Welcome back to OTR.

Our guest this week thinks he will eventually be the new chair of the Michigan Republican Party.

His name, Pete Hoekstra.

Our lead story, the governor, state of the state, the fallout after same.

our panel Craig Mauger Jordan Hermani and Emily Lawler sit in with us as we get the inside out.

Off the record production of Off the Record is made possible, in part by Martin Waymire, a full service strategic communications agency partnering with clients through public relations, digital marketing and public policy engagement.

Learn more at martinwaymire.com.

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

Thank very much.

Welcome to Studio C, post-State of the State, everybody.

You survived the other night.

Barely.

Yes, the governor is still speaking and saying something.

Here's what she was saying in what she wasn't saying and what were the Rs doing while she was doing all this for the next three months, if this governor wants to get anything done in the Michigan House, she will need votes from the Republicans because the body is tied 54 votes each.

So it was only natural that in her speech last night, the governor gave a shout out to the House and Senate Republican leaders.

But watch closely the stone face of Representative Matt Hall as she tries to play nice and he refuses to play along.

And I want to acknowledge minority leaders Matt Hall and Eric Nesbitt, thank you for your leadership.

President Biden was not in the room, but the governor gave him a shout out on several occasions just in case some undecided voters were watching.

President Biden's policies are bringing jobs and supply chains home to Michigan from around the world.

I cannot solve global inflation alone.

No one person cannot.

Even a president.

In the Republican response to this speech, the Senate leader, Mr. Nesbitt, contends the governor is out of touch with average folks back home who are suffering.

She disagrees.

This was a speech as someone who has spent way too much time in the Lansing bubble.

Someone who doesn't worry about the price of groceries or heating their home in the winter, or whether her kids can catch up in school.

What we can do is make life more affordable by lowering costs on the biggest items in your monthly budget.

Housing and child care.

Transportation, education, utilities and food.

Well, the Democrats there on the left who were up and down all night applauding their governor, the Republicans sat stoically on their hands even when she mentioned the Lions and the Wolverines.

Heck, just look at our lions once a...yeah Yeah.

And I don't know if you recall, but our Wolverines are national champions, right?

The governor needs bipartisan cooperation.

But at least in last night's speech, she got zippo from the loyal opposition for bearer of legislative gridlock to come.

Ominous, ominous ending to that piece.

What do you think?

Are we on the verge of gridlock here?

Well, I mean, if it's going to happen, it will only be for a short period of time.

I mean, we're thinking that the House is a split time between Democrats and Republicans right now, meaning that there would need to be a crossover vote in order for anything to come by.

We are heading into budget season, I guess is the silver lining.

I never thought I'd call budget season the silver lining of anything, but there's a lot of work to be done.

So the concept of moving bills in the legislature, it'll likely stall out until April when we see the special elections take place, those House seats be filled.

Those are likely going to be Democrat seats.

Again, the two who went on to be mayor, Democrats, their districts are highly Democratic.

So if there is gridlock, it only be for a short period of time, which may be time that the Democrats can afford to lose, though that really does depend on who you ask.

I don't think so.

I think it's a short but crucial period of time.

If you look at the legislature's most active policy making last year, it was certainly in this January through March timeframe when they did the big stuff, like repealing the right to work law, for instance.

You know, you get into April when these seats will be filled and you're right into budget season.

Don't forget that they ended the last session, maybe a month or a month and a half earlier than planned.

You know, you're really looking at almost a six month gap in their ability to accomplish anything on their part of vote they've enjoyed.

Well, let's not forget, though, there's a very real possibility that we have a crazy lame duck session.

I mean, people are talking about hey for a few months, nothing might get done.

Anything they don't get done over the next four months.

And this is the risk I think Republicans are taking.

Democrats will likely have a majority back.

Even if they lose the state House in November.

They will have two months to do whatever they want.

So Republicans could very easily, I think, overplayed their hand over the next few months by blocking everything and pushing it to the end when Democrats will have their majorities back likely.

That's the say, too.

They didn't lose their seats on any of the committees that go on to put forward this legislation.

I mean, at this point, they're pretty much just loading the legislative gun, so to speak, so they can fire it off whenever they get those seats back come April, whether that's in lame duck, whether they end up just doing sort of a rapid fire passage of things, they're still the ones that are in control of what comes up.

They're still the ones that are in control of, you know, what gets what gets testimony.

Look, it is traditional Republicans.

If there's a Democratic governor standing on a podium, don't go nuts.

Okay.

But what did you make of Matt Hall's performance either before the speech and after?

I think he is trying to figure out how he is going to play the next few months.

I don't think he even knows my read of him.

He hasn't told me this, but my read of him is how am I going to handle this?

He's got a caucus that's going to be hard to deal with.

They're all over the place on different things.

He's got this tie with Joe Tate, who is effectively still the speaker.

He's in a very tricky political situation to take.

What we have been told from Tate's office is that Matt Hall asked the speaker to be seated at the rostrum with him for this speech, which is an incredibly like that might just sound like is something that doesn't seem like a big deal.

It's incredibly unusual that he would sit on the lieutenant governor's lap.

That's that's why I'm guessing that did not happen.

There's no space up there, as you know.

But but it's just this awkward Is it's awkward, is it not?

Is it not an awkward moment?

And I think that reflected in the governor's speech.

It was a hesitant speech.

We're in a moment in the state of Michigan of huge problems long term.

Our population is stagnating, incomes are stagnating, inflation is still high, and that's hurting families.

The speech, the governor rolled out, she was trying to list things she could get done, she believes, but it didn't rise to the moment of where we are as a state right now.

The governor's tremendous growth commission got one sentence in the speech.

Did you all catch that?

Yeah.

Yeah.

So, you know, I think that the problem with her growth commission is they didn't get to the money part of their mission.

I think the governor has been hesitant to put dollar amounts on a lot of the stuff that she mentions in the speech.

And, you know, she's also looking at this new political reality that we just outlined.

And it is an awkward moment.

And I think that, you know, Matt Hall has been carrying around a book about shared power I think that, you know, for a lot of especially a Republican like people looking in from the outside, if you see a time, might not understand why Republicans and Democrats aren't working together more in this moment.

But it's a really hard environment to do that in.

Well, doesn't Mr. Hall have some leverage because she does need votes?

Okay.

If she wants to get anything done, I don't think she can afford to write off these three months and not do anything on this agenda.

Or am I wrong?

They just wrote off two months, I would say.

Yeah, I know.

I'm not sure she can though.

Three additional months.

You don't think she can?

Why not start on this stuff now and pick off a couple of Republicans and start moving it?

I mean, there's always that possibility.

But I mean, if my experience these last couple of weeks in the House is anything to go by, they are really planting their flag in the shared power concept, even though House rules were amended way earlier back when the Democrats took the chamber so that a 55-55 split does not equal shared power.

They changed it so that there would need to be a crossover to confirm a new speaker.

That's never going to happen, Joe Tate is going to stay in power.

He keeps the power.

And I think just the sooner that we acknowledge that and get over this concept of we need to be doing things together, I mean, we can maybe move on some things, I don't know, but like that we can afford to I shouldn't say we can afford to burn, but I think the governor is willing to take that chance that we can afford to burn the $5,000 for home caretakers.

All right.

Would we agree that universally Rs and Ds might want to support that yay or nay?

Oh, yeah.

I mean, one of the biggest groups behind it is the AARP, that's a pretty nonpartisan group that goes to the Republican message.

And I would just counter that the Republicans message for the last year is we have we should be doing broad tax relief, not these targeted tax relief programs.

So you can see where their opposition to it could rest if it comes.

But do Republicans have they read the playbook that senior citizens vote in large numbers?

I'm sure they've read the playbook.

But I mean, this is the philosophy that instead of doing tax relief programs that would benefit a small segment of people, which is what the state has been doing over and over again, that they want a larger tax relief measure lowering the income tax.

And it would affect just about everybody in the state.

That's what they have been pushing for.

Now, if they put that up on the board, what you have proposed, they're going to be in a very difficult position and that might be what it's all about.

Well, and that's the point where Mr. Hall could say, we'll give you some votes on that, but here's what I want in return.

So the horse trading could begin now and not wait for lame duck.

You know, you strike when the iron is hot and maybe she could put something together.

Am I off the reservation here?

No.

But I do want to know what Appreciate the overture.

Go ahead.

I feel like we're living in a really divisive time right now.

You know, even the book that I mentioned about shared power was a really, really different time.

I just think it's a hard case to make to your base that you're working with the other side on something, especially when you know, theoretically the split is so so even right now.

But can Mr. Hall have it both ways?

Can he put the book up in the back of a news conference to say, here's what we ought to be doing and then not do it?

Yeah, I mean, he's in the minority.

I mean, he's effectively in the minority in terms of not having control of the chamber.

So all he has to do is kind of play defense here, right?

I mean, he doesn't have there's not going to be pressure on him from his base or from independent swing voters.

Matt Hall, why didn't you get anything done?

People believe Democrats are in control of Lansing, so the pressure is on them, right?

I mean, that would be my read of it.

And we'll we'll see what happens.

It'll be interesting, you know.

Pete Hoekstra, is he chair of the party or not?

That is the question.

And I tried to jump in for you know, it depends who you ask.

I mean, it depends who you ask.

And we're going to be able to ask him in a moment what his read of the situation is.

But the RNC, the Republican National Committee, they would have a better read of this than anyone.

And they essentially kind of tiptoed into it and said, we think it might be Hoekstra, but we're definitely not going to go out on the edge of this diving board with that if they're going to declare her persona non grata.

Okay, Karamo, as Karamo, they've got to do their due diligence.

They've got to make sure all the T's are crossed and all the I's are dotted so nobody can go back and say, well, you missed a point there.

So they're taking their good old time on this thing, are they not?

And rightfully so.

Yeah.

And, you know, obviously there's a pending court case as well.

There's a lot of dissent here in Michigan.

But I do think that ultimately the RNC is probably the most important voice.

All right, Let's go ahead.

I was just going to say the RNC is the most important voice.

But I mean, to a person like Karamo who still hasn't even conceded that she lost her election in 2022, in the end, will this matter?

Well, she said it's things is normal, which is chaos.

All right.

Let's call in Mr. Hoekstra.

Mr. Hoekstra, please.

Ambassador Mr. Hoekstra, welcome back to Off the Record.

So when you when you had in your mind that it looked like you were going to get this chairperson-ship, who's the first person you called?

My wife.

Whoa, that's a little late in the process, isn't it?

No, No, No you know, we we listen to a lot she listen to a lot of the phone calls that I went through.

And, you know, and I don't know who I call first.

I call the whole range of folks.

And so.

range of folks.

And so.

Have you talked to Bobby Schostak?

Have you talked to Mr. Weiser?

Yes.

And what did you ask them to do?

I asked them to help unify the party, help us get ready for the November ‘24 elections.

You know, the singular focus here is unifying the party, putting in place the organization, the structure and the finances to be successful in November of ‘24.

That is that that's the priority and that's the job of this.

Did you ask them to open their checkbooks?

Absolutely.

For how much?

We're working through that.

Thats a punt Mr. Hoekstra.

Yeah, that's always a good thing to do.

On off the record, you don't have to answer every question.

Sometimes.

Sometimes punting is a good idea.

Apparently, you don't have the same playbook.

I do.

Mr. Mauger So let me ask you this as a strategy for a strategy standpoint here.

March 2nd, Christina Kristina Karamos party is plann to hold these caucuses in the former TCF Center to decide how Michigan's presidential delegates will be elected.

Does your faction of the party participate in this event?

No, We conduct the event.

You you believe you'll be running the event that will be taking place?

Yes.

How will you do that?

The number one, the state committee has acted.

They acted on January six to remove Kristina Karamo as chair.

The number of people have looked at it.

The RNC has looked at it.

So they went through the appropriate procedures to make that happen.

On January 20, they elected me as chairperson of the state party.

All the information has been sent to the RNC.

The RNC indicated this week what, number one, that Kristina, Karamo, is no longer credentialed as the chairperson of the report.

And neither are you.

I am not.

Yeah, but the important thing is they made the decision for the for this winter meeting next week that Kristina Karamo, is no longer recognized as the chairperson of the Republican Party in the state of Michigan.

They then indicated it looks like everything has gone through the proper process.

Is Mr. Scoobick said we're going to dot every i cross every T We got to get this right.

We're going to take a little bit more time.

And I expect, you know, within the next week, week and a half, they will make a determination.

The Court A judge will hear the case for preliminary injunction against the Karamo faction.

They'll hear that on Tuesday.

And who knows, somewhere along the line, the president of the United States or the nominee for the Republican Party to be the next president may step in and say, this is who I want to be chairman of the party.

You said last Saturday he endorsed you.

I didn't say he endorsed me.

I said that he Mar-A-Lago.

talked to Vance Patrick and Vance Patrick indicated at the meeting as he was giving his concession speech going into the second vote.

I've heard from Mar a Lago and Mar a Lago wants Pete Hoekstra to be the next chairman.

I did not say endorse Any conversations relating to Mar a Lago were articulated by Vance Patrick and not by myself.

Well, it seems like Karamo is not going to let this lie until a court decides, though.

So March 2nd rolls around and, you know, we potentially have two.

It would not shock me if she put on her own delegate caucus.

Meet it like what what happened resolve before March two.

If the courts you know the courts act when the courts act, the RNC acts, then, you know, all of a sudden the bank accounts transfer over to, you know, back to the Republican State Committee, you know, the communications mechanisms, data world, electronic world, social media, they all come back.

We control them.

She can meet wherever.

Like she had a meeting on January 13th.

She can meet wherever she wants, whenever that group can meet.

But they're no longer acting as the state committee.

I know you're focused on unity.

I want to ask you about the division.

So, you know, these factions, this pro Karamo and anti Karamo faction within the Republican Party don't seem to be split along policy or political lines.

It's not as if there's a pro-Trump and an anti-Trump faction and it's not as if there's a conservative and a moderate faction.

Is this just personality politics dividing the party?

No, it's not.

It's not.

I mean, you know, the state committee has a responsibility for getting ready for the ‘24 election.

A number of the folks that were at the January 6th meeting that helped orchestrate and organize all of that were strong Kristina Karamo supporters.

But the bottom line, this is about performance.

They were holding Kristina Karamo accountable.

They said after 12 months, it's obvious we're not raising the funds, we're not putting in the structure, We're not doing the massive messaging that's going to prepare us to be successful in November of ‘24.

We need a change in leadership.

It has nothing to do with personality.

It is about this is this was a performance evaluation and it came down that said we need new leadership.

If we hope to be successful in November, we'll change it to pragmatic, pragmatic politics division.

Then it pragmatic, whatever.

It's it's performance based.

Okay.

The state committee wants to win.

And they said we need a change in leadership or it's not going to happen.

But let me go back to something that you said.

You said by March 2nd this is going to be resolved, which is interesting to me because this caucus process does not begin on March 2nd.

It's beginning right now.

Right.

There's a call to the county convention.

There's a credentialing deciding if they're disputes, which seem like a high likelihood we're going to have some disputes about which delegates go to the state convention.

Are you running the credentialing committee that's going to decide who goes to the state convention?

State caucuses?

We will be, yes.

I mean, that's in the coming weeks.

The question.

Well, yes.

And we're putting in place all the organization to make exactly those things happen so that we will be capable of doing it.

Am I drinking and is this team drinking from a fire hose?

Absolutely.

You know, we we come into this recognizing at the outset that we need to do in nine months what a state committee usually has about 18 months to do, and we need to do it in nine.

So, yeah, is it you know, look, we got to do the convention and no we are focused on getting this done and we're focused on doing what a state party needs to do.

Will it be easy?

No.

It's going to be tough.

Will some counties submit their delegate slates to you and some to Kristina Karamo, or people submit them to both of you.

They will submit if they want to be at the convention, they'll submit it to they'll submit it to me and my team.

Yeah.

Mr.

Ambassador, I want to be really fair with you here.

When you and I talked the other day on Zoom.

I came away with the impression that you had said that Mr. Trump had endorsed you.

No, I don't believe that's accurate.

I got that incorrect.

That would that I think that I don't I don't know what you said, but I don't believe I'm asking you what you said.

I dont believe.

I've used the term endorsement.

Okay.

I said that Mr. Trump has weighed in on this, but I do not believe that and there's nowhere in the record that says that he has endorsed me.

The only instance that we have is what Vance Patrick said on January 20 in his concession speech between the first and the second ballot.

Whom did he talk to at Mar a Lago?

You have to talk to Vance.

Do you know?

No.

I don't know who you talk to.

Are you?

Can Mr. Trump win this presidency without independent voters?

No.

No.

I mean, the you know.

Well, he lost to Nikki Haley in New Hampshire on that front.

He lost in a primary where there were no there was no contest on the Democratic side where Democrats moved over and changed their affiliation from Democrat to independent.

So that's not a good test.

This is going to be a blue collar working agenda election.

Donald Trump has a much better chance at communicating the message about his concern and his policies that will win working men and women's votes and has a much better record on this than Joe Biden.

So, yes, he can win.

You know, he can win that vote and he will win the election.

Mr. Biden would say he just got a blue collar vote this week with the UAW endorsement.

Right.

And I think it was either late yesterday or this morning where the head of the UAW said there's going to be lots of UAW voters who are not going to vote for Joe Biden because they're going to vote their pocketbooks.

And you know what?

He's right.

When UAW workers and other blue collar independent voters vote, they're going to vote their pocketbook.

And that means they're going to be voting for Donald Trump.

How do you repair this public perception of just absolute disarray in the GOP especially?

And like you pointed out, you have basically nine last months to do what most folks have 18 months to do in terms of planning any kind of support for elections.

You know why it's not as hard.

People have no idea what a party does.

They have no idea who a state chairperson is.

They're voting their pocketbooks and they're going to be voting issues.

They're going to be voting about, you know, seeing what's coming across the border and saying, wow, we've had 6 to 7 million people come across the border illegally.

All right.

We've been living with, you know, high inflation rates.

I'm trying to buy a house and I'm facing 7% mortgage rates.

Those are the things that people are going to be voting on.

They're not going to be voting about this division that we had in the Republican Party back in January and February.

They're going to be focused on these kinds of issues because, you know, they recognize what they do in November is going to have an impact on them for the next four years.

And I guess if I could, I'm curious how you squared off supporting Trump, considering that his branch of election denialism did ultimately sort of empower a figure like Kristina Karamo to take control ultimately of the Michigan GOP?

Are you not at all concerned that continuous support could end up putting the party in a similar situation?

Donald Trump is the presumptive nominee of the Republican Party.

And, you know, I worked for Donald Trump and served as his ambassador to the Netherlands.

Every day I could get up with a bounce in my step for the agenda that he was asking me to do, you know, get NATO all the countries in NATO to pay their 2%.

They hadn't been for years.

And the result is when Russia invaded Ukraine, they weren't prepared.

You know, we worked with them to try to get the Dutch to stop financing and helping construct the Nord Stream pipeline.

And the Dutch said, Oh, you think the Russians are going to turn off the gas?

That's going I don't know.

But you maybe you ought to be ready.

What happened?

The Russians turned off their gas and then getting up every day to fight China.

All right.

We fought China in the Netherlands as is in the state of Michigan Gretchen Whitmer is giving Chinese companies $4 billion of taxpayer money.

What a difference in envisions for America.

You've spoken to some donors.

How far down the list have you gotten?

Because I sort of you know, those big donors maybe have an incentive and a sentimental attachment to the party.

You know, what's your prognosis for sort of those middle tier donors who are throwing a couple thousand dollars that they may just be throwing to individual candidates or other organizations now?

Yeah, This is, you know, donating to a party is not sentimental.

All right.

I like the Republicans.

I think I like Pete.

I think I'll send Ron Weiser as an example.

He's a former chair, obviously.

And Schostak as well has an attachment to the party.

They have an attachment to the party.

But when you get to, you know, those mid-level donors, the ones that are writing a $1000 check or, you know, the the older couple, the senior couple that's writing you a $50 check and say, and I got these notes on Pete, man, we'd love to we'd love to send you a little bit more.

It's about the issues and the vision that you have moving forward.

Let's stay tuned for an OT segment.

You up for that?

Sure.

We'll take pause as a yes.

Go to wkar.org For more off the record with Mr. Hoekstra right after these close credits, a production of Off the record is made possible in part by Martin Waymire, a full service strategic communications agency partnering with clients through public relations, digital marketing and public policy engagement.

Learn more at Martin Waymire.com For more off the record visit WKAR.org.

Michigan public television stations have contributed to the production costs of off the record.