Podcasts

Frederica Freyberg:
State Attorney General Josh Kaul held a press conference today stating the Department of Justice will protect the rights of Wisconsinites from the newly elected Trump administration.

Josh Kaul:
And let me say that if the new administration infringes upon the freedoms of Wisconsinites or attempts to use our system of justice as a tool for vengeance, we will act. We will act to protect the best interests of the people of the state of Wisconsin. We’ll act to uphold equal justice under the law, and we will act to defend Wisconsinites’ freedoms.

Frederica Freyberg:
The attorney general also addressed targeted racist texts being sent to people across the country and here in Wisconsin.

Josh Kaul:
Anybody making racist statements or bigoted statements in text messages is something we cannot tolerate. I encourage anybody who has information about those texts to contact local law enforcement. I think it’s important that there’s an appropriate law enforcement response.

Frederica Freyberg:
A stunning win for Donald Trump, with Republicans also taking the U.S. Senate and probably the House. Our political panelists Republican Bill McCoshen and Democrat Scot Ross weigh in and hello.

Bill McCoshen:
Good to be back.

Frederica Freyberg:
So, Bill, what is Donald Trump’s appeal to a wide swath of voters in Wisconsin and elsewhere?

Bill McCoshen:
So he grew his base with women, with men on college campuses, with Hispanics, with Blacks, with young voters. I think the appeal really revolves around the top issues that he discussed and that’s the economy and immigration. Those are the primary issues for all walks of life here in the state of Wisconsin and frankly, across the country. And I think that’s why he improved in 49 out of 50 states. In the state of Wisconsin, he now has the highest turnout ever at roughly 1.7 million. And frankly, to her credit, Kamala Harris has the third highest total ever. The only one who — Democrat who did better than her was Barack Obama in 2008. And there’s only 10,000 votes that separate them. So while overall turnout in the country was down considerably, it was up in the state of Wisconsin.

Frederica Freyberg:
So, Scot, what do you make of Donald Trump’s appeal in Wisconsin and elsewhere?

Scot Ross:
Well, I think it’s unfortunate that America would rather put a racist rapist who’s been convicted of 34 felonies in the White House than a woman. And I think it came down to two things. I think it came down to sexism. And I think it came down to hundreds of millions of dollars in transphobic ads that were that were appealing to people’s worst natures. You know, if you want to talk about the economy, we lost 3 million jobs under Donald Trump. We gained 15 million jobs under Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. So it’s very clear that the economy was not at play here. As much as I appreciate what Bill is saying, it was very much a divisive, hate-filled campaign by Donald Trump. Kamala Harris tried to parry that with joy. It did not work in the end. And people are going to suffer all across Wisconsin, all across the United States for that. And our economy is certainly going to suffer.

Bill McCoshen:
I don’t think Democrats planned out the full switch after Joe Biden was displaced on July 23rd. I don’t think they had the next several steps figured out and there were some misses. The first miss was potentially having a competitive primary, albeit short, prior to the DNC. The second miss was there should have been some distance created between Harris and Biden, and they should have worked that out before this thing really got rolling and that ultimately really hurt her. Her interview on “The View” three weeks out is when I knew this thing was over, when she said she can’t think of anything that she would have done differently than Joe Biden. Well, this was a change election. So if you’re the same thing, you’re not going to win.

Frederica Freyberg:
How do you respond to what Scot said about Donald Trump?

Bill McCoshen:
People have factored that in. This is — I call him the Terminator. This guy has been whether it’s impeachment, indictments, they tried to bankrupt him. There were two assassination attempts on him. Every time one of those major events happened, he got stronger, not weaker. He got 72 million votes this time. He had 74 million last time. The big drop off actually came on the Democratic side. So the energy was with Donald Trump.

Scot Ross:
Yeah, and I don’t understand. I mean, I think that the Harris campaign, I thought they ran a really, really good campaign, but where it seemed to end, where the momentum seemed to end and, you know, looking back is honest to God, when Tim Walz stopped calling J.D. Vance weird, when Kamala Harris stopped saying they’re out of their minds. I mean, these were manifestly, you know, in some, you could argue, deranged position places that the Republicans wanted to put us in and not — and going after the Charlie Sykes/Liz Cheney voters.

Bill McCoshen:
I loved it.

Scot Ross:
I just, I mean, I — that one was, that one that baffled me. You know, I get, you know, it’s trying to bring everybody in, get enough people to get to 50%. But turning down the what the alarm at what actually is going to happen the next you know, four years, you know, things like the national abortion ban, $4 trillion in more tax cuts, mass deportations of human beings out of the United States of America. And this is going to be a disaster. We saw on Friday Donald Trump had Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, sitting on a call with, with, with, with Zelensky, for God’s sakes. I mean, this is scary stuff. You know, it’s going to be — it’s going to be a test. You know, we have failed this test of the American character. Now it’s time we’re going to have to like try and get back, back, to back to places and liberals and right-minded people are going to have to stand up to this guy. And the power that he now has, as you say, the U.S. Senate and possibly the House of Representatives.

Bill McCoshen:
I think the failure was with the liberal elites. When they called Trump supporters cultists, nazis and garbage, that was fuel for Trump supporters to get to the polls and bring low propensity voters to the polls, in some cases, for the very first time, including in the state of Wisconsin.

Scot Ross:
And maybe that was unique for Trump because, again, we saw, you know, Senator Baldwin was returned to the U.S. Senate. We talked about the giant gains in the legislature here in the state of Wisconsin. We didn’t do well with the House, that’s for sure. And there’s a lot of improvement there. I don’t know when the DCCC is going to target Wisconsin again because of the performance of the two main candidates. But, you know, I think the one bright side, if you’re — you know, if you’re looking at Tammy Baldwin, the other bright side you’re looking at is you probably with this have guaranteed that Democrats in the state are going to control government sometime within the next four years, and we’re going to have a lock on the Supreme Court because 2025, 2026 and 2027 are going to be massive backlashes against the insanity of Project 2025 and what Donald Trump is going to do to destroy this country and play to people like Elon Musk, while people are suffering.

Bill McCoshen:
Let me pick up on one of his points. This was a Trump wave, not a red wave. And Republicans should be very careful how they interpret the results of this. The only way that this becomes durable going forward is if they actually enact the agenda that he ran on. So they have the House, they have the Senate, they have the tools and the levers to make this stuff happen. If they do not deliver, the Republicans who abandoned him will get primaried. There’s no doubt about it.

Frederica Freyberg:
What do you think the Trump administration, Bill, is going to do on day one?

Bill McCoshen:
I think they’re so much further ahead. I know they are, than they were in 2016. They’ve been working on the transition since literally the day after the convention in Milwaukee. They will have those 5000 appointees ready to go on day one, and they will have a different caliber of cabinet than they had last time. There might be some similarities. We’ll see. But these are people that have very, very successful careers who are willing to leave those careers for a one term president to try and put this country on the right track. So I think the key criteria for the cabinet members is, are you here for the right reasons? Are you here to enact the agenda? If so, you make it to the next level. If you’re for here yourself, you’re out.

Scot Ross:
The guardrails are gone. I mean, just thinking about things like Aileen Cannon being made the attorney general, things like that, this is going to be punitive. He’s promised it. If he’s making good on his promises, he’s promised to punish his opponents and using the full force of the government to do that, including law enforcement. He’s going to do that. It’s going to be disastrous. It’s going to be corrupt. It’s going to be un-American. You know, if I’m — but again, if I’m a citizen out there and I’m thinking, what do I do? Use your voice, run for office and demand that your Democrats stand up to this guy and do communications every single day, because I think that’s one place where the Democrats fail. They don’t work the press like they should. They’re not out there fighting that way and it needs to because people sit and watch television. You need to make sure that television news is talking about what you want them to talk about.

Frederica Freyberg:
Bill, he’s expressing fear of what’s to come.

Bill McCoshen:
I think it’s misplaced. I think people are going to be excited about the changes that are coming. It’s common sense. It’s things that will benefit Democrats, independents and Republicans to get the government out of the way. Let’s not have Big Brother in Washington D.C. Let’s have the government that our founders intended. And I think that’s the government Donald Trump’s going to try and enact.

Frederica Freyberg:
We’ll see. Thanks both. Thanks for all your work with us this election cycle.

Bill McCoshen:
You bet.