Vice President Mike Pence is now scheduled to kick off tomorrow’s trip to Wisconsin with a stop at Waukesha STEM Academy, where he is set to participate in a school choice roundtable with Education Secretary Betsy DeVos.
The stop was announced today by Pence’s office. It will come ahead of a trip to the Ingleside Hotel in Pewaukee to get what the president’s campaign is calling his “Faith in America” tour off the ground. Pence’s office indicated that former Gov. Scott Walker is scheduled to speak.
The events will mark Pence’s fourth stop in Wisconsin this year. He joined President Trump for a Milwaukee campaign rally in January. He then made two official stops, one at the state Capitol in January for a pro-school choice event, the other at the GE Healthcare facility in Madison in April to tout the company’s efforts to produce ventilators.
Pence had a campaign event planned for Onalaska in early March. But he canceled it to deal with the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Ahead of Pence’s visit, state Dem Party Chair Ben Wikler accused the Trump administration of failing the state with its response to the COVID-19 pandemic and financial crisis, saying Wisconsinites are “hungry for change.”
Wikler, alongside business owners and Oconomowoc Alderman John Zapfel, said he expects the VP and U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos to attack public education.
“The only thing that they are likely to achieve is to remind people of the disasterousness of their leadership,” he said.
He also suggested there could be COVID-19 public health concerns to take into consideration with Pence’s visit.
Milwaukee-based small business owners Ryan Clancy and Becky Cooper-Clancy added they believe the federal response to economic problems caused by pandemic has been “unpredictable” and “broken.”
They agreed the Paycheck Protection Program meant to help business owners keep their workforce employed during the pandemic has been making Wisconsin’s economy look better off than it actually is.
