This interview originally aired on "In the Moment" on SDPB Radio.
This week, SDPB's Dakota Political Junkies touch on national politics, South Dakota politics, and southeastern South Dakota politics.
We cover the communities of Washington, D.C., Madison, Mitchell and Sioux Falls.
Patrick Lalley is editor of Sioux Falls Live. Brad "Murdoc" Jurgensen is the co-host of the Dakota Town Hall podcast and executive producer of the new Rapid City Post.
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The following transcript was auto-generated and edited for clarity.
Lori Walsh:
The Rapid City Post is set to interview Senator Mike Rounds. Let's start there.
What's the vibe as the kids say? What's the vibe check for Senator Rounds?
Brad "Murdoc" Jurgensen:
What's the tea?
Lori Walsh:
What's the tea? Yeah.
Brad "Murdoc" Jurgensen:
I mean, the vibe check is what's been interesting about starting a newspaper is you have to tell people that you'd like an interview. And then we're certainly learning certainly at that level where everybody has press training and they really don't want to do the interviews oftentimes, but it was our first heel— not heel dig-in.
Lori Walsh:
What do you mean? Who doesn't want to do the interview? You mean the guests or the—
Brad "Murdoc" Jurgensen:
The senators and—
Lori Walsh:
Oh, you're trying to get an interview?
Brad "Murdoc" Jurgensen:
—politicians. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's just walking into this, just being candid with everybody as we're learning how. Not that we haven't interviewed some of these people before in other formats, but we wanted—
He's so fond of saying grown-ups in the room. We wanted a grown-up in the room interview about what is happening in Washington, D.C., that doesn't come through social media or cable news.
Lori Walsh:
Did you get it?
Brad "Murdoc" Jurgensen:
We will find out this week. You get this audience. We're about to do it so you guys will find out if we're really good at this or not. Really, I'm setting the bar high. Look at this. This is so silly.
Lori Walsh:
All right. All right. Yeah. Lalley, what's your opinion on how people like Senator Rounds, Representative Johnson and Senator Thune are responding to what's happening in Washington when they talk to people here at home?
Because when I talked to Senator Rounds, one of first things I said, because he was here for a break over—what was that? Easter? Gosh, time is a weird thing right now.
And I said, "What are people asking you?" And he was very frank. I thought about how many people were contacting his office, really upset about various things in general, and then also specifically how things were affecting them and how his staff was working very hard to fix things that have been broken. Maybe broken and fixed are not the right words, but how to help constituents who needed congressional support because of policies that were coming from the federal government.
Patrick Lalley:
I think that the current state of South Dakota politics are such that if you are a Republican, every day is a minefield. And I don't think— This is not to be— I'm critical of politicians plenty, and I've been covering politics for 30 years.
Lori Walsh:
The heck you say.
Patrick Lalley:
But I don't think that you're ever getting a real answer.
Lori Walsh:
Oh, you don't think you're ever getting a real answer?
Patrick Lalley:
No. No.
Lori Walsh:
Interesting.
Patrick Lalley:
Not from our congressional delegation right now.
Lori Walsh:
Oh.
Patrick Lalley:
Because every day is a minefield. Right?
Brad "Murdoc" Jurgensen:
What's a real answer though?
Patrick Lalley:
Something that comes from a place of conscience. I don't think that that's what you're getting.
Lori Walsh:
You don't think that's what you're getting, or you don't think that's what anybody's getting?
Patrick Lalley:
I don't think that's what anybody's getting.
Lori Walsh:
Anybody's getting. Okay.
Patrick Lalley:
I think the things that I hear and the things that I learn and the things that I know about these folks from knowing them for many, many years and interviewing them over many, many years, I think I know where — I don't want to call it moral compass — but the public conscience of each of these people are, because they've all been around a long time.
Lori Walsh:
But you're not saying they're lying?
Patrick Lalley:
I'm not saying they're lying.
Lori Walsh:
Or they're obfuscating. Is that the word?
Patrick Lalley:
I'm saying that they are navigating.
Lori Walsh:
They're navigating. Well, that's not bad.
Brad "Murdoc" Jurgensen:
Complicated airflow.
Patrick Lalley:
That is not surprising that you as a public figure would navigate the current state of affairs.
Lori Walsh:
Paul TenHaken, exception?
Patrick Lalley:
Paul TenHaken, he's becoming less navigating.
Lori Walsh:
He's very frank.
Patrick Lalley:
Lately. Yeah. I mean he's not running for anything.
Lori Walsh:
Doc, he just said to you that Republicans are eating their own.
Brad "Murdoc" Jurgensen:
Yes.
Lori Walsh:
I mean, that doesn't seem like it.
Brad "Murdoc" Jurgensen:
And that he had more legislatively in common with Kadyn Wittman, House representative from Sioux Falls, than he did the Republican.
Lori Walsh:
I feel like he's dropping knowledge right now. He's saying it like it is.
Patrick Lalley:
He's very frustrated.
Lori Walsh:
And he says, "I'm frustrated."
Patrick Lalley:
Yep. And he's not running for anything. So he can say that, "I'm very frustrated that people are demonizing Haitians."
Lori Walsh:
"Don't put a picture of the pope." He tweeted about the Donald Trump's computer-generated, AI-generated image of Trump [as the pope].
Patrick Lalley:
He said that it was bad. It was really bad.
And let's be honest. It was really bad. And I saw Cardinal Timothy Dolan, "don't Donald," talking about it the other day and it's bad.
Lori Walsh:
So is that working for TenHaken?
Patrick Lalley:
It doesn't matter. He's not running for anything.
Lori Walsh:
Doesn't it matter?
Patrick Lalley:
He's done. He's done.
Lori Walsh:
Doesn't it matter?
Patrick Lalley:
But if you're Dusty Johnson, you are completely up to the neck in trying to navigate a Republican primary in the state of South Dakota.
Lori Walsh:
Doc, what do you think?
Brad "Murdoc" Jurgensen:
I think a lot of people are skating to where they want the puck to be in 28 and 32.
Lori Walsh:
What a really nice analogy. I mean, what a well-formed sentence. Did you just make that up or is that something you drop all the time and I just haven't heard you say yet?
"They're skating to where the puck wants to be."
Brad "Murdoc" Jurgensen:
That can't be my line now. It's like the Michael Scott bit where I'm trying to steal it.
Lori Walsh:
See, I've never heard that before.
Brad "Murdoc" Jurgensen:
Is it Gretzky? I think.
Lori Walsh:
Is that Gretzky? Okay.
Brad "Murdoc" Jurgensen:
Maybe. Man, I sounded smart for 10 seconds. And I screwed it all up.
Lori Walsh:
Cite your sources. Cite your sources.
Brad "Murdoc" Jurgensen:
I believe as many people that it's applicable to, whether they're in office or maybe thinking about office are contemplating what the future will look like when it's less...
Lori Walsh:
I'm a little light on sports analogies as a general rule, so it's not hard to surprise me with a sports analogy. Okay.
Brad "Murdoc" Jurgensen:
I forgot.
Lori Walsh:
I see what you're saying.
Brad "Murdoc" Jurgensen:
I should have brought my chess references. I was on public broadcasting.
Patrick Lalley:
I mean, if you look at Dusty, Dusty is a great example.
Lori Walsh:
I love that everybody still calls him Dusty no matter what. He could be president and everybody's like, "Dusty was here."
Patrick Lalley:
Well, because his last name's Johnson.
Lori Walsh:
I call him Congressman Johnson.
Brad "Murdoc" Jurgensen:
I mean, to that point though, everyone calls Dusty, Dusty still. They're not bombastic. They don't have to be what Secretary Noem is doing into the hearings. They're known to be cautious with their answers and how they govern. And so I think that's more of the conversation.
Lori Walsh:
That's statesmanship.
Brad "Murdoc" Jurgensen:
Yes.
Lori Walsh:
So yeah, where's the difference between someone who's not running and is being very frank in the public eye, like TenHaken and saying things that maybe people want him to say because they reveal how he really feels? Even if you don't agree with him, people might find that "refreshing" in quotation marks. But then you also have this idea of statesmanship, Patrick, that is just simply, maybe these people are coming on.
And it's not that they're being disingenuous or they're being overly cautious because of a primary. They're just being professional and statesmanlike using the language of that is not influencer, social media, casual language.
They're raising the bar for civil discourse. What about that? Yes, no?
Patrick Lalley:
There's a difference between all three of those members of our delegation. Each of them plays a different role. Each of them is in a different situation. When you look at John Thune, he is walking a tightrope of the tightest measure. Everything he says is analyzed.
And I think when I listen to him today, what I hear is a very neutral position on many things in terms of the way he says it, right? He is not generally critical of the president, but he is also not generally leading the charge, right? He is leading the Republican, he's leading the Senate of the United States.
Lori Walsh:
I guess what I'm asking you is are you making a value judgment about these things or are you just seeing what you're seeing?
Patrick Lalley:
I think everybody has to make a value judgment based on it if you're a voter for that person.
That's the danger of becoming the Senate majority leader. Is that person still speaking for me? Well, it's John Thune, so I think he's on pretty solid ground, but I don't think the things that he says on the Senate floor are the things that he thinks about when he goes to bed at night.
Brad "Murdoc" Jurgensen:
Sure. But you don't think the senators and house reps during Warren Harding's time danced a little? I mean, that's not that new.
Patrick Lalley:
No, I don't agree with that. I think that Congress, the Senate has always been a place of where ideas are brought forward and argued. And I don't think that's what's happening generally. I think the old John Thune was much more pointed in what he thought was best for South Dakota. And I'm not saying he doesn't think those things now.
Okay. But he is stuck in this spot. This is not a normal period of history. Okay? Because I do believe that some of the fundamental things that we thought were important as a democracy and as a republic are in question. All right. Whether you think that's good or not, that's for each of you to decide. But when you are talking about restricting habeas corpus, okay, now that this is a serious problem. Okay. If you are starting to invoke war powers.
Lori Walsh:
So what do you want? Habeas corpus is a good example. Chief Justice John Roberts openly said, "The rule of law is important." It's part of what makes America, America. He talked about civics education and in school, so people understand how the system works. Stephen Miller is questioning whether habeas corpus applies to some of these people that they would like to deport.
Patrick Lalley:
He's not questioning it.
Lori Walsh:
Right. But he's saying it doesn't. What do you want John Thune to do?
Does he have a role as senate leader and a senator representing South Dakotans to weigh in publicly? And I just came off of a couple days off, so maybe he already did. I haven't seen it. But what is his job to do then? Because the chief justice of the US Supreme Court has weighed in on that. Do you need John Thune to weigh in on it publicly or not?
Patrick Lalley:
I think there's a line at some point. And I'm not saying we're at it, but he is one of the most powerful people in the world. And if you get to a point where you feel like the rule of law, I mean it does at some measure, it doesn't matter what Chief Justice John Roberts says if they do it anyway.
Lori Walsh:
Well, he would be the one.
Patrick Lalley:
Would he?
They keep putting people on planes and shipping them off.
Lori Walsh:
What do you mean wouldn't it matter to chief justice?
Patrick Lalley:
It is a very philosophical question though about the nature of law and the nature of government and democracy.
Lori Walsh:
The nature of law would be decided in the courts.
Patrick Lalley:
Would it?
Lori Walsh:
Yes.
Patrick Lalley:
No. No.
Brad "Murdoc" Jurgensen:
Yes.
Patrick Lalley:
There's no guarantee of that.
Lori Walsh:
I'm going to ask that question and say, "Yes."
Patrick Lalley:
How? Why?
Brad "Murdoc" Jurgensen:
I guess I think so too.
Lori Walsh:
Because I took civics in high school with a really great civics professor.
Patrick Lalley:
Yeah, well, what does it mean?
Lori Walsh:
That I still believe that that place for that to be decided would be [the courts]. I believe there's a place for what Congress needs to be doing. But we heard from the chief justice now we will watch it play out.
Patrick Lalley:
And I'm not going to judge the policy. Okay. but you are seeing the executive branch in open defiance of the Supreme Court on what we may consider to be trivial things right now.
Lori Walsh:
Oh, I don't think anybody considers them trivial.
Patrick Lalley:
Well, but people aren't rising up about it.
Brad "Murdoc" Jurgensen:
Not at all.
Lori Walsh:
No, yeah.
Patrick Lalley:
Now, let's bring this back to John Thune. Have you heard him say, "I am deeply concerned about the executive branch's defiance of the Supreme Court"?
Lori Walsh:
I have not heard him say that.
Do I need to hear him say it is my question to you?
Patrick Lalley:
And maybe at some point there's a line. There is a line.
Lori Walsh:
You're arguing that we're at that line?
Patrick Lalley:
I'm not. I'm saying that when you look at the way things are constructed, you put a lot of faith in institutions in blinds.
Lori Walsh:
Doc, this is me and Lalley at the bar.
Patrick Lalley:
Yeah.
Brad "Murdoc" Jurgensen:
I love it.
Lori Walsh:
There are no drinks here.
Brad "Murdoc" Jurgensen:
Somebody bring me a martini.
Patrick Lalley:
Ultimately, all the law is is words. Right?
Brad "Murdoc" Jurgensen:
But okay, but take it back to South Dakota, right? In the instantaneous of this all, and everyone's dug into positions, not saying that you are, Patrick, but a lot of the people out in the street, citizens dug into pre-positions.
But look at what's happening at Dakota State. People are protesting Noem. We have a midterm coming up. We'll work this through the plumbing one way or the other, won't we?
Patrick Lalley:
Again, I go back to the idea, and this is when you take these things, and I'm not saying to an extreme, but if you start to play them out, "Well, this happened, this happened." What are their intentions? And if you have high-level people in the executive branch saying, "We're going to suspend habeas corpus because we believe that we have the right to do that because we are being invaded."
Lori Walsh:
That's the question. And we can go back to this. I mean this started very early in South Dakota. I'm not saying it started in South Dakota, but we are noticing it in South Dakota with this. It is a "war zone" on the southern border.
Patrick Lalley:
Right.
Lori Walsh:
This entire argument about whether this was or was not a war zone, whether this is or is not an invasion, is something that the executive branch believes is true and is going to play out in the courts. And that's not a good thing to be living through if it is impacting you. And tens of thousands of people are being impacted by this.
I don't want to minimize this. I also want to say that you are watching it play out in the courts in a very interesting way.
Patrick Lalley:
And whether or not you believe these things are important or not, but the transfer of real power into, if not one person, into one smaller piece of government where the other co-equal branches of government are lesser, that is a gradual process. And it has been happening. The role of the executive in this country has been strengthened and strengthened and strengthened and strengthened. So at what point is there a line where we are no longer what we thought we were and we're something else? And you know what?
Lori Walsh:
There are 1,000 different lines. Yeah.
Patrick Lalley:
There are plenty of people in China and plenty of people in Russia who are just happy with the government they got.
Lori Walsh:
I want to bring it back to one thing since I said I was away for a few days. And this is just been on my mind since I came back.
I happened to be traveling the day that when Trump was campaigning and there was the attempted assassination. And I was in the airport and I think I got a text saying, "Have you seen the news?"
And so I was looking it up and I looked around the airport. I think I was making a connection in Minneapolis and the televisions on the bars were on. You could see the news. Nobody was watching. And I thought, "Well, this is weird. Don't you think people would be like around their television sets, at the airport bars watching this unfold." This is pretty significant news. I didn't see anybody. So I thought, "Well, they're just looking at their phones," right?
So I started looking over people's shoulders to see what they were looking at. None of them were watching this news. I thought it was just a surreal moment at the time. I happened to be on the plane when they announced the new pope and nobody was talking about anything other than the new pope. So the seat backs of the airlines were coming on and people were turning on CNN or whatever news, and they were like, "Here's Pope Bob or Pope Leo," or whatever.
Brad "Murdoc" Jurgensen:
Red, white and blue smoke. Come on.
Lori Walsh:
Red, white and blue smoke. I mean, I'm walking through the airport, people are around the bar talking about.
Why on earth would people care more about an American pope than they would have about the potential assassination of an American presidential candidate?
It was a weird. I mean, there's no science behind this. This is just my singular observation of a strange moment. But that was strange.
Brad "Murdoc" Jurgensen:
Betting lines.
Patrick Lalley:
I've never thought about that.
Lori Walsh:
What captured the American attention about a new pope?
Brad "Murdoc" Jurgensen:
Betting lines.
Lori Walsh:
What do you mean betting lines?
Brad "Murdoc" Jurgensen:
You can bet on it. You put a little money on which pope was going to [be named]. The Pope Calcutta.
Patrick Lalley:
It was 18-to-one on [some of them].
Lori Walsh:
Are you being serious right now?
Brad "Murdoc" Jurgensen:
Yes, a little. Well, I mean a little funny too, but that's my M.O.
Lori Walsh:
Because it's only funny if I'm laughing.
Brad "Murdoc" Jurgensen:
Fair. But you put a little cash on the Filipino pope and no one had money on the American pope.
Patrick Lalley:
You could throw a little bit on the American pope.
Brad "Murdoc" Jurgensen:
I know. I felt like a bad American for not.
Lori Walsh:
Did you bet?
Brad "Murdoc" Jurgensen:
Yeah, of course. Allegedly.
Lori Walsh:
And you lost?
Brad "Murdoc" Jurgensen:
No.
Lori Walsh:
You're a gambling man.
Brad "Murdoc" Jurgensen:
This is all just a hypothetical bet.
Patrick Lalley:
I don't know.
Lori Walsh:
We're wrapping up because, you know, people have other things to do with their days than sit.
Patrick Lalley:
We didn't even get to prisons.
Lori Walsh:
You think Mitchell brought forward a good argument for why the state penitentiary should be moved to the fine city of Mitchell?
Patrick Lalley:
They had a great proposal.
Lori Walsh:
Give me your elevator pitch. How did Mitchell deliver?
Patrick Lalley:
They put a hard number in it, 2.8 million. They said, "We've got water, sewer, fiber optics. We're on a hard paved road. We've got all the services, we've got everything you need, put it here."
And the other proposals, they were fine, but they didn't have all those elements. They didn't all have utilities. They put the price negotiable. Well, come on.
Lori Walsh:
Should this have happened a year ago, two years ago?
Patrick Lalley:
Oh, yeah. Absolutely.
Lori Walsh:
That they should have said, "What city wants this? Give us your proposals"?
Patrick Lalley:
Yep.
Lori Walsh:
Why didn't it happen like that? Or did it? I don't know.
Patrick Lalley:
No. It didn't happen.
Brad "Murdoc" Jurgensen:
Didn't it kind of?
Patrick Lalley:
No, no.
Lori Walsh:
It must have kind of. I bet if Lieutenant Governor Venhuizen was here, he would say what?
Patrick Lalley:
It was a different process.
Lori Walsh:
Different process.
Patrick Lalley:
It wasn't this. "Send us your proposals, Mitchell." They put a much harder border around it and they said, "We are looking for a place to go."
Brad "Murdoc" Jurgensen:
It's like when different cities were vying for the capitol back in the day.
Lori Walsh:
Right? Yeah.
Brad "Murdoc" Jurgensen:
Put it here. Put it there.
Lori Walsh:
It feels very historic, doesn't it?
Patrick Lalley:
Well, it does. And I think they're having a good conversation now. The problem they're going to have is it's too short. They're going to have a special session in July and four meetings between there and come up with a plan. That's going to be pretty tough.
Lori Walsh:
They could extend it.
Patrick Lalley:
They could. They probably need to.
Brad "Murdoc" Jurgensen:
To get that prison built in Mitchell, it's like the corn palace, isto be super unique. Farm it out to the prison chain gang.
Patrick Lalley:
Somebody said to me on social media, "Call it the corn prison. World's only corn prison."
Brad "Murdoc" Jurgensen:
Come on, Lori. Local reference jokes. Isn't that funny?
Lori Walsh:
All right.
Patrick Lalley:
But Mitchell deserves it. They could use it. It'd be good for their community. You can't tell me that they couldn't hire people to work in Mitchell.
Lori Walsh:
All right. Murdoc, Dakota Town Hall, podcast, Rapid City Post.
Lalley, Sioux Falls live. We'll put links up to your stuff. This is a big win for all the podcast listeners that they got the extended cut of the show. So thanks for hanging out for us, you guys.
Brad "Murdoc" Jurgensen:
That was fun.
Patrick Lalley:
Yeah.
Lori Walsh:
It was a good time.
