NDOT Episode #58 W/ Mike Thurow

Join the NDOT Crew and Mike Thurow as we discuss his congressional run!

Transcript

0:48

What's up? Episode 58. Welcome back, everybody. Thank you so much for tuning in. We got an extremely special episode that we're really excited for. Something that we haven't done before, and that we're we're pretty excited to see what uh comes from it. But uh, it ended up being that we've got some also fantastic news to share as well. So uh we got some some big changes that are coming here. Well, not changes, we'll still be the same, the same shit bags, but we got we got some cool uh cool opportunities uh that we're super excited to announce. So uh for those of you that uh watched our last episode with the hazmat guys, um if you're not aware, they actually have a uh media network that they just kind of started called Command Media Network, and uh we have signed with them and are gonna be kind of using them and and helping out uh to grow this episode or this uh podcast to hopefully something that uh we really exit really uh envisioned it to be. So um they've uh already been amazing help with kind of consulting and letting us know on things and and it's been a super cool experience. We just started this in the last you know after the episode started the conversation. So very new. Uh so be curious to see everything that uh happens from it. You probably see our presence grow a little bit, our uh just kind of outlook on everything. So it's been it's been an awesome opportunity, and we're super excited to see what happens there. So huge, huge shout out to the hazmat guys and for command media network. So uh that'll that, like we said, they just started, so that's gonna be growing as well. Um, so just uh go support that, go support them. Uh, hopefully we'll uh keep doing some awesome stuff with it. So uh we still have to thank the people that started this off because all of our initial sponsors who we're gonna maintain um and have been absolutely instrumental in us even getting to this point. So Taylor's tins, job town graphics, crew for his culture, toxic suppression. Uh you guys have been amazing. Uh, and we couldn't be doing any of that without you and you guys that have been listening, watching, engaging, not sending in questions, but it's okay, we forgive you. Uh all you guys have been have been awesome, and uh we wouldn't be able to do any of this uh without you guys' support. So enough blabbering. We got uh send some questions and need some. Brennan's putting his foot down. We said we get a lot. All you guys are thumbs up, great guests, awesome guy. Just like, you know, what is his favorite color? I don't know, something. Like we'll ask it. Yeah. Enough uh enough blabbing from us. Let's uh let's go ahead and bring in the guy. Like we said, this is a special episode. Um, it's not really gonna be we're gonna have some firefighting questions in there, but it's more focused on what uh what this gentleman is actually striving for outside of being a firefighter. So uh whether you're you're a fellow firefighter, EMS, police, or just a total lay person, uh, we're hoping this episode is for you to get to know uh Mike a little bit more and uh let him uh share his message a little bit for why he decided to uh to run for Congress. So let's bring uh let's bring Mike in here. Thanks for coming on, Mike. Why don't you give a little introduction about yourself? Tell everybody about you. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. So uh I'm a 12-year veteran on the Milwaukee Fire Department. Uh I have four kids, lifelong resident of the Wisconsin 6th Congressional District. Um, basically just trying to make a difference here, running for Congress. Uh, I've been watching politics for a long time. Uh my dad's a Republican, Ma's a Democrat, so the house has always been split. Uh, both sides just seem to not be listening. And it's been going that way for a really long time. Uh so doing something different, running as an independent. Uh basically reading while I was waiting to get in the uh the room. Your motto is basically why. Um we have so many politicians that go out there, they say I'm a Republican, and blah blah blah, whatever. And then the other day, they get there, kind of a shit bag. They the same with the Democrat. They go there, I'm a Democrat, I'm not a Republican, I'm blah, blah, blah. And then the end of the day, they don't do the work. Um, we're firefighters, like we expect you show up and actually do the work. Talk is cheap, and I'm kind of sick of both parties getting by by just pointing fingers. So trying to change that. Awesome, man. Perfect. Well, like I said in our introduction, we got a lot of questions regarding that, and then some at the end for for just being a firefighter is what got you into your uh the first question we have is what made you get into politics? Yeah, so again, it's it's kind of our work, guys. Like what we do every day. Uh, we go out and we see when policy failures happen in real time, you know, when we have people that end up using 911 as their primary care because they don't have insurance, and then all of a sudden everybody's picking up the bill. Um, go to a car accident, someone doesn't want to go to the hospital because they know they don't have insurance, they can't afford the bill, and they don't want to shoulder it. Um, we need to make this economy work for everybody, and that's really the federal government's job is to make sure it doesn't matter if you're well connected, have a bunch of money or not, it's supposed to work. Um, so that that drove me into it. Also, like I said, I have four kids. Um, I inherited a not great, but a really, really good country. My dad's a Navy guy, he constantly reminded me this is the greatest country in the world, but only when people show up and actually do the work to make it that way. Um, watching where we've been going down these past few years, ever since I became graduate high school in 05, ever since then, both sides of the aisle have been in power and things haven't gotten better for normal people. So trying to make sure we make this government work for everybody. So when I can pass on to my kids, hopefully it's a better government than I inherited, you know, and it works better for everybody. Absolutely. Yeah. You uh you kind of mentioned how you experience it or get to see it firsthand as a firefighter, some of these policy failures. But what about being a firefighter do you think has really prepared you for a role in Congress? Yeah. Well, I think it goes back to our training. Like, what do we prioritize all the time? Every time we show up on scene, life safety, instant stabilization, and then property conservation. That should be the mantra of our government. First and foremost, we got to make sure every citizen actually can survive in this economy, in this government, be okay. And when we have problems, we need to actually address them head on and start doing work. So instant stabilization, start doing it, and then actually have action, protect things to make it better. Our Congress hasn't done that for a long time. They're more interested in fighting with each other than actually getting work done. So being trained in that, having that always be my mindset, is that what we're doing? Is really important. Um, I'm a hazmat technician, direct the hazmat team in Milwaukee. Uh, one of the number one things we learn in hazmat is that you got to find your subject matter experts. You can't know everything, but you can know what I'm trying to do and how do I find the right people to make sure we get done right. And that's also a thing we don't see in Congress right now. We have a lot of politicians that think they know better than average Americans how to make their lives better. They push a whole bunch of policy, and none of it seems to be actually making it better. So doing that, uh, being from that hazmat side of the world, finding those experts, empowering them, let them speak, make sure they have a platform and find the real solutions to make it better. Also, yeah, as firefighters, we don't really take talk very seriously. It's your action, you know? On a fire scene, you can say you're a fire slayer, but if you get out there and you actually can't pull a line, you can't make it up, you can't throw a ladder, people know. People talk about it, and they'll get called out like you should. And that's actually what being a patriot is the same thing as well. Like this country, it's not wrapping yourself in a flag, it's not saying whoever's in charge is the best. It's not what it is, is saying, hey, this is what we believe in as a country, and if we're not making that great, you call it out. And firefighters are really good about calling out we're not making what we should be doing. So I think all those things make me uniquely fit to be a congressman. Absolutely. I kind of want to circle back to you're talking about the experts because uh I think you know, I know we'll get into it when you talk about maybe the levels of corruption and whatever that's in there, but it feels like nowadays an expert can just be who your buddy is when you get into those high points. So what are what are like some of the the expertise for the things that you think are kind of lacking in uh modern politics? And where do you think you're gonna find those people that would be your subject matter experts? Yeah, for sure, for sure. So, in terms of day-to-day life, it's normal people. Like actually getting on the ground, being a representative, going to talk to the district and learning what they need, that's where the experts are. Like being a part of the House of Representatives, you're supposed to be the closest avenue to the federal government any citizen has. I can tell you our current guy does not come around besides for some food, but actually listening to people, talking to people, he's not there. And if you look at Congress right now, only 2% of Congress comes from working class households. So the fact they don't realize how bad this economy is for people, how hard it is to actually make ends meet, figure out grocery bills, figure out how to actually make sure you get the car fixed, especially when you're at you're at the firehouse and all of a sudden your wife calls and says it's broken down. Like, they don't know. They've never had to deal with those kind of issues, you know. So empowering normal people to speak about what they're really going through is first and foremost. Secondly, we have a lot of civil servants in our government, FBI, system of Homeland Security, people I've worked with for a very long time as a hazmat director that have devoted their lives to public service. They're not trying to get rich, they're not trying to do anything, they want to make this country better. So having those people that have actually gone to school, got the degrees, the boots on the ground, letting them actually talk about how we fix these things. Because at the end of the day, we we need FEMA. It's not working properly. People are right, they're angry, but you don't destroy a whole thing because it's not working. You figure out who's actually doing the work, talk to them where the the uh pitfalls are, and you make it better. So being having that kind of approach, you go to the lowest level, you find what's going on, you find what actually needs to get fixed. Start there. Once you have a really good idea, you can diagnose the problem, then you can find solutions. But if you start at the topside ivory towers where they're speculating and what they think is actually going on in the economy, they're gonna get weird answers because they don't really know. So that's how it'll start. Absolutely. Sure. Um I want to give you a little bit of an opportunity, uh, because as you were talking about it, I know maybe we got some of your first-time voters, the people that might not just be educated in it. What is the position that you're running for? You mentioned it could be the closest thing to the federal government, but yeah, what is the uh a brief overview of this position and why do you think it's so important? Totally, totally. So I'm running for the House of Representatives, uh, be the sixth congressional district of Wisconsin. Um, again, this is the smallest unit of people that vote for a representative in our government. You know, everybody in the country votes for the president. Okay, we get to the Senate, everybody in the state votes for your senator. You get down to your house representative member is just your district, and that's where the house of representatives comes in. Um, and I'm hoping to be there for them to actually again make sure their views are heard and talk to people. So that's the House of Representatives. Awesome. Yeah, perfect. Uh, what issue do you plan to attack first when you get in office? Making this economy work for people. Again, it's it's just not affordable. Again, I'm working harder than ever. I'm sure y'all are working harder than ever, just trying to make ends meet. And it's not going. And I we're lucky, we're one of the lucky ones. Like, I got a union job to support my family and I. I can actually have great health care, can afford my own house, send my kids to a great public school. There's a lot of people in this economy that don't have that backing our job provides. And they're barely making it. So making sure we figure out how to make this economy work for everybody is what we need to do. Like, I'm a huge fan of the free market. I think the free market is an amazing instrument, has done so much for so many people. But right now, what we see is we see a whole bunch of corporate monopolies taking advantage of the system and pulling the wool over everybody's eyes. We see prices going up, products are getting worse, and no one can actually do anything about it because these corporations are massive. Like right now, like just think about food, grocery bills. Yeah, it's four companies own two-thirds of all the grocery stores in this country. Four. That's crazy. You talk about our fire rigs. Like, we got basically the big three in fire rigs. You got Rosebell, yeah, Rev Group, Pierce, you know, and you got Oshkosh Corp. Like, that's they own, they do everything for fire rigs. Yeah, and with that, what do we've seen? We've seen delays in production went from a few months to a few years. Rigs have tripled in price. I don't know about y'all, but my rigs aren't holding up any better with that increase of money. Our our older rigs are holding up better than the newer rigs. That's exactly right. And that's what you get. You got these corporate monopolies strangling people, putting off that worst product. So, first thing we got to do is we need a Congress with a backbone. They got to come in and actually enforce the laws we have. We we have some really good anti-monopoly laws on the books. No one's interested in doing anything about it because the politicians are getting their pockets lined, but you actually got to go in and actually enforce the laws we have, call them out in front of Congress, and make them actually start working for the American people. So that's one of the first things I want to do is get this economy start working. Uh, I also want to make sure that the government is responsive to people. I think there are more and more people just feel like their voice doesn't matter. No one's listening, no one's gonna make it better. And this two-party system we're stuck in with this doom loop where they you elect a Democrat for a while, nope, no good. You go to a Republican a while, nope, no good. And we just yo-yo back and forth hasn't gotten anything better for anybody. I think it was since the 1970s, we've seen productivity go through the roof. Wages for real workers have been flat or actually declining since the 70s. And that's with both parties in charge. Like this, this it's gotta be fixed. So I think first we got to do term limits. We can't have a bunch of old people in Congress forever not listening. You got to make sure they put the fear of God on them a little bit, like, hey, you're only here for a while, get some work done. We got to make sure they're not trying to enrich themselves while they're in office. The idea of like insider trading, cryptocurrencies, future markets. Uh you shouldn't be trying to line your pockets when you've been given this huge opportunity to represent and actually make a difference. So just outright ban. And again, like they keep letting it happen because they're more interested in pointing the finger. It's like, oh, you caught me, but look at them, they did it too. Wrong's wrong. Like, call a spade a spade. If you get caught with any of that, you're out. You're out. Yeah, that's what being a leader really means. So making sure we get that done, um, changing the way we do our elections to make sure everybody actually has a voice. This whole gerrymandering thing we have going right now across the country is wrong. I don't care what the Democrats say, like, well, the Republicans start it. Wrong is wrong, y'all. Like, we should not have politicians picking their voters. Yeah, not this country. We've never stood for that, and we shouldn't stand for it now. Sure. Absolutely. Uh, I think it kind of fits in with uh what you were talking about there. So I'm gonna bring up the questions from our previous guests, the hazmat guys. Oh, got brilliant. The first one's gonna just kind of derail this a little bit, but he really wanted you to see this. So this is this is interactive. As soon as I asked this question, the question starts. So uh demonstrate how long you can hold your breath. Let's go. He wanted us to sit here and just wait for you to do it as well. So you better not be breathing through your nose. We had nobody, we didn't think this served. He wasn't a diver, was he, Brennan? This is what you wanted, Bob. This is what you wanted. You wanted, he's got nose blood, we're good, we're good. I did I didn't even time this. I'll have to look back at this. Impressive. This this is crazy. He's got my vote. He's got my vote too. I got your vote, that's what I was waiting for. Yeah, that was that was courtesy of Bob. He thought it was I love that. I'm not sure how good it's different podcast, but if you guys want it, yours. Yeah, if you were just listening, you held it for a while. Uh yeah, now you now you're caught up. Um and now back on track. The question the uh the actual question was yeah, uh assuming that you are a good guy, how can you enter this system, right, affect it, and not become a part of it? For sure. You basically keep going back to your roots, you know. I got into the idea at the fire service because I wanted to serve this country. Uh, like I said before, my dad's a Navy guy. He really preached again and again and again, this is the greatest country, but you need to fight for it. It doesn't happen that way, and it's easily lost. So, out of high school, I tried to join the military. I went and took my ASVAB, went to MEPS. I had I had uh childhood asthma, automatic DQ in 05. Like you get in for everything, but that one was the DQ. So I like struggled for a while. Like, how am I gonna serve? I want to do something. Um, I went and worked at healthcare for the homeless. I worked as an outreach worker for five years doing that, and then all of a sudden the fire service came knocking. Um, full disclosure, I came from a small town in the sixth district here. I had all volleys. I had no idea that there was actually like you could get paid professional firefighting service with it. So one day I was at the uh healthcare for the homeless. The two other guys didn't show up for work. I was like, where are you guys? Like, oh, fire department's hiring. There's a test. Come take down. Like, okay. So I fake stick, I went down, took a test, and I was the only one to get a call back. Um, so but again, it was that desire to serve. Like, I just I've always wanted to do that. I think that's how we make things better. Um, and just making sure you you don't stay in Washington too long. You can't get in the bubble. You know, you go there to make a difference, you speak truth to power, you let them know what's going on in your district, and then you go back home and you have those town halls. You get in front of people, you see what's really going on all around the district, and that's how you actually make sure you do affect real change. So that's that's how you do it. You know, just keep grounded while you're doing it. Make sure you show up every day and continue that. Like every day in the fire service, you can ask my crews, like I let them know, like every time we go out, we affect real lives. Every time we respond in the fire service. And what a lot of politicians seem to have forgotten, their work too or their lack thereof, also affect people's lives. And if they just never go out to see it, they're comfy taking a check, they're comfy letting the government shut down, they don't realize the actual real effects that has on their constituents. So I think what you do is you you go make sure you see everybody, and you demand your constituents hold you accountable. If I make a vote and you don't like it, you should call me. You should ream me out, you should make me justify why I voted the way I voted. Like that's what you need. The politics is a contact sport and it's interactive. You gotta make sure that we're all talking to each other. I gotta be going out hearing what people want, and I want to have them come out and tell me when I'm doing something wrong, and we can find a compromise. Because at the end of the day in America, we're never gonna agree on everything. There's no way. That's why we have politics. But the job of a congressman is to explain, a congressperson is to explain why I voted this way. Here's my values, this is why I think it's gonna happen. And then listen. Like, actually, more listening than talking should be the job. So that's how I think you do good at this job for a long time. Okay. Uh a kind of follow-up for that then is obviously a lot of the things that you've talked about coming into this will probably not be looked at well from your fellow congressmen, congresswomen. How are you going to overcome that? How can you tell people that uh you're gonna you know be able to support those messages when if you get into this world, those people are probably not going to like you and be against you because you're coming after everything that they they've been raking in? So, as a boss, one of the first things I do, again, my crew loves this. I do a yearly meeting with everybody individually. I bring them in, and the I just ask, where do you want to be in a year? Where do you want to be in five years? What does it mean to be a good firefighter to you? And I let them go. And I take notes, it's just for me personally, so I can make sure, hey, an opportunity presents itself. There's this training, you should go right under fire, go do it. Hey, you want to be a diver? There's a this thing and go hold your breath on a podcast for a long time. It's really good, you know, whatever it is. I see the opportunities and I know what they're looking for. Okay, and then I also go back to those things when things don't go well in the fire house, or if there's something goes wrong in a fire scene, I can look back and be like, hey, you said being a good senior was building up our probies when they fall at a fire scene. They did fall, absolutely, but what you did did not build them up. Is that's who you want to be? Is that really what, like, am I wrong? Was my note wrong? And honestly, most people, if you hold them to their own standard, that's pretty good. I don't think anybody here, anything I said here really is controversial at the end of the day. I don't think politicians, anybody's gonna go out and campaign, like, yeah, no, I'm running it for Congress to get rich, screw everybody else. Like, that's not what they're doing. I haven't heard one ad uh saying that. Like, I'm gonna go in, I want to do insider trading, I'm gonna be a millionaire, and then I'm out. Deuces. They don't want that. They say they want to make sure they support their constituents, they want to make the economy work for people, they want to make sure the government is accountable. So if I'm coming in saying, hey, I'm not seeing it, I don't think they really have much to go off of besides, yeah, maybe I gotta look at the mirror. So it's Starting there. Again, I'm not looking to call names. I'm not looking to insult people. I'm looking to hold people to the standard that they say they want to be at. Because again, this is a leadership position. When you take a leadership position in the fire service, it means a lot. Being a firefighter, like my favorite job, being the back seat, joking around is amazing. It's awesome. Go into the front seat is a very different thing. Yeah. But again, if some people are called for it, some people want to do it. And if you decide you're taking that step, you got to hold yourself to account. You got to make sure you show up. So I think leading with that, leading with where I am, with how I believe on things. Um they might not like it off the front end, but at the end of the day, I don't think anyone's going to fight it. What we're trying to do. And if you put them on a vote, you put them in front of their own voters and say, hey, we're banning stock trading and cryptocurrency. Yes or no. Nothing else. I don't want to see any random thing snuck into a bill. This is all we're saying. This is the accountability we want to see. Yes or no. And once they get to that point, if they want to get re-elected, they're probably going to do the right thing. You know, we saw that with the Epstein files. People didn't want to talk about the Epstein style forever until all of a sudden it was a yes or no vote, and they knew everybody was going to see it. All of a sudden, files get released because they know it's the right thing to do. So absolutely, I like that. You mentioned it a little bit earlier about our kind of set-in-stone two-party system that we seem to be locked into. So considering that third parties are often looked at as a throwaway vote, what can you say to encourage those who want to support you that it's not? Yeah, absolutely. So everything seems crazy until it's not. And then everybody already knew it was going to be a thing, you know. So you look at the two parties we have right now, it's Republican and Democrats. You want to know the last time we had a third party do really, really well? It came out of Rip in Wisconsin. And it was the Republican Party. They were a third party. It was the Whigs and the Democrats. They're two parties back and forth fighting it out. And then some people were like, hey, these parties don't represent my values. They're not showing up, they're not fighting for what I believe in. They suck. So what are we gonna do? We're gonna start our own party. And everybody said the same thing to them. You're crazy, it's never gonna work, it's not gonna be a good thing. They just say, these are values. This is what we think we're gonna do. And they put it out, they got together in little little schoolhouse in Ripon, Wisconsin, and a few years later, they had the presidency. We can change things if we decide as a people, we can change things. And realistically, in our district, the sixth district, it's a very lovely H shape, kind of in the central eastern part of the state. Uh Jerryman, heck, but you look at that since 1964, the Democrats haven't won it. It's been just for the Republicans. So we're talking about spoiler. Like, honestly, I feel like the only thing that'd be spoiler right now, like independent is actually an alternative that actually gets people excited. Yeah, 45% of this country says they're an independent. 27% say they're dev Democratic, 27% say they're Republican. So the majority of people in this country are independent. So it's not doing anything crazy besides just saying, okay, let's vote our values. We don't have to give in to what they say they have to do. We don't have to vote by fear saying, I'm worried if they get in. If I do this vote, you vote our values, we change this country. Awesome. Uh now also kind of maintaining that same idea, we'll say. Sure. What are two? Uh, if you can think of more, you can go more, but just at least two modern, uh, your modern left versus modern right issues uh that you feel you have a unique fix or view to kind of you know run down right uh in that independent world that both people would be like, yeah, that's actually the normal answer for it. Sure, absolutely. Okay, so you go um we go to free trade ideas, okay? Democrats pushed it. We saw NAFTA and TPP both got pushed by Democrats. Whole bunch of jobs got lost in this country, whole bunch of people are left with factories that moved overseas, and they were left holding the bag in Congress, like, okay, good free trade, it's good for everybody, right? No, like free trade is good, it can be really good. But we need to do is we make sure we support our actual employees, we make sure that they actually have a right in their workplace. So talking about empowering labor to make sure they actually can say, No, we're not gonna ship these jobs overseas. We're gonna make sure we build stuff here, we're gonna make sure that we actually train our employees so they can actually advance. And if you want to have these free trade agreements, you make everybody play by the same rules. You know, American companies, we have environmental rules in America to make sure that our environment's okay. And that know what that everybody agrees around that, around the world. So if you want to have a free trade, sure, you can trade freely in America if you follow the same rules our companies have to play by to make sure it's not anti-competitive. You know what? We think everybody should be paid a decent wage to make sure they can support a family. You work hard, you should be entitled to that. We can say that in our trade policy. And then if you if people are breaking that, then we can talk about using tariffs to support making sure that people aren't taking advantage of American companies doing the right thing. I don't think that's a crazy stance to say companies should pay a living wage in this country. Right. And know what the market, we have to have that free market be there. So make sure if we're gonna trade with anybody, they play by the same free market we're playing by. Okay, I don't think that's that crazy. Um, I think in terms of our immigration policy, I think we need to have a border. Like that's how you have a country. You need a border, you need to enforce the rules of this country. But I think that the way we all think about as Americans, like, we gotta do it humanely. We know we need immigrants in this economy. Every economist talks about immigration, legal immigration, makes this economy grow. So let's actually get a policy to make sure we can have legal immigration come in, establish a process, make sure we're not just using this as a wedge issue, where all of a sudden we're killing our economy because they're more interested in like having a problem to point at than actually solving the problem. So I think those are like that kind of stuff. If you're trying to win a political battle, having division and having things to point at, you sure you can win it. But in terms of like winning at this country, making sure it gets better for everybody, it's not what it is. You gotta you actually have to problem solve, you gotta fix things. So that kind of hit the answer that we're good, yeah. Yeah, cool. Oh, for sure. Oh, I think like I said, I think the the the cop out or the easy way for politics is to just blindly pick a side, or not necessarily blindly, but pick the side that has the most support, you know. Like you said, if it's 27 and 27, well, if maybe 30 actually, you know, favor this idea, then you're gonna be like, oh, I support that one because it's getting more votes. But if you can actually come out with, I guess, even solutions in the campaign phase, I think that's what people like to hear because it's if as soon as you get in, it's not time to figure it out. You probably should have an idea before you're before you're in. You gotta clearly see the problem before you can fix anything. And if you're trying to run for office and you can't clearly see the problem, you're not ready, man. Like, look at what's going on. It's not hard to see. You get we drive by the gas station, it's in big bold letters how bad this economy's gotten for some choices that we've made that they still haven't gone to Congress and talked about, you know. Like, I think in terms of what we should expect from our government, is it got to be accountable? Like, this is ours, you know. It's not some foreign entity out there that's doing things to us, it's something that we built for us, by us, that's supposed to be governed with us in mind. And if we're not doing that, we gotta start changing the people that we're sending there. And right now, that I think the two-party system is getting by by pointing fingers and just trying to make us look left and right, and no one's looking up, just like, oh, those are who's really pulling the strings. Yeah, so we gotta start changing that. Absolutely. Um, the the last question we have on kind of politics for you is one that I've seen. Uh, I feel like you've kind of answered it throughout all the stuff. You've obviously thought about things, you have plans in place, you have issues identified, but personally talking with family, friends, and everything, like, hey, check this guy out. The answer that I was given, and I'm sure a lot of people outside of this line of work are thinking, is well, yeah, you're gonna vote for him. He's a firefighter. So, why do you think that you deserve just the you know, you're lay person, you're you're nine to fiver, you're your person outside of the public safety world's vote. Because yeah, we're gonna vote for you because we relate with you, but that's the that's the one thing I heard a lot. So no, absolutely. Uh well, first off, I think firefighters are more complicated than that. So I gotta just push back on the whole premise to start with. I think people, we have opinions, we have views. Um we're not all just sparkles and go out just because someone's a firefighter. Like we have we're complex. We're complex. Um, that aside, I would say, again, going back to the whole idea, like two percent of Congress right now comes from working class households. We need more working people in Congress. So maybe it's not a firefighter, maybe it's a plumber, maybe it's an electrician, maybe it's a police officer. I we need more people that actually have to raise a family in this economy to speak about the problems that we actually have. Because if you haven't lived this economy, if you're not trying to raise a family in this economy, you can't clearly see the problems, which means you will never see the solutions. So we need people to actually know what's going on. So um, the working class, I that side, I think is really important. I think also leading with service. Again, people can serve in a whole bunch of different ways. Park Rangers do awesome service. We're coming up on Memorial Day. Everybody that's put on a uniform for this country and fought for this country want to do service. Um, that's what being in government is supposed to be about. You should be a civil servant first, not a politician. Like I keep getting told, like, oh, I can be a politician now. Like, no, I'm a civil servant. That's what I feel like I've always been. I've always wanted to make sure I'm making this better for my fellow citizen. And I go to Congress, that shouldn't change. I don't always you should become some political monster where you're trying to like make sure the party boss is happy. You're a civil servant still, you're supposed to be serving your fellow citizen. So um, that is important to me. And again, just uh you need to have hope that this can get better. Yeah, I we've all been around the fire table. There's that guy, the old timer, that'll just be angry about everything, everything's broken, nothing's been these new kids don't want to work, and it's all bad. Like we've all seen it. Yeah, how much change has the old timer made actually? Besides getting new new pot of coffee, you know, like maybe I don't know. You don't make you don't make change by just yelling at the system and not having hope that we can make it better and not putting your skin in the game. So those three things, you know, a coming from a working class, a desire to serve, courage to act, civil, like being a civil servant first and foremost, and being willing to put skin in the game and having hope that we can have a better future because we can. We can do really great things in this country. We are still the greatest country in the world, but we gotta start demanding we get better from our government, we get better from our elected officials, we support our citizens, actually. I think yeah, I think you're right. I think you're absolutely right, especially when talking about the hope. I think that's that's something that people are starting to lose. And that's the the part that sucks is there's no there's no hope in the government. Like you you mentioned when you come in, uh you have the hope, and I think you're right that people don't get into politics to get rich, to be quote unquote easy, to do these bad things. So you have to hope that there is still uh a civil servant in there who is just in a bad system that wants that change. And I think if we don't have hope, we're not getting we're not gonna get any change and it's never gonna never get any better. Absolutely. And again, if you start just holding people accountable, like, hey, we can do this, man. Like, we just got I know you've always been told it's the way it gets done in Washington. Sure, it's always been the way it's been done until it's not. And then in the fire service, you know, like the worst answer to anything a probationer asks you why we do it this way, like, oh we've done it that way. No, maybe not that's a bad way to do it, y'all. Like, there's probably something else. Like, if there's a good reason for it, you should be able to spell it out. You know, we put a flying Dutchman in our hose because we don't want to get caught, not just because we just do it this way. We you know, we make sure our cross lays are this way so we can quickly attack a fire, not just because I don't know, I got here and that's what they did on the rig. I don't know, whatever. That's not good. So uh leading with that is really important. Absolutely. Well, that uh that wraps up the more political focused questions that we have for you. So Brennan has uh we got four generic questions that that we ask everybody uh in terms of the fire fritters we bring on to get their outlook on things. So uh this might be a little more for the fire crew, but you can take take these things however you want them. Sure, yeah. So the first porn, um, you take it however you want to take it. We like the the rabbit holes we create. Um, why are we here? Is the question. Uh in the fire service. So in the fire service, why are we here? Um we're here to serve the community, first and foremost. You know, we're here we decided. I know I can do a lot of things. I might have a pretty good brain. I know I have a body that I'm willing to make sure I put out there to help other people. Um, we're there to serve the community, first and foremost. Um secondly, why we're here, probably because we're like on the spectrum of ADHD and have like a little bit of uh energy and we got to keep moving and being chained to a desk isn't for us, you know. Uh not everybody's gonna go to college, not everybody's gonna do everything. There's trade schools, this like there's something in us that we're gonna be more active. That's just how we we show our passion, how we show what we want to do. There's probably a little bit of that in there, too. Um while there is yeah, why else are we here? Um, end of the day, I think a lot of us are here. We're trying to support families, you know, like a there's not many professions in this country anymore that have a union that have a back end that actually can get their back. And so a lot of us that are in the professional firefighting service, luckily it's a union job, you know, you can feel good about what you do every day. And know what that job also pays back and really good insurance, really good pay. Um, so I think there's it's probably those three things kind of rolled up in a whole different mixtures all around the way. Um man, volleys and on call people, like they got spades of service and probably the ADHD, because again, if you're not like without that financial piece, it's it's hard. And I think where we are in the fire service where we're seeing those departments strain for people, yeah, is because it's it's really hard. You can have all the passion in the world, you can want to do all the right things, but if you can't make ends meet for your family, that's a gut check, man. You know, like I coming home, uh, we actually got a gut check just the other day. So my daughter recently was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, and it made like it's a huge change for her. She's gonna change the whole way she eats, the whole way we like look at things. Um luckily, this job provides insurance for us, and I can do it, I can keep doing the job I love and know she's gonna have the life she needs to make sure she's healthy and can love long time. If you're doing a paid-on-call job and you're trying to go in for those extra training hours and you want to do it, but all of a sudden a job offers full Bennies, full time, you know, insurance. You might want to keep doing the fire service, but you're like, I gotta make sure my family's good first. So again, I uh don't want to go back to politics, but that's why I gotta fix this, man. There's gotta be a way to make sure people can do those things because again, at the end of the day, we're in the fire service. I think people want to serve and want to do stuff. Yeah, for sure. I'll spend um what trainingslash conferences have been your favorite to attend? Oh man, um, so again, I'm a hazmat guy, so like I'm gonna be the homer, uh Wammer conference is awesome in Steven's Point. It's amazing, super fun to get that many people together. Again, subject matter experts, people that do mitigation professionally, that's all they do. Um, people that do cleanup, that's all they do, and then first responders, and we can just all go around, talk about best practices, what we can do, runs we've been on. Um, that's super great. Like that's that's a fun time. It's in Steven's Point when everybody's on spring break, so like there's nothing to do in Stevens Point besides like hang out, so it becomes it's a good time, it's a uh it's a really good time. Yep. Um, in terms of other conferences and trainings, uh again, anybody like again, I'm hazmat director. I feel very bad to keep pushing hazmat. But in terms of being really good at your job, our our viewers are just gonna be sick. We have hazmat guys, now we got you talking hazmat. Oh my god, all the nerds on here. This is no, but either way, I believe me, I felt the same way. I never thought it was gonna be a glow worm, like never one. I came on truck 12 in Milwaukee, busy fire truck. Uh, I love going to Hopside, I love it, never was gonna be a glow worm. Uh, went to ladder 15. My driver over there was a hazmatter, and I remember like every shift he started with like some random parts per million fact that he thought was super cool. I was like, tight, man. How about get the solves going? Is that cool? Um, never wanted to do it. Uh, I went through a Florida fire, tore up my labrum uh in my shoulder, and I was out for a while. And I had a really great chief, uh Russ Rivard came up to me. He's like, I was stuck on desk duty, kind of like wasting away in administration. I'm like, I'm just dying. He goes, Hey, you want to go back to a firehouse? Like, uh-huh, please, whatever. He's like, We're running a hazmat class at the firehouse, so you can hang out with the guys, you learn something. It's like it's a win-win. Yeah, like I'm not like I'm not joining the team. Like, I refuse to join the team. He's like, Yeah, that's fine. Like, just fill the class, see what you think. So I go, uh, fun time. I'm back in the firehouse, love it. Uh, and then I, to my word, didn't join the team, but I did use it to get back on truck 12. Like, went to the chief. I'm like, hey, they brought back the rig. I did your thing. So you didn't help me back in the truck. Uh, fast forward to COVID. I'm dumb and get myself promoted. So I'm a lieutenant now. And uh, we had the hazmat house go down with COVID. And they remember that I have a cert as a hazmat tech. I'm like, hey, I need two weeks, just two weeks. Go be on the hazmat rig, and then we'll get you back. Okay, sure. Uh, I went for my two weeks and now I've been the director for three years. I never left the house, so it's been uh they got me good. They got me, they pulled it. They got you good. They got me good. But again, hazmat in terms of like being a good firefighter, observational awareness makes you better. Understanding what you're actually up against in every scene, because guess what? Every firefighter goes to hazmat scenes all the time. You know, not just the fires we go to, the CO runs we're on, you go to random ministry, bad smells, like understanding what you're actually walking into makes you safer. And the end of the day, like as a boss, my number one job is to make sure everybody goes home safe. They live a long, healthy retirement in Milwaukee. They they abuse that pension system as long as humanly possible. I want them all in that forever, you know. Um, so the way I do that is make sure they're paying attention to what they're actually up against and knowing what's going on. Um I remember the one time, one time, I was up before I was a firefighter in the backseat, uh, still not a hazmat technician. Uh, walked in for a strange odor in like a family dollar. So I go in and I bring the meter, chiefs meter, I'm walking in with it, and I'm going, nothing's alarming. And I'm just watching the O2 sensor go down. And I remember again, my one HEO, the hazmat, and they're like just constantly going on, like, you know, it drops like one percent. That's 10,000 parts per million of something like it. So I'm just like looking, I'm like, okay, okay, it's going down, it's not alarming, and then they like drop like two more points. I'm like, boss, like, we're we started at 20.8, and we're like, we're at 20.6, and like I think we should be on air. And my boss, not a hazmat tech's like, nah, you're like, I'm like, boss, I don't, I don't remember much. I know there's a problem here. The fact it's dropping is not cool. How about we just call the hazmat team? Like, just call. And at the end of the day, it was refrigerant leak. We'd have walked real deep into refrigerant leak, and I the amount of carcinogens I've taken in, the amount of there's no reason to breathe that. Zero reason. And y'all know, like in the fire service, when people don't know who to call or who to send, we get sent. So learning Ghostbusters, guess yeah, exact ghostbusters. There you go. Yeah, but that's what it is. So, like learning that hazmat stuff, being aware, I advise it for everybody. Take the class, learn about it. Um, yeah, you don't have to join, don't be a glower if you don't want to be. It's not your bag, I get it. But like learn about it, observational awareness makes you better. Um, we've done a lot with Milwaukee. We're really fortunate. We have some outstanding lieutenants and captains, and now chiefs uh have taught out everywhere. Um, they do writ under fire and they bring that into local trainings for us. Uh so if you've not been to Rid Under Fire, go to Rid Under Fire. Um, if you've not done down firefighter training using that RIP pack, do it. Uh, you don't want to be figuring out how it works when it's your buddy you're trying to go find because that that's a horrible feeling. Absolutely. So I'd say uh those trainings are always great. Uh, what other trainings have I done that have been super fun? Um, I got really again, it's a different angle of hazmat, which is cool. Our CST, our civil support team, actually had me go out with them for their national training out to Aberdeen. So, like the army proving grounds of like chemical agents, that was crazy. Like a super cool training. I got to go to the FBI, they're like black, they're they're dark labs where they can't say where they are. So stuff they do. Um, learning again, the array of federal resources we have for this kind of stuff, yeah, was eye-opening. And uh again, seeing those people that are doing it, like again, they're they're not making millions of dollars, they're yeah, they're us, you know, but they're uh they're doing it and they're devoted, and how much they can do the capabilities was eye-opening. So cool, awesome. Um, I just got a side question. Is your hazmat and rescue is the same company, or do you just have a own hazmat company in Milwaukee? Hazmat is all by itself in Milwaukee, so yeah, we have a HERT. So um, we do for our runs, we do have a hero team, we call it, which is gonna be our hazmat technicians, but like an MT94 suit so they can move faster. And they'll probably get paired up with our Hert team, our heavy urban rescue team. Again, heavy urban rescue guys, they train all day on that kind of stuff. So just get them the right suit, uh, get some more technical know how, but then also have our techs can go in quickly and make sure we're not like walking to something bad. Cool, cool, awesome. Um, next question How should we look at failures? Uh failures are opportunities to grow. So besides this, I coached lacrosse this year. I had to give it up. Actually, back in the RNC, I had to stop. We had so much running the RNC was a whole thing. But I coached lacrosse for a long time. I love coaching lacrosse. One of the great things I learned in that training was called the Elm Tree to Success. Okay. So Elm Tree. So E, effort. Every time you're on the field on lacrosse field, maximum effort. Same in the firehouse. You walk into the firehouse, you give your all. Like make sure you're there, you're present, you do everything you can. Um L, learning. Like you always have to be learning. On the lacrosse field, there's always something new to learn. The fire service, even more so. If you think you know everything about the fire service, you gotta retire. Like you're done. There's there's always something new to learn. Things are constantly changing. Be open to new ideas, always be learning. And the final is M, which are mistakes. And mistakes are not only okay, they're encouraged. Because if you don't make mistakes, it means you're not doing something. It means you haven't gotten your hands on it. None of us was born knowing how to throw a 24-foot ladder. It's not true. Like we've never, people can do it, but now you do it, you practice it, you throw it a bunch. You know, no one was born knowing how to make sure roof ops run smoothly. Pass up a roof ladder. So you do it. And that means there's gonna be times you get caught up in a ladder, you pass it up funny, you forget to put out the hooks, and that's fine. That's that means you're doing it. You actually got yourself in a position to try to get that muscle memory established, and you're doing the work. So, yeah, mistakes are not only okay, they're encouraged. And I think every failure, if you want to call it the thing, is an opportunity to learn what I did, make it better, and keep going. Awesome. I really like that. Awesome. Um, what do you tell your probies to expect when they get hired? So day one, what's kind of your your day one, your expectations. Well, I don't tell them my first day what my day one. Uh my my day one, I got, which I don't I do not pass on, was I walked in, like, oh, your mic? I got don't die today, okay? Cool. And they walked in like, so I don't that's not my speech, but that's what I got my my day one, uh, old school Milwaukee. It was pretty cool. Uh no, day one, basically, I try to like put out my expectations. This is how I expect to behave in the firehouse. Um, this is how I expect you are gonna behave on runs. You know, we go out, we serve with empathy. Every time we interact with the public, you're gonna be empathetic and be understanding. It's not our emergencies, it's theirs. So I expect you to treat it as such. Make sure that we're there to make it better. Um, and then same thing, I lean into the elm thing. I expect you when you're here, you're gonna get your maximum effort on everything. Have a notebook in your hand. Write down everything we bend on. Make sure you understand if you have a question, you come to us. You talk to us about what you're wondering. Okay. Um, then if I'm on a truck, they also have to learn where everything is on the truck because that's it's there's so many things on there. So you gotta also learn that. Learn your inventory. Uh, same on the engine, just you know, the truck is you definitely gotta write it down. Um do that. And then, yeah, same thing. Mistakes are okay. I expect you to train every day. You're new to this, you might be you might have been great in the academy. That's awesome. I'm really excited. We're gonna train every day. So figure out what you're bad at, let me know, and we're gonna work on that to make it better. And if you see us, if our crew, like you come here, like and fresh from the academy, like you guys are missing this up, talk to us, you know? See something, say something. We all gotta get better here. So that's it. Awesome. I like that. Well, that's kind of the last questions that we had. Um now it's your favorite time. You have to make up a question. Oh, yes, yes. Okay, so uh I wonder how long he can hold his breath. No, I was perfect. We're gonna do that every podcast. Well, a guest dog. Jeremy probably can. We did because you know, like you said, there's a lot of the tactical resiliency training. We take in that, and there is I mean, part of that is the wheel breathing and that. So I bet you it might be a long silence for y'all. I don't know. I won't um what I would say again, like everybody in service, we see this, like mobile is coming up, uh, just past. Sorry when this kind of airs, apologize for that. Um, either way, like we all serve, we put a uniform, we want to do better. Um, something we don't talk about that we also share with our brothers and sisters in the military, is that first responders are more likely to die by suicide than on in the line of duty. Since I want to say 2001, we've lost 120,000 veterans to suicide. Um we're just because you put on a uniform doesn't keep you safe from everything. So tactical resiliency, learning how to have that attitude to we see a lot of bad stuff. Like we see we see the worst out there. Um, how can we lean on our family members that don't see it? How can we lean our civilians, like our neighbors that don't know it? Uh, I know I struggle, like I try not to bring stuff home to my wife, and that sometimes creates rifts. So, like learning better for that. Sorry, it's a heavy question, but like I'd love to know that personally. Yeah, how do you how do you bridge that gap? Because I think that's what we need. We need to be able to find a way to talk to each other, find strength in our communities, um, and keep moving because this is the greatest job in the world. Um, but it unfortunately it does bear a heavy toll on a lot of us. Yeah, it taxes a lot of us having your family kind of helped support you, but and learning that how do you yeah, but how don't you bring too much heaviness to them? Like, how do you let them know what you've been through without like well, you what I saw? Like, that's I don't want to do that. Like, I'm not interested in so yeah, absolutely. I'm sure I'll have a great answer for that. Awesome. Um, so yeah, like we uh like we kind of mentioned the next guest is Jeremy Sanders, which as everyone who's been watching this knows, this is fourth year, so that means that we'll have new questions, new things uh with Jeremy. Uh Jeremy's helped us kind of kick off our mid-year every year, and uh we bring up some new generic questions with him and uh just kind of get an update with them and and learn some more from them since he's got so much to offer. So uh we'll be looking forward to to that episode. Um, and uh this last part that we have here, any of our remaining time, whatever, is what we just call the kitchen table. Because as you know, that's where all the world's problems get solved. That's where we solve everything. So if there's uh if there's anything more that uh you want to share, any additional message for Ben in terms of like political, in terms of fire, in terms of anything that you wanna you want to get out there before we wrap up. Absolutely. Well, again, like so self-servingly, if you live in the sixth district and you're around the area, come check out check out the campaign. Uh see how you can get involved. If you like enjoy this, if you think this is what you want to see in government, like obviously there's always gonna be an appeal for money, but like we need people to. Like, we need people to get on the doors, talk to people, inspire people. Um, to your point, a lot of times third parties, like, yeah, like I want to, but like if they see from their neighbor, like, no, I believe in this, this is gonna happen. That's how change really goes out. So please go check out Thorough for Congress. Um, see if you can join the movement. If you want to send money, that's awesome. If you want to send spend time, even better. Um, that's really important. So I just make sure I say all that. Please come and help. Even if you're not in the sixth, you just want to see something better, come and help, man. If you can come around, that's awesome. We'd love that. We'll link uh that throw for congress uh with our Facebook post when we post out this episode. So we can do that, or we'll share it uh uh before that as well. So much appreciated. Yeah, so yeah, that's uh uh other than that, fire stuff. Take hazmat classes, y'all. No, I think it's really good. Uh well, okay, I got a question for you. What do you guys pay for meals right now? For the firehouse? For the firehouse. Yeah, we're at the kitchen table. I was just wondering, like I have a cook, he's an outstanding cook. Our price is one up. It's usually probably average 10-15 bucks. You hear that, Grammy? $15. That sounds like a deal. Okay. Yeah, yeah. Our five, our five-person house. Um, if we're doing breakfast and dinner, you're probably around $12.15. $12.15. Okay. Okay. There's one firefighter in the world that I'm if they if they hear this, that's crazy. That's really it's a good it's a good deal. I'm glad you guys are doing well. How much how much is he charging? We we pay 20. Again, he puts out a very good meal. I don't want to be too hard. It's outstanding food. We always eat incredibly well at engine 33. Uh, but it's 20. Is that for one meal or no? We get two. That's that's lunch and dinner. All right. That's lunch and dinner. Lunch and dinner. He normally puts out we've got we've got a guy who when when he's cooking, we know it's gonna be expensive, Dave. But the you never shy on food. So that's no, and again, like as the house, it's a car rate trade-off. No, yeah, I can't talk too much. Like as the house captain, I brought him in because I love his food. I know it's gonna be really good food, so but it's always nice to get a little peer pressure. That's what it is. We shop for deals on our ship. We go to Aldi's and Walmart. Yeah, nope. I hear that. We got an Aldi's buy us too. Yeah, we definitely deal ship too. It's uh we don't really go to the the store with an idea. We go to the store, see what's on sale, and then we come up with an idea. I think it's most firehouse around the country, my friend. Well, awesome. Thank you so much for for taking time out of your extremely busy schedule to sit down with us, Mike. And hopefully, uh, especially a lot of our listeners, like you said, maybe we have a little more uh of the non-firefighter crowd than than uh normal. So hopefully you guys enjoyed. Um, got to learn a little bit about you, got some some time with you. And uh yeah, thanks. Good luck on everything, and we'll hopefully uh get you as much support as we can. That's awesome. It means a lot, y'all. Thank you so much for your time. Yeah, thank you. Absolutely. Thank you everybody for watching and listening. And uh don't be a shit big. Don't be a shit big. Please don't.