Good afternoon and welcome back to Milwaukee. Host city for the
Republican National Convention. This is a special presentation
of here and Now 2024 election coverage. We're coming to you
live from Media Row in Panther Arena in downtown Milwaukee. I
am senior political reporter for "Here& Now" My name is Zach
Schultz, and I am joined by Bill McCoshen and Scot Ross. Thank
It's great to have you back. Day three.
>> Here we go. All right. I want to take us back to comments that
were made on day one by WIS GOP chairman Bryan Schimming. He
place on the planet, but yesterday there was a person
that was killed by out of state police, shot and killed just a
few blocks to the west of here. What are those statements still
true? Is this still the safest place? I mean, it wasn't for
that person. Unfortunately, I think it is.
Milwaukee. Look, this good. I think the community has shown,
well, nationally, every delegation that I've had an
opportunity to interact with has been really impressed with
Milwaukee. I think the circumstances yesterday we need
to get all the details, but it appears there was a knife fight
that was going on and an officer from another state told him to
drop the knife. He wouldn't drop the knife. And you know,
unfortunately, that that man lost his life. So I still think
Milwaukee has done an exceptional job. I think the
state of Wisconsin looks great, and I'm still very glad we're
here. happened if it was Milwaukee
police that had responded instead of out of state
officers? things. I mean, I did see where
out of state where for places outside of the perimeter. And
this was an incident that happened outside of the
perimeter that was supposed to be responded to by Milwaukee
know, the circumstances, again, are what they are. But that fact
is in is not in dispute. And I think that's why there is, you
know, besides the loss of life of a, of an unarmed, you know,
knife fight. But unarmed man who was shot to death, who people
knew, you know, as a, you know, as a man who lived in a homeless
camp, you know, it's sad. It's unfortunate. I don't think it
necessarily says Milwaukee is not safe, you know, but
Milwaukee is a city, and you know, and things happen in
cities. yesterday with violence, not
nearly to this level, but state Congressman Derrick Van Orden
had an issue with a Code Pink protester in line. And there are
differing opinions on what exactly happened. But there was
some bumping between them. The Code Pink protester was
arrested. She alleged it was Van Orden who bumped into her. He
was very fiery. In his response to the breakfast delegation this
morning, using a lot of different language, blaming her
for the incident. What what should we take from this
happening in line? Who was someone in the wrong here?
>> I don't know all the details, but I do know this. You
shouldn't touch a politician, right? I mean, you can be
opposed to them. We had this conversation on Monday. You can
have differences of opinion on policy, but it should never get
physical and it certainly shouldn't get violent where
there's weapons that are used, which almost happened on
Saturday night. So I don't know the details of that. I do know
that Derrick Van Orden is a former Navy Seal and he's a very
tough guy, so it wouldn't be somebody I would challenge. So
I'm interested to learn more about those details.
>> Does he get the benefit of the doubt in this scenario for
his version of events? >> He doesn't for me, and I
don't think the facts give him the benefit of the doubt. Now I
saw the interview or read the interview with the with the
woman involved. She, you know, said that there were three of
them who were standing at the front of the line. She's
Palestinian and two white women. And she said that, you know, she
thought that he bumped into her as a sign of his displeasure
with her. Now, what do we know about Derrick Van Orton's past?
And again, it is possible that Derrick Van Orton is telling the
truth on this thing, but Derrick Van Orton tried to smuggle
illegally smuggle a gun through an airport. He attacked a 17
year old LGBTQ librarian because he didn't like that there were,
you know, books for gay people. You know, there's a display of
books for gay people. And so he checked out all those books. And
then, of course, we have the incident where he was
intoxicated and went into the US Capitol and attacked a bunch of
Senate pages and swore profane, profane things at them before
taking a bow and leaving. So I don't think Derrick Van Orton
gets the gets the benefit of the doubt on this one at all. And in
fact, you know, we just saw yesterday he's refusing to
debate his Democratic opponents now. So this guy's like gone DC
before you know Derek's gone DC. And probably the quickest I've
ever seen a politician. >> Does he have the right
temperament for Wisconsin. Well I think he does.
>> He represents the district. He won a seat that had been held
by a Democrat for more than 20 years, that's a seat that Donald
Trump has won twice. Just so the viewers are reminded the
congressional seats did not change when Wisconsin changed
maps. So he's running in the same city seat he ran in last
time. Van Orden will be the favorite in that. He's a
husband. He's a father. He just lost one of his children to
cancer not that long ago. He's a good man. I know him pretty
well, you know, I think there's as much Derrick Van Orden
derangement syndrome as there is Trump Derangement syndrome for a
lot of Wisconsin Democrats who I think because he's so incendiary
in his language and things. >> And, you know, let's just say
that, you know, Derek Van Orton did, like you say, Ron kind held
that seat for 26 years. But in 2022, the national Democrats
completely and totally bailed. They were supposed to spend a
couple of million dollars in TV. It was booked, and then they
pulled it out. And that is why Derek Van Orton is a member of
Congress, because the Dems failed him on it. I have been
assured that's not happening again. You know, we've got three
candidates who are who are who are facing off to see who's
going to fight him again. Yesterday he said like he did
with his last opponent, he's going to refuse to debate them,
and you know, the thing I'm asking myself is, you know,
Derek Van Orton, there's video those students or those pages,
teenage pages in the Capitol. Bryan Steil. You know, a fellow
Republican congressman is that chair of the committee that
oversees the House operations. Why is he refusing to release
that video of it? The video of a Democratic member pushing
through a storm or, I'm sorry, a fire door was leaked three weeks
after. Why is Bryan Steil indulging in this cover up? And
why aren't people demanding the video be released?
>> All the campaign finance reports were released for
Congressman in the last 24 or 48 hours, and Orton had $2.4
Democratic opponent had about $600,000 in the bank. Again,
this is the seat that he won. It hasn't changed a bit. Trump has
won this same seat two times. Derrick Van Orden is the heavy
favorite for reelection. those are the standards by which
people are going to win, Kristen Lyerly, who's running in the
open seat in the eighth, the one that Mike Gallagher had before
he left for he's driven out of the party, she raised more than
all three of the Republicans who primary combined, including a
Trump endorsed, Republican. And the most anti-abortion
politician we've had in Wisconsin in Andre Jack, in the
entire in the entirety of our union.
>> But that district is not as competitive as the third would
seem to be. So my follow up on, on the third is, are issues with
Van Orton blown up because of the district and the
competitiveness? If like if Tom Tiffany's district isn't looked
at the same thing, if he was doing similar things, would we
be paying attention to issues that he has?
Milwaukee. We generally talk about this in Madison. They
don't talk about this between Eau Claire and La Crosse. These
are not issues. Back in the third CD. These are more on the
statewide level or national level, they're going right over
the head of the voters to the third, because they're worried
about how they're going to pay their grocery bill, their gas
bill and their electric bill and their mortgage.
disagree with that. And the reason I'm going to strongly
disagree with that is because you pointed out Eau Claire and
you pointed out La Crosse, Eau Claire and La Crosse are
enormous Democratic turnout areas. I always say that if you
don't win the French connection out there, you can't win
statewide. Tony Evers, Josh Kaul, Tammy Baldwin all won big
in Eau Claire and La Crosse, and they all won statewide
elections. Eau Claire and La Crosse will have a lot to say
about the future of the state. Future of the country. And, you
know, I think that they are you counter Derrick Van Orton,
who lost to Ron Kind against a guy like Ron Kind. They want you
know, they want normalcy. And I would just say for the eighth
CD, they CD has always been moderates, whether it's Dems or
Republicans. You know, moderate guy I mean list list them.
They're not going to go for someone who's, who's, you know,
the MAGA or and they're not going to go for the
anti-abortion stuff. You know that's that extreme. I think,
you know, again, it's a tough district. But I think, you know,
in a, in a weird year, tough district.
election issue, but where Scott Fitzgerald, our congressman from
our neighboring district, I haven't seen him all week or
heard anything from him. >> He's I've seen him, he is
here. Oh, yeah. I saw him Sunday night, and he's got an event,
tonight that I'm going to. So, he's definitely here, and we're
just outside of his district. Yeah yeah, the fundraiser for
future election deniers. >> Because you mentioned he and
Tom. Tiffany. Tom, Tom was around earlier, you know, these
are two guys who helped who who voted to undo the results of
democratically decided elections.
that I was wondering where they were. We mentioned Mike pence
yesterday. I saw a tweet, He's in Montana. Did you happen to
see the pictures he posted of him and his wife on horseback?
>> I did not know, but I got an opportunity to see the GOP
Senate candidate, Tim Sheehy, last night and I was impressed.
You know, of the 13 or 14 Senate candidates, they paraded across
the stage last night, I thought Sheehy was one of the best he
did. He did well. And new polling has him leading and
beating, Jon Tester. So that would be a pickup for
Republicans. pence, you know, who can't be in
another room with another woman, was too moderate for this
Republican Party. So we have a new vice presidential nominee.
>> So tonight we do expect to hear from Mike pence, his
replacement on the Trump ticket. JD Vance, what are you looking
to hear from him? This is supposed to be more of his
biography tonight. >> Yeah. So in the last 48 hours
since he's been chosen, his novel that he wrote before
running for, for the Senate, Hillbilly Elegy is now number
one on Amazon for the second time. It was number one when it
first came out. It's now number one again. It went from number
1700 all the way to one Hillbilly Elegy, the movie is
the most streamed movie, on Netflix, right now. I think
tonight JD Vance is going to tell America his story. Let's
let's be honest, not a lot of people know him, they don't know
much about him. So he's introducing himself tonight. And
we talked about this yesterday. I think I was pretty honest
about it. He's he's he's going to have to hold up his end of
the bargain. Right. And be a strong candidate. And tonight's
that first opportunity to show a he can he can talk the talking
points. He can he can connect with the crowd and he can help
Donald Trump ultimately, >> Which version of JD Vance do
we get the one that doesn't like Trump or the one that's now all
four? >> I would suggest to all of our
viewers right now, if JD Vance withdraws a silver pen, it may
be one of those flashy things for men in Black, and he's going
to try and make everybody forget the things that he had been
saying for, you know, since 2016 about Donald Trump referring to
him as America's Hitler, making saying that he was responsible
for the marching in Charlottesville, where a woman
lost her life. And, you know, over and over again he was
opposed. But now you know, he's in the you know, this is a guy
who got $15 million for his election to the Senate, a year
ago from Peter Thiel, you know, billionaire who also wasn't in
the Trump camp at the beginning. But now tech is all in for him.
You saw David Sacks speaking from the from the, floor the
other night. You saw you know, Elon Musk is going to put $45
million in a super PAC for Trump every month till the election,
about $180 million. So I mean, those are the things again he's
going to try and rewrite his record on abortion and rewrite
the way he's talked about Trump. >> I'm glad you raised that
question. I think Vance has already answered that pretty
well over the last two days, he won't be very different than
some of the speakers we had Monday night or last night, who
were also Never Trumpers in 2016, or maybe even in 2020.
We've had speakers on the stage, in the last couple of nights
that weren't with Donald Trump ever. And, and now they are. So
I think JD Vance has a pretty good story as to how how he
started, where he's at now, why he's there. And why he's the
right guy for the ticket. >> This is the thing that that
confounds me about this. So JD Vance, who has a year of
experience in the Senate, is now the Vice Barack Obama now, he is
now the vice presidential, now the vice presidential nominee
for the Republicans, he's there because he wrote a book and we
know about it. And I know because I read the thing. My
lawyer, if he's watching, thanks for that, he told me to read it,
you know, before JD went all MAGA and I read it. And one of
the things I remember in that book is the fact that he talked
about how his grandfather is the reason that he was able to
survive, and it was because his grandfather was a union employee
with benefits. And JD Vance and the Republicans are doing
everything they can to hurt unions. Sean O'Brien being at
the at the, at the speech notwithstanding. But the thing
about it is JD Vance is there because he wrote a book, okay.
He's there because a billionaire's financing, he
wrote a book, The Republican Agenda, is about billionaires
financing to ban books, including here in Wisconsin,
where 481 books have been banned in libraries. The second most in
America. experience. Let's bring us back
to 2008, when Sarah Palin, I've already heard her name thrown
around a few times as far as lack of experience. And Barack
Obama, the GOP was super excited about Palin joining McCain's
ticket. She was going to seal the deal, and that it didn't
take very long before the shine worn off on her. Could we see
that on Vance? >> Well, the difference is the
2008 ticket. Sarah Palin was a governor. She she had managed
something. Barack Obama had never managed anything, he had
been a state senator. He had been a community organizer. And
then only in the United States Senate for two years. So people
with little experience can do well in politics. Donald Trump
has proven that. I think JD Vance has, as well.
>> So let's switch to some state politics. Just announced today
that the Evers administration and call are asking to intervene
on the constitutional challenge to Wisconsin's abortion ban. How
does that change the game for both the lawsuit and the fall?
Because there is the two tracks going before the Wisconsin
Supreme Court, one challenging the abortion ban that's on the
books and the other at a constitutional facial challenge
to abortion rights. >> I'm not sure the average
citizen understands where we're at in this ping pong match on
the abortion issue. Right after the Dobbs decision, it appeared
that the 1848 law was in force, which banned all abortions.
Subsequent court cases have said no. That isn't in enforce. And
we actually have a 20 week ban in the state of Wisconsin, which
is more generous than most states who have gone to some
kind of a limit, so that's the ban that exists today. You know,
if the governor is going to try and undo that, he's got a
favorable Supreme Court, I guess anything can happen, but, you
know, there's no question that Democrats are trying to use that
to motivate their base because their candidate is so weak, so
infirm. He can't win on his own. And they're right now in the
middle of a civil war within their party about whether or not
to flush their candidate in the middle of the summer, which has
never happened in the history of this republic, that on major
party candidate, let alone the incumbent president of the
United States, would get knocked off his own ticket.
>> It hasn't happened yet. That's just the talk at the
moment. today and said, you know, he's
Nancy Pelosi's bag man. If he's saying it, that's Nancy Pelosi
saying it. just a second, because I have a
question, but I want to hear from you about the importance of
Evers intervening in this lawsuit,
wasn't anything unexpected for the for the most part, Tony
Evers has and Josh Kohl both said they believe women have the
right to control their bodies. And the 1848 laws. Ridiculous,
the ban on abortion, so I don't I mean, I think this is just the
legal process, you know, but it is definitely political. I mean,
it's political as heck because, you know, the fact is, is that
they took away the rights of, you know, half the population.
And there has been a backlash to that. We have seen at the polls
over and over again. I think you combine like what we've seen in
Wisconsin, which is like, you know, what, 17 of the last 19
statewide elections since Trump was elected, Democrats have won
then. Now you combine that with the Dobbs thing. I you know, I
understand you know, Biden's got some vulnerabilities for sure.
But I think that it's I don't think it's going to you know, I
don't think in the end it's going to make a bit of
difference because on the issues you go starting with abortion,
you could go run the table. Democrats are on the side of
people. Republicans are on the side of Donald Trump, which is
tax breaks for rich people and his donors.
with all throughout that campaign, you just spurred this
in my memory. We had Republican after Republican calling for
Donald Trump to drop out of the race. He was unelectable. He was
a drag on the ticket. He was going to ruin the party forever.
Obviously, we know he ended up winning different circumstances
of why the Democrats may be asking their candidate to drop
out, but are there comparables about what that could mean for
people's psychology about down ballot ticket, for whether they
support the candidate, whether they're resisting the political
elites, the Beltway elites, in their commentary on this, the
fact that Democrats refuse to say he is the nominee is all we
need to know, right at this point.
individual Democrats. He represents the Democratic
Party. chooses not to step aside, they
cannot force him out other than the 25th amendment. And they're
not going to use the nuclear option. They're not going to do
that. So he holds all the cards. >> But are there comparisons to
2016? What Republicans were dealing with then?
>> Remember that happened in October, and he was a candidate,
the only comparable to an incumbent backing out in the
year of the election would be LBJ. On March 31st, 1968. I was
three years old, that would be the closest example to this.
Here we are. This is the end of July, right? The Democratic
convention is in three weeks. And there's a lot of uncertainty
as to whether or not he'll be accepting that nomination.
That's unbelievable. Are you uncertain at all?
>> I know I think Joe Biden is the nominee of the Democrats.
Joe Biden will be the nominee and Joe Biden will win the
presidency. And Donald Trump will say it was rigged again.
It's what he did last time. He did what he'll do this time.
>> But you lived through that in 2016 when Paul Ryan and wouldn't
appear on the stage with him. They canceled him when he was
supposed to be coming to Wisconsin at the last minute.
Are Democrats having that same it fair to compare the two
experiences, the frustration that the rank and file were
feeling? there are places where there are
people who probably feel the same. Democrats who feel the
same way that Republicans felt in 2016, but I don't think in
the end it's going to matter because I think the Democrats
are going to come together. I think that this convention has
been great for Democrats in terms of the extremism we've
seen. I think when we see Donald Trump coming out there tomorrow
night, it's going to motivate Democrats again, because he has
been an incredible motivating force for Democrats and an
independents are unsure of, you know, they don't trust him
because they know what he's done. They know the way that he
talks. And I don't think that, you know, if we're sitting in a,
in a, in an economy that's recovered, you've got Joe Biden,
who, you know, again, is 81 years old, Donald Trump, 78
years old, America lost 3 million jobs under Trump. They
gained 16 million under President Biden, 21 million more
people got access to health care under Joe Biden, 5 million
people had their student loans reduced. If this was just about
Joe Biden, I think the Democrats would let him sink or swim on
his own. about his impact on ballot. And
if he loses, for example, the state of Wisconsin by 3 or 4
points, that means Robin Vos and Devin LeMahiue probably keep or
pick up a seat they don't currently have. That's the
difference here. This has an impact down ballot. Democrats
know it, which is why a lot of them are not so quietly trying
to push him out. >> I want to talk about the
ratings for the convention so far. According to the Journal
Sentinel, Nielsen put out the first ratings, up 50% from 2020.
It was Covid year. Yeah, but 18 million viewers. That's still
down from 2016, this morning at the breakfast delegation, there
was stern messages from the party chair to members, stay in
your seats. The optics look bad when they are empty seats during
the televised program, because Wisconsin has amazing seats
right up next to the stage. What are the optics right now? How
important are the number of viewers that are watching
Wisconsin and the RNC? >> It's not like when we were
kids. When we were kids, the networks would cover it wall to
wall from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m, probably out east. It was 8 to
11. So it doesn't work that way anymore. You got to watch cable
if you want to watch wall to wall coverage. There are times
when delegates and alternates get up and exchange seats. They
walk around. I get those kind of optics. I'm not concerned about
that viewership. If you're telling me 18 million, I hadn't
seen that number. I think that's pretty good. I'll take that. Do
you think Democrats are going to have 18 million?
>> I think so, because I think that, you know, I do think that
some of our because there's mystery there.
>> Joe Biden actually takes the nomination again, like, you
know, our sort of friends in the corporate media have been
punishing Biden for months and months and months.
>> They they want this brokered convention more than anything.
They can taste it on their lips and they're not going to
continue. They're not going to stop pushing that. That's going
to happen. You know, they'll still be pushing it after the
election of Joe Biden. >> Well, by comparison, 51
million people watched the debate, which is probably could
be the likely only debate in this. So we're talking only a
fraction of the viewers. Are these the most diehard people
that are watching this or are they're swing voters actually
watching and trying to get a sense of whether they can
support Donald Trump? >> I would pay attention to the
viewership on Thursday night. When Trump speaks, I think it'll
be double the 18 million number. That's the more important
number. The people we've introduced to America, if they
didn't already know them over the last couple of nights, have
been great speakers, demonstrated unity, a lot of
good messaging, particularly from the citizens. The mother
who lost her son to violence in New York City, or the one that
lost her child to fentanyl. Those were powerful, compelling
speeches. But I think America wants to see what Trump has to
say, particularly after the assassination attempt. So I
would pay attention on Friday morning of what the Nielsen
ratings were for Thursday. >> Yeah, I think we're going to
see huge ratings. I think they'll be enormous, you know,
given everything. Absolutely. We'll be watching. But I think
that's great because I think the more that swing voters watch
Trump, whatever he has to say, I don't think he's going to be
contrite. I don't think he's going to be unity. We saw that
the unity message, you know, was gone by the second speaker
yesterday. So I don't think you know, I don't think that it's
going to help them, you know. But it will rally their, you
know, rally their people. And I think we will have, you know, a
high viewership. >> Speaking of unity, Eric Hovde
got his chance to speak outside of prime time, but he did get
his message out. And he said that the problem with unity in
America is the media that were to blame for all the division
that exists. Is that hypocritical to go up on stage
using the media platform and then say it's our fault for
Division I, I don't know that it's the media.
>> I think all of us as individuals need to do a better
job of finding a way to disagree agreeably. Right? It's not that
hard. Scott and I do this all the time on shows. I've done it
with other pundits on other shows and, you know, cheated on
me. It's actually not that hard to disagree with someone
agreeably. Sometimes you walk away, right, and that's fine.
You know, passion and politics is a good thing in my opinion, I
wish more people were passionate about it because it impacts all
of us. I think everyone should be involved in politics in some
way, at a minimum, by voting. If you don't vote, it's a little
tough to complain about the outcome. So, you know, I don't
know that the media has an outsized role in this. Could
they help bring it together? You know, maybe, but we all have our
mediums that we choose to watch. Now and they're an echo chamber.
We're not all watching the same facts anymore. We're he's
watching a certain set of facts. I may be watching alternative
facts, as we call them on the right, you know, and I think
that's disruptive to the, to the body politic, too. Well you've
been here all week. >> You see all the different
outlets that surround us here on Media Row. And there's Steve
Bannon's network and 1 America now, and some that have been
sued for, falsely claiming the election results in 2020. Are
they part of the problem, they part of the solution or are they
just part of the ecosystem that surrounds politics and Donald
Trump? I commented to friends of mine
after after day one, like this is a different universe than I
sit in, because I don't know a lot of these people, and I see
people sitting in chairs being interviewed and stuff, you know,
and I follow politics. I mean, I did it for 25 years. So like, I
think I'm supposed to be up on it, but I just don't. And that's
and part of the problem. And there is a part of the problem
in that because one, if you're just having your opinions
reinforced, you know, and you and you and you and they have a
benefit to doing that financially, it's going to keep
happening. So you can't understand other people's
positions and it gets more fiery and I do you know, it's the
perfect it's the this environment has been the
perfect. Atmosphere for what happened. I think on January
6th, you know, people just being bombarded with, with, you know,
things that just simply weren't that that weren't may not be
accurate, you know, and again, like you said, like, you know,
we know that Fox News was, you know, settled for $800 million
because they didn't want to go through public discovery, you
know, and they didn't want to have a trial, the other networks
that happened, you know, and I we're denigrating the systems
which used to exist, that we could whether it's media or
Congress or the presidency or the US Supreme Court, for God's
sakes. We just heard that, you know, Clarence Thomas was on a
private yacht to Russia and then flew in a private helicopter to
Putin's favorite hotel. I mean, you know, we have lost all faith
in these things. >> So some of the people that
I've just happened to see, Rudy Giuliani, Mike Lindell, Roger
Stone, apparently Peter Navarro is supposed to be back fresh out
of jail. Steve Bannon is currently in prison. Otherwise
he would be here. There's an image of him saying, free Steve,
just around the corner from us. Those are all people that came
from Trump's orbit his first time through. Are they feeding
off of Trump now or are they still influencing Trump? Is that
something that people should think about when they're going
to the ballot of who is the people around Donald Trump
giving him the advice on how to handle these issues?
>> I think they may want people to believe they're influencing
him. And there's a lot of that in politics, sort of the Wizard
of Oz effect. Who's the man behind the curtain? I don't
real influence on the former president. He may give them some
voice by giving them a platform, you know, sadly, I would not
have had Matt Gaetz or Nancy may speak tonight. I don't think
they're a good representation of the Republican Party. I wished
Nancy would have lost her primary. She didn't. Right. They
were the ones who took out Kevin McCarthy, along with six others,
and left Republicans in disarray for six months, you know, so I
there are arsonists within our own party, and sadly, some of
them are close to Trump in some way, shape or form. And I think
that's unfortunate. >> When you walk around, are you
seeing the signs of decay in the political ecosystem, or is it
just mild amusement for someone like you to see all these people
around? because you know, a lot of these
people have a lot of followers. And, you know, I said this
yesterday, you know, but politics.
>> Politics, right. in a sense about. And I you say,
you know, that addition campaigns are about addition or
winning is about addition. And I agree with that. But it also is
about dividing people so that you get 50% plus one. And
governance is supposed to be about bringing people back
together. And that is not where we're at anymore. And we're not
at the point where we can, you know, again, and I think it and
I do think it started in 2009 when the Republicans, Paul Ryan,
etc, after Barack Obama won the historic election, they said, we
are going to say no to literally everything. It doesn't matter
what it is that culminated in the atrocious decision that
Antonin Scalia died in February of 2016, and Democrats were not,
you know, the president of the United States was not allowed to
fill that seat because in the past, seats had been filled like
that. And again, I think that's part of why we have this
disconnect with some of the major institutions like the
Supreme Court. And as a Democrat, I'll just say this.
We've had, you know, presidents for years who are Democratic.
The Supreme Court since June 9th, 1970, has been controlled
by justices appointed by Republicans 54 years. The last
time Democrats were had a majority of them was when I was
a month from being born in March, or I'm sorry, in May of
1969. I mean, that's insane. The fact that 54 years, one party
has controlled one branch of government with its appointees
doesn't always get the results you want. But that's what's
happened now. And now we have the situation where, you know,
we have, six justices who gave Trump, you know, who gave who
said the president is immune from laws that everybody in the
country has one set of laws, and the person in the presidency has
a different set of laws. They are above the law.
>> Enjoy Scott's selective memory. He forgets that January
20th, 2017 Democrats theme was resist. That was their theme
against Donald Trump the day he was inaugurated. And it
literally started before that with with the intelligence
agencies spying on him during the transition, which has now
been proven. So yeah, what I like us to work together and
find a way to get things done, particularly in the off years. I
mean, that's when we should get our work done. That's what
happens in the Wisconsin legislature, and it's a good
model in election years. It's going to be more political, I
get that. But when you say resist on day one, you're not
there for the right reason. >> But that's not a new message.
>> It didn't stop anything. It didn't stop. You know, Mitch
McConnell changed some of the rules, you know, to get Supreme
Court justices put in there. But nothing changed. I mean, they
passed a 2 trillion. The Republicans were in charge of
things. They passed a $2 trillion tax cut for rich
people. And corporations. They want to pass another $5 trillion
extension of that. That would give the top 1% of taxpayers $97
million, more than the bottom 60% combined. That's what you
get when you get Republicans controlling Washington, DC.
>> The actual facts is if it expires, it's a tax increase for
70% of Americans, 70% of Americans will get a tax
increase if that expires, it's not a new tax cut.
>> All right. Well we will hopefully be able to address
some of that tomorrow and have some reaction from last night's
speech. So we'll leave it there. Bill Scott, thank you very much.
Thank you. >> All right. And thank you for
watching this special 2024 election coverage. Be sure
to come back tomorrow. You'll find us here each day this week.
Tune in to PBS's evening coverage of the convention.
We're here. And now we'll have another update on the day's
events. Finally, join us Friday to wrap up the week with a
special one hour presentation of Here and Now, starting at 7 p.m.
I am Zac Schultz. Thank you so much for joining us. We'll see
you back here tomorrow.