The following is a lightly edited transcript of what may be one of John Pudner’s favorite presentations — a chance for him to joke that in Alabama they call him a Yankee, while in Wisconsin he’s told he sounds like a Southern evangelical preacher. The only “fib” he tells in this section isn’t about ActBlue at all, but about Chris Farley — whose real college timeline differs a bit from the Tommy Boy legend (Pudner repeated the myth that it took Farley seven years to graduate as though it were factual for effect). If you prefer to skip ahead, scroll down to “… the Serious Part — Senator Orr’s ActBlue Bill.” This transcript is shared with permission from the event host.

This PowerPoint presentation was delivered in Alabama shortly after State Senator Arthur Orr joined his Wisconsin counterparts in introducing legislation to permanently end ActBlue’s 20-year practice of moving billions of unverified dollars to liberal causes and candidates. For those following along, you can click here to view the slides, click the image above to listen to the presentation, or simply read the transcript below.

If you would like to suggest a legislator in your state who could introduce similar legislation, visit www.freedomandfamilyaction.com and enter your information or provide contact details for their office.

This transcript is shared with permission from the event host.

Introduction by host Marty Connors — who became GOP Chair when Pudner ran his first statewide effort (1999), and when Republicans finally captured the Governor’s Mansion (2002), ending decades of Democratic control of not only the governorship but also the Legislature and the Supreme Court — and no Democrat has been elected governor since his tenure as Chair:

Fantastic. One of my favorite folks, John Pudner. Started here years ago at ALFA, was the brains behind their political operations, started a conservative PAC and C4, and now he’s spent a lot of time up in Wisconsin. That’s a strange place to go — I’d like to hear a little about that. And the other thing John does every year, which is rather annoying because it’s never accurate, is the NCAA basketball brackets. He gets wrong consistently. 

John Pudner:
Nate Silver and I have met in person and talked about how much we hate brackets because once you get to that point (one and done), it’s random.

Host:
Anyway, his topic today is freedom, dark money, and ActBlue — a very interesting subject. We’ll likely see this in the governor’s race this time. So, John, go ahead.

The Fun Part – Is Pudner a Yankee…

John Pudner:
Absolutely. My main topic today is how unverified money has flowed into campaigns for years from the left, primarily through ActBlue. This is outside the normal safeguards. And now we finally have a bill we got through the Wisconsin Assembly, and Senator Arthur Orr is introducing it here — my two main states.

There are two purposes today:

1. Please ask your legislator to sign on as a co-sponsor. I talked to Arthur again this morning — he wants to introduce it on day one (the first day the legislature is in Session after the New Year) with as many co-sponsors as possible.
   
   
2. A shorter topic I’ll get to after I defend myself on one recurring accusation: that I’m a Yankee.
   
   

John Pudner:
Let’s go to the second slide. I need to make sure you understand: John Pudner is not a Yankee. This comes up periodically. Yes, I have now lived a few years in Wisconsin, but I need to justify that before getting to the main topics. (laughter from audience). Let’s go to the next slide.

Host:
Don’t stay on Chris Farley?

John Pudner:
Oh, we are staying on Chris Farley — that’s Chris when I was with him in college. You could not tackle Chris in rugby. He really did take seven years to graduate, which is why I overlapped with him. Tommy Boy is accurate. (FACT CHECK – Pudner was joking about the 7 years, Tommy Boy was not accurate as Farley was a sophomore when Pudner arrived as a freshman).

My first few years in Wisconsin were rough — barely passed. As a Southern boy moving up to the only state that still had an 18 year old drinking age, so those two years are a blemish on my record, but …

… then Chris left and Scott Walker came. We signed up 4,000 of 6,000 Marquette students for “Marquette Students for Life.” Two-thirds of campus was in the pro-life group. I was news editor of the paper. We took over the paper’s editorial board for the first time in 80 years. We endorsed Robert Bork for Supreme Court. The faculty wished they could have gotten rid of us (laughing). So, I’m trying to justify those years up there.

A couple of years ago, Chris LaCivita — one of my best friends from Virginia — who would eventually run Trump’s campaign, and others mentioned that they were worried no one in Wisconsin knew how to turn out churches like we did (Faith and Freedom groups). So they said, “Pudner, we need you.” We had 500,000 conservative churchgoing Wisconsinites who did not vote in 2020. My mission was to find them.

We got 402,000 comparison pieces out. I led a surrogate tour with Vivek and Kash Patel. I joke that Trump was down two points in Wisconsin when we started that surrogate tour, and up two points by the time we were done, but you never know cause and effect.