Rep. Gwen Moore sat down with the hosts of the Milwaukee-based talk show UpFront, during which time she talked about why she wasn't choosing to stay in Milwaukee for MLK Day and what she foresaw for the new session of Congress:

HOST: Congresswoman Gwen Moore, who joins us now. Congresswoman, welcome back to UpFront.

MOORE: Hey, thank you. Happy New Year.

HOST: Happy New Year to you as well. So, you have announced that you're going to be here in Milwaukee and not at the inauguration tomorrow. Why?

MOORE: You know, it was a process, my deciding not to go. I did go to the first Trump inauguration. It's bitterly cold out there. but I thought that I would go. And when I came to realize that the inauguration day was going to fall on MLK Day, something that hasn't done since Bill Clinton was inaugurated. My constituents really, it was a drumbeat of folks begging me to come and go to these events I go to every single year. since there's never any conflict. and I you know, I still intended to just go to the inauguration. And i think, you know, Trump whining over the flag flying at half-staff was just the final straw for me.

HOST: If inauguration did not fall on MLK Day, would you have attended?

MOORE: You know, there would have been a lot. like I said, I think the final straw for me was his whining about Jimmy Carter, about the flag being flown at half-staff to honor the 39th President.. I just, you know, I think that that it's been very hard to respect Donald Trump.

HOST: Should this be characterized as a protest among Democrats who are not showing up on Monday?

MOORE: You know, people have different reasons for doing it. You got somebody like Amy Klobuchar, for example, who's definitely going to show up because she's in charge of the inaugural ceremonies. I have no problem with my good friend and colleague, our United States Senator Tammy Baldwin, showing up.

HOST: Republicans have a slim majority in the new congress. We were just mentioning that. And do you think is the role then, of Democrats? Is it to oppose what Republicans want? What the Trump agenda wants?

MOORE: You know, we have, you know, if no one has noticed, we have been the governing body even in the 118th Congress, the last congress. you know, Hakeem Jeffries and the Democratic caucus bailed them out. And I think that we are reconsidering doing that. We would love to be bipartisan. Some of the things that I'm most proud of, I've done in a bipartisan way at the state legislature as well as in congress. But we're just not going to put up with some of the foolishness and craziness that they're talking about.

HOST: Give me an example.

MOORE: Well, okay. they want to cut $2.5 trillion out of the budget. The DOGE. Mr. Ramaswamy, and, Elon Musk. We're hearing that they just want to take a sledgehammer and a sword to things that Americans really depend on.

For me, it's reassuring to have someone keep things in perspective and remind us that even though things aren't all sunshine and kittens, all is not completely lost if we're willing to fight for it. And Moore has been doing this a long, long time.