Wisconsin
In Wisconsin, Tim Walz says Democrats must ‘push as far as we can’ against Trump
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz on how Democrats can combat President Trump
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz traveled to Des Moines Friday, March 14, 2025, as part of several stops to competitive congressional districts.
EAU CLAIRE – Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz said Tuesday he and other Democratic governors should not follow unconstitutional mandates from President Donald Trump in an effort “to challenge and push as far as we can” against the new administration.
The former Democratic vice presidential nominee in his first visit to the Badger State since the 2024 presidential election made the comments ahead of a town hall-style event in Eau Claire, a liberal-leaning city in a congressional district held by Republican U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden.
Walz stopped in the battleground district this week to rally voters for liberal state Supreme Court candidate Susan Crawford and as part of a multi-state tour to highlight Republicans who have stopped holding in-person town halls after backlash over the Trump administration’s government cuts.
Walz told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in an interview that he attributes losing Wisconsin and other battleground states in November to an inability to effectively offer enough change to rural voters.
Trump defeated Harris in Wisconsin by about 29,000 votes as part of a victory that swept battleground states. Now, as he is floated as a potential 2028 presidential candidate, Walz said he and other Democratic governors should refuse to go along with orders from the Republican president made outside of the bounds of the U.S. Constitution. “What governors can do is use our authority and states’ rights, which, again, the Trump administration doesn’t believe anything about right now … and we’re very clear about that,” Walz said.
“I’ll continue to follow the law, but I think we have a responsibility to challenge and push as far as we can. And when Donald Trump issues an order that is unconstitutional, we have no responsibility to follow that, and we won’t in Minnesota.”The event was part of a tour Walz organized characterized as filling a gap where Republicans have declined to hold public events so to avoid confrontational audience members.
Three Trump supporters turned away from Tim Walz event
However, at least three supporters of Trump were turned away from the Eau Claire event. One told the Journal Sentinel he had a ticket and was stopped after entering the Pablo Center in downtown Eau Claire because of the red Make America Great Again hat he was wearing.
“We were proud to welcome more than 900 people to our town hall in Eau Claire tonight, and I’m confident we had folks join in who did not agree with us on absolutely everything,” Joe Oslund, a spokesman for the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, said when asked about the decision to turn the Trump supporters away. “We’re always happy to engage with folks who hold different points of view, but when you show up in funny hats looking to cause shenanigans, let’s just save each other the trouble here.”
A Republican who tracks Democrats at events to find content for attack ads was allowed to stay in the audience, according to the party.
Ahead of the event, Van Orden said Walz’s tour to his district that borders Minnesota “is simply a desperate attempt to save face and remain relevant after his embarrassing defeat, which sent him back to Minnesota in disgrace.”
“America is finally moving in the right direction, thanks to President Donald J. Trump and Vice President JD Vance, and voters throughout the Third District have no desire to Minnesota their Wisconsin.”
Walz’s first stop was Friday in Des Moines, Iowa, in a district represented by U.S. Rep. Zach Nunn, a Republican who has not committed to holding town halls this year.
Walz took questions for about an hour from Democrats who asked how to combat potential cuts to Medicaid programs and ways to compete with Republicans in public appeal, among other topics.
“I don’t think we would have won the election if we’d gone on Joe Rogan, but I don’t think we would’ve got beat any worse,” Walz told the crowd, referring to a decision by the Harris campaign to not appear on Rogan’s mega-popular podcast.
“I worried about this in the last couple weeks of the election. I was in Pennsylvania and North Carolina and in the countryside, I saw a sign split in half: Trump good, Kamala bad,” Walz said.
“I’m like, Jesus, are we first graders? What the hell, it worked. It worked. They did it. They made it simple.”
Walz told the Journal Sentinel the Harris-Walz campaign failed to represent enough change to turn out the number of voters needed to defeat Trump.
“It was our job to win these these states, I think especially rural Wisconsin, they wanted change. They didn’t feel like they were getting that. And quite honestly, they didn’t think the message they were hearing was the one to make a difference.”
Walz stopped in Eau Claire two weeks ahead of the April 1 spring election when Wisconsin voters will cast ballots in the state Supreme Court race for ideological control of the court.
The race has broken national records for the most expensive state court battle in history. The race is being eyed as a test of support for Trump after the first few months of his presidency during which he and billionaire Elon Musk have leveled massive cuts to the federal workforce, including to agencies serving veterans and schools.
“Look, you can start to lame duck this on April 1,” Walz told the crowd Tuesday. “Then we win the Virginia governor’s race. And then you got guys like (Van Orden) here saying ‘shit, Trump’s done in a couple of years, this is looking bad. The momentum is changing. I think I’m feeling something, and it feels like maybe I’m growing a spine and I’m going to stand up for my people, because if I don’t, I’m going to get my ass kicked in the midterm election.’”
‘People v. Musk’ town hall event
Tuesday’s event was billed as a “People v. Musk” town hall event as part of a new Democratic focus on Musk. On Friday, a handful of Senate Democrats joined with Republicans to pass a budget fix that will avert a government shutdown, but which many Democrats derided as caving to Republican pressure and handing Musk a blank check.
Some Democrats have called for Schumer to step down as minority leader. Walz declined to weigh in.
“I don’t question his commitment to protecting the American public but I think being through this fight in the fall and being through this fight as a governor, this is a different fight, and we have to have different tactics,” he told the Journal Sentinel.
Republicans have argued that Democrats are targeting GOP town halls for organized protests as liberal groups have encouraged turnout at the events. Some Republicans, like House Speaker Mike Johnson, referred to those voicing dissatisfaction with the Trump administration as “professional protesters.”
Rebecca Cooke, the Democrat who narrowly lost to Van Orden last November, said this week she will challenge him again in 2026.
Some Wisconsin Republicans have suggested they’ll continue to hold in-person town halls despite the directive from party leadership, though others have been noncommittal.
Van Orden, whose western Wisconsin House seat has become a main target for Republicans as they seek to flip control of the House, said at a tele-town hall earlier this month that he would not hold in-person town halls, citing the push from Democratic groups to send protesters to the events.
Van Orden did not take live questions from the audience during the tele-town hall. A staffer during the call noted “a few folks sent in questions ahead of time,” which the staffer read. Multiple people who participated in the call told the Journal Sentinel that the comment function was turned off on the video call.
Last week and on Tuesday, Democratic Rep. Mark Pocan, one of Van Orden’s loudest critics, held in-person town hall events in Belmont and Viroqua in an effort to highlight Van Orden’s decision not to hold in-person town halls.
Lawrence Andrea of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and Brianne Pfannenstiel of the Des Moines Register contributed to this report.
Wisconsin
‘Moving Menace’ faces death investigation, 10 criminal cases in Wisconsin
MILWAUKEE – A Wisconsin man – who FOX6 Investigators once dubbed the “Moving Menace” – now faces a death investigation plus 10 criminal cases from nine police departments.
‘She’s ice-cold, dude!’
What they’re saying:
A 2015 Toyota Corolla was going 80 mph down Forest Home – in a 35 mph zone – when a Greenfield police officer flipped on his emergency lights and siren, revved the engine and began a rapid pursuit. As the vehicle slowed, a hand emerged and waved from the driver’s window. He yelled something about an unresponsive woman in the back seat.
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Officers found 40-year-old Mina Abidi slumped over behind the passenger seat of the car, dragged her onto the pavement and started CPR.
Seated on a curb nearby, Daniel Berczyk started talking.
“I noticed her lips,” he said. “I noticed her lips.”
Abidi was pronounced dead at the scene. The medical examiner’s office ruled the cause of death to be an overdose from a combination of fentanyl, cocaine, alcohol and xylazine.
Daniel Berczyk sits on a curb on August 13, 2024, as first responders tend to Mina Abidi’s overdose.
Berczyk told officers he was trying to get her to the nearest hospital, but he admitted he’d been driving her around in that state for more than an hour, including two trips to Walgreens.
Officer: “Why didn’t you call 911 immediately?”
Berczyk: “When I went into Walgreens, she wasn’t acting like she was dead or anything.”
At times, Berczyk described Abidi as a friend.
“I can’t believe she’s ****ing gone man, what the ****? It’s crazy.”
But moments later, he couldn’t seem to remember her name.
Berczyk: “What the hell’s the girl name in the car?”
Detective: “You called her Bidi.”
Berczyk: “Yeah Bidi.”
Detective: “Oh, that’s pretty close to her last name.”
Abidi’s death became the subject of a Greenfield Police investigation that is still awaiting a charging decision from the Milwaukee County District Attorney’s Office nearly two years later.
She was my ‘sister’
Why you should care:
Abidi was married, had a daughter and lived in the picture-postcard suburb of Cedarburg. But her relationship was nothing to write home about. Her husband had been convicted of domestic abuse. Michailah Belle said when she met Abidi, she was contemplating suicide.
“There was just this look in her face,” Belle said. “She looked sad.”
The two became fast friends and Belle, who has 11 children of her own, said she eventually considered Abidi a member of her family.
“She was so optimistic,” Belle said. “She was just going through some things.”
Belle said she believes drugs are what led Abidi to a meet-up with one of the area’s most prolific criminals.
‘Get off my property!’
The backstory:
FOX6 Investigators first encountered Berczyk in 2008, ripping off customers of his moving business that operated under multiple names, including Best Way Movers and Affordable Moving and Storage.
A few months after that investigation, police said Berczyk went on a three-week crack cocaine binge, during which he broke into dozens of cars at area park-and-ride lots. He fled to Arizona.
FOX6 Investigators noticed he was updating his MySpace page – yes, MySpace – and police used that to find him and bring him back to Wisconsin.
Between 2009 and 2016, Berczyk was in and out of prison, often finding his misdeeds the subject of FOX6 Investigators reports.
Daniel Berczyk orders FOX6 Investigator Bryan Polcyn to leave his parents’ property in Muskego in 2008.
“You told me you were going to turn your life around,” FOX6 Investigator Bryan Polcyn said in a courthouse hallway in 2015 before Berczyk bumped him with his left hip.
“Did you just hip-check me, Dan?” Polcyn replied.
For nearly 30 years, starting in the late 1990s, Berczyk racked up criminal cases faster than birthdays – mostly involving theft, drugs or both. But in 2016, something unexpected happened: The criminal charges largely stopped for 10 years, but for a single misdemeanor case in 2020.
That is, until Mina Abidi’s death.
A visit to Milwaukee
Timeline:
On Aug. 12, 2024, Abidi was in Cedarburg. Berczyk said she wanted to “hang out,” but needed gas money. So Berczyk paid a friend to send her $14 through Cash App. She arrived at the Travelodge near 20th and Layton, just off the interstate in Milwaukee, sometime after dark. He said they were “fooling around” in her car but never had sex.
Berczyk claimed he never saw Abidi use drugs, but noticed she was “acting weird,” like she was “fighting off a Xanax buzz.” In a video recorded interview hours later, Berczyk reflected on that moment.
Berczyk: “Man, she’s kind of ****ed up (he remembered thinking) I should get some Narcan.”
Detective: “You thought that then?”
Berczyk: “I don’t know why. It just popped into my head.”
Berczyk tells a Greenfield detective he sought life-saving Narcan at Walgreens, but left when told it would cost money.
At one point, Berczyk said, Abidi got out of the car and laid down on the pavement. So he loaded her into the backseat of her own car and drove to Walgreens hoping to get Narcan. Surveillance video shows him entering the store alone, approaching the pharmacy counter, then leaving without any medication.
“Thirty-four dollars for Narcan? I’m like, ‘What the ****? ****’s free?” he said.
It’s not clear what Berczyk actually said to the pharmacist, but Belle believes he should have told them a woman in the car outside might be dying.
“They could’ve called 911,” she said. “They could’ve called the ambulance. The ambulance could’ve came there, and they could’ve saved her.”
Instead, Berczyk got back in the car at 12:50 a.m. and sat there for 12 minutes.
At 1:02 a.m., the car pulled away. Berczyk said he spent the next hour dumpster-diving at a nearby apartment complex.
“Have you ever seen those dumpsters?” he told a detective. “Dude, I have pulled some ****ing amazing **** out of there, dude.”
The whole time, Abidi was in the car, unwilling or unable to talk.
“I’m like, ‘Bidi, what’s up?’ She’s like, (Berczyk makes a growling noise). She made like a weird noise or something. I’m like, ‘What the ****?’”
It wasn’t until 2:11 a.m. that police spotted Berczyk speeding down Forest Home and pulled him over. By then, it was too late.
Abidi’s death was officially ruled an accident, and while the case is still under review by prosecutors, Berczyk has never been charged.
But four months later, the criminal charges started piling up again.
Ten criminal cases in 18 months
Downward spiral:
In December 2024, Big Bend Police said Berczyk stole $3,500 worth of aluminum rims from a commercial trucking company. Wauwatosa police said he stole rims at a business there, too.
In May 2025, Berczyk was caught on surveillance video stealing a bicycle from a University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee residence hall garage.
In July 2025, he’s accused of stealing a gun, tools and sporting goods from a Glendale apartment complex.
In late 2025 and early 2026, four different police departments found him in possession of cocaine, meth and narcotic drugs.
Click here to read the criminal complaints:
But while the criminal charges kept coming, Berczyk stopped showing up for court. So FOX6 Investigators went looking for him where we found him 18 years ago – at his parents’ house in Muskego.
“I’m looking for your son, Dan,” said Polcyn to a gray-haired man who answered the knock, but refused to open the storm door.
Berczyk has been charged with more than 100 crimes in his adult life. He is 50 years old.
“No idea where he is,” mouthed Daniel Berczyk Sr.
After four months on the lam, Milwaukee police arrested Berczyk at a house near 12th and Ring in Milwaukee’s Borchert Field neighborhood. They said they found him after he listed a stolen generator on Facebook Marketplace.
He’s back in custody, facing a flurry of new charges. In all, he now has 10 open criminal cases in Milwaukee and Waukesha counties, with a total of 35 criminal charges among them.
“That is how you get an absolute Level 5 highest risk category,” said prosecuting attorney Karine O’Byrne.
Belle is still focused on the one case for which charges remain elusive.
Polcyn: “Was Mina Abidi’s life worth saving?”
Belle: “It was. It definitely was.”
It is the only case that is truly a matter of life and death.
$77,500 cash bail
What’s next:
Berczyk is being held in the Milwaukee County Jail on a combined total of $77,500 cash bail in seven Milwaukee County cases. He also faces three additional criminal cases in Waukesha County.
He’s due in court again July 10.
The Source: Information in this report is from the Greenfield Police Department, Milwaukee County Medical Examiner’s Office, Big Bend Police Department, Wauwatosa Police Department, Milwaukee Police Department, Waukesha County District Attorney’s Office, Wisconsin Circuit Court records, a review of police and surveillance video, an interview with Belle, and prior coverage of FOX6 Investigators reports on Berczyk.
Wisconsin
Who is Diane Hendricks, Wisconsin’s richest woman?
Watch: Billionaire Diane Hendricks delivers address at the RNC
Businesswoman Diane Hendricks, a longtime donor for Republicans, spoke at the Republican National Convention.
America’s richest self-made woman lives in Wisconsin. She’s also, unsurprisingly, the richest person in the state.
So who is Diane Hendricks? Hendricks is the co-founder of Beloit-based ABC Supply Co., which sells roofing and building supplies. In June, she was named the richest self-made woman in the nation for the ninth year in a row by Forbes. She was also ranked the wealthiest Wisconsinite in 2025, with a 2026 net worth of $22.3 billion.
In 2022, Forbes dubbed Hendricks “the most successful female entrepreneur in American history.”
Raised on a dairy farm in Osseo, Wisconsin, the 79 year-old Hendricks had her first child at 17. She left school and worked as a Playboy Bunny before co-founding the ABC empire with her second husband in 1982. When he passed away in 2007, she took over the company.
Since then, Hendricks has more than tripled her net worth, acquired large competitors, and expanded into other sectors. According to Forbes, ABC Supply had 900 locations and $20.2 billion in revenue in 2025. She is also the chair and founder of Hendricks Commercial Properties, a real estate development company, and Hendricks Holding Company, Inc., a private investment firm.
A 2016 Journal Sentinel investigation found that Hendricks had paid zero state income tax for three years. Another investigation found that her 8,500 square foot mansion in the Town of Rock had been taxed as a 1,663 square foot ranch house for years.
Hendricks is also a powerful force in conservative politics in the state and nationally. She has donated millions to the GOP over the years. In 2016, she was a vice chair of the Trump Victory fundraising committee. Months before being named the richest person in Wisconsin, Hendricks spoke at the 2024 Republican National Convention in Milwaukee as an “everyday American.”
Hendricks has also championed economic development efforts in Beloit, cohosting an A&E show with her daughter titled “Betting on Beloit.”
Wisconsin
Showers Return to Southern Wisconsin for Father’s Day
- Showers will be most likely for areas along and south of the I-94 corridor
- Dry and pleasant conditions for Monday and Tuesday
- Showers and thunderstorms will return Tuesday night and into the day Wednesday
MADISON, Wis. (WMTV) – We are starting the day with some sunshine, but high-level clouds will continue to move in out ahead of a weather system to the southwest. This area of low pressure will move eastward across Illinois and Indiana today, bringing an increase in cloud cover as well as the chance for rain in southern Wisconsin. There is still some uncertainty with exactly how far north the rain will extend, but there is a higher confidence in the presence and coverage of showers along and south of the I-94 corridor this afternoon and evening. Activity will likely be much more hit-or-miss in areas farther north, with some spots potentially not seeing any rain at all.
The cloud cover and rain combined will work to limit temperatures today, with highs only ranging from the upper 60s (in southern Wisconsin) to the low 70s (further north where the sun may linger longer, and it will be drier). We are not expecting a heavy rain, nor are we expecting storms. In areas closer to the state line, rainfall accumulations may be around a half inch. Tonight, rain will end as the system moves east.
What’s Coming Up…
Monday will be dry and pleasant with highs into the mid-70s and some sunshine. This trend continues Tuesday, with highs in the upper 70s. Rain and thunderstorms are then likely to return Tuesday night and Wednesday, with a chance for some stronger storms Wednesday afternoon. Additional showers may linger into Thursday.
Looking Ahead…
Friday looks mostly dry before more chances for showers and thunderstorms return next weekend as temperatures warm up a bit closer to normal for this time of the year.
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