Here & Now

McCoshen and Ross React to Foxconn, Shutdown

Frederica Freyberg:

So the fur is flying over Foxconn in Wisconsin and border wall negotiations in Washington. Never a dull moment. In tonight’s capital insight, we are joined by Republican lobbyist Bill McCoshen and Scot Ross, executive director of the liberal advocacy group One Wisconsin Now. Thanks for being here you guys.

Bill McCoshen, Scot Ross:

Thanks.

Frederica Freyberg:

I should say today is your last day as executive director of One Wisconsin Now. Have you just had it up to here with politics and division or what?

Scot Ross:

I figured, you know, we’ve got a Democratic governor, a Democratic attorney general and we just beat Robin Vos in federal court twice on two successive days. So I’m George Costanza. Im going out on a high note.

Frederica Freyberg:

All right. Let’s move along to Foxconn. The latest is that Foxconn got with or heard from President Trump and now they’re back in business in Wisconsin. Donald Trump even tweeting this afternoon, “Great news on Foxconn in Wisconsin after my conversation with Terry Gou!” So what is going on?

Bill McCoshen:

Thats a great question. How did we get to this point? I mean if you look at the public relations effort by Foxconn over the course of the last four days, what they were saying in Asia versus what they were saying here were totally different. And those two things couldn’t coexist. So I don’t know if it was a cultural issue or they didn’t quite understand the nuances of public relations here in the U.S. but I would say Foxconn got an F for public relations this week. Having said that, I would say Donald Trump resurrected this thing. And I know Scot agrees with me on this… all this guy does is win, right?

Frederica Freyberg:

But what did he do? Are these threats or promises?

Scot Ross:

I find it not surprising that a $4.5 billion deal written on a cocktail napkin by a 25-year career politician in the midst of the most — of the campaign that would end up with him losing would be a deal that’s just utterly and completely ridiculous. I think the really — the thing that’s not being talked about with this deal is the fact that we cannot forget Robin Vos, the Speaker of the Assembly, who this project is in his backyard, rewrote the law so that Foxconn would have even more of an open window controlled by Robin Vos. And I want to know if Robin Vos knew that this was going down before it went down. If he didn’t know, that’s even worse.

Frederica Freyberg:

Meanwhile, Robin Vos and Scott Fitzgerald are blaming Tony Evers for whatever has happened this week with Foxconn. What do you think of that?

Bill McCoshen:

I think the Asian story was that Foxconn themselves were blaming the change of administrations, that they had some conversations with the Evers administration, which may or may not have happened. That’s unclear whether or not it did.

Frederica Freyberg:

WEDC said that did not happen.

Scot Ross:

I mean it’s ridiculous. Listen, Robin Vos and the Republicans voted for this deal. Robin Vos and the Republicans around the state need to be answering questions about this. I don’t care where you’re at in Wisconsin. You’ve got a Republican rep nearby who voted for this or a Republican senator who voted this. You need to ask them what is the deal here because we’re not talking about like — Scott Walker said no credits, no — no jobs, no taxes. We’ve already spent $1.3 billion in tax money on this. They didn’t meet their first requirement. It’s an environmental disaster. They get to go right to the Supreme Court. They’ve done everything, rigged everything. What concerns me is that now that the door is open to this, the Republicans are going to try to give them everything they want so desperately that something will happen out of Foxconn.

Bill McCoshen:

Id be careful about being too quick to place blame here. This was a bipartisan deal. Tony Evers’ revenue secretary, Peter Barca was one that voted for this. Corey Mason, the new mayor of Racine voted for this. He’s a Democrat. This was a bipartisan deal. May not have been a lot of Democrats but it was bipartisan. Oh, by the way, if this fails, it’s failing on Tony Evers’ watch. This is critically important…

Scot Ross:

Thats the thing, right?

Bill McCoshen:

…that this succeeds.

Frederica Freyberg:

So how do you see it playing out?

Scot Ross:

I mean I think that — I think that Governor Evers has a lot of cards at his disposal. We’ve got the state budget coming up. Hopefully there’ll be some additional accountability measures put in this. But you know, the fact is that right now, if it goes as it, this is a disaster because we’re not getting what we wanted. I mean, you know, LCD vs OLED technology, when it comes to what the screens they were going to produce, everybody knew that OLED is the next, the next, the next phase.

Frederica Freyberg:

We’re back to LCDs.

Scot Ross:

Yeah, and I’ll tell you, Ill just tell you. If a fat guy tells you where to eat and what TV to get, you listen to him. I’m telling you that OLED was the technology we were going to depend on.

Frederica Freyberg:

You are on fire on your last day.

Bill McCoshen:

Donald Trump has put himself at the center of this. He’s decided I’m going to take ownership of this thing. It’s critical to my re-election in the state of Wisconsin. Remember he’s the first guy — Republican to win Wisconsin since 1984. He’s now fully vested in this thing. I feel pretty good about where we’re heading in the future.

Frederica Freyberg:

Speaking of fully vested and Donald Trump, it looks like we are hurdling headlong into another shutdown because he says build the wall and Nancy Pelosi says no money for the wall. I guess we should have expected this?

Bill McCoshen:

Its sad. It’s what people hate about Washington. I mean there’s an easy agreement to be had here that includes more immigration reform. Neither side is willing to find that middle ground. They’re both on the polar extremes. And it’s really sad. And I think he will call a national emergency and go ahead and build the wall.

Scot Ross:

Months ago there was a deal basically. They got some wall funding and we got DACA. And Stephen Miller went to Trump in his, you know, Klansman Dobby way and said, “No, can’t have this.” So now we’re in a shutdown. The thing about it is Trump’s had what? Three failed casinos. He should realize, the House always wins.

Bill McCoshen:

Thats tough to top. It’s his last day. He came on fire.

Frederica Freyberg:

Who does that hurt politically, though more, do you think, a shutdown, another shutdown? I mean, you know, in Wisconsin apparently the Marquette poll respondents say it was all Trump’s fault the last time.

[intelligible – talking over each other]

Bill McCoshen:

For sure.

Frederica Freyberg:

And what do you make of those poll numbers from Charles Franklin that say that 53% of those polled say that Scott Walker should not run for governor again?

Scot Ross:

Why are they only 53%? I think that what it is it shows that people are tired of Scott Walker. They wanted a change. That’s why they voted for Tony Evers. The fact that Scott Walker continues to tweet and tweet and tweet like he’s hanging out in the parking lot waiting for the rest of the kids that he went to high school with to come out and hang out with him. It’s just — it’s sad. He needs to — he needs to walk away. At some point in time, you need to walk away from things.

Bill McCoshen:

Its a good indication to Governor Walker that a he should go dark for a while. His legacy will grow over time with darkness, not with constant visibility. That would be my advice.

Frederica Freyberg:

All right. Bill McCoshen, Scot Ross, thanks very much.

Bill McCoshen, Scot Ross:

Thank you.

Frederica Freyberg:

Good luck.

Bill McCoshen:

Good to see you man.