Fred Wellman is running to unseat Rep. Ann Wagner to represent Missouri’s Second District, one of the districts Republicans tried to rig during their rush to comply with President Trump’s directive to gerrymander congressional districts last year. Wellman is a U.S. Army veteran, entrepreneur, and father. Wellman has taken ECU’s Unrig pledge to crack down on dark money, refuse corporate PAC money, and ban congressional stock trading.
In contrast, according to Open Secrets, last cycle, Wagner’s biggest PAC donors by sector were from the finance, insurance, and real estate industries. Wagner took at least $981,500 from those sectors and then voted on the Big Billionaire Bill (as Wellman calls it) that gave major tax breaks to corporations and billionaires. The conflicts of interest don’t end there. Wagner currently sits on the Financial Services Committee, she’s taking significant donations from financial industry PACs, and according to Capitol Trades, she’s traded $1.83 million volume of stock just in the last year. Her most recent stock purchase was of shares in a private equity firm.
We talked to Wellman about why he’s running to challenge Wagner.
Democracy New: Why are you running for Congress?
Wellman: I’ve always been one of those guys who steps up. I went to West Point. I served overseas. After I retired from the Army, I started a firm focusing on veterans and military families. When COVID hit, I drove to New York to become the administrative chief of staff of a field hospital staffed by special operations medical veterans. Here at home, I helped organize donations for refugees. I’m just the kind of person who hears a call and steps up.
Last spring, you might recall there was a split screen between Jeff Bezos’s $56 million wedding and the Senate voting on the Big Billionaire Bill, and I got mad. My god, these people are dismantling so much of what makes our country strong. They were dismantling the floor that protects so many people— including my adult children—and at the same time smearing people who just need at break. It was clear to me that Rep. Ann Wagner has been completely out of touch with reality. She’s done nothing for the district. So, I decided to my take a crack at it.
Democracy News: What are you hearing from your neighbors about political corruption?
Wellman: When we started the campaign, it was very obvious that the cost of living was the number one issue for voters in the district, but now it’s clear that the blatant naked corruption has also become a top issue. People are realizing that this corruption in Washington is deeply impacting their personal lives. They’re losing things because of Trump’s ability to just take money from a government coffer and use it however he wants, including giving contracts to his kids, sending Kushner around the Middle East to end a war when he’s actually just making investments.
People are pissed. That’s the only way to put it. The anger is palpable, and it’s bipartisan. It’s a very personal issue for most people. You’re stealing our money, and it’s so obvious that we see it. So, for me, I wouldn’t say it’s a surprise that people are angry, but one of the biggest surprises really has been how often corruption has come up in conversations with voters. So that’s why I’m running against costs, corruption, and chaos.
Democracy News: When you’re in Congress, what will some of your priorities be for cutting down on corruption and helping working people?
Wellman: I call myself a Day One Democrat. We have to restore faith in government. Polling says 91% of people believe the government is corrupt. So, on Day One, I want to pass a true stock trading and asset trading ban for Congress and members of the executive branch. We also have to ban all crypto trading by members of the Congress and the federal government. If you have access to classified information, you should not be on crypto market. Same thing with prediction markets.
Eight prediction markets allegedly made over $150 million on the Iran War. No one who works for the United States government should be betting on my kid getting killed in combat. So, we have a long way to go in terms of restoring confidence that elected officials aren’t just there to get rich. And that goes for either party.
Second, a robust investigation and subpoena power of the Congress to investigate this Administrations’ crimes, and that leads where it leads. I’m going to investigate Trump. I’m going to investigate the Trump kids. I’m going to investigate Hegseth. I’m going to investigate everybody. And the remedy will be the remedy, depending on what we find. That has to occur to restore confidence in the government.
Third, we have to end Citizens United. There’s no way around it. The amount of time that I’ve wasted trying to raise money to beat an opponent that has been sitting in Congress, just raising money. Over half her money comes from corporate PACs. People may say, “Well, you can’t say she’s corrupt.” I’m sorry, she’s dropped over $2 million in attack ads against me, and they’re being funded by the people and corporations she oversees because she sits on the Financial Services Committee. If that’s not corruption, I don’t know what is.
You know, West Point has an honor code, and the honor code is that a cadet will not lie, cheat, or steal, or tolerate those who do. And Wagner sure does tolerate it. She’s on the House Committee of Financial Services and she’s Chair of the Financial Services Subcommittee on Capital Markets, where she oversees the Securities and Exchange Commission. She is supposed to investigate insider trading, and she refuses to do that.
Democracy News: What has surprised you about running for Congress?
Wellman: What shocked me is how many people told me that I couldn’t win, who said something like, “You know Missouri’s pretty red, right?” Yep, that’s true. Wagner has won in the past. But I’m on the ground. I’ve been volunteering and working in my community. Wagner comes into the district, does a one-day safari, stops at five locations, and then posts those pictures every week. I know the truth on the ground, which is people are hungry for recognition and change, hungry to be recognized as more than just flyover country.
Another thing that surprised me is how much I enjoy just hanging out at a labor hall and with a bucket of Busch Lights and talking to working people and learning from them. I really enjoy just having this chance to talk to people and get to know people. It’s my favorite thing to do.
I think this is a good year for people who are genuine. One of the nicest compliments I’ve gotten was when the president of the first union to endorse us told me that he has a bullshit detector a mile wide and he didn’t detect a single ounce of bullshit on me. I think that’s the greatest compliment a man can get at my age.
My opponent has never had an open town hall. A town hall is the minimum. The other day I was walking in my favorite park in the district. A gentleman came rolling up on his bike. He said he recognized me and wanted to talk about Medicare. I walked, he kept riding, and we talked. At the end of our conversation, he confided in me that he’d lost a son to fentanyl, and he gave me a hug. I think people are hungry for leaders that will just listen and understand their lives. I want leaders who do that. If I get elected it’s going to be my mission to do that.
Democracy News: With all of the terrible things happening, how are you coping?
I have a ritual in the morning. I get up, make my coffee, sit in my chair, maybe sit on the back deck, and I let the world go by. In the end, what matters is I have my fiancé, who’s my rock, and my buddies.
Running for office is one of the harder things I’ve done in my life, but not the hardest. I ran the Lincoln Project during the 2020 election. We had oppo files dumped on us. I had nasty attack stories written about me as a private citizen. There was constant vitriol online, death threats. I was sued by Mike Flynn for $150 million over three tweets. So, they’ve been coming at me for a long time. So, I’m used to a certain amount of it. But in the end, nobody’s shooting at me. I’ve been in combat. People did shoot at me. In the end, if the mission matters, the mission matters.
You can learn more about Fred Wellman here.