President Joe Biden is off the campaign trail for now with a case of COVID.
There was already what's described as rising anger and panic among many of his supporters
about his ability to go on.
What must this be like for state party leaders who helped deliver Wisconsin to Joe Biden in
2020?
We asked Democratic Party of Wisconsin Chairman Ben Wickler and thanks a lot for being here.
So what is this like to watch the Republican National Convention with a growing number
of Democrats calling for your candidate to step aside?
What's so striking this week is that the Republican Party has been completely subsumed by MAGA.
There's total unity within the Republican Party leaders around a candidate who selected
one of the most outspoken proponents of 100% national abortion ban as his vice presidential
candidate.
There's unity with people like Eric Howdy, around Project 2025, Trump and JD Vance,
there's staffers going out and writing this playbook for not only ripping away access
to abortion and emergency contraception, but eliminating the Department of Education, shredding
any kind of protections for the environment and climate change.
It's a wholesale plan to kind of repeal the last 50 years of progress in this country.
They didn't talk about it from the convention stage, but they have written down what they
want to do.
And in this election, it's a choice between a future where Trump's vision of being a dictator
on day one becomes a reality, or the vision that Biden and Harris have laid out, that
President Biden laid out in his speech in Detroit right before the RNC, of signing
Roe vs. Wade into law, of signing the proactive workers can organize and unionize, of expanding
Social Security and Medicare.
I think I know which future most Wisconsinites and most Americans want.
What is your message to Wisconsin voters about Joe Biden's ability to beat Donald Trump
with his poll numbers and money slipping?
We're in a moment where so much conversation in the press and, you know, around the state
and around the country, it's not about whether Democrats want to defeat Donald Trump.
It's about the best way to do it.
And what I know from so many conversations is that there's an enormous level of intensity
and focus on making sure that we defeat MAGA this fall, and that President Biden's
vision for the next term is enormously popular in a way that unites Democrats.
So I feel like, you know, debates happen, conversations happen, I think Democrats are
going to come together.
And I think that when we do that, we're going to realize President Biden and Vice President
Harris and realize Tammy Baldwin and flip House seats and I think flip the state assembly
and break the super majority in the state Senate, because what we are fighting for is
much, much more popular than what Republicans are trying to inflict on the country.
What do you personally know about Joe Biden's decision to stay in or step aside?
I was speaking with my friends on the Biden campaign yesterday and others this morning.
He is full steam ahead and organizing and working to make sure that this message carries
out across the country.
And, you know, of course, many people are trying to game out how the whole thing comes
together.
And what we know is that when Democrats speak with one voice about the stakes for voters
in their lives, then from President Biden down to the local state legislative candidates,
we're going to defeat MAGA this fall.
So regardless of who is at the top of the ticket?
Well, President Biden is at the top of the ticket.
And Biden, Harris, as a team, one Wisconsin last time, we overcame the odds.
And Democrats won the governor's race in 2022.
We flipped the Supreme Court in the course of 18, 20, and 2023.
And on the ground, we have volunteers going out every week, knocking on tens of thousands
of doors, having conversations with voters, ultimately voters care about how politics
affects their lives.
And they know that President Biden isn't trying to get into their doctor's offices
and override their personal medical decisions.
They also have reason to fear JD Vance and Donald Trump.
JD Vance has flirted with the idea of tracking menstrual cycles to figure out whether people
are accessing abortion care against the law.
Trump has floated the idea of punishing women who access abortions.
Those ideas are politically toxic, and we have to defeat them this fall.
All right.
Ben Wickler.
Thanks very much.
Thanks so much for having me on.
I will say that I feel like I live in a split screen where there's this huge, roiling
national debate.
And then the deputy campaign manager was in my office in Milwaukee yesterday, and it was
like, let's bring people back to focus on what is going on.
The campaign is still actively hiring and building out, and there's no sense within the
campaign.
And I was just texting five minutes ago with my friend who's on the call with the campaign
manager.
It's the same.
It is like everybody like focus on the work.
Is that coming from Joe Biden?
I can't imagine that it's not.
Right.
That's, you know, I mean, obviously, you know, you don't know for sure, like, whether there's
whether you would expect that that's what you do all the way through.
But the, there's not only is there not any kind of like, well, let's wait and see what
happens the next few days.
It's also like, you know, let's like, who do we need to take in with?
Like, you know, just keep our feet on the gas completely untenable, because of course,
the campaign has to do that.
And yet you've got all this stuff, Pelosi and Obama, what, you know, yeah, it's a split
screen for sure.
Yeah.
But I do, I do, you know, fundamentally believe all of the, the agita and debate is just about
how we win.
It's not like in 2000, I have this vivid memory of the shadow conventions, people saying,
you know, Trump and, excuse me, Bush and Gore were two sides of the same coin.
It was just the same.
And people say it didn't matter who won the uni party, all this kind of stuff.
And like, sometimes you hear that from RFK people, but Democrats rank like all the way
up and down to the extent that they're freaked out, they're freaked out because they,
it's so important to them to make sure Trump loses.
And so I do think that Democrats will come together in any scenario because the, they
are all united by a set of values and know what they're trying to defeat.
Yeah.
One question I am asking on behalf of Zach Schultz and he was at the convention all week.
And he was stunned by the fact that Congresswoman Gwen Moore didn't, you know, hit media
road, didn't give kind of the opposition voice along with others, you know, Barca,
maybe or Pokan.
Do you know why?
I will say that I did, you know, go around in the inside the arena.
And I was there to give a response to the Republican, you mentioned, but every question
coming to me was about the, you know, the Democratic.
Of course.
And so I think if you're trying to get a message out, then it's, you know, it's a challenge
to bring the conversation to the message you're actually trying to convey in this moment.
And so it was about the fact that we want to talk about the issues, not about Joe Biden's
COVID case or debate performance.
Yeah.
And it's, yeah, it is a, how like, once the, once the, there will be some point at which
the, the, this conversation concludes and then it becomes, wait, what are the options here?
And that for, for, especially the voters who are trying to make up their minds about
their sides, what they're hearing from Republicans is the Republican message.
What they're hearing from Democrats is, I wonder who our nominee is.
I wonder who our nominee should be.
And so like, that's, that is not, you can't beat this with this.
Yeah.
You have to beat this.
Although the, the contrast is pretty salient, so.
But that said, like, if we, if we get to election day and voters think, okay, it's, you know,
voters has weighed, expand social security and Medicare, voting rights, voting rights
acts or the, like, you know, abortion ban, mass deport, mass deportation raids and work
places.
Yeah.
Then I think Democrats win.
And, but I don't think right now someone who's just reading the news has a sense of what
the Democratic, um, agenda is because there's all the conversations about kind of process.
That's true.
That may well be true, but it's kind of, it's like barring the door message.
Well, my, as you can, as you heard, my message is coming back to the issues.
Yeah.
That's, that's bad.
Yeah.
Well, good luck to you.
Thank you.
I appreciate it.
Yeah.
All right.
Thank you.
Thanks so much for having me on.
It's good to see you.
Oh, watch, uh, grab the mic.