Tony Wied

In the third call-in town hall of his tenure, Republican U.S. Rep. Tony Wied on Aug. 31 broadly supported President Donald Trump’s policies, with some caveats, in response to questions asked largely about cost-of-living concerns.

Over the course of an hour, callers pressed Wied on many of the country’s most pressing national issues.

Wied said Flock cameras pose risks to the Fourth Amendment right against unwarranted search and seizure and “do violate that personal liberty.” He said he supported term limits on Congress members. He said the Department of Homeland Security was “on a good trajectory” with immigration arrests “of the worst of the worst” under Secretary Markwayne Mullin’s leadership.

But it was the economy, which the nonpartisan Pew Research Center found six in 10 American feel has gotten worse under Trump, that elicited the most questions about the congressman’s positions on the Iran war, the national debt, the disparity between rich and poor, and tariffs on Canada.

A caller identified as Scott who said he owns a screen distribution and installation company said tariffs on Canadian products were “significantly raising our costs and forcing me to pass those prices on to customers.” He asked what Congress was doing “to help small businesses like mine get those tariffs renegotiated, and end it and get fair trade for small businesses in Wisconsin like mine?”

Wied responded that he’d brought similar concerns to the White House. He argued that the point of the tariffs was part of the United States’ larger need to lower its trade deficit and “force other countries to buy our goods,” contending that previous trade agreements were unfair for American producers.

He said he was hopeful that trade talks with Canada, which had broken down in late August following months of retaliatory tariffs, would soon restart.

Responding to a caller critical of the Iran war raising gas and fertilizer prices, Wied said he believed the war should end. The intention behind the war “were understandable with the nuclear threat, but again, it’s time that we refocus on the issues that matter most to people here at home,” he said.

And it was the national debt, now surpassing $40 trillion, that Wied said “is the biggest issue, I believe, we’re in.”

He said it was “tragic” that the United States no longer pegs the value of the dollar to gold. He said, “We need to get back to that,” saying and lamenting that the lack of a gold standard was what allowed inflation to rise over the decades.

“I’m completely obsessed with this,” Wied said.

First elected in 2024 to replace former Republican Rep. Mike Gallagher, Wied has amassed hundreds of thousands of dollars in his reelection bid to represent the 8th Congressional District, which has not sent a Democrat to Congress in two decades.

During a town hall in January, Wied said that he would turn his attention away from border security to a goal of “Put more money back in your pocket,” citing his support for the One Big Beautiful Bill and its sweeping tax changes.

Julie Hancock, campaign manager for Democratic challenger Rick Crosson, did not immediately respond to the Green Bay Press-Gazette’s request for comment.

Crosson has previously criticized Wied’s touting of the One Big Beautiful Bill, saying in an Aug. 21 news release that, “The congressman wants us to focus on the temporary tax relief the One Big Beautiful Bill gives to some people, while ignoring the extra ten or twenty dollars it is taking each time we fill up our gas tanks to get to work, or the added cost of groceries, health insurance, and any number of the everyday essentials it takes to live even a modestly comfortable life.”