While Fox News Radio has featured John Pudner as a national guest monthly since 2021, there will be a change for the 2025 interviews. To date, Pudner has been introduced as the President of Take Back Our Republic Action, but with that organization closing on Friday, January 2, Pudner will be introduced nationwide as a Senior Advisor to the Faith and Freedom Coalition. 

We make this announcement 31 years after I was with two of our MVPs – Diane and Kathy – at a Christmas party at the home of Ollie North and his wonderful wife Betsy, who just passed away.

On Friday, the Board of TBORA voted to close the doors of the organization after 10 successful years. This decision will allow Pudner and other team members to focus on the goals of the Faith and Freedom Coalition, much like they did while distributing 400,000 candidate comparisons in Wisconsin—the team members’ home state, which President-elect Trump won by fewer than 30,000 votes.

We invite you to read the final post at www.takebackaction.org, where you will see some of the goals of the two groups overlapped, such as::

• Stopping Facebook at the FEC
• Exposing ActBlue, which led to President Trump tweeting about our investigation by Pudner and Matt Braynard
• Publicizing the Biden-UPenn-China scandal through a 2021 Newsweek piece and a letter demanding the Pennsylvania Attorney General investigate the controversial Biden deal.

These efforts align with the top priorities we outlined in our recent blog post: Reflections on 2024 Wins, Missed Opportunities, and the Path Forward.

Successes:

• Citizens-Only Vote in Wisconsin
• Tax Reform: Eliminating the Marriage Penalty (AB 1022)

Missed Opportunity:

• Abortion Referendum to Challenge Wisconsin’s Current Abortion Law, Which Is More Liberal Than Those of 45 of 47 European Countries

We also focus on advancing school choice, protecting photo ID laws, supporting the Electoral College, bringing lawyers to Central Count in 2024, stopping same-day voter registration, making rioting a felony, protecting religious rights, stopping human trafficking, preventing men from claiming they are women to access prisons and sports, and supporting Born-Alive Protection to ensure that babies who survive abortion receive the medical attention they need to live. This is in stark contrast to the former liberal Governor of Virginia, who suggested that such babies should be left to die.

While we won’t be able to engage with every issue, the decision to shut down TBORA was  driven not just as an accounting decision, but by wanting our team to concentrate on these key priorities, rather than splitting time with TBORA, which prioritized issues that are not part of Faith and Freedom’s agenda, such as Final-Five voting and rules surrounding campaign contributions, as outlined on the top of www.takebackaction.org. 

You can read more about the successes and disappointments of TBORA’s 10-year journey in the final blog post at www.takebackaction.org. Additionally, we are reprinting the list of our top team players here, as Pudner continues to strategize with them when their talents and input can advance our efforts in the future.”

The 18 All-Time TBORA MVP Team Still in Communication with WIFFC

So many people contributed to TBOR Action’s successes, some of which put many building blocks in place leading up to the launch and 1-year overlap with the Wisconsin Faith and Freedom Coalition. 

We start with our all-time MVP for both the now dissolved TBOR Action as well as our current Wisconsin Faith and Freedom efforts:

• Anna Carter – MVP
  By far the MVP of the Wisconsin Faith and Freedom Coalition as well as the past work during the TBOR Action decade is Anna Carter. Coming from a major accounting firm, Anna expertly managed an incredibly complex operation, overseeing TBOR Action’s 501(c)(4), but also the two 501(c)(3)s (Take Back Our Republic and the Wisconsin Faith and Freedom Coalition) and our LLC campaign efforts. Being able to consolidate to focus on the Wisconsin Faith and Freedom Coalition compliance will simplify her efforts.
  
  
• Ashley Sellers – National Youth MVP
  Ashley played a pivotal role in our referendum victories (click on www.takebackaction.org for Accomplishment #4).

• Beatrice Torralba Shakal – Tri-Federal Affairs MVP
  Beatrice was instrumental in the efforts to expose ActBlue (click on www.takebackaction.org for Accomplishment #2).

• Blair Fitzgibbons – Nationwide Impact MVP
  Blair’s media efforts helped us secure national coverage (click on www.takebackaction.org for Accomplishments #4 and #7) and continue to do so, as he recently placed our Wisconsin Faith and Freedom piece in Newsweek and arranged our Faith and Freedom Coalition Fox News Radio debut on January 2.

• Camille Solberg – Coalition Builder MVP
  Camille’s work on the RNC Catholic Task Force in 2004 began a long partnership, and she has served on every board I’ve been part of over the last 20 years, including a founding Board Member of the Wisconsin Faith and Freedom Coalition.

• Chuck Cunningham – Tri-Federal Affairs MVP
  Chuck’s work in securing 83 co-sponsors for legislation to stop ActBlue was critical (click on www.takebackaction.org for Accomplishment #2).

• Diane Cullo – Tri-Federal Affairs MVP
  Diane’s organizational efforts were key in pushing through important political measures before and after she served in the Trump Administration (click on www.takebackaction.org for Accomplishment #2).

• Jack Anderson – Midwest Youth MVP
  Jack, a recent college student leader, became a key player in Wisconsin by joining us in several high-profile appearances, helping to organize statewide efforts, and eventually serving as Statewide CR Vice Chair.

• Josh Naponiello – Most Improved
  We tease Josh about transforming from a below-average TBOR Action intern in 2016 (just as I was for Senator Bob Kasten in the 1980s) to a powerhouse by 2020, securing major speeches and legislative committee appearances for me, and this year recruiting many canvassers and leading the effort to distribute candidate comparisons in Wisconsin CD1 and, later, in Wisconsin CD3 for the Faith and Freedom Coalition.”.

• Kathy Hayden – Best Field Operation
  My peers who ran the largest political convention turnout operations in the history of the world (13,000 to 17,000 delegates paying $35 each to attend) alongside me in the 1990s were key to the 2024 election. Chris LaCivita (Trump), Phil Cox, Aaron Liebowitz and Dave Rexrode (Elon Musk’s PAC), but the best field person ever was Kathy Hayden – who was invaluable as our Board Member for years to get me around RNC meetings. Sitting with her at an RNC meeting in 2015, I asked if she could get my Comms guy into an exclusive Texas meeting and she did – charming the gatekeeper to let none other than Ric Grenell attend.

• LaNell Morold – Most Impressive Resume
  While LaNell was serving as Deputy ED, we almost closed a couple of donations that could have kept her with us long-term, and if so, I believe we’d have 50 employees today and could have continued for another 50 years. I’ve never been as efficient as when we were lucky enough to have the first woman President of the largest title company who worked with a well known sports organization and was able to talk freely with the first Trump administration at that time.

• Lars Wiechmann – Most Overqualified MVP
  Lars’s qualifications and expertise were pivotal in driving our conservation and legislative efforts – and he was certainly overqualified to be a staffer for me – but maybe I will do the same for him one day! He came to Wisconsin shortly after my move here in 2021 to launch key grassroots efforts (click on www.takebackaction.org for Accomplishment #5)

• Matt Braynard – Data Guru MVP
  Matt’s research on ActBlue was groundbreaking, and his data grassroots targeting of Wisconsin voters has been incredibly important (click on www.takebackaction.org for Accomplishment #2).

• Noel Wilkins – Most Versatile MVP
  Noel’s adaptability made him invaluable in various roles for both organizations, and he will now focus all his time on the Wisconsin Faith and Freedom Coalition for us. In a small organization, his ability to cut and edit incredible video and audio one day, to knock on doors another day, to manage-hire-fire many canvassers to enable us to deliver 400,000 targeted voter comparisons in Wisconsin.  

• Perry O. Hooper Jr. – VIP Connector
  Perry’s unmatched network opened doors to important political figures nationwide.

• Peter Schweizer – Largest Policy Impact MVP
  Peter’s policy insights and critiques have had a massive impact on our direction, particularly in media appearances (click on www.takebackaction.org for Accomplishment #7) and giving us honest opposition to a couple of the issues that were on TBOR Action’s Agenda (Final-Five and curtailing Citizens United) but are not on the agenda of the Wisconsin Faith and Freedom Coalition agenda.

• Shaaya Ellis – MVP in a Boston-NY Meeting
  Shaaya called his move “to the quaintness of Auburn, the privilege of a lifetime,” but we learned we couldn’t send him to a meeting alone for one reason … 20-something New Yorkers do not drive cars. But in a meeting with a donor or investor in Boston or New York, no one was more valuable as he seemed to know money like Tim Draper. Same in DC, where White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany walked past Pudner and Ellis one day, and U-turned to yell, “Shaaya!” and the two started talking political communications strategies. Shaaya was nice enough to tell McEnany who Pudner was.
  
  
• Tori Sorg – Most Gracious MVP
  Imagine you give up a 9-year job to come work for an organization (our former sister organization the 501c3 TBOR) and after working two months of miracles for your new organization, TWO major funders unexpectedly stop funding, and you are let go? My guess is 99% of people would then block my phone number – so to see just the opposite – no complaints but rather continuing to help turn me from a terrible fundraiser to an average fundraiser and even invite me as a VIP to a major event across the country to help bolster TBOR Action was so far beyond the call.

We appreciate what these 18 team members have done for TBOR Action and hope in the future the Faith and Freedom agenda can benefit from some of their efforts now that the team is not splitting time between two organizations.