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March 17, 2025 15:46-16:54 - CSPAN
01:07:56
Wisconsin Supreme Court Debate
Participants
Appearances
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april mcclain delaney
rep/d 01:06
d
donald j trump
admin 03:12
j
jeff crank
rep/r 01:01
Clips
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patty murray
sen/d 00:04
s
speaker 45112
00:02
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Well, next, former Wisconsin Attorney General Brad Schimmel and Circuit Court Judge Susan Crawford take part in a debate for Wisconsin's open Supreme Court seat.
The race has captured national attention after garnering nearly $60 million in outside spending, including $6.2 million of it from a political action committee controlled by Elon Musk.
This debate was hosted by WISN-TV and Marquette University Law School in Milwaukee.
Tonight, a WISN 12 News Commitment 2025 election special.
High stakes on the high court.
The first of its kind meeting between the two candidates for Wisconsin Supreme Court justice, each with very different views.
Waukesha County Circuit Court Judge Brad Schimmel.
Going to the voters directly with my message about restoring objectivity and integrity and humility to our court.
A former prosecutor and state attorney general appointed to the circuit court by Governor Scott Walker, the conservative candidate.
And Dane County Circuit Court Judge Susan Crawford.
I think it's important for voters to know the work I've done and something about my values.
A former prosecutor and former chief legal counsel for Governor Jim Doyle, the liberal candidate.
Tonight, your exclusive front row seat to history.
Just respect the constitutional law.
Those are all values that absolutely will affect my decision making.
I would never make any kind of promise to any organization like that to, you know, deliver some kind of result.
The candidates in their own words on the critical role of the Supreme Court and why they want to win your vote.
And now, live from the Marquette University Law School, tonight's moderators, WISN Political Director Matt Smith and upfront co-host Jaron Jordan.
Good evening, everyone, and welcome.
We are live tonight from the Lubar Center at Eckstein Hall, home of the Marquette University Law School.
We thank our audience here with us tonight and across Wisconsin for joining us for the first and only televised debate between the two candidates for Wisconsin Supreme Court.
With us right now, Waukesha County Judge Brad Schimmel and Dane County Judge Susan Crawford.
Thank you both for being here.
Thank you.
Thank you both for hosting this.
We appreciate this.
Of course, the top vote getter on April 1st will serve a 10-year term on the state Supreme Court, filling the seat of retiring Justice Ann Walsh Bradley, who is here in the debate hall tonight.
Justice Walsh Bradley has served 30 years on the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
First tonight, a few ground rules.
This is a debate, but we'll be having a conversation.
We'll be discussing the key issues facing Wisconsin.
Candidates are asked to state their positions, stay on topic, and be concise.
The candidates may speak to each other, but we will manage the time on any given topic and move the conversation along if necessary.
At the end, each candidate will make a closing statement.
We flipped a coin to determine who will get the first question.
Judge Crawford won the toss.
So with that, let's get started.
As we sit here tonight, a good number of voters still don't have a strong opinion on either one of you, but they do know that control of the court is at stake.
Judge Crawford, we'll start with you in your own words specifically what is at stake in this race.
Well, first of all, I want to say thank you for WISN and Marquette for hosting this event today, and thank you to you and Matt for moderating the debate.
You know, I think a lot is at stake, the future of our state for our kids and our grandkids and the fundamental rights and freedoms of everyone in Wisconsin.
I've worked throughout my career to protect the rights of Wisconsinites and keep our communities safe, first as a prosecutor at the Wisconsin Department of Justice, then as an attorney representing the rights of ordinary Wisconsinites in our courts, and now as a judge on the circuit court, where every day I make sure that I'm making common sense decisions, protecting the rights of the parties in front of me under our laws, and making sure that everyone gets their day in court.
I'm running to be a fair, impartial justice on the Wisconsin Supreme Court and to protect the rights of Wisconsinites from that statewide venue.
I think that is what this race is all about.
Judge Schimmel, what specifically is at stake in this race?
The stakes are huge.
I don't know they could be bigger.
I've never been involved in anything where the stakes were bigger than this.
And if you told me five years ago the Wisconsin Supreme Court would be going through a political agenda, I would have said you're crazy.
They stay within some guardrails, but that's not happening now.
I watched in 2023 how a candidate who ended up winning on the Supreme Court promised on the campaign trail how they would rule on cases that weren't even filed yet.
And then worse, once she was in the majority on the court, that majority started going through that political agenda.
It's critical in our constitutional republic that the political branches do the politics.
The legislature makes the law.
The executive enforces it.
Sorry to do the high school civics, but I think some people need to know this.
The judiciary doesn't get involved in the politics.
The judiciary approaches cases objectively.
I do that every day in my courtroom.
When I put on the black robe, I'm like an umpire in baseball.
I'm not rooting for any team.
I am rooting for the law to prevail in that court.
I'm going to look at the facts objectively.
You know, judges take a different oath than other public officials because other public officials, just like judges and justices, we swear to uphold and defend the Constitution.
Judges have an added part where we swear that we will administer justice without regard to persons.
That doesn't mean we don't care about people.
What it means is that it doesn't matter who the person in front of us is.
Justice is blind.
Justice is no longer blind on the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
That's what's at stake.
We have to restore objectivity.
We're going to break down all these issues and we're going to have a conversation about them over the next hour.
I'm going to respond to some of what Judge Schimmel said, if I might.
Sure.
You know, he is paying good lip service to the principles of impartiality and open-mindedness.
But throughout this campaign, he has taken issues on cases pending before the Wisconsin Supreme Court, including cases like one involving an 1849 abortion law that, if it were in effect, would criminalize pretty much all abortions in Wisconsin.
He has openly said when he's in front of audiences of his political allies that there is nothing wrong with that law and it should be enforced.
That is not the kind of open-mindedness that we expect from judges.
It is prejudicial to the parties in that case.
And Brad Schimmel is making those pronouncements not based on the law in that case or the facts or the arguments of the attorneys, but based on political considerations.
I can't let that go.
Quickly, and we'll get to a voice.
My opponent had someone there recording that speech.
She knows what the whole speech is, not just the few seconds that they released to the media.
I was asked if the 1849 was a valid law.
18949 law was a valid law.
And the answer is, my answer was it was passed by two houses of the legislature and signed by a governor.
That means it's a valid law.
But what I said next was that there's a real question as to whether that law reflects the will of the people of Wisconsin now and today.
Let's talk about abortion.
So you believe the 1849 law is valid.
It was a validly passed law today.
I don't believe that it reflects the will of the people of Wisconsin today.
Judge, do you believe that law is valid today, the 1849 law?
Well, Matt, this is an issue that's pending before the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
The parties in those cases have filed briefs, they've made legal arguments, they've presented evidence in support of their decision, and I'm not in a position to weigh in at this point.
It would be prejudicial to the parties in that case for me to do so.
So, you know, what I can tell you is that as a lawyer in Wisconsin, I've represented organizations like Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin and their doctors back when Roe versus Wade was in case, making sure that women could make their own choices about their bodies and their health care.
As a woman, as somebody who has gone through pregnancy, labor, and birth, I want to make my own health care decisions, and I trust women to do that.
Let me set the stage real quick for our viewers just on where everything is with abortion.
Justices have yet to rule on a case involving the legality of the 1849 law.
Another case brought by Planned Parenthood is pending, asking justices to decide whether there's a constitutional right to an abortion in Wisconsin.
So, Judge Timmell, you have routinely said you're pro-life and make no apologies for that.
You signed on to a 2012 legal paper from Wisconsin Right to Life advocating a plan to make abortion illegal and keep the 1849 law in place if Roe was overturned.
You've told supporters you don't believe there's a constitutional right to abortion.
Is that a fair position?
Is that your position?
No, I think there's some things you've said that aren't correct.
I've been clear from the day I got in this race on my position on abortion.
My family is somewhat unique.
Two 18-year-old young women at the time, 23 and 21 years ago, gave my wife and I the chance to have a family we can't have biologically.
Because of that sacrifice, my wife and I treasure those two young women.
And we treasure life even when it's not planned.
But judges don't make the law.
As a judge, no judge or justice should be deciding this issue for the voters of Wisconsin.
This issue belongs in their hands.
And should it be decided by the voters or should it be decided by four justices in the majority on the court?
And if four justices on the majority and the court can make that decision for the voters, that decision can flip back and forth every time the majority flips.
We have to let the voters make this decision.
I've been clear on that.
Now, my opponent talks about taking positions on cases.
When she ran for judge in Dane County, she proudly declared that she was the lawyer that went after the abortion restrictions that were put in place.
She proudly declared that she was the lawyer that went after voter ID.
She was the lawyer that went after Act 10.
She bragged about that when she was running in Dane County.
Now that she's running and has to run in 71 other counties as well, now she backs off from things she was once proud of campaigning as a judge.
Judge Crawford, I want to ask, you have previously represented Planned Parenthood, as you mentioned, and you received the endorsement of Planned Parenthood Advocates of Wisconsin.
In its endorsement, the group called you a, quote, leader committed to reproductive freedom and said that you have, quote, upheld constitutional rights and protected access to reproductive health care.
Is that a fair characterization of you and what you would do as a justice?
Well, I'm proud of the work that I did as a lawyer.
I was standing up in court fighting for the rights of women and their doctors to make those decisions, those critical decisions about health care.
You know, when I went through pregnancy and birth, a really tough, really long labor and birth, I wanted to be able to make my own decisions with my doctors and not have anybody getting in the way of those decisions.
And because of the Dobbs decision of the U.S. Supreme Court that threw away an almost 50-year-old precedent, Roe versus Wade, that recognized a right under our Constitution for women to make their own decisions about their bodies.
My 23-year-old daughter doesn't have the same rights that I do.
And what I want for her and what I want for Judge Schimmel's daughters is the same thing.
If they are pregnant and something goes terribly wrong in their pregnancy, I don't want them to lie bleeding on a hospital bed while their doctors are huddled in another room trying to decide if they're close enough to death before they can deliver health care services to them.
So voters need to understand that this is a critical issue in this race.
My opponent has said he believes the 1849 law in Wisconsin is valid law.
He's trying to backpedal from that position now, and he said that he does not believe there's any constitutional right to abortion under the Wisconsin Constitution.
That's the choice presented to the Wisconsin voters.
On that, do you believe there is a constitutional right to abortion in Wisconsin?
Again, I'm not going to take a position on that because that is an issue pending before the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
I have not read the briefs in that case.
I have not heard the party's arguments or seen the kind of evidence they've presented in support of their positions.
That's an open question.
That's a question that will be decided by the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
What I can say is that I believe that Dobbs decision was wrongly decided when the U.S. Supreme Court, for the first time ever, overturned a precedent that had extended and recognized constitutional rights to women throughout our country.
It threw it away.
And now here we are, back in the state of Wisconsin, having to relitigate and redecide these critical issues, these life and death matters, these very personal decisions about health care that women have to make.
I want to turn to money in the race.
This is a prominent part of this campaign.
I'm sorry, but she just said several things about me that I need to respond to.
Go ahead, quickly.
Again, the 1849 law, those oral arguments were completed five months ago from yesterday.
I don't know why the Supreme Court hasn't been able to issue that decision yet, but I think they're playing politics.
They're waiting until after this election to keep the 1849 law a live issue.
That 1849 law is going to be resolved by the Supreme Court long before I take the bench on August 1st.
And what I said about the Constitution, I said that the word abortion doesn't appear in the Wisconsin Constitution.
So if there's a constitutional right there to abortion, someone's going to have to make a creative legal argument to explain where that is implied within that constitution.
Let's move to money in the race with politics.
Our editorial partner at Upfront just tallied a record $59 million spent on this race and counting.
You both received praise and criticism for the support you have received, Judge Crawford from Elon Musk, for example.
Judge Schimmel, that is, from Elon Musk, for example.
Judge Crawford from George Surrows.
At least we got a laugh from the audience a few minutes into this.
I want to first quickly start with this.
Judge Schimmel, do you embrace the endorsement of Elon Musk?
I got in this race over 15 months ago.
I have campaigned in all 72 counties.
I've gone to every corner of this state.
I'm looking for the endorsement of the Wisconsin voters on April 1st.
Outside help that comes is not something I control.
It is expensive and it's difficult to get your message out on the airwaves to all the voters of Wisconsin.
But there's a difference here.
My opponent was supported by George Soros.
That man has funded DAs and judges.
Fair enough, but I'd like to talk about it.
He's funded DAs and judges who have let dangerous criminals out on the street.
He's funded efforts to defund the police in America.
He's a dangerous person to have an endorsement from.
And recently, Bernie Sanders is campaigning in Wisconsin.
They had a singer perform an absolutely grotesque attack on people of faith.
And that crowd of my opponent's supporters applauded wildly as that person blasphemed against the God that so many Wisconsinites believe in, taunted us for being believers.
And they got up after that speech and said, those people in that audience need to vote for my opponent because she shares our values.
Nobody in the media has asked her to disavow that.
She should disavow that kind of hate speech.
Well, I do disavow that.
I heard some of those lyrics and I don't agree with those sentiments.
It wasn't my event.
I wasn't there.
I didn't organize it.
And I certainly didn't hire the singer.
So let's get back to campaign finance.
Let me ask you about George Soros.
Do you embrace his endorsement and his spending on this?
You know, I have had generous contributions that have gone to the Democratic Party of Wisconsin.
The Democratic Party of Wisconsin has endorsed me and supported my candidacy.
But let's talk about Elon Musk.
Talk about somebody who's been dangerous, who's firing air traffic controllers, who's firing the people who are trying to figure out the avian flu issue that is causing the cost of eggs to increase so rapidly in Wisconsin.
He has now spent over $10 million on my opponent's race.
He has basically taken over Brad Schimmel's campaign.
He's got paid canvassers who are knocking on doors, handing out flyers that say, support the Trump agenda, put Brad Schimmel on the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
He is putting false ads out and deceptive ads that try to make me look like a more far-left liberal person than I have ever been in my life.
And he's putting these untrue ads out on television.
He is the one, this is unprecedented to see this kind of spending on a race.
And it is no coincidence that Elon Musk started spending that money within days of Tesla filing a lawsuit in Wisconsin.
Two quick questions.
He's trying to buy access and influence by buying himself a justice on the Wisconsin.
Two quick questions on the endorsements.
Will you recuse yourself from cases involving the State Democratic Party of Wisconsin?
Well, look, I will apply the laws required by the Wisconsin Supreme Court that set out the rules for recusal.
And if I believe I cannot be fair and impartial in a case involving the Wisconsin Democratic Party, yes, I will recuse.
There are new flyers coming out from groups tied to Elon Musk that say that are arriving to voters' mailboxes tonight that say conservative Brad Schimmel will support President Trump's agenda.
Is that true?
I have no control over whatever any outside group does.
I will enforce the law.
I will apply the law the way the legislature has written it.
If President Trump or anyone defies Wisconsin law and I end up with a case in front of me, I'll hold them accountable as I would anybody.
In my courtroom, I have individuals come in that sometimes are supporters of me, sometimes are people that don't like me.
It doesn't make any difference.
I've had political cases in my civil courtroom.
It makes no difference who's in front of me.
In the courtroom, my personal views are irrelevant and President Trump's personal views are irrelevant as well.
One final question on the money on a recusal.
Tesla, which Elon Musk is CEO of, is suing the state over a decision that has prevented the company from opening dealerships in Wisconsin.
If that case came before the court, would you recuse yourself?
I don't know the answer to that.
I haven't seen the lawsuit.
I don't know, I know a little bit about what it's about.
Now, the interesting thing is that I have spent most of, I've spent 35 years representing the people of Wisconsin.
During a large part of that, as the Attorney General, I defended Wisconsin laws.
And I'm aware that there's a law that requires that for you to sell vehicles in Wisconsin, you have to have a dealership.
There are dealership rules.
That's a law passed by the legislature.
It's entitled to a presumption of constitutionality.
So if Elon Musk is trying to get some result in that lawsuit, he may be failing because I enforce the law and I respect the laws passed by the legislature.
That's a law in Wisconsin.
A lot of voters are saying this play out on TV ads that are inundating the airwaves right now.
So let's talk about these TV ads.
You have both accused each other of being soft on crime in these TV ads.
Judge Schimmel, you've recently accused Judge Crawford of being an ally to child rapists and violent criminals.
Judge Crawford, you have recently accused Judge Schimmel of allowing rapists to roam the streets while rape kits went untested as Attorney General.
Since the court does not sentence violent criminals or determine how the state manages DNA testing, a question for both of you, but we'll start with Judge Crawford.
Why have you made this a prominent part of your campaign?
Well, look, I think that voters deserve to know what our records are.
And I worked as a statewide prosecutor at the Wisconsin Department of Justice, taking cases all the way to the Wisconsin Supreme Court and making sure that our communities were safe.
I'm proud of the work that I did as a prosecutor and proud of the work that I did later representing Wisconsinites in our courtrooms, protecting their health care rights, protecting their voting rights, and protecting their rights in the workplace.
I don't shy away from that record.
I am proud of the work that I've done.
And I think it is important for voters to know about Brad Schimmel's record too.
He's the one who, as Attorney General, because he was pursuing other partisan right-wing lawsuits like trying to take health care away from people, left over 6,000 sexual assault kits, the kits that may contain the DNA that can identify the perpetrators of those crimes.
He failed to get them tested for years.
And in a period of over two years, he only got nine kits out of 6,000 tested.
And then he lied about it.
He told the press that he had had hundreds of kits tested.
That was wrong.
Earlier, he'd said, oh, there is no backlog, when indeed there was a backlog.
So I think it's important for the voters to understand not only that Brad Schimmel failed to take care of that top public safety priority, left those victims who were mainly women and children, waiting for years while he pursued things like trying to overturn the legal protections that people have when they have pre-existing health conditions to not allow health insurance executives to take away their coverage.
Judge Schimmel, I'll let you respond to that as well, but I do want to ask the same question.
Why you've made your campaign, a prominent part of your campaign, has been on the negative record of Susan Crawford, Judge Crawford.
My opponent can't even be honest about her own record.
She calls herself a prosecutor who would put dangerous criminals away.
She never did that.
I spent 25 years as a frontline prosecutor in the Waukesha DA's office.
I was the guy they called at 3 a.m. to go to the crime scene.
I was the guy who worked with law enforcement to build that case from the crime scene all the way to conviction.
I was the shoulder that crime victims cried on time and time again.
My opponent never did that.
She never stood in front of a jury and argued as a sword and shield for that crime victim to get justice for them.
That's a difference between us.
When she started claiming she was a prosecutor, I need to start pointing out that she's not.
And with the cases she decided, this isn't, there's not an equation here.
She criticizes me on some cases where I was the prosecutor or as a judge where I followed the recommendation of victims.
She has repeatedly just ignored the pleas of victims to lock up dangerous offenders.
A man who sexually assaulted a five-year-old child repeatedly.
She had to testify at trial.
The jury convicted.
My opponent still refused to revoke bond the $500 signature bond she released him on.
She let him live near us across the street from an elementary school.
She didn't change any of that after he was convicted.
And then at sentencing time, in spite of the pleas of the victim, she ultimately gave that offender a sentence that resulted in him being in prison for less than two years after that sentencing date.
This is a dangerous flaw in my opponent's judgment, and that's just one example of many.
Sure.
You know, Brad Schimmel has given dozens of people convicted of crimes like domestic violence, sexual assaults, and abuse of children.
Short jail sentences or no jail sentences, and those offenders have gone on to reoffend.
I'll stand by the cases.
They have focused between him and Elon Musk.
They have focused on two cases out of thousands that I've handled where I sentenced people to prison and then followed that with several years of extended supervision.
Those two people are still on supervision.
They have not committed any new crimes, and they will be on the sex offender registry for the rest of their lives.
So I think that voters need to focus on Brad Schimmel's record.
He is somebody who has blamed victims, said things like with child sexual assaults that the child was responsible because she went to a party or it is not a lie.
It was a first date situation.
He has let people go and they have reoffended.
That has not happened in the cases that they're highlighting of mine.
Let me ask you a question.
And if I can also just respond to his claim that I wasn't a prosecutor.
I was a statewide prosecutor at the Wisconsin Department of Justice.
I handled both county-level prosecutions of health care fraud and patient abuse.
And I also took cases to the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
Those are cases that are the most relevant for service on the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
Cases that involve the development of the law and the kinds of legal arguments that you have to consider when you're making decisions that are going to involve statewide precedent that every prosecutor in the county, in the state rather, will be bound by.
To both you quick on these ads worth seeing, you referenced one.
In 2020, you did sentence a child sex offender to four years in prison after prosecutors requested 10.
Do you regret that sentence?
I don't regret that sentence because I followed the law in that case, as I always do.
I applied the law, which says that judges have to consider every relevant factor in sentencing.
You have to consider both the aggravating and mitigating factors.
And the Supreme Court has said you have to order the minimum amount of prison time you believe is necessary to protect the public.
That's what I did in that case and every other case.
And my goal is always to keep the community safe.
And those have been sentences that have been successful.
They have kept the community safe, unlike the short jail sentences that Brad Schimmel has entered over and over where people have gone on to commit new crimes.
That's when you know the sentence has failed.
To some of the ads people have seen about you, Judge Schimmel, nine rape kits tested in your first two years as Attorney General.
Do you regret that?
My opponent just revealed the problem in her judgment, that in weighing all the factors, giving the minimum amount of time to a dangerous sex offender weighs higher than protecting the community.
That's what she just revealed to me.
That is not what I said.
She has not found one of the things that I've done.
The court requires you to order the sentence necessary to protect the community.
And that's what I have done, and that's what those sentences did.
Judge Schimmel on rape kits.
By the way, on her ads, she hasn't found one case in her ads where I failed to follow the wishes of the victim and the prosecutor.
The sentences I gave were at least what the victim and the prosecutor recommended in every one of them.
On the rape kits, Let's talk about numbers.
She puts it in terms of numbers.
When I got to the Department of Justice for 25 years, those rape kits had been neglected in police departments, storerooms, and hospital storerooms.
When I got to the Department of Justice, during that 25 years, my opponent had spent 12 years as a manager and then Attorney General Doyle's Department of Justice and as the chief legal counsel for Governor Jim Doyle, 12 years.
She didn't lift a finger.
She didn't do anything to try to solve this problem.
So it was left to when I got to state government in 2015, we had zero zero kits tested.
About three and a half years later, every kit that needed to be tested was done.
But in the interim, let's talk about some more numbers.
We had to conduct a statewide inventory.
We didn't even know how many kits were out there.
We had to go to every single police department in Wisconsin, every hospital storeroom, find out where the kits were, how many there were, what the case circumstances were.
And when I left the Department of Justice, that problem was solved, and we put in place a process where this will never happen again.
Just quickly, do you regret the first two years of your time as AG?
We did this exactly the way we needed to.
And the architect of that program is now Justice Jill Korofsky.
We worked together.
I had her as my director of the Office of Crime Victim Services.
And I'll tell you, there's nobody in the state that would have done a better job than she did in that role.
But this was her plan.
We implemented it.
She had been planning this before I got the Department of Justice.
When I got there, she was waiting for an Attorney General to finally give someone the green light to do it.
And I gave that green light, we solved this problem.
Chairman, let's move on to the next one.
In the new market, we'll let you respond in just a second.
We have a lot of issues to get to.
In the New Marquette Law School poll, 79% of voters say that they want the candidates in this race to discuss the issues.
We've talked about abortion a little bit.
Other high-profile cases will also be before this new court, likely including Act 10, the law signed by then-Governor Scott Walker, eliminating collective bargaining for most public employees.
Judge Crawford, you represented teachers who sued attempting to overturn the law.
Why then wouldn't you recuse yourself from a case involving Act 10?
Thanks for that question.
So Act 10 was a 50-page-long bill that changed multiple different parts of the Wisconsin statutes.
And the challenge that I raised back in the 2011-2012 period was focused on a particular provision that it challenged.
My understanding of the new case that's now moving through the courts is that it involves a different provision.
So, you know, you saw that Justice Hagedorn decided to recuse from that case because he not only was involved in drafting Act 10, but was involved in a defense to the exact same provision that is now at stake, a previous legal challenge to that provision.
I think that's appropriate.
And if the same provision that I was involved in litigating back in those early days was challenged again, I most likely would recuse.
Again, it would depend on the specific facts of the case, but I think that when it's the same provision.
Is that a provision in this current challenge?
No.
Judge Schimmel, you were a Republican Attorney General under Governor Scott Walker after the law passed, but you have previously said that you would have defended the law in court.
Why then should voters believe that you could hear a case on Act 10 fairly?
So as you noted, Jaron, that was all resolved.
The Wisconsin Supreme Court decided that case, and the Seventh Circuit Federal Court of Appeals in Chicago decided that case, upheld Act 10 before I was ever Attorney General.
I've said I would have defended the law when I was Attorney General.
Of course I did.
My job as Attorney General was to defend Wisconsin law, not to pick and choose which laws I liked or didn't like.
My job was to defend the law.
For 35 years I've been a public servant and my only client, unlike my opponent who's representing some very left-wing organizations, my only client has always been the people of Wisconsin.
And of course I said that's the very definition of Attorney General.
You represent the people of Wisconsin.
You defend the laws passed by our legislature and signed into law by the governor.
Justice Brian Hagedorn, who served as Governor Walker's chief legal counsel during that, recently said he would recuse himself from this case involving Act 10.
Did he make the right decision, Judge Schimmel?
Only he knows that.
Only he knows whether he can be objective about that.
You know, every jury that comes to my courtroom, before we start for our deer, I start by preparing them for what this is going to be like.
And I hold up a pen with a click on the top and I say, folks, I don't have one of those men in black pens that I can click and erase your memories.
You all come here with a history.
You all come here with political views, personal views.
The question for you as we go through this process is for you to discern, for you to search your conscience.
Can you set those views aside and decide this case based on the evidence in the courtroom and the laws?
I'll instruct you.
We expect that from jurors, we should expect the same from judges.
Now, here's the danger.
Do you think he made the right decision?
Here's the danger with the Supreme Court.
See, as I said, only he can make that, and that outlines the danger because the only person who can decide whether a Supreme Court justice should recuse from a case is that Supreme Court justice.
So you're electing someone to a 10-year term, and if you're not sure that they'll be objective or you're not sure that they'll recuse on the cases they can't, you better be careful about giving them 10 years.
We'll get to recusal.
Justice Janet Protosowitz, who protested the 2011 law and signed the recall petition targeting then-Governor Walker, recently said she would not recuse herself from this case.
Did she make the right decision, Judge Crawford?
Right.
Well, I read the decision that Justice ordered that Justice Protosowicz put out about that.
And I thought that her analysis clearly showed that she considered the facts and applied the standards under the Wisconsin Judicial Code and came to a reasoned decision that she believed that she could be fair and impartial in that case.
That's what the law required.
And, you know, I think that it's a decision that she should stand by.
And you believe that as well, that she can be fair and impartial.
Well, you know, I think that I agree with Judge Schimmel on this, that the law requires each individual justice to make their own determination about whether they can be fair and impartial.
I trust that that's what she did.
We'll talk about recusal here in just a second.
I do want to ask, though, about voter ID.
The state's voter ID law will also be on the April 1st ballot, asking voters whether to enshrine the law into the state constitution.
77% of Wisconsin voters say they favor voter ID.
Judge Schimmel, as Attorney General, you fought to keep the law in place.
Judge Crawford, you have argued against it and tried to block the law, even at one point comparing it to a poll tax.
Judge Crawford, do you still believe that?
Well, look, I brought a lawsuit on behalf of the nonpartisan League of Women Voters when that law was first passed.
And when it was first passed, it was the strictest voter ID law in the country, and it left a lot of people behind.
There were many registered voters in Wisconsin who were unable to vote because they simply could not obtain the ID that they needed.
People who were disabled, elderly people, people who were born in rural communities in poverty that never were issued a birth certificate.
That's who we were fighting for.
You know, for me and probably everybody in this room, the voter ID law was no big deal.
You show your driver's license and you get to vote.
But for the most vulnerable citizens in Wisconsin, it took something very precious away from them, and that was their right to vote.
So I'm proud of the lawsuit, the litigation that we filed, because ultimately the Wisconsin Supreme Court, with a very conservative majority at that time, found that because the law required people to pay to get a voter's ID, they ordered the administration to make changes so people would no longer have to pay.
And indeed, they said it was like a poll tax.
Do you agree that it's still a poll tax?
Well, no, because they removed that.
The court ordered the administration to stop doing that.
And the legislature then revisited the law and created a procedure that allows people to get their IDs more easily, even if they're missing some of these underlying documents.
It's called an affidavit procedure.
And Brad Schimmel said at the time that that law was pending that if the legislature revisited that law and enacted an affidavit procedure, that all the litigation would drop and go away.
And I agree with that.
So the law is a very different law now than it was then.
You have told us previously that you will not reveal how you'll vote on the Constitutional Amendment.
I'm just curious, why don't voters deserve to know?
Well, I think that they can hear from politicians and legislators and people like that what their views are.
I just don't think it's appropriate for a judge to weigh in and try to influence voters on something like that.
And that's, and let me just explain a little further.
And that in part is because that, you know, President Trump has been visiting the Kennedy Center today.
Any part of the statement is that we're going to be stepping up to the microphone now before the court comments.
We'll take you there live.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼
But while we're here, I thought it would be appropriate.
We are tomorrow announcing and giving all of the Kennedy files.
So people have been waiting for decades for this.
And I've instructed my people that are responsible.
Lots of different people put together by Tulsi Gabbert.
And that's going to be released tomorrow.
We have a tremendous amount of paper.
You've got a lot of reading.
I don't believe we're going to redact anything.
I said, just don't redact.
You can't redact.
But we're going to be releasing the JFK files.
And that would be tomorrow.
Do you have anything else to add to that, Carolyn?
So that's a big announcement.
They've been waiting for that for decades.
Then I said during the campaign I do it, and I'm a man of my word.
So tomorrow you have the JFK files.
What time will they be released?
unidentified
Tomorrow afternoon.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼
Tomorrow afternoon.
unidentified
Okay.
Have you seen what's in the files?
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼
I've heard about them.
unidentified
Was there anything interesting?
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼
It's going to be very interesting.
unidentified
Was there an executive summary supplied to you, President?
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼
No, I'm not doing summaries.
You'll write your own summaries.
It's many pages.
Is it 80,000 pages?
Approximately 80,000 pages.
So it's a lot of stuff.
And you'll make your own determination.
unidentified
You have criticized President Biden for using Auto Pen in the last few days.
Have you yourself ever used AutoPen, sir?
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼
Yeah, only for very unimportant papers.
And I don't call them unimportant.
If you do letters where people write in and they'd love to have a response or write responses, and I'll sign them whenever I can, but when I can't, I would use an auto pen.
But to use them for what they've used him for is terrible.
And when you've signed to the CR, who are you with?
unidentified
Mr. Allen and Meeting the Speaker.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼
That's the same one.
I don't want to talk to the NBC anymore.
I think you're so discredited.
unidentified
Mr. President, Mr. President, when most people think of the Kennedy Center, they think of the Kennedy Center honors.
It takes place in December every year.
Is that something that you anticipate hosting at the White House?
And what do you think that happens?
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼
We're going to have honors.
We're going to have, I think it's going to be a much bigger show than it has been in the past.
It got tired, very tired, very tired, very boring, very radical left.
Unless you were a radical left, it just seemed that nobody was chosen.
There are a lot of people out there that can get the honors, and we're going to do it.
I think we'll have a very big show.
It's going to be a very big show.
We have some surprises on that show, some big surprises, but I think it has a chance to be a very big show.
That's a big part of the Kennedy Center, the honors that evening.
And so I think you're going to be really surprised.
I think it's going to get great ratings, actually.
unidentified
Mr. President.
There's been some discussion about potentially meeting with Putin in your administration.
If there is a peace deal signed, would you consider, would you be open to inviting Putin to the White House?
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼
Well, I don't want to really even discuss it.
I've got to get the deal.
I've got to get the deal signed.
2,000 people a week sometimes are killed.
And we have to get that agreement signed.
But that's the only thing I think about.
unidentified
Are you confident that that could happen tomorrow, as soon as tomorrow?
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼
We're going to have a very important call.
You know, we've had calls, but we're getting down to a very critical stage.
And we want to get the whole Russia-Ukraine thing done.
And I think Ukraine wants it.
I know they want it.
Everybody wants it.
It's tremendous death.
The bloodshed is unbelievable, like few people have ever seen before.
unidentified
On the drug cartels, do you have a red line for the drug cartels that if crossed, it would automatically trigger a military response from the U.S.?
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼
Well, we'll see, but we're not going to put up with it.
This country is not going to allow people to come in and dump drugs and kill our youth and other than our youth, too.
Older people are very much affected, so we're not going to let that happen.
Thank you very much.
unidentified
Thank you, President.
On the 30-day ceasefire, Mr. President, Ukraine's already committed to this.
Would Russia commit to this as well, Mr. President?
And we return now to the Wisconsin Supreme Court debate here on C-SPAN.
Twice as many Wisconsin contributors to my campaign as Brad Schimmel was.
I have a broad base of supporters and supporters from every one of Wisconsin's 72 counties.
So I just wanted to correct that.
And he has a very active imagination about this call.
I did not mention that I am speaking, please.
I mentioned that I have never been, I've never taken any position on the congressional maps, and I don't think it's appropriate as a judicial candidate to do so.
Senator John Johnson, but you don't dispute that nearly 50% of your donors don't live in this state.
You know, I have support from all over the country, and it is because Elon Schimmel is trying to buy this race, and people are very upset about that, and they are disturbed about that.
He is spending over $10 million.
That dwarfs the contribution of anybody else in any campaign in Wisconsin history.
People should be very concerned about that.
You both have tried to argue that the millions of dollars that you receive are fine and good, and the millions of dollars your opponent receives are corrupt and equates to selling a seat on the bench.
So why should voters trust or believe either one of you?
Judge Schimmel?
As I said before, I don't control that money.
We're not allowed to coordinate with outside groups.
I haven't solicited that money from them.
They've made this decision on their own to support my campaign, and they've decided what their messaging looks like without any assistance from me.
Judge Halfway, why should voters believe you?
Well, you know, look, Brad Schimmel said that he wanted to be part of Donald Trump's support network.
That's a very partisan statement, and that is exactly why Elon Musk is involved here.
That and the fact that he's got a Tesla lawsuit going in the state of Wisconsin and thinks it might be good to have some influence over the Wisconsin judiciary.
He's also the one who, when he launched his campaign, immediately said that he was going to nationalize this race and go after the conservative billionaire contributors that he had made ties with as a Republican Attorney General.
He was out at the inauguration in Washington, D.C. in January, attending these high-ticket, fancy galas.
And within days of him coming back, all of a sudden, Elon Musk is tweeting about the race, and Brad Schimmel is bragging about being on his knees, wearing out his knee pads, asking for contributions.
Sharon's question, though, how is that any different than the millions you are receiving from Democratic donors across the country?
You know, I have never promised anything, and that is the difference.
Brad Schimmel is saying what his positions are on that 1849 abortion law, which he said is a fine law.
There is nothing wrong with it.
He believes it should be fully enforced and criminalize all abortions in Wisconsin.
He has said how he would decide that Act 10 case that's moving through the courts.
He made us, his campaign issued a press release on that decision a day after a judge ruled that it was unconstitutional.
Not based on anything in that case, but just based on the headlines.
A quick response and we'll move on.
I said about the 1849 law, and my opponent knows this because she has the whole recording, only released a small portion of it to a reporter.
The whole recording makes clear.
I said, was asked, was it a valid law?
And yes, the legislature passed it.
Both houses of the legislature agreed on the final form.
The governor signed it.
That makes it a law.
The question then is, does that reflect the will of the people currently?
And unlike my opponent, I'm ready to respect the will of the voters of Wisconsin on this and all issues.
Senator Ron Johnson has recently said this race is critical to protect laws banning men from participating in women's sports.
Senator Tammy Baldwin is reportedly pushing Democratic colleagues to argue the issue is best left to the states.
Judge Schimmel, can conservative voters count on you to uphold any law that bans men from playing in women's sports?
They can count on me to uphold the laws written by the legislature unless they violate the Constitution.
Absolutely, yes.
Judge Crawford, can liberal voters count on you to reverse any law that bans men from playing in women's sports?
Well, I'm going to agree with Judge Schimmel here.
They can count on me to make a determination about whether such a law is constitutional.
And if it is constitutional, I would uphold it.
A lot of the potential cases all lead to the questions of recusal.
You both have said that you trust yourself to make that decision.
Give me two examples of a case, of any case, that would force you to recuse yourself.
Judge Crawford.
Well, I can give you one that I recently had on the circuit court as a judge.
I opened a case file and was looking at the complaint that was filed by the parties, and I recognized a name in there.
The defendant, and this was a kind of typical personal injury case involving a car accident.
And the person who was alleged to be at fault was somebody I know, somebody I've been friendly with.
And because of that relationship, I felt I could not be fair and impartial in that case.
So I stepped aside and recused myself.
That's the kind of thing I would do in the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
Judge Schimmel, give me an example of a case where you would that would force you to recuse yourself.
Well, I think you asked about on the Supreme Court.
I mean, certainly on the circuit court, I've recused myself.
I know lots of people in Waukesha County and some of them I have close relationships with and some of them end up litigating cases.
Those cases I've recused myself.
In any case where it's a close call, I've alerted the parties that I know someone involved here.
I don't believe it poses a conflict for me, but if anyone's uncomfortable with me here in the case, I would recuse.
On the Supreme Court, if there's a case that comes up that's reviewing a decision I made as a circuit court judge, yeah, I probably shouldn't be deciding if I was right when I decided the case in the circuit court.
Certainly any case that involves any personal financial interest for any member of my family or myself, absolutely the rules are clear.
You have to recuse.
Otherwise, it's that same question that you have to ask jurors.
Can you set your personal opinions and views aside and hear the case?
Why should voters believe that you can police yourself?
The whole reason I got in this race is to try to restore objectivity to the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
Part of what caused me to jump in this race was seeing how a justice candidate promised how to rule on cases and then said they'd consider recusing if that came up on the campaign trail, but then once on the bench wrote a lengthy decision, my opponent made reference to, wrote a lengthy decision explaining how, no, no, I don't have to recuse.
I was talking about my values.
I don't have any problem with this.
I got in this race to end that.
Why should voters believe you can police yourself?
You know, I think that voters have to trust justices under the current rules that we have for recusals.
And I would welcome petitions or proposals to strengthen and improve the recusal rules.
I think they can always be improved.
And I think that's kind of underlying your question is should there be stronger rules?
We've seen with the U.S. Supreme Court what happens when the ethical rules for justices are too weak, when you've got justices who are accepting luxury trips from people who have an interest in the cases or are flying partisan flags outside of their homes.
The people lose faith and lose confidence in the court.
So I would welcome proposals to increase and improve the ethical standards for justices.
But as the rules exist now, the rules require the public to trust the justices.
And, you know, I've always held myself to a very high ethical standard, and I would follow the law of the court.
You've both said tonight you will act independently as justices.
You've said that on the campaign trail.
Judge Crawford, would you have joined and agreed with the court's liberal majority when they threw out the state's legislative maps?
And do you agree with Justice Protecewitz, who once called those maps rigged?
Well, I looked at that decision, and what the court did in that case is review a provision of the state constitution that requires the legislative maps to be contiguous.
They had to interpret that term, and that's what they did.
They actually looked the word up in the dictionary, which judges often do.
And they made a determination that contiguous means basically you have to draw a line, be able to draw a line all the way around the legislative district.
Do you believe those maps were rigged?
That's not the question that was addressed in that case.
The question that was addressed in that case was, did those legislative districts comply with the Constitution?
I think that the Wisconsin Supreme Court was correct in deciding that they didn't comply with the Constitution.
And it's important to note that the outcome of that decision was to send the legislative maps back to the legislature and the governor.
And the legislature and the governor reached a political compromise on new maps, which were then put in place.
It was not the Supreme Court rewriting the maps.
It was the legislature and the governor through the normal political process.
Judge Simmel, some of the court's most recent consequential decisions came after the 2020 election when President Trump challenged the results in Wisconsin.
In one case, he attempted to get 220,000 absentee ballots in Dane and Milwaukee counties thrown out.
Justice Brian Hagedorn joined the court's liberals, justices, in rejecting those lawsuits.
Would you have a rule against President Trump?
If President Trump violates the law or President Trump brings a lawsuit that he's wrong on the law, of course I would.
I don't have any personal loyalty to him that supersedes the oath I take as a judge.
Did you have a question?
Did Justice Hagedorn make the right decision in this?
You've got to tell me which case you're referring to.
220,000 absentee ballots.
Boy, I don't know.
I'd have to review that case.
It is the decision of the court, and that's final.
That's part of what's so important about this race is the decision by for justices in a majority on the Supreme Court.
That ends up being the final word.
The Wisconsin Supreme Court is the final word when it comes to what a Wisconsin statute means or the Wisconsin Constitution means.
So we should be very, these people should pay better attention to these April court races.
If I may just respond to that, Brad Schimmel, in fact, said when he was in front of a private, what he thought was a private audience of his political allies, he said that he believed that the Wisconsin Supreme Court screwed Trump over in 2020 when it rejected his effort to throw out the results of the Wisconsin election in 2020.
He has said that he is part of Donald Trump's support network.
He is partisan.
He is not impartial.
And he says different things in front of a broad audience like this when he knows it's going to be televised than he'll say when he's talking to his political allies.
He is not trustworthy.
A quick response.
No, I'll say the same thing that I said in front of those crowds, and I'll set to this audience right here.
What I said was, in 2020, the Wisconsin Supreme Court, three liberals and one conservative, decided not to hear the challenge from the Green Party.
The Green Party was kept off the ballot by the Wisconsin Elections Commission on what they've, on a technicality in their nomination papers.
They came to the Supreme Court and demanded their right to be on the ballot.
The Supreme Court said, we don't want to hear this case because it's too close to the election.
We could affect the outcome of an election.
I have said that was a mistake.
The court should have heard the case, decided that issue so that we would know whether the Green Party had a right to be on the ballot or not.
That's the challenge I made.
And yes, that did screw up an election because Donald Trump lost by 21,000 votes.
The Green Party typically takes over 30,000 votes.
So the decision not to hear that case did affect the outcome of an election.
We have just a few minutes left, Chair.
I do want to ask about what you both see as the biggest issues or the biggest cases that could come before the Supreme Court in this next term.
Judge Crawford, we'll start with you.
You know, it's really hard to predict that because every term the Wisconsin Supreme Court hears petitions from parties that have had cases moving through the court system.
And if three justices decide that that particular case raises an issue that is of such statewide importance that it should be decided by the Wisconsin Supreme Court, they'll take that case.
I think the important, if I may, the important thing for voters to know is that the cases that come before the Supreme Court can involve a wide array of issues of great importance to Wisconsinites.
They can involve issues of public safety, of fundamental rights, things like whether we have clean drinking water.
And these are really important cases.
And as I said at the outset, they affect the fundamental rights and freedoms of all Wisconsinites.
And that is why Wisconsinites should care and pay attention and vote in these elections.
Judge Schimmel, what do you see as the biggest issue or case that could come before this next Supreme Court?
Unfortunately, since the majority on the court right now is running through a political agenda, what cases get filed and what cases get accepted by the Supreme Court is going to be impacted by who wins the election.
You know, this court in their first term heard only 14 substantive cases.
Normally the Supreme Court hears over 50.
They've been so busy going through a political agenda that they've forgotten that they are supposed to resolve legitimate disputes that help guide Wisconsinites on what the law is.
Real quick, and I apologize if we cut you off here, but we're getting close to the end.
Both of you have political supporters, and that has become a reality of these campaigns.
You've both said you will act independently, which at times could anger your supporters.
Judge Schimmel, give me an example.
As a time, as a judge, you made a decision that angered your supporters.
I don't recall.
I recall people.
I'm sorry, I don't have an example of a case that angered supporters.
I'm sorry.
Judge Crawford, do you have an example?
I have one.
So I had a lawsuit before me in the circuit court in which the current Attorney General was trying to get laws thrown out that were enacted in the lame duck period after Brad Schimmel lost election, re-election as Attorney General and Governor Scott Walker lost re-election as Attorney General.
Between them and then and their leaving office, they enacted laws that stripped the Attorney General of many of the Attorney General's powers and authority.
And a lawsuit was brought into my court that challenged several of those changes.
And I rejected most of them.
I did issue a narrow ruling that found that a part of those changes were unconstitutional, but the rest of them I threw out.
Two quick rapid-fire questions.
The first one or two words that come to your mind, Judge Schimmel, what U.S. Supreme Court justice, current or former, would you like to have dinner with?
Antonin Scalia would, as I've heard, is a fascinating dinner campaign.
Judge Crawford.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Judge Crawford, what current justice on the Wisconsin Supreme Court would you most resemble as a justice?
I would like to believe that I would most resemble Justice Anne Walsh Bradley, whose seat I'm running for.
And Judge Schimmel?
Oh my goodness.
We're all human beings.
We all have good character traits and we all have weaknesses.
I don't hero worship anything like that.
It is now time for our closing statements.
We flipped a coin to determine the order.
We will begin with Judge Crawford.
All right.
Well, thank you.
I want to thank you for the opportunity here tonight and thank you for everyone who's been listening.
This election presents a really critical choice for voters.
Do they want to have a common sense judge, someone who's going to be fair, independent, and impartial, or do they want someone who has a history of being an extreme politician?
Throughout my career, I have always worked to protect the rights of Wisconsinites and protect the safety of our communities.
And that's based on the values that I learned growing up in Chippewa Falls.
Things like honesty, hard work, and fairness.
And that's what kind of justice I'll be on the Supreme Court.
By contrast, my opponent, Brad Schimmel, has always been about politics, partisanship, and special interests.
He's the one who failed to get those sexual assault kits tested, who attacked the rights of women to get health care, and supports now an 1849 abortion law and is trying to sell the seat on the court to the highest bidder.
I'm going to ask you for your vote, and thank you so much for your attention.
Judge Schimmel.
Well, thank you to you two moderating this and to all the viewers who have tuned in for this.
I've been a public servant for 35 years.
My only client for those 35 years has been the people of Wisconsin.
I didn't plan to run for Wisconsin Supreme Court, but after I watched what happened in 2023, when the court threw away objectivity and began going through a political agenda, I resolved to get in this race.
And I got in over 15 months ago.
I have campaigned in all 72 counties of this state, and I'm proud to say that I have the endorsement of over three-quarters of the elected sheriffs in Wisconsin.
That includes a number of Democrat-elected sheriffs who are publicly endorsing my campaign because they've seen behind the scenes what I do to take care of public safety and to take care of the people I serve.
I've gotten it.
I got into this race to restore objectivity to this court.
That's my solemn commitment to the voters of Wisconsin, and I'd be honored to have your vote on April 1st.
Thank you.
We made it.
Our sincere thanks to both of our candidates this evening for being here tonight and to all of our guests here at the Marquette University Law School, including the seven current justices on the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
If you missed any part of this debate, it will be available on the 12 News app and streaming on Very Local.
We will have full post-debate analysis Sunday on up front.
Early voting begins in just six days on Tuesday and Election Day, less than three weeks away from right now, April 1st, Tuesday, April 1st, Election Day.
Thank you all for spending part of your evening with us.
Have a great night.
This week, tune in for C-SPAN's New Members of Congress series, where we talk to both Republicans and Democrats about their early lives, their previous careers, their families, and why they decided to run for office.
Watch New Members of Congress all week beginning at 9.30 p.m. Eastern on C-SPAN.
Here's a preview.
april mcclain delaney ▲ ● ▼
You know what?
I think we have to be really radical and, like, you know, and be centrist, right?
I mean, it's radical being a centrist right now, right, because of our polarization.
Where does it fit?
I think we have to fit.
We have to have this new middle ground, because if we don't, we're going to kind of unravel as a country.
But where does it, what does it mean?
unidentified
I think it means that you have to meet people where they are.
april mcclain delaney ▲ ● ▼
And you know what?
I am, I am, I did really well in my district, even though it's a very purple district.
I always say it's very blue and very red with very little purple in my district.
There's not a lot of purple people in my district.
But I am nice to everyone.
I listen to them.
I really approach ways in which you can find issues that drive you together.
And I think that if we listened more and didn't quite go to the political jargon on the left or the right, and we really focused on some of the biggest issues, because most members of Congress actually want to get things done.
jeff crank ▲ ● ▼
You know, I had a friend who listened to a radio show in Colorado Springs, and he didn't like the person that they had fill in when he was gone.
So he literally picked up the phone and he called him, he called the host, and he said, you should have somebody else other than that guy.
And the host says, well, who would you like me to have?
And without asking me, my friend said, well, my friend Jeff will do it.
And I literally got a call from that host and he said, I hear you would host my radio show.
I said, yes.
I was full of bravado.
thought it can't be that hard, right?
And so I said, yes, I'd be happy to do it.
When would you like me to do it?
And he says, how about tomorrow?
I said, sounds great.
I said, what do you want me to talk about?
And he said, I don't care, whatever you want.
So I literally, thank goodness I wasn't so full of bravado that I didn't at least do some show prep.
But went in the next day, did it.
It was an audience of about 60,000 people.
Got through it.
I think I was terrible.
I don't know why they kept asking me back, but they asked me back and asked me back, and then I got my own show.
unidentified
It's the same story as millions and millions of other Americans have had.
Somewhere in your family tree, probably you've had the same story, but my parents came over in 1971 for their graduate studies.
They decided to stay here.
They had me and my younger brother Andrew.
We were raised in California.
And, you know, my brother's a Stanford educated doctor.
I'm a Harvard educated lawyer.
Obviously, we embody the American dream.
And I'm up here fighting to try to make sure those same values and opportunities exist for the next generation.
speaker 45112 ▲ ● ▼
Were politics part of the conversation growing up?
unidentified
So I grew up Republican.
My dad's still, I think he voted for Trump the first time, not the second time.
So, you know, a bit of a mixed household.
But, you know, I honestly did not think I'd be a politician.
I went to law school.
I worked in the executive branch.
I did policy work up here in Washington before becoming a law professor.
And we were raising our three young kids.
I had seen up close, I'd worked for Chuck Schumer up here, that they spent a lot of time raising money.
And I did not want to do that.
I was terrible at selling magazines as a kid.
I was a little shy.
And so never thought I'd be in politics, but the motivation for me after Donald Trump got elected the first time in 2016, you know, I think a lot of the values I believe in that this country represents are at stake right now and the stakes today at this second term could not be higher.
Really importantly, my first job is as a mother, so I've raised two amazing children and really grateful for all the things that they've taught me over time.
But I've been a pulmonary and critical care physician for 24 years, so, or I've been a physician for 24 years, pulmonary and critical care since 2008.
So had an opportunity to take care of people in Oregon's third congressional district since 2008 and couldn't be more grateful for the things that they've taught me.
It's really having people's stories that have influenced my decision to go into public service.
The fact that they were making impossible decisions about whether they were going to get the medications that I was prescribing or whether the critical care visit that I, or hospital stay that I took care of them during, was going to bankrupt them.
You know, we have enormous challenges in our community and what being a deaf doctor really showed me is as much as I could do to help them.
What was really a shortcoming was how our community wasn't able to support them in the way that they needed.
This week, C-SPAN continues our new members of Congress series, where we speak with Republicans and Democrats about their early lives, previous careers, families, and why they ran for office.
Tonight, at 9.30 p.m. Eastern, our interviews include Arizona Democrat Yasemin Ansari, the Democratic freshman class president.
I am the proud daughter of two Iranian immigrants.
So my parents came here in the 70s.
My dad came to go study civil engineering at the University of Oregon, always with the intention of going back home.
My mom has a little bit different of a story.
When the revolution hit Iran in 1979, they had grown up in a monarchy in Iran, but with more freedoms.
A theocratic regime, the Islamic Republic, took over and my mom's family was at risk.
Her father was imprisoned for supporting the prior government and being anti-the new regime.
And so she fled Iran by herself and was able to come to the United States.
Watch new members of Congress.
All this week, starting at 9.30 p.m. Eastern on C-SPAN.
And on Friday, starting at 8 a.m. Eastern, join us on C-SPAN 2 for a special 24-hour marathon, featuring more than 60 of our exclusive interviews with the newest members of the 119th Congress.
Tonight, we'll bring you NASA TV's live coverage as the SpaceX Crew 9 departs the International Space Station with astronauts Barry Butch Wilmore and Sonny Williams, who've been aboard the space station since June after their Boeing Starliner spacecraft was determined unable to fly them back to Earth.
You can see the crew enter their return vessel, followed by the undocking, all beginning tonight at 10.45 Eastern.
We'll also cover the landing on Tuesday evening at about 6 p.m.
Live coverage on C-SPAN, streaming live on the free C-SPAN Now video app and online at c-span.org.
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