Thanks for joining us as Republican candidate for governor Mike Cox is on deck.

So sit in with us as we get the inside out.

Off the Record.

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And now, this edition of Off the Record with Tim Skubick.

Thank you very much.

Welcome to Studio C. The governor's last budget is out.

Did it get any applause?

Let's see.

Lawmakers got their first peek at the governor's last budget proposing to spend 81.5 billion.

You know, if your tax dollars.

The governor was no show.

But her budget director, Jen Flood, told lawmakers that the budget shortfall of $1.8 billion, in part, can be traced to, you know, who in Washington, D.C.

Over the last year, we've seen sweeping changes out of Washington, D.C.

pausing grants, enacting tariffs, shifting cost to states, targeting Medicaid, all of which create significan uncertainty for state budgets.

The governor proposes to raise $800 million to fill that budget hole by taxing internet, sports, gaming, tobacco and vaping products, and swiping $400 millio from the state's rainy day fund.

Meanwhile, House Republican Speaker Matt Hall promptly declared all of these D.O.A.

Dead on arrival.

They're not going to happen.

we're not going to raise taxes.

We're not going to do any of that.

The governor wants to boost state aid to school kids by 10,300 bucks per pupil.

Higher education, however, would not get an increase.

But 15 universities would divide 78 million bucks, about an extra 5 million per school.

They're probably going to fight to get a higher number.

Meanwhile, road and bridge work will get $2 billion, creating 30,000 new jobs.

Some seniors are in line for a possible $350 million savings on property taxes, and school kids families could save the 6% sales tax on Back-To-School items if lawmakers say yes.

Meanwhile, the speaker says he'll cut $800 million from state spending.

We cut $800 million from the budget last year.

We can do it again.

The budget director is not necessarily opposed to cutting the state budget but not as the total solution.

As familie across Michigan are tightening their belts, the state is to to deliver a budget for the next fiscal year that benefits all Michiganders.

So, as they say in the Olympics, let the budget games begin.

All right, so, Emily, what was your lead out of that budget?

You know, it's largely a continuation budget, but there are a lot of gymnastics to even get to the point where you can continue because of some the.

Oh nice tie in with the Olympics.

Well thats true.

But, yo know, with all the federal cuts, there are a lot of budget pressures on the state that it didn't necessarily experience a year or two ago.

So it could be a challenging cycle even to just largely keep the status quo.

The budget director made it clear that this is not our problem, Billy.

Yeah.

They're trying to blame it on D.C., but I don't think they're going to get away with that.

the House Republicans are absolutely right in their clai that, you know, this is D.O.A.

not going to happen.

Well, the tug of war begins, as you say, and we're going to have to see what makes it through by budget time in terms of July 1st and whether or not they even meet the deadline or whether or not in her last year.

They go beyond that.

And we hear what we always hear.

The schools, upset because they didn' get their budget on time to be do all the things that they need to do.

All of that won't make it through.

Some of it's going to make it through.

She views it as a budget that protects the things that have been important to her and her constituents over the last eight years.

and they're just going to have to go back and forth and see what makes it out of there.

But certainly in a highly political year, there's going to be a lot of push.

I mean, I believe Matt Hall, when he says he's not u for some of these tax increases.

And I think that's going to be the challenge is like, you know it's always going to be a lift to ask Republicans to raise taxes.

The House is controlled by Republicans.

And when you're doing that, you kind of need a really good justification.

I mean, I think Democrats have to make the case that there's something unavoidable that has to be funded.

And I think there's a lot in this budget that Matt Hall doesn't want to fund.

I think Mr.

Hall laid the groundwork for this year's budget by what happened in last year's budget, which he established the idea that we can find stuff to cut waste, fraud and abuse to borrow his term, and we can do it again.

So why are we talking about tax hikes?

And he's claiming that, they've already saved the money, that, you know, from these appropriation committee, 349 million.

Yeah.

Work project.

They say, look, we are already doing the job of cutting if the Democrats will just go along with us, we don't have to rais taxes.

It's not going to happen.

They've already raised the tax on marijuana last year there.

And Republicans are not all in on hiking thin taxes, so to speak.

And the Whitmer administration has been through this rodeo before, and they just recently went through all of i up under a Hall administration.

You can bet that whe they sit down in their own room, decided, what are we going t propose in terms of this budget?

They are prepared to lose some things.

It's just a question of what is it that they're not telegraphing now, but they know when the really tough budgeting gets going.

In those conversations, they'll say, okay, we'll give up this and we're going to horse trade on this.

And Speaker Hall is going to do the exact same.

Well, precisely.

And he did last time he gave in on the marijuana tax to fix the roads.

Okay.

You said we weren't goin to raise taxes like raise taxes.

So all of this is part of the dance, okay.

That, you know, it's staking out positions.

Yes.

Yeah.

It's part of the I really wonde why Whitmer would actually put forth this budget, knowing it's not going to go anywhere.

Its a legacy budget, in terms of the things that are important to her.

So in posterity, she can look back at her last budget and say to the critics an everybody looking at politics, you see what I'm trying to accomplish.

But realistically she's got to know from the get go that this thing that she proposed is going nowhere.

Yes, there are going to be negotiations, but she's going to end up with very little of what you just saw.

She's always wanted this vaping thing.

Remember she came into office talking about this in the courts, threw it out.

She just, you know, like a dog that's got a bone.

She doesn't want to give up on that one.

You know, there are a couple repeats in this.

The raising DNR fees is among them.

Certainly the vaping.

Fishing and hunting.

Fishing and hunting, I think that's a nonstarter north of Claire.

And, so definitely she has some ideas that we've seen before.

and also things like the digital advertising tax, which is among the group, kind of the biggest revenue source.

She's looking for on no vice taxes, if that makes sense.

You know what I think is going to be interesting.

Keep in mind this is a budget that you put forward in front of the legislature.

It's different than the speech that she' going to be making on the 25th when she does her state of the state, which is to the general public.

I'm waiting to see what is is that she prioritizes in that speec that goes along with the budget that she really highlights, to be able to say, these are the things I want to get done in my last year, sort of like what she did on the cell phone stuff with the schools, which was in the last, state of the state.

She finally got that done and she got that sign.

One thing really interesting this year, the state of the state come after the budget.

This is very unusual.

Usually you do the state of the state and we sit around and wait for the budget.

Now the budget is out there.

So what is she going to say about what she's proposed in her state of the state?

Well, should look at the lawmakers and say, look at I want this stuff.

I know you guys don't, but the people support me.

Looking into the camera huh?

Rally the troops All right, I have a prediction.

I had an original thought last night.

They do the budget and they leave town.

They don't do anything else.

What's the timeline on this prediction?

Before July 1.

Okay.

In fact, way before.

This is like old fashioned politics.

Get out of town by July 1st and start campaigning.

You want to do you want to do a budget?

You want to sit here through the summer and mess around with numbers?

Or do you want to get your own numbers?

Yeah.

You aren't buying this, Mr.

Stokes.

No no, no, no, I think it's I think that's very plausible because all of them are.

She's not running again, bu everybody else is running again.

And she wants to make sure that hopefully the people she wants to get elected have the time to get out there and campaign and get elected.

I want to just bring up one point.

Mr.

Hall has now for two weeks talked about closing the revolving door.

And for people that don't know what a revolving door is, it's a door that goes round and goes from the legislature to the lobby core.

And Mr.

Hall is on a mission, and this might be a trading item here.

Okay.

To close that door, Billy.

Yeah I think it's, a winning issue.

Have we been here before?

we've been here how many times?

Oh, my God, how many hands and feet?

All this time he put a new twist on.

He said, I want to save Sam Singh, who is the Democratic floor leader of the Senate.

He's saying this guy is way out in left field, but he's smart and he's a great and he's a good deal maker.

Good.

And I want to keep him in the legislature.

If we can stop the revolving door, we'll keep Sam Singh and that's a good thing.

What is so onerous about goin from a legislature to a lobbyis?

So onerous?

I don't know, it's a short trip.

Certainly.

I, with the geography of some of these offices.

and, you know, Michigan doesn't have a cooling off period, which I think other states have, experimented with and seen some successes.

Well, the law does sa that if you accept a lobby job halfway through your term, you can't take it.

You got to finish out your term, which is not a great reform.

But why are you going like that?

Well, I think what Speaker Hall is doing is he's hitting on something that I think will resonate with the average citizen, and they look at politics now and they say, you know, there's just too much wheeling and dealing and all these folks do.

If they get in there, they become legislators.

Second, later they're lobbyists.

And it's just quid pro quo and it's back and fort and we're sick and tired of it.

Well, the good governmen people would tell you the danger in that is, well you are sitting at a legislator as a chairperson of a committee, and you've got a lobby group that works on that committee.

Are there exchanges of ideas and stuff in order to get legislation in order to get a job?

Nobody's ever proven that.

But that hangs over this debate, does it not guys?

Not only hangs over it, it's an actual fact happening right before our very eyes.

But nobody really talks about it.

All right.

Let's talk about the bridge over Troubled Waters, Chuck.

Well, well, we you know, this is one of those situations where, you know, you look at the op ed piece that Governor Snyder, wrote for the Detroit News.

I thought it was very well written and it pointed out something that we've all been reporting and dealing with is, once again, the Trump administration, President Trump, particularly put something out there that gets a lot of talk, a lot of controversy.

Wer talking about the Gordie Howe.

But when you.

Gordie Howe International bridge.

But Rick Snyder, who was a Republican governor at the time, this all really started an has a major part in all of this, he he just took it fact by fact and prove that the administration didn't have their homework together when they made some o the accusations that they made.

And he did.

And he didn't go after th president on a personal level.

He just said, this is wrong.

This is wrong.

Here's the facts.

Here's the facts.

Now, here's the problem, Chuck.

And don't let the facts get in the way of good of a good political move.

Absolutely.

And you've got the Maroon family involved in this because there were meeting between them and the president.

They haven' wanted this bridge from day one, because it cuts into the profit that they've got on the Ambassador Bridge.

And this goes back and forth.

But I think when all the posturing is said and done, I think that bridge is going to be okay.

And I think there are enough people in Michigan from both political parties that are going to make sure this happens.

The governor had the right take on this until she talks to him personally, nothing counts.

And I remember we did an interview 2 or 3 years ago and she said, with Mr.

Trump, he says a lot of stuff, okay.

But if you read what happen afterwards, it never happened.

So her thing was rather sanguine about this thing.

She was not, knee-jerking at all.

This is the first time that the future of this bridge has been in question.

First time in the last several years.

But I do think that, you know, some of the uncertainty in the past about this bridge has been about building it, abou whether it can get done, about whether, you know, government should issue permits.

it's a different question to have a nearly finished piece of infrastructure tha people can stare at but not use.

Right?

Like, I live in Detroit, I see this bridge.

I swim in the waters.

Under Belle Isle.

Goodness.

Yeah its great.

But, you know, I think that it's a little bit of a different question when there's a bridge that people can see.

and a little bit of a different question, because it's hard to envision just letting a resource go to waste, especially one that the business community is supportive of.

Nothing else has stopped this bridge before.

Now, certainly this is not going to stop it.

Well and the Republicans were saying, maybe we'll get some money out of this, okay.

If we get part of the tolls.

What's wrong with that?

Nothing wrong with that.

But, when all said and done, this thing is going through lickety split.

All right, look, you've got to think back to the fact that if President Trump was still concerned about this bridge, why didn't he say something about it in his first term, when Governor Snyder was sitting here as the Republican governor of this state?

There you go, Chuck.

Wow.

Precisely.

Let's call in Mike Cox okay.

Former attorney general, candidate for Republican governor.

How's it going out there on the campaign trail?

Great.

Yeah, I'm heading up to the U.P.

after this dog sled racing time.

Some good times in Marquette.

Do you have a dog sled that you bought?

I'm going to get a little one at Jase.

And, you're up in Gaylord on the way.

I'll be ready.

All right.

So check, check it on the bridge.

That's the president.

he's going to open that bridge, isn't he?

Hey, this is, making a mountain out of a molehill.

This is Donald Trump 101.

I think the governor's right.

Right.

he's ultimately about negotiating, getting a better deal.

You know, we should build sell our products in Canada.

That's what he wants.

And he's going to get a better deal for America.

Is that simple?

So the Democrats overreacted.

Of course.

I mean, it's I hate to use TDS, but that's really what it is.

And and so you get Slotkin and other people who want to feed their beast and say, hey, I'm fighting Trump.

And this is another way to do that.

But I think the governor is exactly right.

All he's doing is trying t squeeze a little extra leverage out of Canada, and I'm all for that.

Emily?

If you're governor of Michigan.

You're not doing anything to stop that bridge or help him with that cause.

Are you?

this issue is going to be settled long before that.

I'm focused on two things.

All right, let's let's revolutionize education here in Michigan.

Let's make it like Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, which which is putting us to shame.

And then number two, let's get off off the mat.

Right.

Economically, we've been at the botto of the barrel for so, so long.

And if we look at the best states, the fastest growing states in America, they've eliminated their income tax.

Those are my two issues.

And I'm not going to get distracted about, you know, the bridge, or the opening.

Here's the reality.

I'm it hasn't opened in two years.

It's two years late already.

So it's really we're reall talking about a sideshow here.

And what does your current relationship with the Maroon family?

I know you've represented them in some bridge interest in the past.

Well I have a relationship, a hello.

How are you doing?

They weren't smart enoug to hire me for all the appeals, so.

And and look how they turned out.

So.

Well, general, you seem to find yourself running in Multi-candidate fields.

In 2010, you had, I think, four opponents.

Now you got their eight in your race so far.

How do you cut through the noise?

How do you make your theme resonate with the voting public?

You know, it's it's the lessons I learned as a marine, an 18 year old So you have to be disciplined.

You have to be focused and you have to believe in the process.

Its boring.

But I hit it each and every day.

If you look at social media there's no candidate on either side of the aisl who's working as hard as I am.

and here's here's the thing.

I remember people were telling me we loved you as attorney general but you never been in business.

And I'd say.

But I reduced the size of staff by 21%.

If you remember It was 34 employees.

Yeah, yeah.

34 employees.

Say what?

It was, 34 employees was you're 26%.

Is that accurate?

No, no 125.

All right.

So someone was lying.

And we did that during the loss that day the demand was going up.

And they say well you've never been in business before.

How do you know how to create jobs.

Well now I've created jobs.

I've been in business, I've negotiated huge deals.

And I'm a much better candidate.

Mr.

Attorney General, should we nationalize our elections?

We're in a heavy election year, important midterm election year.

You're a candidate.

You're going to be running.

that's something tha the president floated this week.

And he specifically mentioned Detroit.

Yeah.

Well, it Chuck, is you know, Detroit's been a problem forever.

Okay.

When I ran against Gary Peters won the closest statewide race in 100 years.

Detroit found a bag of 3000 to 4000 absentee ballots on the Friday after the election.

And if don't take my word fo it, ask our lieutenant governor, who's been trumpeting the problems with Detroit elections much longer than President Trump.

You know, that question i going to be central ultimately.

here's the other thing.

We do have federalize elections.

The federal government has been coming in since the civil rights voting at the 1964.

And ultimately, at the end of the day, I'm really focuse on making my win too big to rig.

And that's what I'm getting a little scared, a little more specific.

Is there widesprea fraud in the state of Michigan that would make you say, we need to have a national election, rather than the stat handling the election as it has for a long period of time?

Well, here's my position, Chuck.

I won by less than a vot per precinct, less than a vote with the first time.

Second time I won by 11%.

That always makes you leery of counting.

And like I said, when I won an election the Wednesday, I had 4800 votes.

That was up on Gary Peters.

And there was an informal recount for three weeks in that bag of absentee ballots never got open.

I tell you.

That scared me straight.

I'm always worried about election integrity.

President Trump doesn't think he won the 2020 election.

Or thinks he did win it.

Do you think he did?

Here's what I know.

Okay, here's what I know.

I know that the Secretary o State, Jocelyn Benson, violated two different provisions that absentee ballot law, and that was found by a, a, Snyder Court of Appeals judge.

And that was found by a Whitmer court of appeals judge.

I'm really focused that on what's going on this year, and I'm going to make sure I get enough votes to win handed.

Did President Trump win the 2020 election, yes or no?

In Michigan or where?

In the United States?

Yeah, I you know, I'm not going to answer that because that's really a sideshow, because it's really a sideshow.

President Trump and I are focused on the future.

All right.

It was there.

Dramatic irregularities are 100% is a reason for people to question the integrity of elections.

100%.

In fact Democrats have been questioning the integrity of elections since 2000.

So as an officer of the court.

Right?

All of the courts that declared the election to be legal got it wrong?

I'm just saying they they've already ruled and we move on.

So then he did he did lose the election or he did win the election, which is it?

Well, why why don't you want to answer that question?

Are you afraid?

No, I' not afraid.

But it's like.

Well?

Let me let me ask you this.

What does that have to do with fixing education?

What does that have to do with fixing our economy?

It has to do about leveling with the people at home on what you believe inside?

About something that we've all moved on from?

Something that you don't want to touch because it' politically too hot to handle?

No not at all.

In fact, the Trump campaign hired me, in last November to make sure that they got a fair shake.

And that's what happened.

You got a new opponent?

just a couple of weeks ago Perry Johnson, multimillionaire, $3 million in ads on Superbowl Sunday.

What did he do to the race that you're in right now?

Does he have any effect on you or on your opponents that you can see that's worthwhile communicating right now?

Of course any new entrant has an effect.

You know, I'm just kind of like I march each and every day.

I'm like a stoic, Roman.

You know, I just, I, I can only control what I can control.

You don't care whether he got I don't care.

Yeah, I do, it is, you know, it's just another factor you got to consider.

It's the facts on the ground and here's the real people say what would you do if there is a Democrat legislature?

I do what I. What I would do when I was in Wayne County and I work with Democrat or when I was attorney general.

I work with Democrats or when I, you know, had a $500 million settlement against U of M. I work primarily with Democrat plaintiffs attorneys, I figure it out.

To me, it' just another fact on the ground.

One of your big themes back in 2010, I remember, was in 2002, I should say deadbeat dads.

How did you do in that mission?

Getting rid of deadbeat dads?

Well, we never say deadbeat dads because about 10% are women.

But I'm really proud of this, you know, before it.

Yeah, before I ran, no one talked about it.

Right.

And since I was attorney general, General Shutte, Now Nessel, General Nessel continue to collect it over half billion dollars helped tens of thousands of children, but more so in family courts.

Say now say, hey, Mr.

Ballenger, if you don't pay your child support, we're sending you to AG's office.

And that really moved the needle.

And I'm very, very proud of that.

And it actually pulls bette with Democrats and Republicans.

Are you talking about it this year?

I'm really focused on education and and the economy.

Okay.

Mr.. Attorney General, your campaign slogan on your website says fighting to make Michigan Great again.

A state that you've done pretty well with politically and financially.

What is the biggest problem in your mind that the state of Michigan faces right now?

You know, we accept the S.O.S., and I don't think I have to say it.

You know, w we have such low expectations, you know, literally, my dad walked across a blue water bridge site down to southwest Detroit to meet his sponsor, to get here legally.

And he used to tell me when I was a kid growing up, and he was a carpenter.

Said Michael, when I came here, literally the streets were paved with gold.

And for me, and my family, it was.

My dad was a carpenter.

He raised three kids.

My mom was a maid, and we were on a safe street.

Good schools.

And every parent thought their ki could do better than they did.

And we've lost that, Chuck.

We've lost that.

We've lost, you know, the states that people used to come to, to come to Michigan from down south or Eastern European, all our children are gone to those states now, and they're doing better on jobs, doing better on education.

And I'm like, damn it, we need to start fighting.

We need to like, grab ahold of this and and let's do something revolutionary to make this state great.

Mr.

Cox, you made a big deal out of getting rid of the state income tax.

I've not heard.

Haven't done it.

Yeah, you have to get me elected first.

Well, that what Id like to get at.

Yeah.

Okay.

It's really nice to say to get rid of it.

There's a lost revenue.

How do you replace that lost revenue, sir?

Well, let's talk about this, Tim.

The governor.

It took over $56.8 billion just now, proposing $88.1 billion.

My math is sort of right.

This $31 billion, the income tax is $13 billion.

$13 billion.

And I defy any of you to say, what new service have you gotten?

And your viewers, what new service have you gotten for that $30 plus million?

Do you have a list of cut that you could implement on day one?

Yes.

Because rolling the tax back is easy.

Replacing the revenue.

It's $13 billion in some loose change.

How are you going to do it?

I'm going to do it the way I navigated the AG's office where we our demand went up by 10% and we had 22% less folks to meet that demand.

So it's the same.

That's the same thing I did eac and every week in my business.

So you're going to cut $13 billion out of the budget?

Yes, 13 billion out of the budget.

Yes.

You think you can ge Democratic votes for that, sir?

I will when the time comes.

And here's the reality, Tim, is, you know, I got nine months to work on that first budget.

Right.

But here's the reality.

I'm not going to tell you today, like when I sued U of M on behalf of 1078 sexual assault survivors, do you think in the first negotiating session we went and said, oh we'll settle for $490 million?

No, of course not.

It's a process.

Right.

You want to stay for overtime?

I got to get to the U.P.

I got five to ten minutes.

We'll hol the vote at the bridge for you.

Okay.

Hang on.

We'll be back with more from Mr.

Cox.

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