Jewish Insider: In the race to replace Wisconsin Rep. Mike Gallagher, a divide over the course of U.S. foreign policy

“I will take [my] experience and knowledge, go to Washington and make sure that we’re protecting our war-fighters and also projecting that credible deterrence around the world to keep our adversaries at bay,” Roth told JI. “I think it would be very difficult for anyone to serve in Congress without having served in the military.”

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Jewish Insider: In the race to replace Wisconsin Rep. Mike Gallagher, a divide over the course of U.S. foreign policy
By Marc Rod
Jul 15, 2024

As the political world turns its eyes toward Milwaukee this week for the Republican National Convention, another political contest in the state is heating up.

The race to replace former Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI), a one-time rising star in the Republican Party and a strong proponent of U.S. engagement abroad, is shaping up to be another in a series of contests between the GOP’s traditional internationalist foreign policy wing and those adopting more restrictionist views.

Gallagher, who represented the state’s 8th Congressional District, centered around Green Bay, abruptly retired in the middle of his congressional term in April. The primary for both the special election and the next congressional term will be held on Aug. 13.

Facing off are former state Sen. Roger Roth, a member of the Wisconsin Air National Guard and veteran of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars; state Sen. Andre Jacque; and businessman and political neophyte Tony Wied, who entered the race with an endorsement from former President Donald Trump.

All three candidates pledged support for Israel and said they supported continued U.S. aid to the Jewish state, but Roth leaned more toward traditional conservative foreign policy views than his two competitors, both of whom said they opposed additional U.S. aid to Ukraine. Like Gallagher, Roth has touted his national security experience as a key selling point to voters.

The three candidates struck a relatively similar tone on Israel in recent interviews with Jewish Insider.

“I think they’re our most important strategic ally right now, Israel,” Roth said. He argued that Iran and its terrorist proxies have been emboldened by the Biden administration’s policies, adding, “it’s imperative that we stand with Israel” and that there is “no daylight” between Washington and Israel.

He blasted Democratic leaders’ public criticisms, arguing “Israel deserves an open hand to absolutely destroy Hamas” and that public critiques of Israel by the U.S. and others “undermines their ability to conduct this war and to end it quickly and decisively.”

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On the campaign trail, Roth is playing up his national security background, naming it as among his top issues if elected, and making an aggressive argument for U.S. engagement globally. He said that seeing Democratic lawmakers criticize the military’s actions in Iraq was a formative political experience for him.

Roth said it “concerns me deeply” that 21 Republicans voted against U.S. aid to Israel, as well as that less than half of Republicans voted for additional Ukraine aid.

“We are entering a new phase right now where you have Republicans running for office who have bought into the siren song that America can pull back to ‘fortress America,’ and we can remove ourselves from the world, and yet at the same time, have American security. And I’m telling you, it is impossible,” Roth said. “It scares me that the two people I’m running against in this race want to take us back to 1930s isolationist politics, and we saw the disastrous consequences of that.”

Jacque said he would have supported funding for Taiwan but not for Ukraine, arguing that “the European community … needs to step up further” and that there was a lack of clarity around how Ukraine is using U.S. funding, describing it as effectively a “blank check.”

Wied described U.S. support for Ukraine as a “blank check” and claimed that Trump would have prevented “any of the aggression that has happened.” Addressing his broader worldview, Wied said that he’s an “America First conservative,” and emphasized the need for the U.S. to be strong. He didn’t directly address aid for Taiwan.

Roth argued that the U.S. should defer to the Israeli government on the issue of a two-state solution in the long term, emphasizing that Israel needs to first be allowed to destroy Hamas before such questions are addressed.

“Anything we do that stops short of that is just allowing what’s happening right now to continue to build … and we’re going to see the ugly face of Hamas again,” he said.

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Addressing Iran, Roth said that “all options” should be on the table to ensure that Iran cannot acquire a nuclear weapon. He added that the U.S. should pursue “maximum pressure” sanctions against Iran as imposed by the Trump administration.

“The very fact that after Joe Biden gets elected president, he tries to go there and revive the Iran nuclear deal — it just showcased his weakness,” Roth said. “They recognized at that moment that they had nothing to fear any longer in the United States.”

Roth also called for building on the Abraham Accords to isolate Iran from the Arab world, explaining, “We can’t understate how impactful that was and was going to be in the region.”

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Roth told JI he wants to see the U.S. withhold support from the U.N. until it makes reforms, including eliminating anti-Israel bias. But he said he opposes leaving the U.N. entirely because he believes the U.S. is better served using its influence as a check on the U.N.’s actions and preventing further moves against U.S. interests and Israel.

“There’s a certain brand of Republican that wants to pull back from our strategic alliances,” Roth said. “Someone who believes in ‘America First’ believes in making sure that we use these institutions to promote America’s interests.”

Wied, again invoking Trump, said that the U.S. shouldn’t be “the world’s piggy bank” and “shouldn’t be funding the majority of the U.N.’s operations when they continuously oppose U.S. interests.”

At home, Roth emphasized the need to ensure that Jewish and Israeli students are protected on their college campuses. He said that in the state Senate, he had led efforts to find and eliminate Chinese influence in universities, drawing parallels between that and the Qatari funding that has come under scrutiny since Oct. 7.

He said that Congress has a role to play in examining and regulating Qatari funding to U.S. universities and determining whether it’s connected to antisemitism on campuses. He added that the federal government should be pulling back from funding universities generally, leaving the issue to states.