Sen. Ron Johnson Reacts to the Fed Rate Hike and More

CLAY: The Fed has officially instituted a three quarter-point interest rate hike .75% increase on the Fed funds lending rate. That is the biggest increase on one particular decision going all the way back to 1994. So that news breaking. Your cost to borrow — because of the skyrocketing inflation rate and the Joe Biden administration — is also skyrocketing. If you’re curious, “Okay, well, how are the markets reacting to that?” the Dow is up about 150 points, down a little bit on that announcement, now up — as it just refreshed — 50 points.

So this was the expected outcome after inflation hit 8.6%, but officially biggest rate hike since 1994. We have now with us Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson, and I’ll start with you right there ’cause I’m sure you’re hearing it all over the state of Wisconsin as we have now hit an 8.6% interest rate, the highest in over 40 years. What are your constituents telling you, Senator, and what do you think that news just breaking about the three quarter-point interest rate hike there?

SEN. JOHNSON: Well, Wisconsinites don’t like it. That is for sure. Every time they fill up at the pump, the gas price literally has been going higher I think every time. Now it’s over five bucks a gallon nationally. The 75 basis point rate hike by the Fed, who knows what that’s gonna do? It’s obviously gonna drive up borrowing costs. The problem is you’ve already got the $6 trillion of deficit spending out there. You can’t recall that. You’ve got Biden’s war on fossil fuel. They canceled the Keystone XL pipeline. That’s not gonna get constructed.

He’s got all these radical leftists in his agencies that are trying to starve the oil and gas industry of capital. So you’ve got the war on fossil fuels, record gas prices, high energy prices, all these printed dollars and they’re casing too few goods. A lot of these dollars have been spent making it possible for people to sit on the sidelines and not reenter the workforce, which is driving up wages and also reducing the amount of products that can be produced because you don’t have works.

So put this in perspective. You hear 8.6%, but that’s costing families over $5,000 per year, or another way of looking at it is the dollar that you owned at the start of the Biden administration is now worth less than 90 cents. That’s what the Biden administration has done. It didn’t just happen. This is the direct result of radical left policies by supposedly moderate Joe Biden and his henchmen enabling in the United States Congress.

BUCK: We’re speaking to Senator Ron Johnson. Senator, it’s Buck. I just want to know… I hate to be the one that is asking this but I think we got to. Is it just gonna get worse between now and Election Day? Because what I see here is producer price inflation which got a lot less attention last couple of days is way up. Food costs are already high, gas prices already at the all-time high. But I’m hearing people say that the hamburger meat, the loaf of bread, the milk you’re buying at the store, your electricity bill, your heating bill, all that is also gonna be going up. Do you think that’s where this is all heading to or is that too negative?

SEN. JOHNSON: (chuckles) I’m not much of an optimist, especially short term with Democrats still in power. But they’re not backing off their green energy plans. They’re not backing off their war on fossil fuel. You’re not gonna the get oil and gas production increasing dramatically if at all here in the U.S. They’re not backing off deficit spending. Even if you don’t pass another Build Back Better or more covid relief, you’re still running a deficit of more than a trillion dollars per year. That’s gonna be inflationary. These programs aren’t —

BUCK: Senator can I just ask, the Biden White House is saying that they’re demanding now that the oil company boost supply. What, are they sending them a strongly worded letter? What does that mean?

SEN. JOHNSON: I don’t know. It means that they’re trying to shift the blame. They’re trying to scapegoat. But I don’t think the American people are gonna ignore the fact that these are their policies. This is what they want to do! That’s what a war on fossil fuel is all about: You drive up the cost of gasoline so people are forced to switch into electric vehicles. You drive up the cost of energy to force to make wind and solar, I guess, more competitive. They don’t like fools. They want to end it. Biden talked about ending the drilling for fossil fuel during his campaign. He meant it! I don’t know why we don’t take these people at their word, but now we’re seeing the disastrous results of their “fundamental transformation” of this country.

CLAY: One of the wildest arguments that they’re making now is — and I don’t even know if you’ve seen this yet, Senator Johnson, but — they’re trotting out people to say the reason inflation is where it is is because Build Back Better was blocked and did not become the law. In other words, that $5 trillion plus in spending didn’t become a reality. I know you hear a lot of bad arguments (chuckles) as a politician these days. Where does that one rank on the reason why inflation is this bad is because Joe Biden didn’t get what he wanted?

SEN. JOHNSON: It’s right up there. It kind of tops the list. But listen, they’re blaming me for inflation. I’m a guy that started voting against these covid relief bills after the CARES Act, ’cause I was concerned about the inflationary impact of it, and I didn’t like the lack of control over the spending. So they’re blaming me as well. But no, I mean here’s the complicity of the media. When they float that excuse and say, ”Well, what we really need to do is more deficit spending, the media, many of them back them up!” You were talking about Joe Scarborough earlier.

CLAY: Yeah.

SEN. JOHNSON: What a craven opportunist that guy is. So, no, I mean, that is one of the worst excuses — among many, though. It’s kind of hard to pick out which is the biggest whopper.

BUCK: Look at the situation, Senator Johnson, if you would for a second at the border and the lessons that you think might be taking at the congressional special election win of Myra Flores down in that district —

CLAY: Texas 34.

BUCK: — Texas 34, right along the border. Do you think that the Democrats’ plan of ignoring the wide-open border and pretending that they aren’t effectively encouraging more illegal immigration, more of the flow of fentanyl from the drug cartels, et cetera, across the border is gonna really cost Democrats despite all their efforts to pretend it’s not a big deal?

SEN. JOHNSON: Well, I think it will cost them. They need to swept from power. I think most Americans realize a completely open border, that level of flow of illegal immigration is really not good for anybody. It’s not the way you want to enter this country. This is the lands of unlimited opportunity, but you want to come in legally. It’s illegal immigrants that get take advantage of by human traffickers. They sell children for 84 bucks. How do you think the young women pay off their human traffickers?

The drug trafficking? What is 107,000 overdose deaths, most of those are fentanyl now. They manufacture fake pills. Four out of 10 of those have enough fentanyl to kill people is the latest briefing I got on that. So again, people recognize that this out of control flow of illegal immigrants are open borders is a real national security threat. It’s harming people. This is not the direction America needs to go, but this is the path that Democrats have put us on. They wanted open borders. They advertised it! Every Democrat presidential candidate said he was gonna stop deportation and offer illegal immigrants free health care. What an enormous magnet that was. And of course now that people realize, “Yes, it’s pretty much open border,” that’s an even larger magnet.

CLAY: Senator Johnson, you’re doing a phenomenal job up in Wisconsin, and one of the many things you’ve done well is actually talk about the data on covid. And we got a cut I want to play here in a little bit on the show, but they’re now acknowledging that this covid shot — which was made mandatory or people would lose their jobs, a lot of military out there have also lost their jobs over this — doesn’t really stop anyone from getting covid, and it doesn’t even work that well, at least the initial version now because we’ve moved on to Omicron.

Are you seeing…? As obviously January 6th and that hearing is going on, I’m hearing a lot of momentum for people out there who want really hearings about the decisions that were made with covid, Dr. Fauci, the covid vaccine requirements, all that. Are you hearing that from your constituents in Wisconsin well, that Democrats losing the House and losing the Senate, we need those answers coming for all Americans out there as it relates to covid, a lot of truths that you’ve been sharing for a long time?

SEN. JOHNSON: Yeah, there’s a growing sense of people that want to know the truth on this but there’s an awful lot of people too that they don’t want to contemplate that maybe they were wrong listening to the Faucis of the world. Nobody wants to admit they’re wrong and certainly not the members of the covid cartel. But there needs to be accountability for this. Where did this all come from? We’ve asked HHS, demand that HHS provide us the Fauci e-mails unredacted. We identified 400 pages. They’re letting us go in reading room. They’ve given us 350 pages’ we’ve been able to read them.

You’ve seen some of the results of that. Jim Jordan’s released some of those. We’re down to the last 50 pages. They are not releasing those 50 pages. There must be some pretty interesting information underneath those redactions. But no, the American people deserve the truth on this. Our response to covid was a miserable failure. These vaccine mandates are still impacting people. I just met with a group of VA workers. They’re claiming 11% of VA works are not vaccinated; they’re not gonna get vaccinated. What are we gonna do, totally hamper veteran health care by firing these people for no reason because the vaccine doesn’t stop infection or transmission? This is pointless, it’s idiotic, and the American public needs to be told the truth.

BUCK: Speaking to Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin. One or more for you, Senator. January 6 hearings that have gone on recently don’t feel like they — don’t seem to, based-of-based on the polls — have moved the needle all. I think increasingly people are feeling like this is just obviously distraction from the failures of the regime in power. But I’m wondering what you think and what you’re gonna tell the people listening in your home state of Wisconsin and all over the country the Democrat playbook is gonna be between now and November because it feels like they can’t really say that obstruction has stopped the Biden agenda, because the Biden agenda is disastrous and has caused the inflation. They’re not gonna change things at the border. So is it really just gonna be, “Donald Trump is scary” and shouting about the “insurrection” to try to explain massive losses in the House and the loss of control in the Senate?

SEN. JOHNSON: Well, that and other lies and distortions. But no, this is a partisan show trial. They’re not asking the question that I’ve been asking since the day after January 6, which is: Where was the security? Who was responsible for the preparation knowing that they’re are gonna be thousands of protesters surrounding the Capitol? Why wasn’t there a show of manpower and force to prevent that breach? That breach never should have happened!

That’s what a real commission ought to be looking into. But no, guys, in my election it literally is the truth versus lies and digestion. Democrats have no problem in completely lying, distorting what you say, and unfortunately in Wisconsin, the media picks up their lies and distortions and gives them a headline gives them ad against them they need a lot of help they’ve already spent $34 million against me. RonJohnsonforSenate.com if you want to see my continue my investigations get to the truth.

CLAY: We’re a hundred percent behind you. We’re gonna do everything we can to make sure that you are still there working and asking the important questions come January of 2023. We appreciate the time, sir.

SEN. JOHNSON: Stay well.

CLAY: We will indeed.