Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. There were at least two dramatic settings to watch people talk from last night. One was the White House, where the convention speeches took place before a large crowd estimated at more than a thousand people that made a show of not socially distancing and in the large majority, not wearing masks. The other, speaking as a New Yorker and a Mets fan since I was a kid growing up in Queens, was the mostly empty baseball stadium there, Citi Field. The Mets versus Marlins game, like many scheduled sporting events, did not take place last night. In the Mets case, somewhat to respect the feelings of one of their young stars, Dominick Smith, one of only two black players on the Mets, very popular with the fans mostly for his hitting, but also in part because he's known for his upbeat fan friendly demeanor. After Wednesday night's game, Dom Smith was one of those big tough strapping athletes who couldn't help but show his human vulnerability.

Dominick Smith: I think the most difficult part is to see like people still don't care. For this to just continuously happen, I mean, it just shows just the hate in people's heart. I mean, that just sucks, you know? Being a Black man in America is not easy. Like I said, I wasn't there today, but I'll bounce back. I'll be fine.

Brian: Yes, Tom Hanks. There is crying in baseball when the stakes are higher than a game. The Mets and Marlins took the field last night in Queens, stood in silence for 42 seconds. 42 was Jackie Robinson's uniform number. Then they tip their caps to each other and walk back into their dugouts. The camera on the Mets TV channel, SNY, then showed home plate where a member of the grounds crew had placed a shirt that said Black Lives Matter. At the Republican convention, one of the things commentators have noticed this week was that nobody would speak Jacob Blake's name and nobody would speak the words Black Lives Matter. Well, last night, somebody did say Black Lives Matter. However, it was former New York Mayor, Rudy Giuliani, who said it like this.

Rudy Giuliani: Black Lives Matter and Antifa sprang into action, and in a flash, they hijacked the peaceful protests into vicious, brutal riots.

Brian: Take that, Dominick Smith from the New York Mets. Maybe it was because Rudy is a well known Yankees fan, or maybe it was deeper than that. Speaking before Rudy, his ally, the New York city Police Union Chief, Pat Lynch, did not say the words Black Lives Matter, but he framed the protest movement like this.

Pat Lynch: The violence and chaos we're seeing now isn't a side effect. It isn't an unintended consequence. It's actually the goal.

Brian: One of the big contradictions of the convention was the framing of the protest movement in ways like those, while featuring many Black speakers to make the case that President Trump is not a racist and really cares what happens to them. One of those speakers last night was Trump's Housing and Urban Development Secretary, Ben Carson, who said, "The cries of racism generally--" Well, he characterized it like this.

Ben Carson: My mother always told me, "Ben, you can do anything, but I will never allow you to become a victim." It was then that I stopped listening to the people who were trying to convince me that I was a victim and that others were responsible for my victimhood

Brian: Secretary Carson did, however, single out one thing happening in this country that he calls racist.

Ben: What is racist is the fact that African Americans have the highest abortion rate.

Brian: The president's daughter, Ivanka, also spoke last night. Remember when Trump was first elected and there was a lot of talk that Ivanka would keep her distance politically speaking? If that idea wasn't put to rest before, it certainly was last night.

Ivanka Trump: Tonight, I stand before you as the proud daughter of the people's president.

Brian: Remember when the talk was that being a politically moderate person, Ivanka would influence her father to move him to the center? She admitted last night it has actually worked the other way.

Ivanka: He is so unapologetic about his beliefs, that he has caused me and countless Americans to take a hard look at our own convictions and ask ourselves what do we stand for?

Brian: Note to the Washington press corps, ask Ivanka when you get a chance what she meant by that. How what she stands for during these last four years has changed. As for the president's speech, A lot of the commentary this morning is about how hard he went after Joe Biden and the Democrats. Yes, we've been hearing the argument all week that the Democrats will give us crime and economic decline. No surprise there that the president continued that. We've heard it already today here in some of the clips we've already played. Republicans always argue with that. To me, the heart of the speech was the very long time that the president spent making the case that he has kept his promises on policy. Now, if some people say this is a post-policy election, if you heard that term, I'm not so sure. Trump and Biden disagree on so many policies. We could cover 30 issues in 30 days in the month leading up to the election and not run out. Here are just some of the examples from last night where the president said he kept his policy promises.

Donald Trump: We shocked the Washington establishment and withdrew from the last administration's job killing Trans-Pacific Partnership. I then immediately approved the Keystone XL and Dakota access pipelines and did the unfair and very costly Paris climate accord. We passed record setting tax and regulation cuts at a rate nobody had ever seen before. Perhaps no area did the Washington special interests try harder to just stop us than on my policy of Pro-American Immigration. I refuse to back down.

Brian: There were many more. Maybe this will be a post-policy election and a high stakes policy election at the same time. With me now, three guests. Juan Williams, co-host of The Five on Fox News Channel. A former NPR host and author of the book, What the Hell Have You Got to Lose? Trump's War on Civil Rights. Charlie Sykes for 23 years of conservative talk show host in Milwaukee. Now co-founder and editor-at-large of The Bulwark, a mostly conservative, the mostly anti-Trump news organization and author of the 2017 book, How the Right Lost Its Mind, in addition to earlier books, such as A Nation of Victims, A Nation of Moochers and Dumbing Down Our Kids. Rebeccah Heinrichs, a National Security expert at the mostly conservative Hudson Institute and adjunct professor at The Institute of World Politics and a contributing editor for Providence: A Journal of Christianity & American Foreign Policy. Juan and Charlie, welcome back. Rebeccah, welcome to WNYC.

Charlie Sykes: Thank you.

Juan Williams: Good to be with you.

Rebeccah Heinrichs: Thanks for having me.

Brian: I want to start by getting all of your thoughts on the juxtaposition this week of the events in Wisconsin and the sports world after the shooting of Jacob Blake and what we saw at the Republican convention. Charlie, as the Wisconsinite among us, would you go first and tell us your own reactions in human or policy terms, either/both, as well as what you think the political ramifications are for the presidential race?

Charlie Sykes: Well, yes. The situation here is fluid, and what really strikes me is how polarized the reaction has been both to the police shooting of Jacob Blake seven times in the back and the shooting deaths of two individuals by a 17-year-old militia member. This is one of those moments where you see how tribal everything has become. People have asked me is this playing into Donald Trump's hands? My honest answer is I don't know right now. The scenes of rioting, of burning in Kenosha, clearly, are sparking a backlash. Clearly, the polls would suggest that support for Black Lives Matter has declined. I think the chaos that we're seeing when you have militia members coming in to the community crossing state lines and killing people, I think that that's a big question mark in my mind. I will say one of the juxtapositions that I can't get out of my head is the way at the Republican National Convention they highlighted and lionized this white couple from St. Louis who came out brandishing weapons, pointing them at Black protesters, and the juxtaposition of that with this young 17-year-old in Kenosha who decided that he was also going to engage in vigilante action and comes into a volatile situation and leaves two people dead. This is a moment of real tension and, I think, a real danger for both political parties at the moment.

Brian: Listeners, you're invited in here too. The two weeks of conventions are over. Compare and contrast as you like. 646-435-7280 from whatever your political standpoint, 646- 435-7280 after the two weeks of political conventions. Juan Williams, same question I asked to Charlie, your reactions and your political analysis of it.

Juan: Well, I think we start with the speech last night, Brian. I thought the speech was a little flat. I was thinking it really was going to match the fireworks in the sky, which I don't know if you saw it, but they were spectacular over the White House last night. They even were able to spell out T-R-U-M-P 2020, unbelievable. Anyway, the speech itself did not live up to the billing not full of surprises and even the effort to really make the case that this should not be a referendum election on president Trump, but a binary choice between Trump and Biden and here is why you shouldn't vote for Biden. At some point he said Biden's weak. Obviously, as you articulated, he went after Biden, socialist tendencies the country will go to hell and all that. I thought there was going to be some higher octave that was going to be hit last night, and it just didn't happen. The setting was spectacular and all, but to pick up on what Charlie was saying, it's striking the dissonance between the convention, especially the Republican Convention and the reality in the world at this moment. It's not only Dominick Smith of the Mets crying. I think that there's a strong sense that the virus is still very real. I think there's economic instability with unemployment climbing and, of course, the racial tension. He did not, the president, mention Jacob Blake. He didn't mention Kyle Rittenhouse, the 17-year-old militia man. Never said a word about Black Lives Matter. A lot of it it seems to me is in a sphere where you would say it's the Trump show and it's in reruns, and maybe the speech came off as lacking anything punchy because we've heard much of it before.

Brian: Rebeccah Heinrichs, I know your expertise is mostly foreign policy. Do you want a way on this, in on this too?

Rebeccah: I would like to, thanks for the opportunity. I would just say I think internal polling is probably showing that the unrest in the streets, and especially in Kenosha, are something that the Democrats have to speak more directly to, which is why you had vice president Biden come out with a recorded statement saying that the protests and the riots or at least the riots and the violence has to stop. That underneath all of this unrest is real pain and real frustration that the country has to grapple with, but before we can do that, you got go back to your houses and you got to get out of the street. We just haven't seen that kind of statement as directly as the vice president gave it. I think that that's going to have to be even more elevated. Kamala Harris recently, it was days ago, but she had, essentially, given support to what was going on in the street and saying that it isn't going to stop and it shouldn't stop because this is a long time coming. I think that that message is going to have to change. Having said on that, on the Republican side, I've grown up in Republican politics and watched the issue of race unfold and have long been frustrated that Republicans conservatives aren't better at speaking directly to Black Americans and welcoming them into the party and giving them reason to join the party and trying to establish trust. What I was struck by was the direct appeal to Black Americans that was a constant theme. It wasn't just like a one thing that was mentioned on day one. I mean, you constantly saw Black elected officials, obviously, Senator Scott, but then I also thought it was incredibly impressive Attorney General Daniel Cameron from Kentucky talking specifically to Black Americans and making an appeal. I thought that that was a very good thing and then giving specific solutions. Senator Tim Scott, in particular, talking to Black Americans about what we can do to address some of these issues was a very fruitful thing. I was very impressed by that sustain theme, and I think that we need both. We need law and order, and we do need to address these issues so that Black Americans can feel incense and actually have a greater sense of equal justice under the law.

Brian: Juan, want to react to that?

Juan: Sure. I too noticed the strong number of Black people, specifically older Black men who had a role in the Republican Convention. It was striking, as Rebeccah says. Now, it was striking to me because I think the audience for this convention is, specifically in political terms, suburban White women, who at the moment have turned away from the president. They are a large cohort of the groups right now that have given Joe Biden the lead in the national polls and in the swing States. I think part of that discontent on the part of those suburbanites is that they feel the president is divisive and is specific device when it comes to a lot of his racial rhetoric and behavior. I think that the convention made an effort to speak to this and to say the president is not the person that you think he is based on the first-term record. That, in fact, he is someone who can show empathy. He can be nice. He can help people. He pardoned that woman who spoke last night who was in jail on a non-violent drug crime. He even pardoned a bank robber and another Black person during the course of the convention at the White house. I think that in large part, it was a message to people that the president is not racist. Ignore all you've heard before or thought before because I think in the polls, it's like more than 50% of Americans think the president is a racist. There was a secondary audience to pick up on Rebeccah's point, which is, I think that the Trump campaign, again, based on what I saw must think that they can do something with Black men. I think they got only 4% of the Black female vote last time but about 13% of the Black male vote, Brian. Maybe they think that there's an opportunity here to if not capture those votes, at least persuade those people not to come out and vote. The president recently said in a tape that was released that he really appreciated Black people who didn't vote in 2016, that it was critical in big cities like Milwaukee, like Philadelphia, like Detroit, and the difference allowed him to capture the Electoral College.

Brian: Charlie, he named check Milwaukee. That puts you on the mic.

Charlie: Yes, just a couple of things. Just a little bit misleading about Joe Biden's comments about the violence. He did make a taped comment about it, but then he also did it live twice yesterday, so did Kamala Harris. That is, in fact, new. I think he was very clear about it back in May as well, but I also agree that he's got to be more vocal about it. I'm sorry, guys, you have to have a reality check. This convention was a lot of gas lighting. Here's the context, the context is actual person, the character and the policies of Donald Trump. The president is a racist who is pursuing racist policies, who is running for re-election by fomenting racial division. The fact that you put on a made for television production, an infomercial in which you pretend that the reality that you've seen and we're experiencing is not real shouldn't actually distract from that fundamental fact. You step back and you think about what's actually happening in this country, the way in which the president is pouring gasoline on the racial divisions, the way in which he is pitting Black versus White, the way that he has run for office trying to foment a distrust and dislike of immigrants, please do not tell me that in the last four days, somehow, the Republican Party has found its compass or has come back because the dissonance between who Donald Trump is and what Donald Trump is doing and what the Republican party has enabled and the show they put on is pretty dramatic.

Brian: How do you-- And then we're going to move on and take some phone calls. Charlie, as an addendum to that, how do you put together all these explicit appeals to Black voters as we did see day after day with a lot of black faces up there. Maybe to some Black voters, maybe mostly older Black men, as Juan was saying, or using Black people to appeal to white suburban women to argue, "See Trump's not so bad. He's not so racist." At the same time putting Rudy Giuliani up there who equates Black Lives Matter with Antifa.

Charlie: Well, that's right. I mean, there's the dissonance. By the way, Juan was exactly right that I think that many of the appeals were not to African American voters, who quite frankly, I think they see who Donald Trump is. Donald Trump has told them who he is over and over again. They're watching what's going on. He not going to get a substantial portion of the African American vote, but Juan was right. That was aimed at these suburbanites who are disturbed by some of these policies, try to convince them he's not such a bad guy. I think that's a very, very insightful point. They understand that those black faces were not aimed at the Black community. They were aimed at the white suburban community.

Brian: With my guests, Charlie Sykes from The Bulwark, Juan Williams from Fox News Channel, and Rebeccah Heinrichs from the Hudson Institute. Sherry in Long Island City, you're on WNYC. Hi Sherry. Thank you for calling in.

Sherry: Hey, Brian. Thank you for taking my call. Charlie, thank you for saying what you just said. I second all of it. I've watched all four nights of the Republican Convention and I watched the Democratic Convention. The first night of the Republican Convention, my wife and my sister-in-law were sobbing because they were so distraught. A lot of people I know were distraught. My major concern at the second was Pat Lynch. What's up with that? The New York city police are asking New Yorkers, particularly New Yorkers of color to trust them, to work with them, we're not your enemy, and then the union goes and endorses Trump and Pat Lynch comes on and speaks in favor of him? If you're going to do ask the mayor today, I would love for you to ask the mayor how are we supposed to reconcile these things? How are we as New Yorkers of color, in fact, any New Yorkers to trust the New York Police Department when you have this happening?

Brian: Sherry, thank you very much. In fact, we do have asked the mayor today and I am going to ask the mayor to react to Pat Lynch and Rudy Giuliani at the convention. Let's go on to another caller. Gary in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hi Gary.

Gary: Hey. How's it going? Can you hear me?

Brian: Yes. I can hear fine.

Gary: Great. I've watched both weeks of all the conventions, and it's just really interesting to me because on the one side, you have Trump, obviously, gaslighting saying that there's no real worry about the virus. Don't worry about that. This is the real concern. Vice versa, on the democratic side, you have them saying, there's no street violence, there's no riots, don't worry. Both sides don't seem to recognize that other people have a completely different reality that they're living in. I live in Brooklyn, and we all know that police shootings over the past decade are down tremendously. If you point that out, people say, "No, police are still the real problem." Then if you look at the murder rate, obviously, it's going up a little bit, but it's still down from historic lows. Both things are actually getting better, but if you look at one side, it's all, no, the police are a huge spread. If you look at the other side, it's, no, crime is rising at an unprecedented level. It's really hard to get a clear picture of the reality when both sides are blatantly distorting statistics that show both things are actually going down tremendously.

Brian: The last complex thinker in America. Where do you come down for yourself, Gary, after all of that and trying to synthesize it into a reality that's real as you see it.

Gary: I've worked in criminal justice, and I also studied economics as an undergrad. I just looked at the data and I realized they're both trying to manipulate us emotionally to make us be afraid, either one thing or the other, when in reality, we have to just look and see most police are good, but also crime is almost at historic lows. You can't really trust these parties, which is why I'm a libertarian.

Brian: Gary, thank you very much for your call. He mentioned the virus. Rebeccah Heinrichs, I was looking over some of your clips from this year and I saw that you wrote on the conservative side of the federalists way back when the pandemic was first getting bad here, beginning on March 19th, that was the publication date for this. "We can do a better job of calmly and graciously communicating to our friends and family members that we must take this matter deadly seriously for ourselves and our neighbors. Reject the caricature of the American rugged individualist who relishes in rejecting wise counsel. It is not un-American to heed wisdom, to look outward toward the wellbeing of our community. Quite the opposite, in fact." Has president Trump calmly and graciously communicated taking this matter deadly seriously or as you advised rejected the caricature of the American rugged individualist who relishes his rejecting wise counsel?

Rebeccah: A couple of points on that. One, the one area where I think president Trump has had the hardest time on this is right in the beginning of the pandemic when his policies were to restrict travel from China and doing all these other things. That his rhetoric still didn't meet the gravity of what was happening that pandemic was beginning to hit the United States really hard. At the time, we didn't know how bad this novel virus was. We had very little information. We were still trying to get information from the WHO and from the Chinese, which we still haven't received all of the information we need to to be able to evaluate the virus. I think that that was definitely a misstep on the part of the president at that time. Now, as we've had more data, this is a virus that the news is changing. The data is coming in. We're getting more information from the Europeans as they open schools and that kind of thing. We have learned that it is, thankfully, less deadly than we thought it was. Although it's still very highly contagious, it still doesn't seem to impact children. We have new information. It's hard for me to say on here now exactly--

Brian: I can't let that stand. It does impact children, but I understand that there are lesser effects on children. There are, obviously, these big debates all over America about how much of a risk it is that they're going to spread it to their older family members, but go ahead, Rebeccah.

Rebeccah: Yes, certainly. I'm a mother of five. This is obviously an issue that I'm tracking very, very closely in concern for all of my children as they go back to school. I am tracking the data and watching and seeing how it not only just affects my children directly, but how they can be vectors into the larger society. The point I was making in that piece, though, too, was that, listen, if we don't want the government mandating things and telling us what we can and cannot do, then we as individuals need to be responsible and look out for our neighbor and wear our masks and wash our hands and follow instructions. That was what I was trying to urge Americans earlier on that that was a wise thing to do in a self-governing society, but do I think that we're there yet? No. I think that that's an area that we have really fallen down on, especially among conservatives, this idea that masks now have become so political that it's like a sign as don't tread on me to not wear a mask. I think that that's the problem. On the other side, people have also had a religious reaction and have come down really hard on people, who, for a variety of reasons, are not wearing a mask in particular situations. I wish we were better at this because we're going to-- I think we're going to have to be settled in and deal with this virus for a long time. I don't think it's going to be going anywhere.

Brian: Juan Williams, because I know you have to leave the group here in a minute, you want to have a reaction to this, and maybe including to the scene that we saw at the White House yesterday with more than a thousand people from the estimates that I've saw seen and not really socially distanced and most of them not wearing masks obviously to make a political statement.

Juan: Well, I think it has become politicized, and I agree with Rebeccah. It's just regrettable, and I think in large part politicized by president Trump, who for the longest time, not only didn't buy into the mask idea, but then refused to wear one, said he didn't think it was presidential. When you think about the push, it's an interesting push. It basically started with the Republican thing. We got Biden needs to get out of his basement. Why is he hiding in the basement? Now, it's been picked up by some, especially I think with all the tensions that we've talked about on this program the need for Biden to speak out about the racial situation, the tensions, the killings, all the rest that Biden yesterday said he is now willing to get out, but he wants to do so, Brian, in a way that he said abides by local regulations and rules in terms of gatherings. He doesn't plan to do big rallies. Instead, it would be short trips and stopping in a community center, maybe businesses, and he would aim at Wisconsin, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Arizona. He wants to do it, he said, in a way that's not reckless. I guess he's referring not only-- Obviously, he was speaking before last night in the White House lawn, but maybe speaking to what we saw in Tulsa, where the President held a rally. Several members of Trump's own campaign team got sick. There was a then an outbreak in that area. Of course, famously, Herman Cain, one of Trump's Black supporters not only got sick but died. I think that the emphasis here is that when the president goes into a local market, he gets lots of local television and radio attention. Biden wants to make sure that he doesn't allow the president to dominate in that way and then get a surprise on November 3rd. I think you're going to see former Vice President Biden out a bit but doing it in a way that's quite clear that he is abiding by the rules with regard to protecting people from spreading the virus.

Brian: Juan Williams, co-host of The Five on Fox News Channel, a former NPR host and author of the book, What the Hell Do You Have to Lose? Trump's War on Civil Rights. I know you have to go. Thank you very much for joining us this half-hour.

Juan: Thank you, Brian.

Brian: We'll continue with Charlie Sykes and Rebeccah Heinrichs and more of your calls in a minute. [music]

Brian: Brian Lehrer on WNYC as we continue to take stock of where we are after two weeks of Democratic and Republican conventions with Charlie Sykes for 23 years of conservative talk show host in Milwaukee, now co-founder and editor-at-large at The Bulwark, a mostly conservative but mostly anti-Trump news organization, and author of the 2017 book How the Right Lost Its Mind, in addition to earlier books, such as A Nation of Victims, A Nation of Moochers and Dumbing Down our Kids. Rebeccah Heinrichs, a National Security expert at the mostly conservative Hudson Institute, an adjunct professor at the Institute of World Politics, and a contributing editor for Providence: A Journal of Christianity & American Foreign Policy. Let's take another call. Tony in Newark, you're on WNYC. Hi, Tony. Thanks for calling in.

Tony: Hey, Brian, how are you doing?

Brian: Doing all right. How are you doing?

Tony: Okay. I was trying to catch Juan Williams and just to shout out to him because he's one of favorite people I love watching because just think about it. Juan Williams is that one guy that try to put a spin on Fox News for you to let you know that, "Listen, man, it's really not all this one way." Whereas in the White House, we have nobody to check him. They just let him go for free, but I digress. What I think about both conventions is this here. Here we have a situation where I don't understand how the basis people don't see what's going on. I just believe they're just in total denial. They're just in total denial. They don't want to accept the fact of what they see because all Trump has done since he's been at White House, he came in that White House, took that constitution and stuck it in the fireplace and started to run Trump International. He put the Trump International manual out, and that's what he's running. That's why when people leave or have to leave the government, it's no big deal to him because it's Trump International. If you leave, he just gets somebody replace you because he is the last word. In his mind he's the last word. He even brainwashed a lot of people like this to believe that ay, what I say is right, for whatever reason. You can see the constant lies. How are you going to have seven people get arrested around you, your circle of people, but you're the only good guy? Common sense tells you that he's guilty by association of anything, but it just seems like they have this disdain for Democrats. You have a supporter. A supporter can be changed. He can be turned. A loyalist cannot be turned because he has a different mindset. This is where we are today, which is that situation that happened with that kid walk down the street with that gun, it's an embarrassment and it's cowardice of his family to put their child out there to stand for something instead of them getting out there. Why didn't they get out there with their own gun? They're going to send their own child out there in that situation. It's just amazing that that child didn't get killed after they even killed someone. If that's a Black child doing that, those police cars would not have went by that Black child carrying that AK with his hands up. They might have shot him with his hands up. After they realized he was Black with a gun, now they just gave them a reason to do it. This is where we are today. Another atrocity that I want to just say to you is to watch those people at that convention sit there with no masks, total defiance of what the scientists say we need to do to protect us as a society, that was damn near a treasonous act , watching them sit there without any concern of what their situation will course once they leave that convention. We can't track them now. They're out in society now. I could guarantee you, all of them were not a systematic. They didn't give a damn how they was when they sat there, Brian. They didn't give a damn what situation they were going to create once they leave there. That's the mindset of these people who vote for Donald Trump. They're not American. I'm sorry, they're not American.

Brian: Totally. I'm going to move on and get some other people on here. Thank you. Keep calling us, Tony. We really appreciate your calls. Certainly, there is the risk that they started a super spreader event last night. They must have not thought, Charlie Sykes, because I know you wanted to get in on the earlier conversation about Trump and the virus. They must care. They must just not believe that they were at risk or putting other people at risk.

Charlie: No. I'm really glad we brought this up because, look, we're not really all in this together, are we? Remember when we would have national emergencies that would bring us together at least for a moment because we had this common challenge and common purpose, we were united? It's not true this time. This week, up till about five o'clock yesterday, more people died in this country from the coronavirus than died on 9/11. I know some people might find that offensive. We have 1,000 Americans dying a day. It feels like we have these alternative realities. We're going to see 300,000 deaths by December. This is one of the most egregious failures of leadership of government in American history. So 300,000 deaths in any other context, this would shock the conscience of the nation, but our reaction depends on these tribal identities. Think about it. I'm getting to what happened last night. For millions of Americans, this is an ongoing tragedy. Millions of Americans have missed weddings, funerals, graduations. They've lost loved ones. They've lost their jobs. They've lost their homes. Then we have this other America with it as events like the one we saw last night, where the President is gaslighting the country and referring to the pandemic in the past tense talking about how they had defeated it. It's all over. We don't need to engage in social distancing. It was an act of such political malpractice and arrogance last night. I don't know whether it, in fact, will be a super spreader but it certainly was-- Here's the president with the biggest bully pulpit in the world essentially telling people you don't have to take this seriously at a moment when thousands of Americans are dying every single week. It's breathtaking, and we should not normalize it.

Brian: Antonio in Bayside, you're on WNYC. Hello, Antonio.

Antonio: Hey, Brian, how's it going?

Brian: Good. How are you doing?

Antonio: All right. My point of view is essentially that both conventions were awful in the sense of that-- Well, Republican Convention speaks for itself. All the guys have said everything about it. That is quite clear. The Democrats had an amazing opportunity with the Republicans that they had to explain why they're voting for Joe. For example, like Casey could have said, "Republicans used to be about fiscal solvency and we passed the tax cut," or something along those lines. The Democrats could have said, "Trump wanted to cut the payroll tax. Do you know what that will do to the social programs? They're important because they fund not only Medicare but Medicaid." You know what I mean? There was no discussion, no discourse. Of course, we have a decision between Coke and Pepsi in its simplest terms, but I feel like the American people understood just a little bit, just a little bit of what is at stake, how important the judges would make appointing-- It's not like we would have a professor sitting there and putting everyone to sleep, but in my case, I would enjoy it because it's distracting for what we're going through altogether.

Brian: I understand. Well, let me get some reaction to that, Antonio. I'm really glad you brought that up, and it hearkens back to something I said way back at the top of the hour. Rebeccah Heinrichs, I wonder how much you think that this is a post-policy election and how much do you think it is a very policy-oriented election. To my ear, there wasn't that much policy at the democratic convention, but Trump and his speech last night went out of his way to list a lot of policy items, both domestic and foreign policy items on which he argues he kept his promises.

Rebeccah: Yes. I thought that, especially the first part of the president's speech was like a state of the union speech where he listed what he has accomplished, promises made, promises kept. These are the things I said I would do and I delivered on them. I actually had a different reaction to the Republicans Convention. Mollie Hemingway at The Federalist I thought characterized it really well, which is what I was thinking, which is that essentially, this week was the Republican's opportunity to provide a giant staff check in their eyes to what we have heard, and it's a narrative on a variety of fronts from major media outlets that the president is racist and the RNC thing. In fact, he's not racist, and here are the ways in which he is. He cares about Black Americans, and he's trying to do these things and working with variety of groups for criminal justice reform, police reform, something that Tim Scott has been championing for the Republicans.

Brian: Let me jump in for one second just to illustrate that because I have one more clip of the president from his speech last night where he went exactly there. Here it is.

Trump: We worked hard to pass the star at criminal justice reform, prison reform, opportunity zones, and long-term funding of historically Black colleges and universities.

Brian: Go ahead, Rebeccah because that's what you were referring to.

Rebeccah: It is. I would just say too to something that Charlie said earlier that the president is, in fact, a racist. I mean, I would disagree on that. I think that the evidence is in favor of the argument that he is in fact not. You can look at the policies that show that he's made a great effort in this way and something, again, that I think in an unprecedented way for Republicans to really make this effort. On crime, violent crime under the administration has gone down from 2017 to 2018 to 2019. Each year it has gone down even more. Then now we've seen this uprise and this unrest and crime going on in the streets right now. This is something that the Trump administration point to. Listen, law abiding Black Americans are being affected by the crime in the streets and the disruptions, and many of them don't want to defund the police. That message I think was an appeal directly to them too. We are for you, and you're welcome here. We want to be able to protect your communities, and so this is the way we're going to do it.

Brian: Of course, Democrats would argue crime has been going down through the Clinton administration, the Bush administration and the Obama administration and kept going down until this year nationwide, and that taking credit for the first step program like it's the biggest criminal justice reform or that that work is now largely accomplished is so misleading as to be racist. Rebeccah, you can follow up.

Rebeccah: I think that that's an incredibly, uncharitable way to view it as that that itself would be racist. I mean, you saw an uptick in violence-- Again, I think your previous caller made a great observation that it depends on which statistics you're looking at because statistics can be formed to carry out the point you're trying to make. The ones that I have seen showed an uptick in some violent crimes during the last part of the Obama administration and then a deep downward from the first three years of the Trump administration. I think it's going to depend on what you're looking at. The point, though, is it's been very important for the Trump administration to reach out to local law enforcement agencies to try to help them get what they need. What we need to do now moving forward, though, is to answer some of these real problems. I think your caller made the point that if you look at statistics, we don't have a systemic race problem in police departments. At least statistics don't show that. However, Black Americans are feeling harassed in many ways by law enforcement police. That is not showing up in statistics. That's a subjective thing that they're feeling that is real, and that is something that needs to be addressed and tackled to figure out what it is that's causing this and how do we address it? Try getting better de-escalatory training and that kind of thing for police officers, which is something that the Trump administration is working on. These are important things. Now, I do think that during the DNC, the Democrats did try to make it all about how bad President Trump is and a return to the pre-Trump days. I think that was a mistake. I think that they should have said what they're going to do differently better than what they did because the message coming out of the Republican National Convention was looking forward and saying this is not just the pro-Republican Party, but the pro-American party. The last point is the appeal-- I think it was Nikki Haley that made the appeal that said, "You are not racist." President Trump said, "This is not a racist country." Does it mean racism doesn't exist? It does, but our country is not racist. This was an appeal to patriotism and to work together to address these issues, but that we shouldn't be engaging in the sign of very gloomy, dark anti-Americanism that seems to be bubbling up among the left-wing of the Democratic Party.

Brian: Charlie Sykes.

Charlie: Well, I disagree with almost everything Rebeccah said. Rebeccah is doing a good job of Trump splaining, which is to take the president and try to find some way to explain make it sound normal. Look, this is a president who no longer engages in racial dog whistles. He uses foghorns. This is a guy who goes out and says, "Suburban housewives, you need to vote for me because otherwise, the Democrats will destroy the suburbs and put Cory Booker in charge." Now, why did he say Cory Booker? Cory Booker is the least scary guy in the world. Maybe because he's a prominent African American man. This is somebody who talks about sending people back to where they came from, or why would we have immigrants from asshole countries. One after another. Look, the white nationalists in America know exactly what Donald Trump is doing. They know the signals that he is sending. What's interesting about the Trump splainers is that on the one hand, they will say, don't pay attention to what the President tweets. Don't pay attention to his words, except when at a convention, he will say things that are so diametrically opposed to who he is and what he represents. Look, Donald Trump is probably the single most-- Well history is a complicated thing because, obviously, there have been presidents who've engaged in racial divisiveness. Certainly, in my lifetime, we've never seen a president who has worked so hard to stoke these racial divisions, and we all know this. Yes, you can point to this program or anything, but what does Donald Trump represent, and what is he doing to the fabric of this country? Nobody has clean hands on all of this. A lot of this runs very, very deeply. The way that he's handling the police shootings, the fact that Jacob Blake was-- Was Jacob Blake ever even mentioned, Brian?

Brian: I don't think so. I don't think the name was spoken. I don't think so.

Charlie: The way in which this administration has tried to scapegoat athletes, Black athletes who have tried to respectfully and peacefully protest police killings. This sends a message, and we all know it. This attempt say, "Well, look at this program, or look at this line from his speech or look at what this speaker said," basically tells us ignore your judgment. Ignore what you know is actually happening, and it doesn't do us a good service. It does not.

Brian: This is so central that I'm going to let you two keep going on this another round. Rebeccah, do you want to respond to that? Did we lose Rebeccah? Is Rebeccah Heinrichs there?

Rebeccah: I'm sorry. I'm here.

Brian: Oh, sorry. I was inviting you to keep going on that and respond to Charlie..

Rebeccah: I would go back to I think there was a direct answer to this idea that because if you don't support Black Lives Matter, the organization, that that's somehow racist. I know Charlie didn't say that, but I'm painting this narrative that fits along with what he just said. Or if you don't support athletes who kneel, that that's veiled racism. These very specific ways where people are showing that they care about Black Americans and they want change and police reform and a slew of other issues that are disproportionately affecting Black Americans. That if you don't support these things then, therefore, you are racist or have some bias that you're not aware of. What the RNC, specifically led by the Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron said, "No, you know what? Your mind, Black Americans, is free." You do not have to believe and support all these different methods and tactics and strategies and labels to support things that are good for Black Americans. There is a better way, and it's law and order and it's personal responsibility, and it's helping your neighbor. The Republican Party is a place for you, where we can embrace you and give you a better future and a better way. I think the point was made multiple times that all the places where it's the worst place to be in terms of crime are led by Democrats, they're democratic cities. There is a better way and a better home for Black Americans. He pointed specifically to Joe Biden's remarks. I don't remember which person it was that brought this back, but they said, "Listen, Joe Biden said that, essentially, if you don't support him, you're not Black." The Democratic Party has a monopoly on characterizing who qualifies as "Black." I mean, I would argue that's an incredibly racist characterization. Individuals need to be viewed individually, that these are mature, responsible human beings and they can make a decision themselves. The convention really spoke to that. I also take issue with the fact that Charlie's characterization of all these Black Americans who did speak at the convention, they're not tools. They're are not being used. These are people who have come to very different conclusions than those in the Democratic Party about Donald Trump. They disagree. They do not believe he is racist. They believe he is pro-American for all creeds and races in the United States. You might think that that's a ridiculous conclusion, but it is an honest conclusion of these people. Again, I thought that the theme of the RNC again and again, was pride in America. America is not racist. Here we are realigning and we are welcoming in other people who have maybe felt not at home in the Republican Party.

Brian: Charlie, one more time in about 45 seconds and then we're out of time.

Charlie: A complete alternative reality. Look, you can run through all of the talking points here. It is interesting hearing Trump has become indignant about something that Joe Biden said, run through all of the things that Donald Trump has said for the last four years as if somehow we're supposed to drop that into the memory hole. That's what's so extraordinary here. We've never had a president who would retweet white nationalist memes, who would, in fact, associate himself with some of the worst elements of our society. By the way, I did not say that the speakers were tools. I certainly understand that people can have different points of view, that there is no racial test for ideology. The notion that the Republican Party right now under Donald Trump is an inclusive, open party, I think is delusional. You may have convinced yourself of it, but I don't think you're going to be able to convince most Americans who can understand what they're seeing with their eyes.

Brian: You're certainly not going to convince each other here this morning. We are now out of time. I want to thank all three of our guests this hour, Rebeccah Heinrichs, National Security expert at the Hudson Institute, Charlie Sykes, editor-at-large at The Bulwark, and Juan Williams, co-host of The Five on Fox News channel. Thank you, thank you, thank you for joining us today.

Charlie: Thank you, Brian.

Rebeccah: Thank you so much.

 

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