Welcome back to this special correspondents edition of Off the Record with a busy news week in our town.

Our lead story, back to back visits by Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump and Ford hits the pause button on that battery planted Marshall on the panel Dave Boucher, Lauren Gibbons, Alyssa Burr and Chad Livengood.

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.

Welcome back to Off the Record from Studio C. So we haven't done this in a long time.

On a scale of 1 to 10, the question is the historic event in Michigan this week of having a president in town back to back with a former president 20 years from now, that will be how important?

I would say maybe two or three.

Okay.

Two or three.

I'll give it a three or four.

All right.

We'll give it a three.

I'll I'll I'll I'll say five.

No, it's way too high.

You'll find something else to tell your grandkids about.

It was, however, an unusual event.

Yeah, certainly.

I mean, obviously, all eyes are on Michigan right now with the UAW strike and certainly both Democrats and Republicans.

Trump specifically saw an opportunity here, Biden to actually go and support the picketers.

Trump to do, you know, one of his signature rallies, if you will, trying to rev up the Macomb County contingent that helped him win in 2016.

So so certainly notable for the week and notable for the strike cycle.

It certainly brings a lot of attention to some of the tensions going on right now as they work to get a contract together.

And I think if you ask that same question to some of the executives at the Big Three, you'd get a very different answer.

I know that my colleague Phoebe Will Howard talked to Bill Ford.

And Ford's very angry that both Biden and Trump came to Michigan.

He thinks that they're fomenting dissent on the line in this very heated negotiation in a way that's not going to help the parties.

And so this was a monumental event for these companies and, of course, for the UAW to have this sort of especially President Biden come in and not only help them on the line, but talk about the fact that they deserve a 40% raise.

That's a that's a huge moment for the union and their push.

Why did he do that?

Why do you think the president came in to support the union?

I think we've heard a lot.

I mean, it's no shock that President Biden is supporting a union.

Right.

And what we have heard about while sitting presidents haven't gone to a picket line, they, of course, have been endorsed by a union.

Right.

I think that there's some arguably some political upside to become and speak with the union.

I don't think that he's necessarily going to lose the votes of the people who are supportive of Ford or GM, the company itself.

And of course, we know that before President Trump had announced that he was coming to Michigan as well.

So there's a little bit of gamesmanship there, too.

Oh, I was just going to say, you got to think about how massive UAW membership is, over 100,000 members.

The UAW has yet to endorse a presidential candidate for 2024.

So with Trump inviting being the frontrunners for their parties, it's essential for them to get out in front of these voters and state their case.

Do you think the president, the UAW, whispered in the president's hear you're going to get the endorsement, but I've got to play this game out?

Well, I don't make predictions, all things I don't know.

But I do know that the rules of this of this strike are completely out the door of the north of normal rules.

Customary rules, you know, use it to begin negotiations.

The UAW president and the president of they do the handshake across the table.

No handshake.

I mean, all the chumminess of the past.

And don't forget this, the backdrop of this, the past negotiations have proven out to have been corrupt, that the UAW leadership was getting bribed by executives at the Big Three, particularly at FCA Stellantis.

And those those some of those folks already went to prison.

Them now they're already out, of course.

But but that that really showed Sean saying this is fighting off two two front war.

He's got to keep his union intact, his coalition intact.

And there's a lot of people that are distrust of the union leadership.

In the end, because of all the corruption in the past, they think that they basically sold down the river and they're going to keep fighting this.

Then they've come up with this whole strategy, this this this targeted strategy of striking all three at the same time.

And they're they're picking plants.

And today we've seen what happened on Friday, the votes to add more plants.

Today, they're going to intensify this thing.

So, yeah, he might be whispering in the president's ear, don't worry, we got you back.

But at the same time, he he has to basically put the gas, you know, the pedal to all sides and try to.

And that's why the auto executives like Bill Ford, they're just they're just struggling.

They they have never seen anything like this before.

And so then they have these the two leading political figures of the country coming in and poking they're poking their finger in everyone's eye.

Well, it's certainly underscored the importance of Michigan in this race.

I think you will tell your grandchildren that Michigan was an important part.

But this visit, per se, they didn't change any of the dynamics.

I don't think in this race.

Does anybody think that it changed the calculus?

No, I don't think so.

And frankly, Michigan has been has been an important figure in the in the political conversation nationally since 2016.

I mean, we we've haven't lost our status as a swing state yet.

But, yeah, I think that's a fair assessment.

You know, what what was being said in the stump speech by Trump and, you know, was was not very different from from what we've heard from Trump in the past.

This is a very similar message to what he has been saying to these voters before.

I do think a lot of people have mentioned that Biden's is it was significant because it was, you know, further than most presidents have gone in supporting striking workers.

But, you know, in the long term, I think they are they are sort of fighting for the same crop of voters.

But but it probably didn't change the political conversation.

And I know in past elections there's been this idea that that for President Trump and his campaign have argued that maybe UAW leadership wasn't with President Trump, but that the rank and file were with him.

And so one of your previous questions about why would President Biden come, this is a play for the people who are actually on the assembly line, are actually out on the picket line to show that he is standing with them.

There's this fear that Democrats are losing blue collar Midwest voters to somebody like a President Trump.

And something like this is obviously a push by Biden and Democrats to kind of avert that in Michigan and potentially other swing states.

But don't kid yourself.

There are Trump voters on the UAW line, are there not?

And that's why Trump went to Macomb County, because there's plenty of them up there.

I mean, we should note that Trump went to a nonunion auto supplier, couldn't find a union.

Site, took the edge off of I'm pro-union, didn't know.

In terms of the edge off I'm talking to striking auto workers.

When Craig Mauger went up to a couple of them were holding signs like autoworkers for Trump.

And he said, Where do you work?

Well, we don't work for the auto industry.

And someone else is holding up a sign union members for Trump.

What union are you part of?

We're not part of a union.

And so it had it had a staged feel to it that said we should take note that Trump is doing exactly what Trump did in 2015 when he railed against Ford for building a new truck plant down in Mexico.

And he used that day in, day out, and he's using this with this issue of electric vehicles.

He went to an auto supplier that makes engine parts, transmission parts.

This is the kind of company that Donald Trump says will not exist if we all are driving electric vehicles in ten years.

And you know what?

He's actually right about that.

But that's the part that's that's something that the Democrats and Biden have not been able to figure out how to message encounter.

Well, that's a tough needle to thread, because the message from Mr. Biden is, if you'll wait with me long enough, I will help create new jobs for UAW workers.

In the meantime, those jobs are going away.

So what's more important, long term delayed gratification or putting food on the table tonight?

Well, I would think that's something that the UAW worker would answer.

But I do think it was important for Biden to get in front of these workers mainly because he has railroaded for these this easy transition.

And I think that is part of the contract discussion, contract negotiations as far as where you in UAW workers are in the long term and how they are a part of this transition that he's been championing.

He needed to get in front of workers and tell them that, hey, you know, I still support you all.

I support these pay increases and I support you all being here for the long term.

But I'm not sure.

A billboard in Detroit trumps Donald Trump's.

Rhetoric now and then.

To add that the things this week probably more significant event that preceded the to the two men coming to town was Ford Motor Company put a halt on it construction of its $3.5 billion EV battery plant in Marshall that the state has poured over $1,000,000,000 of taxpayer subsidies into.

This is literally Gretchen Whitmer's entire economic plan right now and it's been put on hold and that was that was that's another thing that just kind of adds to the tension here is if he can't if they can't get a labor deal that that Ford says is tenable for them to operate this plant, that deal goes away.

And the the future replacement jobs, the replacement of the engine jobs, the battery jobs, those are all going will go away as well.

Well, look at the republic.

Go ahead.

David.

I think it's really important to note that according to the Marshall Area Economic Development Alliance, the local economic development entity in Marshall Ford has stopped work on this massive site, no one else to stop work in the site.

That includes Wallbridge, the massive contractor who has $178 million contract to build out the infrastructure to put any plant on this site.

I asked Ford what they actually stopped.

Nobody's told me yet.

I asked the MEDC what they actually stopped.

Nobody's told me yet.

I asked MAEDA what actually stopped at the plant.

Nobody's told me yet.

So I think that the part of this and we've talked about this from the very beginning, this is a strategic play.

Now, whether or not that strategy is a good play is a different question.

And you can argue that this is a black eye for Democrats and for Gretchen Whitmer, who have gone out on a limb for not only this plant, but lots of other economic development plants.

But the idea that for can say it's pausing something at a site and then nobody can say exactly what it's pausing at.

The site is a little bit odd.

It's a signal.

Look, it I was working at the time at the typewriter or at the computer.

You're dating myself, you're okay.

And the phone rings.

And who's on the phone?

Pete Hoekstra.

Skubick.

Skubick.

Did you hear that?

They're shutting down.

The Ford plant?

No, I had not heard that.

Mr.

Ambassador, thank you very.

Look at the Republicans tried to frame this, that they caused this, that the lobbying by Tim Walberg and John Moolenaar somehow convinced Ford.

Isn't this just part of the needing dance on the negotiations that Ford sent a signal?

Unless we get a good deal on these workers, this plant might not go.

I we have gotten the impression and I think everybody else can to that this wasn't necessarily information that Ford or others wanted to leak at that exact moment.

And I think that there's a question about how tactically this is going to work.

We've seen the UAW come out and say that this is a bad idea and that they don't like this news.

But there are questions about, well, they will probably need to renegotiate a contract for a 2026 EV plant anyway.

And that EV plant standards are a little bit different than some of the other factories that they're working at.

And, you know, they're talking about getting rid of pay tiers anyway, which could affect the pay.

We all know that there's economic analysis that talk about how much money they're going to make in a plant and the trickle down from that.

That's, of course, based on previous contract numbers and arguably voodoo math, not on whatever this contract is going to pay.

So all of that can change and everybody knows all of that is going to change anyway.

Again, whether or not this is a strong tactic is up for debate.

I will note too that anytime I talk to local residents in that town who don't like this plant, they tell me that they haven't heard from not only Governor Whitmer, but any of the Republican lawmakers.

Who were in that area.

Save the state, get more money this week, $65 million.

So they're not worried.

Yeah, I think Dave makes a great point in the sense that the train has left the station on a lot of this stuff.

Are they going to stop MDOT from doing all of these infrastructure projects that have already been approved?

They're already have the money for it?

You know, I think I think Ford, you know, expressing hesitation is certainly a pretty big signal and does does pose a lot of potential, you know, election time issues for Democrats if it does not go through.

But there's a lot of things already happening on that site that that are not all necessarily controlled by Ford at this point.

One of the things Hoekstra and Walberg and Moolenaar could rail against Ford partnering with Seattle, which is the world's leading maker of lithium ion batteries for cars.

I don't see those those three railing against Elon Musk importing Seattle batteries to put in Teslas or Honda, imploring them to put it into Hondas, being built in Ohio.

And this is what Ford was trying to do.

They're trying to bring the technology that they are not they don't have.

And it's and all the Republican lawmakers are like, oh, we need to build, innovate.

We need Americans, companies to build this technology.

Well, to wait the Chinese to beat us to the to the game on this.

And, you know, the Chinese or the South Koreans, nobody throwing a fit about GM partnering with a South Korean company to build a battery plant ten miles west of here in Delta Township so that you can supply batteries to the Delta Township and Lansing assembly plants.

So when those gas vehicles go away, they're replaced by EVs.

That's the whole strategy.

Get the battery plants near the assembly plants.

And and the politicians, particularly the Republicans here, are just not either acknowledging that or not understand it.

But they will try to exploit it nonetheless.

Yes, they will.

I mean, if we can get some answers about transparency, which I mean, we as journalists have been calling for since the beginning, I mean, even residents in these marginal areas, they've been asking for transparency as far as what's happening to the community around them.

If we could just get some answers about where this money is specifically going, what the production is looking like on this plant.

I mean, I think that that will clear up a lot of the confusion rather than just making it talking points about, you know, what side did what.

Does anybody around this table believe that that Marshall plant will not be built?

I think something absolutely will be built there.

I think there are I mean, I think there are questions about what it's going to be will most likely be this EV plant with with Ford and Catl, probably.

What else you turn it into.

Well, if you listen to this at this meeting this week where they gave out $65 million for more site prep, we heard that the CEO of the MDC, Quint Messer, said that they've gotten calls this week from people there who either want a, quote unquote co-locate with foreign cattle at the site or who are potentially interested in other large sites.

So they're billing it as like we need to build out a massive mega-site with infrastructure.

Anyway, the task at a time that states in the South have been building out the infrastructure.

So sewer lines, roads, electricity, mega-sites all the time.

And this is just what they're doing, what wallbridge and other people are doing anyway at the site.

Again, though, if Ford actually left, I think it would be a pretty big show.

There's some truth to that.

I mean, this is the mega site near Memphis that Ford is is building an EV battery plant, an assembly plant that was that went through multiple iterations.

Different companies started looking at it and then didn't land.

It was already all built out.

The roads, the sewer utility.

I mean, that's what that's been the argument for a long from the start is the state needs to get in the business of that anyways, make things pad ready so that we can we can attract a big.

Big fish.

All right.

Let's turn the page to the criminal sheet with Rick Johnson, the former speaker of the House.

55 months in the slammer.

Yeah, this has been playing out for a long time.

He pleaded guilty earlier this year.

We saw a lot of a lot of very interesting court documents come out in terms of what those bribes actually were, including paying for a commercial sex work among, you know, getting cash, private flights, etc..

So so this has been a very, very big story that that has played out in the sense that it's not exactly clear, you know, if this is over, we've seen the we've seen the sentencing of almost all of them.

We've got the other two lobbyists next month.

But, you know, they haven't closed the investigation yet.

So I guess we're still waiting to kind of see if if Rick Johnson is the big fish or if they've got other other things come in here.

This story, correct me if I'm wrong here, folks.

Rick Johnson, a lot of people knew this guy, never saw this part of him, that he wanted to live this high life and do the stuff that he did.

Wasn't this a surprise that this speaker was in trouble?

Well, yes, everyone has their eyes on other speakers.

But but the bigger part of this story is the prosecutors laid out a case that this thing was rigged from the start.

So he thought.

Wait, before he even got the.

Before he got the appointment, that he was lying himself up for this.

And then him and these lobbyists procured some $2 million of contract books and got a bunch of work lined up and used their influence.

And then something happened in the appointment process.

Said that former Senate Majority Leader Arlen Meekhoff has not answered for why didn't Meekhoff want Johnson there?

Because the prosecutors say that Johnson was basically set up as a patsy who was going to do do favors for people and we're not talking.

I mean, what they what they recorded is $112,000 of value.

And they used value, including the sex along with the cash.

And I mean, they found text messages.

It was so brazen.

And so just, you know, kind of dumb that Rick Johnson would just text his wife like days after getting appointed by Snyder.

Hey, you're going to have the contract and you'll get the money and then we'll be fine and we'll get in and people will be sent to come to me and get and then these lobbyists, they were even more brazen.

I mean, this Vince Brown, the guy went on to buy $190,000 Lamborghini and and didn't think that was going to draw not draw any attention to himself.

It was brazen to the point of being comical.

They use Batman as his code name in these text messages.

And so someone wouldn't see through that.

It's a it is almost common sense.

Some kind of a man cave for him.

I'm not sure if that's the cave in the in the Batman is all but.

The Snyder administration initially opposed his appointment because he was a lobbyist to this position by not correct.

Multiple people around.

Rick Snyder and former legislators say he was opposed to this but ultimately caved said that Meekhoff just kept it was lingered for months and Meekhoff just kept going back and asking the asking and saying this is this is who I want.

And and eventually Snyder caved.

And and that's that's a really telling aspect of the story that we haven't quite got a full answer out of either out of the feds or out of the politicians.

Well, the interesting thing about this sentence, the average for this kind of bribery thing was 23 months in prison.

He got 55.

The court was sending a message.

You know, I think that that is, to me, one of the more interesting parts.

I think all of us on this table and every journalist in America, frankly, is probably covered some trial of some, quote unquote, corrupt politician where they have gone to jail for doing something maybe not exactly like this.

I don't know about Batman, but they've done something right.

And then, of course, in a year, six months or something else, we see something else come out.

Right.

I don't know if these sentences are disincentives.

And I'm wondering and I don't have an answer to this, I'm wondering if the idea of term limits in Michigan, where lawmakers are cycling through and they're not in the Capitol watching somebody that they worked with be investigated is like is not having the same sort of disincentive effect as it would.

Now, of course, there are other places that don't have term limits, like Tennessee and the FBI raids the Tennessee Capitol about every ten years.

Right.

And like the people, the same people are there and they watch them come in.

But I don't I don't know I don't know if even if that is a much higher sentence, if it's if it's going to have this disincentive impact that potentially prosecutors and taxpayers would want.

Let me Rick trans-Tasman speaker of the house in almost 20 years.

I mean, if he was lounging around town he didn't he wasn't Carube and associates or Kelly Cawthorn, him and Lou Dodak, two former speakers.

There are.

Two former speakers who who had a name who once were somebody in this town they.

Were trying to replicate the Bobby Crim and Bob Vanderlawn thing, which created GCSI.

Yes.

And they didn't create that by any means.

And so it just it just the whole thing stunk from the start.

I mean, be honest.

Why would he be quitting his paid lobbying job for a non-paid job?

Why the legislature create a non-paid board?

Why they legislature create a board to begin with?

I mean, there's there's a bunch of questions here about what why, what went on and why they why they set this up.

And and then in the investigation really does point out that there was something rigged here from the start.

All right.

Let's turn to the no fault car insurance thing.

This is the infamous Mike Duggan.

Gretchen Whitmer, Republican legislature.

The reform which the court said close but no cigar.

Yeah.

So Senate Democrats have introduced what advocates.

Car crash survivors, health care providers for these survivors have wanted for a long time, which is a change in how accident, care or care for accident victims, rather, is reimbursed.

Catastrophic care.

Let's underscore that these are people that are really in bad.

Shape.

That are going to be in care for decades, if not the rest of their lives.

And so so in this particular case, it doesn't necessarily impact too many drivers on the front end.

But for the people who have been, you know, have been trying to get access to this care, have seen reduced access to care, it is a very big deal for them.

Yes.

And so and so we're seeing Senate Democrats sort of take up this charge.

We had not seen the Republican majority in previous sessions interested in going back to the table on auto insurance reform.

And and insurance providers are arguing that this could potentially cause rates to creep back up if the fee schedules change.

So I think there's still a lot of conversations to be had, but it is a pretty big signal that the Democratic caucus in the Senate is taking on this taking on this case.

Now.

There's a realization among lawmakers that when you cut someone's pay by 45%, it's going to be hard for them to keep doing their job.

And that's what happened.

You took the 20 you took these these home health care aides who they work for business.

They were paid the business paid $20 an hour.

You paid the aide $14 an hour, and then they got cut by 45%.

So then they're paid.

And do a math on my on the fly here.

I'm sorry 1250 an hour or something along that lines, the company gets paid 1250 then they got to pay someone within 1250 with taxes and insurance and all that.

And anybody this understands, just math understands that does not work when you can make 15 bucks an hour at McDonald's right now.

So they literally decimated an entire industry and a model that worked for a lot of people who are literally the voiceless among us.

And now we can then not walk.

They can't talk and they can't speak for themselves.

And and the legislature just kind of haphazardly did this.

I think they'll just, you know, hours before the Memorial Day, Memorial Day will break in 2019 and didn't look back.

And and some lawmakers are really trying to figure out how to fix this with with a with with set rates that they want to put in law that would that would ensure that these businesses could actually care for these folks.

And there is a lot on the legislative agenda for the rest of the year.

However, because this is the first time taking a look at this law in years, I mean, you've had injury victims at the Capitol every session since this change went place.

I think it will be really imperative for the majority to take a really thoughtful approach during committee meetings and during session and really listen to the sides of injury victims, as well as medical providers and auto insurers to ensure that they are doing what's right by Michiganders and that this doesn't have to be this doesn't have to be.

Take another look at, you know, five years down the road.

Well, with the court saying that what you did was illegal, the legislature really has no choice to let these people wallow out here or to do something about it.

Sure.

Right.

And I think, you know, as Chad and everybody else has said, this has been an issue that the legislature is aware of.

It's not like advocates haven't been there telling them exactly.

Why in the first place, if Chad is correct, which he always is, if he is correct, why didn't somebody in the room say, here are the unintended consequences if we go there?

For years, we had what I called the no fault fire drill where where both sides would try to get a bill going and and then the other side would try to kill it.

And the medical providers in the hospital association, the trial attorneys for I ever held people together, held their coalition, and then came along the insurers.

And the insurers eventually just found enough Republicans and Democrats and the mayor of to put together a coalition.

They got the votes.

They passed the bill.

They won for a while.

So on a scale of 1 to 10, how good was this program?

Oh, it's always a ten.

Yeah, clearly no question about it to the.

Top ranks.

And thanks to all of you.

Everybody, have a safe weekend.

See you back here for more off the record next week.

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.

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