All right.

We are back now with overtime on Off the Record with Pete Hoekstra, the Republican Party chair.

Do you wish this day that Jo Biden was still on the ticket?

Actually, I think the having Kamala on the ticket presents us with some opportunities.

Again, it's going to come down to specific policies.

You know, I'm not that worried about whether it's Joe Biden or Kamala, but, you know I would prefer not to have seen a new candidate, which gives you a bounce, which always happens.

But I think, you know, this will, you know, kind of trickle bac to policy and not personality.

You can see that she does have momentum on her side.

I think her momentum has peaked.

I think she's as high as she's going to get and she's going to start going down over the next you know, it's kind of like, yeah, you got the change.

Okay, she gets a bump, you get to the convention, she gets another bump, and then all of a sudden you have RFK.

Tulsi Gabbard, Kwame Kilpatrick.

Okay.

Dean Phillips, all saying, you know, as as Democrats, we actually kind of like Donald Trump.

So I think I think in not only those things, but I think her momentum has has peaked.

I think she's the height as high as she's going to go.

Is that your gut telling you that?

Well, we haven't seen the polls from, you know, for the last I mean, most of these polls again, were probably conducted maybe last weekend o the earlier part of this week.

Let's see once where we are at.

Yeah, that' that's where I think we're at.

So obviously, you're anticipating that your candidate's going to win the election.

But what as the Michigan Republican Party, what sort of apparatus, if any, are you preparing to challenge election results or look at postal action maneuvering?

I mean, right now we're all of our emphasis is on you know, getting out the vote.

We've got a very, very aggressive, you know, plan to get ou the vote and election integrity.

We've obviously challenged the city of Detroit when the requirement is kind of like, okay, if you hire a poll worker that's a Democrat, you hire one that is a Republican.

And, you know they kind of go up in parallel.

But in Detroit they went one, two, three, four, five, six, seven Democrats, but one Republican, one, two, three, four, five, six seven Democrats, one Republican.

We challenge that in court.

It's against the law.

So, you know, we'r we're focused on those issues.

We still have 53 out of 83 counties where we have.

And think about this, okay we have more registered voters than eligible voters combined, but that's rather common, is it not?

People move away.

They forget to change their voter registration, but then put in place a process.

Our goal and objective should be, you know, them at peril and we shouldn't be because that is the stuff that causes people to lose confidence in the election process.

Because we also, in the last cycle, we had in certain places, we had more voters, I believe, who cast vote than eligible voters in certain specific areas.

Mr. Trump lost Michigan by more than 150,000 votes.

And you think that it's the And he said that it was rigged.

You think that it's people.

I didn't say that.

No he said that.

You're saying you're saying that people thin that the registration issue is a thing that makes people lose confidence, not when somebody loses by 150 and says that it's rigged.

Yeah, the I love you know, I didn't say that.

I said, these are the these are the combination of factors.

Okay.

That the because that's the other thing that makes people lose confidence in terms of just the process when the media tries and twist words.

And, you know, the great thing is and Tim and I have been doing this a long time.

Speak for yourself.

Yeah.

And, you know, we are engaging.

We will have these discussions.

We will answer those types o questions or in certain cases, not answer them quite a directly as what you might want.

Do you think Jocelyn Benson will run an honest election.

I sure hope so.

Okay.

I wasn't here in 2020 when she was.

When she ran.

Confidence in he that she's got her act together.

That this will be a clean and straight up election.

I, i, I will watch this.

And that's why we're we're been in court multiple times going after some of these issues.

And let's see exactly how she responds.

But we're doing everything to work with Jocelyn Benson pointing out the areas where we think there are weaknesses that can addressed before November to ensure that we have an election.

Have you sent her list of he list of of stuff that she needs to get on to make sure it's a fair election?

Well, we just yeah we we've we've sent her a list and obviously we've gone into the courts a couple a number of times to, you know, implement that list.

Yes.

So you talk about that at the county convention last week.

And and please correct me if I'm using the wrong terminology here, but you know, the state it's the state convention.

But my my point being that, you know, a numbe of the so-called false electors were, again, selecte to be electors, that the county among them, you know, Meshawn Maddock What kind of message does that send when you talk about wanting to make sure honest and fair elections happen, but you're also then re elevating individuals facing over a dozen felony charges apiece for potential elections.

Let them run through the courts and let's see whether they're actually convicted of anything.

Okay.

And it's a it's you know, it's an open process.

They were elected by their peers at the state convention to be electors.

Days before the convention Meshawn Maddock used a homophobic slur on Twitter to describe a picture of Democrats at th Democratic National Convention that included Dave Coulter, the Oakland County Executive and State Rep Jason Morgan.

Do you condemn that?

I have no idea what she said.

I haven't seen it.

Meshawn or whoever makes comments that are responsible for their own comments.

But that's not who we are as a political party.

We're an open party, you know, and no, I wouldn't want to se that type of behavior, whatever.

I'm not familiar with the quote or anything like that.

What kind of treatment do you think Ron Weiser got at your convention?

Ron Ron is a friend of mine.

Ron has done a a tremendous amount of good work for the Republican Party and I appreciate everything he's done.

But at the end of the day, you know, he run.

I beat a 26 year incumben when I first ran for Congress.

Guy Vander Jagt was a good congressman.

And in all of those types o things, at the end of the day, I thought it was time for a change.

So did the voters of of my district.

And they got they got change.

And, you know, it was it's.

Ron has done much for the party, but at the end of the day he has to run a winning campaign and earn the trust for an additional nomination in your heart, you felt sorry for him, didn't you?

The.

I don't I think because I don't feel sorry for Ron.

Because Ron Ron doesn't feel sorry for himself and he's not looking for sympathy.

This party would this year would not be where it is in the last what we've gotten done in the last five months in terms of financially and all of those types of things.

And, you know, Ron stood with me to make those calls to donors to say we need a state party to do what a state party does for elections.

And basically in five months, we have been able to do not everything that a party would normally have done.

We haven't recovered all of those 14 months we've lost, but we've recovered a tremendous amount of that time and it would not have happened without Ron Weiser.

Do I feel no, I respect Ron Weiser for what he has done for the state, you know, serving as a regent for the U of M board, serving as an ambassador for this country, and what he has done for the Republican Party.

So, you know, am I disappointed?

Yes.

Do I feel sorry, no.

You've been in the social conservative movement for decades.

Did you ever think there'd be a time when you'd see a Republican presidential candidate vow to veto a national abortion ban?

The you know, we're we're coming out of this whole thing where we are taking a look at a post Roe versus Wade world.

Okay.

You know, in some of these I've learned often enough, you know, why answer hypothetical questions?

Do I really believe that this Congress or the Congress that will take place and get sworn in on January 3 of 2025 would ever pass a national abortion ban?

No way.

And it's not going to happen.

Why do you why why answer the question?

Okay.

You're not going to have a supermajority in the in the Senate.

I think we'll have a majorit in the Senate and in the House.

But you'll never pass that kind of legislation.

Is the Michigan Republican Party putting this in campaign literature for Trump right now in Michigan?

The because we're Why is JD Vance saying this on the campaign trail?

because, number one, he was asked.

Number two is excuse me, you have Kamala Harris saying in her ads, of course, you can't ask her.

You can't ask her that question.

Why are you putting out ads that are saying Donald Trump is going to ban all abortions?

Ok. That question is not being asked.

Why?

Because for what, 38, 39 days?

You know, We'd love to ask her.

I know you would love to ask her.

Okay.

But that question is not being asked.

But, you know, you can ask me why they're saying that, because they're saying we're going to implement a national abortion ban which is absolutely a total lie, because two things Donald Trump has said he will not sign it.

And the second thing is, it will never pass Congress To shift back quickly to the economy.

You talked about th affordability of housing costs.

I think a lot of people have talked about housing affordability and access.

Former Presiden Trump has talked about the idea that the president should be able to have a say in setting interest rates, not just pushing the Fed to change the interest rate, to have an actual say in what the interest rate is.

Do you think it's a good idea for the president to have that sort of power?

Well, again, define exactl what, you know, an actual state.

His said he wants a role in setting that.

He said he wants a role in setting what the interest rate is.

Does that mean we should just make what is happening today and make it slightly more formal?

Because what happens today is presidents get on their bully pulpit and they say, like, I thin it's time for an interest rate cut or an interest rate hike and those types of things.

What I you know, so if it becomes a formal communication from the president to the Fed is probably in practicality not much different than what happens today.

Do you think he'd bring it up if it's not that different?

It sounds like he wants more power in this situation.

Then of course, like you're saying, any president can come out and say we should change interest rate.

He's known that as president.

He sounds like he wants more than that.

He wants an actual hand in setting interest rates.

Well I don't think he's specifically laid out the policy, but what he's highlighting is what he believes are policie that have been put in place by this Fed, independent, perhaps, of some political influence.

I'm not sure that that's accurate.

But policies that have devastated the middle class throughout this countr and I think put us on the verge of going into a recession.

So if the Fed lower the interest rate in September, is that politically motivated?

I think that's not going to be a huge impact.

You're going to see mayb if all the predictions are 90, 99% are, it's going to b a cut of a quarter of a point.

I'm sorry, if you're at si and a half, 7% mortgage rates, a quarter of a point going down to six and a quarter or 6% is not going to have an translate into an immediate impact.

The optics of that are not politically motivated in your mind.

The optics of that may or may not be politically motivated, but it's not going to have much of an impact.

Just go back to Dave's question for a second, just the idea of a president setting monetary policy.

Doesn't that sound a little CCPish to you?

No, it's not setting.

It's having a role.

Okay.

He's he has suggested he wants to be able to set the rate.

I'm not telling you.

He said he's that he's going to that he would set the rate and again that if if that is what he wanted.

Okay.

It still goes through a process called the Congress.

And you know in terms of exactly how that all that all works and we'll see exactly how it ends up.

Do you endorse 2025?

I mean, I heard you guys talking about 2025.

I mean, it's like, how clear has this been?

The president has disavowed 2025.

It is, I think, 970 some pages.

I was going to read it and it's kind of like I'm not going to read this.

And so it is a platform that's interesting.

But the president has made it clear and I've worked for thi president and all these policy positions, it's not going to be the Heritage Foundation.

It's not going to be 2025 agenda that sets, you know what Donald Trump is going to do.

Donald Trump, I think, has indicated, you know, I'll kind of decide what I'm going to do, So we shoud make nothing of the fact that it's something like 100 former Trump administration officials were directly involved in crafting that document and that the Heritage Foundation has done a mandate for leadership before in the eighties with Reagan.

Do you think I'm quoted in The Heritage 2025?

I am not suggesting you are.

No, I am.

I mean, I am.

But what they when I was in Congress in the late nineties, we put out a thin called Education at a Crossroads and we put in som recommendations for education.

We also did a report on Labor and we outlined some Labor policies.

And so they highlighted some of the quotes from the 1990s, I believe, in their report and I think somewhere in their list of contributors to 2025 I am liste and it's kind of like, Oh, wow.

Okay.

But so 100, 100 former Trump people get involved.

That doesn't mean that that is the policy of Donald Trump.

I part of it could be they there's a reason there may be called former.

Mr. Chairman are you having fun?

I am having fun.

You know I'm thinking this may be the last time I'm ever on off the record.

And, you know, thank you for the many years that you've invited me to be a part of this process.

You announcing your retirement here or what?

I thought I retired a year ago.

Is that a hope or is that a fact?

Well, it depends on whether you're talking to the boss in the family, which is my wife or whether you're talking to me.

If she's talking, you're toast.

Yeah, that's right.

Good to see you.

Thanks for joining us.

Thank you.

All right.

Thanks, everybody.