bothered by what he heard on those tapes. dave is the mayor of madison, wisconsin. good to have you with us tonight. i appreciate your time. what is your response to the governor saying that he thought about it? well, let me tell you something. i ve been mayor of madison for eight years now and i ve never been more proud of my community. we ve had probably 500,000 people through this square in the last ten days, 80,000 on saturday. and not a single arrest during that entire period. i was in the capitol last night. they cleared out the rotunda so people could sweep and mop and keep the place clean. the folks who take care of the capitol concourse tell me it s the cleanest it s ever been. we re really proud. so with that, a good depiction of the crowd, good description. i was there. you re spot on with all of that. yet the governor. right.
own locker room and do some tough love. okay? here we go tonight with the ed show. i don t want to be judged on style points anymore. i don t want to judge the president of the united states on style points anymore. this right now, mr. president, is all about action. and i have to ask you tonight, where are you? it is day 11 of the protests in madison. and there is still no deal between the wisconsin 14 and governor scott walker. the great americans in madison have come out day after day and captured the attention of the nation. except for the white house. it s been lukewarm in my opinion. the only statement president obama has made on this story was eight days ago when he spoke to a local nbc affiliate in milwaukee. i would say as a general proposition that everybody s got to make some adjustments to new fiscal realities. on the other hand, some of what i ve heard coming out of wisconsin, where you re just making it harder for public
wisconsin, where you re just making it harder for public employees to collectively bargain generally, seems like more of an assault on unions. and i think it s very important for us to understand that public employees, they re our neighbors. they re our friends. okay. okay. good. but we need a little bit more. the president has let that sound bite stand on its own for over a week. in the past eight days this story has completely changed, intensified, and evolved. one week ago today the wisconsin 14 left the state to block the governor from getting his way on the bill. on saturday over 80,000 people filled the capitol grounds in madison and governor walker rejected an offer from all the wisconsin public employee unions that would have given him the money that he was asking for. remember? there was a bigç budget crisis. protests continued throughout the week.
disturbance among the protesters. i made it very clear that s not right. you said you thought about it. the protesters have come in from other states. but you thought about it. we did. i even had lawmakers and others suggesting rieling things up. okay. hold it right there. can we get these lawmakers on the air? the madison police chief is disturbed by that defense. chief ray wants to know why the governor thought about putting trouble makers in the madison crowds. in a public statement chief wray said, quote, i would like to hear more of an explanation from governor walker as to what exactly was being considered and to what degree it was discussed by his cabinet members. amen, police chief. i find it very unsettling and troubling that anyone would consider creating safety risks for our citizens and law enforcement officers. yeah. joining me tonight from madison is another city official who was
lindsay graham and the republicans are not on the side of the american workers. they hate the american workers. in fact, not one of them has come out and said, hey, you guys over at gm, way to kick some ass. way to go. they can t do that. because, you see, we taxpayers gave them a loan that they re paying back and that s a success story and we just can t have any of that because president obama has his mits all over it. butç we re in our liberal lock room tonight and i have to ask the question. mr. president, why don t you go to madison? why don t you go stand up in front of those americans and just tell them to, you don t have to give one of those great speeches that you give, but if you could just go there and say, keep going. i m with you. who cares what the republicans say? who cares what the right wing talkers say? this is about 2012. this is about priorities. and then after you land in madison, mr. president, you should stop off in indianapolis. and then you should go to columb