Conservative talk radio in Wisconsin is different from what Donald Trump normally encounters. Hosts in Milwaukee in Madison are hardened champions of Governor Scott Walker’s reforms and don’t take kindly to Trump’s criticisms of them before Walker dropped out of the presidential race last year. “The hosts hear enough criticism about Wisconsin’s successful reforms from the left, and they’re not happy to hear distortions about them now from Donald Trump,” Wisconsin Lieutenant governor Rebecca Kleefisch told me last week.
So Trump stepped into a buzzsaw in Wisconsin yesterday, when his campaign inexplicably allowed him to appear on several hostile talk-radio shows with little preparation. The most noted was that of Milwaukee host Charlie Sykes, who masterfully didn’t allow Trump to filibuster him and revealed the mogul’s petulant side.
But other shows were almost as memorable. Vicki McKenna of WISN radio chastised Trump for claiming trade costs jobs overall. “We’re not losing manufacturing in Wisconsin!” she told Trump. She then asked Trump about his recent retweet of an unflattering picture of Heidi Cruz, the wife of Ted Cruz. That line of questioning didn’t get very far.
“He just hung up on me,” McKenna said on the air. “That’s okay. He gave me 25 minutes. I mean, that was fun.”
No one expects Trump to be making any return engagements on the top Wisconsin talk-radio stations.