We start this week’s conversation with quick reaction to the US Supreme Court ruling that strikes down President Trump’s blanket tariffs.

Then, we’re on to ‘Funnel Week’ discussion. Funnel week is when bills get narrowed down, and all (most) bills must have advanced through committee in the house or senate to move on. Majority Leader Mike Klimesh had a press avail to discuss bills that did or didn’t move forward, so we go through some of the headlines from that gaggle. Kathie and her staff at Iowa Capital Dispatch always do a great write-up of what did and didn’t get past funnel week, and she gives us a taste of some of the headline grabbing bills that did or didn’t get past committee, including no-fault divorce.

The Iowa Bears are still a (remote) possibility! The bills that would entice the NFL team to build a new stadium in Iowa made is through funnel week. We also clear up from last week’s show that Kathie is not a bootlegger.

Property tax reform continues to be a priority for lawmakers this session, and we dive into a discussion on what ideas have and have not made it through funnel week.

We cap of this week’s show with reaction to Rep. Randy Feenstra’s MAGA Nation town hall that may not have gone as well as Feentra’s campaign would have wanted. Laura’s story about Feenstra using tax payer funds to run ads that benefit his campaign was used in a question from the audience.

Thanks for being a part of Iowa Down Ballot however you may consume us. Also a major thanks to those of you have become paid subscribers, we wouldn’t be able to do this without your support. Have a fantastic weekend!

AI generated transcript below:

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Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Iowa Down Ballot podcast.

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I’m Dave Price, joined by Laura Belin and Kathie Obradovich.

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On a Friday, we’re in the Des Moines metro.

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We have about eight inches of new snow.

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That will mean that all weekend long, we will have many sore backs.

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Darn that groundhog.

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Seriously,

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we have these incredible neighbors,

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these two guys who each have these super ginormous snowblowers,

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and they put their snowsuit things on.

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They get up before the sun comes out,

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and they do driveways and sidewalks and the cul-de-sac,

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and we’re off the cul-de-sac,

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but they do ours too and our neighbors.

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They’re just incredibly nice men, and they don’t want anything in return, and

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They’re just being kind.

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So it’s such a cool way to start the day.

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Well, we’re old school.

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We shovel by hand and I’m sure I’m going to have sore in arms tomorrow.

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It’s heavy.

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It’s very heavy snow as well.

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It’s not nice and powdery.

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I pay a guy to do it.

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Because you’re smart.

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If he shows up during the podcast, I will hear the noise probably.

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He’s not here yet.

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All right, so last week I had the prop.

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I’m bringing it out.

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We’ve made it through Funnel, so congratulations to all of you.

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We put the fun in Funnel, right?

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We really did.

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That should be a t-shirt.

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Get Raygun on that.

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I left the building at around 5 yesterday, so I wasn’t even there that late.

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Yeah, it wasn’t all that aggressive to schedule yesterday.

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uh no house judiciary went pretty late didn’t they i mean they were they i i stayed

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till the end of house i was surprised i thought i’d be there later i was i just

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know i wasn’t done work until after 8 30.

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so so you’d like to wrap up this friday before happy hour begins yeah that it was

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11 the night before so that’s okay

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okay uh so i thought we’d obviously we need to talk about a few things from funnel

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week um we have this also this i know this is um sort of related unrelated but it

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does impact everybody in iowa this huge u.s supreme court ruling against president

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trump’s go it alone tariff strategy that

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has been fascinating to watch our Iowa delegation, which is largely stepped aside.

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I feel like Senator Grassley is maybe the only one who offers some mild criticism,

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you know,

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here and there and did early on to say,

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hey,

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this isn’t my thing.

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And I think as the months went by, it was more Donald Trump got elected.

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He campaigned on this stuff.

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Now we’ll see how it works kind of thing.

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I’m fascinated to see how the delegation will respond going forward now.

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Well, I think that it puts them in a pretty bad spot.

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And Senator Grassley, he has issued some statements casting doubt about the tariffs.

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But every time something came to a vote,

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he and Senator Ernst voted with Trump to allow Trump to do the tariffs.

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So he never really put his money where his mouth was.

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But for the four Iowans in the House who just a week or so ago voted to uphold

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Trump’s tariffs on Canada,

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It looks pretty bad,

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especially after they voted multiple times to kick it down the road and not even

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have a congressional vote on the tariffs.

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There were six others who went against the president on that from the caucus.

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Right.

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I’ll be interested to see how the Trump administration actually responds to this.

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They have been known to, you know, ignore court orders in the past.

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So we’ll see what they do.

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I’d also be interested to see if this.

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actually helps farmers in Iowa.

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This isn’t really related to commodity prices or ag trade,

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but it does affect the inputs,

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things that consumer goods that farmers have to pay for.

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Even though it wasn’t farmers who went to court, it was small business owners.

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I do think that this could have some beneficial effect on farmers, maybe

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It may also help ease some of the retaliatory tariffs if the Trump administration

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actually takes them down.

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I saw after the oral arguments a few months ago,

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I saw some speculation that this case is about using a particular emergency law to

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do a lot of the tariffs so that the Trump administration might be preparing to

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announce more tariffs under different laws so that the impact might not be as

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sweeping as we think.

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Yeah, and this is about drug trafficking.

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That was one of the premises, drug trafficking.

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And now that I’m starting down this road, I can’t remember what the other one was.

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But basically,

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that was sort of the premise of this international trade emergency that these

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tariffs were premised on.

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And what happens to, I mean, we’ve already paid these, both as consumers and the U.S.

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companies.

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And the research that’s come out about this,

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despite what people were promised on the campaign trail,

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I saw 90% of the costs have been shouldered by American companies and American consumers.

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There have already been some preliminary lawsuits filed by business groups.

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So what happens to the money?

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I mean, Trump has various times claimed that trillions of dollars were coming in,

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so will there be refunds of some sort i’m guessing there’s going to have to be more

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court not trillions of dollars first of all and i think i i have not had time to

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read the ruling but i think i just saw some uh just some early coverage that said

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that the supreme court didn’t say whether they have to pay back yeah that’s been

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collected yeah okay and i know we’re not doing a supreme court show but there’s

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there’s just

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like no way to not address that.

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I think it’s also interesting,

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by the way,

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that Roberts,

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Neil Gorsuch,

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and Amy Coney Barrett joined with Chief Justice Roberts’ opinion.

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So that was very,

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I thought that was interesting,

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which court,

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which justices joined on this to actually go against what the president wants,

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so.

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Okay, so let’s talk funnel now.

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And maybe this means we’re halfway through.

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Who knows?

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Maybe in the future we’ll be more than halfway through if that bill goes through

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that Senator Bussolo wants to shorten how the session works,

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right?

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Maybe they’ll do a two-week one.

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You never know.

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All right, Laura, so you slogged your way through subcommittees and committees this week.

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Give us a rundown of every single bill that’s still alive.

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Definitely.

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How long do you have?

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Wow.

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Well,

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There were so many.

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There were so many.

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And I just it’s what the frustrating thing is that they don’t archive and record

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the any of the committee meetings on the House side and they don’t do subcommittee

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meetings on the Senate side.

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So it’s very difficult if you miss it, you miss it and you catch up later.

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But I was very are we talking about just what overall takeaways or what surprised us or what?

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Oh,

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I just wanted to be a smart aleck and throw that at you because I had so many

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people at the Statehouse talking about,

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dang,

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there’ve been a lot of bills this year.

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And I was thinking,

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man,

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a wrap up of what’s alive and what’s potentially dead would be a heck of a heck of

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a task.

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But how about just do what what sticks out for you by what you watch this week?

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Well,

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I was surprised that a lot of the library bills did not get through the funnel and

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several of the anti-vaccine bills did not get through the funnel.

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There are still some that are very troubling for either library advocates or public

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health advocates that are alive.

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But I had assumed that most of those were going to advance and they didn’t.

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And then the other one, I was surprised that on the Senate side,

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the abortion medication bill was pulled from the Judiciary Committee agenda.

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And I have not been able to get a clear answer of why.

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Of course, that bill is still alive around in the House.

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So it may just be that they’ll wait and see what the House sends them on that.

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But after the subcommittee on the abortion medication bill,

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which I attended,

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Senator Schultz,

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who chairs the Judiciary Committee,

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had said that his intention was to have an amendment ready and to have this on the

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Judiciary Committee agenda for the following week.

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So I don’t know exactly why it wasn’t there.

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And we were both in on the extended availability that Senator Mike Clemish,

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the Senate Majority Leader,

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held with the media,

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which we are obviously always appreciative when they take extended questioning like

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he did.

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We were in there 20, 25 minutes.

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And it’s just to let everybody know kind of what the setup is,

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there are different times we may go to an event where

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Like the Attorney General Brenna Byrd staff sometimes will say that they’re only

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going to do questions on topic.

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They don’t want to answer anything else.

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But I mean, this is the basically ask whatever you want.

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And he doesn’t come in there with like a prepared speech or anything,

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just sort of opened up the floor.

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And I know you’re in there and had numerous questions as well.

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But he talked about some of those library bills.

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And you might have been the one who asked him.

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I did ask him about it.

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Yeah, that’s what I was thinking.

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Yeah, he didn’t sound my read on his answer.

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And by the way,

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I’ve been putting whenever House Speaker Pat Grassley has usually a weekly media

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veil and then also with the Senate Majority Leader Klemish,

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I’ve been putting those on the Bleeding Heartland YouTube channel so people can

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watch because usually a wide range of topics are covered.

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And my read on Senator Klemish’s answer was that he is not wild about these library bills.

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I mean,

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he said he’d read them and that with libraries,

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he talked about local boards having control and you have to be careful what you do

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with libraries.

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So I thought that that was quite surprising.

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I think the bookmobile bill is the one that might still be alive.

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The one that schools that don’t have their own libraries would then be prohibited from having

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basically arrangements with the public library to bring books to the school.

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And I think that that bill is still alive.

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And the way things work at the legislature,

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that could very well become a vehicle for some of these other proposals that didn’t

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make it.

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So it’s definitely worth watching.

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Yes, that one’s alive.

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So five of the library bills didn’t get through, and two of them got through.

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The one that prohibits the school district partnerships with public libraries,

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and then there’s another one that got through the House Local Government Committee

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that has a lot of different provisions that I think would give city councils

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control over library boards and other things.

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So those two made it, and it’s true that those could be amended with some of the other

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But the bills on eliminating the obscenity exemption,

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that was something that library advocates were extremely worried about because it

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could lead to all sorts of frivolous lawsuits against libraries,

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even though libraries maintain and I think it’s clear that they don’t have obscene

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material on the shelves.

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There are a lot of books that are in libraries that people might find offensive and

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so they might file a lawsuit and then the library

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or the city would have to prove in court that this material doesn’t meet the legal

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definition of obscenity.

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And it could basically, sorry, my dog also doesn’t like face libraries.

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Kathie, if I could rewind this podcast a minute and 45 seconds or so.

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our viewers would realize your immense creativity and skills.

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Do you realize that in your point talking about bookmobiles,

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this is why you’re a good headline writer,

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you said it could be a vehicle?

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Oh, yeah, that was completely unconscious.

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Can’t even help herself, even in a weakened, tired state on a Friday after a long week.

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The prose just flows.

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Yes.

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Well, oh, yeah.

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So first of all,

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I just want to say that we do our best at Iowa Capital Dispatch to run down a list

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of notable dead and alive bills.

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We can’t even do them in a comprehensive way, just way too many.

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But there’s a couple that I do want to mention that I thought were going to be sort

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of brochure bills that probably wouldn’t go anywhere.

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And they probably still won’t.

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But one is the...

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the bill that would have the Iowa Board of Educational Examiners disqualify

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applicants for educational licensure who have made basically anti-Charlie Kirk

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statements,

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either,

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you know,

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in public or online.

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You know, they’re basically going after the licenses of teachers who have

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have been fired or that they’ve tried to fire for basically saying after Charlie

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Kirk died that they didn’t like him.

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They talk about publicly celebrating any act of politically motivated violence,

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including the unlawful killing of Charles J.

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Kirk.

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But interestingly, they make it retroactive.

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This bill makes it retroactive to the day that Charlie Kirk was killed in September.

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So that one I was kind of surprised to see go forward.

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Another one that we wrote about that did not advance,

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that I also was a little bit surprised about,

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was a bill that would allow,

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basically bringing back the idea of covenant marriage,

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which the legislature has debated in the past,

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but allowing couples to voluntarily opt out of no-fault divorce in Iowa at the time

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that they apply for a marriage license.

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So, you know, even though...

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you know,

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couples can have a prenuptial agreement that deals with things like division of

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assets or custody of future children if they if they divorce that that bill was

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brought forward by a lawmaker who said that in some Christian couples think that

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prenuptial agreements are,

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you know,

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against the religion,

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essentially.

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So

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He was trying to essentially create a loophole in the state’s no fault divorce that

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that was widely,

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widely criticized by,

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you know,

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for example,

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anti domestic abuse advocates and others.

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And, you know, I think there are probably enough lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.

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who have gone through divorces who thought this was probably a supremely bad idea.

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I went to that subcommittee and the only person who spoke in favor of the bill was

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Chuck Hurley of the family leader.

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And it was just a very long list of people from different angles,

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including attorneys who work in the area of family law,

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who were saying why this is just such a bad idea.

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My father-in-law spent his whole career in family law and has followed the

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evolution of the law over the 50 years that he practiced.

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And I haven’t been able to talk to him.

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It’s his birthday today as we record this actually.

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I haven’t been able to talk to him about what this legislation tried to do,

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but we’ve had numerous conversations in the past about how states have moved away

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from this type of a concept for the many reasons that both of you have brought up,

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particularly the domestic abuse cases where you have a survivor who could be

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trapped in a divorce if there’s no way to...

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know no way to exit um that perhaps this was a way that this was a new way in maybe

(00:16:11):

that they were trying to do where you sort of sign a prenup or whatever to waive

(00:16:15):

your rights to this but yeah this was uh ill-fated

(00:16:20):

There was one interesting point,

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too,

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that when you take away no-fault divorce,

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it might turn what could be a fairly quick and amicable parting into a,

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you know,

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a really ugly thing where somebody has to come up with abuse allegations or

(00:16:39):

something like that in order to get,

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order to end the marriage.

(00:16:42):

So, and, you know, there was also the judicial issue

(00:16:47):

I don’t know if it was the actual judicial branch also brought up just how much

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court time would be taken up by this.

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So, you know,

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All of those are good reasons not to move the bill forward.

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I’m surprised they didn’t do it anyway.

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Your Chicago Bears bill,

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Kathie,

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while it may still be alive,

(00:17:06):

I was reading this morning these headlines about Indiana maybe pushing into the

(00:17:11):

favorite spot to land the team.

(00:17:14):

So the Bettendorf Bears may have their work cut out for them if they’re going to

(00:17:22):

pull out the surprise.

(00:17:24):

Indiana is actually taking that bill seriously and moving forward with big

(00:17:29):

incentives for a stadium.

(00:17:32):

Also, I don’t know if anybody’s been out there lately, you know, except for...

(00:17:40):

Except for the Obradovich booze runs,

(00:17:42):

we haven’t been to Indiana very much,

(00:17:47):

but it basically is part of the Chicago suburbs these days.

(00:17:52):

So you basically still, it’s sort of like,

(00:17:56):

the Kansas city chiefs moving across the river to Kansas city,

(00:17:59):

Kansas,

(00:17:59):

you it’s,

(00:18:02):

it’s sort of part of Chicago these days.

(00:18:05):

So by the way,

(00:18:06):

since I mentioned the Obradovich boots,

(00:18:08):

I just want to thank everybody who mentioned that to my husband who heard that on

(00:18:12):

the podcast last week.

(00:18:13):

He, he certainly enjoyed that.

(00:18:15):

And for the record,

(00:18:16):

despite the jokes that we have made,

(00:18:18):

may have made that I may have made last week,

(00:18:21):

Jim and Kathie on their Illinois runs do not load up like a big old van full of

(00:18:28):

booze to get them through for a few months until they go back to Illinois.

(00:18:33):

We may have added a little color to the story.

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Yeah, well, I’ll just reiterate what I said last week.

(00:18:40):

We’re not bootlegging.

(00:18:43):

Don’t call the Department of Revenue on us.

(00:18:47):

One thing,

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obviously tons of bills moving and not moving in that,

(00:18:51):

but the one thing,

(00:18:52):

and then we had,

(00:18:54):

this came up during the avail with Senator Klemish,

(00:18:57):

was that two of the priorities that he had talked about pre-session that he really

(00:19:03):

wanted some answers on,

(00:19:04):

eminent domain and property tax reform,

(00:19:07):

He would say both are still in the works,

(00:19:10):

but we definitely have not seen some kind of grand bargain on these,

(00:19:16):

and perhaps that shows how difficult,

(00:19:20):

I mean,

(00:19:20):

we knew this going in,

(00:19:21):

but what a grand bargain would even look like on either of these topics,

(00:19:25):

right?

(00:19:26):

Yeah, I mean, I think they need to come to some solution, funnel or not.

(00:19:32):

And,

(00:19:33):

you know,

(00:19:33):

this is where the big disclaimer comes in,

(00:19:35):

you know,

(00:19:36):

that bills that don’t pass the funnel can come back in a variety of forms.

(00:19:44):

And I think that this is probably one topic that we’re not done with.

(00:19:47):

Even if some of those bills didn’t make it through.

(00:19:50):

But, you know, of course, the House bills are still alive, too.

(00:19:55):

So so where I do think that we that we’re going to see this come back regardless of

(00:20:02):

the status of the bills right now.

(00:20:04):

I can’t figure out what the solution is with eminent domain.

(00:20:08):

Sometimes it’s fun to just sort of sit in that building and,

(00:20:10):

you know,

(00:20:11):

let your mind wander and go,

(00:20:12):

okay,

(00:20:12):

what would be the deal that,

(00:20:14):

you know,

(00:20:14):

could make,

(00:20:15):

and I still can’t even envision one.

(00:20:17):

I’m wondering with property tax,

(00:20:19):

do they just go with the 2% revenue growth,

(00:20:23):

and that’s the crux of it?

(00:20:25):

I think Iowans for tax relief have talked about that, but just cap it to that way.

(00:20:32):

Republican majority can say they did something and it will limit.

(00:20:35):

It could limit the ability of the locals to to raise them,

(00:20:40):

raise the taxes enough,

(00:20:41):

but it wouldn’t be jarring enough for a lot of these local communities where they’d

(00:20:47):

really be hamstrung.

(00:20:49):

I think they have to also include some of the exemptions,

(00:20:53):

which I think were in some of those bills for growth,

(00:20:58):

for example.

(00:20:59):

You know, you have to be able to.

(00:21:01):

growing communities should be able to take advantage of that.

(00:21:05):

And,

(00:21:05):

you know,

(00:21:06):

I do think that some of the governor’s suggestions for reducing the cost of local

(00:21:11):

government may still be alive.

(00:21:16):

We just had one in committee last night.

(00:21:20):

I can’t remember which committee.

(00:21:21):

I think it was Senate local government that

(00:21:24):

um would have restricted uh the ability of um local governments to you know

(00:21:29):

essentially make rules um that don’t have to that aren’t going through the elected

(00:21:35):

officials you know the city council or the county board so i think they’re just

(00:21:39):

there’s they’re not done messing with local governments um and i do think that

(00:21:43):

probably the cleanest and easiest way for them would be the two percent but

(00:21:48):

That’s what the House and I think the governor proposed.

(00:21:51):

The Senate has a whole different way.

(00:21:54):

And I know that Senator Dan Dawson, for example, has been working on this for a long time.

(00:21:59):

I’m not so sure that he’s ready to give up on some of that.

(00:22:02):

Yeah.

(00:22:03):

I don’t know that the Senate has a lot of big ideas,

(00:22:07):

but color me skeptical that they’re going to approve a gas tax increase during an

(00:22:12):

election year.

(00:22:13):

That was one of the components of the Senate property tax bill that would allow

(00:22:17):

money to still be going into roads and bridges.

(00:22:20):

I still think that the House...

(00:22:22):

property tax proposal.

(00:22:23):

And by the way,

(00:22:24):

Speaker Grassley did say yesterday that they’re continuing to have these

(00:22:28):

conversations about property tax reform.

(00:22:29):

But I think the simplest thing they could do would be the part of the House

(00:22:33):

proposal that just says the first twenty five thousand dollars of valuation on the

(00:22:40):

loan is exempt because then they could say they gave everybody something.

(00:22:46):

But that wouldn’t be good for local governments, for sure.

(00:22:50):

But especially in communities with low property values,

(00:22:54):

that would probably mean like a very significant percentage of valuation is going

(00:22:59):

to be off the rolls.

(00:23:00):

But in any case,

(00:23:01):

I think like that is something that they could do,

(00:23:04):

that they could then go home,

(00:23:05):

go back to their districts and sell to their voters.

(00:23:08):

Which should not be, and I’m not dismissing that they actually want to try to

(00:23:13):

restrict property tax increases,

(00:23:15):

but the bottom line is the Republican majority pretty much has to pass something

(00:23:22):

after making this a priority last year and not doing it,

(00:23:26):

although maybe it was more pushed heavily on the Senate side.

(00:23:29):

I felt like Speaker Grassley last year was kind of like, hey, we’ll talk about it,

(00:23:33):

I didn’t feel like he was quite out as far ahead as maybe some of the Senate Republicans were.

(00:23:38):

But like this year, everybody’s talking about it on the Republican side, it feels like.

(00:23:42):

So they kind of have they can’t they can’t get out of that place without doing something.

(00:23:48):

Yeah, it looks bad in an election year with the pretty lofty promises that were made.

(00:23:56):

Yeah,

(00:23:57):

I think on eminent domain,

(00:23:58):

it’s possible that there’s just a stalemate and nothing happens.

(00:24:00):

But on property taxes, they absolutely cannot go home empty handed.

(00:24:04):

I agree with you.

(00:24:06):

Just a quick, this will be my transition here.

(00:24:08):

But I went to Randy Feenstra’s thing with MAGA Nation.

(00:24:15):

uh iowa on i think it was tuesday night my days are bleeding but and so i’m going

(00:24:21):

to use him as our entry point to this but he leads with property tax reform all the

(00:24:26):

time which is just fascinating to me for the republican field and i totally get it

(00:24:31):

there i think they’re all talking about property taxes but it would be interesting

(00:24:36):

if the majority

(00:24:37):

at the state house could pass some kind of property tax reform and you have the

(00:24:42):

candidates for governor saying that that’s like their priority so what happens if

(00:24:46):

they actually do something that kind of takes away a little of the oomph behind

(00:24:51):

that campaign promise at least to me i i have a feeling there’ll still be more to

(00:24:56):

do after after after they get done with this and you know um

(00:25:03):

I mean, who candidates talk about what’s hot at the moment.

(00:25:08):

Right.

(00:25:09):

I mean,

(00:25:10):

you know,

(00:25:10):

it’s I’m sure that there will be something else to talk about if legislature solves

(00:25:16):

the problem of property taxes.

(00:25:18):

But I just for some reason don’t think they’re going to.

(00:25:22):

I think that Randy Feenstra has a lot of problems.

(00:25:26):

That would be far down my list of problematic situations for him as this primary

(00:25:32):

campaign unfolds.

(00:25:33):

OK, so let’s talk about this a little bit.

(00:25:36):

And as a tease,

(00:25:38):

like we do in television,

(00:25:39):

a tease,

(00:25:41):

do not let me,

(00:25:42):

Laura,

(00:25:43):

forget in my recount of this experience that a woman asked about your story.

(00:25:51):

I had a crappy,

(00:25:52):

I shot it on my phone,

(00:25:54):

which the video quality is incredible,

(00:25:55):

but I had a crappy shot.

(00:26:00):

Can I say crappy?

(00:26:01):

I can’t say crappy on TV, I don’t think, but I guess you can.

(00:26:04):

It just sounds true.

(00:26:04):

You just said it like three or four times, so.

(00:26:07):

go with it yeah you know we’re podcast so you know there are no rules um I just

(00:26:11):

didn’t get I wasn’t what the shot didn’t work out right I was behind something so I

(00:26:15):

didn’t get the full exchange Laura I know somebody else on social media I saw it

(00:26:19):

they could all posted it okay yeah he was in a better vantage point for where that

(00:26:24):

woman was standing I was across the room um so I didn’t get a good shot of it but

(00:26:28):

and my audio wasn’t good enough because I was too far away okay

(00:26:32):

regardless.

(00:26:33):

So MAGA Nation Iowa hosted Feenstra.

(00:26:36):

He was the fifth and final Republican gubernatorial candidate to accept the offer.

(00:26:41):

They meet at this place called Bevy’s Tavern,

(00:26:44):

which is right off the interstate in West Des Moines.

(00:26:46):

Years ago, it used to be something else, and I can’t remember what it is.

(00:26:49):

Anyway, the logistics are tough because it’s like a bar, right?

(00:26:53):

Bar, restaurant, whatever.

(00:26:54):

So Feenstra had a microphone, the crowd does not.

(00:26:59):

So that sort of contributes to almost like this like background noise that’s going

(00:27:05):

on the whole time,

(00:27:05):

because you have a lot of people eating and drinking and talking,

(00:27:08):

and they can’t fully hear the program that’s going on.

(00:27:12):

So the whole experience was a little...

(00:27:15):

like kind of out of whack and maybe i’m too focused as a tv guy about video and

(00:27:20):

audio and stuff but people would scream as these as fiends started with a little

(00:27:27):

speech and they took questions from the audience they’d be like speak up repeat the

(00:27:31):

question repeat the question you know and it’s it’s kind of jarring right for

(00:27:35):

anybody who’s been in front of a group and you’re almost getting heckled a little

(00:27:37):

bit but the experience was fascinating to like watch

(00:27:43):

Feenstra have to take on,

(00:27:45):

there weren’t,

(00:27:46):

I think one guy gave him sort of a softball question about,

(00:27:49):

hey,

(00:27:49):

why do you want the job?

(00:27:50):

You know,

(00:27:50):

which is a valid question,

(00:27:51):

but clearly those in the room,

(00:27:54):

and I think there were many of them who aren’t big fans of Feenstra.

(00:27:58):

and don’t think that he’s MAGA enough,

(00:28:00):

and they’re ticked off that he hasn’t gone to these joint appearances and all that

(00:28:03):

kind of stuff.

(00:28:04):

One guy hammered him on funding for Ukraine.

(00:28:08):

And now to get back to your previous story,

(00:28:11):

Laura,

(00:28:12):

there was a woman who brought up,

(00:28:16):

why are you using taxpayer money to run radio ads on WHO Radio in Des Moines,

(00:28:24):

saying basically everything that you’ve accomplished

(00:28:27):

when you’re running for governor.

(00:28:28):

And so her question to him was, you’ve got millions of dollars, use your campaign money.

(00:28:34):

Why should my tax dollars pay for this?

(00:28:36):

And people in the room couldn’t hear, a lot of people couldn’t hear it.

(00:28:40):

So they’re like, repeat the question, repeat the question.

(00:28:43):

That one Feenstra did not repeat.

(00:28:45):

So he just summarized by saying basically, why am I running ads on WHO radio?

(00:28:52):

Well, it’s to make sure that my constituents know what we’re doing.

(00:28:55):

So he didn’t really get at the heart of your story about why he felt it was appropriate.

(00:29:02):

And he didn’t accurately characterize the ads.

(00:29:05):

I mean, he said, I’m on there so that people know what I’m doing.

(00:29:08):

And so that if you have an issue with Veterans Affairs or something that you can

(00:29:13):

contact my office.

(00:29:14):

Well, it would be easy to write an ad script that said like, hi, I’m Congressman Randy Feenstra.

(00:29:20):

Here are if you have an issue with this, that or the other federal agency issues.

(00:29:24):

Here’s the phone number of my office.

(00:29:27):

Here’s the website.

(00:29:29):

So most of this ad, and it’s a 60-second ad, so it’s fairly lengthy.

(00:29:34):

It’s talking about his work with President Trump and how he plans to work more with

(00:29:38):

President Trump.

(00:29:38):

And only at the very end does he say,

(00:29:41):

if you have an issue that you need help with,

(00:29:45):

go to fiendstra.house.gov.

(00:29:48):

Well, not everyone has good Internet, but he doesn’t give a phone number.

(00:29:51):

So and in any case, he didn’t like you said, he didn’t summarize the question.

(00:29:55):

He didn’t address her main point,

(00:29:57):

which is why are you using official funds from your congressional office budget?

(00:30:01):

And it’s a lot.

(00:30:03):

I mean,

(00:30:03):

it’s more than thirty thousand dollars for the ad buy that was before the Iowa

(00:30:07):

caucuses and more than thirty thousand dollars for another radio ad buy that

(00:30:11):

started this past Monday,

(00:30:13):

February 16th.

(00:30:14):

And that doesn’t even include

(00:30:16):

the direct mail that has been paid for by official funds from the U.S.

(00:30:20):

House of Representatives when Randy Feenstra could have done all of that from his campaign.

(00:30:28):

Did you want to jump in or not, Kathie?

(00:30:31):

I will just point out that that meeting was pretty widely shared and got some

(00:30:40):

conservative negative comments toward Feenstra,

(00:30:44):

you know,

(00:30:45):

with Bob Vander Plaats sort of leading the way.

(00:30:48):

Bob Vander Plaats, of course, having endorsed Feenstra.

(00:30:52):

Adam Steen.

(00:30:53):

So, so I do think that that was a costly little appearance, probably for Randy Feenstra.

(00:31:02):

Yeah, I’ve been trying to think about like, you know, is it

(00:31:06):

Big picture, is he better or worse off for doing this?

(00:31:10):

Because they’ve been after him for a while to come speak to the group.

(00:31:14):

I don’t know how many people were there.

(00:31:16):

I mean, definitely a good crowd.

(00:31:19):

I felt for the servers who were trying to serve people through that and weave their way through.

(00:31:25):

I mean, it

(00:31:26):

had to be i don’t know 150 200 i’m not really sure it was hard to find a parking

(00:31:30):

spot so there are plenty of people there and he knew walking in it’s like walking

(00:31:33):

in the lion’s den i mean he knew this wasn’t going to be a friendly crowd and

(00:31:36):

that’s not you know i mean like public speaking would probably not be the you know

(00:31:43):

his greatest skill that he brings to politics that’s just not maybe that’s you know

(00:31:47):

he’s not that kind of that kind of speaker necessarily but i’m curious like

(00:31:53):

Did he win anybody over in that group I know that I know he had supporters in

(00:31:56):

there,

(00:31:56):

because I talked to some of them but.

(00:31:59):

I don’t know if this deflates any of the criticism about him,

(00:32:02):

I will say in the after the speech he did a quick avail with us outside.

(00:32:07):

And there were either one or two trackers there too,

(00:32:10):

I think,

(00:32:10):

but somebody a woman who I don’t know.

(00:32:16):

asked him again,

(00:32:18):

and she was rolling video on her camera,

(00:32:22):

why are you not doing debates,

(00:32:25):

public appearances with the rest of them and such?

(00:32:27):

And he said, filing deadline is not until March 13th.

(00:32:32):

So Iowans don’t even know who’s running for governor yet.

(00:32:35):

I’m out there

(00:32:37):

talking to people all the time, blah, blah, blah.

(00:32:39):

Now she took it and then followed up with,

(00:32:42):

are you saying there will be another candidate who will jump into this race?

(00:32:47):

And he’s like, no, that’s not what I’m saying.

(00:32:49):

And then he kind of, I forget what all you’ve said after that.

(00:32:52):

I didn’t take it that way.

(00:32:54):

I felt like what his point was without directly saying it is,

(00:33:00):

why am I going to stay on a stage right now when we don’t even know if all five of

(00:33:05):

us will still be officially in this race on March 14th?

(00:33:10):

Because there’s very little for him to gain by standing up,

(00:33:13):

particularly with probably two of these folks in the field who have very little

(00:33:19):

campaign funds and not much visible support,

(00:33:22):

right?

(00:33:23):

Like, why would he go out there?

(00:33:24):

And why is he going to stand with four other candidates at this time when it’s

(00:33:28):

going to be 4v1 for them all to come after him?

(00:33:31):

I’m just not really sure.

(00:33:33):

I don’t know what people,

(00:33:34):

I don’t know what the activists think about it,

(00:33:36):

but there’s not much to be gained there for him.

(00:33:39):

But that’s also true after March 15th,

(00:33:42):

and he’s kind of now raised the expectation that once the filing deadline’s over,

(00:33:48):

that somehow that will be more legitimate for him to engage with other candidates.

(00:33:54):

So I’ll be interested to see if that’s still the case after the filing deadline.

(00:34:01):

But if it ends up being, I don’t know, who knows if either one of the two would drop out, but...

(00:34:08):

It’s a little thinner field.

(00:34:10):

I think Brad Sherman is filing for sure.

(00:34:13):

And I wouldn’t be surprised if Eddie Anders also files.

(00:34:16):

Those are the ones I assume you’re referring to who don’t have as much funding for

(00:34:20):

their campaigns.

(00:34:21):

But I wanted to mention with respect to this not helping him.

(00:34:25):

I think that Jacob Hall,

(00:34:27):

I can’t remember where,

(00:34:28):

whether he posted it on Facebook or on the Iowa...

(00:34:31):

Jacob Hall’s Iowa Standard.

(00:34:32):

Iowa Standard.

(00:34:33):

He posted something about after that, that fiendsters people are...

(00:34:37):

telling people they can’t record at his events or something.

(00:34:40):

So they obviously didn’t like those video clips getting out and getting widely shared.

(00:34:45):

But it’s hard to stop people.

(00:34:47):

Everybody has a camera in their pocket.

(00:34:50):

It’s going to be pretty hard for him to stop clips from being shared.

(00:34:53):

And I think that one of it shows to me

(00:34:57):

that it’s been a mistake these past six years that Randy Feenstra has rarely done

(00:35:02):

any open town hall events or public events,

(00:35:04):

even in the heavily Republican counties in his district.

(00:35:08):

Because I think that if he had been doing that all this time,

(00:35:11):

he would be better and more adept at fielding some of these questions.

(00:35:15):

It’s a really good point.

(00:35:16):

And,

(00:35:17):

you know,

(00:35:17):

you look back,

(00:35:18):

for example,

(00:35:18):

at Joni Ernst’s,

(00:35:21):

you know,

(00:35:21):

gaffe where,

(00:35:22):

well,

(00:35:22):

we’re all going to die,

(00:35:24):

you know,

(00:35:24):

basically related to somebody at a town hall shouting out,

(00:35:28):

you know,

(00:35:28):

a question about,

(00:35:29):

you know,

(00:35:30):

Medicaid cuts killing people.

(00:35:33):

And,

(00:35:34):

you know,

(00:35:34):

those kinds of things you do,

(00:35:39):

more practice helps you to not get quite so,

(00:35:44):

you know,

(00:35:44):

nervous that you blurt out whatever comes into your head.

(00:35:49):

And that, you know, you manage some of those questions and your staff, I think, gets better.

(00:35:56):

at helping to scare questions to people who might be friendlier as well.

(00:36:00):

Not that I endorse that approach, but it’s the same with debates.

(00:36:05):

I mean,

(00:36:05):

candidates who don’t engage in any debates in the primary then don’t have that

(00:36:11):

practice when it comes to debates that are gonna be harder to duck in the general

(00:36:16):

election should they win the nomination.

(00:36:19):

I think of two people we’ve all covered,

(00:36:22):

and very different people,

(00:36:24):

but on the presidential cycle.

(00:36:26):

Remember when Barack Obama,

(00:36:27):

now he is a talented speaker,

(00:36:30):

so this is a different example with him,

(00:36:33):

but where he struggled at the beginning was that his answers were,

(00:36:37):

for those of you watching on video,

(00:36:39):

his answers were just too long right and you know he has sort of a natural cadence

(00:36:45):

in his stories that has this slow build crescendo i remember covering jefferson

(00:36:50):

jackson dinner and he had a very very effective speech but for television purposes

(00:36:58):

where you’re looking at 10 to 15 maybe 20 second soundbite you can’t get the

(00:37:03):

crescendo

(00:37:04):

and so i remember putting a story together that night with a note for the morning

(00:37:08):

show producer to be like hey this is a little out of the ordinary here but i’m

(00:37:12):

going to send you like a minute and 20 seconds of this guy because the crowd loved

(00:37:17):

it and it’s like this slow build and then on the republican side on a totally

(00:37:22):

different perspective rick santorum who wasn’t very good when he started he didn’t

(00:37:27):

have big crowds at all when he ran

(00:37:30):

for president and but he got so good at this and you really learn how to take your

(00:37:37):

answers and shorten them you know so if somebody tapped you on the shoulder at the

(00:37:42):

grocery store and said hey what about blah you can respond to it and you know how

(00:37:46):

to handle hard questions and that you know had fiendstra been out and about more

(00:37:53):

he’d probably be a little more better prepared for this and they’re gonna come

(00:37:57):

after him that’s sort of the that’s what it

(00:38:00):

That’s what the climate is, regardless whether it’s Republican, Democrat.

(00:38:03):

I mean,

(00:38:04):

you’re getting a lot of energy directed at these people right now,

(00:38:08):

and you’re gonna have to learn how to handle it.

(00:38:12):

All right,

(00:38:12):

so we got way off on our funnel week discussion,

(00:38:15):

but that was an experience that I wanted to share.

(00:38:19):

So thank you both.

(00:38:21):

I hope we get a quick melt from this eight inches of snow we just got.

(00:38:29):

It wasn’t that long ago when we were in the 60s.

(00:38:31):

It feels like we’ve just parachuted into a completely different climate for a little bit.

(00:38:35):

Yeah, like Monday.

(00:38:36):

Yeah.

(00:38:37):

But we’ve been through so much since Monday, as you well know.

(00:38:41):

Thank you both.

(00:38:42):

Always great to see you both.

(00:38:44):

Yeah, glad to be here.

(00:38:46):

Hey, thank you to all of you who are watching or listening.

(00:38:50):

It is fun to watch this conversation grow.

(00:38:53):

And thank you for all the feedback that you’ve been giving as well.

(00:38:56):

We really, really appreciate it.

(00:38:58):

A couple of favors.

(00:39:00):

And thank you,

(00:39:00):

I should say,

(00:39:01):

to all of you who have become paid subscribers as well,

(00:39:03):

because that helps pay the bill.

(00:39:05):

So we very much appreciate that.

(00:39:07):

And we appreciate those of you who are sharing the links out there.

(00:39:10):

You know,

(00:39:11):

it’s not like there’s a ton of Iowa writers,

(00:39:13):

collaborative advertising that’s blasting this on billboards and everything.

(00:39:16):

So it’s really word of mouth to help us grow this conversation.

(00:39:19):

So we really appreciate all of you who are helping us to do that,

(00:39:23):

to keep this conversation going.

(00:39:25):

Thank you to Spencer Dirks who puts this sucker together every week and gets it

(00:39:29):

distributed to everybody.

(00:39:31):

Have a great weekend and we will talk to you next week.

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