The Republican National Convention begins Monday, July 15, in Milwaukee. Connecticut GOP Chair Ben Proto got to Milwaukee in the week prior to help party officials put the finishing touches on their platform. Proto spoke to Connecticut Public’s “All Things Considered” about his thoughts ahead of the November election. The conversation took place before Saturday's attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump. The following is a transcript of the conversation, which has been edited for length and clarity.
John Henry Smith: Ben, what's the mood among Republicans in the wake of President Biden's debate performance and the subsequent firestorm?
Ben Proto: I think the mood is really high. Democrats are in a complete meltdown across the country. You've got a split among, I think, the congressional delegation. [Connecticut] Gov. [Ned Lamont] can't figure out what he really wants to do on the position. He supports Joe Biden, "but he can't win playing defense." "Joe Biden is a great guy, but I'm really worried." So, you know, he's kind of all over the place.
There's a couple of truisms in life that apply to politics. One, when your adversary is making mistakes, don't get in the way. Let them do it. And two, if you're playing defense, you're losing. They're playing defense, and I think they're going to continue to play defense. If you're explaining, you're losing. They're trying to explain this all the way to trying to direct the attention away from the problems with the president to other silly issues.
What we are witnessing right now in the Democratic Party. And I don't say this lightly, and I don't say this to be funny. The leaders of the Democratic Party are actively working to depose a sitting United States president because they are concerned that he will cost them their election. It's not a concern about America. It's a concern about their personal elections and their ability to hold on to power. And it's the first time in our history that we've seen a political party try to take out their own president to protect their own hides.
John Henry Smith: You say that Democrats are doing that to protect their own hides. I can picture if we had somebody here with us from that side of the aisle, they would say: "No, we're not trying to protect our own hides. We're scared of things like Project 2025," the plan that seems to want to eliminate or significantly restructure the government as we know it.
Ben Proto: Let's stop right there. Project 2025 is not a Republican proposal. It is not a Donald Trump proposal. Our proposal is in our platform. Our platform is out there. It's going to be adopted probably Monday afternoon, our first day of our convention. That's the platform. That's the plan that Donald Trump, the Republican Party, is running on. You know, Heritage Foundation and all these other think tanks on either side of the aisle can come up with any plan they want, but at the end of the day, the plan and the proposal that the Republican Party Donald Trump is running on, is our platform. And you'll notice there's no mention of Project 2025 in it.
John Henry Smith: Have you found anyone that's uncomfortable with Donald Trump, given the guilty verdict on all 34 counts, et cetera, et cetera?
Ben Proto: He won primaries across the country. You know, folks voted for him in record numbers. He's the nominee. People are very comfortable with him. Look, at the end of the day, I think we all really understand what a lot of these trials are about. They're really politically motivated.
John Henry Smith: Do you think Donald Trump has a better chance in Connecticut after Biden's performance at the debate?
Ben Proto: I think Donald Trump's going to do much better in Connecticut than he has in the past. We've seen polling that shows [that] particularly in eastern Connecticut. In counties in eastern Connecticut about 2016 and 2020, we've seen numbers out there where he continues to improve. We know Joe Biden is very upside down in Connecticut. He's upside down among Democrats in Connecticut; they're very, very concerned about Joe Biden. So I think Donald Trump is going to do better in Connecticut, and I think that's going to bode well for our down ballot, particularly [Congressional candidate] George Logan in the 5th District, Mike France in the 2nd District, and our state House and our state Senate candidates.
John Henry Smith: Donald Trump now says that abortion should be up to the states. And, of course, it's no longer part of the party platform; I understand that a national ban is on the table. So is that part of that strategy of getting out of the way while your opponent is flailing?
Ben Proto: Yeah, that's part of it. I've heard some folks in Connecticut, particularly some of our more far left progressive Democrats, talk about the Republicans have retreated on the position. We absolutely have not. That has been our position for over 50 years, that we thought Roe was wrongly decided, that the issue is not a federal issue, it is a state's issue, and that as a result, the Republicans and conservatives across the country have argued for five decades that Roe should be overturned and that the issue should be returned to the states.
Everybody thought the world came to a screeching halt, and it ended with Dobbs. All it did was it said to Connecticut, "You decide. Utah, you decide what you want in Utah. Maryland, you decide what you want in Maryland." Why? Because the values of Connecticut are different than the values of Utah are different than the values of Maryland.
And so in Connecticut, you know, in 1992, I know we embodied the Roe standard. That's not going anywhere in the state of Connecticut. It's not going to change in the state of Connecticut. No one is really advocating for the change of that in the state of Connecticut.
Within the platform, we say that we oppose late-term abortions. But we support more access to prenatal care. We support access to birth control, and we support in-vitro fertilization programs.
My opinion ... I think a lot of people's opinion, has been decided. The Democrats, of course, are going to go do what they do and run a scare tactic. "Oh, they're going to do this. They're going to do that." And that's just simply not where it is. And the reality of the situation is: Even if somebody wanted to impose a federal [abortion] ban, there's never, ever, ever going to be 60 votes in the United States Senate to do that. So it's never going to happen. And the reality is: The state of Connecticut will make that decision as to what they want to do. We made that decision, and it's not changing in the state.
