MILWAUKEE — Officials said police officers shot and killed a person in Milwaukee on Tuesday about five blocks outside of the Republican National Convention’s outer security perimeter.
The Columbus, Ohio, Fraternal Order of Police issued a statement saying members of the Columbus department were involved in the shooting. Officers from multiple jurisdictions are in Milwaukee providing additional security for the convention.
Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson’s chief of staff, Jeff Fleming, said he didn’t know what led up to the shooting, though he and Alexi Worley, a spokesperson in the convention’s joint command center, said there was nothing to suggest the shooting was related to the convention itself. Worley referred additional questions to the Milwaukee Police Department.
That agency didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking more details. The Milwaukee County Medical Examiner’s Office said an adult male was shot and killed. An autopsy is scheduled for Wednesday.
Roads were blocked at 14th and Vliet streets, where a woman said her brother had been fatally shot by a police officer. The site is near King Park.
Milwaukee television station WTMJ reported an officer shot one of two men who were fighting with knives, citing unnamed sources.
“They shot him down like a dog,” said nearby resident Wanda Campbell, adding that she heard at least five gunshots.
Trump-owned firm selling sneakers with image of his bloodied face
A company is now selling $299 sneakers showing an image of Donald Trump with streaks of blood on his cheek and pumping his fist in the air after he was the target of an assassination attempt in Pennsylvania.
The white high tops are being sold as “FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT High-Tops” for $299 on a website that sells Trump-branded shoes that is run by CIC Ventures LLC, a company Trump reported owning in his 2023 financial disclosure. The company says the new shoes are limited edition with only 5,000 pairs available and estimated to ship in September or October. It also said 10 pairs will be randomly autographed.
“These limited edition high-tops, featuring Trump’s iconic image with his fist raised, honor his unwavering determination and bravery,” it says. “With only 5,000 pairs available, each one is a true collector’s item. Show your support and patriotic pride with these exclusive sneakers, capturing a defining moment in history.”
CIC Ventures is the same company that debuted “Never Surrender High-Tops,” shiny gold sneakers with an American flag detail on the back, for $399.
Beware Project 2025, Dems say
Democrats on Tuesday tried to tie the far-right platform “Project 2025” directly to former President Donald Trump and his vice-president pick JD Vance — calling the sweeping policy plan “dangerous for our country.”
Project 2025 is the Heritage Foundation’s 900-page blueprint for the next Republican administration, and it’s being highlighted by Democrats this week during the Republican National Convention.
Trump has tried to distance himself from the project, posting earlier this month that he knows “nothing” about Project 2025 and didn’t know who crafted it. But Vance has publicly praised it.
The project, written and crafted by several former Trump appointees, calls for cutting the Department of Education, putting the Justice Department and the FBI directly under presidential control, building camps to detain children and families at the border and sending the military to deport millions of people who are in the country illegally and prosecuting anyone mailing abortion pills, among many other plans.
“It’s incumbent on us to call out what we see from the stage and what we know that Trump and Vance are proposing for America,” Democratic Party of Wisconsin Chairman Ben Wikler said. “It’s all written down in Project 25, which JD Vance proudly said was full of good ideas. But we know that these ideas aren’t just bad, they’re dangerous. They’re dangerous for our country.”
AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler framed the plan as anti-union and said it will rip away the Affordable Health Care Act, since it includes putting Medicare on a path to privatization.
“Will my life be better when they gut the Affordable Care Act and rip away affordable health care? When they end Social Security and Medicare as we know it. Programs that workers have earned and paid into their entire lives,” Shuler said. “Programs that Trump’s new running mate JD Vance calls the biggest roadblocks to fiscal sanity.”
Trump, Vance will rally in Michgan Saturday
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and his running mate, J.D. Vance, will speak at a rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan on Saturday.
The scheduled rally comes just a week after the attempted assassination of Trump at a campaign rally last Saturday, where Trump was injured, an attendee died and two others were seriously wounded.
Michigan, a key swing state, went narrowly to Trump in 2016, by about 11.000 votes out of about 4.5 million cast. Biden carried the state by about 155,000 votes in 2020.
Trump’s speech could reset national tone, Pennsylvania GOP chair says
Pennsylvania Republican Party Chairman Lawrence Tabas said he hoped Saturday’s assassination attempt on former President Trump would reset the tone nationally, beginning with the former president’s speech to the Republican National Convention on Thursday.
“I think his speech could be very important. Notice during his appearance (Monday), he was more subdued than normal, almost humbled,” Tabas said in an Associated Press interview after the Pennsylvania GOP’s delegation breakfast in suburban Milwaukee. “After a brush with death, I do believe — going through that — that his message will be better, and I think will appeal to our better emotions.”
“He has an enormous amount of compassion and empathy that doesn’t always come through,” he said.
Chicago’s ‘rooftop pastor’ to speak at GOP convention
Rev. Corey Brooks of Chicago will deliver the final prayer Tuesday, the second night of the convention.
The South Side pastor who routinely crisscrosses the city among shooting scenes said on social media he was “grateful for this opportunity and looking forward to giving a shoutout to Chicago.”
Brooks is a Republican who has boosted GOP candidates.
Southern Illinois delegate and state Rep. Terri Bryant, R-Murphysboro, said his slot showed the GOP is a “big tent party.”
“When you see African Americans, Latinos, and I think we’re going to see some other demographic groups that are going to be represented — I think America is going to see very clearly that the big tent party is here,” Bryant said. “We’re united, and honestly, someone like Corey Brooks speaking on the stage tonight should send a message that we are united in that message and we’re united going forward.”
Rev. Brooks got the “rooftop pastor” nickname for two extended stays atop buildings in his church’s Woodlawn neighborhood, as a way to protest violence in the community and also raise money to do something about it.
Have gun, should vote, says Miller
Heavily Democratic Illinois could become a Republican bastion — if only everyone with a gun cast a vote, according to Illinois’ most fervent Donald Trump supporter in Congress.
U.S. Rep. Mary Miller made that assessment after addressing the Illinois delegation to the Republican National Convention Tuesday at its hotel outside Milwaukee.
Asked what the state GOP needs to do to round up support for the former president and Republican presidential nominee, Miller said, “We need to get people out to vote.”
“If just gun owners would come out and vote in Illinois, we could flip the state red,” Miller told reporters. “Get people out to vote. Everybody has a realm of influence. Get busy, people.”
Miller said the party would have better luck reaching voters in the middle “if the media would accurately report who President Trump is, what he’s done for the American people.”
“I can say one thing to the people, the parents that are in Chicago and their children are being forced into failed schools,” Miller said. “There are three things that give a child privilege: parents that are married and stayed together, faith … and an excellent education, and you’re damaging a child for life to give them a terrible education.”
Earlier, she told delegates that Democratic supermajorities in the state capitol had turned it into “a bad idea factory.”
“We cannot surrender the whole state of our great President Abraham Lincoln to [Gov. J.B.] Pritzker and the radical left,” she told Illinois delegates. “We’re in a race to the bottom with California and New York.”
Also mingling with delegates at the hotel breakfast Tuesday was llinois Republican Party chairwoman-elect Kathy Salvi, making her first appearance since being elected last week as the next face of the party.
As delegates gathered for their group breakfast at their Oak Creek, Wisconsin, hotel, Salvi chatted with current chairman Don Tracy, who announced his resignation last month complaining of incessant intraparty fighting.
Salvi, who officially takes over as party chair Friday when the Republican National Convention concludes, is expected to address delegates Wednesday.
She ran unsuccessfully against U.S Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., in 2022.
Virtual nomination still on, Democrats say
President Joe Biden’s campaign on Tuesday defended its decision to hold a now-unnecessary virtual roll call weeks before the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, saying Biden has “earned that right.”
Democrats had briefly paused their countermessaging at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, including billboards and news conferences with key Biden surrogates after the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump Saturday at a Pennsylvania rally.
By Tuesday, billboards were back up, with at least one digital billboard circling downtown Milwaukee with an image of Trump and the message, “Dictator on Day One.”
Biden will be nominated in a virtual roll call ahead of the DNC in Chicago, a plan announced prior to the president’s damaging debate performance on June 27. The early nomination was decided in response to an Ohio law that would have kept Biden’s name off ballots if he wasn’t nominated by Aug. 7. Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, however, has since signed a bill extending the ballot deadline to Aug. 31.
An earlier nomination will effectively squash rampant chatter and calls for Biden to be replaced as the nominee. But the Biden campaign on Tuesday defended that decision, saying it refuses to “play games about who is on this ballot.”
“We’re not going to leave it up to Ohio Republicans to have President Biden not be on the ballot in every single state,” Biden deputy campaign manager Quentin Fulks said at a morning news conference.
“He is deserved that right. He’s earned that right. And so we’re going to continue with that path and not play games about who is on this ballot, to make sure there’s an election where candidates from both major parties are on the ballot, as well as any third-party candidates who have qualified and met the signature requirements to be on the ballot.”
Gov. J.B. Pritzker, a Biden surrogate, was initially scheduled to appear at a Monday morning news conference in Milwaukee. But Democrats opted for a brief pause in messaging after Trump’s shooting. It’s unclear if Pritzker will attend any other Milwaukee events this week.
Who’s who of who’s not here
For all Illinois Republicans’ talk of mending intraparty fences during the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, some of the state GOP’s biggest names in recent years are largely absent from the state delegation.
That includes moderate former Gov. Jim Edgar, former Illinois House Minority Leader Jim Durkin and former U.S. Rep. Adam Kinzinger, a vehement detractor of former President Donald Trump.
“All Republicans in Illinois were given an opportunity to join the Illinois delegation to the RNC convention,” Palatine Township committeeman and delegate Aaron Del Mar told reporters.
“If they chose to take that opportunity or not was a decision that each and every one of them made on an individual basis, on their own thoughts, beliefs and ideals on what’s the best vision for Illinois and the United States moving forward. So if Jim Durkin doesn’t want to come to the RNC convention, be a part of moving the process forward and he’d rather sit at home, that’s a decision Jim Durkin made.”
And members say there’s plenty of room for people who don’t like Trump, who remained unpopular among suburban Chicago voters in the 2020 election.
“There’s a lot of Republicans that are here in the United States, and especially in Illinois, that are maybe not the biggest Trump fans, but want to make sure that America is a safe place,” Del Mar said.
State Rep. Charlie Meier, R-Okawville, said members “understand that a Republican running up in the collar counties will stand on a little bit different platform than a Republican in southern Illinois.”
“I talk to a lot of people saying, ‘I don’t like the man [Trump], but I love his policies and I’m going to vote for him.’ We need those people to vote for this platform and help bring other Republicans in with it. We need to grow,” Meier said.
Contributing: Associated Press