CLAY: We are pleased to be joined by Senator Ron Johnson from the great state of Wisconsin. You’ve got a big election battle coming up in a little bit less than four months. And, Senator, appreciate you making the time with us. I wanted to start with this one. I’ve been following this story of whether, through the reconciliation bill, the Biden administration’s gonna be able to pass potentially a tax increase and spend hundreds of billions of dollars more, right before they get whipped in the House and hopefully in the Senate as well. What, if anything, do you know about the timeline there? And are Republicans going to be able to basically run out the clock and keep Joe Biden from making any worse decisions than he’s already made?

SEN. JOHNSON: Well, first of all, I have to congratulate Buck. That’s great news.

BUCK: Thank you, sir.

CLAY: For those who don’t know — thank you, Senator — Buck is now engaged. He is soon to be a married man.

BUCK: I’m a fiance for the first time. Very exciting.

SEN. JOHNSON: That’s great. But in terms of what the Democrats might do — first of all, understand how insane it is, in terms of what they’re proposing. We’ve already — we’re at 8.6% inflation, a 40-year high. They realize how damaging that is. I mean, in Wisconsin, of the top 10 issues, those are all top 10. You know, high inflation, high gasoline prices. That’s it. And so what is their solution? More spending.

Now, apparently some of them want to increase taxes as well, and I guess they — in their minds, they think, well, if it’s paid for, it’s not gonna be inflationary. No. You know, I’m not the only business guy that viewed taxes as a cost, right? So, you know, if you increase people’s taxes, a businessperson’s tax, they’ll increase their costs. That will also drive up inflation. So, it’s insane what they are doing when you consider the state of our economy right now. Now, I don’t think we’ve got the — I haven’t seen the second quarter GDP, but there were predictions that might be negative, which would be the definition of a recession. If it isn’t the true definition, it’s gonna be close. 40-year high inflation.

This is not the time to be increasing taxes or incur massive amounts of additional government spending that — let’s face it — what they’ll do with that spending is they’ll spend it on programs that will make it possible for people to stay out of the workforce, which exacerbates the inflationary problem ’cause now we have even fewer goods being produced ’cause in Wisconsin, for example, manufacturers can’t hire enough people. So, this is insane they’re even talking about it. And let’s just hope — ’cause I think Kyrsten Sinema’s always been on the record saying she doesn’t want a tax increase so maybe she’ll hold out even if Joe Manchin wants to increase taxes.

BUCK: Speaking to Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin. And, Senator, I get to in the background have CNN on here as I’m doing the show every day and so I get exposed to a whole lot of the fixation on the Jan 6 hearing that is ongoing. What are the Senate Democrats at this point trying to accomplish — I’m sorry — well, the congressional Democrats, I should say — what are they trying to accomplish with this? What is the point of all of this, and how much longer do you think this charade is gonna go on of the Democrat Jan 6 show trials?

SEN. JOHNSON: Oh, I view this as just a massive diversionary operation, which is what I think the Russian hoax was. A diversionary operation to take people’s eyes off of what wrongdoing occurred. Whether it’s with John Brennan or Andrew McCabe or James Comey or any of those corrupt individuals in our federal law enforcement during the last part of the Obama administration. So again, this is just a diversionary operation. They can’t defend their record. You know, Joe Biden promised to fundamentally transform America. We’re seeing what it looks like now. Open borders, flood of illegal immigrants, deadly drugs, 40-year high inflation, record gasoline prices, rising crime.

This is America in the year 2022 and we don’t have enough baby formula because of government? They can’t defend their record — and, by the way, none of those things just happened. Those are all caused by Democrat policies, Democrat governance. So, all they’ve got is January 6th. And again, I always thought it was amazing how within seconds of what we all condemn, by the way, the violence, they came up with this phrase that there were thousands of armed insurrectionists when there weren’t. I mean, I’m sorry. That was not an insurrection.

Violence, we condemned it, no doubt about it. But when you look at video of people inside the Capitol staying within the rope lines, that’s not what armed insurrectionists do. I would think they’d actually have firearms and maybe be using them and maybe like crouching behind some of the statues. Again, this is what the Democrats have done. They seized upon January 6th to, first of all, divert attention away from the hundreds of riots that caused $2 billion worth of damage, 2,000 law enforcement injured, you know, couple dozen people killed during the summer riots. But don’t worry those, including in Kenosha which, you know, so many businesses burned to the ground in Kenosha.

I didn’t see any fires on January 6th. As a matter of fact, I didn’t see any firearms in the Capitol either ’cause I asked the FBI witness in one of our hearings said how many firearms were confiscated? Zero is what she testified to. So again, this is a massive diversionary operation. That’s all it is. They want to make sure that Donald Trump is banned from politics for life, and they also want to paint everybody that’s voted for Trump as a potential domestic terrorist. And of course, Merrick Garland is going right along with it. I mean, it is grotesque, the unequal administration of justice here. You take a look at how they are handling the January 6th defendants versus the kid-glove treatment for the summer rioters, there’s no comparison.

CLAY: Yeah. I don’t — I’m glad you brought that up. And, by the way, I want to encourage everybody listening right now, we’re number one in Milwaukee. We appreciate everybody listening in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. We’ve got a big audience all over the state. But a lot of other people from other states as well. I would encourage you to go to RonJohnsonforSenate.com because Senator Johnson is going to have a major battle on his hands this November to get reelected to the Senate. And we’re certainly doing everything that we can on this show to make that happen. Senator, you just mentioned, we talked I believe it was on Friday with Julie Kelly. I’ve donated money, we got 80 people, according to her, that are still imprisoned have been have not been allowed out after the January 6th riots. How outlandish is that when you compare the way that we have treated so many other actual hardened criminals all over this country, that those people are still locked up, many of them in solitary confinement and, frankly, a lot of them without adequate legal representation?

SEN. JOHNSON: I think it’s grotesque. I mean, it’s obscene. By the way, I listened to your interview with Julie. She’s one of the few journalists that are focusing on this. You know, I wrote a letter to Merrick Garland just asking him, you know, compare and contrast, how did you deal with the summer rioters versus how you’re handling January 6th? And again, there’s no comparison. So, I guess I’ve been hopeful that their attorneys would be defending them, but I don’t think so many of them just have public defenders who seem to be trying to reeducate them, by reports.

You’d hope that some judges would intervene here and say this is a grotesque miscarriage of justice. Now, again, I condemn the violence. I want to see anybody that committed acts of violence to be prosecuted full extent of the law. But what happened to speedy trial? These people have been languishing and they don’t even have court dates set. No, it is a travesty of justice at this point in time in terms of how these defendants are being held. Again, I’m not defending the violence whatsoever, but we do have a judicial process. It’s supposed to be equal justice. And of course, we know it’s not. Take a look at the kid-glove treatment for Hunter Biden.

BUCK: Speaking to Senator Ron Johnson. Senator, very important that you win your reelection to all of us who are audience; so where can folks go to your website to get involved to help out?

SEN. JOHNSON: That is Ron Johnson for Senate. Also, with all the lies and distortions, I also have WisFacts.com. I write rebuttals to all the lies and distortions. I don’t have an opponent. They’ve already spent $41.4 million smearing me. But I have the worst opponent. I’ve got the media. So, if you want to know the truth go to with us WisFacts.com. If you want to help me out, it’s RonJohnsonforSenate.com.

CLAY: Awesome, Senator. We appreciate it. We’ll do everything we can throughout the course of the rest of the summer and the fall to make sure you’re back up there continuing to represent Wisconsin.

SEN. JOHNSON: You gotta come to Milwaukee. I’d love to host you.

BUCK: We’re coming.

CLAY: We’re coming to Milwaukee. We’re gonna pick a date. We will be there and we’ll have an event and it will be a lot of fun. That’s Senator Ron Johnson. Go check out his website. Go support him as best you can because we need him back in D.C. for years and years to come.