Here and Now
McCoshen & Ross on Impacts and Implications of the 2024 RNC
Clip: Season 2300 Episode 2303 | 7m 7sVideo has Closed Captions
Bill McCoshen, Scot Ross on the 2024 RNC and significance of Donald Trump's nomination.
"Here & Now" political panelists Bill McCoshen and Scot Ross evaluate the 2024 Republican National Convention in Milwaukee and consider the significance of nominating former President Donald Trump.
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Here and Now is a local public television program presented by PBS Wisconsin
Here and Now
McCoshen & Ross on Impacts and Implications of the 2024 RNC
Clip: Season 2300 Episode 2303 | 7m 7sVideo has Closed Captions
"Here & Now" political panelists Bill McCoshen and Scot Ross evaluate the 2024 Republican National Convention in Milwaukee and consider the significance of nominating former President Donald Trump.
Problems with Closed Captions? Closed Captioning Feedback
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Learn Moreabout PBS online sponsorshipgrassroots 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
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