Rep. Nikki Budzinski talks reaching out to disaffected voters with WCPT’s Richard Chew

Last Friday, U.S. Rep. Nikki Budzinski (D-IL) joined WCPT’s Richard Chew to talk about opportunities for Democrats to regain ground with disaffected voters and mount an effective resistance to President Donald Trump’s increasingly unpopular actions.

“I can’t think of a more important time for people to be in public service,” Budzinski said, noting the high turnout for a recent tele-town hall, where almost 10,000 people dialed in (five times the usual number). “A lot of people are really scared,” she told WCPT.

Budzinski also highlighted a recent “impromptu town hall” that took place in Staunton, Ill., which, she said, “was just going to be a small gathering of us as Democrats. It ended up being 125 people. And I just think it speaks to the level of anxiety that is out there with voters.”

The second-term Democrat told WCPT that many voters in her downstate congressional district “want to know, rightfully, what am I doing to fight back. They want to know what they can be doing. And so, I think it’s really important right now that we’re showing up in our communities and listening.”

Budzinski said she is focused on is “telling the stories of impact” of what federal job and service cuts mean for individual Americans, particularly with the ongoing dismantling of the Departments of Education and Veterans Affairs (VA).

“We’ve got to call that out,” she said, “and we’ve got to call that out on social media, [and] we’ve got to do that in the press.”

Budzinski also stressed the importance of clarifying for voters that it’s the Democratic Party that is “protecting the working people, the retirees in this country. It is not the other side, who is standing with the MAGA billionaires in this country, trying to get them a lower tax rate, lower the corporate tax rate. That’s who they are. We are for fighting to improve your everyday life, and we have plans that are going to do that,” she said.

Trump, she added, “hasn’t done a damn thing to address rising costs. He’s not fighting for you. And so, I think that it’s just incumbent on the Democrats to stay laser-focused on how we’re going to improve the lives of people.”

Budzinski, who was recently named vice ranking member of the House Agriculture Subcommittee on General Farm Commodities, Risk Management and Credit, said she plans to meet with farmers in her district while Congress is in recess this week.

“I feel very passionately about the fact that, as Democrats, we should be having a new conversation in rural communities and not yield the field to the Republicans anymore on these issues,” highlighting GOP cuts to Medicaid “that are going to devastate my rural hospitals” and U.S. Department of Agriculture loan programs “that my farmers have been waiting for their checks on.”

Below is the full transcript of the interview. (Please note: The transcript has been edited for clarity.)

Richard Chew: We are proud to have U.S. Representative Nikki Budzinski with us here this morning. Good morning, ma’am, and welcome to “Chew’s Views.”

Rep. Nikki Budzinski: Good morning. Great to be with you this morning.

Richard Chew: Absolutely. And I’ll ask you the question, because out of courtesy I must ask: How are you doing? How are you holding up right now?

Rep. Nikki Budzinski: (Laughs.) I can’t think of a more important time for people to be in public service. I am truly honored to get to represent the 13th District in Congress. But I would tell you, it is not an easy job. Every day, really since January 20th, it has been just rapid-fire assaults, whether it’s on the federal workforce, whether it’s the freezing of our federal funds that we fought so hard in the last administration to bring back home to our district or fighting privatization. I’ve been leading, with some of my colleagues, specifically on the United States Postal Service, trying to stop this administration from eliminating public services that people all across this country have been relying on for decades, generations. It’s not easy, but it’s so important that we’re showing up and we’re doing the best we can to fight back.

Richard Chew: Thank you for that. Privatization is — you’ve thrown that on your shoulders in terms of the U.S. Postal Service, and said, “No, not on my watch.” Let’s talk a little bit about that and what you’re seeing and why you’ve taken this on so sternly.

Rep. Nikki Budzinski: Well, let me say, even in the last administration, I’ve been speaking out against Postmaster General [Louis] DeJoy. I think he had the very wrong approach to the Postal Service. He was trying to consolidate our distribution centers, which for a district like mine, which is three hours south of Chicago — when you’re talking about eliminating our Springfield and Champaign distribution centers, that means our mail has to route through Chicago and St. Louis, causing delays for my constituents — further delays. I was fighting back on that. I was fighting back on some of the schedule changes he was making to make our mail less on time for delivery.

But now what we’re seeing is a whole other level of attack from the Trump administration, where the Board of Governors, which is an independent body that governs the USPS system, was actually moved to be dissolved and then this administration moved to move this USPS system under the Department of Commerce. And what we know is that with that move, the next step is to seek out privatization and to approach and pursue privatization. We also saw DeJoy, who’s still in office, agree to turn over the keys to this to DOGE [the Department of Government Efficiency]. What that means is DOGE is going to be looking under the hood. And I will just say: Finding efficiencies in government is not a bad thing, but the way that DOGE is approaching this is illegal, it’s with a chainsaw rather than a scalpel. And so, I’m very concerned for the United States Postal Service and what all this means.

Richard Chew: And thank you for that. This is what a lot of people miss about the word efficiency. And I’ll use a fitness example. We all are working to stay as fit and healthy as possible. I think that’s kind of a common thing that we all have. But if you take a sledgehammer or a chainsaw or whatever, not a scalpel, as you said, to that issue, you’re going to hurt yourself, and that then becomes an inefficient way of living. Same thing applies here.

That’s where I think I’m hoping we can change the narrative a little bit, and I know that you’re one of those advocates. Let’s change the narrative from this group being efficient, because slashing isn’t always an efficient way to solve a problem, in any venue. So I appreciate your stance there.

Rep. Nikki Budzinski: That’s right. Yeah.

Richard Chew: This is not meant to put you on the spot, but I want to ask you this question: Do you think that, with DeJoy, that President Biden could have or should have made a change with who’s there? I mean, I’m trying not to say the nasty word. But do you think that that was one of those opportunities that we could have taken advantage of while President Biden was in office?

Rep. Nikki Budzinski: Yes, I do. I think that. I think one of the things I would highlight as well is just, in order to really replace DeJoy, DeJoy is actually accountable to the Board of Governors, and there were so many vacancies at the Board of Governors. It made the Board of Governors basically ineffective because there weren’t enough vacancies filled. I think it would have been great for the administration to put forward more nominees to fill those slots, and then we could have addressed DeJoy.

Richard Chew: Yeah, I thought the same thing. And a couple of times I spoke to it last year that I wish that the administration would have just gone ahead and dropped the hammer in that space. (Laughs.)

How are your constituents in your district holding up? I mean, I know that’s a big question, because you’re very in touch with the folks in your district. I know that from following you and reading so many things that you’ve done. But what’s happening there? How are folks feeling?

Rep. Nikki Budzinski: A lot of people are really scared. I’m going to be honest. I mean, we have had at least one tele-town hall. We had almost 10,000 people on it. And I would tell you, we typically only maybe get around 2,000.

Richard Chew: Wow.

Rep. Nikki Budzinski: I know. It’s truly breathtaking.

Richard Chew: Five times the amount of people.

Rep. Nikki Budzinski: Five times. And I would say, at the end of the call, there were still 2,000 people on the line. And what that says to me is, people are paying attention. What I heard from the questions that were asked are people are very concerned. They want to know, rightfully, what am I doing to fight back. They want to know what they can be doing. And so, I think it’s really important right now that we’re showing up in our communities and listening.

Another anecdotal evidence of this is I was going to show up in a small bar in Staunton, Ill. It’s a very small town in a red district of mine, a red county, and it was just going to be a small gathering of us as Democrats. It ended up being 125 people. It became an impromptu town hall. And I just think it speaks to the level of anxiety that is out there with voters, and we need to — and some of the things I’ve been trying to work on is, what can we be doing to channel this energy to fight back?

One of the things — our neighbor, I know not far from you, up in Wisconsin — there’s a huge Supreme Court race. It’s going to be happening on April 1. It’s going to make a difference on a lot of really important issues — trying to channel volunteers to help out in that race, encouraging constituents and voters to speak out, obviously to not just our senators, who are good partners, but helping to organize in some of these more moderate Republican districts where we have to be holding these folks accountable to what these votes are and what these cuts are going to mean for our communities.

Richard Chew: Well, listen, I’m so glad to hear you say something that I was going to — I’m going to ask you anyhow. And I’ve been saying for a few weeks now, Representative, that you guys — us, we, all of us. I’m going to put us in the same boat rather than sound like I’m pointing fingers. But I’m hearing this more and more, that congressional leaders, going into other districts or showing up — you showed up at a bar, a few folks, and then it turned out to be a hundred-plus people there. That says exactly what you just said. We can go into other congressional districts or other states and have an impact, because these cuts and this carnage doesn’t have a red or a blue political label on it. I think — and I believe a lot of people would be behind what you just said and what Representative Ocasio-Cortez is saying. Maybe we should be tapping on the doors in other districts to let folks know we’re here to support all of you. I mean, what’s your take on that?

Rep. Nikki Budzinski: Well, let me just say too: I think another important point, and something we’ve been really focused on, too, is telling the stories of impact, no matter where you are in the country, of what these cuts mean. I think that’s important. Not everybody can travel, not everybody can get out of their home areas, and we should try to get folks to focus on their local constituents. But I think what everybody can be doing is telling the story of what it will mean when they are dismantling the Department of Education, what it will mean for our special needs children, what it means for the VA — I serve on the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee, and the fact that they’ve fired 3,000 — and then you saw — we were talking about mistakes they’ve been making with this chainsaw approach to, quote/unquote, “efficiency” — the court ruled that they had to reinstate these folks that they’ve laid off in their probationary period at the VA. That is going to have a very negative impact on the way health care is administered to our veterans. We’ve got to call that out, and we’ve got to call that out on social media, we’ve got to do that in the press, and we’ve got to show up. And I think we can be doing all of that. And there is something for everyone to be involved in speaking out.

Richard Chew: Right now, the perception — and I know you hear this — is that the messaging from the Democratic Party — let me just say this, make this statement before I sort of ask the question. Our ideas, our goals, our plans are flat-out better. They were during the campaign, leading up to the election, during the election, post-election, and now. Our ideas, our stuff is better. We believe in the Nikki Budzinski representatives of the United States Congress.

Rep. Nikki Budzinski: Thank you.

Richard Chew: Our stuff’s better. But unfortunately, there’s this feeling — and I’m bringing this to you real — that we have so many people in our tent that our messaging gets split up and splintered off. You guys in the House nailed it when it came to the CR [continuing resolution], right in line.

Rep. Nikki Budzinski: Right. Yes.

Richard Chew: This is a critical comment. But last night, or the past 24 hours, the perception by so many people is that the Senate didn’t line up as strongly as you guys did. Can you chat about that a little bit, without me sounding indicting with you about it? Because you all lined up. You all got it done. But your partners kind of–

Rep. Nikki Budzinski: You’re right. Yeah. It was frustrating, and it is frustrating. And I will say, the Democrats in the House, we came together almost unanimously, really, truly, virtually unanimously, to say no to turning the keys to the House over to this administration, who has shown us, over these last five weeks, what they intend to do with that kind of unchecked authority. That’s what this long-term CR is really all about. It’s creating slush funds, unaccountable to the legislature, unaccountable to constituents, for folks like Elon Musk to reprioritize the funding of our federal government. I think as Democrats we could get behind a short-term continuing resolution to keep the government open, because nobody wants a shutdown, but that would require Republicans to come back to the table.

It is Republicans that left the negotiating table on a budget, which we, by the way, have not ever reached in this last over year. We are way deep into the fiscal 2025 year. But because of failed Republican leadership from last Congress to this, we’ve never been able to reach a real budget. We should not, as a federal government, be continuing to govern under the rules of what they refer to as a continuing resolution, which I say that — and I think most listeners, probably [think], what the heck is a continuing resolution? It’s just the stopgap measure that literally keeps the lights on. We should be doing better for our constituents than that.

Richard Chew: Yeah, and that’s the frustration. What is a continuing resolution? What does it really mean? What is it really going to actually do? And unfortunately, a lot of folks don’t know, and then they unplug because they don’t know.

I’m going to ask you a question, but I’m going to throw a suggestion out to you, because you kind of touched on this yourself. One of the things that I think so many Americans want to hear, Rep. Budzinski — and I promise you, this is something that I’m hearing on the ground — is that Democratic leaders, Democratic elected officials, really need to make sure that the message is plain.

You’ve heard the phrase “make it plain.” And I’m emotional about this because I care. People are begging, begging, begging, Representative Budzinski, for a simple message: “Here’s what’s wrong, here’s what we’re going to do about it, and here’s why that’s going to benefit you,” or, “Here’s what’s right, here’s why we did it, and here’s why it’s going to benefit you” — something that folks can go, “I can get on board with that,” because I believe, and the people that I talk to say, to get those 69 million folks that didn’t vote off the couch, that’s what folks want to hear. And I’m just putting that out there. You didn’t ask my opinion. (Laughs.) I’m just-

Rep. Nikki Budzinski: (Laughs.) No. I agree with you. I agree with you.

Richard Chew: -giving you that. And I’d like to hear your thoughts about that.

Rep. Nikki Budzinski: Yeah, I think we should be talking to voters about the fact that it is Democrats that are fighting to make your life better, that are helping you, working people that are struggling — not paying attention to politics anymore because they think it’s all so broken. They just want to know how you’re going to make their lives better. How are you going to lower the cost of groceries, of gas, of child care, of long-term care? How are you going to make sure that we’re fighting for workers to have a right to have a voice in their workplace?

We are the party that is protecting the working people, the retirees in this country. It is not the other side, who is standing with the MAGA billionaires in this country, trying to get them a lower tax rate, lower the corporate tax rate. That’s who they are. We are for fighting to improve your everyday life, and we have plans that are going to do that.

And I think that once we can make that connection — and I’ll be honest with you, I think that some of us, we have to reconnect with these voters. We’ve lost a little bit of touch with this. And I think we need to focus on the everyday costs that people are facing. It’s truly what I believe Trump sold as a snake oil salesman to voters that he was going to tackle on day one. And you and I both know that that’s the last thing he’s been doing. He hasn’t done a damn thing to address rising costs. If anything, you see costs going up, you see a stock market that is — to say the word “volatile” doesn’t accurately describe what is happening to the stock market right now. He’s not fighting for you. And so, I think that it’s just incumbent on the Democrats to stay laser-focused on how we’re going to improve the lives of people. Everybody wants to get to the middle class, they want a better life for their kids, and they’re going to vote for people that they think are going to deliver on that.

Richard Chew: Saying the words “he hasn’t done a damn thing” — lots of people would love to hear that come out of the mouths of Democrats all at one time. (Laughter.) So don’t be afraid — we’ve got you — to use a little bit of that salty language to say he — and collectively, all 215 of you guys in the House, standing on the steps of the Capitol and collectively saying, he hasn’t done a damn thing for America. You don’t know, Rep. Budzinski — I’m telling you this from the heart. You don’t know the impact that that would have if collectively all of you guys stood on the Capitol steps and said that to America and, behind that, said, here’s what we’re going to do. The country wants — they’re begging for it right now. Sorry, I got choked up. They’re begging for it right now. They really — we really, really are.

Rep. Nikki Budzinski: I feel that.

Richard Chew: I’ll give you that as a tool to take back and say, listen, this is what they’re asking for. I can assure you that people are going to go, that’s what we’ve been wanting to hear. So, as we wrap up –

Rep. Nikki Budzinski: Yes. Message received, yes.

Richard Chew: Sorry about — I’m a passionate believer in this.

Rep. Nikki Budzinski: No, it is emotional. It is emotional. And what’s happening to our country right now is heartbreaking and we’ve got to fight for it.

Richard Chew: Yeah, absolutely.

What’s your next 30, 60 days looking like? What’s on your agenda? What’s on that whiteboard that you say we’ve got to get these things done?

Rep. Nikki Budzinski: Yeah, well, we’re going to be at home, actually, this next week, so I’m really looking forward to — I have a meeting set up. I have an agricultural advisory committee. I have to say, I represent a lot of farm country in Illinois. Agriculture is critical to our state’s economy, and these farmers are feeling it. I feel very passionately about the fact that, as Democrats, we should be having a new conversation in rural communities and not yield the field to the Republicans anymore on these issues, because whether it’s cuts to Medicaid that are going to devastate my rural hospitals, or the cuts to the USDA and the loan programs that my farmers have been waiting for their checks on, or the tariffs that are being imposed. So, I’m going to have a meeting — I just went off on a tangent there — (laughs) — but I’m going to have a meeting with my farmers in the district because I want to hear from them. That’s something that’s going to be really important.

We’re going to be doing meetings throughout the district as well, on the VA in particular, on the cuts that we are seeing, checking in on some of our communities that are still waiting for federal checks that haven’t arrived, that should be arriving and have been illegally frozen by this administration. I’m looking forward to being home and being with my constituents and just hearing, on the ground, what is happening and how I can help.

Richard Chew: Well, we know you’ve got to wrap up and you have a busy day, and we appreciate you being with us. I look forward to having your back, because I know you get it, and I’m honored to have you with us this morning. And please let your colleagues know that we’ve got your backs. We’re here for you to support you. We don’t want you to have to turn around and say, does the constituency across America — are they behind us? We’ve got you.

Rep. Nikki Budzinski: Thank you.

Richard Chew: We just need you to be that tip of the spear, every single day, because folks are energized, and they’ll be further energized if they see that kind of messaging and energy coming from our House of Representatives.

Rep. Nikki Budzinski: Yes, and we are in this together. I think that’s just an important point to make. We are all in this together.

Richard Chew: Thank you, thank you, thank you for being with us. We’re going to let you go. Thank you for being with us, Representative Budzinski. We really appreciate you taking out the time this morning.

Rep. Nikki Budzinski: Yeah. Thanks for having me.