The Daily Signal - What's Really Going on In Wisconsin

Episode Date: August 26, 2020

Riots have erupted in the state of Wisconsin following the shooting of a black man, Jacob Blake, by police on Sunday night. What happened? The Racine County Eye reported that rioters have taken over Kenosha, Wisconsin and that the area has turned into a war zone. Is that is a fair assessment of what is happening? Brett Healy, president of the John K. MacIver Institute for Public Policy, joins The Daily Signal Podcast to discuss. We also cover these stories: President Trump is now looking to make Chad Wolf the official secretary of the department of homeland security. Jacob Blake, the 29-year-old man shot in the back by police in Kenosha, Wisconsin, is reportedly paralyzed from the waist down.  Greg Goodman, co-president of Portland’s Downtown Development group, is speaking out about conditions in Portland hurting businesses. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Daily Signal podcast for Wednesday, August 26th. I'm Virginia Allen. And I'm Kate Trinco. Today, our colleague Rachel Del Judas interviews Brett Healy, president of the McIver Institute in Wisconsin. They'll talk about the shooting of Jacob Blake and the riots. Don't forget. If you're enjoying this podcast, please be sure to leave a review or a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts and encourage others to subscribe. Now, onto our top news. President Trump is now looking at you. to make Chad Wolf the official secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. Wolf has been serving as the acting secretary since November of last year.

Trump tweeted, I am pleased to inform the American public that acting secretary Chad Wolf will be nominated to be the Secretary of Homeland Security. Chad has done an outstanding job, and we greatly appreciate his service. Jacob Blake, the 29-year-old man who was shown. shot in the back by police on Sunday in Kenosha, Wisconsin, is reportedly paralyzed from the waist down. A cell phone video of the shooting shows three police officers in a confrontation with Blake. The officers follow Blake as he attempts to get into his car, reportedly with a knife in hand.

One of the officers who had his gun drawn shot the African-American man seven or eight times in the back before Blake climbed into his vehicle. Blake's father told the Chicago Sun Times that his son is paralyzed from the waist down. Doctors do not know if the paralysis is temporary or permanent. In response to the shooting, protests descended into riots in Kenosha, Wisconsin Sunday night, and continued Monday night and into Tuesday morning. Two car dealerships were vandalized. Rioters set multiple cars on fire at the car source dealership,

including a vehicle which sat directly under a car. a Black Lives Matter sign. Many other businesses were looted and vandalized, including a furniture store that was set on fire. Police fired tear gas at the rioters and guarded the local courthouse to keep the vandals off federal property. Greg Goodman, co-president of Portland's downtown development group, is speaking out about conditions in Portland and how they're hurting businesses. According to Williamette Week, here's part of what Goodman wrote in his letters. to Portland leaders, including Mayor Ted Wheeler, referring to the decision of an insurance company to move to the suburbs, Goodman writes, their departure has absolutely nothing to do with Black Lives Matter

movement, which has been a positive, but does have most everything to do with the lawlessness you are endorsing downtown. You are doing an excellent job of enabling people who don't know or care about George Floyd to ransack our city at the expense of the people you are trying to help. Think how many jobs have been lost by people of color in our city, not through protests, but from vandalism. I would make the case that your actions have hurt those you have intended to help. I would encourage each of you to walk around downtown Portland in the morning. Name the time, and I will give you a tour.

You aren't sweeping the streets. Needles are all over the place. Garbage cans are broken and left open. Glass from car windows that have been broken out is all over the streets. Parks are strewn with litter. Their fountains turned off. Weeds are taller than the plants in the planter boxes. Graffiti is on the sculptures, etc. You are willfully neglecting your duties as elected officials to keep our city safe and clean. The president of Liberty University, Jerry Falwell Jr., has resigned from his position as head of the Christian College. Falwell agreed to formally step down as president of the Large Christian University late Monday, following a two-week leave of absence after a controversial social media post.

Pressure for Falwell to resign was heightened on Monday when Reuters published a piece detailing an affair between Fawwell's wife, Becky Fawwell, and the couple's business partner Giancarlo Grande. Fawwell says the affair did take place, but he had no part in it, and accuses Gronda of trying to extort him and his wife. He told the Wall Street Journal that most of what that guy said, the extortionist, is not true. The former university president admitted that the photo he posted on social media was stupid and added that, I don't want anything my family has done to be an embarrassment for the school. The University of Pittsburgh has a new required course, anti-black racism, history, ideology, and resistance. The course's objectives include identify historical and current structures of power, privilege, and inequality that are rooted in anti-black racism, and articulate and critically examine personal beliefs,

and opinions about race, anti-racism, and anti-blackness, and describe the weight these beliefs and opinions carry, and explain how institutions and policies contribute to and enable anti-black racism. One of the desired outcomes of the course is that students will leave the course with an introduction to the black radical tradition, resistance to anti-black racism, and strategies to be anti-racist in everyday life. Next up, we'll have Rachel's interview with Brett Healy, and they'll talk about the riots in Wisconsin. Conservative women. Conservative feminists.

It's true. We do exist. I'm Virginia Allen, and every Thursday morning on problematic women, Lauren Evans and I sort through the news to bring you stories and interviews that are of particular interest to conservative leaning or problematic women. That is women whose views and opinions are often excluded are mocked by those on the so-called feminist left. We talk about everything from pop culture to policy and politics. Search for problematic women wherever you get your podcast.

I'm joined today on the Daily Signal podcast by Brett Healy. He's the president of the John Kamik Iver Institute for Public Policy in Wisconsin. Brett, it's great to have you on the Daily Signal podcast. Thanks for having me on. Well, thanks for being with us. So riots have kind of broken out in your state following the shooting of a black man, Jacob Blake, by police on Sunday night. Can you tell us first off what you know about what happened? Well, on Sunday, late afternoon, a video was posted to social media showing a confrontation between Jacob Blake and police officers,

Kenosho police officers, around his car. and the video shows Mr. Blake walking away from the police officers who have their guns drawn and attempting to get back into his car. That's when one of the police officers, it apparently looks like one of the police officers, fires seven shots at Mr. Blake hitting him up, I think it's seven times in the back. that video went viral, went viral very quickly. It led to many people, many citizens of Kenosha descending on the scene of this crime, of this incident. And while during the day, things seemed to be peaceful. There was some tense moments, but still it was peaceful. after the sun went down several hours later after the shooting of Mr. Blake,

that's when the protests started to turn violence and started to turn into rioting. Well, Racine County I reported, as you mentioned, that rioters have taken over Kenosha. They've been bringing buildings, vandalizing businesses in looting stores. Have you seen any of this and what do you know about what people are experiencing as this is happening? Yes, it's a very chaotic scene on the ground in Kenosha. Started, as I mentioned, Sunday night, continued Monday as well, Monday nights. We've seen a police officer hitting the head with a brick. We've seen police cars banalized and damage.

We've seen municipal garbage trucks burned. Many businesses in the Kenosha area were burned. to the ground buildings. We've seen an elderly gentleman who was defending his building, trying to prevent it from being burned down, knocked out cold by a rioter from behind. So it has been a very violent and chaotic scene in Kenosha. And it should be pointed out too that it wasn't just limited

to Kenosha. We actually saw the same sort of thing in Madison, the capital of Wisconsin, protest there took the opportunity to smash windows of businesses around the state Capitol. They attacked the State Capitol building, set many dumpster fires across the Capitol Square area near the Capitol building. So it's been a very chaotic, violent, and disturbing few days here in Wisconsin. Well, the article that I referenced before from the Seeing County, I, it also

said that Kenosha has turned into a war zone. Would you say that's a fair assessment? I think anyone who's seen the video on social media, especially the morning after, with all of the buildings, dozens of buildings and businesses looted and burns the ground, I think anyone would agree that that's an accurate description of the scene. You have smoldering ruins all over the city of Kenosha, and it doesn't look like the United States of America. It looks like a war zone overseas. Have there been any peaceful protests? I know that you mentioned earlier in our conversation that the first night there was peaceful protests that turned very violence. But since that point of time, has there been anything peaceful or has it just been mostly violent protesting and rioting?

I think we're seeing the same pattern here that we've seen across the country. Generally, during the day you see peaceful protests, people marching, chanting, making their views known to their governments, to their public officials. It's when the sun goes down, it's when it gets dark. It's after several hours of this that we see a different type of protester, a rioter, a looter, an opportunist who is only looking to destroy property. inflict violence on our law enforcement and burn buildings down. It's really kind of sad. Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers commented on the situation on Twitter saying,

While we do not have all the details yet, what we know for certain is that he is not the first black man or person to have been shot or injured or mercilessly killed at the hands of individuals and law enforcement in our state or country. And he also said, we stand with all those who have and continue to. to demand justice, equity, and accountability for black lives in our country, lives like those of George Floyd, of Brianna Taylor, Tony Robinson, Dante Hamilton, Ernest Lacey, and Seville Smith. What do you think of the governor's response to this whole situation, the shooting itself, as well as what's happened since the shooting? Governor Iver's response has caused a lot of questions and curious reaction from the people of

Wisconsin. He, just minutes after the video went viral, Governor Evers felt the need to put out a statement. As you point out, his statement immediately went to Black Lives Matter and racial injustice. But if you notice in his first statement, he does not ask for calm. He does it. He doesn't ask people to be peaceful. He doesn't warn people that more violence won't solve the issue. And I think that was noticed by the protesters. He didn't tell them law enforcement would stop them if they attempted to cross that line from peaceful protesting to rioting to looting.

And that's exactly what has. exactly what happened. It wasn't but 15 minutes after the governor's statement that we saw the first posting on social media from some of the far left groups here in Wisconsin, rallying people to Kenosha and to Madison and encouraging them to be violent in their protests. So I think many hardworking taxpayers law-bying citizens of Wisconsin are scratching their heads and wondering why our governor didn't do more to encourage people to protest peacefully and make it clear that we would not stand by and let people burn private businesses to the ground. I think Governor Evers has handled this whole situation very poorly, and I think the depth of the destruction that we're seeing is a direct result of the fact that he hasn't been willing to stand up to the far-left protesters and tell them that this sort of behavior will not be tolerated here in Wisconsin. Well, so while we don't know all the details yet, do you have any thoughts on how law enforcement

should have responded to the situation with Jacob Blake versus what actually happened? Well, I think anyone who watches the video are horrified by what happened. And I think all of us question why it would be necessary to shoot Jacob Blake seven times in the black in the back as he's attempting to walk away. I wish that the officer involved would not have fired his weapon. I think the situation got out of hand, unnecessarily got out of hand, and thankfully it appears that Mr. Blake is going to pull through. And I'm hopeful that with that, and hopefully, hopefully some cooler heads from the protesters and the rioters, we can eventually get to that conversation with, get to that conversation about how the police should respond in these sort of situations.

And we should be clear here. I should be clear here. I am not saying that law enforcement has an easy job far from it. They have to make some critical decisions in a split second. It's not something that I would ever want to do or have the responsibility for. And so I don't want to make it seem like the police, all police are to be blamed. But clearly we need to have a conversation as a state, as a nation, about what exactly we hope our police can do in these sort of situations and get to a place. where this sort of shooting doesn't happen again. Regarding the riots, do you know anyone who has been personally affected by the rioting

or any businesses that have been affected as well? I've watched several videos online with some of the businesses impacted. You had a car lot in Kenosha nearby the county courthouse where the protests began that literally had every car in the lot burned down that business is obviously devastated and it's going to be hard to come back from that you have the video of the elderly gentleman trying to protect his protect his building from being burned down and he's knocked out cold by a cowardless rider from behind so I may not know any of these individuals personally but I feel like having watched some of

video that I do have a sense of what exactly they're going through and my heart just goes out to all of those individuals those entrepreneurs who put everything on the line into their small business and then suddenly they wake up this morning and it's all been burned to the ground all their hard work all their time and their effort my only hope is that we as a as a society we as Wisconsin we can help those small businesses rebuild and and come back even stronger. Well, on that note, Brett, how should law enforcement, as well as the governor and even other local leaders,

respond to this rioting unrest that's happening in Kenosha and elsewhere? I think it's pretty clear that there is a line between peaceful protests and rioting and looting, and when the protesters decide that they're going to cross that line. I do think we as society, as a community, as people, I think we have to respond forcefully and arrest those who cannot follow the law, arrest those who for some reason decide that peaceful protest isn't enough, and arrest the opportunists who see this unrest as a simple way to go in and rob a store like we've seen here in. Kenosha and Madison. So I think it's pretty clear that if you actually want to stop this

behavior, rioting, looting, you need to stand up to it. It's only when you allow the violence, the looting, to happen. It's when law enforcement is forced to stand by idly and watch it happen. That's when it just continues. If you don't stand up to the protesters, the first time that they crossed that line. They're emboldened and they think that they have carte blanche to do whatever they want. And we're seeing here again in Kenosha and Madison, we're seeing the results of that sort of behavior, burned out buildings, decimated small businesses,

and a lot of damage being done to our state. Looking at this whole perspective here of what's happened, And are you surprised to see this happening in Wisconsin? And as well, what are people saying about Blake's shooting as well as the riots that have happened since? We're not surprised here in Wisconsin. We saw some of this happen after the shooting of George Floyd in Minneapolis. And we've had a situation in one of the suburbs of Milwaukee, an African-American officer, police officer, recently shot a young black man, African-American male man, outside a shopping center.

And the police report said that the young man had a weapon in his hand and had 35 rounds of ammunition in his possession. And there's speculation that he was looking to do a lot more damage and violence. than what actually happened. So we have, in Milwaukee and in Wisconsin, we have seen these sort of protests before recently. So when we did see the video of Jacob Blake and what happened to him, we expected that we would see more of it.

And I think we're only into it to day two here in Wisconsin. I think you're going to see this continue for some time. I think some of the far left groups, there that are looking to abolish the police, defund the police, are going to use this as a political opportunity to try and enforce policy change, not on just the Kenosha Police Department, but on the entire state. And I don't think they're going to stop anytime soon with their behavior. Lastly, Brett, what was your reaction to the incident that happened earlier this summer, where two people were charged with battery for an attack during a protest?

the injured Democrat State Senator Tim Carpenter? That was a very unfortunate incident. I think it shows just how extreme some of these protesters are, the fact that and how organized they are, the fact that they know if they are taped, videotaped, doing their protests, what they're doing, they will most likely face charges. So when they saw an individual who we found out later to be state senator Tim Carpenter videotaping their march to deface a statue on capital grounds, they went over and attempted to beat the state senator up and take his camera.

And I think it's just really a sad statement on where we are, especially those on the far left, who feel so strongly about the cause they're fighting for, but they're afraid of their own actions and being caught for their violence. And the fact that they have to ruthlessly beat someone up who is videotaping their actions, I think it's a sad statement. on the far left and the rioters and the protesters and just where exactly they are in this world today. Well, Brad, thank you so much for joining us on the Daily Signal podcast. It's been great having you. Thank you, Rachel. And that'll do it for today's episode. Thanks for listening to the Daily Signal podcast.

You can find the Daily Signal podcast on Google Play, Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you listen. Please be sure to leave us a review and a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts. and please encourage others to subscribe. Thanks again for listening and we'll be back with you all tomorrow. The Daily Signal podcast is brought to you by more than half a million members of the Heritage Foundation. It is executive produced by Kate Trinko and Rachel Del Judas, sound design by Lauren Evans, Mark Geinney, and John Pop. For more information, visitdailySignal.com.