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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. The democratic convention coming to us from everywhere via Zoom and other technologies was supposed to take place in person in Milwaukee chosen, in part, because Wisconsin was maybe the most shocking of the states that Hillary Clinton expected to carry in 2016 but didn't. When they did the state by state roll call last night to officially nominate Joe Biden, the person who got to speak for Wisconsin was the state's Democratic Lieutenant Governor, Mandela Barnes. Here is his full one-minute presentation.

Lieutenant Governor Mandela Barnes: Welcome back to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, a great city on native land, on the Great Lake, is the place where I was born and raised, right in the heart of 53206 zip code. This is a community that's been faced with some significant challenges due to historical injustice, but what many don't see is the joy, the resilience, and opportunity that lies within this community, and so many others across America just like it, where hard-working people are fighting to provide for their families and to build a better future.

We know that we build a better future for our nation by channeling Wisconsin's legacy as the birthplace of the labor and the progressive movement and uniting around a bold inclusive agenda that uplifts every community. In the pursuit of a more just future, one that recognizes healthcare as a human right, one that tackles the climate crisis, and takes on racial and economic justice, Wisconsin cast 30 votes for Bernie Sanders and 67 for the next president of the United States of America, Joseph R. Biden.'

Brian: Wisconsin Lieutenant Governor Mandela Barnes, remembering Joe Biden's middle initial there from the DNC last night. He joins us now live. Lieutenant Governor, thanks so much for a few minutes of your time today. Hello from New York, and welcome to WN NYC.

Mandela: Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me today.

Brian: Since I'm sure people will be wondering about your name, Mandela Barnes, were you named after Nelson Mandela.

Mandela: I was named after Nelson Mandela. My dad is a still very active UAW member. UAW, actually, was very active in the anti-apartheid movement. My dad decided to name me Mandela while Nelson Mandela was still actually in prison.

Brian: I thought the state by state roll call, as a pre-tape, would be boring, but having it come with scenes from each state and having people be able to stretch out a little bit like you did there, turned out to be more fun to watch, at least, for me, than the normal way from a convention floor. How did that feel from your end doing it?

Mandela: Oh, I was pleasantly surprised with the way that that worked. I have to give so much credit to the convention team for pulling that together. You got to imagine it's much more difficult to make that happen versus an in-person gathering, where everyone's just there and everyone gives the same talk. I enjoyed this format. It gave people an opportunity to get a little bit of local flare from across the states. There was a chance to display the diversity of our party and the diversity of America.

Brian: Is there anything still happening in Milwaukee where the convention was supposed to be held?

Mandela: I was actually at the convention center last night when I gave my talk. It's not a whole lot of activities taking place, but there are a few things that are going on live from the convention center to still give us that convention feel.

Brian: Where you actually live when you were doing that last night?

Mandela: I was live. I had the opportunity to be live, which was an honor just given the fact that our city had a chance to host this convention. Although things have been scaled back, we had an opportunity to still give our delegate votes. The secretary of our party, Jason Rae, who's also a Milwaukee native, we had a chance to speak from home, speak from the heart, and speak in the exact moment.

Brian: I don't expect you to know the answer to this, but were you the only one who was live because it seemed to me there was a lot of pre-taping from Alaska, which was alphabetically first to Wyoming, which was last? A lot of that seemed pre-taped to me.

Mandela: I'm going to make the safe assumption that I was the only one that was live.

Brian: Yes, because you were in Milwaukee, and otherwise, they would have given you the chance to retake it and insert Joe Biden's middle initial. [laughs]

Mandela: I would have had the chance to-- Yes. [laughs]

Brian: It's fine. Nobody cares about the middle initials. Where were you in 2016, Lieutenant Governor? Were you in politics? Were you a Hillary Clinton or a Bernie Sanders supporter? Were you shocked that Trump won the state?

Mandela: Great question. In 2016, I was a state representative, and I was just coming off of a failed bid for the State Senate. I challenged my statesman in a primary, unsuccessfully. By the time the election rolled around, I was still pretty active doing campaign events. I voted for Bernie Sanders in the primary, but once Hillary clinched the nomination, I was obviously very active for her in her campaign. I was shocked that Milwaukee, that Wisconsin went for Donald Trump. It wasn't the deep level of shock because I knew that it was possible. Every talk I gave, every conversation I had, I said, "Well, if anybody gets in this race, they have a 50/50 chance of winning, so we have to take this seriously."

There were multiple factors. People were upset that she didn't show up to Wisconsin. People felt that she took Wisconsin for granted. Whatever the case was, I don't feel that, as a party, we led with a vision. I don't feel like we put ourselves out front. Too much of the campaign was about how awful Donald Trump would be as a president. The messaging was that, "We cannot elect this guy." I think we could have done so much more to promote Secretary Clinton and her message and her vision for America.

Brian: Listeners, anyone listening right now who is in Wisconsin or from Wisconsin or has ties to Wisconsin, we can take a few phone calls with Lieutenant Governor Mandela Barnes in the city where the convention was actually supposed to be taking place in person, originally. Call in and give us your take on this ultimate battleground state, maybe why you think Trump won there in 2016 if you have ties to Wisconsin. What will make one candidate or the other when there this year? Anyone in or with ties to Wisconsin for Lieutenant Governor Mandela Barnes? 646-435-7280, 646-435-7280, or you can tweet a comment @BrianLehrer.

Lieutenant Governor, to what you were just saying, do you think the focus is enough this year on what the Democrats would do for people? Because there's certainly a lot, and the polls show it, and I saw a consultant on MSNBC last night saying, "It is their strategy that people react more to fear of the other guy than they do to, "What will you do for me?" Do you think they're doing enough this year to say what the Democratic proactive vision is, rather than just, "Oh my god, Donald Trump?"

Mandela: I absolutely do. One, we're in the middle of a crisis. This pandemic has exposed the failures in our healthcare system. It's exposed the failures also in our economy. So many people are suffering as a result. Joe Biden is leading with his Build Back Better plan. I think that his ideas to engage communities that have been underserved and being very intentional about that is going to be key to winning this race.

People know how bad Donald Trump is. People live through it every day. That was the case with us two years ago, with Scott Walker, the former governor of Wisconsin because people were familiar with him. He'd been in public life for almost 25 years, at that point. He'd been governor for seven and a half years, almost eight years, at that point. There was no one that needed to be introduced to Scott Walker or his policy. People didn't necessarily know who we were. People weren't completely familiar with us, as candidates, or us, as a party, so it was important for us to talk about our plan to change the direction of the State of Wisconsin, to improve the lives of people all across Wisconsin.

I get it. The studies that show how fear works. Fear does work, but it gets to a certain point where it doesn't matter anymore. Either people know what you're up against or they don't, but at that point, everybody knew. I think that everybody knows who Donald Trump is. He's been in public light for about as long as I've been alive, if not longer. It is vitally important that we talk about the plan, a new vision, hope for the American people.

Brian: Let's take a phone call. Karen, now in Brooklyn, from Wisconsin, you're on WNYC. Hi, Karen.

Karen: Hi, Brian. I love your show. Yes, I was born and raised in Wisconsin, in Madison, and I've also lived in Milwaukee. All of us expats out here have just been heartbroken by what's happened in Wisconsin since the ascension of Scott Walker. There's always been divisions, but it seems like they've just been so inflamed in the last 10, 15 years. I'm just wondering what the Dems are doing to campaign outside of Madison and Milwaukee, the La Crosses of the world, Green Bay, Wausau. I think this is how Trump won the state, so I'd just like to know what's happening out there to win those folks back.

Brian: Lieutenant Governor?

Mandela: It's a good question, and we're campaigning everywhere. I can just go back to two years ago. A lot of people ask, "How are we going to win Wisconsin?" Well, we won Wisconsin in the midterm last year. I think that sets the stage for this election as well. We showed up everywhere, not just every county but every community. As lieutenant governor, I've been to all 72 counties in my first year in office. The Governor went to all 72 counties in his first year in office, and it's important for us to show up in those places, especially me, as someone who's from Milwaukee, as a Black man from Milwaukee. You're not always going to run into people like me all across the State of Wisconsin. I'm very familiar with that.

I'll say one thing about the campaign, too. After I won my primary to get on the ticket as Governor Evers running mate, during the campaign cycle, there were times where I was like, "Oh, I want to go to Milwaukee because I'm from Milwaukee." There'd be times where the mayor of the City of Milwaukee would say, "Hey, we need you to come campaign in Milwaukee," and I'd get sent out to Western Wisconsin, I'd get sent up to Northern Wisconsin. I think that served us quite well because we were able to build so many bridges. We were able to help close so many divides.

I think that the campaign served as a point of connection for so many people who've fallen into this trap, who've fallen into this web of lies that Republicans have created that creates so much division between urban and rural Wisconsin, the same way they try to do it between urban and rural America. The fact is, there's so much more that unites us than divides us. We can't let ourselves fall into those spaces because we will be worse off as a country. We are worse off as a country, and that's how a Donald Trump gets elected. That's why that advice has absolutely been taken, and we've been doing everything that we can do to get to as many places and be as representative of this entire state as possible.

Brian: Carol in Princeton, you're on WNYC with Lieutenant Governor Mandela Barnes from Wisconsin. Hi, Carol.

Carol: Oh, hi, thanks for taking my call. Wisconsin is unusual, especially Milwaukee. Yes, we're there. My husband worked in Milwaukee. You have to remember Senator McCarthy was from Wisconsin. There are many German-descent people, and during World War II, there were certainly Nazi sympathizers in Milwaukee, in Wisconsin. My grandmother had an orchard and German prisoners of war were sent there to help her with her orchard. There's a lot of white. We're better than everybody else sympathizers in Wisconsin.

Brian: Carol, thank you very much. We're going to get a response. I don't know about that history. Were there German prisoners of war in Wisconsin? Certainly, Joe McCarthy was from Wisconsin.

Mandela: Joe McCarthy was definitely from Wisconsin. As far as the German prisoners, I can't speak to that exactly, but there is a rich German heritage all across the state of Wisconsin, especially in Milwaukee that still exists to this day. I think about Milwaukee's roots in socialism. Sewer socialism is what they called it. A lot of that was only specific to German people, but over the years, those things started to change. Milwaukee-- [crosstalk]

Brian: Whether there was any meaningful Nazi sympathy in the population there, that would have to be demonstrated. I just don't want to leave that unremarked on and just accept it as there was a lot of Nazi-sympathizing among the German population of Wisconsin.

Mandela: Right. That was not the generally accepted attitude.

Brian: Wow, quick research from my producer says, from The Sheboygan Press, a few years ago, "In all, 425,000 German prisoners lived in 700 camps throughout the United States with more than 20,000 housed in Wisconsin. Camp McCoy in Wisconsin and Fort Sheridan in Illinois were the two closest base camps to the Sheboygan County area, another 36 branch camps were scattered across Wisconsin during the war." Footnote from history, from The Sheboygan Press, that I did not know. Steve in Park Slope, you're on WNYC with the Lieutenant Governor of Wisconsin, Mandela Barnes. Hi, Steve.

Steve: Hey, what's going on, Brian? Hey, Mandela. I'm a-

Brian: Oops. Did we lose you?

Steve: In the world, you need to go to- [inaudible 00:15:41]

Brian: All right, the connection is not working. He wanted to call about-- According to my screener, there was that story from June 27th where some University of Wisconsin students in Madison called for the removal of the Abraham Lincoln statue on Bascom Hill there. Donald Trump is running on this among other things, of course. What's the response?

Mandela: Donald Trump is just trying to run on anything at this moment. It's desperation. He's trying to cling on anything. He's in a rapids, and he's trying to find whatever branch is sticking out from the river banks to hold on to, but it's not working. That's not something that people are responding to just because of few students call for the removal of that statute. That is not going to determine the outcome of this election. It will not determine which way Wisconsin is going to go. If Donald Trump was comfortable in his incumbency, you would see him leaning on his time in office, you see him leaning on it on the last three and a half years and talking about the things that he's done to improve the lives of the American people, but unfortunately, there isn't much of that to hold on to.

Brian: There we will have to leave it with the Lieutenant Governor of Wisconsin, Mandela Barnes, Democrat who got to give the nominating speech for-- It's not the nominating speech, technically, but the report of the Wisconsin delegate count for Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders last night, second to last because it went alphabetically, just before the end, when Joe Biden officially became the nominee of the democratic party last night. Lieutenant Governor, really interesting. Thank you so much for giving us some time today. Good luck the rest of the week.

Mandela: Thank you. Good to talk to you.

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