Why It Matters
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) spent the week of Aug. 7 pressing two fronts: a congressional investigation into Dr. Anthony Fauci's COVID-era communications and a fiscal resolution tied directly to Wisconsin farmers and the military.
Johnson, serving as chairman of both the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (PSI) and the Senate Budget Committee, used those perches this week to advance oversight of federal health agencies and to introduce a fiscal blueprint he says is needed to fund defense, agriculture, and election security. For Wisconsin, the budget maneuver carries direct stakes: the state's dairy and agricultural sectors, which contribute more than $116 billion annually to the state economy, are watching federal farm aid provisions closely.
What They're Talking About
The Fauci investigation. On Aug. 7, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee voted on a contempt resolution against Fauci, who Johnson said had refused to answer questions in a prior hearing. Johnson then announced his subcommittee had obtained Fauci's government-issued iPhone, which contained more than 34,000 text messages and 522 voicemails spanning 2014 to shortly before Fauci left the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
On Aug. 10, Johnson and Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) released an initial text chain from a January 2021 exchange between Fauci, then-CDC Director Rochelle Walensky, and Surgeon General Vivek Murthy. In it, Fauci wrote that the second dose of the COVID vaccine "theoretically could be associated with miscarriage in the 1st trimester" due to cytokine storms and fever. Johnson juxtaposed that private message against Fauci's Aug. 30, 2021 public statement that it was "pretty clear that pregnant women should get vaccinated." On Aug. 13, Johnson posted on X: "Anthony Fauci was lying through his teeth... We will never know how many babies were miscarried because of Fauci's lies."
The FY27 budget resolution and farm aid. On Aug. 7, Johnson introduced a fiscal year 2027 (FY27) Congressional Budget Resolution to unlock the budget reconciliation process, citing what he described as Democratic obstruction of regular appropriations. "Instead, because of Democrat obstructionism, we are having to resort to the budget reconciliation process," he wrote. The resolution includes $60 billion in defense spending, $13 billion for intelligence, $12 billion in farm aid, and $20 billion for voter identification measures. A vote on the package was subsequently delayed until September, with Johnson citing a conversation in which he said President Donald Trump agreed with the delay.
In the News
The Fauci text release drove 40 news mentions this week, drawing coverage from the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, CNN, Rolling Stone, Fox News, and Politico, among others. Rolling Stone examined the broader controversy around the texts. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel published an opinion piece critical of Johnson's posture on executive war powers. Mediaite reported that Johnson described the outcome of Wisconsin's Democratic gubernatorial primary as a "concerning trend" heading into the November midterms. A Legis1 report noted that Johnson's Senate Budget Committee hearing on Medicaid drew sharp objections from Democratic senators, who argued it was designed to justify health care cuts rather than investigate fraud.
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