Right now on Upfront full steam ahead. The people's house is back in business. In extreme right wing ideologue, a new House speaker. 19 days until a government shutdown. Aid to Israel and Ukraine on the brink. Proposed censures and expulsions in the House. How far are lawmakers willing to go? The funding for Ukraine is more controversial, particularly in the House. Our guest this Sunday, Republican US Senator Ron Johnson. Democratic Congressman Mark Pocan, Justice Congressman Dean Phillips launches a bid challenging President Biden. I've been trying to encourage the president to pass the torch. Brewers critical innings. There are a lot of private businesses that would love to get a couple hundred million dollars from the state. A public hearing in the state senate democrat votes needed. So are they on board? State Senator Calderon is bringing us inside. And cancer prevention, please. This is literally a matter of life and death. The bipartisan legislation working behind the scenes to expand access to breast cancer screenings. State Senator Rachel Cabral Guevara on the holdup and what's next? This is Upfront with Gerron Jordan and political director Matt Smith. Hi, everyone. Thanks for joining us. A big to do list ahead this week for Congress. Some House members proposing censures and expulsion. A Democratic congressman taking on President Biden. All this 19 days until another potential government shutdown, aid to Israel and Ukraine on the brink. A crisis at the southern border. And newly elected House Speaker Mike Johnson taking the helm. We begin with Republican US Senator Ron Johnson from Wisconsin. Senator, welcome back to the show. Good to see you. Thanks for having me on. Let's begin with some of the issues that led to the ousting of Kevin McCarthy. We're now some 19 days away from another government shutdown in the new House. Speaker Mike Johnson is pitching another potential stopgap through January or April. Would you be open to that idea at this point? Well, I've actually been proposing that myself just this week in the Senate, we voted on the bill that I passed through my committee a number of years ago preventing government shutdown act every Republican senator voted except one that individual wanted not just level spending. He wanted to cut spending. But most Democrats voted against it, including Senator Tammy Baldwin. So apparently she's she she likes to shut down showdowns as she realizes the press always takes the side of the Democrats and she's happy to to play, you know, that kind of risky game with our economy. Unfortunate that that didn't pass the Senate. So we've got the continuing resolution that's going to expire right before Thanksgiving. So what I've been proposing is do a longer continuing resolution into April. If we complete all of our work by then, it'll give us, first of all, the ability to give greater scrutiny to all these appropriations bills, the 1% sequester will not kick in. And then since we're already in that process of bringing up debating and passing appropriation bills, we can start right away. In May 1st and start the appropriation process for fiscal year 2025 and hopefully complete it before fiscal year 2025 begins. Let's talk about Israel and Ukraine. Senator, appropriate is holding a hearing on Tuesday on the president's $106 billion package. You want these to separated? Is there a scenario, though, at this point where you would vote for aid to Israel and Ukraine in the same package? Well, first of all, in business and the private sector, the way you accomplish things by focusing on areas of agreement, you know, one thing that has broad bipartisan and strong agreement is supporting our friend and ally, Israel. They're going to need the support. And whether you agree or disagree, aid to Ukraine is more controversial. I think a lot of people point out the fact that the Democrats, President Biden, are more concerned about Ukrainians border than our own. So there will be a a significant effort to attach real border security to any aid for Ukraine. That's going to take more time there will be more controversial. It shouldn't be, but it will be. So let's separate out that controversial effort from what the vast majority of people agree with. We need to support Israel again. I think the House speaker has now indicated that he would like to pass just a aid package for Israel alone if the House does that, I think it'll put a great deal of pressure on Senate Democrats to do the same thing. What about Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, though? He's siding with the White House at this point? I mean, could this lead to a political standoff and potentially no funding for Israel? I don't think so, because is in conference. I think the majority of Republicans would deny cloture on the entire package. Let's face it, there's like $14 billion not for border security, but literally to process and disperse more illegal immigrants faster. That's the Biden administration's way of addressing the border, which is why our border is completely open. We've had close to 6 million people come to this country illegally. Ve What if this aid package is attached to the continuing resolution? Well, again, I don't think that's going to pass. So you have to do what's realistic. You know, acknowledge the reality situation. The House has a new speaker. I think the Senate ought to take him up on his offer. And let's start passing these appropriations bills. Looking ahead to 2024, we're seeing Dean Phillips get in on the Democratic side this weekend. We've seen several plea deals in the indictment surrounding former President Trump in Georgia, including Kenneth Chesbro. Prosecutors accused him of conspiring to create a slate of false electors in states like Wisconsin. I'm curious from your mind, what is this plea? What do these please say about the president's attempts in 2020 and his outlook ahead of 2024? Again, I'm not an attorney. I'm really not following those cases very carefully. What I have read about the plea agreements that really has doesn't really bear much on what the president's case is one way or the other. So I think their plea agreements to misdemeanors, not not really acknowledging the whole Rico charge with which I think is pretty well trumped up, but again, I really can't comment on it beyond that, is there any scenario where Trump isn't the nominee coming out of Milwaukee next summer? Well, right now, according to polls, he's certainly got a strong lead. You just ran a statewide campaign recently. How does he win Wisconsin? Well, the way we have to win with Ensign is a strong, strong ground game focus on the grassroots base, go out and convince everybody that will vote conservatively. They will vote for Republicans to do so. How concerned are you that no Republican has entered the race against Senator Baldwin yet at this point? Well, there are a number that are taking a look at it. Remember, I didn't announce my first run against Feingold until May of 2010, and that seemed to work out well. So that work out well. So I think there's plenty of time. All right. A lot happening in Congress. Senator Ron Johnson, like always, we appreciate your time and perspective. Have a good day. Democratic Congressman Mark Pocan is here now. Congressman, thanks so much for being with us. Sure. Thanks for having me. Of course. So what happens in the House between now and November 17th, which we know is the deadline to avoid a government shutdown? Well, what should happen is we would get back to business. What is going to happen is perhaps multiple censure and expulsion resolutions. The very first day we come back next week and they're going to continue this process that I call fantasy Congress because it's not real, of marking up appropriation bills that don't match the agreement that Democrats and Republicans in both houses made back when we lifted the debt ceiling. So because of it, it's going to be a lot of busy work ultimately leading up to the continuing resolution running out the new speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, has already proposed a stopgap resolution to fund the government through early next year. Would you support that? Oh, yeah. If it's a clean CR. I mean, everyone would support that, I believe. I don't think you'd have any dissenters, at least normal people to do that because we know we need more time. We just lost the last three weeks with the chaos in the Republican caucus on those censure resolutions that are right now in the House. We know there's also an expulsion motion before the House as well. One of the censure resolutions is brought by Marjorie Taylor Greene against Representative Rashida Talib for in response to her comments on the Israel Hamas war. Of course, we know that Representative Talib accused Israel of bombing the hospital in Gaza, which killed more than 500 people. Even after US intelligence said otherwise. Do you think that those comments were reckless? So I think Marjorie Taylor Greene's resolution is unbelievably poorly written. I'm quite sure Marjorie herself wrote this probably with a crayon on the first draft. It is so ridiculous and over the top that I haven't seen something like that actually come before Congress, before that amateurish if they actually allow it. This will be the first relatively big Nick, I think in the new speaker's, you know, case because it is done so poorly. A number of colleges and universities are coming fire. In recent weeks, including George Washington. Just this past week for not strongly condemning anti- Israel messages and protests. How do you think that colleges and universities should be responding? Yeah, well, I mean, you know, I think it's important as an elected official, I'm going to call out a group like Hamas, which is a terrorist organization that led our horrific attack against Israel. But I'm also going to call out the Israeli government, who I think right now is doing collective punishment of people in Gaza. Again, 2.2 million people who are not Hamas but happen to live there. In fact, I would say they're brutalized by the Gazan people, the leadership who don't even live in Gaza. By the way, Hamas leadership lives outside of that area. But think it's fair to call out both. I don't want to see kids die anywhere in Gaza or Israel. And I think that's the most important thing. So I think if people say that that should be free speech, but I think when they go too far, you know, Hamas is a terrorist organization. Those attacks were brutal and horrific. And I think it would be very hard for anyone to honestly make a case on behalf of Hamas. Yeah, Speaker Johnson has come under fire in the past couple of days for some of his stances as previously on Lgbtq+ issues as an openly gay member of Congress and chair of the Equality Caucus, do you have any concerns? Yeah, he's an extremist. I mean, there's a reason they call him MAGA. Mike, and that's from his friends. We're not giving him a title. He's proud to be an extreme MAGA member of Congress. And when you look at his track record, he introduced the Don't Say gay bill that's been in some states at the federal level. He is one of the most homophobic members in all of Congress. And if you've got someone who has really probably in the top 5% of extremist views in all of Congress on this area, that could bode to some really ugly legislation hitting the floor. A lot of work ahead for Congress there in the House of Representatives. Representative Mark Pocan, thank you so much for your time today. We appreciate it. Thank you so much for having me. Up next, Brewers hunting critical innings. Another public hearing on the high stakes funding bill. Senate Republicans acknowledge that they'