Milwaukee mayor builds national profile as ‘frenemy’ of Trump convention

Mayor Cavalier Johnson, a Democrat, secured a national stage for Milwaukee when Republicans agreed to hold their presidential convention there later this month.

Yet the Wisconsin confab is also pulling Johnson into the spotlight as he criticizes a coronation of former President Donald Trump that he helped bring to his city.

Johnson, in coordination with officials all the way up to Gov. Tony Evers (D-WI), convinced the Republican National Committee to choose Milwaukee by promising a “welcoming environment” in a battleground that could decide the November election.

His office holds weekly meetings with RNC officials to make sure the event, which will bring tens of thousands of visitors and a large financial windfall , goes smoothly.

The close coordination underscores what’s at stake for Johnson, a rising Democratic star elected to a second term as mayor in April. He has ambitious plans for the city, including growing the population to a million residents, and sees the convention as part of a longer-term project to attract business.

But Johnson’s desire for a successful convention is running into a second imperative. He is a loyal Democrat hosting a Republican convention and must still be an effective messenger for President Joe Biden.

When the Washington Examiner first sat down with Johnson in early December, weeks before Trump trounced his way to the GOP nomination, he struck a conciliatory tone that emphasized the economic opportunity the event promises to bring. Everyone, Republican or Democrat, supports the “green party,” Johnson joked when asked about the unorthodox relationship he’d forged with the RNC.

But Johnson has begun to take his gloves off in the lead-up to the convention. He called Trump “ unhinged ” in a string of cable news appearances and press gaggles last month after the former president reportedly disparaged Milwaukee as a “ horrible city ” in a private meeting on Capitol Hill.

Johnson said as a Milwaukee native, the remarks, which Trump denies ever making, were personal.

“I take offense when anybody comes in and says that my home is a horrible place,” he said in a Wednesday phone interview.

But the comments were also part of a rhetorical shift for Johnson, who plans to make himself available for Democratic counterprogramming when the convention kicks off on July 15.

On the call, Johnson delivered his most scathing remarks on the former president to date, casting him as a threat to democracy whose policies would set back the rights of minority voters in Milwaukee.

“We saw the blunder that was his first administration. I think this next time around, though, it potentially spells some really dark days for American democracy, and that is really, really troubling for me,” Johnson said.

The comments reflect the more overtly political role Johnson is stepping into. Until now, he has largely sought to prove his mettle as a steward of his city.

He became the first black mayor elected in Milwaukee in 2022 at the age of 35 by addressing local concerns, including crime and reckless driving. The convention and other draws like it provide a chance to sell Milwaukee, a state suffering from a long-term decline in population, as a desirable place to live and invest.

“He’s a fabulous man. I think he's a rising star with a really tough job,” Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) said of Johnson.

Yet the convention is offering Johnson another avenue to elevate his political stock. He helped land Milwaukee as the host city but is now using his office as a bully pulpit.

He, similar to the Biden campaign , attempted to tie Trump to Project 2025, a presidential blueprint put forward by the Heritage Foundation, calling its agenda part of a “darker, dystopian view and vision for the future of our country.”

On Friday, Trump disavowed the platform, pitched as a way to dislodge a “ permanent political class ” that conservatives say is hostile to them.

“I have nothing to do with them,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.

Meanwhile, the former president is relying on state officials to act as surrogates. Rep. Bryan Steil (R-WI), who represents parts of Milwaukee County in Congress, panned Biden’s policies on the economy and border with an allusion to his poor debate performance last week.

“He's incapable of defending the policies because the policies he has put forward are indefensible,” he said in a press call ahead of Biden’s visit to Madison on Friday.

Johnson, for his part, chided Democrats who believe Biden should step aside over the debate, during which the president struggled to complete thoughts and, at times, challenge Trump. So far, four House Democrats have called for a new name atop the presidential ticket, with more waiting in the wings when Congress returns on Monday.

“Ultimately, Joe Biden is going to be our nominee,” Johnson told the Washington Examiner. “Unless Joe Biden were to come forward and say, ‘Hey, I’m not going to do this,’ then folks should rally around him.”

But Johnson reserved most of his criticism for Trump, suggesting racial animus on the part of the former president given his repeated depiction of American cities as corrupt, crime-ridden places.

“I mean, folks can read between the lines there about what Donald Trump thinks about places that have significant amounts of diversity,” he said.

Trump has previously defended himself as the “least racist person on earth.”

Johnson maintains that he has a good relationship with the RNC even as he faulted the party for returning to Trump despite his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

“It's their candidate. It's the candidate that got the requisite amount of delegates that has posed to be the problem,” Johnson said, noting Republicans were far less deferential to Trump when Wisconsin officials were vying to bring the convention to Milwaukee.

Yet the tension between pragmatism and party loyalty for Johnson was there from the start.

Milwaukee County is a liberal bastion that Biden won by 40 points in 2020, but if Republicans make even a dent in that support, it could swing a state decided by 20,000 votes in the last two presidential races into the GOP column.

Republicans dismissed the idea that Trump was bad for black voters on Friday’s press call, predicting the same concerns hobbling Biden’s campaign nationally will hurt him with people of all ethnicities.

“They're in trouble. They're in trouble for a reason, and if somebody needs a rescue plan with those voters, it's not Donald Trump, it's Joe Biden,” Brian Schimming, chairman of the Wisconsin GOP, told the Washington Examiner.

Johnson emphasized the outreach the Biden campaign has done to the black community in Milwaukee while panning Trump’s attempts to win their support. He suggested his debate reference to immigrants stealing lower-wage “black jobs” would turn those voters off.

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But Johnson also cast the race in economic terms, predicting Milwaukee, part of the Midwestern Rust Belt, will vote for Biden because of the manufacturing jobs created in the last three years.

“Whoever wins the state of Wisconsin wins the White House, and I think that'll be Joe Biden,” he said.