Wisconsin's Weekend Morning News
Day After Reactions to the Failed Assassination Attempt on Donald Trump - Full Show
This is Wisconsin's weekend morning news with Liddy Collins. It's pretty overcast out there this morning, Jessica, and I think that reflects what a lot of us are feeling to date regardless of our political beliefs. We don't want to see anyone who is expressing them, certainly shot in the way that former President Trump was yesterday, and of course, sadly the people around them, and we're going to focus on so much of that throughout the morning today, and we'll tell you about that in the second, including last night we broke into live coverage. Vince Vittrano, Steve Scafidi, John McHure were all here, and they had an interview with former Governor Scott Walker, and we're going to, as you said, we're going to be sharing that here this hour with you. So if you didn't hear it last night, it was fascinating in his reaction to it, but let's go back and rehash a little bit about what happened yesterday and what we know, Jessica. I don't know where you were, but I had just come in from mass, and I was making dinner, and we've got a TV in the kitchen, so I had that on, and just waiting for the network news or whatever, when they broke in and showed the initial photos of President Trump where he just sort of ducked down, and in that first moment you didn't see the blood. It wasn't until the Secret Service got him back on his feet that you could see that he had been injured and just narrowly missed with a fatal gunshot. It was chilling. I literally, I still have goosebumps over what we saw last night. Right. I think I was just getting home, walking in to see some family members have the TV on, like, what's going on here, and seeing that same clip played so many times last night. It seems like you can play, no matter how many times you play it, it still feels very surreal to watch. And I have friends who have attended Trump rallies, and they started texting me. They were horrified at what they had seen, and well, let's go to it. You've got what happened, and I probably, most people have heard this so far, but in case you didn't, Jessica, let's share that. Right. So the FBI is now identifying 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks of Pennsylvania as the shooter at the Trump rally. This was Saturday night outside Pittsburgh. The Secret Service says their team neutralized the gunman who is now dead. Here is more from ABC News correspondent Josh Iniger in Pennsylvania. I saw the man that was hitting the head, and he wears a lot of blood. A man in the crowd was killed. Two others, critically injured. Trump was grazed in the ear. I was shot with a bullet that pierced the upper part of my right ear. He later posted, "I knew immediately that something was wrong and that I heard a whizzing sound, shots, and immediately felt the bullet ripping through the skin. Much bleeding took place," he added. So I realized then what was happening. So that was part of a statement that former President Trump released shortly after the rally. It sounds like he's doing fine. I'm not sure. He's still in the hospital. I was going to say, "I don't think we know yet if he's still in the hospital." But I'm sure that we'll hear more as the day goes on, but interesting things out here. You mentioned the name of the attempted assassin. He was what, 20 years old, Thomas Matthew Crooks was a young man. I was kind of searching a lot over the internet last night. TMZ has actual video of him before the shooting took place. Somebody had videotaped him because there were people outside that perimeter of security who saw the guy on the roof. They saw him crawling along the roof with a long rifle, and we're trying to get the attention of police in the area before those first shots rang out. In that clip that I saw, the guy had sort of longish hair, peered to have a beard, and it was dressed in camouflage. But the fact that nobody saw him in that area, that there were so many secret service, it was so much police, it's horrifying to think that that wasn't secured better than what it was. Yeah, that is definitely crazy, and I think now a lot of people are asking about the security starting this week here in Milwaukee, and the fact that guns will be allowed is still up in the air now, I think. Well, you know, in our conversation this morning is with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who I talked to about 10 days ago, and one of the things that he had to say in our conversation was he talked about his father's assassination, and he talked about the fact that he, our F.K. Jr., hasn't been able to get secret service protection. And I think there's a lot of question as to whether or not former President Trump had enough secret service protection yesterday in that terrible situation. But looking at the person who was shot, the accused assassin, Thomas Matthew Crooks, again, we know that he's 20 years old, they're saying that he was a registered Republican, although he only voted once in an election in the mid-year in 2022. And this is kind of interesting, also, and I think Fox News is reporting this, that they're showing that he made a $15 donation to a group called Progressive Turnout Project, which is a Chicago PAC that supports Democratic candidates for public office. So I'm sure there's much more to be learned about this person who did the shooting. And tragically, I mean, think about it, you had people who were enthused to go and see the person that they supported as president. They were having a good time. I mean, I've never been to a Trump rally, but everybody I know who has been says it's a party atmosphere. There's a lot of camaraderie, a lot of people getting to know people that they never had before because they have one thing in common, and that's the support of Donald Trump. I like to think that the person who was shot was in that frame of mind of being excited and being so excited that he was that close to the president. The two other people we know who they're saying what, they were critically shot. Yeah, I believe critically injured still working on finding an update on their condition. Yeah, that we don't know. And it did appear from at least one that one was a woman from the video where they showed a woman being carried off of the stage where the shooting took place. And then I would assume that the one who passed away, they said it was a male. And I think there was another man involved. But again, so much of this we're still trying to find out about. But it's just, it's a horrifying situation. And I mentioned that last night we had breaking news coverage with Vince Petrano and John Mature and Steve Scafidi. They had an exclusive interview with former governor Scott Walker, and we're going to be sharing that this hour. It was a lengthy interview, so we're going to have the first part of that coming up in just a couple minutes. Jessica Gazzo is here with us this morning. Charlie Snell is pushing those buttons. And also if you want to express your feelings because a lot of people are emotional this morning, you can certainly do that on our WTMJ talk and text line at 855-616-1620. I'm Libby Collins, on Wisconsin, weekend morning news. I think our move this morning is as dark as the skies are today, Jessica Gazzo is here with us. And Jessica, before we get to that first segment of Governor, former Governor Walker's interview last night, let's give an update. State President Trump is out of the hospital? Yes. Reports are saying he was released from the hospital, I believe this morning if not late last night. And my understanding is he went to his property in Bedminster, New Jersey, and very likely that is where he will be until he comes to Milwaukee, because all indications are he is going to be here for this convention. That's what indications are suggesting, and that the convention may go on as planned with very little change as far as the itinerary and the programming. But there are some changes for commuters. And let's talk about that a little bit because as you did, I did, Charlie did, we all kind of had to navigate. They hadn't started the security checkpoints yet, but if you are downtown, there are concrete buttresses throughout the downtown area. Where are those checkpoints going to be? So those checkpoints are in what they're calling the yellow zone or the soft zone slash pedestrian access area. So we've got West Winnebago and North 9th Street, West Velieft and North 6th Street. We've got Wells and North 9th, State and North Water and West Michigan Street and North Plankenton Avenue, so there are five checkpoints distributed pretty evenly around this yellow zone. And that's where the cars are going to be checked as they're coming into the what they call the soft zone of downtown. All right, we'll keep you updated on that throughout the morning. We don't know what time those checkpoints are going to go into effect, but as soon as we find out, we will share that with you. Right now though, last night, and Jess, I'm sure you heard this as well, we covered this quite thoroughly with Vince Vitrano, John McCure, Steve Scafidi. They were all here and they had the opportunity to talk with former governor Scott Walker. Okay. I want to bring in former governor of the great state of Wisconsin, Scott Walker. He is joining us live now on 620 WTMJ. Sure your phone is blowing up right now and you're having a lot of important conversations so we appreciate your time very much. Can you just characterize what kind of conversations that you are having right now and that you've been having in the last couple of hours? Yeah, well, just horrific, obviously from people in shock to being horrified to being upset and I think it's pretty universal. This is not a partisan reaction. This is just disbelief and it's one of the few things I think of late that crosses across the political gap that we have in America and certainly here in Wisconsin and that is just the horror that this could happen in America to anyone, at least of all our presidents okay, and in this case a former president, someone who is seeking the same office again. So in many ways, I got to tell you too, for me at least not only was the initial horror of hearing about it on my son's today, you got to watch the news and reached out to me, but then I just thought, you guys are a little bit younger, but I can still remember as a kid how I felt when President Reagan was shot back way 43 years ago, it feels like in some ways it was yesterday and those memories kind of reoccurred into my mind tonight just remembering how scared we all felt back then. Obviously it was pretty critical at least on the first day or so, thank God, literally thank God that it appears as though it's not a serious injury although certainly condolences to the other person who's family or the family of the person who was killed and the other is in critical condition, but just a shocking time in American history. Governor, you know, you know, former president Donald Trump very, very well, you've met with him countless times, you're certainly involved in all things RNC and Milwaukee. It's early yet and we're still sort of thinking how this is going to all sort out and we know there's meetings taking place or we'll be taking place shortly. Any sense, just from your perspective, someone who's lived this life that you have that anything really changes here, will it be a different RNC because of this or not? Well, yeah, I mean, different America, any for anything, not just a convention. I mean, I just think, again, as we saw after what happened to Kennedy, I wasn't alive then, but what happened after life in America, after that, we saw how things changed after the attempted assassination against Ronald Reagan, how things changed. I remember him even talking about how sad he was that he couldn't go to church anymore because it was so disruptive because of the changes, understandable changes that were made after the attempt of his life. We saw changes after 9/11, only for the president, the White House, but other public buildings, there'll obviously be changes now here, but I think in terms of the convention, you know, there'll be a heightened sense of security that may very well be and probably appropriately so a reexamination of where the secure zone is and whether or not that has to be pushed out even further here and for that matter in Chicago a month from now because the same concerns would arise at the DNC convention as well. But I think in terms of, I really honestly think particularly when you see that New York Times photographers slow motion footage where you can actually see the bullet whizzing just in the image. The right of it was going past behind him, it looked like, presumably by his right ear, you just think, boy, this is, as Reagan said, after he survived the attempt, he felt it was part of the divine plan, the DP, I think for many of us it'll feel like this was one of those moments where maybe God's hand was involved with this and yeah, I think not only for President Trump, but for me and all the other delegates there, there's going to be a renewed sense of just how serious things are. And that's part of the conversation last night that Vince and John McEur and Steve Scafidi had with former Governor Scott Walker about his reaction to what happened to President Trump yesterday. And we will share the rest of that coming up here in the next half hour. Jessica Gazzo is here in the newsroom, she's got more details, including the identity of the man believed to be the attempted assassin, that's all I had on Wisconsin weekend morning newsroom. I'm Libby Collins, Wisconsin weekend morning news, I'm here with Jessica Gazzo in the WTMJ breaking news center. Jessica, we're hearing from some of our fans on the WTMJ talk in Texan and I think it reflects a lot of what people are thinking one person says, I'm thankful for President Trump being okay, but I'm sad over the loss of life at a political rally, I hope it gets us Americans to a better place and other persons as I'm so sad and scared that we come to this day in our country. It was at least heartening to hear the Democratic response of concern, especially Nancy Pelosi, who spoke of the violence against her own family. I pray this might make people who hate the opposition tone down the rhetoric. And I think a lot of people are feeling that right now. It definitely seems to be a shared sentiment that it doesn't matter what side you are on. This is not how you, how you, a democracy should function in that sense of, yeah, and people who were celebrating and going to support someone and certainly, you know, thankful, I think that it appears President, former President Trump turned his head at exactly the right moment, I mean, there was somebody looking over him, there was no question about that. All right, well, we're going to get back to that conversation last night. We had John McEure, Steve Scafidi, Vince Vittrano, they all were here with you on breaking news and they talked with former Governor Scott Walker, who had a lot to say about his relationship with former President Trump and also the reaction that he felt, in just the first few hours after this event. Governor, good to talk to you. Thanks for making some time for us. Your friend, Reince Priebus, has been working really hard on this convention as the host committee chair for a very long time. How difficult would it be to make changes to the security zone, the fencing, the protocols, the procedures here, 48 hours out from the convention's kickoff? Oh, extremely, extremely challenging. I know they were having a gathering tonight and Reince told me that they obviously canceled that just with all the uncertainty. That doesn't mean they're going to cancel the other official things, but I do think not only from the organizational standpoint of the Milwaukee host committee, the RNC proper, but just the Secret Service and for that matter, local police. I was on Neil Cavito's show this morning, it was one of the top questions he asked about the security. I said I felt confident in some ways even more so than maybe some do in Chicago, just because of the Milwaukee and Wisconsin, as you all know, our listeners know here, we've been a battleground state for so long that one of the advantages that DNC saw four years ago with nothing RNC saw now was that local law enforcement has worked consistently, literally for years now, with presidential rallies, with visits of surrogates and family members and others, and so we're probably better equipped than just about any other location that was under consideration to have a smooth transition. Having said all that, I think in light of what happened today, yeah, there may be a look when clearly they're going to have to assess how in the world this alleged shooter was able to get as it seems, at least as close as he was to the rally. So I do think it could have some effect on what the perimeter is, but I still feel confident that again, local law enforcement, the police department, the sheriff's department, state troopers, the agents, I saw the federal officials that were coming in, you know, they're going to be in full force, and I feel confident we're going to have a good and a safe convention and obviously have a more serious tone to it, but any saw the president's statement, even just a little bit ago, you know, he is reflective mainly because of the concerning head for the one of the attendees of his rally that passed away and the other was seriously injured, but as we saw moments after the attempted assassination, this was a guy who was ready to stand up and fight back, and I think we're going to see more of that come Thursday. I was going to ask you, is there the chance that some of those events could be canceled? No, I don't think so, I mean, I think, I mean, it may be under any other circumstances, but I literally think the moment I was just talking about, I told you everything he needed to know about whether or not he would allow something like that to be canceled, and the fact that he didn't just get rushed out, he wanted people to know that even though clearly he had something, at least they'd nicked him, whether, you know, we'll find out more details as to just how severe it was, but that he was not going to be whisked away without people letting know, let him know that he was, you know, he was, he's a survivor, he's going to survive and, and, you know, wanted us to apparently just, you know, gut checks from reaction, so I don't under any circumstance see him wanting to not have this convention. Governor, you know, you know him as a president, but you also know as a person, the fist to the crowd, the, the yelling of fight, even though he's already injured, what does that, what does that say to you about the person Donald Trump and candidate? Oh, yeah, he just doesn't back down. I mean, I've seen it time and time again. I saw it when I was a competitor to his on the primary caucus cycle, back eight years ago, I saw it in the 2016 campaign when so many in the national media wrote him off. I saw it throughout his presidency and the pushback that he got from so many different directions. I've always seen it during the campaign and with all the legal and the members going on and everything else, this guy, you know, say what you will. Obviously, I'm a supporter of his. I think it's the difference between him and President Joe Biden on the issues, but just on a personality, say what you will about his personality. This guy is a fighter. I've always argued the way he wins in 16. And if he was going to win again in 24 is he's got to make sure voters in Wisconsin elsewhere feel like he's a fighter for them and not just a fighter for the sake of fighting. But again, personally, we see this guy does not back down. You know, quitting is not in his vocabulary. And I think that's exactly. I think any of us, regardless of your party, would have completely understood if somebody ran off the stage after an attempt like this, not knowing what was next, but his gut reaction was to stand up and let people know that he was still there and he was still fighting and he wasn't going to back down. But that's that's boy 100% of what you see privately is what we saw there right on that stage. I think Governor Walker made an interesting point there, Jessica, where he talked about how they couldn't get former President Trump back in the car. He it's an icon. It's going to be an iconic photo is in our history with that fist raised where he's saying fight. I mean, I don't know that most people would react in that way. It was again, it was surreal basically just watching that whole situation. But we do know now who the shooter is or was I should say. Right. So investigation is continuing, but we also know that one spectator at the rally was killed in the shooting to other spectators were critically wounded. We know all three of those victims are adult men, but we don't know any further details on their identities at this point. And we have got Lieutenant Colonel Georgia Bivens of the Pennsylvania state police telling news nation that both local and federal authorities are working together as the investigation continues because of the variety of crimes that have been committed. Some are under federal jurisdiction. Some are under state jurisdiction. And so, you know, we're working through all of that. Not an issue at all. The FBI has maintained the lead on the attempted assassination. PSP will take the lead on the homicide and the shootings of the other individuals. And Secret Service killed that suspected shooter. He is Thomas Matthew Kirk's a 20 year old. Yeah. And we're learning more about him as the morning goes on. The chilling part is there are a lot of reports saying the people noticed him going along the roof before the shots were out and he wasn't stopped in advance. So it could have been even more tragic than it turned out to be. We've got more of the interview with Scott, former governor Scott Walker that Vince Fronto John McCure and Steve Scafidi did last night during breaking news coverage here on WTM J. Take 51. We've got 71 degrees of WTM J. I'm Libby Collins along with Jessica Gazzo. And Jessica, let's, before we play that final clip of the Scott Walker interview last night, let's take a look at what those security precautions are going to be. We don't know exactly what time these are going to go in effect, but undoubtedly they will. Right. We're going to have security checkpoints if you're trying to get into the heart of downtown, those checkpoints are going to be located in this yellow zone where pedestrians can still access the area, but every car would need to go through anything from potentially getting trunks opened and canines checking for a very thorough process. So definitely expect delays if you are heading to any of these checkpoints. Those are going to be on Winnebago and 9th, Vleet and 6th, Wells and North State and Northwater and Michigan Street and Plankington Avenue. Those are the 5 checkpoints around this yellow zone. And then obviously the red zone will be no access unless you have RNC credentials. Yeah. And secret service clearance, obviously and a reminder about the closures already starting starting on 794. That's already started today. The home bridge that's closed. Yes, 794 is already closed. That's between Van Buren Street and Car Ferry Drive. And that will continue until at least Tuesday or Monday, at least because of the event and the summer press grounds tonight. And then also, if you are coming downtown, even if you're outside of that yellow zone, you will notice the concrete buttresses. Yes. They are throughout the city. It's really interesting trying to navigate this morning. There's no question about that. All right. Last night, we had breaking news coverage. Vince Fattrano, John McCure, Steve Scafidi. They were all here. And this is the final portion of their interview that they did with former governor Scott Walker and his reaction to the shooting that took place last night in Pennsylvania. Governor, a thoughts. President Biden was out with remarks earlier today, said he wanted to contact directly and speak with former President Trump. Given the fact that these two guys, I mean, look, politics are politics, but these two gentlemen do not seem much to care for one another. They've said terrible, awful things about each other. If you revising the president today, do you tell the president to take that call? And how would you advise him to react to the conversation if he truly believes it's heartfelt from the president? Yeah. I mean, I think there's certainly it would make sense to take the call. I think the most important thing, President Biden and other, I've seen others do this, but is to say and then repeat that, you know, you can have disagreements. You can even have extremely strong feelings about people's beliefs and the personality and the issues they stand for, but the level of just toxic, you know, personal attacks, you know, we've always seen some of them politics, but it's gotten to, you know, again, sadly, I have somewhat personal experience with that. I mean, I wasn't just targeted during the protests and the repo myself, my kids, my wife, supporters and others out there. So I know what it's like and how difficult that can be. It's one thing to be a target of a political attack. It's completely different when people make threats not against you as a candidate or as an office holder, but against your family. And so I just think that's where all of us, any of us are engaged in politics and government and this whole great debate need to say we can have passion, we can have vigor, we can be, you know, worked up and pumped up about our ideas and our candidates. There's nothing wrong with that. That's part of the American tradition. It's one of the great things that, you know, there is no one permanent party that we can compete and not have to worry about retribution for the party and power no matter who they are. But I also do think it's a good reminder, particularly in this growing age of social media for people to examine, you know, are you adding to the debate in the dialogue or are you, you know, going out of your way to villainize people without talking about their ideas and the merits of the position. And I hope in that regard, no, it's a present. And like I said, there's been plenty of others. I saw Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, the Governor of Pennsylvania, others put out strong statements. I hope that will continue. And I hope as well that for those of us who are supporters of President Trump that, you know, we don't hear rhetoric of, you know, retaliation or anything in that regard, but rather say, well, it's time to, you know, let's tone down out of control rhetoric and let's get back to talking about what matters in America and why we think our candidates make the best case for a better country and a better state. Governor, oh, go ahead, John, if you had one, I was just going to ask you, Governor, you've had large outdoor rallies. You've had large security contingents. Can you see a scenario where the Secret Service says, we got to really think about holding these things in door, you know, they might be smaller. We can secure the area better. Can you see a scenario where a rally's not held in a setting like it was today? Well, I think there's no doubt they can make that case. I mean, you know, it's all, you know, everything is a balance. But I do think, you know, again, this isn't just something, you know, President Trump has done. You had President Obama have big rallies. I remember on the square outside of the University of Wisconsin. I mean, even go back to others along the way. And when you think of, I mean, ironically, you think of American history, you know, Ronald Reagan's the attempt on his life was coming out of a fairly secluded area outside of the Washington Hill. You think of Wisconsin history, ironically, not too far from where the Pfizer forms that Teddy Roosevelt was shot in Milwaukee. And then went over and still delivered a speech after that before they took him off stage and treated him. So it's, it's there's been changes made. Yes. But I think you don't want to completely change the way Americans have gathered. If anything, I think the changes I'll be made is not just limit or not have them, but rather put much, much further parameters around where these events can be held. Again, very preliminary. I'm always, when I was governor, as Steve knows, haven't been a mayor, you know, you don't want to jump to any conclusions to you know, the facts, but just looking at the images there, it seemed really, really surprising to me that there would be any sort of buildings that weren't secure that were any sort of reasonable, different distance from where a former president of Trump was at. And I think if anything, that's what will change. There'll be tighter attention, not only the personal security, but the perimeter. And that, again, is the interview that governor's former governor Scott Walker had with Steve Scaffidi, Vince Vittrano, and John McCure last night during breaking news coverage here on WTMJ. Steve Scaffidi is going to join us after 930 this morning. And also, welcome back to Wisconsin weekend morning news. Joining us on our Tri County contracting hotline is former Madison Congressman Scott Klug. He has a podcast. It's called Lost in the Middle. It's America's political orphans. And Scott, I can't think of anybody I'd rather talk to right now than you, because you have been covering a disconnect that so many Americans have felt during this political season. And certainly after yesterday, I think a lot of us, whether you're on the right, the left, the middle, we all are feeling somewhat lost. The other thing, I'm not surprised by this at all. I mean, I can remember probably 10 years ago, going to the Dallas Museum on the Kennedy assassination. And there's a whole wing of it based on conspiracy theories. And this, I thought, was a really sad comment this morning. There's already posts on social media where Trump haters said it was a false flag operation. In other words, the Trump organization itself planned this to build sympathy for the former president. And then there's another knucklehead on Twitter who said, "I guess because the court cases weren't going very well, they decided to take a different avenue." So you and I would hope that most people in normal times would take a deep breath and rally around the institution and rally around Biden and Trump. But unfortunately, Libby, I think this is just going to, in some ways, drive the crazy fringe even crazier if they can be that way. Well, you would certainly remember the Kennedy assassination, not just of JFK, but RFK. Ronald Reagan's attempted assassination. The attempted assassinations against Gerald Ford. But it seems like we've been pretty fortunate here over the last, what, 40 years where we haven't seen a situation like this. What has changed? How do you, why do you think, and you've spent a lot of years in Washington, why do you think that this guy was able to get as close as he was and take that shot yesterday? Well, that was the first thing I thought, actually, because they've been at a, you know, a lot of these events over the years, presidential rallies. I remember introducing President Bush at a big rally in Warsaw. I introduced President Bush another time in Appleton. And the security is so tight. I mean, it's breathtaking. And I would think in this day and age, the first thing they would seize would be any high vantage points, right? And it surprises me that this guy was able to get on the roof with a rifle and that nobody was in a position to see immediately when he got up there. And this day and age of drones, you'd think they'd have five drones circling constantly to look for anything like this. So I've got some real questions about where the lapse was in the secret service protection in this. And I think the interviews you had in the newscast leading up to our conversation are going to tell you what the lockdown is going to be like in Milwaukee this week. And then it was going to be bad to begin with. And it's going to be, I think, triple the level of security than it would have been before the incident. And again, as you said, you've been to a lot of these events. You've literally been all over the world with State Department, working various areas that are high security. What is it that you expect to see that might be different now than it would have been 24 hours ago? I think people double checking credentials. It's interesting if you ever fly to Israel on one of the Israeli airlines, you get questions and, you know, you've had this in line when you travel overseas. You know, did you, you have a suitcase, who packed their suitcase, all along, go to Japan. When the Israelis do it, they actually have four or five different people continue to ask that question because one person who asks you is old and one's young and one's an attractive woman and one's a good looking guy. And I think they just keep watching to see if any particular profile will rattle you. I think what you'll see is, you know, so I'm not going to fly serve itself. I've got media credentials, which allows me to get in the general vicinity of where everything's going on. And then I've got actually credentials to go into the media center. So I suspect in the past, a lot of these would just get cursory looks. I think people are going to get your credentials a good check two or three times, which means it's going to be a long, long wait. It means it's going to be a lot of a backup around fly serve at a different level. I know there are already military folks coming in to support security. So I think you'll see that as an addition, a layer of security. But again, you know, if you ever go to any of these sort of events anywhere, it's always like it. I think you're just going to see it in spades this week. All right. We've got Scott Klug here. He has a podcast. It's called Lost in the Middle America's Political Orphans. Scott, can you stick with us a few more minutes? Absolutely. All right. We've got and we've got more questions for you about the security about what's going on. Because you've been to so many of these big conventions in the past, you've been to the RNC a number of times. It's all I had on Wisconsin weekend morning news. I'm Libby Collins. We're here with Jessica Gazzo in the newsroom and on our Tri-Conning Contracting Hotline. We're talking with former Madison Congressman Scott Klug. He's the man behind the Lost in the Middle podcast. Scott, one of the first things we heard last night is that the Biden campaign was withdrawing their campaign ads. How does this assassination attempt on former President Trump affect the campaign going forward? I think it's hard to tell. I mean, I think there's two things in play, right? What this will do in terms of the atmosphere in Wisconsin, I think there's some folks on the left who argue that this may have essentially won Trump the reelection as a sympathetic figure now. The Democrats, meanwhile, they can have to figure out whether Biden's going to stick or not stick. It seems to me they're now so close to their own convention. The odds of him stepping down voluntarily seem very slim to me. So we're going to come out with Biden to some degree at a bit of a low point in his campaign. And Trump, I think, is going to get some kind of sympathetic bounce out of this. But keep in mind, we're still three months away from the election almost. So a lot of whatever those two forces are will change a dozen times before we actually get to November. The disgusting thing to me was, you saw folks today online already posting that. This was, people, somebody wrote, I guess, because the court cases weren't going so well, they decided to try a different avenue to get Trump out of the race. And then meanwhile, there are Democratic postings talking about the fact this was a false flag operation. In other words, that the Trump people planned his own assassination attempt in air quotes, because it was really just there to pump up support for the president. So that's the world we live on. I mean, it took a long time for the Kennedy assassination theories to pop out, and these were online within an hour and a half. Yeah, well, again, the magic of social media, as we know, usually right after a convention, a candidate does receive a bump in the polls. But with, and we talked about this a little bit earlier this morning, that photo that was taken of former President Trump as the Secret Service was trying to get him off the stage. He had his fist in the hair in the air. His face is bloody. There's an American flag in the background. I mean, if that is not going to become an iconic photo, I don't know what will. I think so. And even if you're not a fan of the president, I think you have to give the former president, I think you have to give applause for sort of reacting to the event that way and standing up. I think a lot of people would have just hunkered down and gotten out of there as quickly as they can and not turned around the audience. So I think you're right. I mean, I think it plays into Trump's self-proclaimed tough guy image. But in this case, I think it turned out to be a great sort of a great twist that I hate to say the word photo op for Trump. And so I think he will get a bounce out of this. I think he'll get a further bounce out of the convention. But again, those are always short-lived, right? It will completely fade. And between now and November, there's a million things that are going to happen in the economy and foreign policy and everything else. So whatever happens, I think your listeners who are either fans or opponents of the president Trump, I think we'll find that there's, you know, whatever it is is going to be short-lived and Biden will get a similar bounce. And then it's Labor Day. And really, if you're a political junkie, you know, Labor Day is really when the election starts. People are trying to get the occasions in, ramp up for kids to get back to school. And a lot of people just don't focus on politics on the sort of regular basis that you and I do because we're political junkies. So, you know, stay tuned till five weeks from now and we'll see what the issue is and how things look like after Labor Day. Speaking of being a political junkie, you know a lot of people. You know a lot of the people in the conversation, they were saying yesterday that they, you know, the national media was at that particular rally because they were expecting President, former President Trump to make an announcement or at least a hint who his vice presidential pick would be. What are you hearing? What are you feeling? Who do you think the individual will be? Well, the answer is I'm not hearing any secrets that like the Trump campaign asked me to join their conference calls. But I think that if I get the pick, I'd pick Rubio. He does two things for the ticket, for the politics of it. Having a native Spanish speaker I think is valuable, especially at a time when Hispanics for all kinds of cultural reasons, you know, Catholic, evangelicals, larger families, a lot of the sort of far left cultural stuff doesn't play well with them are shifting more Republicans. So I think Rubio would be a great ally in the Southwest and Florida and other parts of the country. Secondly, from a self-respective, I think he'd give the President foreign policy perspective that really isn't very self-evident at this point in the President's inner circle. And I think we're going to need that. I meant China is the dangerous place, Russia is the dangerous place, the Middle East is the dangerous neighborhood, the Ukraine is a very scary place. So I think Rubio would really be the best fit. I'm not sure what the North Dakota governor brings of the fact that he and Trump are sort of kindred entrepreneurial spirits. And then Vance, who's sort of on the rail from Ohio, I don't know what he brings you, he's 40, so he's younger, he's more energetic and dynamic. But, you know, anybody who thinks Ohio is a battleground state, didn't look at the last gubernatorial election. So Gavin Newsom in California, and everybody goes California is so democratic, Gavin Newsom got 58%, Mike DeWine in Ohio almost got 66%. So that'll tell you how red Ohio is these days. So I don't think I'm buying the Vance stuff. I think if I had to guess, I think it'll be Rubio. At least I hope it will. Is there a problem though because they're both Rubio and Trump are both residents of the state of Florida? I can't answer that. That's left the constitutional scholars. Somebody can buy a condo somewhere and solve that problem. Okay, interesting thought. All right, finally, Scott, you're going to be here in Milwaukee, obviously, for the RNC. I want to ask you real quick, what do you expect in terms of the excitement? Is this going to put a poll over what's normally a very happy time for, as you said, political junkies? I think it puts a poll over the nation as a whole. I think for the Trump folks watching him walk into that arena Thursday night to give a speech, I think it's going to be whatever normal amplification applause, levels of cheering you here, I think with Trump it'll be cubed. So it's going to be a rip-roar Thursday night. Again, I think you've got to distinguish between the party insiders on both sides who view these very differently. And those of us who live in the real world, we'll all tune in and watch part of Trump's speech. And then, obviously, the buildup is going to be to Wednesday for the speech from the vice president. So I suspect the president will actually make that announcement on Tuesday so that we know who's going to be speaking on Wednesday. I think it's already decided. I think there's a sense it was held very tightly, and Trump's own head, and he hadn't shared it very much. But at this point, you've got to vet all those candidates. Somebody's got to be working on a speech. Somebody has to be preparing for this to get family and friends and everybody else into the arena. So I would look for it to start to leak out. I would think sometime late tomorrow or early Tuesday morning. So it'll be, I'm sorry, Libby, sorry and wrap. I think it'll be a very, it'll be an interesting convention to watch. And I think this is, this has changed the tone for the election as a whole. And I think it's also changed it for the Republican delegates in a different way. They're going to be rallying around their guy. Former Madison Congressman Scott Klug, we can hear you're lost in the middle podcast America's political orphans. Wherever podcasts are. Scott, as always, thanks for joining us today. You too, Libby. Thanks a lot. I'll see you sometime this week in Milwaukee, I'm sure. You betcha. And welcome back to Wisconsin Week in Morning News. I'm Libby Collins. Jessica Gazzo is here with us as well. And joining us is Steve Scafidi from the political power hour. And Steve, you were here last night with live coverage, breaking news along with John Mecure and Vince Vittrano. When did you first learn that former President Trump had been shot? Yeah, almost immediately after it happened, I was watching it sort of casually watching TV. And as it happened, CNN was on. I saw the reaction, the, you know, the scroll on the bottom of the screen. And for the next 15 minutes or so, I was mesmerized by what I was reading and seeing and then started communicating with, of course, our team here at WTMJ. And I think a half hour later, maybe 35 minutes later, I was in the studio at WTMJ and we broadcast till I think nine o'clock last night. Obviously, an amazing story, a significant story. Not only I listened to your conversation with former Congressman Scott Klug, I think it does change the tone of the RNC. And certainly, hopefully, I would say, it changes the tone of our country in relation to how we view and talk about politics. Do you think it was getting too ugly out there? It has been for a while, Libby. And you know what my show is like. I try to turn down the temperature. It's not easy. It's never easy. And we've seen the escalation of voices, some even here in our own market who seem to thrive. Certainly, they make money on the idea that we should pit each pit ourselves against each other when it comes to politics. I never got a fan of that idea. I have good friends who are liberals. I have good friends who are Trump supporters and we all seem to get along and we can be able to have conversations. But yes, I do agree. I do think that we are at a point where maybe it takes, you know, an event like this to say, hold on a second here because here's what was remarkable when we were covering this last night. At some point last night, the current occupant of the White House, Joe Biden, had a conversation with the challenger to him, Donald Trump, the former president, 45, and from all accounts, civil, short, but a meaningful conversation, that on its own merit is interesting and amazing. Didn't you think it was interesting that President Biden kept referring to him as Donald? In almost an affectionate tone? Yeah, again, it has to change the tone here. And this is something that we're still learning about, right? We now we know the identity shooter, a shooter, a 20 year old person from Pennsylvania. We don't know motive yet. Obviously, we don't know a lot of the details, how someone I could do an hour just on how someone could get that close to an event like this and be able to do what he did. If we're really talking about inches here, inches, this is a completely different story. We're going we're echoing back to the assassination of, of John F Kennedy. Well, I was talking with a police officer friend of mine last night after this occurred. And she made the point that had former President Trump not turned his head just at that moment, that that bullet rang out that it was it would have been a completely different result from what we see today. It was just by by somebody was watching over him. I mean, the fact that he just tilted his head slightly just at that moment. And you can bet that that that gunman certainly had him in his sight. Anybody my age certainly remembers the video of the JFK session. I've been to Daily Plaza and in Dallas, and I've seen what that looks like went up to the Texas book, the repository, the floor, the area that where the shooter was at is now encased in like plexiglass. You can't go to that spot, but you can certainly see where it is. And and all of those images came to mind yesterday. And again, just but by the grace of God, we still have the candidate Donald Trump, former President Donald Trump able to carry on some of the images. And this is the the advances in technology and certainly in the video side. The imagery of that moment captured by photographers, videographers is incredible. Raised fists, a bloody Donald Trump laying on the stage four surrounded by all the secret service people images that my colleague, John McCur last night said, will probably end up remarkably in campaign ads as we move forward to the election in November. Yeah, yeah, no doubt about that. But but even more so in in the history books that here we have a photo of not just a former president, but certainly a political candidate who might be reelected and with his face bloodied like that and yet survives it. It's just it's a part of history now. One wonders if this will change things that's been allowed the morning early morning. I was up very early this morning. It's one of those things we use can't sleep and I was watching all the coverage and everybody's live and there are many of them are now in Milwaukee, which is kind of an interesting thing which will come face to face with when we do our shows on Monday from the Panther Arena here in Milwaukee Media Center. And they're all talking about the same thing. And here's what I noticed. And going back to that tone comment from former Congressman Scott Klup, the voices of all the commentators, some more political surrogates was more hushed, more reserved, and almost universally, perhaps universally was a call for calm as we sort of sort out the details and figure out where we had it, not just from this event where we had it as a country. Yeah, Scott, I've got more to ask you. We've got Steve Scafiti here, the host of WTMJ's political power hour. Steve, you were mayor of Oak Creek when the seat shooting take took place. I want to ask you about that and how it affected people in relationship to how the people who attended that rally were we'll do that in just a couple minutes. I'm Libby Collins on Wisconsin Weekend Morning News. I'm Libby Collins on Wisconsin Weekend Morning News Jessica Gatsaw is here with us as well from the WTMJ Breaking News Center. And before we get back to Steve Scafiti, those restrictions are going into place sometime today as far as getting in and out of the downtown area. That's right, Libby. We've got some closures already starting, especially on 794, the home bridge between Van Buren Street and Car Ferry Drive. That is closed through tomorrow morning at least. Other notable closures to keep in mind would be McKinley Avenue and Fondelac Avenue ramps for Wisconsin Highway 145, the 794 Eastbound area at James Lovell Street and the Kilborne Avenue tunnels. All of those will be closed throughout the week. And if you are headed right into the heart of downtown, there is a yellow zone where a sort of a soft security zone where vehicles can enter, but they'll need to go through a checkpoint. And those checkpoints are going to be Winnebago and 9th Fleet and 6 Wells and 9th State and Water, Michigan and Plankington Avenue, those five checkpoints for vehicles around the soft zones surrounding the RNC. And that'll be through. Well, until early Friday morning from what we understand. Jessica, thank you. We've got Steve Scafiti here. He is the host of WTMJ's political power hour heard every morning here. 9 o'clock on WTMJ. Steve, I got to ask you this because you were Mayor of Oak Creek when the shooting of the sick temple took place. And it affected a lot of people who were there. They were your constituents in the city. You had first responders who were there. With the people who were at this rally yesterday and witnessed this shooting and certainly the man in the stands who was killed, the others too critically injured, what sort of effect, long-term will it have on the people who were present based on your experience? Well, none of the people that were there and none of the people that were in Oak Creek at the time, you never forget that. You'll know the details. You remember what you were doing at the time. You'll certainly remember the coverage that's impactful and meaningful and very rapid-paced. And that all is happening right now as we cover the shooting of the former presidents in Pennsylvania. I think for those people who can see a positive here and the positive is that the former president thankfully was not seriously injured other than it looks like an injury to his ear, that's a positive. Going forward, and I'm going to go back to what I said before, is this that moments in this year of just divisive politics, hyper-partisanship, angry rhetoric when it comes to the back and forth where people say, "You know what? We don't have to do this." We can disagree completely on the issues and there's certainly plenty of things to disagree about from women's health abortion to gun rights to international policy to economic policy. All those things are fair game, but I'll go back to what I said before. You can have those conversations. Everybody has them, but you can do it in a way where you're not yelling or you're not angry to the point where you can't have a relationship with the person after the end of the conversation. And I think this is that moment, that critical moment where those who were there, those who are now seeing it because it's all over media and those who are talking about it have an important role to play. What positive impact will this have on us? And my hope is that all of us see this and talk about it in a much different way so that whatever happens in the election, America survives. We survive and we're in a better place because of what happened, not as a result of a tragedy that frankly happens too often in this country. Well, and sadly, I mean, we're also on Thursday with such an upbeat, happy feeling here in Milwaukee with the onset of the RNC. This certainly changes how a lot of people are feeling and I'm sure that the delegates are feeling this more than anyone right now. Yeah, I mean, I have a relative that's a delegate. I have some other context out there and I'm trying to just get them so far they've been pretty quiet and I can imagine this shock and strain in that and that responsibility they're going to have. But they're they I want to just see where they're at mentally and where they're at as far as excitement. The way I see the week playing out, a lot of uncertainty in the beginning, a little anxiousness, a little nervous energy, and if everything sort of slowly unrolls and we have the roll calls and we meet the delegates and we meet the all the elected officials and we cover that as we're going to do so well in 620 WTMJ, then it can sort of normalize to whatever this convention will be by Thursday night when the president speaks. And I know we're all kind of waiting, especially those of you who are going to be right there at the convention doing your shows live. We're not quite sure how this is all going to play out this way. No, I mean, you and I were talking, I think, Friday or maybe Thursday about my, I was scheduled to do interviews across networks, some BBC stuff, PBS, NBC, and there was an interview scheduled in the afternoon. At this moment, we have no idea if any of those things are going to happen. I know I'm doing an interview tonight for a Indianapolis TV station. That's still happening. It's not going to be downtown. It's going to be at my house. I know I'm hosting a show with Dr. Ken Harris at eight o'clock tonight talking about the week ahead and certainly looking back at what the events of Saturday will mean for all of us. But everything is up in the air. I can tell you my teammates are all kind of wondering how this is going to shake out. Even the logistics of getting into the Panther arena or getting down sound, I was promised I'd be able to get an easily yesterday. That was not the case and that a parking blocks away. You couldn't get to the station yesterday? No, there's somebody had either inadvertently or maybe on purpose or just maybe some choker, blocked the access on Michigan. So I had a drive to St. Kate's parked in their parking structure and then walked it over. So even that little bit of a chaos added to my energy when I got here last night. And I just want to say this real quickly, if you didn't have a chance to listen, it was a classic example of the all hands on deck approach of six point WTMJ. Vince Fittrano, Greg Masik, John McCure, myself, Wyatt Barnmore Pooley, Adam Roberts, Julia Fellow, other people in the newsroom. I mean, everybody was on deck and often in the building covering that breaking news story. That's why we're so good at it. And you had a and again, we played it earlier this morning, a great interview with former governor Scott Walker and his reaction within a very short time of what had occurred. Of course, he knows he knows President Trump very, very well. Well, Steve, we look forward to your coverage this week. We will be listening. We'll be watching to see if you make it to any of those network shows that I know you're scheduled for at least tentatively at this point. But yeah, selfishly speaking, Libby, I bought a new sport coat. So I hope I get to wear it. I hope you do too, Steve Scafidi, the political power hour. Thank you so much for spending time with us this morning. We'll be listening eight o'clock tonight. You and Dr. Ken Harris. Great to be on with you Libby. All right, take care. We've got just a minute left. I just want to remind you about our conversation at 11 o'clock this morning. When we talk with the son of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Now I did this conversation with him about 10 days ago. So obviously it was before the events yesterday. But he does, he does make reference during that interview to the assassination of his father. He also talks about his lack of secret service protection, which I know a lot of people are going to be looking at here as investigations take places to how this shooter got as close to former President Trump as he did. So you want to hear that? It's at 11 o'clock this morning. I think you'll find it very informative. Jessica, thank you for being here with me this morning.