Ron Johnson, Mandela Barnes.Photo: STR/NurPhoto via Getty; Sara Stathas for the Washington Post/Getty
Amid the back and forth of partisan politics, there was a rare opportunity for unity in Thursday night’s Wisconsin Senate debate, when the two candidates,Ron Johnsonand Mandela Barnes, were asked to name something they admire about one another. But the moment fell flat after Johnson, the Republican incumbent in the race,instead accused his opponentof being “against America.”
At the tail end of the debate, the moderator offered one final question for the candidates, saying: “When we traveled around the state talking to voters, we heard repeatedly that people are tired of divisive politics and attack ads. So our final question here tonight is: Both of you have been successful in life … What do you find admirable about your opponent?”
Barnes, the state’s Democratic lieutenant governor who isslightly trailing the incumbent in polls, answered first.
“I do think the senator has proven to be a family man and I think that’s admirable,” Barnes, 35, said. “That’s absolutely to be respected. He speaks about his family. He’s done a lot to provide for them and I absolutely respect that.”
Johnson, however, offered a different assessment, saying Barnes “had loving parents” and “a good upbringing,” but adding, “I guess what puzzles me about that is, with that upbringing: Why has he turned against America?”
Sen. Ron Johnson.GREG NASH/POOL/AFP via Getty
“The FBI set me up with a corrupt briefing and then leaked that to smear me,” Johnson said, as the audience began to jeer.
As Johnson himself described in 2021, the FBI warned the senator that he could be a target for Russian disinformation months before the U.S. presidential election.
“Regarding reports that I received an FBI briefing warning me that I was a target of Russian disinformation, I can confirm I received such a briefing in August of 2020,” Johnson said in an earlier statement toThe Washington Post.
Elsewhere in the statement, Johnson said there was “no substance to the briefing,” adding: “I suspected that the briefing was being given to be used at some future date for the purpose that it is now being used: to offer the biased media an opportunity to falsely accuse me of being a tool of Russia despite warnings.”
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Johnson was also on the receiving end of boos last year as he made an appearance at aJuneteenthcelebration in Milwaukee — one year after he had blocked legislation to make the day a federal holiday.
“We don’t want you here!” crowds chanted at Johnson, while others added, “Nobody wants you here!”
“Even though those thousands of people that were marching to the Capitol were trying to pressure people like me to vote the way they wanted me to vote,” Johnsonsaidon the conservative talk radioJoe Pags Showin 2021, “I knew those were people that love this country, that truly respect law enforcement, would never do anything to break the law, and so I wasn’t concerned.”
Johnson continued: “Now, had the tables been turned — Joe, this could get me in trouble — had the tables been turned, and President [Donald] Trump won the election and those were tens of thousands of Black Lives Matter and Antifa protesters, I might have been a little concerned.”
Johnson, who was elected to the Senate in 2010, issued a pledge in 2016 that he would retire after two terms. In January 2022, he announcedhe would run for a third term.
source: people.com
