The state Republican Party is riding high after the big event to Milwaukee.
It's Chairman Brian Schimming is here and you do look like a pretty happy guy, a little exhausted.
Yeah, I'm a little exhausted, but I have to tell you, I'm so proud of Milwaukee.
I'm so proud of the state of Wisconsin.
We were able to pull off an excellent four day convention right here in Wisconsin.
And as you know, I'm a native here.
I'm a homer.
So I wanted this to be good for the state, for the city of Milwaukee.
And it was the security considerations where they were just security was great.
The cooperation between the city and the county.
And of course, all the law enforcement agencies, the chamber, the visitors bureau, just fabulous.
So I'm just so excited.
And I had people after the RNC meeting this morning from other states big, you know, convention states like Chicago
and L.A. and Atlanta, coming up and saying this was the best convention they'd ever been to.
So I'm so proud of Wisconsin this morning.
Yeah, super high praise.
So a month ago, could you ever have foreseen everything that has happened in this race for president?
Right.
I set our press conference yesterday that they'll be writing books, not about the campaign,
but the last three weeks, you know, alone, much less the whole campaign.
Of course, the tragedy of the shooting in Pennsylvania, which which really pulls that.
You know, I mean, you have people that were there to support a candidate.
It's not a partisan thing.
It's people who came out to this rally.
So the tragedy of that rally and then I'll obviously the debate were within 90 minutes.
A political party, my friendly adversaries on the other side, the Democrats and their candidate completely collapsed within 90 minutes.
I'm not sure I can think of parallel to this in recent history anyway.
So the Democratic Party and Joe Biden went from that kind of confidence that Joe Biden would be the candidate to the calamity of that debate
to the crisis they now sit in all within a couple of weeks.
I honestly, I can't think of another time in recent history where so much was packed into so little time.
And then to top it off for us having a successful convention.
I think by any account, it's really it's we'll be talking about it for years.
What's your comment on Wisconsin Congressman Democrat Mark Pokan telling Joe Biden it's time to pass the torch?
Well, what I would say to my friend of Mark Pokan is where have you been?
I think the truth of the matter is my adversaries on the other side of the aisle have known all of this about Joe Biden for a very, very long time.
And he's incapable of being their candidates candidate.
Frankly, I'm not sure he's capable of being president right now.
And I don't make that have relatives of my family who have memory and other issues.
So I don't make that charge lightly.
I think you have an incapable candidate and an incapable president right now.
And the dilemma that the Democrats find themselves in here is that we're in July of the election year.
We're not in July of last year. We're in July of this year.
And the challenge that they face right now is we walk out of this convention unified and they're spending the weekend not knowing what they're going to do next.
Historically, it's an amazing moment.
Yeah, what would be your reaction to say Vice President Kamala Harris at the top of the ticket?
Right. So I have been saying about the vice presidential potential, vice presidential debate between her and JD Vance that if people see me walking down the streets of Wisconsin to the folding table, it's because I'm going to sell tickets to that debate.
And so I think that would be the same case no matter where she is on the ticket.
So here's the Democrats dilemma. They have a four-year president who won every primary and caucus is a sitting four-year incumbent where now well over 70% of the people say he shouldn't be running.
The difficulty is Vice President Harris's numbers are very, very similar.
So they don't really get some huge advantage by going to her, at least on the polls that we see right now.
So that's a, b, is if it's not either of them, who is it?
I mean, is it, is it Governor Pritzker of Illinois? Is it the Governor of California?
That you now move from the hypothetical of what a race with new candidates could look like to what it actually looked like?
What it actually looks like? And that's an unknown.
Sure it is. Wouldn't you rather be running against Joe Biden?
I think if it was a multiple choice, of course, had rather run against Joe Biden because it's the reality of what he's identified with.
But she is so weak in the polls, or nearly, of course, she would be the presumptive nominee of the Democratic Party.
But again, even with her, Britzker, any of these other choices, it's hypothetical.
And you don't really know what voters think until you see the contrast.
But she carries all of the baggage of Joe Biden and almost none of the advantages that he's got.
So Republican Senate candidate here in Wisconsin, Eric Hubde, didn't really get very much special treatment at the convention.
He had kind of a non prime time five minute slot. Were you disappointed by that?
No, not at all. First of all, I thought Eric Hubde had a terrific speech at the convention.
And of course, I remind myself when I was saying this yesterday, let's face that a convention is a four day show.
And it's a four day national show. And so you have dozens of candidates from all over the country and presidential, vice presidential, likely, all sorts of different speakers.
So I was, I thought Eric Hubde had a terrific speech. He was celebrated at the convention.
And regardless of whoever time on whatever night he got, he is sitting here within, you know, mid single digits of a sitting 12 year incumbent that six years ago, or I apologize six months ago, nobody thought could be beat.
And he is clearly in the game now. And that is a huge problem for the other side.
Brian Shimon, we leave it there. Thanks so much for your time.
Thanks for having me.
Thank you. When do you get to rest?
Well, I don't know. It's that is actually a remarkably good question.
Oh, come on. Hang out, you know, with us, you know, fly down the problem is they live in 114 degree, Arizona.
So I have no offense and my sister is wonderful and all that's great.
But I've just been just, you know, whatever.
I mean, it's kind of interesting because most of the, as you know, the official parts of it are taken care of either by the employee committee and Chevy Johnson's been great.
I mean, he's a partisan, obviously, but the mayor's been great in the city, the city and the county have been terrific.
The cooperation and honestly, it couldn't get better. It really, they were.
Chevy was a very good salesman for Milwaukee and I'm grateful for that.
And then, but we had, you know, hundreds of people involved on payroll and everything else over in Milwaukee.
We're still in today. And so I just, but now, you know, we're 108 days out and now the serious stuff begins.
But this is a four day show. It's a four day TV show.
And so I think they were very good on the optics of the band.
I mean, can you imagine a Republican convention with the band up to the right of the stage?
I mean, I was kind of laughing through that convention.
And I was like, okay, get rock. And then, okay, you know, it seems ripping a shirt off.
People now welcome.
You know, I mean, it was just so kind of under the Republican in a way.
So I was loving it. I believe me. I was, I was going to love and the whole thing.
So it was different, but it was exciting.
I saw you at the RNC meeting this morning.
Just chairman after national committee, men after national committee,
a woman came up and said it was the best convention they had been to.
And these are, you know, right? I mean, they're New York, Chicago, LA and stuff like that.
Yeah. Yeah. So I'm honestly, maybe feel great. It was terrific.
But a lot of work to do. I think we will see a lot of vans. I think they will hear.
They will in Michigan. And my bet would be they'd be in Pennsylvania.
If I had to name three states, we're going to see a lot of him.
And really in talking to cry a dinner with Chris Lissabita, who's who he is.
And if you know, Rosanna Ron Johnson's race is a GC. And Chris is obsessed with Minnesota.
He's convinced that we could be in Minnesota.
You know, because we've had like these one and two and three point races and minutes.
And I told him, I remember having dinner with Tom Loftus one time.
And I said, Tom, I said, you know, Minnesota and Wisconsin. There's a lot, right?
I mean, there's a lot of parts of their same. I said, I said to Tom, I said,
you got all those Norwegians over there and Tom, like cuts me off.
He goes, they're sweets. They're not Norwegians.
That's it.
Got me laughing. I did over that a couple of weeks ago.
But I mean, the Lissabita is, is he's got his eye on Minnesota.
Fantastic. And yeah, it really, really was. Actually, he explained it to me one night.
It was interesting. And then of course, Virginia, I mean, Virginia and play.
And as you know, the Northern side of Virginia is not exactly Republican strong.
But so, so you got that first, you know, the seven kind of,
we kind of have the group of seven chairman who are all, you know,
and play a lot. And, and now some electives, so to speak. So.
Wow. Well.
Start running. All right. Thank you, Brian. So much. Congratulations.
Okay. Thank you.
Good to see you. Bye.