Recapping The 2nd Night Of RNC

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Brian: It's the Brian Lehrer show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. At the Republican convention last night, it seemed like it was Melania Trump's job to convince America that her family has the empathy that her husband and his sons never seem to express. Here is Mrs. Trump sounding so different from her husband on the coronavirus.

Melania: I want to acknowledge the fact that since March, our lives have changed drastically. The Invisible enemy COVID-19 swept across our beautiful country and impacted all of us. My deepest sympathy goes out to everyone who has lost a loved one and my prayers are with those who are ill or suffering. I know many people are anxious, and some feel helpless, I want you to know you're not alone.

Brian: Melania Trump on the coronavirus. Here's one more. Melania sounding so different from her husband on racism in America, though she never says systemic racism or Black Lives Matter. She does say this.

Melania: Like all of you, I have reflected on the racial unrest in our country. It is a harsh reality, that we are not proud of parts of our history. I encourage people to focus on our future while still learning from our past. We must remember that today we are all one community comprised of many races, religions, and ethnicities. Our diverse and storied history is what makes our country strong and yet, we still have so much to learn from one another.

Brian: Melania Trump last night. Many commentators today are saying it seemed like on race and on the virus, it was an attempt to reassure mostly white suburban women who according to polls, and of course the 2018 midterm election results have been getting alienated from the Republican Party since her husband was elected. What does it mean when the First Lady sounds different from almost all the other speakers? Here, Trump economics advisor, Lawrence Kudlow speaking of the virus, he speaks in the past tense.

Lawrence: It was awful. Health and economic impacts were tragic. Hardship and heartbreak were everywhere, but presidential leadership came swiftly and effectively with an extraordinary rescue for health and safety to successfully fight the COVID virus.

Brian: I'm glad we're done with all that. Lawrence Kudlow last night. If Melania's job was to reassure white suburbanites. There have also been attempts to scare them with lies like that Biden would abolish the suburbs from the mouths of the suburban St. Louis couple, the McCloskeys on Monday night, presented as victims though they stand charged with brandishing a gun at Black Lives Matter protesters who were walking past their house to protest at the mayor's house nearby. With me now, Washington Post columnist Jonathan Capehart, whose latest piece is called Jacob Blake shows the McCloskeys' concern for 'basic safety' doesn't apply to Black Americans. Jonathan also hosts the podcast, Cape Up. Thanks for coming on today, Jonathan. Welcome back to WNYC. Jonathan, do we have you? Can you hear me?

Jonathan: I'm right here.

Brian: There you go. Hi. Here for the listeners' context is the clip of Patricia McCloskey that you frame your column around.

Patricia: When we don't have basic safety and security in our communities, we'll never be free to build a brighter future for ourselves, for our children, or for our country.

Brian: Jonathan, tell us why that particular line spurred you to write?

Jonathan: It was offensive when you view it or listen to it with the shooting of Jacob Blake in the back of your mind. Where was his basic safety and security in his community? The part of that sentence that really struck me was when she said, "We'll never be free to build a brighter future for ourselves, for our children." Three of Jacob Blake's six children were in the backseat of that car and saw their father being shot in the back seven times. Where's their future? Where's their safety and security? That's why the Republican convention, especially on Monday night, that first night was like seeing a signal come in from earth two where there is no coronavirus pandemic, there is no economy in freefall, and there is no racial injustice where African Americans, both male and female, have to live in fear of the very people who are sworn to protect and serve them.

Brian: What's unfolding in Kenosha, Wisconsin, where Jacob Blake lives is tragedy upon tragedy. Among them, the family said yesterday that Mr. Blake age 29 is now paralyzed from the waist down as a result of being shot by the officer those seven times. The police department there is still not saying much about the incident, neither is the investigative body in Wisconsin that's looking into it. They're not saying the name of the officer who fired the weapon or giving many details at all from their point of view. The withholding of the basic information is now one of the things fueling the protests. There is this awful video; yet, another traumatizing video. What do you know at this point?

Jonathan: At this point, given the video that we've seen, the initial one and the second one. The thing that comes to mind for me is we still don't know what [sound cut] the police to not only follow Jacob Blake around his car but to also grab his T-shirt and then to shoot him seven times. We still need to see, if any exist, more video or at least hear from the police about what happened. Hear from witnesses about what happened. If memory serves, there's reporting that those officers did not have body cameras. I think what we have seen already to my mind is enough because no matter what happened, police officers are not supposed to shoot people in the back. Period.

Brian: After last night in Kenosha, reportedly two people are dead and one critically injured after violence broke out at a gas station apparently between armed civilians. The Kenosha County Sheriff David Beth said, "This is why don't deputize citizens with guns to protect Kenosha." That's a quote. He called the armed men who said they were there to protect local businesses, vigilantes. That's what the sheriff called them. This happened after your article was published, but does this tie back to glorifying the McCloskeys at the convention?

Jonathan: Yes, it does because what we're seeing out of the Republican convention is an intentional melding of the peaceful protests with the violence and the destruction that happens in the evening trying to make them one in the same, trying to make it seem as though those people who are protesting on behalf of Jacob Blake individually, but also on behalf of Black Lives more broadly are bent on destruction. We have seen since the killing of George Floyd that people have taken to the streets because they're tired of seeing what they're seeing. They're exercising their first amendment rights. The overwhelming majority of these protests have been peaceful. I would remind people that when the protests happened in Minneapolis, Minnesota State Attorney General Keith Ellison made a point, very early on, of highlighting one particular so-called demonstrator. They called him umbrella man. He was dressed all in black, had a black mask, sunglasses, carrying a black umbrella, which the Attorney General Ellison said was very useful in terms of concealing his identity from either cameras or drones or whatever might be able to see him from above and ask the question, who is this person and where is he from? It turns out that that person, that umbrella man had ties to white supremacist organizations. We need to as we decry the violence that's happening on the fringes of these protests, we need to ask the next question. Not why are Black Lives Matter protesters destroying communities, we should be asking who are these people who are destroying communities? From the reporting I've seen out of Kenosha, if you've got armed militias who are participating, if you will, in these events that are happening, well, then shouldn't the conversation be why are armed militias taking part in this? Why are they doing this? Why are people so quick to assume that the violence that happens alongside the peaceful demonstrators, that it is the peaceful demonstrators who are responsible. We need to have a more nuanced and more intelligent conversation about what's happening. As I said this morning on Morning Joe, this election is going to be about American democracy or white supremacy. When you have armed militias, whether it's in Kenosha or Minneapolis or in Portland, perhaps even, that to me is white supremacy taking a stand. I think that the American people if they truly care about our constitution, our country, and our democracy, that they have to say through the ballot box, that the person who is instigating this in tone and tenor needs to be voted out

Brian: Listeners, we can take your phone calls for Washington Post columnist Jonathan Capehart. (646) 435-7280, 646-435-7280. The Washington Post story on Kenosha last night also has a troubling detail about the armed vigilantes as the sheriff called them, believing internet rumors, specifically that protesters were planning to use pipe bombs, but there were no pipe bombs, but does that tell you something about the toxic mix of internet provocation and the prevalence of guns?

Jonathan: The internet gave birth to QAnon or QAnon incubated itself in the far right-wing, extreme conspiracy theorist. Now, one of the people who believes in the QAnon conspiracy is headed to Congress having won a primary. I cannot remember her name, but she is headed to Congress. Most likely in November, she's coming from a Ruby Red District. When you have right-wing conspiracy theories making their way into the halls of Congress, you have to ask yourself, why is that? How is that possible? It is possible because you have a president of the United States who himself dabbles and retweets conspiracy theories on a whole host of issues. Then on top of it, you have a Republican party that has completely lost its way and lost its voice and pushing back and saying to the country and saying to the president, "That's a conspiracy. That is a lie. That is not who we are as a party. That is not what we stand for, and that's not what we stand for as Americans." Instead, what we get is at a minimum silence. Unfortunately at maximum, we get full-throated indorsement of conspiracy theories.

Brian: To namecheck who that candidate is the QAnon supporter, and add a little more fat context from NPR reporting. Her name is Marjorie Taylor Greene. She's a construction executive. She won 57% of the vote in George's heavily Republican 14th congressional district handily defeating neurosurgeon, John Cowan, who had pitched himself as all of the conservative, none of the embarrassment, he lost. MPR calls her a Georgia Republican who has said that Muslims do not belong in government, as well as expressing her belief in the baseless QAnon conspiracy theory about Democrats and others being child molesters and the basement of pizza places and things like that. Then the story adds that President Trump congratulated Greene on Wednesday morning, that was last week after that primary, calling her a future Republican star who is strong on everything. After what we know about her, including, I mean probably even worse than believing in QAnon or voicing support for QAnon, is saying that Muslims do not belong in government, and then Trump can make a show of religious liberty at the convention last night as an issue, in speaker after speaker, and then support a candidate who says Muslims do not belong in government, Jonathan.

Jonathan: It is a lot of words that only pertain to-- For instance, with religious freedom, [inaudible 00:16:17] there is-- Sure, you can have religious freedom as long as you are a Christian or else you're on your own, or we're going to do our best to limit your religious freedom. That's what I'm getting at when I'm talking about American democracy versus white supremacy. You cannot say that you are for religious freedom out of one side of your mouth, and then out of the other side talk about banning Muslims from the country. The entirety of the Republican convention that I've seen so far has been an exercise in watching an alternate reality, an alternative universe. While I applaud the First Lady for her kind words and the wonderful sentiment expressed in them, they ring hollow three and a half years into an administration that has done everything to exacerbate long-standing tensions, to pick at the scab of racism, to peddle in xenophobia, to belittle and bully people both private citizens and elected officials, bullying them into silence. Her words would have more power, would ring true if she were talking from a building where the person who sits in the oval office exhibited everything she was saying. As one person said I think in an e-mail, or I may have seen it as a comment on social media, "Nice words, but you still go back into the building where everything that is said, and everything that is done runs counter to [inaudible 00:18:26] ."

Brian: My guest is Washington Post columnist, Jonathan Capehart. His latest column, Jacob Blake shows the McCloskeys' concern for 'basic safety' doesn't apply to Black Americans. Jonathan, we're getting a number of calls from people who want to defend the McCloskeys or at least say their arrest and inditement raises a legitimate issue. Let's take one of those calls. Stewart in Wayne, New Jersey. You're on WNYC. Hi, Stewart.

Stewart: Hi, good morning. I just wanted to agree with everything that Jonathan has said here. I'm 70 years old. I'm a Vietnam veteran. I am Anglo, white is you prefer. I'm a father, a grandfather, and a great-grandfather. I have served alongside men of color in a war zone, and I've depended on them, as they have depended on me. As I watch this time we're in, where the McCloskeys wave guns at people as they walk down the private privilege street, I sit there and shutter because it is we, the 28 million, that have taken to the streets to protest what we see as wrong. We're not the ones waving the guns walking by. I grant you there's violence in the streets. Mrs. Jackson yesterday spoke of it with respect to her son, but my God, these people are spoiling for a fight. I don't know what they think they're up to, I don't know where they think they're going when they start waving guns at people just walking by.

Brian: Obviously, I was mistaken about you saying that McCloskeys were raising a legitimate issue, but you did tell our screener I think that you're having this debate. People are having this debate in your suburban community, correct?

Stewart: Yes. Here in Wayne, New Jersey, we're up against the wall by the New Jersey Supreme Court over affordable housing. It is in the New Jersey constitution since 1947 that there will be some affordable housing. I can't quote the exact passage, but here we are in 2020, and this township is flat up against the wall by the courts over affordable housing. They fought tooth and nail, and they're echoing exactly what we're hearing from Trump and the rest about this assault on suburban America. Wayne, New Jersey's pretty suburban in a lot of ways. The idea that somehow those people on the other side of the hill are going to come over here and burn our city, savage our families, and what have you, is just absolutely preposterous. We have Muslims living next door to us now. We have people from Italy who've been here for generations. We have Jewish people on our block. Here I am a Polish, Irish white guy. This idea that somehow now, today, in this melting pot, that this whole thing is going to go critical mass because of affordable housing just astonishes me. If they'd been in a war zone, if they got up yesterday and realized that last night they almost didn't make it, maybe they'd look at things differently. Right now, they want to tear down everything in the name of their view. Jonathan Capehart has every right in the world to be concerned about it. That young man's mother yesterday will go down in the history books for the way she responded to what's going on around her.

Brian: Stewart, thank you so much. Jonathan, to give voice to Black Trump supporters for the day after Black republicanism was so prominent in their convention Monday night. We had two guests yesterday who wrote a book arguing for Black Americans to vote for Trump and predicting that more will. I was expecting something like a Ben Carson or Tim Scott focused argument whether anyone agrees with them or not. Instead, they were flinging all kinds of to my ear way over the top things like supporting the McCloskeys and claiming that the Democrats want to abolish single-family housing, which is false. Nevermind, the Trump family made their fortune on segregated housing in part originally. They apparently want to help people keep it that way with their new policy. Crazy stuff coming out of these guests, like Planned Parenthood is trying to depress Black population rather than give women choices. One of them even said at one point, the Black family was more together in 1860. So outrageous to soft-pedal enslavement like that compared to anything. I'm just curious from your own reporting, whether that list of things, that kind of language is being used elsewhere in support of Trump because the Trump people think that's going to somehow get a few more percentage points of Black votes. Do you have any take on tone, and whether the appeal is anything like that in an organized way?

Jonathan: If the appeal is organized?

Brian: That's my question.

Jonathan: I'd be lying if I said I had not heard some of the things you've said from some people purporting to be Black on Twitter. Look, on television last night, the African-Americans we saw speaking at the Republican convention, two things are going on here. I'll deal with the Black piece first. The President, he says he wants to win the African-American vote. No, what he's trying to do is to slice off enough African-Americans away from the Biden-Harris ticket. One, to depress their vote. Two-- The primary goal is to depress Black turnout for the Biden-Harris ticket, but if he is able to earn some African American votes in a close election that could mean something. That's the secondary goal. The primary goal here by appealing to African Americans and by putting more to the point, putting African-Americans on television at his convention has everything to do with making white people feel comfortable voting for him again because there are Black people speaking on his behalf. As Noah Rothmansaid, again, we were on Morning Joe together this morning and I think he's absolutely right that what they are doing at the Republican convention and particularly by having African-Americans like Herschel Walker and the newly elected, attorney general of Kentucky whose African-American, what they are doing is providing a permission structure for white voters who voted for Trump in 2016, but who may be a little squishy on potentially voting for him now because of the tweets, because of the jailing of kids on the border, because of his continual picking at the scab of our nation's racial wounds. They need an excuse to vote for him again and as we have seen white voters will, and I know I'm generalizing here, but white voters particularly those who voted for him in 2016, they need to have a reason, any reason to go and pull the lever for him again in 2020. That's why you're seeing what you're seeing at the Republican convention. That's why you're hearing, why you heard what you heard yesterday with your Black guests for Trump. Their audience was not other African Americans. Their audience were white voters who might be squishy on Trump.

Brian: Now, I think we do have a caller. I'll take one of the other callers who's calling into-- I think I'll get this one. That he is actually defending what the McCloskeys did at their home. John in Lumberton, New Jersey. You're on WNYC with Washington Post columnist, Jonathan Capehart. Hi, John. Thank you for calling.

John: Certainly. How are you?

Brian: Okay.

John: My comment is basically your guest here keep saying that they were brandishing firearms against the crowd that was just walking through their neighborhood. Why don't we tell the truth. The crowd that busted through a gate, I've seen the pictures of the gate. Everybody has, they've destroyed it, to trespass into the neighborhood. Then they told them they were going to burn their house down while they were in it, so they defended themselves. That's one point to make or actually, maybe you could stop your guest and people on the show from making acquisitions that are false.

Brian: Let's stop at that and leave it at that point because Jonathan also is going to run out of time. He has a hard out at 10:30. Go ahead and respond to John's description there of what the real context was as he sees it.

Jonathan: It's a gated community, fine, that is true. Those protesters didn't just bust into any gated community. They were going and taking their peaceful protest to the mayor's house. The McCloskeys' house apparently was on the way to the mayor's house. Every video that we have seen has been of the protestors walking on the sidewalk, walking past while Mark and Patricia McCloskey waving an assault rifle. Mrs. McCloskey pointing her pistol at peaceful protesters. If you wanted to know why they were charged with a felony, they broke the law. For people who are all about law and order, they should not be surprised that they have been indicted for a felony of waving weapons at a crowd. Protesting is protected under the first amendment. They should not-- Waving weapons at them was wrong. If the shoe were on the other foot, I guarantee you the Republican party would be breathing hellfire on people of color, African Americans in particular, waving guns at protestors. I just want to end on this one point for every one up in high dudgeon about the McCloskeys defending their home and the rule of law and protection. Where were those people when the president of the United States unleashed federal officers, some of whom were unidentified on peaceful protesters at Lafayette Square, the square in front of the White House. Cleared them out with tear gas and rubber bullets so that he could walk out of the White House, across the park, and stand in front of a church, holding a borrowed Bible upside down for a photo op. That is what should be angering the law and order crowd. That is what should be angering the American people.

Brian: Jonathan Capehart, Washington Post columnist, and host of the podcast, Cape Up. Jonathan, thank you. Brian Lehrer on WNYC. New York City Council Speaker Corey Johnson next. Stay with us.

 

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