The following transcript was generated using automated transcription software for the accessibility and convenience of our audience. While we strive for accuracy, the automated process may introduce errors, omissions, or misinterpretations. This transcript is intended as a helpful companion to the original audio and should not be considered a verbatim record. For the most accurate representation, please refer to the audio recording.
MICHAEL DUNNE: I'm Michael Dunne. Right now, it seems inevitable that the current shutdown of the federal government will most likely stretch into the longest shutdown in US history. In huge ways and small ways, the impact is being felt by almost all Americans. Today on the show, we'll talk with Oregon senior Senator Ron Wyden and get his take on the causes and continuing impacts of the shutdown. In town to talk about the massive disruption to SNAP benefits, the senator is joining with both federal and state leaders to rally support for democratic demands aimed at protecting the Affordable Care Act and restoring food assistance in Oregon and the nation. Then we'll finish out the show talking with our own reporter who was at the event where Wyden and Representative Val Hoyle talked about these key issues. Senator Ron Wyden it’s always great to see you. Thanks for coming in and talking to us.
SENATOR WYDEN: Thanks for having me back.
MICHAEL DUNNE: Well, why don't you give us the latest from your perch in the Senate on what's going on with the government shutdown?
SENATOR WYDEN: I will tell you, Michael, deep down, I believe Trump really likes the shutdown, because it goes to this whole point of being a king and being able to bully people in negotiations and the like. And I think what's happening now is so many of his senators, Republican senators, go home and people tell them about how their premiums, their insurance premiums, are going into the stratosphere, and now they're not going to be able to buy groceries in a lot of instances. And I think Trump is coming around. Now, the thing to watch, if you look at his statement last night about the whole question of hunger, he said, well, I have to talk to the lawyers about it. That's code for a stall ball. And I want listeners to know that I, the Democrats in the congressional delegation, are not going to abide that we think what he should have said is, I'm going to get this fixed immediately, which he can do.
MICHAEL DUNNE: You spearheaded something of a win recently with regard to a Senate vote on tariffs. Talk about that.
SENATOR WYDEN: It was really exciting, because this is the first big dent in Donald Trump's economic armor. These are the global tariffs. These are the big ones, or something like 180 of them, and they're really driving up the cost of groceries and electronics and automobiles and the like. We got some of the key Republicans, Mitch McConnell. I was talking to him about it for months and months, because I think everybody is starting to actually look at what this stuff means. Trump always said the tariffs are paid by foreigners. That's not true. That's an absolute fable. They're being paid by consumers in the United States. And we won 51-47 it now goes to the House of Representatives. I'm talking to the Oregon delegation already about how we can move it there.
MICHAEL DUNNE: Okay, do you think that even his base, people who voted for President Trump, do you think they're starting to sort of understand that his economic policies, especially around tariffs, might not be as advertised?
SENATOR WYDEN: They're seeing that it's not dealing with what he promised in the campaign. He promised in the campaign he was going to lower costs. Now, not only has he not lowered costs, he's raised them. He doesn't even talk about it anymore. And I think a lot of them. I mean, I think I mentioned once, having done all meetings recently in rural Oregon, those folks are really mad about health care costs going through the stratosphere.
MICHAEL DUNNE: I'm also wondering too in terms of the shutdown and seemingly averted a bit of a crisis with two judges sort of halting the administration's plan to cut off SNAP benefits. Talk a little bit about that.
SENATOR WYDEN: First of all, we were in the middle of a big meeting, Senator Merkley, I, Congresswoman Salinas, Congresswoman Bonamici, all in a meeting, and somebody slipped me a piece of paper and I could announce it. And the reality is, Trump is on very bad legal footing here. The Department of Agriculture actually put something out a few months ago, basically saying they had the money for six months. It was something they could use to prevent hunger, certainly in the short term. And I said today in Lane County, and everybody's helping now, except Donald Trump.
MICHAEL DUNNE: Yeah. In fact, our own governor, you know, released some funds…
SENATOR WYDEN: The first stop I made when I got home was to go to Heretic Coffee in Southeast Portland. Everybody's pitching in, and everybody can with groceries. If you can write a small check, that's great, but whatever works for you.
MICHAEL DUNNE: I'm also wondering too about, you know, I know a lot of people are hearing rhetoric on both sides, blaming the other for the shutdown, and I'm wondering, from your perspective, when and how might it end?
SENATOR WYDEN: It ends when Donald Trump says, I want to work with the other side. I want to produce a bipartisan health bill. And the reality is, here in Lane County, not far from where we're sitting, some folks are seeing their premiums go up 500% now, if Donald Trump says he wants to do a bipartisan bill, I'll go to Mike Crapo, the Republican who now chairs the finance committee that I chaired, and said, Look at what we did. Pharmacy benefit managers, we passed a major health care bill out of the committee. 26 to nothing. If Donald Trump says that he wants to end this shutdown, that he wants a bipartisan bill, I know how to do it, and can write that bill.
MICHAEL DUNNE: Do you think that speaker Johnson in the house, will then call the house back to that's part of the challenge?
SENATOR WYDEN: They had a six-week vacation. I'd say they must have tumbleweed, you know, sweeping through the house chambers, because nobody's been there so long. They've got to decide they want to do it. They want to govern and not just play politics.
MICHAEL DUNNE: Are you concerned with what's happening in the Caribbean, and what Donald Trump and his…
SENATOR WYDEN: Very much so, because the intelligence committee that I sit on is completely in the dark. We have not gotten the kind of information that you have to have in order to make judgments about this, what are called sources and methods, which is information that's classified. And I think it is a real breach of executive branch responsibility. Is there anything that the Senate can do? We have been, we've been speaking out about being left out. But, you know, Donald Trump doesn't really care about laws and rules in a lot of these areas. He likes to do what he thinks he can do, and just say that he's got the authority. And that's the end of the discussion. It's like this week he went back and started hinted at a third term, according to Steve Bannon. So, he's not looking at the rule of law, something that's important to him.
MICHAEL DUNNE: Up the road a couple hours in Portland, there's still kind of this wait and see with regard to whether or not the National Guard is actually going to, you know, engage in Portland. Can you give us any updates on what you're hearing?
SENATOR WYDEN: We're all waiting. Everybody hears the same thing. The bottom line is, we are in Portland, overwhelmingly, a safe, vibrant community. Sure, there's some things that are concerning, the fentanyl question and a variety of things, but overwhelmingly, it's such a wonderful community. We're so proud of it. Donald Trump is doing everything he can to try to incite violence, and now, if he can put protesters against each other, everybody just loses sight of what's being discussed. They just say, Oh, well, let's have the federal authorities. If you're following the following this from the outside in Portland, people are saying, no, what you're doing is deliberate to try to incite violence. We can take care of it with our existing authorities, our existing law enforcement.
MICHAEL DUNNE: I want to get to fentanyl in a second, but I did want to ask you, you know, it seemed like there was a lot of rhetoric on the far right before those No Kings rallies, that they were almost, it sounded like they were almost hoping for clashes.
SENATOR WYDEN: Well, there's no question that they're hoping for. That's what that's what they want. They don't want a night where people are just looking at all the wonderful characters. Yeah, but obviously that didn't happen. It was largely peaceful, but it was enormous. Talk about, from your, your, your point of view. What that meant. What it meant was that we were going to, number one, not take the bait in terms of violence, but we're going to try to make fun of it. You know, I posed with a bunch of pumpkins, something for Twitter, and it was so scary, and we laughed at all the pumpkins. And the point really is, Trump is looking at any way he possibly can to tell people outside, you know, Oregon and outside the valley, that what you're seeing is not really what's going on. You know, Ron Wyden and others have posted these things that suggest it's happy. Don't think that way. It's really violent. I mean, they wouldn't even let the journalists from Oregon, you know, get a chance to come and get a sense of what's going on. I made a big deal about that, and I said, that's not the First Amendment.
MICHAEL DUNNE: You're also working on, you're asking the Trump administration about fentanyl, trying to get a handle on the Fentanyl crisis. Talk about what you're trying to do
.
SENATOR WYDEN: This is obviously so serious. Fentanyl is such a powerful drug, really, 100 times as strong as a lot of the other drugs. And I've decided, based on conversations with people like chief Ivan's in Medford, who's been very, very helpful, if you've got to go to the source, the brokers who are producing all this and work with the cartels to get it out in an expeditious way. So, I'm proposing a strategy that's a little different. We're obviously going to have to focus on cartels as well. But as chief Ivan says, and he's been so supportive of this and speaks out about it, what you got to do if you're going to really get this done is you got to go to the source, where they are, the brokers are setting it in motion. What can you do by going to the source? Well, you can get on top of it in terms of getting a sense of what's going to happen next Mexico, for example, which is and then you can get a beat on what's happening in China. These are all places where very sophisticated criminals operate. But if you can control the source, you also cut off some of those opportunities for them. Yeah, obviously the Trump administration has used the Fentanyl crisis to even ramp up a lot of their immigration and enforcement policies.
MICHAEL DUNNE: I kind of wanted to get to that, because obviously ICE has been very active everywhere, and it's been active in Portland, to some degree, in Eugene, maybe talk a little bit about sort of the tactics that ICE is using.
SENATOR WYDEN: I got asked the other day at a meeting, so you know, what would you do differently? And I said I would do what Donald Trump said he would do back in 2024 he never said anything about rounding up, you know, innocent kids and, you know, violating the rule of law principles and the like. You know, he said he said he was going to go after cartels and terrorists and murderers and violent people and the like. That's what I think ought to be done. We ought to return to what Donald Trump said he would do, and not what he's doing now, which is basically trying to round up, you know, innocent, you know, kids and so if you can wear down their families.
MICHAEL DUNNE: Does it seem like, you know, obviously, I always appreciate you coming in and having a very frank discussion. But I wanted to get your point of view on sort of the media in general, on how we in the media are covering Trump, perhaps, versus how we cover the Democrats or whatnot.
SENATOR WYDEN: I think nobody has ever seen anybody quite like Trump. He has made himself inescapable in American life, from the time he gets up in the morning till the time he goes to bed at night. You know, he dominates all these people that are in his cabinet that he tried out in Mar a Lago TV or whatever it is. They're all part of this as well. And I think there does need to be more done in terms of, you know, the media describing how Trump does this and why. Because, if you just have, well, he said she really often misses the whole, you know, point of this. Trump doesn't care for, as far as I can tell, what the New York Times says about the bottom because that's not what his base is paying attention to. So I think to really get at this, you've got to go to exactly how his operation works, and by the way, that would mean more analysis of the enormous array of media companies Trump bought after Trump won, single biggest difference between Trump one and Trump two is this, is on this question you're talking about media, is that, you know, Trump got all his friends go out and buy all the media so that you can talk about me.
MICHAEL DUNNE: I'm also wondering about this. I mean, I know you like to do the work of the government. There's a lot of criticism about Trump and on the right that they don't like to govern. My question for you is this, do you think that good old-fashioned policy works on the government side? I don't want to say make a comeback? I'm not saying it ever left, but I am wondering that it seems like we just talked about the attention economy, almost all factors, and almost pays more attention to outlandishness versus those doing the work. Talk about that.
SENATOR WYDEN: I think there's no question that performative politics is here to stay. People who are performing and, you know, are looking for clicks and the like. But what I've been saying, I've been home now for a day and a half. I've been saying, I'm focused on lowering your grocery prices. Wasn't there a lot of talk back in the presidential campaign about how your prices were going to go down? Oh, I see if the price is going up. Here's what we're doing. And I I've made my judgment call that there still is an opportunity, if you talk about something that people say really relates to their family, same way with this whole question of fighting hunger, these are our community members and people on your block and people who've done the right thing and have four or five kids and have a sick relative, and they're going to have trouble meeting ends. And I think people are going to pay attention to it.
MICHAEL DUNNE: I know you're not an economist, but I'd love to just get your opinion about, given what has happened at the federal level to the economy, how concerned are you that we are going to slip into a recession and what maybe the rest of the year and into 2026 might look like?
SENATOR WYDEN: It's pretty clear that Jerome Powell is concerned about, you know, the prospect for inflation. I was one of the Democrats who voted for him. I think he's been, you know, pretty balanced, but, you know, that's one of the reasons why I'm focused on these things at lower costs. You know, one of the things that really puts a premium on efficiency and markets, and the stuff that people understand relates to the prices they pay for, whether it's cars or computers or food or whatever. And I think it does send a psychological message, which is that if you focus on actually doing things in terms of lower cost, then the government starts making some decisions that make it, you know, work. I know for years, you know, when I was trying to play in the NBA, and I occasionally cracked a book. I'd always look at economics, and I was stunned that mostly what you see is that if you make decisions that suggest things are going to happen, then there's a better likelihood it will actually happen. I see Senator, my last question for you. I always like asking you what people are asking you when you do so many town halls, what are some of maybe the top three or four things that people are asking you about, what's going on or asking you about, you know, what the future looks like? Well, I can tell you the last couple of days, it's all been those issues. I might have used this with you once before. I don't mean to be repetitive where it seems like after a bit, all the conversation has the word bill in it, medical bill, energy bill, mortgage bill, rent bill, and that's what's happening when you see these costs, you know, go up. People say, Hey, Mr. President, this is not what you told us was going to happen. I'm not going to be able to pay my rent this month.
MICHAEL DUNNE: Senator Ron Wyden, always great to talk to you. Thanks so much.
SENATOR WYDEN: Big thanks.
MICHAEL DUNNE: Let's check in with one of our reporters about what Senator Wyden and Representative Hoyle told an audience this weekend. Julia Boboc, a reporter with us here at KLCC, thanks for coming in and talking to us.
JULIA BOBOC: Thanks for having me.
MICHAEL DUNNE: I know you signed the press event that Senator Wyden and Representative Val Hoyle held in Eugene this last weekend. You know, what were the highlights? What'd they say?
JULIA BOBOC: So, a majority of the time spent during that conference was Senator Wyden and Congresswoman Val Hoyle, as well as other speakers, essentially condemning the President and his administration for their lack of action related to SNAP benefits. So, there was a lot of conversation about what the administration had done, or really what they hadn't done to allow these benefits, and then what the legislators were going to do on a more state and local level, and what resources there were for people who are now without their SNAP benefits for the first time.
MICHAEL DUNNE: And of course, since you covered this event, there's been some action on SNAP. The administration is forced to spend money, but they're only going to spend half of that, apparently. And so, my general question to you is, you know, what were some of the things that both Senator Wyden and Representative Hoyle talking about just the impacts of lack of SNAP spending for people very much in need in our state?
JULIA BOBOC: So, the, I mean, there were a lot of numbers thrown around during this conference that really had me shocked, including the fact that one in five people in Lane County alone rely on SNAP. Wow, which is a lot, yeah. So, there was a lot of conversation about how the sheer number of people that this was going to impact, even in this small county, and then obviously, when you expand it to the state, and you expand it to the country, you see so many people without access to affordable food, and so someone, someone had spoken Shantae Madison. She personally spoke about her own experience being a beneficiary of SNAP benefits, getting SNAP benefits and using them for her family. And she just kind of talked about how this is going to be. This is going to make it so that people are going to start having to reprioritize. You know, when you start having to pay for groceries that are really expensive, are you sacrificing your rent? Are you sacrificing your gas? Are you sacrificing childcare? So, a lot of those choices are going to have to be made.
MICHAEL DUNNE: I know another person who spoke was the executive director of Head Start of Lane County. What did that person talk about?
JULIA BOBOC: Yes, so the executive director of Head Start, Charlene Straw, she said that she talked a lot about how much this would affect the community, and specifically, she has worked with people like Shantae, including Shantae, in helping them find not just food assistance, but all those other things that we talked about: rent assistance, child care assistance, and now she talked a little bit about how this is going to affect staff at these organizations that provide these resources, who may also be benefiting from snap as well. So, everyone's going to be overrun. Essentially, the pantry lines are going to get someone said the pantry lines are going to get longer and the food supply is going to get shorter. So, a big resource, a big resource that was mentioned was food for Lean county.org That was a huge thing, and that just kind of allows it to have a lot of resources within it, talking about food pantries and food banks and things like that. And then also they have resources for people who do not need food aid but might want to help, which is a lot of a lot of people. A lot of the speakers at the event talked about our community and how this community really wants to step up and help, but they also talked about how there's no real way to fill that gap. I think the number for SNAP was that they provide about nine meals per family, or something like that, okay, and there's just no way for food pantries and food banks to fill that with such a huge, impactful program, and obviously anything helps, and that was a big part. And it was really reassuring to see how a lot of community grocery stores or restaurants are saying, you know, if you usually use snap and you don't have those benefits, we'll give you a meal for free, you know. Or we'll, you know, we'll help you out in some other way like that. But again, that gap is just way too huge to fill without programs like without programs like SNAP, people are going to go hungry even with all the effort that the community is putting in.
MICHAEL DUNNE: Tough times. Tough times. Julia Boboc, a reporter here at KLCC, covering that event with Senator Wyden and Representative Hoyle. Thank you so much for coming in and talking with us.
JULIA BOBOC: Thank you.
MICHAEL DUNNE: That's the show for today. All episodes of Oregon On The Record are available as a podcast at KLCC.org. Tomorrow on the show, you'll hear from the leader of central Oregon's largest nonprofit service provider, and hear how the government shutdown is forcing them and so many other organizations to scrap and claw to be able to feed and help their community. I'm Michael Dunne, host of Oregon On The Record. Thanks for listening.
