lot of people and a lot of organizations will see how great
of a city it is that they'll book large scale conventions
here with us. >> Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier
Johnson welcomed tens of thousands of Republican faithful
to his Democratic city. Did it pay off? He joins us now. And
mayor, thanks very much for being here.
>> Happy to see you. >> So we reported on the
economic impact of the convention. Did it meet your
expectations? >> Well, as I mentioned, we're
not, you know, 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 in our economy. We'll have to go back and check in
with Visit Milwaukee and those other folks to see exactly what
the economic impact was. I, anticipate that it was pretty,
hefty, though, after Donald Trump called Milwaukee a
horrible city. influence on convention goers,
on the convention goers? >> No, I mean, these are folks
that were coming from you know, far across the country. I don't
know if they paid attention to his comments, like we paid
attention to them here. That's, you know, 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 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. We certainly listened when he said that
Milwaukee was a horrible city. >> 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
the chance to speak to him and told him the same thing. So, in
terms of, individuals being here in Milwaukee, and having the
chance to follow up, after that, that incident, with security
here, we took the opportunity to make sure that the city was saf,
and we had an nSac that was a designation here. It's a
national special security event designation you could possibly
get for an event of this magnitude. So by definition, it
was a secure event, then what the rally was that Mr. Trump
held last week, 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 it relates to, the number of officers who were here
from out of state, I mean, look, Milwaukee, won the Democratic
National Convention in 2020, and now, unfortunately, it didn't
pan out because of the Covid 19 pandemic. But, had it actually
taken place the way that we had envisioned, you would have seen
the same sort of security footprint with officers coming
in from outside the state 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 by 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, that there was an incident that happened where a
man was killed, outside of the security perimeter, the officers
from Columbus, Ohio, they were they're 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
could have caused him serious bodily harm or death. And the
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,