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David Rutherford Show: Wisconsin vs. Marxism: This Green Beret's Fight To Keep The State Free
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Bethenny Frankel
This is an iHeart podcast.
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Public Investing Sponsor
Guaranteed Human support for the show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On Public you can build a multi asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto and now generated assets which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index with AI. It all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year, you can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one of a kind index and lets you back test it against the S&P 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like ETFs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com podcast paid for by Public Investing Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc. Member FINRA and SIPC Advisory Services by Public Advisors llc. SEC Registered Advisor Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. Complete disclosures available at public.com/disclosures there's a.
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Bethenny Frankel
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- [01:37]
Nick Pulse
Is us Olympic gold medalist Tara Davis woodhull and I'm us Paralympic gold medalist Hunter Woodhull. As athletes, our lives are about having a clear path and a team that you can absolutely trust. So when it came to getting the best mortgage, we chose PennyMac. PennyMac is proud to be the official mortgage provider of Team USA and you learn more at pennymac.com PennyMac Loan Services, LLC equal housing lender NMLS ID 35953.
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Nick Pulse
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Bethenny Frankel
This is Bethany Frankel from Just Be with Bethany Frankel. It is a new year and everyone is trying to get it together. If we are making a fresh start for ourselves, why wouldn't we make a fresh start for our dogs? Biggie and Smalls are my babies. And I love just food for dogs because it is real, it is fresh, it is 100% human grade food. Just Food for dogs is the number one vet recommended fresh dog food. Go to justfood for dogs.com 50% off your first box. You are welcome.
- [02:38]
David Rutherford
It's 2026 and this is an election year and I'm proud to welcome former Special Forces operator Nick Pulse, who's running for Lieutenant Governor of Wisconsin today on the David Rutherford Show. All right, Nick, you know, I, one of the things that I take a lot of crap for is not having more Green Berets on the show. And, and you know, I, I, I want to make sure that I, I pay tribute to all my Green Beret brothers because I am an 18 Delta officially. Right. And so having you on is such an incredible opportunity and I'm really excited to hear what you have to say about running for Lieutenant Governor, man.
- [03:32]
Nick Pulse
All right, thank you. I appreciate you having me on and I'll try to represent the regiment to the best of my abilities here and not let anybody down.
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David Rutherford
Awesome. Awesome. Because we know, we know Big J is going to be watching for sure.
- [03:46]
Nick Pulse
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.
- [03:47]
David Rutherford
All right, let's just jump right into it. Obviously, you know, a lot of people in particular operators are stepping into this battle space, you know, for many reasons. We've had Jared Hudson, who's running for Senate down in Alabama. You know, we're, we're, we're in talks to have a couple more guys that are, are, are in contention are going to start throwing their hats in to run here soon. Let's just ask you, how long did you serve and why are you taking that deep dedication to serving the nation and continuing it to want to serve the great state of Wisconsin?
- [04:29]
Nick Pulse
Sure. Great question. So I spent a little over a decade in the Army, a little over 11 years. And my backstory is I was a senior in college when the towers came down. And that was a pivotal moment in my life and much of our we'll call the GWOT generation's lives. And it was a pivot point. And so I chose at that point that I wanted to join. I wanted to join specifically to get into the special operations community because I want to go overseas and take the fight to America's enemies. So from the time that, that we had that tragic attack on 9, 11 September, I graduated in May. And then I was on my way to basic training in October.
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David Rutherford
Wow.
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Nick Pulse
And then from that point, I got the opportunity to serve with some of the best of the best, like I said, spent over a decade doing that. And then that, living that, walking that, watching the decisions that were made by some of the folks in the political class or some of our elected officials and how they affected us on the ground. It prevented us from doing certain things. It caused unnecessary injuries. Some folks didn't come home that, that. Carrying that and learning from that is what I'm carrying forward now into my campaign here for lieutenant governor in Wisconsin. And I decided to jump in my why is my little guy, my nine year old, he drives me, he's why I'm doing what I'm doing. And it's because of him. And I don't want him to grow up in a state that he cannot afford. I don't want him to grow up in a country he cannot afford. And I want him to feel safe in the United States. And so those are the things why I got into the race.
- [06:04]
David Rutherford
It's so fascinating to me, especially from GWAC guys who do feel the continued call to push through and get into politics, because, you know, we often look at the battlefield as, you know, hey, that was the most, that was the place in our lives that always made the most sense, right? There was, there was the good guys and then the bad guys, right? And, and it was pretty linear. You knew where the battle space were, you had your mission objective, you had your boys around you and things seem to make sense. But when I take a step back and look at the political craziness that's going on across the country right now, for me, because I actually considered running for Congress down here in South Florida and for the 22 session and I talked to, I talked to Brian Mast about it, some other people, and after doing those discussions, I was like, this is crazy. Why would I want to go and subject myself one, to the whole campaign and running and the assaults and the attacks and then two, getting into government and getting, you know, into what seems to be a greater space of, of, let's just say, lack of accountability, lack of responsibility. Why, why do you think that you can go and make a difference now?
- [07:30]
Nick Pulse
No, it's a great question. And it, you do the research and it sounds like you talk to a lot of some, some real knowledgeable people and at some point. So for me in Wisconsin, I think a lot of ways Washington D.C. is not a lot lost cause. It's so far gone that to me the states is where we can fight, we can preserve, we can protect and eventually rebuild and try to hold the country that we have, that we grew up on that's given so much to us. And at the state level, and you have more control. It's, it's, it's closer to the problem set. And usually those closest to the problem set are best able to solve the problem. And so my focus is on the state right now.
- [08:14]
David Rutherford
Great. You had, you had talked about Republicans losing elections in Wisconsin pretty regularly for a while now. Can you just give us a brief history of that and why do you think now is a good time for you to run for lieutenant governor?
- [08:32]
Nick Pulse
Sure. So in Wisconsin, at the statewide level, you've had Ron Johnson and President Trump are the only ones that have won the state since 2014. Prior to that, you had Governor Scott Walker, who won in 2010 with that tea Party Revolution. He won the recall in 2011, and then he won for reelection in 2014. But since then, the GOP here, we haven't run a statewide race that we've won, with the exception of the two guys that I mentioned. So the why, in my assessment is I look at the messaging one. I look at the messaging and the messaging that won in 2010, that one in 2011 that President Trump ran on, Senator Ron Johnson ran on consistently is one of a populist of one on focusing on the working class, focusing on the individual American. And when we run on that messaging here in Wisconsin, we can win and we stray from that. We're racking up losses. So, so I look at the, the messaging here as, as one of the main reasons why at the state level the Republican Party has not been able to win since 2014.
- [09:38]
David Rutherford
Awesome. All right, so when I go to your, you know, your website, which is Nicholas polls.com and look at, you've got this great list of initiatives. And so the number one is unleashing the Wisconsin economy. What does that look like for you and how, what would you do as soon as you get into office to try and facilitate some of that economic growth to take place?
- [10:08]
Nick Pulse
Sure. So let me first talk about the role. So as a lieutenant governor, there's not very much outlined in the Constitution, the state constitution here, for their role, such as a couple of things. One is if the governor leaves the state, he or she can authorize you to with certain powers. If something happens to the governor, then you step up and you become the leader of the state, and then you're in charge of the Senate. Short of that, there's not much outlined in the Constitution as to what the lieutenant governor can do and should be doing daily. So I look at this role as one of being an advocate and one of being a robust, proactive lieutenant governor. Because you have a platform, right? As the number two elected official in the state, you have a platform and you have the power to convene. What does that mean? You get the opportunity to bring people together, whether they're business leaders, whether they're folks in education, whether they're folks at the lower levels of government, you know, the county or state level, you can bring people together, you can have conversations and you could be an advocate for Wisconsinites across the state. So that's what I look at as my role. All right, so now specifically, as it comes to some of the economic items, Wisconsin is one of the most over regulated states in the Midwest. So when you have a whole bunch of regulations, you're decreasing freedom. Business owners aren't able to do certain things, employees aren't able to do certain things. There's less of risk taking in those situations. We also have property taxes that are increasing. We had our governor here that signed a 400. That's a 400 year property tax increase. And most recently in December, we've felt that for the first time since he signed it. And there was a lot of sticker shock. So when you combine high regulations, you combine high property taxes, we have income taxes and a variety of other little taxes and rules, regulations, that creates a lot of restraint. And so when I talk about unleashing the Wisconsin economy, I want to create freedom. I want to talk about freedom. I want to crisscross the state preaching freedom. Because in humans are naturally yearning to be free and we should unleash them and allow them to have the economic freedom here in the state, much like what President Trump is trying to do at the federal level.
- [12:20]
David Rutherford
Now, I understand that, you know, most states have very substantial health care costs, including Wisconsin, that is Madison and Milwaukee for sure. And you know, one of the things that we're seeing recently is the corruption or manipulation of healthcare issues through corruption or federal spending going into the wrong places. The Somali population in Minnesota, we've got other illegal immigrant in Maine. We saw Sean Ryan deliver Maine reporters been diving into that. We've seen it in California, we've seen it all over. So health care obviously is, is probably going to be a big one on the ticket. How are you going to address health care? And what is your message to a lot of people that rely on, on subsidies?
- [13:17]
Nick Pulse
No, it's a great question. So specifically in Wisconsin, there, there are a couple of things that the state can do separate from the federal government to help drive down Costs and then also increase competition. So one of the things that we have here is we have a limited amount of health insurance companies that can sell into Wisconsin. One that doesn't take any laws changing. That just comes out of the executive branch in Madison of the insurance commissioner changing and allowing other insurance companies to sell into Wisconsin. So one, you can increase the amount of insurance companies selling here, which should we have more supply and demand stays the same. We should see prices coming down. The second thing we can do again at the, at the state level, I mean, there's many things, but the second thing that we can do is there's mandates, meaning that we have a laws here in Wisconsin that mandate certain health insurance companies have to sell plans, meaning they're putting a floor in place. So no matter what, I have to buy a certain plan, you have to buy a certain plan. You can't go to insurance company and pick and choose, or the insurance company can't sell you a plan that you may like because of the mandates. So there's a couple things we could do right away to help drive down costs in the state. Now, as it relates to a lot of the fraud, one of the things I'd like to do, and I think that we can do it at my level, if not in different parts of the government here, is audit. Before we talk about raising taxes or before we talk about any additional spending, is auditing where the money's going. Because I'm pretty sure if we do this audit, we're going to find money, a lot of money there that's being misspent. You mentioned a couple of examples across the country of a lot of fraud that's popping up. And I'm willing to bet that if we audit, we're going to find a whole lot of money that we then can decide how to allocate for Americans, for Wisconsinites and not have it go to fraud, waste or abuse.
- [15:09]
David Rutherford
Great answer. All right, so one of the things that obviously some of, I think you look at really what's triggered your, one of your neighbors there in Minnesota in this, the, the craziness that's happened on the streets of Minneapolis is the fraud was exposed and, and all that attention came crashing down. I remember seeing a video just the other day, Dr. Oz standing in front of an old giant warehouse facility and there were over 400 fraudulent healthcare companies or daycare companies set up in that obviously the Nick Shirley investigation to Somali daycare centers and all this funding to the tune of 8 billion was going in. But the real problematic problem of that And I think fraud, and that is a different thing. The other is, is illegal immigration. When I looked up the statistics on, on Wisconsin and I, you know, I didn't see Wisconsin ranks 20th in total population with approximately 5.96 million residents. Racial, you know, the demographics, mostly white, aging seniors overall, you know, but one of the interesting thing, you know, was the illegal immigration numbers. It said there's an estimated 70,000 undocumented immigrants as of recent data. And that's primarily from 2023 estimates representing 1.2 of the state's population. You know, I, I, but I'm sure what's going to emerge is this immigration stance. And we'll talk about the main Democratic challenger you have and maybe a little bit of the Republican a minute. So where's, what's your stance on what's taking place in Minnesota as well as the grander context of the immigration issue in the United States?
- [17:10]
Nick Pulse
Let's start with Minnesota. Now, I would separate from the illegal immigration problem the fraud that you mentioned there, the fraud that you mentioned in California, the fraud that they found in hud. What I see, and we'll come back to immigration, just a second. What I see is incentives when it comes to government programs are all wrong. Meaning the incentive when you're in charge of a government program or when you're running a government program is to spend all the money because you go back at the end of the year to whether it's at Congress or whether it's at the State House and go to that assembly and say, hey, I spent all my money, so you need to give me more money. What happens if you go back and you don't spend all your money? Then the representatives say, hey, oh, you got extra money? Great. We're going to give it to the people that spent all their money. So within government programs, there is an incentive to not really watch where anything's going to not really care much about the accountability because your incentive is to spend all your money. So that is a problem that I would like to see addressed. And that's one of the things that I will be working on addressing when we win, is working on how we can change that incentive model, period, to get at the fraud, to get at the focus on being frugal and, and being accountable with our money in Wisconsin, money across the United States. Now, backing up to the illegal immigration here in Wisconsin we had Fort McCoy was one of the bases that the Biden administration brought a whole bunch of Afghani folks in. I don't remember that several years ago, but Fort McCoy in Wisconsin. So that was one of the major staging grounds when they were bringing folks in. And then there was all kinds of news articles and there were different accounts of walking off the base, having problems with destruction, variety of things. And then wherever they went after that, Minneapolis, large Somali population. And we saw the results of that was American intervention in Somalia made famous by the Black Hawk down movie and how those, those great Americans, so many of them gave their lives or came home injured. Well, a lot of our intervention in Somalia caused that part of the immigration. People leaving Somalia, a lot of them settled in Minneapolis. There's also some communities in Wisconsin on the western side of the state, specifically in Barron County. And they're here. And it doesn't appear based off of their actions, it doesn't appear that there's a whole lot of assimilation. It doesn't appear like there's a whole lot of, of wanting to be Americans, of wanting to join America for our values and for, for why we're living here. And it doesn't appear that's happening. All right, and so those. Just a couple of things I want to talk through right now. And the last thing you talked about, the fraud. Back to my comment originally with the incentives, it appears that a lot of folks that have come as immigrants, whether illegal or illegal, there's incentive for the state to be putting them into programs. And then the lack of accountability, transparency leads to opportunities for waste, fraud and abuse.
- [20:20]
David Rutherford
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- [22:13]
Public Investing Sponsor
Support for the show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On Public, you can build a multi asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto and now generated assets which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index with AI. It all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year, you can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one of a kind index and lets you back test it against the S&P 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like ETFs with infinite possibilities, abilities completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com podcast paid for by Public Investing Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc. Member FINRA and SIPC Advisory Services by Public Advisors, llc, SEC Registered Advisor. Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. Complete disclosures available at public.com disclosures hey.
- [23:15]
Nick Pulse
This is US Olympic gold medalist Tara Davis Woodhull and I'm US Paralympic gold medalist Hunter Woodhull. As athletes, our lives are about having a clear path and a team that you can absolutely trust. So when it came to getting the best mortgage, we chose PennyMac. PennyMac is proud to be the official mortgage provider of Team USA and you learn more at pennymac.com PennyMac Loan Services.
- [23:35]
Public Investing Sponsor
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- [23:39]
Nick Pulse
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- [23:44]
Bethenny Frankel
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- [25:14]
David Rutherford
I think you're spot on. I think it is an incentive circle, right? I absolutely agree. You know, and then I think the asylum programs were really interesting and you, if you look at where the distribution took place, a lot of the distribution of, of asylum seeking immigrants were distributed to purple states, right? Swing states. And, and I, and I think, you know, that makes sense when, when, when you're struggling with your core base and I think the Democratic Party has struggled, started to fractionalize its core base. We saw that with, with Democratic males in particular, Hispanic and African American males started, you know, going more independent and actually voted in for Republicans the last time around because of, I think the, the opportunity, the economic opportunity that has been diminished as a result of probably government handouts or however you wanted the incentives, right, that incentive structure. And, and know, I think for all nos that have exploded over that, they're also incentivized, right? They're incentivized to continue to keep that circle going. And then now there's, you know, there's a couple people I'm following on X who are talking about how that structure works, right? You import a large number of asylum seekers, immigrants, right, coming over. You put them in a, a purple state. You put them on state funds, right, that are fostered through NGOs that are also getting state funds and federal funds. And then you just, you know, recycle those people. And then, you know, they, you help devise economic incentives too. And then they fund the politicians that keep them, keep the money train going. So it is, it is an interesting cycle of corruption. We go back to that. You know, you have listed on, on your initiatives about government spending itself. What about Wisconsin, Wisconsin government spending, do you want to try and address with that advocacy as lieutenant governor and to get a better discussion going on?
- [27:34]
Nick Pulse
Sure. Well, and just in the last eight years, we've seen the spending at the federal or the state level here go up about 50%. And we haven't gotten 50% better services. We haven't gotten a 50 cent better, 50% better quality of life. Right. So the spending is continually increasing. And the thing about government spending is at the state level, it only comes. They can't print money like they can at the federal level. There's no Federal Reserve in Wisconsin that can just turn on the printing press. So it either comes from taxes or fees or there's borrowing or the state's borrowing. And when we're looking at the constant increase of spending, spending, spending, it means we're taking or extracting more and more money from our citizens here. And my focus is on keeping more of your money in your pocket because you know best how to spend your money for your family, for yourself, for your community, rather than somebody, a bureaucrat in Madison who just has a budget and their incentivized to spend it all.
- [28:34]
David Rutherford
That makes a lot of sense. All right. At the bottom of your initiatives, you talk about election integrity. Now, I don't know where you stand. I'm, I've been doing a lot of shows on election integrity, in particular about the 2020 elections. And you know, there's, there's, you know, Scott Presser, who does the amazing, you know, voter registration for Republicans. He, you know, he helped New Jersey out, Pennsylvania, he flipped in 2024, which was an unbelievable flip. You know, he's, he's brought some attention to the Wisconsin 2020 elections. You know, obviously there were a couple reports about the printing of additional ballots. John Solomon reported on some of that. There was a guy that was a whistleblower for the United States post or office. His name was Ethan Peace. But he saw some substantial abnormalities in terms of ballots that came in. You know, as a part of your duties as Lieutenant governor, you will be assisting in the implementation of elections in Wisconsin. What are your thoughts about voter rolls, future elections and reinstilling confidence? You know, in, in a state that was considered to have some abnormalities in 2020.
- [30:06]
Nick Pulse
Yeah, that's, that's still a big issue here, here today. There's a lot of items that haven't been Resolved yet. One of the main issues we have here is the way that our elections are run. We have a. It's called the Wisconsin Election Commission. And so rather than elections run out of a constitutionally elected office, like a Secretary of State, the Wisconsin Election Commission, which is bureaucrats that are appointed by party, so there's a couple Republicans, a couple Democrats, and they've been running the election. So I am not in favor of that system. I'd like to abolish the Wisconsin Election Commission. I'd like to return the power to run elections to the Secretary of state, constitutionally elected official. That's one thing. Second thing is verifiable. We want verifiable elections and verifiable ballots. We had a problem in 2020, and it was less of a problem in 2024 with absentee ballots. Right. So in Wisconsin, for a long time, it was very few people that were requesting absentee ballots. It was only if you couldn't leave the house if you. Really small circumstances where you, you would absentee. Covid changed all that. The rules got expanded. The. There was a lot of relaxation in some of the rules. And so there was, there was a transition to a lot of absentee ballots. And as you know, if you've been studying it, when you have a lot of absentee ballots flooding the system, it makes it easier to be able to get the outcome that you want in an election, because once the ballot is separated from the envelope, it's. It's near impossible to figure out if that is legitimate and verifiable. Verifiable ballot tied to a person. So. So the verifiable election is nothing that I'd be working on here in the state. And you mentioned voter rolls. So voter rolls. Back to, back to the wec, the doj, Trump's DOJ has sued Wisconsin to get a look at the voter rolls to help clean up. Wisconsin's fighting that. Well, why would you fight trying to clean up voter rolls? It doesn't make any sense unless there's something that you potentially are trying to hide or you try to make it easier to get the outcome that you want in an election. So we have to. And back to the advocacy piece, right. Is talking about that, talking about solutions that I just gave you a couple of them here. And clean up the voter rolls is as a high priority as well.
- [32:26]
David Rutherford
So I've been paying attention to a guy on X right now who's been posting constantly about voter rolls and the additions to voter rolls, being able to register online. No proof of ID is that a part of Wisconsin elections is no voter id. And if it. If it is, I mean, obviously a grand majority of the population nationwide, like 78%, believe voter ideas are accurate. How would you try and bring that back to the state?
- [32:58]
Nick Pulse
So we do have a voter ID here. We have a pretty robust system in place to. To allow people to vote, also to have some security in place related to voter id. One of the things that I would change and I would push for a change is the way that the Wisconsin elections focus on college kids or people that move here from out of state. So within about 30 days, if you move to the state within 30, I think it's 30 days of the election, then you can vote in this state. And so I would change that because what happens is if you're, say, living in Iowa, you move to Wisconsin within 30 days of the election, then you can vote here in Wisconsin, college kid or, or something like that. I would change that. I would. I would make that a longer time. Or if somebody does move in here within the 30 days, they have to vote and the state that they came from, rather than change their residency and voting within 30 days of the general election. So that's one of the things I would change. In addition, we have the voter id. We have a variety of different. Not just driver's license. There's. There's the passport and there's several other ones. I did work a couple of elections in Milwaukee county and so got to see it firsthand as a poll observer. The whole process, from the beginning to the end, on. On how that works.
- [34:16]
David Rutherford
That's good news. Sorry I made that mistake to my. My listeners. All right, let's shift now to who you're running against. The woman you're running against is. Is. I'm going to butcher. Last name Sarah Godolowski. Is that correct? Godlowski. Now, she's seems to be a person that has been kind of, you know, moving towards politics and political activism for a long time. Give me a little bit of a description about why you think her policies don't get in line with what Wisconsin, the people Wisconsin want or need.
- [35:02]
Nick Pulse
Sure. So. So she's been. She. Prior to running for Lieutenant governor, she was Secretary of State, and then she also has ran, or she did almost run for, I believe it was Senate in 2022 as well. So her, her vision and her. Her policies align with what I'll call the collectivist mindset, which is increasing government control of your life, increasing government spending, which means taxes have to go up, increasing regulations they want to turn Wisconsin into a sanctuary state. One of the lieutenant governor, the current lieutenant governor who's running for governor, she's already come out and said I don't want to have ICE enforcement. I don't want to be sharing with ice. And that would be absolutely terrible if Wisconsin turned into a sanctuary state. And so those are a few of her positions and her policies that she would support in the, with the next Democrat governor as lieutenant governor. And those to me are exactly the opposite of what we need for Wisconsin.
- [35:57]
David Rutherford
What do you think people in Wisconsin, not outside of Madison and Milwaukee, out, out where the farms are, out where you know, the people that I mean because you know my, my aunt and uncle lived in Wisconsin for 40 years. My cousins went to, went to University of Wisconsin's a great big ten school. And, and man, I just remember going there as a kid and it seeming like it was just a state where people like to be left alone and nice people and they just want their liberty and their freedom. Why do you think the state has pushed so hard to the left? Is it really because of the focal centers of Madison and Milwaukee? And, and why don't you know, people in rural areas recognize kind of this collectivist mentality to kind of really jump in terms of their voter turnout?
- [36:59]
Nick Pulse
Well, I think that we do that. That's pretty, that's pretty neat that you got the history here with, with Wisconsin as I've been getting out, crisscrossing state talk on all over the place, urban areas or rural areas. I think that there is that mentality that you mentioned which is want to be left alone, want to live our life. We have a lot of freedom here. History of freedom in the state. The two counties that are the largest voting block for Democrats are Dane county and then Milwaukee county and there's a little bit up in Green Bay County. Those are the two really two and a half where they drive the most turnout and those are the highest population centers and those are the areas that you see the most radical ideas, the most, the harder and harder push into collectivism, the attempts to try to disrupt icc, most of the protests there. And as those, my opinion, as those urban centers have grown, when they turn out they can offset a lot of the voting in some of the rural counties. Some of the more counties that are focused more on freedom.
- [38:01]
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- [39:02]
Nick Pulse
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David Rutherford
So when it came to getting the.
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Nick Pulse
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- [39:32]
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- [40:34]
David Rutherford
That makes a lot of sense. You know, I, I, as I've watched this, I mean, from, you know, my, my last deployment was in 2011. I spent a lot of that year in Pakistan with the Agency. You know, and I got home, really, I saw this kind of collectivist mentality, as you describe it. I call it straight out Marxism. You know, I've, I've noticed that a lot of this is led, you know, in these, you know, blue city centers or in college towns.
- [41:11]
Bethenny Frankel
Right.
- [41:12]
David Rutherford
And it is really kind of taken hold of, I think, you know, the, the 35 and younger generation. And those generations are considerable now, you know, in terms of size, I. E. The, you know, the Gen Z is going to be bigger than the boomers. And you know, as, as you're leading into the primaries. What do you want to say to those younger voters now? Like those people that have been since, you know, they were in middle school, junior high and high school and in college, they've been, you know, there's been this bombardment of, of, you know, I don't want to call it anti American sentiment because I believe they love their country. I just believe they think a socialist formula is the way we get out of whatever they perceive this unbridled, oppressive fascist imperialism or whatever you want to describe it, Right. There's a new word for it every day. One day you're Nazi, the next day you're a fascist. Next day, you know, whatever it is. So, you know, what do you have to say to those young voters that are looking to, you know, and again, I don't want to come across as presumptuous, but you know, what I see with friends of mine that have served and do have legitimate voices, whether in politics or in podcasting or whatever, you know, you see there's a gravitational pull towards young people within that because there's a, I think there's a respect that takes place from your service. Right. Obviously, 10 years going down range in the GWAT. And at the level that you do it at the highest level, you know, there's a built in respect. But the language that these kids are used to is very different than the things that inspired you in that senior year of college to go out, raise your right hand, join and go serve for 10 years going down range in the GWAT. So what, how are you going to approach those young people? And what message do you want to tell them?
- [43:17]
Nick Pulse
No. So here's, so here's what I hear a lot in that in that demographic, in that generation is, is a feeling like they're, they're not able to chase the American dream for whatever reason, whether it's housing costs are out of control, whether I've graduated college and I have this, this weight of debt that's hanging around my neck. Job H1B visas, right? That, that whole process where we're not hiring Americans, those are a couple of the, the core issues. So as I approach it, I share my story and I share that I want to be your voice. I'm running for my 9 year old and I want him to have a, be able to chase the dream that I was able to chase, you know, because I stood on my dad's shoulders and like he stood on his father's shoulders. And so that when I talk about my son in this race, I'm talking about the next generation. And it comes to millennials and it comes to, to Gen Z and feeling like they're hurt. Like I hear you, I, I hear you on some of your challenges. And, and Frank, quite frankly, we as not just us, and then our, you know, maybe the generation above us, they've taken action and they've taken, made choices that are affecting, you know, are affecting our kids and our, and our grandkids and we got to turn that around. And the last thing I'll say, you mentioned socialism and that it sounds so good. Right. And I see this election as a very stark contrast between on the one hand, you got the collectivism, the socialists, the Marxists, whatever, like you said, whatever label that we want, they want to call themselves that day and the folks that believe in freedom and we're seeing, they got an election in New York, they had a Seattle mayor that got elected in Seattle here in the state of Wisconsin at the governor candidate level and then at the lieutenant governor candidate level on the left, a Democrat side, their policies and their positions are pushing harder and harder to left into that socialist mindset. And that's going to be terrible for any generation unless you're the small percentage of people that's in charge. Right? Because in socialism, the small percentage of people that are in charge, they, the ones that get paid, they're the ones that have all kinds of wealth and the rest of us don't. And so that's what I talked earlier about, wanting to preach freedom and wanting to, to take that on head on. That has to happen. We have to be able to take that mentality head on and explain why it's no good, not only in the heart, but we have to take it, we have to focus on the emotional level too, when we're battling against socialism because they try to capture the moral high ground. And we cannot let them capture moral high ground because nowhere in socialism do they ever get to capture the moral high ground. Never works.
- [45:55]
David Rutherford
Well, that's, that's the greatest illusion of, of how people are professing all of this to young kids, right? Who do you go after? You go to that disenfranchised 22 year old kid who like you said, has got a mountain of debt because they said if you go to college, you'll, you'll, you know, double your annual income and, you know, it'll, it'll do this. And you know, and then, you know, they, when they get out, they realize, man, they've been lied to a lot by the same people that are then projecting the socialistic views, right? Vote for people that'll give you free stuff. And I just think it's, it's kind of comical that they, you know, young people get tra, get caught in that kind of propaganda trap over and over. So I appreciate your answer there, Nick. All right, give me some final thoughts on kind of where we're at with the temperatures in America right now in the vitriol amongst people. What do you hope to see in your campaign, not only in your primary against other Republicans, but then when you win that, you go on to campaign against, you know, your, your Democratic opponent at the end, you know, at the end of the year for the lieutenant governorship? What do you hope to see?
- [47:17]
Nick Pulse
Well, I like to see a dialing down of the rhetoric. I'd like to see a dialing down of the, of the, what appears to be a march towards more and more aggression, more and more violence. And I would hope, and I pray that that is not the case. It does appear like we talked a little earlier about Minnesota and some of the actions there appear to be insurgency based or folks that have studied manuals on how to develop an insurgency, and it appears to be that they're employing it there. Which is, which is, which is, is no good at all. So I would love to see a dialing down of the Reddick. I'd love to see a dialing down of the, of the conversation and a dialing down of the demonization of people on different issues. And you call them names so you can demonize them. And then once you demonize them or once you dehumanize them, then it becomes easier to do other things. That's another lesson of history. So I like to see us Focus on how do we solve problems, what's going to be the best for in my state here in Wisconsin, and then how do we execute on those items to make it better for Wisconsinites here? And that's what I keep talking about. We talk about solutions, we talk about the House to get things done as we're crisscrossing state and try to avoid any type of. That dehumanization and that. That anger. Focus on individual. Because it's very hard to talk to somebody when you're. When you're calling them names or when you've decided that they're not worth a conversation.
- [48:41]
David Rutherford
Outstanding. Outstanding. All right, Nick, where can people find you?
- [48:46]
Nick Pulse
Follow.
- [48:47]
David Rutherford
And then how can they help you with your campaign?
- [48:50]
Nick Pulse
Sure. Fantastic. So on X, we're @nickpulse WI on Facebook, we're at Nick Pulse for Lieutenant Governor. And then Our website is nicholaspulse.com Please sign up. Please share with all your friends and family. Absolutely. Donate if you believe in me, if you believe in our team, if you believe in our mission, donate us so that we can continue to spread the word across the state as we push towards the primary in August and then ultimately the election, general election in November.
- [49:21]
David Rutherford
Nick, I just. There's a part of me that's like, man, you're crazy. I can't believe you fought 10 years into GWA at the level you did, and now you want to go into this battle. But then there's a part of me that says, shut up. Was. He's doing the right thing. You don't have the courage to do it. So I just want to offer you, you know, I'm, you know, it's just cool to see another operator step onto the battle, the. The new battlefield, which is for the battle of America and the soul of America. And I just wish you the best, man. Good luck to you.
- [49:58]
Nick Pulse
Right? Thanks again. Thanks for having me on, and I appreciate that support.
- [50:09]
David Rutherford
Foreign.
- [50:12]
Bethenny Frankel
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