I think you'll be happy to know. This is a quick.
>> The following program is a PBS Wisconsin Original
production. hing "Here& Now"
2024 election coverage. >> The path to the white House
goes through Wisconsin. >> Kamala Harris returns to
Wisconsin, this time as the new Democratic presumptive nominee
for president. When we fight, we will win.
>> God bless you. >> I'm Frederica Freyberg.
Tonight on here. And now another big week for presidential
politics focused in Wisconsin. We hear about the Harris visit
to Milwaukee and how Republicans respond. Mordecai Lee expounds
on the echoes of history from the 1968 Democratic National
Convention. Then a look at how big donors may have tipped Biden
to stand down. And our political panelists weigh in on it all.
It's "Here& Now" for July 26th. >> Funding for Here and Now is
provided by the Focus Fund for Journalism and Friends of PBS.
Wisconsin. is out and
Democrats are now chanting Kamala Harris's name, taking a
page from the Republicans unifying around Trump last week,
the Democratic Party this week quickly united behind Harris and
secured the necessary delegate pledges to all but guarantee her
nomination. That came mere days after Biden announced he was no
longer planning to run. Kamala Harris already had a planned
visit to Milwaukee this week, but as the vice presidential
candidate instead, as Murv Seymour reports, the event
became her first official campaign stop as candidate for
president. Hello. Wisconsin. >> Do we have Milwaukee in the
House today? >> Oh, the energy is high.
>> A special summertime pep rally. I think her, saying that
she's going to run has re-energized the party.
his is the land of Kamala Harris.
center court inside the Bulldogs gymnasium at
West Allis Central High School. >> She's ready to prosecute the
case against Donald Trump. >> Surrounded by tight Secret
Service protection, this rally has presidential implications,
and we are united around Kamala and people in the stands like
Julie Landry know it. >> She brings experience. She
brings excellence. She brings commitment. She brings
dedication. She brings intelligence. She brings energy.
She brings hope. >> She can continue the work
that Biden's done so far in the past four years, continue to
build on the economy, that he's kind of set a good baseline for
and really take us to new places.
've come to see history in the making. As
Vice President Kamala Harris declares, game on. In her sudden
run for the white House. >> For me, at my age, to see a
woman on that podium running for president means everything to
me. Plank between the state and American flags.
e the Republican National Convention was held
less than eight miles away. >> So are you with me to roll up
your sleeves and elect Kamala Harris?
>> Candidate Harris comes to this suburban Milwaukee
community with the support of some union groups, the
Democratic National Party and Wisconsin Democrats.
have a simple question for you. Are you ready to elect
Kamala Harris as the next president of the United States?
>> Some of the state's top liberals welcome her with their
endorsements, and they want Wisconsinites and the nation to
do the same. >> There's a reason that she's
kicking things off right here in Wisconsin, because we are the
battleground state. >> Yesterday, I joined my
favorite Midwestern governors, J.B. Pritzker, Gretchen Whitmer,
and Tim Walz, to announce that I am all in on Kamala Harris in
this, the first campaign stop of her 2024 presidential bid,
candidate Harris gets an energized welcome from an
enthused crowd of about 3000 supporters.
>> Thank you all. >> Thank you.
>> Like the speakers before Harris. Thanks, Joe Biden, who
withdrew from reelection 48 hours before this event.
>> Joe's legacy of accomplishment over his entire
career and over the past three and a half years is unmatched in
modern history, with a hint of her campaign slogan, Harris
makes her case against former president and Republican
presidential nominee Donald Trump. Donald Trump intends to
cut Social Security and Medicar. He intends to give tax breaks to
billionaires and big ions and make working
families foot the bill they intend to end the Affordable
Care Act with childhood ties in nearby Madison, Vice President
Harris tells this crowd she knows the path to the
presidency, cuts through West Allis and all of Wisconsin, so
Wisconsin, today, I ask you, are you ready to get to work? Do we
believe in freedom? >> Do we believe in opportunity?
>> Do we believe in the promise of America? And are we ready to
fight for it? And when we fight, we win.
>> As Harris wraps up her visit just outside the gymnasium, a
huge Trump flag flies high as a handful of supporters lined the
streets as a reminder that it's now team Trump versus Team
Harris. Reporting for here. Now I'm Murv Seymour.
>> Republicans are expectedly negative on Kamala Harris
becoming the Democratic nominee in a news call this week. They
called her Joe Biden the sequel and slammed the Biden-Harris
administration policies. >> She, in fact, was rated as
the most liberal member of the United States Senate. And we've
seen that play out 8.5 million illegal immigrants pouring over
the border. When she was the named border czar, Kamala Harris
supported defunding the police in San Francisco, Mayor
Garcetti's plan to cut $150 million from the police
department's budget, a ban on private health insurance, no to
school choice, a ban on fracking, freeing violent
criminals who are in prison for a reason. So there's issue after
issue after issue where Kamala Harris is not in sync with the
people of Wisconsin or the people of America.
>> Latest national polling puts VP Kamala Harris, even with
former president Donald Trump in Wisconsin at 47% each. President
Joe Biden this week took to the airwaves to say it was time to
pass the torch. Presumptive nominee Harris served hand in
hand with his administration. All of this harkens back to the
last time a US president decided not to run for reelection. The
year was 1968. The wartime president who dropped out was
Lyndon B Johnson, the ensuing Democratic National Convention
in Chicago that year devolved into chaos on and off the floor.
Anti-Vietnam War protesters outside Convention Hall were
swarmed by a massive police presence, violence that turned
to riots inside. Delegates for antiwar candidate Eugene
McCarthy, including those from Wisconsin, wanted to stop the
madness. >> Wisconsin. Mr. chairman, most
delegates to this convention do not know that thousands of young
people are being beaten in the streets of Chicago.
>> In the end, LBJ's vice president, Hubert Humphrey, won
the nomination, 21 and one half votes for Senator McCarthy.
>> This is going to do it. And 103 and three quarters.
>> UW Milwaukee political scientist Mordecai Lee remembers
it like yesterday in Mordecai. Thanks a lot for being here.
>> You're welcome. So I remember watching it in Milwaukee and it
was just happening 90 miles down the road.
year, 2024 is topsy turvy, of course, add to
that the assassination attempt against Trump and Biden dropping
out. But was 1968 a whole different level?
>> 1968 was a different level in terms of those emotions that you
correctly captured about the war in Vietnam. But I don't think
they're different from the political dynamic. That's going
on. A vice President Humphrey could not break with LBJ, could
not become an antiwar candidate, but he wanted to separate
himself from having to carry on his shoulders all the baggage
that LBJ's war had. And I think the same thing is happening with
Harris, she needs to carry on her shoulders the weight of
Biden's unpopularity and of his policies, yet at the same time,
to be a different candidate, to have a fresh take and that's
that's hard to tiptoe through the tulips from what you've
seen. very early
days. How do you think she's doing in that regard?
>> I think in terms of the atmosphere of the campaign,
she's doing very well. When she visited Milwaukee just two days
later, there was that excitement in the air, that enthusiasm, the
very large crowd compared to earlier crowds on the Democratic
side. So I think she got a boost. She got wind in her sail,
but she isn't breaking with Biden. And it's really hard to
tell if President Biden was unpopular because of his
policies or if he was unpopular, not because of his policies,
that for some reason just didn't have the traction that, maybe
his age, maybe his lack of energy. But she's carrying
something, and I think it might weigh her down as the months go
by. the
unpopularity of LBJ, however, was different, heightened
because this was about the Vietnam War?
>> There's no doubt that it was different because the emotions
from Democrats against LBJ and therefore against Humphrey was
coming from that direction. Now, the emotion against Biden is not
coming from Democrats. It's coming from Republicans. So I
think the dynamic is different. But nonetheless, I think she's
going to feel a pressure to somehow not quite disavow Biden,
but she's got to separate herself from him and especially
have a different vision for the next four years.
>> So given what we talked about, how the convention
devolved in 1968, the convention itself, it doesn't seem likely,
does it, that that would happen at the Democratic convention
coming up in just a couple of weeks?
e totally different from 1968. I think
this is going to be a very placid convention. It's going to
be in a sense, the same image as the RNC was last week. It'll be,
supporting one candidate. All the speeches will be supportive
of that candidate, and they'll be looking for unity and sort of
momentum as they come out of the convention.
the top that you remember 1968, like
yesterday. How indelible, delible do you think 2024 will
be for you? >> I think very indelible. I
think the last two weeks we've seen two political tsunamis.
First came the assassination attempt, and thank goodness, his
survival. And then the wind that it put in his sails at the RNC.
And so there was this sense of that he would be a unity
candidate. And then he gave his acceptance speech. And it wasn't
only a speech about unity, it was also a speech with his
criticisms of Biden and the Democrats and so he lost a
little bit of momentum. But I think the timing of when Biden
decided to drop out really had to do with the RNC. I think
Biden was resisting, resisting. But then when he saw the
political impact of surviving the assassination attempt and
the unity of the RNC, that's when he decided he just had to
drop out. And that was the second tsunami less than a week
ago, unbelievably, where he dropped out and she picked up
where he left off. And I'm guessing that these two tectonic
events have sort of negated each other, that now we're back at,
at go and the campaigns will unfold. From this point on.
>> We leave it there. Mordecai Lee, thanks so much. You're
welcome. It's widely reported that one big reason Joe Biden
was pressured to drop out of the race was because of big dollar
contributions to his campaign from major donors were on track
to drop by half if he stayed in like, from $50 million in June
to a projected 25 million now, we've gotten used to
astronomical campaign funding numbers, but where does this big
money in politics leave the average voter? We turn to Nick
Ramos, executive director of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign,
Nick, thanks a lot for beingAnd
here. be here.
>> So to that question, who is running the show when it comes
to choosing candidates? >> Oh, I mean, I think you have
to look to the wealthiest of the wealth. I mean, if you look to
just the way that our campaign finance laws are structured,
especially in a state like Wisconsin, you can just look
back to 2015 and under the Walker administration, that
campaign finance law rewrite that we saw, it really created a
scenario where it's like the Wild West here. It's a scenario
where individuals are able to donate and max out instead of
$10,000, you can max $20,000 to within the state, to the
governor, or to the Supreme Court. You can do unlimited
amounts of campaign donations to political parties and committee.
And then it took off the guardrails as far as the
transactions between the ittees and the political
parties. And so it almost has created this money laundering
scenario, where now we get into a federal election where, let's
say you've maxed out to your candidate of choice in a
presidential election, you can only max out $3,300. But you
let's say you got a lot of money that you want to spend, you'd go
straight to the party of your choice, or you'd go straight to
the committee of your choice, and you can just write a blank
check and then they can take that and go straight to the
campaign and so for people like you and I, who I mean, I don't
sit on tens of thousands or even millions of dollars that I get
to play with every day, we get to look on the outside looking
in, and they're over here playing kingmaker, trying to
pick the candidate that's going to do their bidding and going to
serve their bottom line and do their agenda. And so we've been
in desperate need of campaign finance reform for so long. And
Citizens United has opened the floodgates and Pandora's box in
a way that it leaves the everyday citizen a little less
powerful than what we could be if there were better regulations
to actually give us a better seat at the table.
>> So, over the course of the past 14 years, that Citizens
United has, that ruling has been in place. What are the numbers
look like in this cycle? In terms of spending?
n, before we before we were coming into this year, I
was just studying last year in a off year. And here in Wisconsin,
I mean, we broke records. I mean, we were at 56 or $55
million spent on a nonpartisan supreme Court seat. And then
coming into this year, both the head of the Democratic Party and
the head of the Republican Party, both said, we're
predicting that we're going to break records this year, and now
we're in 2024, a presidential year. We've got new maps, we've
got constitutional amendments. We have all these things
happening. And so the electorate is really paying attention, and
it's looking like we're on pace to break even more records. And
like in the Senate race between Baldwin and Hovde, Hovde,
they're already in the top ten as far as money raised and money
spent, in the entire US and so we're right now, I mean, like I
said, the Wild West. I mean, I think that's just minimizing it.
>> Is there a particular party that has the edge in this, money
raising, edge, I
think I don't know necessarily if that's the way to look at it,
because both parties know what the animal is in the room, which
is they need to outraise the other out the other the other
party. But when you look at at least in a state like Wisconsin,
I can tell you this much, from the numbers, it looks like the
Republican Party has been taking more out of state money than the
Democrat Party. It looks like that way. At least that's how
the trends are. And so and that's interesting just because,
I mean, here in Wisconsin, I mean, we live here and, people
here obviously want to have skin in the game. And so if there's
people that are coming in from out of state and there's dark
money, they don't want necessarily people making
cisions on their lives if they're just outside the state
throwing money and then making decisions and so, to that point,
I think both parties are doing everything in their power to try
and find the ways to try and shore up as much money and burn
it as fast as possible so that they can try and get their
candidate in office, because it is an arms race,
>> Nick Ramos, thanks very much. >> Hey, thank you Donald Trump
and Kamala Harris are now sparring over when and where to
debate each other. change up just off the
Republican National Convention. We had to have political
panelists Republican Bill Coshen and Democrat Scot Ross
back again for reaction to fast moving election news. And thank
you guys for coming back to talk with us.
k for giving us a locker here. Yeah exactly.
>> So just since last Friday, Joe Biden stepped aside and
Kamala Harris stepped in. I want to go first to you, Bill
McCoshen, and ask your reaction to that.
eir best to snap off any bounce from the RNC
for Donald Trump. That's for sure. I mean, you look at the
point in history we're at, we have had three seismic shifts in
the last 30 days. First was the early debate on June 27th, which
was fatal, really, for Joe Bide. Then you had an assassination
attempt and then you have a candidate, a major candidate,
dropping out with 107 days to go in the race. At no point in in
our 248 year history have we ever seen anything like this. So
I think people ought to keep this all in perspective. How
much change there that has occurred just in the last 30
days? >> Scott? Your reaction?
>> Well, you know, everything that Bill said was correct. So
this is what it sounds like when doves cry, you know, I mean, it
is an absolute and complete turnaround for where the
Democrats were both fundraising wise, enthusiasm, you know,
across the board. I mean, I would not have wanted to be a
part of the Monday morning, you know, July 22nd Breakfast Club
with Trump having to see what they had to deal with that day
because they knew, I mean, you know, Kamala Harris raised $81
million. The first day. And now I think they I think by the end
of the week they had about a quarter of a million between
that and the super PACs. Yeah. It was I mean, it's an
extraordinary it's an aordinary show of support.
But it's also that unity with Dems like it had not been there.
It had not been there. >> Dems are energized by the
change, no doubt about it. And, you know, we'll see if there's
somewhat of a sugar high here and that sort of melts over
time. I think, you know, for the next 30 days, Republicans ought
to be prepared for a tough race all the way through the fall.
Yeah, I think I could be a I mean, I'm a broken record on
this, but just the historic first with Kamala Harris's, you
know, the first black woman, the first South Asian and the first
Gen-xer to be in the white House and again, going from where
Democrats had been and where the country had been, you know, we'd
had a Boomer in the in the white House from 93 to 2021.
>> Then we had Joe Biden a little earlier. This is the
first time this could happen. And, you know, change is always,
always favors the candidate who people don't know as much about.
>> So I wanted to ask you, who do you think Kamala Harris
should choose for her VP? >> Well, I just want to say
first, right off the bat, I think that it is an
embarrassment of riches for the for the Democrats with all the
great candidates, possibly, who are, you know, for 4 or 5 who
are being vetted right now. And I think that shows what happens
when you don't have your party held hostage by a guy like Trump
for the last eight years. My choice would be Transportation
Secretary Pete Buttigieg. And the reason is because he is the
best media person, other than Barack Obama, that Democrats
currently, you know, currently have to deliver, message and
deliver the punch. And he's also been vetted because he was not
only a presidential candidate, but also transportation
secretary nominee. ting part is huge and
that we're struggling with that a little bit with JD Vance. He
was the one candidate in the finals who had not been vetted
on a national stage. Doug Burgum had run for president, Marco
Rubio had run for president. So they had been vetted. And I
think we're sort of working our way through that. I don't know
who they're going to ultimately choose. I think they'll make a
strategic call, whether it's Mark Kelly to put Arizona in
play or it's Ray Cooper to put North Carolina in play, or it's,
Governor Shapiro to put Pennsylvania in play. Those are
the options I think make more sense than Buttigieg for from a
from a tactical standpoint. But we'll see. Republicans will be
ready either way. talking about, should
have vetted JD Vance better and you're working your way through
that. What does that mean? >> Well, here's where I'm at on
this. I think there's, there was a an unbelievable change in this
race, the landscape last Sunday. And I think we ought to
reconsider where we're at. I don't know that we should
necessarily stick with JD Vance. I think Donald Trump could
easily ask the RNC to reconsider their vote to nominate him. If
there's a candidate that gives us a better chance to win. At
the end of the day, all of campaigns are about winning. You
can't govern if you don't win, and if they've got data that
shows that there are candidates that may be stronger than JD
Vance. If I'm Trump, I'm considering that.
>> I mean, you know, so now that the shine has come off JD Vance,
we're starting to learn a little bit more about him. I lived in
the Appalachian region longer than he did, and my grandmother,
Grandma Beulah, would have said, you know, he pert near got away
with it and he didn't. And Democrats are going to continue
to pound on him because he is the gift that keeps giving an
abortion, calling it murder, saying no exceptions for rape
and incest. The new recording that came out showing that he
wanted abortion stormtroopers to be able to go for made by the
federal government to go from blue red states to blue states
to chase women who were trying to access their, you know, their
abortion rights. You know, as far as Democrats go, nobody puts
JD in the corner. >> Last Saturday, Trump I would
have put out an 80% chance to win today. I would put it at
60%. So there has been a closure, no question about it.
Tpolls. Trump's leading on five
of them. She's leading on one in the swing states. The only state
that tightened completely was Wisconsin. It's now tied at
least on one poll. So I think Trump's still in a position to
win this. You want to make sure Vance doesn't hurt the ticket in
any way, shape or form. Scott raised some things that, you
know, there should have been discussed beforehand, but if I'm
if I'm playing to win, I'm considering all my options.
>> I want to leave it with Scot Ross and ask you about what
Kamala Harris's entry into the race does for Tammy Baldwin.
>> Well, it's huge. >> You know, I'm I think that
Tammy was going to prevail no matter what. But this really
does a great job with ceiling that she had to do the work, you
know. But again, Wisconsinites are going to only vote for one
Californian in the race. And that's Kamala Harris. You know,
I mean, I think that Republicans woke up, you know, thought that
we were going to wake up after November 5th with this red dawn
all over the country. But I think, you know, with Kamala
Harris at the top of the ticket, we are going to have a sea of
blue velvet out there. And I think that's great for the
country. it there.
Phil McCoshen, Scot Ross, thank you so much for more on this and
other issues facing Wisconsin, visit our website at PBS
Wisconsin. Org and then click on the news tab to see all of our
election coverage. Visit Wisconsin Vote.org. That's our
program for tonight I'm Frederica Freyberg. Have a good
weekend.
>> Funding for Here and Now is provided by the Focus Fund for
Journalism and Friends of PBS.