Thank you.
Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier-Johnson, welcome tens of thousands of Republican faithful to
his Democratic city.
Did it pay off?
He joins us now.
Thanks very much for being here.
So we reported on the economic impact of the convention.
Did it meet your expectations?
Well, as I mentioned, we're not in control of economic projections for the convention.
What I can tell you is that there were a lot of people, tens of thousands, that came to
Milwaukee, that stayed at our hotels, that ventured into restaurants, that spent money
with local vendors, and left a significant amount of money here.
And our economy will have to go back and check in with busy Milwaukee and those other
folks to see exactly what the economic impact was.
I anticipate that it was pretty hefty, though.
Do you have any idea when you might know that final tally from those folks?
I don't just yet.
I mean, this is the first time that we've hosted a convention of this magnitude.
So some of it is sort of touching go here for us, certainly my experience with an event
this massive, this big.
So we'll find that information out as soon as we possibly can.
After Donald Trump called Milwaukee a horrible city, do you think that had any influence
on convention goers?
On the convention goers, no.
I mean, these are folks that were coming from far across the country.
I don't know if they paid attention to his comments.
Like we paid attention to them here.
That's unfortunately because Donald Trump, Mr. Trump unfortunately has a history of saying
these wild outlandish things.
And so people tend to not really pay them much attention, although they should, because sometimes
as some of the things that he says can have a detrimental impact on individuals' rights
on the direction of the country and so forth.
So things can be outlandish, but that doesn't mean they're not important for us to listen
to.
That's what he said that Milwaukee is a horrible city.
All of that said, what was it like for you as a Democrat to host the Republican convention?
Well, I mean, that was of two minds at the time.
I had two roles, one to be a gracious host and find an opportunity to elevate Milwaukee.
And when you're elevating Milwaukee, you're really elevating the state of Wisconsin.
I mean, individuals, tens of thousands of them came here.
Their first impression of the state was the city.
And by and large, everybody had a wonderful, wonderful time.
They said they come back here, visit here, spend more money here.
And if they're spending more money in the city of Milwaukee, then that means they're
spending more money in the city of Wisconsin than it benefits everybody.
On the other hand, I'm a Democrat and I don't subscribe to the Republican Party platform.
Certainly don't support Mr. Trump and his presidential ambitions for a second term here.
So I use the opportunity as well as an opportunity to say, hey, these are what our values are
as Democrats.
And hopefully we did that pretty effectively during the week.
So following the rally attack, kind of going back specific to the convention itself, following
the attempted assassination of Donald Trump, how tense were security considerations in
your city now that it's wound up and maybe we can talk about it a little more?
Well, first, let me just say that that attempt, that assassination attempt on Mr.
Trump was terrible.
That was actually horrible.
That should never happen.
That is just there's no place for that sort of action in our politics at all whatsoever.
And after it happened, I did have the opportunity to wish Mr.
Trump very well in his recovery, had a chance to speak to him and told him the same thing.
So in terms of individuals being here in Milwaukee and having a chance to follow up after that
incident with security here, we took the opportunity to make sure that this city was safe.
And we had an NSSC, that was a designation here.
It's a national special security event in Milwaukee.
That's the highest designation you could possibly get for an event of this magnitude.
So by definition, it was a secure event than what the rally was that Mr. Trump held last
week's Saturday.
So there were definitely concerns though and criticisms of so many out-of-state police
officers in the city and on the streets, including those from Ohio, who as you know shot and
killed a man outside the perimeter.
What is your response to that shooting?
Well, as relates to the number of officers who are here from out-of-state, I mean, look
Milwaukee won the Democratic National Convention in 2020.
And now unfortunately didn't pan out because of the COVID-19 pandemic, but had it actually
taken place the way that we envisioned that you would have seen the same sort of security
footprint with officers coming in from outside the city of Wisconsin and in from across the
country.
In terms of the officers from the outside, Milwaukee police would not have been able
to make sure the convention was secure all about themselves and still provide policing
services to the balance of the city.
So there was a need to bring in officers from the outside.
This was a collaboration not just with Milwaukee police, but with Secret Service and law enforcement
agencies from across the country and I'm thankful for their assistance.
There was tragic that there was an incident that happened where a man was killed outside
of the security perimeter.
The officers from Columbus, Ohio, they were there not in a patrolling front facing mode.
They were actually doing a briefing, a debrief, and one of the officers happened to notice
that there was an altercation taking place.
Notice that one of the individuals had a knife.
Later on we would find that there were two knives.
Officers approached the individual, made numerous commands to drop the weapons, to drop the
weapons.
That didn't happen.
Instead, the individual lunged in a threatening manner at an unarmed man and, you know, and
possibly going to call him a serious bodily harm or death.
And the officers took action and I'm saddened that life was lost there, but I'm also thinking
about the individual who possibly could have lost his life.
And what's more is that when I talk to officers, including officers at the local level here,
I'm told that any officer in that situation would have taken the exact same action in
order to make sure they preserved the life of the unarmed person who was being attacked.
All right.
We leave it there.
Mayor Cavalier Johnson.
Thanks very much.
Thank you.
Appreciate it.
Yeah.
Happy to do it.
All right.
Talk to you soon.
See you soon.
Bye.
Bye-bye.