Vance Talks Urban Crime, Migrant Health Care In La Crosse Visit
Dems use Pfaff's annual corn roast to to preemptively respond, campaign.
Vice President JD Vance addresses a crowd at Mid-City Steel in La Crosse on Thursday. Photo by Henry Redman, Wisconsin Examiner.
Vice President JD Vance decried what he described as the crime-ridden streets of American cities and Democrats’ alleged efforts to take health care away from U.S. citizens and give it to undocumented immigrants at an event Thursday afternoon at a steel fabrication facility in La Crosse.
At the event, which took place on the bank of the Mississippi River at Mid-City Steel, Vance and Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum touted the benefits that Republicans’ budget reconciliation law, known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, will deliver for working class Wisconsinites.
The night before Vance’s visit, Democratic elected officials and candidates for state and federal office mingled with voters at state Sen. Brad Pfaff’s (D-Onalaska) annual corn roast. State Dems came to meet voters at the La Crosse County Fairgrounds in West Salem and to search for a path back to power nationally, trifecta of control of state government and an effective counter to the authoritarian impulses of President Donald Trump.
The back-to-back events highlighted how politically important western Wisconsin is set to become over the next year as attention focuses on the competitive 3rd Congressional District, represented by Republican Rep. Derrick Van Orden, and the open race for governor.
At the fairgrounds on Wednesday, Pfaff’s staff members handed out 350 brats, 150 hot dogs and 500 ears of corn slathered with 13 pounds of butter as a polka band played and candidates for statewide office made their way down long picnic tables with cups of Spotted Cow and Miller Lite, stopping to chat with voters. In attendance were Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, who is running for governor, Secretary of State Sarah Godlewski, who is running for lieutenant governor, and Appeals Court Judge Chris Taylor, who is running for a seat on the state Supreme Court. Also in attendance were state Sen. Kelda Roys (D-Madison) and Wisconsin Economic Development Coordinator Missy Hughes, both of whom have been testing the waters as possible gubernatorial candidates.
Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, who is running for governor, at Sen. Brad Pfaff’s corn roast Aug. 27. (Henry Redman | Wisconsin Examiner)
Pfaff, who ran unsuccessfully against Van Orden for the 3rd District congressional seat in 2022, repeatedly touted the importance of Democrats listening to rural voters and speaking to issues that matter to their lives.
That message played well in front of the group of about 120 attendees who complained that Van Orden does not often face disgruntled constituents. Democrats have frequently highlighted the fact that Van Orden has not held any in-person town halls or debated his Democratic election opponents.
“It’s extremely frustrating. The thing is that we as Democrats, we’ve got a brand that we’ve got to rebuild,” Pfaff said. “And I’m a Democrat. I’m a proud rural Democrat. I was raised with the values of hard work, dedication and resilience. I was raised in the fact that, you know, you need to get up every morning and go to work, and you need to be able to provide for your family and put away for the future. But you need to be able to be part of a community and build a community that is inclusive and welcoming.”
Pfaff added that Van Orden has not been accessible to his voters or answered for his votes on legislation such as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
“You need to be accessible to your constituents, and when you’re not accessible to your constituents, you’re not serving yourself, and definitely you’re not in touch with the people of the district,” he said. “So it’s very concerning. But … we will have a very competitive congressional race in 2026 and Derek’s gonna have to explain his votes and his actions.”
Rebecca Cooke, who lost to Van Orden in last year’s election and is running again to unseat him next year, said she’s trying to spend this time, about 14 months before the midterm elections, traveling the district and understanding voters’ concerns.
“My campaign has always been really focused around working families and working class people, which I think Senator Pfaff too, we have a very similar thought and understanding, because we talk to people, right?” Cooke said. “Brad hosts open events like this so that he can hear from people directly. And I think that that’s the difference with Van Orden, who brings in JD Vance, the big guns, because he can’t deliver the message himself. I think we are of and from western Wisconsin, and so we know how to communicate with people in our community, and we listen to them.”
On Thursday, both Burgum and Vance celebrated Van Orden’s vote on the budget reconciliation bill, inspiring Van Orden to stand from his front row seat and pump his fist. Prior to his vote on the legislation, Van Orden said he wouldn’t support a bill that cut funds from food assistance programs, but ultimately he cast a deciding vote for the legislation that, analysis shows, will boot 90,000 Wisconsinites off food assistance programs and cause 30,000 rural Wisconsinites to lose their health care.
Burgum also said the Trump administration is working to bring steel manufacturing and shipbuilding back to America. But on Thursday, U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin raised the alarm for shipbuilders in Marinette after Trump announced the purchase of ships built in South Korea.
“I am deeply concerned by recent reports that indicate the Trump Administration is looking to have U.S. ships made overseas in South Korea,” Baldwin said in a statement. “We need to see the details of this agreement because at the end of the day, America cannot compromise here – we are already losing to China and we have no time to waste. We must be firm on our commitment to supporting our maritime workforce, keeping our country safe, and revitalizing America’s shipbuilding capacity. I have long fought to strengthen our shipbuilding industry, and it can’t be done with shortcuts or quick fixes. The President must prioritize American workers by investing in our shipbuilding industry here at home and buying American-made ships.”
Despite the massive cuts the reconciliation law is making to federal assistance programs, Vance said that the Democratic Party is lying about its effects, claiming Democrats voted against the bill because they wanted to raise taxes and give health care to people who are in the country without legal authorization.
Vance touted the extension of tax cuts passed by Republicans in 2017 during the first Trump administration, saying they will put money back into the pockets of American workers like the ones at Mid-City Steel. He also celebrated Trump’s tariffs calling them a lever to protect American industry.
“What the working families tax cuts did is very simple, ladies and gentlemen, it let you keep more money in your pocket, it rewarded you for building a business, for working at a business right here in the United States of America, it makes it easy for you to take home more of your hard earned pay and it makes it easier if you’re an American manufacturer, an American business, it makes it easier for you to build your facility or expand your facility,” Vance said.
But the cost of the tariffs is being borne by American consumers in the form of higher prices, and the tax cuts have largely gone to benefit the wealthiest Americans.
An analysis from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy found that 69% of the benefits of the tax cuts will go to the richest 15% of Wisconsinites.
The vice president also painted American cities as crime-infested slums where everyday Americans cannot walk down the street without being accosted by a person “screaming on a street corner.” The Trump administration has deployed the National Guard and Marines in Washington D.C. and Los Angeles in a show of force, and Trump has threatened to send soldiers to fight crime in other Democratic cities — even though the highest crime rates in the country are in Republican-controlled states.
On Thursday Vance said that even though Milwaukee has what he said is a crime problem, the president doesn’t want to send troops in to address it unless he’s asked to by local officials.
“Very simply, we want governors and mayors to ask for the help. The president of the United States is not going out there forcing this on anybody, though we do think we have the legal right to clean up America’s streets if we want to,” Vance said. “What the president of the United States has said is, “Why don’t you invite us in?’”
William Garcia, the chair of the 3rd Congressional District Democratic Party, said that Vance’s visit showed that Republicans are out of touch with western Wisconsin, noting that a speech at a steel fabricator isn’t representative of what actually drives the local economy and delivering that speech to a hand-selected crowd glosses over the pain the Trump administration’s policies are bringing to local communities.
“If you really wanted to talk to people out here, you would talk about agriculture, and you would try and justify why Canadian fertilizer has a massive tariff on it now, so we have to spend so much more money to just grow our own food,” Garcia said. “Then you have to talk about your immigration policies that are preventing our harvest from being picked after they’ve grown. And so that’s why he’s having to narrow the people he’s talking to, to this super small crowd, because by and large, conservative, liberal, whatever, are being hurt by these policies, and he doesn’t want to hear any pushback about that.”
In La Crosse, Dems talk to voters while Vance warns of urban crime and migrant health care was originally published by Wisconsin Examiner.
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My headline would have read “Eyeliner Enthusiast Talks Nonsense To Mesmerized White Folk”.
There is a problem. People are being shot in Milwaukee. I’m not sure what the answer is. But something has to be done, and done now. This isn’t a white, black, or even green problem – it’s something that has to be addressed.
I’m also tired of the drug problem. We spend (and waste) billions on National Defense, and we’re not addressing the importation of drugs into the country that are killing and destroying lives. I don’t understand why more isn’t being done – but, I’m glad that tariffs and military action are being taken to stop drugs.
How can we be happy or ok with MS13 and human trafficking?
Remember Master Lock – the company that used to be in Milwaukee. Those owning the company do a little math and decide ot move to Mexico. What about those that work at the company? I see more money being invested in the United States and that means jobs. Is that a bad thing?
I don’t want to be a Republican or a Democrat. I wish that those in Government would stop being one party or the other and do something. Vance is talking about doing something. I’m not sure that giving money out that we don’t have and a GROWING NATIONAL DEBT is smart.
Why didn’t Biden do something about the drugs and killings?
Education is important. President Eisenhower believed that math and science education would win the Cold War. Why have we forgotten this?
In regards to comments that “People are being shot in Milwaukee.” Yeah, that’s true. And anytime an effort is made to reduce the accessibility of handguns, this same commentator or his friends will probably be yelling “Oh My God, they are coming to take away our guns!”
Vance is the same guy who tried telling us that immigrants were eating pets. Some Wisconsinites believed him, and they will believe what he says about crime in “Blue” cities. But the hard facts are that “Red” cities, in general, have much higher homicide rates (murders per 100,000 people per year) than cities like Milwaukee.
If you want to reduce the murder rate, you should provide people with a “safety net” so they don’t feel hopeless. The difference between the “Blue cities” and the “Red cities” is the presence or absence of a safety net, which involves food, medical care, education, and ideally access to affordable child care. (A side note: Did you know that the crime rates went down by a significant around 17 years after the Roe v. Wade decision? This suggests that unwanted babies are at increased risk of ending up as troublemakers.)
Expect the crime rates to go up in the future. The “Big Beautiful Bill” decimates those “safety net” programs.
Regarding the lost manufacturing jobs…. I’m an engineer who developed industrial controls, and I saw the decline of American manufacturing jobs firsthand. “Back in the day” in a Fisher Body stamping plant, a line of presses would progressively work rectangles of sheet metal into the roof of a car, and perhaps 12 or 14 workers would spend their day moving the pieces of steel from one press to another, perhaps producing 6 car roofs per minute. By the mid-1980s single large presses would have four or five dies and computer-driven motors would move the sheet metal into the press, from one die to the next, and out to the “stacker.” Those 12 or 14 workers were were replaced buy one person who saw that things were working properly, and the machinery could crank out twice as many car roofs per minute as before.
Our old manufacturing jobs will not be coming back, tariffs or no tariffs.
Let’s call a tariff what it is – a sales tax, paid by the consumer. Hey, that’s you and me.
One last comment: Elon Musk and Peter Thiel came to this country and were successful because we have a stable society. That stability (and our infrastructure, our educated populace) was produced with taxes paid by our parents and grandparents.
Musk and Thiel both came here from South Africa. I’ve been to South Africa (I had a customer there). It’s a country with an unstable business climate and huge crime problems. I feel safe if I’m walking in downtown Milwaukee after dark. I would have been a fool to be out after dark in Johannesburg.
Musk and Thiel (along with the other oligarchs that you saw at Trump’s inauguration) have been very successful in America. Accordingly, it is time that they honored the obligation they have to contribute to the stability of American society.
But thanks to the Big Beautiful Bill, they don’t have to.
Doesn’t Vance’s cheerleading make you feel happy that you are picking up the tab that should be paid for by the oligarchs?
Robert – First, companies have been making decisions to move production out of the USA and back into the USA for 20 years depending on quality issues, global sales data, and marketing. The only difference now is anytime one decides to come back, the president takes personal credit for it and fox News reports on it, and you hear about it.
Drug problems and crime are often related, and the root cause is almost always generational poverty. We can choose to turn our streets into a police state, but as soon as these stop or the money runs out, it will quickly return. If we compare the USA to 200 other countries around the world that have lower violent crime, it’s not that they have more cops, they have less. What is different is a social safety net exists, everyone has healthcare to avoid medical bankruptcy, and stricter gun laws exist. The only countries worse than USA are Mexico and Brasil, both with very high wealth inequality and exactly the direction the big beautiful will accelerate this country in. The national guard crap is performative. The tariffs are doing nothing to stop the flow of drugs, it’s also performative.
Snowbeer,
Thank you for your comments.
Again, I’m not sure what the answer is.
However, would part of the answer be jobs for people in the United States? If we are building trains in Milwaukee or locks, and the person doing the work is paid a good wage, doesn’t that help? I agree that there are those whose concern may be personal wealth. Look at the Radium Girls and others who would abuse people, so that they can walk away with a few more dollars. Why invest in the United States, when I can move the factory to China, where labor costs are only $8 an hour vs $32? What happens when there is a change in the math? I could develop a robot system that would help reduce the requirement for workers and my production cost go down. But, I don’t have to, just move the factor. With tariffs, there is a reason to invest in the US factor. The math – I’m not going to get rich if I don’t produce in the US.
Other countries or companies located in different countries are considering whether they should pay to upgrade and expand the factory in the United States. A factory in the US eliminates concerns about tariffs or transportation costs. There is paying US Workers vs Korean or Japanese Workers. If US Workers have jobs, that is a good thing.
I don’t like the idea of war. But what happens when countries that buy oil from Russia now face a tariff to do business with the US?
I don’t disagree that more the National Guard isn’t a solution. Education, jobs, a future, dreams, hope, a better life for your children, medical care, health, . . . these are solutions. However, when there are more than 600 people shot – then there is an emergency. There were more than 600 people shot four years ago, and at least now something is happening.
There is Representative Fitzgerald and what seems to be mostly Republicans in our State Government that talk a lot and really don’t do much. Where is the funding for crime labs? The former Superintendent of Milwaukee Public Schools is gone with a large buyout and a mutual non-disclosure agreement – what did those Republicans (or anyone) do to pass laws or anything creating accountability? (The new Superintendent is trying – but, . . .)
The US Military – the solution is to pay Soldiers more and more vs good leadership, good food, and a place to stay. By the way, a private doesn’t make enough money to be married with three children. If he or she doesn’t understand that, perhaps they don’t have what it takes to be a Soldier. We pay BILLIONS for an Army that can’t help put out forest fires or help when threre are floods. (Well President Trump did call out the Army to help with some of the flooding a few years ago.) There was the Civilian Conservation Corps. Perhaps the military could be put to use – helping – but, then there are contractors that mow the grass on the military base, because the US Army has forgotten how to mow the grass.
So, perhaps the military could do something to stop the flow of drugs, and I’m not sure how the tariffs are affecting the flow of drugs. I don’t think that countries like an 80% tariff rate, and the people and business owners may be upset to the point that the government would try to do more. However, I also understand that when a drug lord kills the children of the police, the local police may not want to take action. Again, at least people are talking about the problem. People are being killed by drugs (and shootings) – this is a threat to the country.
What are groups doing to help? Do we carry signs or help teach children to read? Do we march, or volunteer at schools? Do we . . .
Thank you for being concerned and writing…