As the protests in Madison, WI continue the news today is about a phone conversation between Gov. Scott Walker and a liberal blogger. Walker, a republican elected last November, thought he was talking to a top GOP donor named David Koch. The audio was posted on the Buffalo Beast, a left-leaning website that has been inaccessible for much of the afternoon, because of the attention to this story.
On the 20-minute call, Walker discussed his strategy to take on public employee unions and joked that he would use a baseball bat in his office to go after political opponents.
MSNBC began covering the story in the NoonET hour; Megyn Kelly began covering it during “America Live” at 1pmET, and by 3:30pm CNN had its cameras trained on Madison where Walker was going to speak live about the impact all of this has had on state government operations.
As for the prank, it was the first question he got during the news conference. “I’m not going to allow one prank phone call to be a distraction from the realities that we have a job to do here,” he said.
> Update: “The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell” has prank caller Ian Murphy on the show tonight. 8pmET on MSNBC.