Politics
In this historic Black neighborhood in Milwaukee, the Biden question is met with indifference
Lisa Collins sat in the shade of a green ash tree Wednesday in the Milwaukee neighborhood of Lindsay Heights handing out free hot dogs and hamburgers as part of a “joyful rebellion” against the nearby Republican National Convention.
Though she plans on voting for President Biden in the upcoming election, it is not without trepidation.
“That made me so mad at that debate, I said I’m not voting, I’m just not,” she said of Biden’s awful performance. “But you know I am.”
Hers is a kind of ambivalence common in this part of town, where the dreams of Black Americans have flourished, withered and risen again, in a city and state that will play a critical role in deciding which candidate wins the Oval Office.
Lisa Collins works the food station at the Milwaukee Childcare Collective event during the Republican convention.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
Much of the world is obsessing over big questions: Would a second term for Donald Trump be a step toward authoritarianism? Is Biden mentally competent? Should Biden step aside, and if he did, could Kamala Harris successfully carry a campaign? Should it be left to an open field of Democratic contenders?
But in Lindsay Heights, like many places, a lot of folks have yet to think about the election. Those who have are often uninterested in those soul-searching questions that dominate headlines.
At this event arranged by the Milwaukee Childcare Collective, most people didn’t know they were gathered in response to the convention. They came for the face painting and food, and their concerns are more mundane: teaching kids to read, paying the bills, finding a napkin to clean Popsicle juice off chubby toddler legs.
Deshay Majors, sitting with his son and young daughter, she of the sticky knees, said he has not yet decided whom he will vote for.
“It all depends what they are talking about,” he said of how he will make his decision, though he isn’t sure which issues will sway him, or what he wants to hear.
Community members get free clothes at the Milwaukee Childcare Collective event.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
It’s a reminder that it ain’t over until it’s over, but time is running out.
On the national front, there is an air of despondency. Many are convinced that as long as Biden remains atop the ticket, the party is destined to lose the White House. Possibly in a Trump landslide. Very likely in addition to losing control of the Senate.
Even before his debate debacle, Biden was struggling to match his performance four years ago with Black voters, a vital Democratic constituency, especially in swing states.
Paul Maslin, who has been polling and strategizing in political contests since the days of Jimmy Carter, put Biden’s chances of reelection “somewhere between slim and none.”
“And slim,” he said, “is making reservations to leave town.”
Kids play basketball at the Milwaukee Childcare Collective event.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
A recent poll by the Associated Press and University of Chicago found nearly two-thirds of Democrats surveyed said Biden should withdraw from the presidential race and let his party nominate someone else.
Biden’s standing with independent and undecided voters is even worse, said Maslin, who has decades of experience in Wisconsin politics.
“His campaign has to have told him, or should be telling him, ‘Mr. President, one thing the voters you need to win this election have in common is they don’t like you,’ ” Maslin said. “They owe it to themselves, to him, to the party, to the country.”
The upper echelon of Democrats (those “elites” Biden has taken to railing against) are voting with their wallets.
“I can tell you, having talked to a lot of donors, their depression and despair has curdled into anger,” said Paul Begala, a strategist who twice helped put Bill Clinton in the White House. “They’re very angry. And angry people don’t donate.”
But that outrage hasn’t reached this parklet, where the basketball hoops lack nets and the closest bathroom is in a nearby church.
The area is named for Bernice Lindsay, the first Black woman to obtain a journalism degree from Ohio State University. She moved to these narrow streets north of downtown in the 1920s, intent on helping to create a place where Black professionals could own homes and raise families. For awhile, the community thrived — until freeways, violence and neglect tumbled it into decline, like so many other minority enclaves in America.
Kids gather for free ice cream at the Milwaukee Childcare Collective event.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
Now, it’s a community working to raise itself back up. Vacant-lot gardens grow strawberries, and residents organize to help themselves and win what they need from a government that has too often passed them by — Democrat or Republican.
Some of the Victorian and Queen Anne homes are fixed up, some are boarded up, and most have front porches where people gather.
Sheyenne Wilson, 25, has been visiting those porches to talk about Biden, though the organizer says she likes to mostly listen.
What she hears isn’t pro-Biden or pro-Trump, but more pro-Lindsay Heights.
Sheyenne Wilson, with her son, Khalif El, is an organizer for the Biden campaign.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
“Basically people want someone who will support the community,” she said, her 10-month-old son, Khalif, on her lap.
That, said her fellow organizer Trasus Wright, is the opening he uses. He sees abortion as the kind of personal issue that can move voters — even his wife, Dea Wright, is undecided.
Dea Wright likes Trump’s stance on school choice — their six children benefited from such a program, she said.
“Where Trump gets me is where they start saying Christianity in schools,” she said.
Trasus Wright said he isn’t bothered by his wife’s uncertainty because he believes that “Joe is going to bring her around. His policies around advocating for women are going to be what matters.”
And what of Biden being too old?
“They’re both old,” said Eric Donelson, unbothered by reports of Biden’s mental decline as he ate a hamburger.
And what about Vice President Kamala Harris? Would she be a better candidate?
Robert Jackson and his daughter, Blessing, at the Milwaukee Childcare Collective event.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
“Do we vote for somebody just because they look like us, or for what they represent?” said Wilson, who has concerns about Harris’ prosecutor past.
“I still don’t think there will ever be a lady president,” said Collins, the woman handing out food.
“We forget she’s vice president. She don’t talk,” Donelson said. “Speak up, woman.”
And as for anyone else? There aren’t any names familiar enough to warrant an opinion.
But Trump is no shoo-in here, either — despite his push for Black voters in recent weeks, including a convention airing of an Amber Rose/Forgiato Blow rap video meant to show the party’s inclusiveness.
“I am not voting for Trump, I’m letting you know. I don’t like nothing about Trump, I am going to keep it real,” Donelson said.
“Trump’s got a little more energy in his body than Biden,” Collins argued.
“Biden is getting old, but I’d rather work with old, senile than a crazy man,” Donelson shot back.
“I’m going to tell you something. I said, this is all a mess to me,” Collins said.
What Linsday Heights shows is the disconnect between the political elite and the voters, for either party.
“Justice For Jah” is a reference to Samuel Sharpe Jr., who was killed by members of the Columbus, Ohio, Police Department who were in Milwaukee for the Republican National Convention.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
Biden will have to decide in a matter of days if he is staying or leaving — and the pressure has grown intense.
Democrats are set to have a virtual roll call for delegates in early August to formally pledge their allegiance. Once that is done, it becomes increasingly hard for another candidate to step in.
But for the voters in Lindsay Heights, mistrustful of politics and concerned about daily life, time is running out for either party to reach them with a message that carries enough meaning to carry them to the polls.
If that neglect continues, it probably won’t make much of a difference what Biden decides.
Donald J. Trump closed the Republican convention with a speech that began with a call for unity and a sober retelling of the attack on his life, but pivoted to attacks. Maggie Haberman, a senior political correspondent for The New York Times, gives her takeaways.
Politics
Trump breaks out immigration chart shown right before assassination attempt: ‘Saved my life’
Former President Donald Trump showed off a chart on immigration during the Republican National Convention Thursday night that he credits with literally saving his life last Saturday
“Less than four years ago, I handed this administration the strongest border in American history, but you can see on the chart that saved my life… that was the chart that saved my life,” Trump said as the chart was put up on the screen behind him.
During Trump’s rally in Butler, Pennsylvania last week, Trump pivoted to point to the same chart when shots rang out, striking the former president in the right ear. Many have credited Trump turning to the chart, which shows the number of illegal immigrants entering the country, for saving his life, noting that the former president turned to look at it just as he was hit with the bullet.
TRUMP GETS THUNDEROUS, STANDING OVATION AS HE ENTERS STAGE FOR RNC SPEECH
Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump, refers to charts about immigration while speaking during the Republican National Convention, Thursday, July 18, 2024, in Milwaukee. (AP Photo/Julia Nikhinson)
Trump told the audience how proud he was of the chart, noting that it showed a dive in illegal crossings under his administration before a spike in crossings over the last few years.
“Oh there it is, that’s pretty good, wow,” Trump said after noticing the chart was now on the screen at the RNC. “Last time I put up that chart I never really got to look at it. Without this chart, I would not be here today.”
Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. President Donald Trump gives his acceptance speech as the turnout coat and helmet of former Buffalo Township Volunteer Fire Department chief Corey Comperatore, who was killed at his rally last week, is displayed along with the chart that was being shown at the rally, on Day 4 of the Republican National Convention (RNC), at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, U.S., July 18, 2024. (REUTERS/Mike Segar)
HULK HOGAN ENDORSES TRUMP FOR PRESIDENT AT RNC: ‘LET TRUMP-A-MANIA MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN’
Trump was injured in the attack, which claimed the life of Pennsylvania firefighter Corey Comperatore and injured two other rally attendees, David Dutch and James Copenhaver.
Trump paid tribute to them as well during his remarks Thursday, calling those injured men “great warriors.”
Republican presidential candidate and former president, Donald Trump, speaks during the final day of the Republican National Convention Thursday, July 18, 2024, in Milwaukee. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)
“Tragically, the shooter claimed the life of one of our fellow Americans, Corey Comperatore, and seriously wounded two other great warriors. David Dutch and James Copenhaver. I spoke to all three families of these tremendous people — our love and prayers are with them, and always will be,” Trump said.
“Corey, a highly respected former fire chief… was accompanied by his wife Helen… and two precious daughters. He lost his life selflessly acting as a human shield to protect them from flying bullets… what a fine man he was,” Trump added.
Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.
Politics
Trump preaches unity as he accepts GOP presidential nomination days after surviving assassination attempt
MILWAUKEE – Five days after surviving an assassination attempt, former President Trump pleaded for national unity as he formally accepted the GOP presidential nomination during the culminating moment of the 2024 Republican National Convention.
“I am running to be president for all of America, not half of America, because there is no victory in winning for half of America,” Trump emphasized as he addressed the thousands of delegates, party officials and activists packed into Milwaukee’s Fiserv Forum and to the national audience of Americans watching the convention from home.
“The discord and division in our society must be healed. As Americans, we are bound together by a single fate and a shared destiny. We rise together. Or we fall apart,” the former president noted.
The shooting, at Trump’s rally Saturday in western Pennsylvania where one spectator was killed, along with the gunman, instantly impacted the tone and message of the convention, and as Trump has acknowledged, altered his convention address.
MCCARTHY SAYS TRUMP SHOWING ‘REAL LEADERSHIP’ TO THE WORLD AFTER ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT
Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump arrives for the 2024 Republican National Convention at the Fiserv Forum, Thursday, July 18, 2024, in Milwaukee. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
“Let me begin this evening by expressing my gratitude to the American people for your outpouring of love and support following the assassination attempt at my rally on Saturday,” Trump said. “As you already know, the assassin’s bullet came within a quarter of an inch of taking my life.”
The former president and GOP presidential nominee said that “so many people have asked me what happened, and therefore, I’ll tell you what happened.”
“You’ll never hear it from me a second time, because it’s too painful to tell,” he said.
Trump recounted the shooting, saying he knew “we were under attack.”
Trump praised the “very brave Secret Service agents who rushed to the stage and pounced on top of me for protection.”
“There was blood pouring everywhere, and yet, in a certain way, I felt very safe, because I had God on my side,” Trump said. “The amazing thing is that prior to the shot, if I had NOT moved my head at the very last instant, the assassin’s bullet would have perfectly hit its mark, and I would not be with you tonight.”
“I am not supposed to be here tonight. I stand before you in this arena only by the grace of almighty God. Many people say it was a providential moment,” Trump said.
But the crowd chanted: “Yes you are. Yes you are.”
And he acknowledged that “none of us knows God’s plan, or where life’s adventure will take us. But if the events of last Saturday make anything clear, it is that every single moment we have on earth is a gift from God. We have to make the most of every day for the people and country we love.”
EMOTIONAL TRIBUTE TO COREY COMPERATORE DURING RNC SPEECH: ‘SPIRIT THAT FORGED AMERICA’
Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. President Donald Trump embraces the turnout coat and helmet of former Buffalo Township Volunteer Fire Department chief Corey Comperatore, who was killed at his rally last week, as he gives his acceptance speech on Day 4 of the Republican National Convention (RNC), at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, U.S., July 18, 2024. (REUTERS/Mike Segar)
Trump also pointed to the helmet and firefighting jacket of Corey Comperatore, the former fire chief killed at the rally, which were placed on the stage by the former president. And he asked the audience to observe a moment of silence.
He said he has raised more than $6 million in recent days for Comperatore’s family, and the families of the two men who were seriously wounded in the shooting.
The former president also took time to thank his wife, former first lady Melania Trump.
“On this journey, I am deeply honored to be joined by my amazing wife, Melania,” Trump told the crowd in Milwaukee during an emotional speech.
He then referred to her letter to America, in which she called for unity in the wake of the assassination attempt against her husband.
“I am thinking of you, now, my fellow Americans,” she wrote. “Dawn is here again. Let us reunite. Now.”
The former president praised the letter.
“And Melania, thank you very much. You also did something really beautiful. A letter to America calling for national unity. And it really took the Republican Party by surprise. I will tell you, it was beautiful,’ he said.
“Some very serious people said that we should take that letter and put it as part of the Republican platform. That would be an honor, wouldn’t it?”
The former president also thanked his family, especially his children and grandchildren.
Former US President Donald Trump arrives to the Republican National Convention (RNC) at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, US, on Wednesday, July 17, 2024. The RNC chairman warned against complacency when his party concludes its official nominating jamboree this week with polls predicting ex-President Donald Trump prevailing over President Joe Biden in the November election. (David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
But in the wake of his brush with death, the former president called for a lowering of the temperature in a political climate seared with heated rhetoric from both the right and the left.
“In an age when our politics too often divide us, now is the time to remember that we are all fellow citizens—we are one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all,” Trump stressed.
“We must not criminalize dissent or demonize political disagreement. In that spirit, the Democrat Party should immediately stop weaponizing the Justice System and labeling their political opponent as an enemy of democracy, especially since that is not true,” Trump claimed.
Making a pitch “to every citizen, whether you are young or old, man or woman, Democrat, Republican, or Independent, black or white, Asian or Hispanic,” Trump repeatedly criticized the administration of the Democratic incumbent in the White House, but only mentioned President Biden’s name once.
“They will not have done the damage that Biden has done, only going to use the term once,” Trump said. “Biden. I’m not going to use the name anymore. Just one time.”
Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. President Donald Trump shakes hands with Republican vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance next to Eric Trump, on Day 2 of the Republican National Convention (RNC), at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, U.S., July 16, 2024. (REUTERS/Brian Snyder)
LIVE UPDATES: REPUBLICAN NATIONAL CONVENTION
Pointing to inflation, the crisis at the nation’s southern border with Mexico, and the ongoing wars in Ukraine and in Gaza, Trump argued that “it is time for a change. We simply cannot sustain four more years of this administration.”
Trump reminded his supporters that the MAGA movement “has never been about me, it has always been about you.”
“It has always been about the hardworking, patriotic citizens of America,” he said.
Trump was joined on the podium following his address by his family and by his running mate Sen. JD Vance, and the senator from Ohio’s family.
The former president announced on Monday as the convention kicked off that the 39-year-old Vance, a one-time Trump critic who has transformed into a leading America First disciple, would serve as his running mate.
“I am thrilled to have a new friend and partner fighting by my side: the next Vice President of the United States, the current Senator from Ohio, J.D. Vance, and his incredible wife, Usha,” Trump said minutes earlier as he gave a shout-out during his address to his running mate.
CLICK HERE FOR THE LATEST FOX NEWS UPDATES FROM THE GOP CONVENTION
Republican vice presidential candidate Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, gestures to Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump during the Republican National Convention Thursday, July 18, 2024, in Milwaukee. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
Republicans used their convention as a venue to reunite the party and energize delegates and activists ahead of the final stretch of the campaign in Trump’s 2024 election rematch with Biden.
The push for party unity was on display throughout the convention and included former GOP presidential rivals Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida and former U.N. ambassador and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley – who both battled Trump in a contentious primary season – delivering speeches from the podium in support of the former president.
The Biden campaign took aim at Trump, Vance, and Republicans as the GOP convention wrapped up.
Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump is surround by U.S. Secret Service agents at a campaign rally, Saturday, July 13, 2024, in Butler, Pa. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
“Over the course of the last four days Republicans have offered their vision for the country. And now it’s never been more clear that Americans will face a stark choice, a contrasting vision for this country,” Biden principal deputy campaign manager Quentin Fulks emphasized.
“The Biden-Harris ticket who’s focused on uniting the country, creating opportunity for everyone, and lowering costs or the Trump-Vance one – with a harmful agenda of taking away Americans’ rights, hurting the middle class, and making life more expensive – all while benefiting the ultra-rich and greedy corporations benefit,” Fulks argued.
Trump’s convention address comes less than two months after he was convicted of 34 felony counts in the first criminal trial of a former or current president in the nation’s history. But the Supreme Court ruled on the issue of presidential immunity–a question stemming from charges brought against Trump by Special Counsel Jack Smith. The high court ruled that a president is immune from “official acts.” Trump is using that Supreme Court precedent in an effort to overturn the verdict and appeal.
A judge delayed Trump’s possible sentencing until September.
Last month, though, Biden severely stumbled with a disastrous debate performance against Trump, which has led to a rising chorus of calls from within the Democratic Party for the president to end his 2024 re-election bid and bow out of the race.
President Joe Biden waves as he walks down the steps of Air Force One at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, Wednesday, July 17, 2024. Biden is returning to his home in Rehoboth Beach, Del., to self-isolate after testing positive for COVID-19. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh) (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
Reports over the past 24 hours indicated that top Democrats – including Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi – have had frank conversations with Biden about him ending his campaign.
And as Trump delivered his convention address, speculation was rampant that the president could bow out of the 2024 election within days.
But Biden campaign spokesman TJ Ducklo told Fox News Digital those reports are “entirely inaccurate.”
And another Biden aide tells Fox News Digital that Biden “is more committed than ever to winning this election.”
Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.
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