grassroots individuals is going to be key for us senior
political reporter Zac Schultz brought live analysis from Media
Row at the convention all week. >> And tonight wraps it up with
our political panelists, Democrat Scot Ross Zach.
>> Thanks, Fred. Well, I am back once again. End of the week.
Bill McCoshen Scot Ross. Thanks again for all this week and for
today. Let's start with the big speech last night. Bill, what
did you think was this Trump's unity moment? Did he sail it
through? needed to do as it related to
unity. CNN had a focus group of females afterwards, and they
thought they heard a different tone from him and they liked it.
They responded to it. Personally, I think the speech
was too long. It should have been 45, 50 minutes, not 90
minutes. I think he got into rally mode there and that's a
different beast altogether. But I think as far as the unity
message, the different tone, I think he was a different man
last night. Whatever, whatever happened last Saturday night
with the assassination attempt had a pretty profound impact on
him. speeches at once, one with the
prompter and one without? >> I what I heard was, you know,
I don't want to say I dislike the speech because the Abraham
Lincoln, you know, adage, which is I never heard a short speech
I didn't like because it went on a long time. But what I heard
from the from the speech was, you know, his delivery wasn't
great, but it just, you know, it culminated the most divisive,
the most extreme, the most alarming national political
convention. I think we've seen and again, embodied by the fact
that for the first time in American history, a major
political party has nominated a convicted felon to be its
presidential nominee. That's >> Being in the arena last
night, we were all there listening to it. What was your
reaction of the people listening to it as it went on? Was he
losing the audience? Was he losing the crowd as it kind of
got into the old, old hits, >> it came and went right there
were certain lines bringing back the American Dream that got huge
applause. Eliminating the EV mandate got huge applause. There
were a lot of those throughout the night, and I think that may
have caused him to go off script a few times when he thought that
the crowd was a little subdued. I would have preferred he just
go with the speech that was in the prompter, and I think that
would have been just fine. The good news for us is it was a
great convention. I've been to five national conventions. My
former boss, Tommy Thompson, has been to 12. We both think it's
the best we've ever seen. Milwaukee looked great. They
showed great, that's going to lead to more business for
Milwaukee and Milwaukee County going forward.
>> I would definitely agree with that. Milwaukee did a terrific
job. The facilities were fabulous. You know, they
everybody was courteous. You know I know there were some
incidents and stuff outside of the. Well we proved we could do
this as a state. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And you know, so I so,
so what was going on sort of outside of what was being talked
about in Fiserv was good. But what was being talked about in
Fiserv, I think was alarming. Some of the biggest lines I
heard that got applause was, you know, the attack on Nancy
Pelosi, you know, which is, you know, red meat, red meat to the
base. It's not un under. It's not unexpected. But towards the
end he got into a rant against trans people. And that got so
much applause. And that was really disturbing. And I think
you know, it sent the message that I think they wanted to say,
which is, again, this is going to be a very divisive person. If
we put him back in the white House. I think we need to do in
terms of performance, I'll say this. You know, I think that he
was a you know, it was stumbling and long. And I think in the
end, you know, he performed the announcement speech version of
Joe Biden's debate performance. >> Yeah. I think one of the most
notable things is he only mentioned Joe Biden by name one
time, and that was an accident in 90 minutes.
>> Acknowledged it was an accident.
it, so he had to name him and said, I won't name him again
tonight. And I think that was smart.
of Joe Biden zero mention of abortion, which I think was the
most telling thing about the night, the thing that he bragged
about getting rid of the right to choose and making women
second class citizens. And he doesn't say anything about it in
in the biggest audience. He's going to get well now the
attention will shift to Biden. >> Earlier today, Congressman
Mark Pocan, a Democrat from Madison, announced he can no
longer support Biden on the ticket, asked for him to step
down. Scott is this is this all unraveling here in front of us?
>> I don't know if the word I would use is unraveling. What it
is it's challenging campaign because when it's a when you're
when the focus becomes a referendum on your weaknesses,
that is a problem. It happened in 2016. It was a referendum on
on whether or not Clinton should be around. Still in 2020, it was
a referendum on Trump because of his performance. Now that it's a
referendum on on Joe Biden's age, that's problematic because
he's not going to get younger. You know, the thing is, is that
if the Democrats, you know, if Joe Biden decides he doesn't
want to, he doesn't want to be the nominee and steps down. This
goes back to focusing on Donald Trump, which I think is great
for the Democrats, because they know what they get with Trump.
They got 3 million lost jobs. They got, you know, Covid being
bungled, you know, and again, Joe Biden's going to put country
first. He always has. I think we can agree with that. He always
has put country first. On the other hand you got Trump. You
know you got Trump. Ivanka had 18 new I'm sorry if you need to
if you need to. Yeah I'm ready to go. I'm ready to go on that.
>> If Dems are in disarray for the next month leading into
Chicago, we're totally good with that. The fact that this guy has
he earned 14 million votes in the primary. Dems cleared the
field for him so that he didn't have a primary with Robert
Kennedy RFK, Jr. and now they're trying to push him off. I mean,
so much for democracy. >> So we're going to have a big
test coming up because Kamala Harris, the vice president, is
coming to Milwaukee on Tuesday. What does that look like? What
are you expecting to hear? >> I think she'll promote the
Biden agenda as she has in the past. And if she ends up being
the nominee, we'll see if there's an open convention, if
she can actually win it. I think the Biden agenda is what's
dragging them down. Yeah, Joe Biden's age is a big negative
for them, no question about that. Yes, his debate
performance has lingered on for three weeks after, and we've
never seen that in our lifetime. But I think she's going to have
to answer for those same policies.
a candidate at that time, or is she still the VP?
>> I'm still waiting for my call, but I don't know what's
going to happen with that. I have to say, I, you know, again,
there's lots of talk. I mean, you know, it was there was a
buzz, you know, you know, amongst media last night about
what is going to happen here, you know, and I have to disagree
with Bill. I think it's going to come back. I do think it's going
to come back to policy. But I think Biden, Biden and Democrats
win on that. 16 million jobs created, 21 million more people
put on health care. And again, you go back to the Republicans
Anti-democracy, anti-abortion trillion in tax breaks to rich
people, the party trying to push their guy out with a backroom
deal he gets to do by the influence peddlers, the
decisions. He will make the decision. And I believe he will
put country first. >> All right. Just a couple of
seconds for each of you. Absolute chaos in Chicago or
orderly con convention. Chicago.
>> Yes. Well, it's Nietzsche says out of chaos comes order.
>> All right. >> Bill McCoshen Scot Ross.
Thank you so much. We will be Thank you so much. We will be