Trump's GOP midterm convention remarks

Last night, President Trump capped off the first day with a nearly two-hour-long speech. He criticized Democrats, defended the war with Iran, and made this pledge. If the Republicans win the House of Representatives and the United States Senate, both of them, I will issue a dividend to every adult citizen in the United States of America for $5,000. CBS News Senior White House and Political Correspondent Ed O'Keefe is in Dallas covering the convention. So, Ed, what's the energy like there? Kelly, I'm mostly here to make sure you're OK after last night, but--

I'm still beating you in fantasy this weekend, OK? All right. Yeah, well, see, that's part of why I brought it up. Look, this is certainly designed to motivate the Republican base, and based on night one, it seems to be working, at least with those who were here in the crowd. The president making that vow to give, essentially, $5,000 in what would be some kind of government dividend to-- government-backed dividend to every adult should Republicans hold on to the House and the Senate. This is like if some fast-food joint gave fans like a free hot dog if the Dallas Stars or Mavs-- thank you, basketball-- scored a certain number of points or something. It's an incentive, basically, to try to turn out his base and convince others to vote for Republican candidates. Several contenders in competitive races spoke last night. Senate, House races especially, governor's races-- Byron Donalds of Florida, for example, Jon Husted, who's running up in Ohio for the US Senate. But there are, of course, those dozens of Republicans who opted not to appear here, believing that the president's sagging approval ratings could drag them down as well this fall. So we asked people down on the floor and here in the hall what they made of their fellow Republicans not showing up. Listen to some of their answers.

They should be ashamed of themselves. Why? The Democrats have one positive thing in their group that I know of. Now, I'm not saying all Democrats are bad, but they will stick behind a candidate if it's the nearest jackass. The Republicans need to learn that lesson from the Democrats. So you don't fault them for skipping this? They've got to go get their votes. You don't win-- if you're running, you've got to go win your election in your state. And so nobody-- your name's on the ballot. You've got to go get people to say-- when I ran, I said, this is Rick Scott's plan. Here's how I make your life better. So some sympathy and some absolute anger at those Republicans who skipped out on this convention, Errol. And, Ed, the point of this midterm convention is to rally the base and maybe counter seasonal trends of the opposition party gaining seats. But to Kelly's point, most people last night were probably watching the NFL games. I mean, these opening-week games attract, I think, approximately 30 million people each year. We don't have the numbers for last night. So did people really watch as the party tried to make a splash? And you even had a Democratic senator making a big virtual appearance, too. Yeah, so as I was told by one Republican lawmaker last night, he said, look, y'all are going to focus on how many people are in the room or what are the TV ratings? That doesn't matter. This event is being used by the GOP to clip and save those speeches, those moments from this event and pump them into the social-media algorithms of base Republican voters across the country and hope that they see something from this week that motivates them to vote early or to vote on Election Day, to donate to those candidates and to show up and to establish a floor for them. In some of those ruby-red Republican districts, just the base showing up is enough. But in others, it's going to be critical-- the Senate race here in Texas, the governor's race here in Texas, Senate races, House races across the Northeast and the Midwest as well. So he said, don't obsess about how many people are here in the room. Think about how they use the content created this week to juice turnout across the country. As for Senator Fetterman, yes, the Democrat from Pennsylvania appeared in a video message that played before his Republican colleague, Dave McCormick, the junior senator from Pennsylvania, appeared. It was designed to thank McCormick for working with him in a bipartisan way to save the Keystone State's steel industry, and so it set off a lot of speculation. Uh oh, here we go again. Is Fetterman switching parties? He issued a statement clarifying this was designed to say thank you to McCormick, that he is a loyal Democrat who votes overwhelmingly with his party. And should the Democrats take control of the Senate next year, he will be--