CLAY: We’re talking about the importance of the midterm elections — and everybody out there listening in the great state of Wisconsin, we need you to go vote for Senator Ron Johnson — and, Senator, I meant to ask you this the last time you were on but I can barely keep up with it. We’ve been number one in Milwaukee. We appreciate everybody listening in Milwaukee right now. Are kids in Milwaukee, Senator, still being required to wear masks? I know it’s been bouncing back and forth quite a bit, but I think that a lot of them still are. Do you know the latest details there?

SEN. JOHNSON: Yeah, I know they suspended for a couple days then they slapped right back on. I’m not sure they’ve taken ‘em back off again.

CLAY: How crazy is that! There’s a lot of suburban moms out there that are making decisions about who they’re gonna vote for, and when you’re sending your kid into a public school and they’re still wearing a mask over two years after covid arrived in America, what do you think about that? You look at the data. You look at the science. How infuriating is that?

SEN. JOHNSON: Well, first of all, the science for masks in general is not particularly good unless N95 is changed out frequently. But there’s one group of people we always knew masking would never work with and that’s children. You ever seen kids wear masks? You know, a party hat on your chin? It was never gonna work with children.

It’s not working now. So it’s insane. But it’s all part of what the left is doing here. They will never admit they were wrong. And so one of the ways they make sure they not proven wrong is they just keep doing the same thing. It’s one of their mechanisms to keep us all in a state of fear — which is what they do whether it’s climate change, whether it’s the pandemic — so they can control our lives.

BUCK: Speculation to Senator Ron Johnson. Senator, it’s Buck. You know, I saw the interaction, the back-and-forth you had with the chief of DHS, Alejandro Mayorkas on whether or not this is a border crisis. I want to remind everybody in case they didn’t hear it or see it. Here’s how that went.

BUCK: Yeah, I’ve got questions I want to ask him, too, Senator. But everyone that I know at the border, on Border Patrol and who’s covering it and who’s been down there recently says the same thing. The border is the most lawless and the biggest problem it has ever been, but Mayorkas doesn’t seem to think so.

SEN. JOHNSON: No. A challenge… For me, running five miles would be a challenge. You know, a problem is something else, and they not admit they have a problem. They certainly will not admit they caused the problem. And, you know, the 800-pound gorilla in the room is what the Democrats want, they want legislation, they want to address asylum problem.

But they view asylum problem is asylum standard’s too strict. And of course the real problem is the asylum standard is pretty strict, but we let people in under a much lower standard called “credible fear.” All you have to say is, “I’m afraid to go back to my home country,” well, okay, come on in then and we’ll adjudicate your claim and in — I don’t know — five or six years.

You’ll probably have a couple U.S. citizen children by then so we just created this enormous incentive, this enormous pull factor and all Democrats want to talk about is the push factor, you know, the crime, the drugs, all the type thing in Central America and they completely deny that the primary issue here is the pull factor, and they will not admit that Trump pretty well had the problem solved.

You know, we pretty well stopped the flow of unaccompanied children, family units exploiting our asylum laws, we were building the fence. So I put up my graph. It’s a graphic. I mean, it just shows Trump had solved the problem. And then the minute the Democrats were running for president they said they were going to stop deportations and give everybody health care, single adult apprehensions started growing, and then once Biden took office, the problem just exploded. It’s obvious, but they will not admit the obvious. They literally are living in an alternate reality.

CLAY: Senator Johnson, obviously a lot of discussion about the leak of a proposed opinion from Justice Alito overturning Roe v. Wade. What should happen in your mind if — if — we are able to uncover who leaked this opinion from the Supreme Court?

SEN. JOHNSON: Obviously the person needs to be fired and disbarred. Clearly a disgrace. The damage done to our Supreme Court is hard to overstate. But, you know, from my standpoint, I read the entire decision. I’m not an attorney myself, but it was very easy to read. I thought it was very detailed, covered all the points, showed exactly why Roe and Casey were so poorly decided.

This is a really good decision. This is what should have happened 50 years ago. We should have allowed the people to decide, through the democratic process, at what point do you protect life? As Alito writes, it’s “a profound moral issue” and it’s so profound, nine unelected judges should not make that decision for all of society. Not one individual should. We all ought to collectively come to a decision on a state-by-state basis initially — it might be kind of a messy process, but we’re not going back 50 years. I have faith in the American public to sort this out through the democratic process over the next couple years.

CLAY: Senator Tim Ryan who is trying to claim — would-be congressman right now, Tim Ryan, who’s running in Ohio said on Fox News with Bret Baier, we played this clip earlier — that he believed abortion should be able to occur in the ninth month of pregnancy. That is an unbelievable radical evolution and exaggeration in terms of what Democrats believe on abortion. How commonplace do you think that idea is among Democrats based on your experience in the U.S. Senate now that nine-month abortion should be legal?

SEN. JOHNSON: Well, in terms of Democrat elected officials it’s probably pretty common, unfortunately. But I think the general public, if given the information, if they can just see what a, you know, nine-month — everybody knows what a nine-month-old baby looks like. It’s a baby, okay? But even 20 week old or 15-week old that can respond to the father’s voice outside the womb because they can, you know, just watch the heart rate go up when he talks.

Again, if people are given the information, the reality of what’s happening, you know, from my standpoint I think people collectively will decide to protect life at a pretty early stage. I can’t say exactly when that would be. I could make a decision myself in terms of where I think. But, again, this would be a collective decision, and that’s the appropriate way to approach this.

BUCK: Speaking to Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin. Senator, you’re in a very important state — in general, of course, we love Wisconsin, but — in terms of the midterms it’s a state Wisconsin hopefully will go with the GOP overall in the midterms and your race particularly is also quite important. What are the independents…? You know, you’re in a swing state. What are the independents that you’re hearing from saying and I just want to get a sense of essentially using your state as a bellwether for how we’re looking at this point going into the midterms. What can you tell us?

SEN. JOHNSON: Well, they’re concerned about the main economic issues. I mean, inflation, record gasoline prices. Rising crime is certainly a concern. And you want to think… You know, we are a border state with the Canadian border but that’s not a real big problem. But they’re highly concerned about our completely out of control southern border. So those are the issues they’re concerned about.

When it comes to the abortion issue, it’s pretty well 50-50. If you’re Republican, you’re pro-life. If you’re Democrat, you’re pro-choice, and it’s just never really come up. It will come up, I’m sure, in this election. But I think we’ll sort things out. But it really is, is the fact that their wage gains have been wiped out by out-of-control deficit spending.

Gasoline prices are at record levels because of the Democrats’ war on fossil fuel. You know, it’s my job to point out that all these awful things that are occurring in our economy didn’t just happen, they are the direct result of Democrat policies and Democrat governance. This is what Democrat policies are designed to result in, and people need to understand that.

BUCK: Senator Ron Johnson, sir, thank you so much for joining us and we’ll talk to you again soon.

SEN. JOHNSON: Stay well.