This is a Civic Media News special report.
Everything you need to know, live from the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.
Now your hosts, Todd Alba and Civic Media News Director, Terry Bell.
Good evening.
From Civic Media's broadcast, Center Overlooking Pfizer, Forum in downtown Milwaukee
and what's turned out to be a beautiful night.
I'm Terry Bell and welcome tonight to Civic Media's special coverage of the Republican
National Convention.
Over the next hour, we'll give you the facts and the flavor of what happened to the
convention today and some perspective from our analysts.
The first, we welcome my co-host for the hour, just a few walks away at Wisconsin Media
Row in Panther Arena.
The host of the Todd Alba show is, you guessed it, Todd Alba.
Hey, Terry, great to be with you and everyone else around the state of Wisconsin tonight.
You're right after a pretty spectacular lightning show here, the Greater Milwaukee area
last night.
The skies have cleared and now perhaps there are other political storms on the horizon.
More about those tonight, but here at Wisconsin Media Row, it's been another busy day when
you've seen Wisconsin Congressman Glenn Growthman and Tom Tiffany walk through the area here
amongst us, also former Wisconsin Governor Tommy Thompson.
He is on the Trump Train and walking through and greeting people like nobody else can.
And also, U.S. Senate candidate Eric Humdey, among others, making their way through the
area tonight.
And of course, the Senate candidate, Republican Senate candidate Eric Humdey, slated to speak
on the stage tonight, if he hasn't already, in prime time here at the Republican National
Convention.
So, certainly bustling here, lots more, it feels like, in my show, you picked up on
it, Terry.
It feels like a lot more foreign media here, foreign press, lots of languages being spoken,
the eyes of the world are on Milwaukee this week, like they will be in Chicago about
a month from now for the DNC.
Yeah, I heard some beautiful languages and accents of walking around the campus today,
so you're absolutely right, that does have the attention in the world.
You mentioned Eric Humdey a moment ago, yes, he did, in fact, speak about an hour ago,
about a four minute address, one of several U.S. Senate candidates speaking to the convention
early on in the proceedings, was just kind of line him up and let him go for just a short
amount of time.
In that speech, as you might imagine, Eric Humdey laid many of the problems of the United
States and the world at the feet of Joe Biden and Tammy Baldwin, you would expect him to
do that, and we'll have more highlights and analysis of that coming up.
Yeah, this is one of these stages, literally and figuratively, where Mr. Humdey is trying
to gain some traction a little bit.
So far, he's had trouble doing so.
I mean, here's a person who is fighting this campaign from Democrats and from Senator
Baldwin herself, say, look, you're really not from Wisconsin, you're based out of California,
and Mr. Humdey not doing a lot to dissuade people that about a month ago, he was scheduled
to be in a Republican party event in O'Conto County, just north of Green Bay.
He canceled that, and the paparazzi in the Greater Los Angeles area captured Mr. Humdey
on the beach in O.C., Orange County, near Laguna Beach, where he has a $7 million or so
house where he's the president of a bank out there.
So he kind of keeps making these same mistakes, and strictly from a person who made a lot
of campaigns over my life for the Republican side of the aisle after leaving the party
in 2011, not exactly what you want in a candidate.
The thing I just mentioned, he's also been caught on tape, or there's records from Steve
Walter, the great journalist, now at Wisconsin I, in which he says he wants to tax overweight
people more for health care, which makes him pay more for health care.
Again, if you're running a campaign, you don't want your candidate saying these types
of things, makes it very difficult.
Meanwhile, Democrat incumbent, Democratic incumbent, Tammy Baldwin, just going around the
state, going to Richland County, the farmers, or the dairy breakfast, giving out cheese
curds and grill and pancakes.
So I'm not sure whether this is the platform that Eric comes back on track, but he's given
it the old try.
Well, as if anticipating your critique, he did mention during his speech about an hour
ago that his family's roots go back to Wisconsin.
He says 100 years, and I think you'll hear him saying that a lot more often during the
summer and fall.
You mentioned the traction, a U-Gov poll was released today or last night, and it shows
Baldwin with a seven point lead, a 50 for Baldwin, 43% for Hubby, but of course, it's only
July.
And it's only July, and I think that's probably what worries the Republicans, because Tammy
Baldwin having a seven point lead in that poll in July.
It makes it much harder for Eric to catch up as things progress.
But like you say, we're still in July, there is time.
We'll see certainly how things happen at the top of the ticket.
We talk in political terms of coattails, just the top of the ticket, in this case, the
presidential candidate.
Do they have coattails that will go down and help people down ballot, or beneath them
on the ballot?
I think that's one of the questions here.
I mean, we've talked about it on our show at Trigview Olsen.
He's going to be joining us a little bit later in this broadcast, along with other panelists
here.
We've talked about energy, enthusiasm, electoral enthusiasm to turn out your base.
All of the, all of the, you know, we've said of this network, we did not study sort of
political violence, but if you, and that's, that's very true.
If you strictly look at enthusiasm, the events of Saturday, over the weekend, the attempted
assassination of former president Trump, it has solidified and energized this base.
I was not in the bowl last night, but talking about, talking to reporters, colleagues who
were there last night, they said it was quote, energetic and, and, and in the life of last
night.
And Trump didn't even speak.
He just came out and, you know, sat down.
And Democrats can Joe Biden repeat that same energy in Chicago next month and get their
base unified.
I think that's going to go a long way in determining, perhaps, in part, the, the outcome
between Baldwin and Hovey on the US Senate ticket.
That's a perfectly good point.
And that's something that Democrats in Wisconsin, in particular, are perfectly aware of.
And in fact, when you talk to strategists and candidates, they talk about what they
call reverse coattails.
In that meaning that's usually the, you know, lower ballot ticket candidates sort of ride
the wave that the, you know, the person at the top of the ticket.
What Democrats are hoping in Wisconsin is that there is enough energy and enthusiasm for
state assembly candidates for state Senate candidates, local candidates, even more local
than that.
And then those people will go up the ticket and check that box for Biden or circling
that oval.
I'm dating myself.
Right.
Depends on what for me.
There's all kinds of ways to vote.
That's true.
That's true.
That's true.
But you're right.
I mean, I mean, I think Tabby Baldwin could actually help Joe Biden, Wisconsin.
I don't think that's off the table.
So you could see some reverse coattails here.
Can Donald Trump pull Eric Hovey across the finish line?
I don't know.
Tough to see.
Yep.
But when you literally jumping a lake to start your campaign, I mean, that's what Eric
Hovey did.
Well, but what time will tell?
We shall see.
Yeah.
Just to remind everybody, we are live in Milwaukee.
We are at the Pfizer and Ford campus nearby.
I'm just across the street down a couple of blocks.
And Todd is at media row in Panther Arena in downtown Milwaukee.
And you're listening to live coverage of civic media's recap of the Republican convention
on this Tuesday.
And they started out with reaction to the nomination of JD Vance as Donald Trump's vice
presidential running mates.
And that was a choice that you would imagine energized the people here in Milwaukee.
There are plenty of critiques coming from further left on the spectrum, as you would expect.
The issues that Vance's critics would be quick to point out would be his stances on how
he would handle a constitutional crisis like January 6th, reproductive rights and immigration
just to name a few.
Yeah, we're going to hear a cut, I think a little bit later on in the show, Terry, JD Vance,
it is own words.
But I think we asked most political analysts of the people, at least, that were known to
be for President Trump's selection or choices for vice president.
JD Vance is probably the most extreme, the most in line with him, at least now, in terms
of be all in on the mega agenda.
If you look at what he talks about in terms of a women's health care, reproductive rights.
If you look at things, as you mentioned, he is all in on authoritarianism, again, from
his own words.
He is all in on doing what Mike Pence would not, which is put Donald Trump ahead of the
Constitution, if there was a constitutional crisis on the election, that may be the
litmus test or was the litmus test for Donald Trump because Mike Pence was no liberal.
He was certainly a hard-line conservative on some of these same issues.
I just mentioned abortion and women's health care in particular, but that wasn't enough
for Donald Trump because Pence, of course, didn't do Trump's bidding on January 6th and
Trump allowed the crowd to put up the gallows and chant, hang Mike Pence at the January
6th attempted insurrection, and so the real test here for Trump was, well, you do what Mike
Pence wouldn't, and apparently JD Vance has passed the test even after, again, these are
JD Vance's words, having in the past called Donald Trump, quote, the American Hitler,
unquote.
So things have changed in the last couple of three years for JD Vance.
He finds himself now atop the ticket alongside Donald Trump.
And to your point, that is the choice that this seems to be, into kind of wandering around
talking to people on the fly here, delegates across the country.
I haven't found anybody yet, Terry, I'm not sure, in your report, if you have, I have
not found a delegate who is disappointed in Trump's choice of JD Vance.
No, I have not either.
That's a good point.
JD Vance was all the talk this morning.
A few hours later, there was an incident that redirected everyone's attention for an
hour or two.
And that was a law enforcement incident that happened about a mile or so from Pfizer
for him just outside one of the security fences.
And it turns out to be that it was not related to the convention to local men got into an
altercation.
It turns out to be a knife fight.
And a law enforcement officer from Columbus, Ohio, who was here in Milwaukee to help keep
the peace, use lethal force in order to, you know, quell this situation.
So there was speculation, of course, in this first broke out that this might have something
to do with a protest or some sort of political violence.
It turns out it was really not related to the convention directly.
But it certainly does speak to, you know, some of the problems that are going on around
the country.
Particularly in Milwaukee.
And I'm sure those are conversations that people will be having throughout the days
come.
In fact, the ACLU has already put out a statement, wanting full transparency from the
authorities about what happened today and why.
Yeah, we'll wait and see what, how this all shakes out.
I thought, thank God, it's important as you alluded to, Terry, not to speculate too
far.
Let's let the investigation take it because, of course, but from what we know now, it
appears, as you just said, it was a knife fight between two local gentlemen and, unfortunately,
someone lost their life today.
We'll see what the report actually says, absolutely.
Straight ahead, we'll recap some of the day's key moments here in Milwaukee and a bit later,
our panel joins us to sort through what it all means.
You're listening to special coverage from civic media right here on the civic media radio
network.
You're listening to a civic media news special report.
Everything you need to know, live from the Republican National Convention.
Once again, here's Todd Alba and Terry Bell.
Welcome back to civic media special coverage of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.
I'm Terry Bell at Civic Media's Broadcast Center, a short walk from the convention, and
my co-host is Todd Alba, who's in Wisconsin, media row at Panther Arena.
In the next few minutes, we're going to take a time to listen to a recap of some of the
highlights of today's events in downtown Milwaukee.
Police have reported the shot and killed a person about two and a half miles from Pfizer
4, which is the main RNC venue.
There's large police presence near 14th and Voliets streets.
The officer who fired the fatal shot is from Ohio.
Indications are that the incident is not related to the RNC.
The latest poll has Donald Trump ahead of Joe Biden in Wisconsin.
It finds 43% of registered voters back Trump, while 38% support Biden.
In March, Biden was up by one point.
Wisconsin Republican Party Chair Brian Schimming says he's enthusiastic about JD Vanses,
Trump's running mate for a number of reasons.
He's a Midwesterner.
He has a compelling life story, and frankly, I want to be the first one to sell tickets
to the debate between JD Vans and the vice president.
But Vanses wasn't always so big on Trump, launching scathing criticisms of Trump during
the 2016 campaign.
He explains to Sean Hannity, Fox News Network, how he came to change his mind.
Also, I don't hide from that.
I was certainly skeptical of Donald Trump in 2016, but President Trump was a great president
and he changed my mind.
I think he changed the minds of a lot of Americans because again, he delivered that piece in prosperity.
If you go back to what I thought in 2016, another thing that was going on, Sean, is I bought
into the media's lies and distortions.
I bought into this idea that somehow he was going to be so different, a terrible threat
to democracy.
It was a joke.
Vanses addresses the convention in prime time tomorrow night.
Senator Ron Johnson, going on the attack in his prime time speech at the RNC last night.
Today's Democrat agenda, their policies, are a clear and present danger to America, to
our institutions, our values, and our people.
Now they are the party of open borders, reckless spending, weaponized government, and weakness
on the world stage.
Under the speech, Johnson claimed in an interview that wasn't the speech he planned to give.
His people aren't saying who changed it, how they did it, or why.
Among other things, the GOP platform calls for the biggest deportation effort in U.S. history.
Christine Newman or Teezes of Milwaukee-based advocate for refugees and other immigrants.
We are not afraid of those that demonize us and promote hate and violence and division.
We stand united and firm for justice and human rights.
She spoke to a crowd of hundreds of protesters that marched through downtown near the RNC perimeter.
The theme of day two of the convention is immigration and crime.
Speakers tonight will talk about law enforcement in the southern border.
Two failed recall attempts are proving lucrative for Wisconsin assembly speaker Robin Voss,
who has allowed to collect unlimited money during that time.
This politics reports he pocketed nearly $640,000.
Most of it, a cool half million, came from Republican donor Elizabeth Uline.
The RNC was promised to be a boon to restaurant stores and other establishments in downtown
Milwaukee.
But Monday, many businesses say it was pretty slow.
We were kind of tied up having to be at the convention hall and so we're looking forward
to some more flexibility in the next few days to go out and just be part of the community
and get out to different places we couldn't yesterday.
Wisconsin delegate Stephanie Sussex says they had to stick to a tight schedule.
And those are just some of the facts and a little bit of the flavor of today at the Republican
National Convention in Milwaukee.
And I forgot to mention earlier in the show that also much of the talk this morning,
kind of the big story that blew up was right after Senator Johnson's speech last night.
A very different tone that he claims he, the speech he initially planned to give,
which was a message of unity, turned out to be a very red meat speech and reporter talked
to him about it.
Johnson said he was upset.
That wasn't the version of the speech he planned to give.
But, you know, you can take that with however large a grain of salt you like.
Yeah, Terry, I would simply say, yeah, sorry about that, as a former long time staffer
at the congressional level and at the state senate level, it would be hard for me to imagine
how at a stage this big, the staff could load the wrong speech onto the teleprompter
and Senator Johnson wouldn't realize it.
It just seems implausible to put it mildly at this point.
But I think maybe more importantly, it's just look at the content.
I mean, again, it was a very red meat speech speaking to the base and really it's not a fringe
group.
It is the mega Republican party because Senator Johnson's speech on the money lines is just
a transphobia line trying to be divisive and and and jitting people up.
It's in deep contrast to what both Donald Trump and Joe Biden talked about over the weekend,
which was trying to lower the temperature of political rhetoric.
So I find that interesting.
I also find interesting, Terry, you mentioned the theme tonight is quote unquote, keep America
safe again, immigration and crime.
Again, it's it's dividing people trying to create buggy people for America's problems.
First Wisconsinites, Terry, and you grew up on Southwest Wisconsin as did I.
The fact is that one of the things Republicans don't want to talk about here is that if you
got rid of migration, immigration, both legal and let's be honest, some undocumented,
the Wisconsin agricultural industry would collapse.
That's just a fact.
And if you ask many, many people in the agriculture industry would would say the same thing.
Yeah.
And so they're creating buggy people of folks that are are needed and are valuable parts
of America's melting pot here.
Remember, most of the people here are documented actually.
And so and remember this, they're going to talk about American heroes and Donald Trump
is going to talk about pardoning criminals.
I mean, I got up on my Twitter feed right now.
This guy Tim Sheehy, given a speech here from Montana, a Democrat candidate for US Senate
out there in Montana, he said, he said this just a while ago for the day, as quote, common
sense is simple.
Criminals are bad, unquote.
Donald Trump comes to his convention as a 43 time, a found guilty criminal.
I mean, I mean, the hypocrisy is a little bit beyond the pale here.
And also the people that committed these heinous crimes on January 6th, insurrectionist
reason.
They were they were given a jury of their peers in many cases or pled guilty and sentenced
and are in jail.
So it seems not quite backing the blue quote unquote for the current iteration of the
Maggie Republican Party to support these insurrectionists from from January 6th.
It might be interesting to note that at 727 here on Tuesday evening, day two of the convention
is the first I've heard any mention of Donald Trump's felony convictions of from anybody
on any platform.
Well, I think it's an important point to point out here, Terry.
And I think we're running out of time.
We're up against the clock a little bit right now, but maybe we can play as cut a little
bit later of JD Vance from George Stephanopoulos from earlier this year in which he comes right
out and says that he would not have done what Mike Pence did, which was stand up for
the Constitution in the 2020 lecture.
He's also January 6th that he would have done what Trump wanted.
He would have.
Yeah, maybe.
Yeah, go ahead.
Sorry to cut you off top.
The news is straight ahead.
And we'll listen for more from JD Vance as our coverage, but civic media special coverage
continues with our panel, Ruth Conif of the Wisconsin Examiner and Drake V Olsen of the
Lincoln Project.
You're listening to civic media special coverage.
Keep it right here.
You're listening to a civic media news special report.
Everything you need to know live from the Republican National Convention.
Once again, here's Todd Alba and Terry Bell.
Thank you and welcome back to civic media special coverage of the Republican National Convention
in Milwaukee.
Todd Alba is with me.
He's at Panther Arena and Wisconsin media row.
I'm just a few locks away from Pfizer for him or the prime time delegation, the time
time festivities, I should say, our underway tonight.
We were talking a bit ago, Todd about JD Vance and in the days and weeks to come, we're going
to hear more of his past statements and whether or not they jive with his current positions
and feelings and there was some clips today that caught your ear.
Yeah, this is back from February of this year.
This is on this week, the weekly program with George Stephanopoulos and JD Vance, Senator
Vance was a guest on this week and George Stephanopoulos brought up this subject of January
6th and if Vance was in that position as vice president, what he have done the same thing
that Mike Pence did, which was choose the Constitution over Trump or what he asked to
Trump's will.
Here is that clip of JD Vance on this week with George Stephanopoulos.
So you're not troubled by the sexual assault and defamation.
Let me ask you about January 6th.
You've been mentioned as a possible vice president for Donald Trump.
Did you been vice president on January 6th?
Would you have certified the election results?
Oh, George, this is such a ridiculous question in part because the law has changed here.
We of course had it.
I didn't ask you about going forward.
I asked you what you would have done.
I asked you what you would have done.
Here's what I think, here's what I think happened in 2020 and I know you guys are obsessed
with talking about this.
I have to make a point here.
You constantly say to people like me, why do you talk about January the 6th?
Why do you talk about the election of 2020?
And then you ask about us multiple times during a six minute interview.
But look, you asked the question and I'll answer it.
Do I think there were problems in 2020?
Yes I do.
Do I think it was a problem that big technology companies working with the intelligence
services censored the presidential campaign of Donald Trump?
Yes.
Do I think it's a problem that Pennsylvania changed its balloting rules in the middle of
the election season in a way that even some courts in Pennsylvania have said was illegal.
Yes, I think these were problems, George.
And I think there is a political solution to those problems.
So litigating which slate of electors was legitimate.
I think it's fundamentally the political solution to the problems that existed in 2020.
It's a reasonable debate to have.
And I find it weird, George, that people like you obsessed with what I call what happened
in 2020.
You're so incurious about what actually happened in 2020, which is why so many people mistrust
our elections in this country.
We've got to talk about that.
I'm not the least bit incurious.
I think you laid out a litany there, but you didn't answer the question I asked.
Would you have certified the election results had you been vice president?
If I had been vice president, I would have told the states like Pennsylvania, Georgia,
and so many others that we needed to have multiple slate of electors.
And I think the US Congress should have fought over it from there.
That is the legitimate way to deal with an election that a lot of folks, including me,
think had a lot of problems in 2020.
I think that's what we should have done.
So it's very clear you would have done what Donald Trump asked you to do there.
Not what Mike says and Mike Pence did.
He said that that's it.
That of course, as he said, from George Stephanopoulos, this week interviewing Senator JD Vance
on if he were to be the vice president's nominee or vice president tonight, he is the
vice presidential nominee for Republican Party.
And Vance brings up this whole question of election integrity.
I have a great book here by Major Guarant of CBS News and David Becker called The Big
Truth.
And it is a complete compilation of looking back at the 2020 election, one of the freest
fairest elections, including in the state of Wisconsin.
Major Guarant writes this, and Terry the nuclear panel involved.
He says, quote, there was a time when election officials, political reporters, political scientists
and historians worried if American democracy was dying from this interest, not dying so
much as withering.
The question now are not about the participation or interest, but trust and reliability.
There is no shortage of interest and energy around voting.
There is more interest now about registering to vote, methods to vote, and the range of
access to vote and how votes are counted.
That interest is not neutral.
Terry joining us at the desk here from Wisconsin media row.
We have the editor in chief, the Wisconsin examiner Ruth Conneff and senior advisor to the
Lincoln project.
Trivia Olson, Ruth, let's start with you.
You heard these comments from JD Vans who is now tonight, the GOP nominee for Vice President.
What say you?
I got through your mic on.
That would be a good thing.
Go ahead.
Can't say anything like that.
I mean, election denial is a huge part of the Trump brand and the Republicans who have
folded their tents and decided to join this, you know, Trump cult are absolutely required
to pretend that they think that the election in 2020 was stolen.
Here in Wisconsin, we're sitting here in a state that had a slate of fake electors for
Donald Trump.
They, as a condition of a settlement of a lawsuit, have admitted that they knew that
Joe Biden won the election when they cast their ballots that were forwarded to Congress
by Ron Johnson who failed to give them to make pens to be counted.
But this is what JD Vans is talking about.
We should have had more of this.
We should have allowed these people who are impersonating legitimate electoral college
voters, cast fake ballots against the will of the people, undermine the election.
And pretend that Trump won it.
And then we should have spent a whole bunch of time debating whether that was legitimate.
It's not legitimate.
It's not legitimate.
And the fake electors themselves in Wisconsin have admitted as much.
So, you know, this is all a bunch of smoke and mirrors.
And it's, you know, it's very dangerous.
They've managed to keep this idea alive that there's something wrong with the election system.
It's led to death threats on these local clerks who are just trying to do a difficult job.
A lot of the stuff is very boring.
You have people show up to observe elections.
They get tired and fatigued.
You know, it's, it's really wonky stuff that is suddenly very hot and sexy because Trump
continues to claim that he won the election.
He did not win the election.
And, you know, this has been litigated.
I mean, they are old for 50 in the court on this issue.
So this is not something that needs further exploration.
It's just, it's, you know, it's a still life.
We're not very far from the Amphan field.
The brewers talking about old for 50.
Those aren't great baseball car results, they're not.
Not a good deal.
Trigmy Olsen, you've grew up here in Wisconsin.
You worked on elections in Wisconsin.
You were part of McCain World for a long time.
You fought for democracy around the world.
To Ruth's point, this trend of nihilism by our former party, it's just not healthy for
democracy.
No, it's not healthy for democracy.
And I kind of think, you know, so they won all the litigation that they had.
They won once on a technicality in Pennsylvania.
So if you break JD Vance's answer down in detail, what he's doing there is he's basically
taking one example where they won on a technicality but lost another, I think, 15 times.
And trying to use that to say, well, you know, there was a court that decided that way.
And that's, they will glam onto anything to keep sort of their narratives running.
I think the other thing that would be interesting for Stepanopolis to have asked JD Vance is,
if Kamala Harris decides that we should only count the states where Joe Biden wins this
election.
Would he think that's okay?
Like, she were concerned about, you know, different things that are happening.
I think that's a great question, Terry.
Tonight, so the theme of the convention is crime and immigration and, you know, a lot
of the platform, the candidate, is laying the problems of many of the problems of crime
on immigrants, something that is statistically doesn't hold up.
But I'm wondering what, what our panelists feel about you, what's being said tonight
about those topics.
Well, you know, this is another aspect of Trumpism that has been really toxic and it's
particularly toxic in Wisconsin where 70% of the labor force in our dairy industry is
undocumented immigrants.
And so people, rural voters know that, you know, the dairy industry would go belly up
overnight if they didn't have this workforce.
So instead of demonizing these people and making their lives even harder, you know, what
the Republicans could do that would be productive, would be to find a path for people to acknowledge
what's been going on for decades here, which is that we are utterly dependent on this
labor force instead of pretending that this is a wave of invaders who are coming to take
our jobs.
So, you know, look, if you would like to work starting at 4 o'clock in the morning until
10 o'clock at night, shoveling manure and milking cows, those jobs are available for you,
right?
I mean, it's just, it's a really, it's a misleading narrative and it's based on hate and
it's scary to me to think about the roundups that Trump is promising and the idea that,
you know, we really need to bear down on this kind of invisible, has been invisible workforce
that is propping up more and more of our economy.
We need to take a look at what we're doing, acknowledge it and figure out what makes sense
in terms of a system that says, okay, we need these folks to work for us, so what are
we going to do to acknowledge it and to make it legit?
Tribune Olsen, you and I are about the same age.
We're old enough for a member in the 1980 Republican presidential primary debate, Ronald Wilson
Reagan and George H. Walker Bush had a debate on immigration in which they were, Reagan
said, well, they're trying to outdo each other, he said, well, I don't want to have a fence
at all.
I think we should have a, a visas for people to go back and forth to work.
I mean, that was the Republican party of the, you and I came up with, the mega Republican
party to Ruse Point.
Very different.
Yeah, and it's not only that, but it's like a small minority within the party, has consistently
when there has been bipartisan efforts to try and solve the problem, have, have gone
out of their way to destroy them simply because they like to have the issue to democog.
And in some ways, you know, and then they have media allies who have discovered that extremism
is a good business model.
So at the end of the day, you know, if people who are distressed, maybe economic distress
or other distress, but they're buying into these simplistic answers, if we just build
the wall and then Mexico pays for it, then I don't have to worry about this.
Or if we have internment camps and round them up, right, I mean, it's classic, it's classic
extremism and it's classic acceptance of cognitively simplistic answers.
And quite frankly, it's, it's not even the best of what we are as Americans.
Here's Reed Ribble's been tweeting for Republican Congresswoman from Green Bay.
He's looking at the Republican Party platform and giving his take on this.
I think this is really good.
This is part, quote, directly out of the 2024 Republican Party platform passed here
in Milwaukee this week, quote, carry out the largest deportation operation in American
history.
Unquote, Reed Ribble from a Republican Congressman says this, quote, first, both Obama
and Biden have deported more immigrants than Trump did in his term.
Secondly, it's profoundly expensive and inflationary to do so.
People like this idea until they have to pay the higher cost, Ruth.
Well, I mean, it just goes to what I'm saying.
It's not just agriculture, it's construction, it's food service, it's hospitality.
It's like, who's more in the lawn, who's taking care of the kids, who's putting the roof
on your house?
You know, it's just, it is really obnoxious to suddenly turn and point a finger at these
folks.
And, you know, as Terry said, whose crime rate is a lot lower than native born citizens
in the United States.
So, it's a really toxic, you know, demagog move.
And it's going to cause real harm, it's already caused real harm, violence against immigrants.
And I totally agree with you that it's a, it's a kind of a fast move, it's scapegoating.
And it's kind of interesting how it's part of this whole like white injured, like the injured
masculinity of the white Midwestern or that's, to me, that's the theme of this whole convention.
What's that you?
Actually, there's a great video going around on Twitter, did you see Matt Gaetz trying
to talk McCarthy?
Yeah.
Well, somebody else tweeted the interaction between some random delegate in Matt Gaetz where
he just basically calls him out, Matt Gaetz backs down and runs away.
Wow.
I mean, this is the thing, is you stand up to bullies, you stand up to autocrats, it just
is what you have to do.
Give us, give us to be tricky in one minute or less.
Read Ribble, a common sense guy, a conservative, it is going through this.
What, where are the read ribbles of today?
What, what is the, why, why is it Paul Ryan here?
What, where are these people?
Is it just, we should find Paul Ryan and ask him.
He's got to be here.
He's not here.
No, he's not coming.
No, he's not here.
Why is he here?
Because he said he wouldn't come, he's a man.
Yeah.
And that's right.
You know, this is true.
I already did.
The trivia is just trying to have a little.
He, honestly, where the read ribbles, or the Paul Ryan's, they all get frustrated and
said, we're out of here.
You know?
Because they know it's not true.
That's the problem with what they did.
And, you know, at the end of the day, I say all the time, one of the rules for dealing
with autocratic forces is a Stalin rule, right?
If you're in a, if you're in a battle with the worst human being to ever live, you do
what Churchill and Roosevelt did.
You make alliances with the second worst one, because it's a alliance of convenience at
the time, so you can live to fight it another day.
You left to understand, you know, would I have, like, Paul to have said more, would I
have, like, read to probably have said more back in the day, sure.
But they're on our side now, and we all have to work together to try and stop this.
Terry Bell.
Stay with us more discussion of our panel is straight ahead.
You're listening to civic media special coverage of the Republican National Convention in
Milwaukee, keep it right here.
You're listening to a civic media news special report.
Everything you need to know live from the Republican National Convention.
Once again, here's Todd Alba and Terry Bell.
Welcome back.
We are at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, as you're probably perfectly
well aware of by now.
Trick me Olsen and Ruth Conif are with us.
Ruth, I was hoping you could just take a minute to talk to us a bit about the Wisconsin
examiner.
Absolutely, yeah.
So we are five years old today, actually.
Happy birthday.
Happy birthday.
Thank you.
So we are part of a network of outlets called State's Newsroom.
It's a nonprofit news network.
And we have our own website, Wisconsin Examiner, everything on there is free.
We have a free newsletter.
You can get your email inbox every day and we cover the state.
We cover state news, our office is right across the street from the Capitol.
So we focus heavily on the legislature, state policy, and politics, but we're also out
around the state.
We have reporters in Northwestern Wisconsin, northeastern Wisconsin.
We have a reporter who lives in Milwaukee and covers Milwaukee a lot.
So we're just filling the gap, you know, as unfortunately daily papers trim back their
staff and there's been a big contraction all over the country.
And so nonprofit news is really trying to move to fill that space and that's what we're
doing.
They do a great job.
Trick me Olsen and Ruth.
Oh, yeah, go ahead.
I said a lot of Wisconsin Examiner, I of course always give you credit, but I mean, you
guys do some great work and it's journalism that we don't find other places many times.
So I just wanted to say personally, I appreciate what you do and we love using your journalism.
Well, thanks.
Thanks for picking us up.
Terry.
Yeah.
And then the Trick V, you know, listeners to Todd show are well aware of Trick V and his
work with the Lincoln Project, but for people perhaps tuning in us for the first time.
Trick V, why don't you tell us about the Lincoln Project?
Yeah, so the Lincoln Project was started by a bunch of former Republicans who, who operatives
who had worked at senior levels on Republican campaigns.
Really with two goals, one was to get Donald Trump out of the White House and keep him out
of the White House and the other was to counter some of the Trump, Trumpism that we're seeing
in the electorate and more broadly extremism on a pro-democracy standpoint.
But honestly, Terry, you know, for me personally, the work, yes, I'd worked at senior levels
on campaigns, but I ended up having, through work I did for an organization, John McCain
ran, you know, decades of work in places without democracy or places where democracy failed.
And so a lot of my work with them has really been focused on how do we confront the extremism
and the radicalization that we're seeing across the electorate, which unfortunately we saw
a piece of that, you know, just on Saturday in a big way.
Trick V was that, I know that's part of why, the kind of the straw that broke the camel's
back of why you left Republican Party was the criticism, the criticism of my Trump
omega of your former boss, like great John McCain, and some of his work that he did.
Yeah, I mean, that was a piece of it.
I mean, another piece of it is having spent a lot of my life living over in central
Eastern Europe quite frankly, you know, and having done a lot of work in Ukraine and
Russia, you know, I'm a Reagan-esque conservative.
I believe, you know, there isn't evil empire, and I've seen it firsthand, and my wife's
native land was occupied by the Russians for a long period of time, so those two things
really led me to say, you know what, I'm not a Republican anymore, I'm still a conservative.
And quite frankly, Terry, one of the things that we're seeing with the JD Vans pick, not
only is he advancing Putin's agenda in Ukraine, but we're seeing them want to have government
in the middle of people's lives in ways that quite frankly is also antithetical to conservatism.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's the question.
Come into that.
That's the fascinating thing to me, I don't know, I mean, where do you set a right Republicans
going out?
Is there still room in the Republican Party for them?
Does there a new center-right party have to be formed?
What do you think?
Well, I think as Todd and I were traveling the state of Wisconsin, one of the things that
jumped out at me, and this is true not only of people who are right of center, but I
also think there are quite a few people who are left of center and just people who are
in the center.
There's a growing anger at both sides of the political class about all the division,
and there's a real hunger in this state and in other states as I've been traveling around
for more conversation about the good.
Most people when they go to a Green Bay Packer game aren't wearing a MAGA hat or a BLM
hat, they're wearing green and gold.
There is a strong desire amongst a majority, I think, of the electorate to get back to that
working together in a state like Wisconsin, but it's really hard to do when it's in politicians
best interest to get up there and do what Eric Houghney did and scream and yell and basically
go jump in a lake.
You follow so many great things at the Wisconsin Examiner, give us a story or two that kind of
surprised you or made it but unexpected in some of your research or reporting so far in
this election cycle.
Well, I'll tell you this was maybe cheating because it's not exactly the examiner, but
I wrote a book about the relationship between undocumented immigrants from Mexico and Wisconsin
and Minnesota dairy farmers.
What I found was a shared sense of an agrarian past and a deep respect for a shared culture
of hard work and a lot of the farmers that I talked to for that book are Republican voters.
They voted for Trump twice, but their politics are farther away from DC, they don't live
and breathe electoral politics and the fact that there's a group of farmers that go down
to Mexico every year to see the homes and villages that the people who work for them have built
with the money they made milking cows up here and sort of feel this real interest in these
folks and have gotten to try to learn Spanish and get to know their families.
There is real hope in that and so I think when you come down from the 30,000 foot view
of politics and you get down to where people are, I agree with Trigme that people really
would like to have a more constructive approach to life.
Everybody wants to be happy and to be able to survive and do well and see their children
do well and so I think connecting with that and seeing people kind of on that ground level
is really important to stay positive and constructive and not to despair.
I would have to get Terry Bell a booking agent fee because Terry, we got to have Ruth on
our show to have a longer segment to talk about this, what's the name of the book?
It's called milked the American crisis that brought together Midwestern dairy farmers
and Mexican workers.
I think it's fantastic.
I grew a professional center.
Our two-year unfortunately college there is now closed.
I met some of my closest friends, the mother of my godson's now as a matter of fact, originally
from El Salvador was here an exchange program at UW Center, Richland.
These small communities, our colleges, bring together and barriers get broken down when
you know someone.
Yeah.
And something we did cover the examiner is the white water situation, which was exploded
into this national news story about people being upset, being invaded by Latin American
immigrants.
Well, it turned out when you talked to the police chief, when you talked to the local officials,
people were really welcoming of the immigrants who came to their community.
They had gotten screwed out of money from the state, from the state legislature and shared
revenue and that's what they were talking about.
And the other piece was they said, you know, undocumented immigrants need driver's licenses.
That's the crime they were concerned about.
Terry Bell.
We'll have to leave it there.
Thank you so much to Ruth Conneff and Trigby Olsen to Todd Abbaugh.
Behind the scenes, we want to say thank you to Corey Hartman, Chris Casper and Aaron Zamas.
I'm Terry Bell for Todd Abbaugh.
You've been listening to civic media special coverage of the Republican National Convention
in downtown Milwaukee.
We'll do it again at 7 o'clock tomorrow night.
Good night.
