only thing that I think is far fetched. Actually,
I don't believe that this was embezzlement. I don't believe

(31:37):
that this was Kara Spencer stealing from the Rodriguez campaign.
What I believe this was was Kara Spencer trying to
make it seem as though there was way more money
than was coming in. And finally, finally this was discovered.
This wasn't discovered by Sarah Rodriguez staying up late at night,
as she said, and she just happened to notice when

(31:58):
they did the one point two million dollar acas by
that this money was missing. No, it was because they
finally got somebody else to prepare the campaign finance report.
It to do this Wednesday and they noticed, Hey, wait
a second, we have way less money than was actually
being reported in January. What is going on here? They
looked into it and realized, uh oh, we've been over

(32:20):
reporting in what appears to be an intentional effort to
inflate just how well our campaign is doing for months
and months and months. This, folks, is a massive, massive scandal,
and kera Spencer may have been fired. But the questions
that remain about Sarah Rodriguez personally, you heard a lot
of them at that press conference. If the buck stops
with you, how can you be trusted to run a

(32:44):
billion dollar plus budget here and was a multi billion
dollar plus ten billion dollars in total outlays for the
state of Wisconsin. Can't even keep track of a million bucks?
You had one person keeping from you the fact that
you were raise maybe half of what she was reporting
in documents. That, by the way, if you falsify, it's

(33:07):
potentially critic If there is an intent to deceive donors,
to deceive voter, that's when this rises to the level
of a crime. And I really do believe it certainly
does look like there was requisite intent, and this does
rise to the level of a crime. We are going
to stick with this topic for quite some time. We're
going to move some things around. This a major, major deal.

(33:29):
We will be back to it right here on the Dan.

Speaker 4 (33:30):
O don Show.

Speaker 1 (33:33):
This is just such a huge story Lieutenant Governor Sarah Rodriguez. Folks,
this is not simply oh well, it was an honest
mistake by the campaign manager. This is the thing that
almost certainly I think is going to force Rodriguez from
the race. Now you might be asking yourself, Okay, Dan, well,
what do I care about which lib it is that

(33:54):
Tom Tiffany is running against. This is now going to
be the most watched primary, not just in America this year,
but in several years at the gubernatorial level, because it
now appears very clear that either open socialist Francesca Hong
is going to waltz to this nomination or Democrats will

(34:15):
be forced to nominate Mandela Barnes, who already lost in
a US Senate race in twenty twenty two. He himself
is very socialist leaning, although he tries to deny that
he is associated with or would have the backing of
the Democratic Socialists of America. Hong and Barnes, though they

(34:36):
are the two socialists in this race. Rodriguez was the
candidate that the Democratic Party's establishment was going to get
behind and was just starting the process of effectively rigging
their primary.

Speaker 3 (34:49):
For to stop the socialists.

Speaker 1 (34:52):
This is going to be seen, ladies and gentlemen nationwide
as the potential last and for capitalism itself.

Speaker 3 (35:02):
And that is not an overstatement.

Speaker 1 (35:05):
If a socialist can win in a state like Wisconsin,
and folks, there are way too many Conservatives and way
too many Republicans who are saying, well, if Franny Hown
gets herself nominated, there's no chance Tom Tiffany can lose.
All right, Well, we thought the strait of horror Mouz
was going to be open. There was a peace deal
with Iran. What happens if the Iranians do something nuts.

(35:29):
Two weeks before the election, Tank the Global Economy, President
Trump's approval ratings go even further south than they already are,
and Democrats have a much bigger than expected night. Democrats
are already, folks, just by virtue of the fact that
Republicans control the White House, favored to win probably somewhere
in the neighborhood of a total of two hundred and

(35:51):
twenty five to two hundred and thirty seats in the House,
it is very possible, if not likely, that they win
control of the Wisconsin Senate. I believe that Republicans probably
retain a narrow margin in the Assembly, but a bad
enough night could sweep a socialist like hang into power.
This is why, assuming she's the nominee, and if you

(36:15):
are a betting person, she is now by far the
betting favorite, I would not be surprised if within a
week Sarah Rodriguez is out of this race. If not
that that performance in that press conference, they say, well,
it's so you never see candidates, She kept saying, You
never see candidates come up and face reporters like that.

(36:36):
You never see candidates not notice that the donations that
were being reported for six straight months were completely fraudulent,
that they were made up by the campaign manager.

Speaker 3 (36:48):
Lieutenant governor.

Speaker 1 (36:49):
The former campaign manager who Rodriguez was forced to fire
late last night, Karas Spencer, was apparently over inflating donations
to the Rodriguez campaign for the course of more than
a year, and that showed up on the January twenty
twenty six campaign finance report. As doubled up donations in

(37:13):
the amount of hundreds of thousands of dollars. Rodriguez, during
a press conference about an hour ago, refused to say
just how many dollars were not real, It did not
actually come into the campaign. She only has two hundred
thousand dollars in cash on hand after reportedly making a

(37:34):
one point two million dollar ad by big splashy press
release that the campaign manager Spencer put out in the
form of a press release, look at this, Look at
how strong Sarah rodriguez candidacy is. We are spending one
point two million dollars on TV ads alone. It turns

(37:54):
out that none of those ads were ever booked because
the Rodriguez campaign couldn't afford to pay for them. We
are now starting to get reporting about other bills that
the campaign has not been paying because Spencer was in
what I believe a deliberate attempt to try to overinflate
the strength of the campaign by overinflating how much money

(38:18):
was coming into the campaign. Remember, folks, the donation game
is sort of seen as almost like a poll. If
you can say we got one million dollars in donations
last quarter, and seventy five percent of it was in
small dollar numbers. Like one hundred dollars or less. You

(38:38):
can make the very compelling case that we are the
candidate of the conservative or liberal grassroots. We are the candidate.
It's not just the big money donors. It's not just
the billionaires that Democrats pretend to hate but then will always, always,
always try to get some of that sweet sweet billionaire hash. No,

(39:01):
if you're able to say, look, all of this money
was coming in from small dollar donors, we are the
candidate that the people want. It is my very strong contention,
and I believe this is backed up by how exactly
the donations that turned out to not exist were being
reported by Rodriguez's campaign. We're being reported by Spencer. First

(39:22):
of all, it's incredibly bizarre. It is incredibly bizarre that
the campaign manager would be doing this sort of work,
would be working on the campaign finance reports, doing compliance
with the State Ethics Commission, and filing the requisite reports.
In fact, Rodriguez at the press conference was asked, why

(39:45):
was it just your campaign manager, Spencer, who was doing this?
Why wasn't there a campaign treasurer. Why wasn't there someone
hired just for compliance issues? Why was it just Kara Spencer?

Speaker 2 (39:57):
So My campaign manager has been with me for several years.
Her entire career has been in compliance. As we are
trying to make sure we have a lean campaign, it
made sense for her to do the compliance report since
that was her expertise, and that was one thing I
had full trust in for her because she had done
it for so many years. And clearly that trust was misplaced.

Speaker 1 (40:16):
Yeah, clearly, because this didn't look like just mere oversight.

Speaker 3 (40:21):
This looked like a deliberate attempt.

Speaker 1 (40:24):
Based on the fact that I am going off of
and I'm just starting to look at some of these reports,
I have been trying to follow this story folks all day,
getting together a radio show. We have also got a
ton of stories up on this at the Heartland Post.
Heartlandpost dot com is providing extensive coverage and will continue
to provide extensive coverage of this. So I was kind

(40:46):
of taking a look at some of the campaign finance
reports here, but I am going off of the reporting
by Fox six investigative reporter Jason Kelvey, and what he
uncovered is this pretty clear evidence of an intent to deceive.
He said, I found sixty plus repeat entries so far

(41:09):
in Sarah Rodriguez's January filing, which claimed the same person
made the same donation on the same day. The entries
differ in zip code. One uses five the other nine
digits or entries that use or don't use a middle
initial or an extra space. This means that those which

(41:32):
were put in, remember by the same person, were actually
just slightly different. It wasn't as though there was just
a you know, an entry that went in twice, for example,
if it was Stephen J. Jones and then another donation

(41:54):
on the same date in the same amount by Stephen J.

Speaker 3 (41:57):
Jones.

Speaker 1 (41:58):
Okay, that's one thing. The fact that one would say
Stephen J. Jones one was Stephen Jones. That looks like
an intent to deceive. That looks like an intent to
make a false representation about how much money is coming in.

Speaker 3 (42:15):
And this is critical.

Speaker 1 (42:17):
And Rodriguez answered the question about the intent here, and
that was that was the important thing, because if there
is intent to deceive, if there is intent to defraud,
and who you would be defrauding would most notably be donors,
your own donors. You would say, look, we've already raised
five hundred thousand dollars, give us some money. Because all

(42:39):
of this money that we've raised means that we are
by far the strongest campaign. We are the campaign that
is going to win in November. So support us and
you'll be on the winning side. Well, if you've only
raised two hundred thousand dollars, then you're raising money. You're
getting money by false pretenses. That's fraud in a campaign

(43:02):
context that potentially runs a foul of any number of
state or federal statutes. Do I think that criminal charges
are likely? No, I don't, primarily because Democrats never ever,
ever throw the book at fellow Democrats for.

Speaker 3 (43:19):
This sort of thing.

Speaker 1 (43:21):
This is going to go before the Wisconsin Ethics Commission,
and the Ethics Commission I think has no choice but
to say rules were clearly violated here. If there's no
intent to deceive defraud, then it essentially amounts to you
make a correction, you make an addendum on the report.
It's really a slap on the wrisk. But that's the

(43:42):
nature of it, because frankly, folks, it's contemplated that your
reports are going to be off by maybe a couple
thousand dollars. You forget, say, to report the Stephen J.
Jones donation, it's for fifteen hundred dollars and okay, you
file in a depth. Mistakes happen, not in the amount
of hundreds of thousands of dollars. And the fact that

(44:07):
Rodriguez did not say how much the reports were off
by is incredibly telling because she knows and for her
to say, first of all, the press release that went
out last night nine thirty pm, you could tell this
was big, folks. I've been covering this for literally twenty
five years now. I have just celebrated my twenty fifth

(44:28):
anivers I started in broadcasting at age nineteen. I yes,
turned forty five years old yesterday, so I was just
shy of my twentieth birthday when I started this. I
have been around the block over and over and over again.
I could tell you when this news dropped at nine
thirty PM on a Sunday.

Speaker 3 (44:48):
Night, this is bad. Like this is bad bad.

Speaker 1 (44:53):
Had they dropped the only bigger tell that this was
a big, bad story that they were dropping was if
they would have dropped it on the fourth of July.
If they would have dropped it at like ten pm,
as the fireworks are going off on July fourth, That's
how you can oh, my gosh, this is a terrible
story that actually could force her from the race, and

(45:13):
the thing, folks, that is almost more than anything, almost
more than the potential fraud by the campaign manager. It
should be noted there is probably nothing that directly ties
I can tell you something right now. Candidates have no
idea what is going on with the actual fundraising. They
have people who do the reporting, who do the compliant stuff.

Speaker 3 (45:35):
The candidate is kept in the dark for the most
part on this stuff.

Speaker 1 (45:40):
So there's you know, not really I think any sort
of criminal culpability if there is, If this does in
fact rise to the level of something fraudulent that Spencer did,
Rodriguez almost certainly would not be complicit in this, because
it's my very strong belief, and I think, you know,
any investigator would find almost the same thing that Spencer

(46:03):
was trying to keep this from everybody. So oh, yes, yes,
everything's going good now, all bets are off. If Spencer
was embezzling funds from the Rodriguez campaign, then yes, absolutely,
that's criminal misconduct. Prosecutions are necessary. People need to go.
If Rodriguez knew about it and they were stealing money,

(46:24):
If Spencer was stealing money and Rodriguez decided to give
her a pass. Then yes, there's criminal culpability there, absolutely,
but we're not talking right now, at least in the
immediate future, about criminal culplability. We're talking about political culpability.
And the thing that is almost worse for Rodriguez than
any of this with the campaign manager and the overinflating donations,

(46:45):
the double donations, is the fact that she was forced
to admit in a race where she's trying to get
all of her establishment normy rivals to drop out and
to endorse her, that she's the wrongest candidate, that she's broke,
that she has no money, that she was far from

(47:06):
making a one point two million dollar ad buy which
was now revealed to be a complete and total lie,
that she only has point two of that one point
two million dollars in cash on hand, just two hundred
thousand dollars.

Speaker 3 (47:22):
She's broken.

Speaker 2 (47:24):
So right now, fully transparent, we have about a little
over two hundred thousand dollars cash on hand in the bank,
and over the time that we have been raising, we've
raised almost a million dollars. That is an accurate assessment.
I'm not going to give you the exact number, because
again I want it to be accurate, but that is
what we have right now.

Speaker 1 (47:43):
Back No, Yeah, they're going to start and more importantly,
no donors from out of state are going to come
in to try to get behind her in an attempt
to stop the socialist Hong from winning the primary, because
she can't be trusted with that money. Not only that,

(48:04):
you might remember that the last big sort of controversy
that Rodriguez became embroiled in was back in the spring
when she was asked about the budget process and how
she would do the budgeting process. I told you, Wisconsin
has a pretty hefty budget and we do a lot
of policy. There is a lot of horse trading back

(48:24):
and forth between the legislature and the governor. A lot
of policy preferences go into that budget. Usually you want
a candidate who is saying, yes, I will be open
and transparent. And it isn't that the thing that Rodriguez
kept saying today, I'm going to be I'm as open
and transparent as I can be. I'm going to be

(48:44):
as open and transfer Well, she actually stepped in it
when she said, yeah, I am going to do all
budget negotiations if we win the trifecta, if I'm working
with Senate and Assembly Democrats on a budget. I am
going to do that all behind a curtain that we're
going to have secretive negotiations, so the public, the media,

(49:05):
nobody is going to see what it is we're spending
billions and billions and billions of dollars of taxpayer money on. Now,
you look at that in a whole new light right now,
because when she had her own campaign's finances hidden away
behind a curtain, we have no idea how much of
what she was raising, how much she was reporting to

(49:26):
the public was actually raised, was actually real, and how
much was just a complete and total fabrication. Now she
was asked Rodriguez was what are the steps forward here?
How do you move forward? She reiterated over it, over
it over again. She said the same thing. This campaign

(49:47):
is moving forward. We are moving forward. We are moving
The fact that she kept reiterating that means whenever you
hear a candidate, whenever you are a politician, repeat the
same phrase. The reason is obvious because they want the
public to remember repetition means retention. The more you repeat
a message, the more it is likely to resonate with somebody.

(50:09):
So the one big message that she wanted her campaign,
her consultants wanted her to get out there is we
are moving forward. Why does she want that message out
there because there are going to be significant calls. There
are already significant calls for her to drop out.

Speaker 3 (50:25):
So what are the next steps?

Speaker 1 (50:27):
She said, They already have reported everything to the Wisconsin
Ethics Commission this morning. They're going to let the process
play out, and yes, the campaign is moving forward.

Speaker 2 (50:38):
I now stand here today in front of you being
as transparent, honest, and accountable as possible. So moving forward.
These are the steps we are taking. We will cooperate
fully with the Wisconsin Ethics Commission on any information they need.
My campaign will be working closely with an accountant and
compliance firm to rectify our reports as quickly as we can,

(51:01):
and we will take any necessary follow up steps based
on the guidance of the Wisconsin Ethics Commission. Let me
close with this, This race is moving forward because the
stakes are too high.

Speaker 1 (51:16):
We have got a lot of stuff to cover. Ladies
and gentlemen, This Sarah Rodriguez News. It is hard to
overstate just how big a deal it is. Not just
because this is the sitting Lieutenant governor of the state
of Wisconsin, who is announcing that her campaign is broke,
and it's broke because it never really had the money

(51:37):
that it claimed it had been raising all along. That
the campaign manager, a woman named Karas Spencer who has
since been fired, was overinflating to the tune of hundreds
of thousands of dollars the amount of money that Rodriguez
was putting out press releases saying that she had raised.

(51:59):
There was a big deal made about the fact that
Rodriguez had made a one point two million dollar television
ad by why because money equals perceived strength. If you're
taking in more donations. Clearly, this is the signal to
the electorate, to other candidates, to other donors that you're

(52:21):
the candidate to back, because if everyone is giving their
hard earned money to you, you must be doing something right.
What Spencer is accused of doing is falsely reporting on
the January campaign finance report that's filed with the State
Ethics Commission of falsely doubling up donations, reporting single donations

(52:45):
as two donations in what appears to be a deliberate
attempt to make it look as though there were more
donations that were coming in for Rodriguez than we're actually
coming in. Why this would be done is because it
was a crowded feel and every single candidate needed to
be the one who stood out as the alternative to

(53:07):
first Mandela Barnes, who in the early stages of this
campaign was running away with polling early on. Primarily I
think now it it looks as though he just was
winning based on name recognition, that he was now the
candidate who was Yeah, I'm sorry, it's I apologize. We

(53:29):
were supposed to go to Dave Spano there. You know
what do we have? Do we have Spaano still up?
I hate to do this, you know what, I'll tell
you what. Let's let's punt on Dave Spano till tomorrow.
This is such a big story. He just texted me.
I realized, since we're pushing everything back, I completely forgot that.

Speaker 3 (53:47):
It's a Monday.

Speaker 1 (53:48):
So Dave, if you're listening, I do apologize. Sincerely. We'll
get to you tomorrow. Know the difference with Annex Wealth
Management obviously a lot to get to there. But this
is so significant, this, this Rodriguez news, not just because
this is not just folks, not just a Wisconsin political story.

(54:09):
This is about stopping potentially the spread of democratic socialism,
which frankly is nothing but communism, like flat out communism
in the ultimate swing state. Francesco Hong is now the
prohibitive favorite to win the Democratic nomination if Rodriguez isn't

(54:31):
forced to drop out, and there is going to be
significant pressure coming from the socialist left for her to
drop out. Because of this scandal, Rodriguez was seen as
the last hope that Democrats had, and they were in
the process. The Wisconsin Democratic Party was in the process

(54:51):
of getting other candidates who potentially could have been more
moderate establishment, non socialist, non crazy choices to stop to
potentially coalesce all of the non socialist vote around. In fact,
just last week, David Crowley dropped out of the race

(55:12):
and endorsed Sarah Rodriguez. That is a big sign that
Rodriguez was seen as the only candidate who could potentially
stop Francesca Hank. So initially the move was to stop
Mandela Barnes, also a socialist leaning candidate, also a buffoon
who is despised in Democrat party circles because he lost

(55:34):
the twenty twenty two Senate race to Ron Johnson on
the same ballot that Tony Evers won relatively easily in
his bid for reelection over Tim Michaels. Barnes ran behind
Evers statewide by something like four points. A generic Democrat
beats Ron Johnson. Mandela Barnes was worse than a replacement

(55:55):
level Democrat, heard of like a replacement level player in baseball.
A replacement level Democrat, just a generic Democrat is a
much better candidate than Barnes. Francesco Hong captures the imagination
of the socialist Madison base of Democrat voters in this state,
and it's seen as Hong against the Democrat establishment. Well,

(56:19):
if there's seven Democrat establishment candidates running against her, she's
going to win because they're all going to split the vote.
They needed a candidate the establishment Dems did to get behind.
It was apparently decided Rodriguez was the candidate.

Speaker 3 (56:36):
And just what five.

Speaker 1 (56:37):
Six days ago, not even a week ago, last Tuesday,
I believe his first report in Crowley was dropping out
press conference last Wednesday. He endorses Rodriguez by Sunday night.
Her campaign is a dumpster fire with these with this scandal.
So you have the candidate who is sort of hand

(56:59):
picked to stop the spread of socialism in the ultimate
swing state in the Midwest, imploding before our very eyes.
It is looking more and more likely like Hoang is
going to win this nomination, and then this race doesn't
just become about the future of Wisconsin, Tom Tiffany or
Francesco Honk. It becomes the future of this country. Because

(57:20):
if a socialist can win statewide in what's perceived to
be such a purple state, such a swing state, then
socialism can win everywhere and anywhere. And the Democratic Party
is going to be taken over by the Democratic Socialists
of America. They're going to be running socialist candidates pretty

(57:41):
much in every election starting in twenty twenty eight. I
think you're going to see a big boost to the
presidential chances of don't laugh, AOC and this country takes
a giant step towards becoming a socialist nation. That's not hyperbole, folks.

(58:02):
This race, this is the first step. Wisconsin is sort
of the first domino to fall. And when you have Rodriguez,
the last sort of bastion, the last bulwark within the
establishment Democratic Party stopping that insurgent takeover of the party
essentially implode and have to report she's only got.

Speaker 3 (58:24):
Two hundred thousand dollars in cash on hand.

Speaker 1 (58:28):
She is depending on a last second, big national ad,
by big infusion of cash from national Democrats who are
also watching this race to try to make sure that
socialists don't take over here. Because why do democrats care.
It's not that they aren't all in favor of socialist principles.
It's the actual socialists will displace them. They will boot

(58:51):
them all out of the party for being insufficiently loyal
to the Democratic Socialists of America.

Speaker 3 (58:57):
It's all about self preservation, It's all about survive. All right.

Speaker 1 (59:01):
We are going to move on, and I do apologize.
We are going to get to Daily Trump Day. I
think we'll get to Dave Spono tomorrow. We are going
to now get you the sizzling Summer Cash contest word
for the four o'clock hour, thousand dollars on the line.
Just started this contest today. The word is fun. F
you and fun. You got until four fifty five, plenty

(59:24):
of time to go to our website and enter the
word fun. If it takes you more than twenty two
minutes to enter three letters on your phone. After going
to our website, News Talk eleven thirty dot com or
WIBA dot com.

Speaker 3 (59:38):
Then you have probably got more issues than just not
winning one thousand dollars.

Speaker 1 (59:43):
Plenty of time coming up next Following the tragic passing
of our dear, dear, dear friend at Waukeshaw County Executive,
Paul Farrow, the unfortunately reality is that the world does
move on and Waukeshaw County does need a county executive.

(01:00:04):
In an emergency session on Friday night, the Waukeshaw County
Board set the timing and the structure of a special
election to fill that vacant seat. Coming up next, we
are going to have live in studio State Senator Chris
Kappinga to talk about that upcoming seat, his political future,

(01:00:26):
and much much more. In the Wisconsin it was our
unfortunate duty at the Heartland Post and on the Dan
O'Donnell Show, though I was off last week, took a
day off for my birthday and extended weekend to announce
the passing of Paul Farrow, who wasn't just a titan

(01:00:48):
of conservatism in Wisconsin, but he was just a genuinely
good guy. He was also the sitting Waukashaw County Executive
and unfortunately that position does have to be filled. While
all of Waukeshaw County is in mourning, the entire Conservative
movement Republican Party is in mourning. This process, as outlined

(01:01:12):
by the Waukeshaw County Board in emergency session, is going
to be moving very very quickly. There is going to
need to be a special election to fill that position.
Joining me now is Republican State Senator Chris kappinga live
in studio right friend of the Dan o'donalds show, with

(01:01:33):
an announcement about that. Right, Senator kappingle always great to
see you. I certainly wish it was under better circumstance.
I know how close you were to Paul Farrow, and
my deepest condolence is to you on his passing.

Speaker 5 (01:01:46):
Yeah, it's it's interesting. Usually you get excited about announcing
and it's you know, I'm so excited to say, and
it's an honor too, but this is just unfortunate, and
it's you know, we've been praying for Amy and the kids,
and I'll never forget watching him interact. The first time
I saw him in a parade with he had they

(01:02:06):
had the jeep and they were getting the candy ready,
and it was him and Amy and the kids, and
it was just you could just tell, like you just
know the love in that family. And so it's just
a yeah, it's very sad. So I don't come with pleasure.
But as you said, there's business that has to continue
going on. And the board did their job. They had

(01:02:29):
seven days to call it. They called it. So now
we're in the period of people announcing it and saying, hey,
I think I could do this job. Not that I
want to, but it is what it is. So we
are in that position.

Speaker 3 (01:02:40):
Right now and you are announcing what announcing that.

Speaker 5 (01:02:45):
I will be running for the Waukeshat County executive position
that is open right now. So the special election takes
place on December fifteen, and so I will be running
for that position.

Speaker 1 (01:02:57):
Now, this does not mean that you would need to
immediately give up your state Senate seat. However, if you
were to win, you would have to resign your Senate seat.

Speaker 3 (01:03:08):
Is that correct?

Speaker 5 (01:03:09):
Yeah, the timing is very interesting, so how it's going
to have to work. And we read through the statutes too,
and the new clerk, Georgia Maxwell, did a great job
laying everything out. We agree with her position. But the
election is going to be December fifteen. So my election
for the Senate will take place in November and the
general election, so I will be on the ballot for that,

(01:03:31):
and then four weeks later, whatever it is, on December fifteen,
there will be a loan election for the county executive spot.
There could be a primary a little bit earlier. We
just don't know how many people are going to jump in,
but that's how it's going to go. So everybody will
vote for me on the Senate race in November, and

(01:03:52):
then they will have the chance to vote for me
in December for the county executive race. If God allows
us to be successful there, we will take off in
most likely January for the county exact spot, and we
would resign our Senate seat on that day. It's the
same exact thing Paul did when he actually took office,
as he resigned on the same day that he took
the county exact spot.

Speaker 1 (01:04:12):
And then that would again God willing allow a new
governor Tiffany to appoint until a special election can be
held to fill what it would essentially be a full
four year term in the Senate.

Speaker 5 (01:04:26):
Yeah, actually, what they would do is it would probably
be vacant until the special takes place. Okay, okay, So
that will work itself through. They'll have to figure out
the timing of that. We first have to we would
have to be successful in the county exact race, and
then it goes from there. So it's a little bit
difficult from a logistics standpoint, but again, it is what

(01:04:46):
it is, and we have to carry on the business
of government, and that's that's what's going to happen.

Speaker 3 (01:04:52):
Now. Just if.

Speaker 1 (01:04:55):
Congressman Tiffany is successful, if he if he wins the
governor's race, he would likely do so with a very
thin Senate majority or possibly a very thin Democrat Senate majority.
It would be a very very important seat that you
would be vacating. Do you feel there's some sense of

(01:05:16):
sort of obligation if Tiffany does win it? And let's
face it, I mean, I don't want to count any
chickens before they're hatched, But the events of today made
it I think a little bit more likely that the
more beatable Democrat candidate is going to be the nominee.
How do you sort of see that playing out with
respect to what's going to be either way, a very

(01:05:41):
thin Senate majority.

Speaker 5 (01:05:42):
We analyzed all of that. Thankfully, this seat is one
of the most conservative seats in the state. So from
a ability or statistically again, I'm a CPA or retired CPA,
so I look at numbers, it's almost statistically impossible unless
somebody really makes a major mistake in this seat to

(01:06:04):
lose it to.

Speaker 3 (01:06:06):
A dem seat.

Speaker 5 (01:06:07):
So that risk is very low. But you're right, it's
like a razor thin margin either way. So I think
that there's a couple other key seats that we're watching
closely that that will make the difference. But this seat
is a it's considered when you look at the rack
and stack of seats, it's a very safe seat for
the Republicans, and I'm sure there will be somebody, a

(01:06:29):
strong conservative who steps in to take my spot, should
God allow this one to happen.

Speaker 1 (01:06:34):
State Senator Chris Kappana announcing exclusively here on the Dan
O'Donnell Show that he is running for Waka Shaw Houdy
executive the late Paul Farrow. His passing makes that seat open,
makes that position open. It is a very very important position,
sort of the seat of conservatism in Wisconsin is in

(01:06:57):
Waukashaw County. It is one of the biggest counties in Wisconsin, believe,
the third biggest county behind Milwaukee and Dane, and it
is a very important position. That said, Senator Kapana, you
are the first to announce you are very unlikely to
be the last one of your very very good friends.

(01:07:21):
In fact, Senator Rob Hutton, I know, is mulling a race.
Also former Assemblyman Scott Allen, who just lost a very
narrow race for walke Shaw mayor I know is making calls,
is trying to put together a run. You're very friendly
with both of those guys. What makes you the better

(01:07:44):
candidate than either of them?

Speaker 5 (01:07:46):
I think all three of us are are strong conservatives,
so that I think that's important. And if they both
feel led to run, what we've talked already because we
have been especially with Rob, we've been longtime friends. So
they'll have to make that decision, and then it's really
the voters who will have to decide, Hey, this is
what I see about this candidate or that candidate. Typical,

(01:08:07):
you know, it's very typical for the election process. But
we are we are good friends, and there's no animosity
or anything like that. It's just I think, interestingly enough,
all three of us go to the same church, So
that's good.

Speaker 3 (01:08:19):
So that's gonna be we're all praying about it. I
was gonna say, that's gonna be.

Speaker 1 (01:08:23):
Uh, that's gonna be a really weird while you're all singing,
and it's like a kind of a subliminal vote for
me that's wearing the hymns. Uh yeah, no, no, And
that's and that's the thing, uh, Senator, I know you
guys are you know, and this is the thing about Republicans.

Speaker 3 (01:08:39):
Typically there isn't uh these.

Speaker 1 (01:08:42):
Just bloody primaries at least we we haven't really had
one since the race for governor. I know, especially since
you guys are so friendly that you're you're going to
keep it civil. One thing I do want to ask you, though,
is uh you because of your conservative stances, when the
Lake County Executive proposed a sales tax in Waukeshaw County,

(01:09:06):
you are vehemently opposed to that. And in fact, one
of my favorite stories was actually Paul Farrow and I
being on the opposite side of that debate and just
being able to talk about it civilly and just saying, hey,
how much we respect each other about it? And just
like genuinely having a debate about the issue. You were

(01:09:27):
very forcefully opposed to that, and I know that rubbed
a whole lot of members of the board the wrong way.
How would you work with those members, many of whom
are very conservative if you're elected county executive knowing that
there has been that So I want to call it
bad blood, but there's been that animosity I think between

(01:09:47):
you guys.

Speaker 5 (01:09:48):
Yeah, you realize that there's going to be different positions.
It's the Ronald Reagan eighty twenty rule. I think what's
interesting is if you look at my background. My background
is I walk in, you know, when I buy a business,
I walk in and I analyze the business and I
figure out, hey, where can we do better? What type
of things can we do to you know, to find efficiencies,

(01:10:12):
to cut costs, things like that. We all know there
are significant budget pressures going on right now in every county,
but Waukesha County specifically, because that's what we've had to
deal with. And I think, what's you know, God gifts
everybody differently. And the one thing that I'm really good
at is I can I can look at things. I'll
give you the example of the CPA caucus when we

(01:10:34):
walked in and CPA caucus several years back, looked at
the financial statements of the state and just by looking
at it, we were talking it through and we found
the billion dollar slush on right. I remember that it's
it's it's it's just a very different I call it
the paradigm. So a paradigm is the lens of the
pair of glasses that you look through in how you

(01:10:54):
approach life. And I think I've got a unique paradigm
in that way where this is kind of my gifting
when I walk in and I'm able to see things
differently than other people just because that's that's how I
view the world. So I think that it will be
helpful for the board to maybe have a little bit
different perspective just because of my background in fixing businesses

(01:11:17):
and being a CPA and just numbers come naturally to me.

Speaker 3 (01:11:20):
And we looked.

Speaker 5 (01:11:21):
We don't think there's ever been a CPA in the
in this seat before, so I think that that really
lends itself well. And it's not an animosity. I think
it's I think I can help lead them to the
point where, hey, guys, this is a different way to
look at it. Here things we're finding that can help

(01:11:41):
us take care of this budget without having to go
to a sales tax increase because I mean, my phone
was blowing up. Went from constituents going, oh my goodness,
and then business, the business community.

Speaker 3 (01:11:52):
Was really upset about it. I remember.

Speaker 5 (01:11:54):
So that was one situation where you know, I had
to stand up for the constituents and yeah, we were
on different sides of the issue there. But it's just
I have a unique gifting, I think in that specific
area to really help look at operational efficiencies. Let's take
an inventory of all the property that the county owns.
I don't know if you saw on the Biz Times,

(01:12:15):
but they said that there's a shortage of commercial space.
Now we all know that there's a shortage of affordable
homes in Waukeshaw County. Just last week, I think it
was they were named the number one most expensive county
in the state for housing. Well, let's look at some
of the inventory that we're not utilizing for our property

(01:12:36):
that the county has, and let's start addressing those issues.
So I think just that unique paradigm I would say,
in my background and expertise, I'll call it. I think
it really works well with the challenges that we have
facing as we go forward.

Speaker 1 (01:12:54):
State Senator Chris Kapinga announcing his run for Waukeshaw County
Executive exclusively here on the Dan O'donnald Show. Sir, do
you have a website up, Facebook page next?

Speaker 4 (01:13:05):
Yet?

Speaker 5 (01:13:05):
We are still working on getting that all up because
it was recently announced. But if sure, Chris at Chriscappingda
dot com is my email and if people want to
engage to you, they can go to my Facebook page.

Speaker 3 (01:13:17):
Excellent.

Speaker 1 (01:13:17):
Well, hey, I love the fact that this is so fresh, Sony,
you just announced it here. There's going to be a
special election in December following the tragic passing of our
good friend Paul Farrow. Last week it was announced that
Pharaoh had died at the age of sixty one following
a courageous battle with cancer. Unfortunately, yes, I know, it

(01:13:42):
seems grass that you have to announce you have to
get the special elections set so quickly. State law requires
that these things do move very quickly, so that special
election is going to be in December. KAPPANNGA announced today
that he is going to run, it is questionably going
to be a conservative Republican who is representing Waukeshaw County,

(01:14:04):
one of the more conservative counties in the state in
statewide elections, not nearly as conservative as it used to be,
wherein the Walker era was to the tune of seventy
seventy five percent Republican votes. Now it's closer to about
sixty sixty five percent. That sort of changed the statewide
calculus for how you win races as a Republican. But

(01:14:26):
it is still overwhelmingly a conservative county. So whoever it
is that gets in on the conservative side, and remember
these are nonpartisan races. County executive is a nonpartisan race.
So this is going to be a spring election. The
special election to fill the remainder of Paul's term is

(01:14:48):
going to be December, so roughly a month after Kappenga
runs for reelection November. Again, his seat is about as
safe a Republican seat as it gets because again, huge
portion of Waukesha County.

Speaker 3 (01:15:01):
He's not going to lose reelection.

Speaker 1 (01:15:02):
He's gonna win reelection by even in a big Democrat year,
He's gonna win by a significant margin. He would then though,
once he assumes the office, if he were to win
the special election for county executive, he would have to
resign his state Senate seat. So we did have that news.
We do have some more Sarah Rodriga's sound bites to come.

(01:15:24):
I have been texting back and forth with sources, with
political insiders, folks, I can tell you, without revealing any sort,
there is not one person who believes that Sarah Rodriga's
campaign survives the week that she has done. That this
scandal is so big, it is so bad, it reveals

(01:15:44):
so much about how not ready for prime time she
is to be a major party's nominee for governor, let
alone be governor herself, that there's just no chance that
she is even going to make it to Friday. The
general consensus is we're gonna get maybe not another press conference,

(01:16:05):
but we're gonna get a press release, and it's going
to be after careful consideration. I believe that the best
path forward is to abandon my run, to suspend my campaign,
and to find somebody who stands up for the ideals
and can beat Tom Tiffany in the fall. We will
have much more on that coming up. And I'll tell

(01:16:26):
you what. We will give you a chance to weigh
in on this news. We'll open up the phone Mines
Carpetland US a flooring center talk and text line is
going to be open for one four seven nine to
nine eleven thirty. You can always email me DoD at
iHeartMedia dot com. We are streaming. You can follow us
on social media at dan o'donnald Show on x, Facebook, Instagram,

(01:16:48):
YouTube as well dan O'donnald's Show podcast each and every day.
And let's get right to it, Sizzlin's Summer Cash Contest.
Because of the breaking news that press conference from rod
Riguez right at the start of the show, we basically
have had to play it by ear and we haven't
gotten to the contest until the bottom of the hour
each of the first two hours. So let's get right

(01:17:11):
to it now. The word is fun. No, the word
is not fun. Forget that I said that. The word
is check. Last hour's word was fun. This hour's word.

Speaker 3 (01:17:19):
Is check c check check.

Speaker 1 (01:17:22):
As in, we will write you a check for one
thousand dollars if you go to our website that's news
Talk eleven thirty dot com or WIBA dot com and
enter the keyword check. You've got until five point fifty
five to do so. And we are playing nine, ten, eleven, noon, one, two, three,
four and five each and every weekday now through Friday,

(01:17:45):
August seventh, so very nearly a month of one thousand
dollars every hour chance for you to win one thousand dollars.
It is our Sizling Summer Cash Contest. It kicked off
this morning and we want you to be our very
first winner of one thousand dollars here on the Dan
o'donald Show.

Speaker 3 (01:18:03):
We had to punt on this an hour ago.

Speaker 1 (01:18:05):
And by the way, I talked with Dave Spono, I
always enjoy talking with him about how the things that
we talk about impact your bottom line, markets, your personal finances,
that sort of thing. So we will move the Know
the Difference segment to tomorrow. I was very worried he
would have an important meeting on the golf course and

(01:18:26):
we wouldn't be able to get back with him tomorrow.
I talked with him during a commercial break. We're gonna
get hooked up with him tomorrow. So Dave Spono tomorrow
Daily Trump date.

Speaker 10 (01:18:35):
Right now, we're gonna win so much you may even
get tired of winning.

Speaker 3 (01:18:40):
Trump just keeps winning. It is a win for the administration.

Speaker 4 (01:18:43):
It's also a big win for the United States.

Speaker 3 (01:18:46):
We have to keep winning. We have to win more.
We're gonna win Moore.

Speaker 1 (01:18:52):
President Trump has scheduled a press conference for nine o'clock Eastern,
rather an address to the nation. I guess the White
House is calling it president posting on truth social The
topic has not yet been announced. I'm going to take
a wild guess, though. It is the resumption of hostilities
with Iran. President Trump has now formally gone to Congress

(01:19:14):
to say that we exist in a state of open
hostility against Iran, and that he is informing Congress he
now has sixty days for defensive action offensive action without
a formal Congressional declaration of war. Yes, this is all lawful,
this is all constitutional. The President did make that notification

(01:19:39):
to Congress this morning, and the President and American forces
have spent the weekend targeting Iranian targets, including now karg Island.
The President was on Fox and Friends this morning before
tweeting that the United States now controls the Strait of

(01:20:00):
Horror moves that in fact, we are going to be
charging people for access through the straight friendly nations to
help pay for the cost of US patrolling it that
tomorrow an Iranian embargo all ships going out of Iranian
ports going two Iranian ports going to be enforced once

(01:20:23):
again by the United States Navy. The President was visibly
ticked off in a phone interview on Fox and Friends
this morning when discussing the Iranians had a.

Speaker 7 (01:20:34):
Deal, but nobody knows we had a deal. It was
a done deal, and then they broke it. They always
break it. We've had ten deals with these people, and
so we're just going to hit them very hard and
we're going to keep the straight and we'll probably run it,
will become the Guardian of the Strait.

Speaker 11 (01:20:50):
Maybe we'll call it the Guardian Angel of the Strait,
and we should be reimbursed by that. When we do that,
we're going to be reimbarrassed because the other nations are
very wealthy that are on aside, and we can't be
expected to do that. But nothing unlike we had for
many years. Now.

Speaker 1 (01:21:04):
Okay, far be it from me to criticize with the
benefit of hindsight, but I think it was pretty obvious
that there was really no chance that the Iranians were
going to honor this ceasefire agreement, that there was ever
going to be any sort of lasting deal with the
United States, because frankly, any sort of deal, any sort

(01:21:24):
of capitulation, makes them look weak in front of their
own people, and they cannot ever ever allow themselves to
look weak, especially with the Iyatola dead. It appears that
the Iyatola's sun is dead. As the President is fond
of saying, phase one of Iranian leadership is dead, Phase
two is dead. We thought that phase three was reasonable,

(01:21:45):
but as he said, we got to know them, realize
that they're terrible people. Couldn't make a deal with them.
There has never been an Iranian leader. There has never
been any faction within Iran.

Speaker 3 (01:21:59):
Now this is to say.

Speaker 1 (01:22:00):
Nothing of their people, but remember all of the people
who would be rising up against the weakened regime were
killed shortly before the United States and the Israeli initial action.

Speaker 3 (01:22:12):
On February twenty.

Speaker 1 (01:22:13):
Eighth, there was the wholesale slaughter of anywhere between ten
and fifty thousand protesters that all but ensured there wasn't
going to be the sort of popular revolution that the
United States and its Western allies had been hoping for
or trying to subtly foment for years. And I think

(01:22:33):
that was the error in the strategy here, that it
was believed that after the Ayatola fell, after the initial attack,
that there wasn't a popular revolt because all of the
people were terrified by the fact that they would be
the next one killed by the remnants of the regime,

(01:22:53):
because there were no American troops patrolling the streets of Tehran,
and all of the brave Iranians who had been leading
that protest movement were gunned down. So President Trump on
Fox and Friends today said, look, this is a bad
group of people who killed those protesters and who we
have been negotiated with. Ultimately, it seems in bad favor, a.

Speaker 7 (01:23:16):
Bad group of people. Let me just tell you that.
I don't say that often, and I have to live
with that statement. They're a bad group of people. They've
been this way for a long time, and right now
they're getting their ass kicked.

Speaker 1 (01:23:29):
That's good at least, I mean, you want to see
them get there. Okay, I'm going to be folks. You're
all going to call me a millennial neo con. This
should have been the endgame from the beginning This is
not the United Arab Emirates. This is not the Saudist

(01:23:49):
This is not a group of people who can essentially
be bribed. This is not the Kataris, this is not
I don't want to say that bribe has a negative connotation.

Speaker 3 (01:24:00):
This cannot be. This is not a group of people.

Speaker 1 (01:24:03):
You can dangle the promise of American tourism and Western
style capitalism to make them all even richer. This does
nothing for that, because they're all Islamist fanatics. They are
anti Western fanatical, crazy people who stranglehold and despotic rule

(01:24:24):
over their population. Is predicated on fear and terror keeping
those people down.

Speaker 3 (01:24:30):
And if there is any sort of.

Speaker 1 (01:24:33):
Deal with or belief by those people that the Great
Satan or the Little Satan of Israel, Great Satan of
the United States has the Iranian regime under their thumb,
that's when the Iranian regime crumples.

Speaker 3 (01:24:48):
It is just as simple as that. Well.

Speaker 1 (01:24:51):
In more pleasant news, the President this afternoon held a
press conference.

Speaker 3 (01:24:55):
Previewing the Freedom two point fifty.

Speaker 1 (01:24:58):
It is an IndyCar Grand pri for the first time
through the streets of Washington, d C.

Speaker 3 (01:25:03):
This coming on.

Speaker 10 (01:25:04):
This will be like no other race ever, I don't
think anything will ever be we'll ever top what we're
going to be having. It just happened with UFC. It
got the highest ratings of any fight in history. This
will get the highest ratings of any such race. It'll
be one of the most unforgettable racing events the world
has ever seen. And we have the most talented people.

(01:25:24):
These people have a lot of courage. On my right,
I don't want to do what they did. You could
teach me, but it still takes something special, right.

Speaker 1 (01:25:31):
The President, pointing to a group of indie car racers
who are going to be taking part in that race
August twenty second and twenty third through the streets of Washington,
D C. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said, tickets are free
if you would like to line the streets and see
a great American auto race. That, ladies and gentlemen, is

(01:25:51):
your daily Trump date. Of course, the biggest story over
the weekend nationally the sudden death of Lindsey Graham, South
Carolina Senator. That was truly beloved Governor Henry McMaster of
South Carolina actually was. He was so beloved, in fact,
that McMaster, on Trump's suggestion, actually nominated and appointed Lindsay

(01:26:15):
Graham's sister Elise, to serve as his interim replacement before
an election can be held to fill the remainder.

Speaker 3 (01:26:22):
Of his term.

Speaker 1 (01:26:23):
As a tribute to Lindsey Graham, the Senate Majority Leader
John Thune got emotional while memorializing Graham today on the
floor of the State of the United States.

Speaker 9 (01:26:36):
Senate and that one day, mister President, we will laugh
together again.

Speaker 1 (01:26:53):
Before the cause of death has now been revealed. Graham
died suddenly at age seventy one of aortic dissection tied
to arterial sclerotic cardiovascular disease or ACD. This involves a
tear in the inner wall of the body's main artery

(01:27:17):
and it is incredibly deadly, and aortic dissection can happen
almost instantly, and that, unfortunately, is what happened. Do you
want to know how beloved and say what you will
about Lindsey Graham. Do you talk about the ultimate neocon
that was Lindsey Graham. The man was very clearly beloved

(01:27:38):
in the Senate by both parties. He was just a
good and decent man, you know.

Speaker 3 (01:27:44):
He was When.

Speaker 1 (01:27:45):
Even Trump appeared to get choked up during a phone
interview with NBC News on Sunday, shortly after it was
first reported overnight Saturday night into Sunday morning that Graham had.

Speaker 12 (01:27:59):
P I got a message about one o'clock in the
morning from one of the people at his office that
he had passed away.

Speaker 7 (01:28:07):
I said, you got can't believe it.

Speaker 4 (01:28:10):
He was like a member of the family. To me.

Speaker 7 (01:28:12):
It's very tough. Actually, it's amazing. He was.

Speaker 12 (01:28:16):
He was.

Speaker 7 (01:28:17):
He was such an advocate.

Speaker 4 (01:28:18):
He was you know, if he if.

Speaker 12 (01:28:20):
He wanted to get something, and you know, you had
a unique ability. He was able to deal with Democrats.
And if I had a problem, a real problem, I
wouldn't often ask, but if I had a problem with
a Democrat, he could work it out. He was a
great He was a great politician.

Speaker 1 (01:28:36):
Actually, you could actually I swear there were tears running
down the President's cheeks. Do you know how rare that is.
I don't think in forty plus years of Donald Trump
being a public figure you have ever seen or heard
him get emotional or cry.

Speaker 3 (01:28:56):
That's just what a what a good man.

Speaker 1 (01:28:58):
Lindsey Grahant with, Oh, of course, democrats are doing what
democrats always do. When a prominent Republican dies there being
ghoulish and awful, and you know, either making jokes or
just being well ghoulish and awful. This obviously combined with
Senator Mitch McConnell, who I will admit it is a

(01:29:20):
very weird thing. He put out a statement photo yesterday
as proof of life after the questions just started to mount. Hey,
nobody has seen our boy Cocaine Mitch in quite some time.
Do I have to explain again why we call him
cocaine Mitch. One of his old primary opponents thought it
was like that his wife was secretly running cocaine from China,

(01:29:44):
and he called him, let's ditch Cocaine Mitch. I believe
was what this guy said. Well, Mitch McConnell's supporters took
that as it was a very funny. It's actually a
running joke in my house. I called him cocaine Mitch
so much. My now eight year old son, I believe
it was like eleven or twelve years old, found a
coffee mug that had Cody was like Mitch McConnell as scarface,

(01:30:10):
and there was like cocaine all around him and said cocaine.
I use the cocaine Mitch Mug forever, so much so
that our producer Dave Michaels demanded a cocaine Mitch mug.
We found him one and he now uses a cocaine
Mitch mug. So it's like a joke around the office,
Cocaine Mitch. But McConnell, you know, provides a proof of life.

(01:30:31):
It just folks. I may get into this tomorrow. We
had so much with the breaking story on Sarah Rodriguez,
and still more to get to as the pressure is
mounting as we speak for her to drop out. But
Lindsey Gram's death, even though he was a relatively young
seventy one, exposes the problem with America's gerontocracy, the rule

(01:30:55):
by the extremely old. The fact that we are saying
a relative actively young seventy one.

Speaker 3 (01:31:03):
Means there's some serious issues here.

Speaker 1 (01:31:06):
With the fact that our governing ruling class is so
much older than Americans more generally. This is what happens
with older people. Unfortunately, there is sudden death. Unfortunately, there
is sudden infirmity. The President of the United States, we
all love him. I love him, you love him. He's

(01:31:26):
eighty years old. I don't want to be morbid, and
I don't want to sound like that idiot with the
tap room who's offering free beer. Oh yeah, by the way,
speaking of being ghoulish, who was who's that fat Felon?
Oh my god, why can I not think of his name?

(01:31:46):
The fat brewery guy Monoqua Bangstad? Kirk Bangstad, good old
Kirk Bangstad. He said, no, no, no, we are not
offering free beer. When Lindsey Graham dies, it has to
be a more important Republican. It's got to be like
Mitch McConnell. Oh my god, could you imagine if I said,
right now, I will give you all free beer. When

(01:32:09):
finally Kirk Bangstad drinks himself to an early grave. That's
a massive scandal. That's like a career ending scandal. Because
I am, you know, a decent human being. Democrats are
just like, oh yeah, it's.

Speaker 3 (01:32:21):
Free beer day. The Trump dies, we're all going to celebrate.

Speaker 1 (01:32:27):
In any event. That is the risk you run. Dianne
Feinstein died in office. They wheeled her out of the
Senate on a stretcher with a blanket over her. It's
a major problem. And look, folks, it is. I'm not

(01:32:50):
going to fault people for continuing to work or continuing
to be in positions of power well past seventy. Look,
medical technology is such that we are human beings are
living longer than ever before by significant margins, and you
can have productive years well into your seventies, eighties, even nineties.

Speaker 3 (01:33:13):
Does that mean you.

Speaker 1 (01:33:14):
Should be run in the country or in a position
of significant power and authority in the Senate or the House.

Speaker 3 (01:33:21):
Maybe not.

Speaker 1 (01:33:21):
So we will try to get into that America's gerontocracy
and the problems therein and also how.

Speaker 3 (01:33:42):
That is a fascinating topic.

Speaker 1 (01:33:44):
America's gerontocracy, the gerontocracy of pretty much the entire world,
just how technology has made it so human beings are
living far longer. People in positions of power, whether it's
in government, whether it's in corporation, wherever, don't feel as
though they need to step aside at age sixty five

(01:34:05):
or age seventy.

Speaker 3 (01:34:08):
That's all well and good.

Speaker 1 (01:34:10):
Frankly, if I'm able to God willing, and I recognize that,
I mean, I'm in a business where very few people
actually do get to retire on their own terms. As
I'm just so proud and happy for my friends Jay
Weber and Mark Belling Well Belling Belling said he didn't
retire from radio. He just took his show to a podcast,

(01:34:34):
very very good podcast. Jay was like, no, I totally
retired from daily radio. This is my retirement gig. I'm
doing a podcast two days a week. That's few and
far between. If I am able to retire, if I'm
not blown out at some point because I shot off
my big stupid mouth, very likely to happen in the
next twenty years, or.

Speaker 3 (01:34:55):
Just you know, a cost cut. It's radio. I mean,
it's just we're in a very changing space.

Speaker 1 (01:35:03):
If I am able to I am not where. I
can tell you right now. I am not working well
into my seventies or eighties. I am hanging with grandkids.
God willing great grandkids. I hope my kids are listening
right now. Not too soon, but we want grandkids. As
soon as you find yourself a spouse, you're The most

(01:35:25):
important thing you can do is advance to this species.
Is have children. Is to find a man, find a
woman that you love, have children, and you know, show them,
hopefully the same sort of love that your mother and
I showed you.

Speaker 3 (01:35:41):
So I'm going to do.

Speaker 1 (01:35:42):
But there are a lot of people at the CEO
level and the c suites that are just staying there,
and it's been a big problem for subsequent generation. The
boomers get a lot of flak for just not stepping
aside and not oh my goodness, they're not giving way
to the younger generation. Well, have you considered the fact
that when US millennials or Gen xers get to that

(01:36:03):
same age, we're gonna do the exact same thing, and
we're probably going to live even longer than the boomers.
You're gonna have generations. He's saying, Oh my god, I
hate those millennials. Look at my boss is one hundred
and ten years old. He's still going into the office,
he's walking my rise through the corporate latter. It's just
it's a function of the fact that human beings are
just living way longer than we ever have, and how

(01:36:26):
that's just sort of fundamentally reordering society, not just at
the governmental or corporate level, but just how our economies
are oriented. I mean, the biggest most booming sector by
far right now is what healthcare.

Speaker 3 (01:36:43):
It is.

Speaker 1 (01:36:43):
It is keeping people alive and having a better quality
of life than ever before. And I, frankly, I don't
begrudge anybody that you like Ford head belling. For example,
had he said, you know what, I want to keep
going in the afternoon, I would have been heck, yeah, Mark,

(01:37:04):
because I would love to still be doing middays and
out at the beach right now at five thirty five
pm as I'm looking outside and seeing what a glorious,
beautiful day it is. So I understand, but it's just
it's it's totally changed things. It's already having at the
biggest the biggest impact of people just staying alive longer

(01:37:27):
is on that social safety net, is on social Security.
And it just makes me furious every single time I
think about George W. Bush's plan to partially privatize social
Security and how Democrats just blocked it, saying, oh, well,
it's the Wall Street, Because do you know how you
have any idea how much money all of us would

(01:37:49):
have in our retirement accounts instead of just the pittance
that government gives us in the Social Security that it
takes from us every single paycheck, we would have it.
Oh my goodness, I have the numbers somewhere, and it's
just will it will make you mad on a beautiful
Monday evening, folks, I don't want you to go home

(01:38:12):
from work and be as mad as I am thinking
about how much more money we'd all have in our
retirement accounts. I'll tell you what. Let's step aside for
a break. We're going to try to get back on
schedule here. It's spent such a topsy turvy day because
of that breaking news, because of the kapinga announcement when
we come back, the future of Sarah Rodriguez's campaign and
why pretty much everyone in Wisconsin politics, Democrat and Republican,

(01:38:36):
believes that she's done that sometime this week she is
going to drop out of this race. You're listening to
the Dan O'Donnell show. There is not one person. And
I don't want to be like that guy like, oh, well,
I talked to a whole lot of insiders and I'm
not going to tell you who, but they're very inside.

(01:38:59):
I don't want to be like the Schams Sharania of
Wisconsin politics. But suffice it to say, there are a
lot of people who you would know, and a lot
of people who are very plugged into campaigns and politics.
There is not one of them. And sprinkled in there, yes,

(01:39:21):
there are a couple of Democrats. Not one of them
believes that Sarah Rodriguez has a path forward after this.
That press conference this afternoon was a dumpster fire, the
scandal that her now former campaign manager was over inflating
donations by hundreds of thousands of dollars. Rodriguez wouldn't say

(01:39:45):
how much the overinflated donation totals were. She did say, hey,
we're down to our last two hundred thousand dollars in
the final stretch of this primary. That's admitting you're broke.
That is admitting you have I have no money, that
you can't finance anything. She had a much ballyhooed one

(01:40:05):
point two million dollar ad buy. Turns out that was
a lie. They never had the money to pay for that.
You've got to pay for all that advertising up front.
They couldn't do it. There's nobody who believes that she's
got a path forward. She's got she's got a drop out,
and she is probably going to do so later this week.

(01:40:27):
The party has got to find and what an unenviable
position that the Democratic Party now has to find itself in.
The only other viable, non socialist, non Francesco Francesco Haun
candidate dropped out and endorsed Rodriguez literally five days ago
in David Crawnt, do you think Crowley jumps back in?

Speaker 3 (01:40:48):
Is that?

Speaker 6 (01:40:49):
Hey?

Speaker 3 (01:40:49):
Remember last week when I said.

Speaker 1 (01:40:51):
That the best candidate was Sarah Rodriguez, I lied, it's
actually me. I think the best candidate is me Again,
you guys vote for me. The party now has to
pick between Mandela Barnes, Calderoys and Joel Brennan. You might

(01:41:12):
as well bring back Brett Halsey, the weirdo who dressed
up as the Confederate soldier to show up at the
Republican convention years ago and then had that weird incident
where he was like dunking a young boy at the
beach or frolicking in a totally hetero, not perverted, weird way.

(01:41:33):
Remember that scandal. He says, there's no good way to
spin whatever the hell was going on at that beach.
Either Halsey was being really really weird and inappropriate with
a boy and playing with him, dunking him, or he
was like in a fight with a little boy at
the beach. What at the boy bully him by kicking
sand in his face. Brett Halsey at this point has

(01:41:54):
a better chance of being the Democratic nominee than does
Sarah Rodriguez. She was actually asked, Leanna, I believe this
was our good friend Jessica McBride who asked this question
is a very good one. So doesn't the bucks stop
with you? How did you not know all of this
was going on with your campaign manager for six whole months?

Speaker 2 (01:42:18):
So what I will say is this is that I
met regularly with my campaign manager about how the campaign
was going, and based on the information that I received
and the information that our partners received, it looked accurate.
I trusted her to do the job that I had

(01:42:39):
hired to to do that she had done for her
entire career, and I regret placing my trust in that individual.

Speaker 4 (01:42:46):
What does that say about you as a leader?

Speaker 2 (01:42:48):
It says that when I find something, I take immediate action.
When I found that there were discrepancies and inaccuracies in
that report, I immediately took action to bring people in.
This was literally from Thursday when I found out permanently,
like when I found out what was going on within
the accounts, it is Monday today.

Speaker 4 (01:43:09):
It took six months, though, to get to this.

Speaker 2 (01:43:10):
Point, because I was continually getting inaccurate reports from my
campaign finance person, for my campaign manager.

Speaker 1 (01:43:19):
So you had no reason to question any of those.
By the way, that was Matt Smith asking the pertinent
follow up says he does host of Upfront. So you
you found out immediately six months later after getting a

(01:43:39):
completely false idea of how much money you had raised,
after trying to convince the entire state that you were
the best candidate to take on the socialists, that you
were the best one because you had raised all this money.

Speaker 3 (01:43:59):
Turned out to be a lie.

Speaker 1 (01:44:02):
But as soon as you found out about that lie,
after benefiting from it for six months, you see how
there's really no path forward because there's no good answer
for why this happened. Either she's telling the truth and
she just found out about this on Tuesday. That makes
her incompetent, That that makes her unable to lead. She

(01:44:25):
cannot be trusted to handle a small gubernatorial campaign. How
can she possibly be trusted to handle a state budget,
to run a complex apparatus like this state of Wisconsin.
Or she did know about it and waited as long
as humanly possible until all would be revealed on the

(01:44:45):
current campaign finance report that would show. Yeah, so we
said we had like a million bucks. It turns out
we only actually have two hundred thousand dollars. That's the
real reason, folks. The campaign finance reports for July, for
the January July reporting period, they're due on July fifteenth.

Speaker 3 (01:45:06):
They're due in two days.

Speaker 1 (01:45:08):
It would have been revealed that she was getting out
ahead of the story, and she undersold in that initial.

Speaker 3 (01:45:16):
Press release how bad it was.

Speaker 1 (01:45:18):
Nine point thirty last night, they put out a press
release saying when Sarah discovered that there was more than
one hundred thousand dollars that had been overinflated, she took
immediate action. Well, that's sort of a lie by omission.
That's that's misrepresenting the severity of the problem. It wasn't
one hundred thousand dollars. It wasn't more than one hundred

(01:45:40):
thousand dollars, which would imply one hundred, five hundred, ten
thousand dollars, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Rodriguez would even say, how much money? Is it half
a million dollars? Is it seven hundred thousand dollars? How
much money? Were you lying to everybody in the state
about how much you were taking in to try to

(01:46:02):
make it seem like your campaign was a lot more
successful than it was. Tony Evers and the Democratic Party have.

Speaker 3 (01:46:10):
Been nowhere near this. They knew a reason.

Speaker 4 (01:46:15):
Ever.

Speaker 1 (01:46:16):
We played this SoundBite last week where Evers was asked,
when Sarah got into the race almost exactly one year ago,
she was the first candidate to get in. She was
the candidate who was going to try to.

Speaker 3 (01:46:30):
Clear the field.

Speaker 1 (01:46:31):
The reason our good friend, Senator Chris Kappinga made the
announcement first. He contacted me and said, Dan, I'd like
to announce on your show. I'm running for Waukeshaw County Executive.
There is an advantage to announcing first, because the idea
is that everybody else says, well, you know what, Senator
Kapinga is already in. He's a very good candidate. I

(01:46:53):
think I'm going to pass on this one. Then everybody
just kind of gets behind the Republican or the Democrat
who's already in.

Speaker 3 (01:47:01):
Tom Tiffany. Tom tifty is a perfect example.

Speaker 1 (01:47:04):
Once he got in, Yes, Washington County Executive Josh Schauman
was in Tiffany, got the Trump endorsement, and Showman said,
you know what, there's no path forward. Look, clearly the
party wants Tiffany, the voters want Tiffany, such a strong candidate,
I'm out Peace. Rodriguez had every opportunity to scare everyone

(01:47:26):
else out of the primary.

Speaker 3 (01:47:28):
She couldn't do it.

Speaker 1 (01:47:30):
Evers was asked, hey, you know you're a lieutenant governor.
Sarah Rodriguez said she would welcome your endorsement. Are you
going to endorse? He actually told I think it was
Matt Smith of Upfront. He actually said, yeah, you know,
if there's somebody who gets into the race who I
really want to win and would benefit from my endorsement,
then I'll endorse. But as of right now, no, I'm

(01:47:51):
not going to. That was about as withering a critique
as it gets, saying yeah, if someone gets in that
I like the candidate who's in right now, I don't
like happens to be my own lieutenant company. Well, now
I think we're figuring out why the woman is largely
incompetent at best. That's the best case scenario that she

(01:48:14):
and the rest of her campaign were just so oblivious
that they were so unable to do their jobs as candidate,
as consultants, as members of the campaign to figure out
that they didn't have hundreds of thousands of dollars that
the campaign manager was telling That is the best case
scenario for her, That she's just such a buffoon, that

(01:48:37):
she had no idea that hundreds of thousands of dollars
were missing from her campaign. That is best case, worst case.
She's known about this for weeks months, try to keep
it secret so she would benefit from the positive press
about million dollar ad buys and how much money she
was taking in, and was finally forced to own up

(01:48:58):
to the truth as close as possible to the date
where the next round of campaign finance reporting needed to
be done, and that's July fifteenth, in two days,