(bright music) - [Narrator] A production of PBS Charlotte.

(gentle music) - This week on "Unspun", we'll preview the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

For four straight nights, this is where the campaign really begins and spins as Trump officially announces his VP and his plans for the next four years.

It's all made for TV, but who's really watching?

I also have the top five things at the Republican convention that politicians don't talk about.

"Unspun" is next on PBS Charlotte.

In today's America, welcome to the spin game.

Believe me, I know.

I'm Pat McCrory.

When I was governor and mayor, I played the spin game.

I was played by the spin game.

But aren't we all done being spun?

Let's take the spin out of the world we're in, here on "Unspun".

(uplifting music) Good evening, I'm Pat McCrory, and welcome to "Unspun", a show that tells you what politicians are thinking, but not saying.

Next week, the Republicans hold their national convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, but it won't be very conventional.

It'll be the first time in 132 years that any party has nominated a former president.

- I humbly and gratefully except your nomination for the presidency of the United States.

(crowd cheering) - The Republican convention this year will again be mostly all Trump all the time.

One big infomercial, because that's what these conventions have become for both parties.

Night after night of speeches after speeches with lots of sign waving and made for TV videos.

Trump's opponent will be watching for ammunition against a candidate they love to hate.

And how will Trump deal with the chaos within the Democratic parties presidential nominee?

And Trump's supporters can't wait to chant four more years for the candidate they can't get enough of.

Before Milwaukee, the last Republican National Convention was held right here in Charlotte four years ago.

Charlotte attorney, Scott Syfert, was a key member of the Charlotte Host Committee back in 2020.

Now he is also helping Milwaukee plan this year's GOP convention.

Scott, thanks for joining us.

- Happy to be here, Governor.

Good to see you.

- Well listen, I'm kinda curious, what does it take to coordinate a convention that most people don't know about?

- Well, conventions are really unique animals, as you know, and they're really sort of marriages of convenience or even arranged marriages between a bunch of different parties that have some similar views and some different but competing interests.

For example, on the one hand, you have the national committee, whether it's the Democratic or Republican National Committee.

And then you have what's called the host committee.

And the host committee is the local group of sort of boosters and civic leaders who are less interested in politics generally speaking, but are very interested in having a good visible event in their city.

And so you have a natural tension between those two institutions.

And then you also have the city itself, which may be democratically led in many instances.

And then you have a natural tension there with the Republican convention, for example.

So you have a bunch of different actors, none of whom is 100% in charge, let's say, and all of whom have their own interests.

And so it's really a balancing act.

- I'm already confused.

So how do all these entities raise money and who do you raise money from and are you competing against each other with the same donors?

- Yeah, a lot of times you are.

So the principle to fundraising sort of buckets are you have the political money that the candidate and the convention, the RNC or the DNC is raising through their national political sources, let's say.

But then you have, an example of Charlotte in 2020, you have all the sort of major institutions in the city that are raising money, but there's a lot of overlap, and so there's some competitiveness from time to time, but who gets credit for what money.

And of course, a lot of the local institutions, whether you're Milwaukee or Cleveland or Charlotte.

Again, they may not really care that much about the convention as a political thing.

They just want something that showcases the city and its best possible like.

Just like you're having a Super Bowl or a soccer playoff or something like that.

So you have that pot of money, then you have the national political money and those are very different, can be very different sources.

- Is there a difference that you know of between planning a Republican convention versus a Democratic convention where the Democrats follow the same model, say in Chicago or in the past right here in Charlotte?

- Right, I think the model is generally the same for both, whether it's a Democratic or Republican convention.

What differs obviously is the candidate, what differs is the sort of donor base and what difference is the sort of the cycle you're in.

You may have a very upcycle as you had with President Obama in 2012 where raising money was less of a problem and you had no contention among the party, versus say, Trump in 2016 or 2020, where it's a more contentious situation.

But the general organizing a convention, what on either side is more or less the same legal and sort of substantive process.

- So we've had past conventions where they've had... 911 change security forever, then we had COVID, we have protestors at every convention.

What's the next thing that could throw a curve ball into the convention and say, Milwaukee, that hasn't been done in past conventions?

- Well, security is always the biggest component of this.

And for the city of the host organization, the amount of security, federal and so forth is causes great concern with everybody, but is always very well-organized, but it's also very expensive.

So each year, either the Democratic or the Republican convention is allocated approximately 50, $55 million from the feds to hold a convention.

And that's been a long standard tradition, that pays the city back for the money that it invests in wherever the convention is and whoever the party is.

What I think you are seeing a trend in, not only in security is, whether these conventions sort of make sense at all in a digital world where you're basically throwing a television show, right, for five days.

And you can have that television show as opposed to one city.

You could really have it anywhere.

As it was seen during COVID with both the DNC and RNC, they had digital conventions with minor organized political activities in each of the cities.

But really it's, you're paying for a TV show, which as you know, you can do wherever you want.

So there's a school of thought that these are sort of dinosaurs anyway, and why do we need to bring everybody to one specific city for a week.

But as of yet, no one's really embraced changing the process.

- Well, that was gonna be one of my last questions, but I'll go ahead and move it now.

Are they a dinosaur?

And in fact, I know as a former candidate I'd go, "Heck, I'd rather have that money spent on my campaign than on one day convention or supposedly a four day convention."

But it's really one day when the president speaks.

- Right.

- And why not spend that money on the candidates campaigning?

- Right, and that's the argument, because these conventions are just extraordinarily expensive.

I mean, just the security component from the feds is again, 50 million.

But each of the outside of that, each convention raises anywhere from 50 to $75 million.

But they serve a lot of functions that apart from the TV show, part of it, you're also entertaining your delegates and you're getting everybody in the same place at the same time.

It's on your team and entertaining them.

So there are other functions that would be hard to do if it was purely digital, but you might see something that becomes maybe a two day convention, or we've even heard talk in the DNC context, I think, of having, you could have a two day convention in another important city, Chicago, you could move it to... - Yeah.

- I'm just making this up, St. Louis for two days.

You could have a rotating convention among two or three different cities.

That might be something you see in the future.

- What are they saying in Milwaukee right now?

The VP selection is anticipated for Milwaukee, but with all the chaos in the Democratic side of the aisle with not knowing who's gonna be the presidential nominee at this point in time, is the VP selection, that's gonna be the big news at least according to today's news.

Is that what Milwaukee's anticipating?

Is the VP selection being announced then or before then?

- I don't have any inside information on that, but yeah, you hear the same things I do.

On the Republican side, everything's more or less set other than the VP pick, which could happen today or in two weeks.

And the experts would be better positioned to tell you whether would it make sense to make that decision.

I think what's gonna be interesting on the the Democrat side obviously is whether when Biden makes it that far, right?

And two, are you gonna have a quasi coup to bring him down before that?

I mean, that's gonna be the one to watch.

I think the RNC is gonna be so well-organized, planned, and so forth as these things are, it's scripted that while it's a great television show, there shouldn't be anything that sends it off the rails.

But that's not the case with the Democrats in Chicago.

That could be gold TV.

- Final questions for the Republican convention.

Celebrities, which everyone wants to see.

All the delegates wanna meet a celebrity.

- Right.

- Former politicians like former... Would Bush come?

Nikki Haley apparently hasn't been invited.

- Right.

- Do you know of any of the politics?

Did you have to deal with any of those politics in Charlotte in the past, who comes, who doesn't get to come, who gets to speak, who doesn't get to speak?

- Well, yeah, everyone wants to speak.

You have only a limited amount of speaking time, obviously, so you have to be judicious in who gets what.

And again, back to why you have these conventions exactly right.

Everyone wants to see the celebrities, everyone wants to meet the candidates.

And for a lot of these delegates, especially in sort of not the marquee states, they don't get chances to do this very often.

And these are unpaid delegate jobs for grassroots people that spend as years working on campaigns with not a lot of reward.

And so this is the payback for these folks.

And so it'd be very hard to get rid of these conventions because this is what you'll live to see in politics.

It's the big show, right?

- The big show.

Scott Syfert, thanks for helping both conventions that have come to Charlotte, and I'm sure Milwaukee appreciates you too.

Take care now, friend.

- Good to see you, thank you.

- It's time now for PBS Charlotte's Jeff Sonier to take "Unspun" on the street to hear what you are thinking about next week's Republican National Convention.

- So with a deeply polarized election like we have this year, does it mean more people will be watching the convention next week or fewer people will be watching the convention next week?

Well, here in Kannapolis, we're finding out that the answer might be both.

(crowd cheering) - The chair is pleased to report that Donald Trump having received a majority of these votes has been selected as the Republican party nominee for president of the United States.

(crowd cheering) - It's all amplified so much by social media reaction to it and by people getting so such heightened emotions.

It's a click bait, isn't it?

It gets people to see what you want 'em to see.

There's a lot of red meat being thrown to the base of those kind of things.

Is it more entertainment now than actual politics?

(crowd cheering) - Voting is our voice, but I don't think the convention would really make that much difference for people who are undecided.

Well, if you're gonna go to the ballot box, you should know what that person leaves with, believes in it and it fits a line to your beliefs.

(crowd cheering) - I feel like probably most people have probably made up their mind.

I don't think there's probably a lot of middle of the road folks.

I don't think you can go anywhere and not pay attention to it.

It seems to be everywhere, and everybody has an opinion on it.

(crowd cheering) - [Jeff] So you'll be watching the commission?

- Definitely, I will.

Listen to the sincerity of what they have plans for the people, see if they're really interested in the people and not just getting in the White House.

- I don't think either of 'em make good leaders for our country.

I'm very disappointed that this is the best we could come up with.

It's marketing, it's branding and all that kind of stuff.

I just find both of these candidates to be too polarizing.

- Yeah, different reasons here in Kannapolis to watch or not watch the convention next week.

Most voters agreeing, they wanna be more informed, but they disagree on whether watching a convention is the way to become more informed.

Pat?

- Thanks, Jeff.

Very honest comments.

So what do you think about the issue?

Email us your thoughts on the Republican National Convention to unspun@wtvi.org.

(uplifting music) Tonight on our "Unspun" countdown, we've got the top five things that politicians won't tell you about the Republican convention.

Let's start out with number five.

Number five, most candidates wish the convention money was spent on their own campaigns.

You heard Scott Syfert say $50 million to hold a convention while you've got candidates running for Senate and House and Governor scraping for every dollar they can to get on TV and yet we're spending $50 million for a four-day convention that maybe no one's watching.

The politicians are really saying that behind the scenes.

Number four, most politicians consider attending a convention a waste of time.

The fact of the matter is, that's true.

There are no voters that they need in Milwaukee coming up.

The voters they need are in their state.

For example, those running for attorney general or governor or Congress, their voters are in North Carolina.

They're not in Milwaukee and it costs them a lot of campaign money to fly up there, stay in hotels, spend money on food when they should be doing that right there, right here in our own state.

It's a waste of time and a waste of money for almost all the politicians unless they're getting prime time on TV, which they're not gonna get.

Number three, this is what the politicians need to know.

The media only covers about oh, 10% of what happens.

And that's gonna be the president's speech.

That's gonna be the VP's speech, and maybe one other.

All the rest of the time, the talking heads for MSNBC, CNN, Fox and the major networks are gonna be talking to themselves because the rest of the convention is rather boring, and they'll lose viewers if they show any of that stuff.

Number two, no one at the convention pays attention to 90% of the speakers.

Believe me, I know, I'm gonna be talking about this later on in the show.

But most the convention, the hall is empty, people are going to restaurants, people are looking at bands.

People are enjoying the comradery with each other.

They're not paying attention to C-list speakers, which make no difference in the presidential election.

And number one, the delegates fighting over who announces the state votes is really the biggest fight on the convention floor, at least for the Republicans this year.

The Democrat convention might be quite different, but there's actually internal politics in each delegation.

North Carolina, Virginia, Florida, you name it, on who gets to make that final announcement on saying, "North Carolina submits its delegates to President Trump," and that person wants to get on TV.

Well, so do all the candidates.

So do some of the hardworking convention volunteers.

So does the chairman of the party.

So they have an internal discussion who gets that one minute on TV that no one's really watching anyway.

(uplifting music) PBS Charlotte's fan favorite.

Jeff Sonier joins me now for "Unspun 1-on-1".

- No, that's not true.

And that's will be subject to a fun fact.

- That was my first spin of the day.

- Yeah, no one's buying it either, okay.

You know how this works.

We take the questions from this week's topic and also from the headlines.

I ask them and you answer 'em.

Here's question number one.

So the Republicans are expecting to have full attention on their candidate, their platform next week.

But just take a look at this week's headlines.

"Joe Biden's defiant delusion."

"Pushing Biden out."

"Biden's decline."

"Mr. President, time to pass the torch."

"Biden's blind spot."

"Dropping Biden won't help."

When all this attention is being paid right now to President Biden, does that detract from the attention that the Republicans will receive next week?

- Absolutely.

And the Republicans might like that.

They only want their attention on the final night on President Trump's speech and as on his VP selection.

But there's a chance he could hold off on that too.

We don't know.

But we've never seen anything like this in American history.

And I'll say this from a personal opinion.

I've been a mayor and a governor in the executive branch and nothing like president.

But in those two jobs as mayor and governor, you have to be on 24 hours a day.

You can't have a moment because of emergencies and because of crisis.

You can if you're a US senator, but not someone in the executive branch.

So the Democrats have a very difficult decision to make.

- Well, let me just follow up.

You know, that debate was supposedly too early in the process to make a big difference.

This is the kind of thing that doesn't go away though, isn't it?

- No, the debate was not a 24-hour news stories.

This is gonna go on forever because it verified what some of the publicity was against Biden for the last two years and there were Wall Street Journal articles that were New York Times articles in the last just four weeks.

The Democrats and the White House denied it.

People saw it with their own eyes.

It's actually very sad.

- Yeah.

- In many ways.

No matter what political stripe you are, I hate to see it with any individual in any job.

- Yeah, we'll talk about that more in a couple of weeks when we preview the Democratic convention.

But let's talk about the VP, you mentioned it a moment ago.

Behind the scenes, what's factoring into that decision right now?

If the decision hasn't already been made, what are the factors that are gonna weigh in favor of one candidate versus another?

- Well, in the past history it was what state are they from?

- Yeah.

- What region of the country are they from?

Because they're looking for other states.

I think in this case, 'cause Trump is such a unique candidate, he's looking for someone who won't overshadow him, someone he can trust, and someone who meets his two or three litmus test from the last election.

But I won't be surprised if we get a curve ball.

- Hmm.

- Because of the uncertainty of what's happened with the Democrats.

And if they go with the current vice president, Kamala Harris, that could change his opinion on who he wants to reach out to.

- Yeah, that's what I wondered.

Would they second guess whatever decision they might have already made because of that debate, because of the idea of number two man being the next president in the minds of so many voters now?

- Well, first of all, you said they made.

- Yeah.

- This is a Trump decision all by himself, and I'm sure his family's given input.

Chris LaCivita, his campaign manager's given input, top Republican leaders are given input.

But I think it's gonna be solely on Donald Trump, and knowing him like I did, it could change at any moment.

- Right.

Now we saw the platform by the Republicans released just a few days ago, 16 pages, a lot shorter than most of what we've seen in the past.

Usually these are complicated, long winded documents.

Anything in that platform you think that's specifically aimed at anyone at home who's not made up their mind yet in this election?

- Two things stood out.

One is the moderation on abortion.

There's no doubt that the abortion issue has hurt the Republicans and hurt Donald Trump and also hurt our North Carolina gubernatorial candidate in the Republican Party.

So they've moderated no federal stoppage of abortions in the Republican platform, which has probably impacted some people's feelings on the far right.

But they're gonna vote for Trump no matter what.

The second one was interested, no tax on tips.

Who's that appeal to?

Las Vegas, Nevada.

Nevada could be a swing state, could swing the election one way or the other.

He lost Las Vegas big time with the unions there, a lot of union workers who work at the casinos, he's going after them right now.

The customer service employees who survive on tips, and he's going, "I'm not gonna tax your tips."

Very interesting political move.

- Does having the Republican convention in Wisconsin also maybe persuade voters in a swing state?

Wisconsin's supposed to be one of those swing states.

- Well, again, in the old days, it'd make a difference.

You'd go, "Let's do it in a state that could be a swing state."

There's no doubt Wisconsin is a swing state.

It used to be a Democratic state all the way for presidential elections.

Now, right now, it's almost dead even.

So the convention could make a difference for the Republicans.

I actually think it's overrated where the convention has held, especially since most people are ignoring the conventions.

But this time, it might be different because of the Biden controversy.

- Yeah, it's bound to get more eyeballs on the TV screen just to see what Trump says about Biden.

- Exactly, exactly.

- Now 2004, Boston Democratic Convention.

I remember you were still mayor, you were there as part of the Republican Truth squad, I think they called themselves.

Tell me about what the opposition party does during the week of the other party's convention.

- Wow, and I was, my two partners in that function were Mitt Romney, who's now been kinda kicked out of the party, and Rudolph Giuliani, who's been dealing with legal issues now and is going to court and just lost his law license.

Who would've known this back then that that was gonna happen.

And Pat McCrory doing an "Unspun" here in Charlotte.

Each party at each convention has allowed a team of people to work against the propaganda being shown at each convention.

And to get on CNN, MSNBC, Fox, you name it, they're gonna get on every radio show throughout the nation.

So I spent my whole time picking up the phone and being coordinated with Republican strategists.

"Okay, we want you to do a radio show in Minneapolis.

Now do one in San Diego."

And you were just on the whole time, and what you're doing is giving the Republican spin and the Democrats are gonna be doing this next week in Milwaukee.

- Yeah.

And I remember being in some of those interview rooms, and I was the only reporter there.

Is it another example of talking to an audience that really doesn't exist out there in television?

- Well, you could tell who the A people are.

I was probably a C or D person.

I did a lot of radio at that time.

No one knew who I was and they were asking for Romney and Giuliani a lot.

So they were getting the big network.

I was getting local radio everywhere throughout the nation.

But it's an important role.

It's gonna be interesting who the Democratic operatives will be in Milwaukee going against, and their whole message will be against Trump.

It won't necessarily be defending Biden because who knows what the situation will be.

It'll be attacking Trump and whoever his vice presidential nominee will be, and they'll have the same talking points, and they'll do the best they can to stay on whatever message the DNC wants them to say.

Just like I was told in 2004, was it?

Just stay on message in Boston, whatever the Bush team wanted at that point in time.

- Yeah, staying on message today too, talking about that Republican convention.

- No doubt about it.

Unspun wouldn't had fit.

They wouldn't like that because we don't stay on message.

We tell it like it is and what people are thinking, but not necessarily saying.

- And that's this week's "Unspun 1-on-1".

(uplifting music) - This week on Unfiltered.

We take a look back at the 2004 Republican Convention in New York City.

You know, I was asked to be a speaker when I was still mayor of Charlotte, center stage at Madison Square Garden, and I'm thinking, "This is it, the lift off of my political career."

From City Hall in Charlotte to the White House in Washington DC, I was given two minutes and I thought that's all I need to be discovered by the nation.

So the day before my speech, the handlers had me practice on a teleprompter with a coach backstage.

Then the next day around 2:00 PM in the afternoon, it was time for my big moment.

I was introduced and I proudly walked out, and Madison Square Garden from behind the curtain to the podium, ready to hear thousands of people applauding my introduction.

Well instead, I heard two people clap, and there were a few hundred delegates in the whole Madison Square Garden, and they weren't even paying attention to what I had to say.

That was it.

It was another example of what we talk about every week, how the reality of politics is so different from what we see on TV.

I found out pretty quickly that conventions aren't all about balloons and confetti, but ironically, my convention speech did eventually become some kind of famous, because years later, it was used in a campaign commercial against me by the Democrats when I ran for governor in 2008.

Well, that's the reality of political conventions as I see it.

Thanks for joining us.

And I hope you'll come back next week as we explore the politics of big business.

Why do they get involved in campaigns and why do they get involved in controversial issues?

And what happens when there's backlash from the public?

That's on our next "Unspun", where we'll tell you what politicians are thinking, but not saying.

Goodnight, folks.

(uplifting music) (uplifting music continues) (bright music) - [Narrator] A production of PBS Charlotte.

(gentle music)