Welcome back to OTR.

Major news in the race for governor this week.

Maybe you heard Mike Duggan is dropping out.

How come?

That and lots more coming up next.

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

Off the record.

Production of Off the Record is made possible in par by Bellwether Public Relations, a full servic strategic communications agency partnering with clients through public relations, digital marketing and issue advocacy.

Learn more at bellwether pr.com.

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

Thank you very much.

Welcome to studio C a couple of housekeeping chores before we begin our program.

Number one, all of the talented to female members of the off the record family a bit up on the islan this week, so they're not here.

Secondly, James, we invite you back out of retirement to do this basically because you covered who?

Mike Duggan.

Speaking of Mike Duggan, let's see what he said last week.

Okay.

We're standing here today where, we don't feel like there is a path forward.

And I never ran to be a spoiler.

I was trying to change politics.

And as Mayor Lewis, I said, I told everybody from the beginning, if there comes a point where I don't think there's a path forward, I won't continue, to pursue it.

Everybody here has seen how the national climate has changed in the last two months.

And, you know, President Trump started a war in Iran.

Gas prices went up over $ a gallon, and people are angry.

We got a poll back in April that said I was down five points, and it's the first time in a year and a half I dropped in any poll.

And it was a shift to Democrats.

And the polling show my favorability was still as high.

So, Mr.

Oosting, how come he did this?

Well, I think, you know, h explained it pretty thoroughly.

His path was always going to be that people were so upset with the two parties that they saw an opening for an independen or clamored for an independent.

But as Duggan said, right now, the energy, at least on the Democratic side, seems to be so angry about President Trump gas prices I ran that folks are coming back home.

Democrat who might have been interested in a moderate candidate are going back to Jocelyn Benson.

At this point, you know, they they don't want to split the vote.

Duggan said people were coming up to him at all his campaign even worried about that as a reality.

And so his path was just narrowing.

And, that was a harder sell for donors to at that point, he had done pretty well raising money, but was heading up to Mackinac this week.

And he he said he didn't want to be out asking for money on Mackinac if he didn't see a legitimate path for him to win anymore.

Alright since were paying you for your expertise well give it, baby.

Well, and I think the other part of that was with the funding.

He said the funding paths were not there for an independent.

You have the RNC and the DNC.

At the national level.

Yes, yes, funneling money into Michigan for this gubernatorial race.

And there wasn't that same path for him.

He could have gone to his donor and asked them to double down.

But with his numbers droppin and and he referenced the April number, it was down 11 points, I believe he said in May.

So that was his, negativity that he thought it was time to call it a day.

And, you know, I've been calling people this week talking with them.

Do you think this is legitimate for him or.

We don't know?

What we don't know is there something around the corner coming with him that we're not aware of?

Possible.

You know, you and I talked about this briefly, stuff that went on with the city of Detroit.

Not likely.

Hate to say this.

Is there a health issue around the corner that we don't know about?

Hope not.

Not likely.

Or another job?

Well, I was going to.

And he he shot that down too.

He said I don't have anything lined up.

I haven't talked with anybody.

But let me just interject.

Is there a difference between talking to somebody and texting with somebody?

Well, there is.

And also he could have been contacted or it can still be University of Michigan Let's just say it.

Yeah, yeah.

The presidency.

It's open.

Well, Mark Bernstein did support last time I checked Mike Duggan for governor.

Yeah.

And he does chair the board of U of M. Could you add up one and one?

You know that.

And also the big, multimillionaire Ross, a contributor, a bi backer of Duggan, if he wants, Duggan in there as president, got a lot of money and he's already given a lot of money to University of Michigan.

He could make it happen all by himself.

And I know that, Simon Shaykhet went up to Mackinac for our station to cover it, and he asked that questio directly to Duggan, and I noted that Duggan did not say absolutely not.

So he left some wiggle room.

He didn't say that he had been contacted, but he didn't say, I I'm not interested.

I wouldn't want that job or anything of that nature.

So he left himself a little wiggle room.

Well, he's playing his perfectly because no he's going to take a time out.

It would be very unseemly to make the announcement last week and this week come back and say oh, by the way, I've got a job.

Okay.

So he now he's going on vacation with his kid to watch some soccer games, put some appropriate tim between last week and whenever, when there might be something down the road.

Is that too far fetched?

No, I think that's very legitimate.

What about what about?

This is the possibility he migh still come back and run again.

He did it in 2013.

He was knocked off the ballot by a judge.

Everybody was mad as hell.

He thought he got screwed.

A week later, he's back in the race running to the right, and everybody says, this is crazy.

You're never going to make it happen.

I could see, you know, maybe an after a week or two if there's outrage in the community, people sa we don't like the choices we got without Duggan.

You know, Benson or Johnson or James.

We don't like him.

We want Duggan.

You know, maybe they'd say, okay, suck it up, mike, and we'll we're behind you.

We'll get back in the race.

Well, it could him.

I think it's possible.

I don't think it's probable.

And I think one, because this is a statewide race versu when he ran on a citywide race.

And I think because of what you said earlier, the national money wasn't coming in as an independent candidate.

And he's not Ross Perot.

He doesn't have those kind of deep pockets where he could funded himself.

And there was nothing for either the Democratic Party or the Republican Party.

There was no investment in them to try to help him out in any kind of way, because if he had been really successful at this independent run, all he does is weaken both the Democratic and Republican parties.

And they have a vested interest, especially financially, on the national level, to keep their partie as strong as they possibly can.

Of cours it was very interesting to see the Michigan Democratic Party trashed Duggan for months.

And then the day he announce be like, oh, wait a minute here, you set the agenda for discussion.

And yeah, it was.

I didn't mean that.

There's one hook that I want to look at.

In his statement.

He relied heavily on the polling data, and he's absolutely correct.

If we all sat in the roo and looked at the polling data today, you could justif bailing out, but polls changed.

Ask George Herbert Walker Bush after the war, 89% approval ratin and the guy loses the election.

Mr.

Duggan, in four weeks.

This war is not going to go on forever.

We're not going to have $5 gas.

Some people might say to him, just, you know, suck it in, hang on and things will change.

So you're saying he is coming back?

And I did not say that at all.

Didn't even mean to imply at all.

Some people have implie that he got out way too early.

That early evacuation.

Well, the question was, did he have to do it last week?

I think, you know, he said that Mackinac, the timing is interesting.

He said literally, you know, like like Jim said, I could have come up here and asked every one of you to double your donations.

But I didn't believe that that was a legitimate, you know, that I had a legitimate chance to win.

I wouldn't have felt right doing that.

So I think part o it was the timing of Mackinac.

He didn't want to go up there and have to grovel for something.

He didn't show up at Mackinac, and he answered questions and he got a standing ovation.

For sure.

And he talked at length about all of these reasons.

He's not running over and over.

A solution to that is he wasn' talking about opening the door.

If you're worried of somebody making money, if you're worried about taking money, don't take it.

Well he's actually giving back some and he's giving I think it was multiple things, all of which we talked about.

I don't think it was any one thing.

And I think he sat down and he looked at it and he maybe did his little ledger.

And, you know, th the negatives outweigh the pros.

And I think he's a smart enough politician where he couldn't see a clear path.

Then I think the spoiler thing did become an issue in the back of his mind.

He's still young enough.

He had a good enough reputation where there may be something better coming down the line.

You don't burn a bridge that you may have to go back over.

He was good to the Democratic Party.

The Democratic Party was good to him, too.

And it takes you back to the last time I interviewed him was in December, kind of an exit interview.

And as we're walking out of the studio, I turned to him and I said, Mr.

Mayor, I said, what's the most important thing you learned from it?

McNamara the years you worked for him.

And he said, that's easy.

He said McNamara used to always say to us, there's nothing we can't accomplish if we check our egos at the door.

And he admitted he said, here's a young person that was hard for me to learn, but I eventually learned that it's about teamwork, and I think he went back to that instead of himself.

I don't want to be the spoiler.

I want to be able to bring people togethe and work together if he could.

And I think there was always that doubt.

If Benson loses, they were going to blame him potentially, and I don't think he want that settled on him.

Does he get welcomed back into the tent with the Democrats?

He said, because he said he wasn't going to do that.

Well, he claims he's not going to run for office again.

But what's he going to do about endorsing?

I thought this was interesting, too.

Now he's going to evaluate the rest of the field.

It's out ther and it start to sound like him.

He'll endorse in terms of let's stop all thi arguing in Lansing, which what which is what they do up here, okay.

And let's work together.

If he hears somebody say that he'll play for them.

He can endorse a Republican, you know, Google said he's not going to hea that at the gubernatorial level.

There are the candidates out.

There are people who can do that.

They're not those people.

Yeah.

He said he wasn't going to endorse in the primaries.

So he left the door open for an endorsemen in the general election.

Right.

And of course, he wants his campaign to have some legacy, which is hopefully he pushed other candidates to think abou pragmatic solutions and ideas.

But he's also, you know, fairly a realist, and he's acknowledged with no moderate, no independent in the race.

Parties are probably going to retreat to their corners.

We're going to see the DNC, the RNC pumping tons of money with typical party talking points.

And he's worried, and I think rightly so, that this might just devolve into a typical left versus right.

You know, ironically some of what Duggan was saying about, you know, so much partizanshi and everything when you looked at what happened up at Mackinac, a lot of those images worked against him.

Look at the suffrage.

Look at all those people working together.

You had the speaker o the House, you had the governor.

You had, you know, majority leader, everybody coming together on this thing that they said it was very important to this stat and they didn't want to blow it.

And so that really sort of countered what he had been saying on the campaign trail.

These and ours can't get together.

Yeah, we know they argued for a lot of times, but on something high profile like that and other thing and the theme they had up there that the chamber built was working on common ground.

Well, if you really wanted to play that card, it was the trump card which is causing all the disunity.

A lot of people say, you're right, they are cooperating now, period.

It's not pretty okay, but they are getting some stuff done.

Which leads us into a story that we also had this week is if this story was not enough, okay, the MSU president decides that he's going away.

And now we have the trifecta of three people you know who are trying to change the law on the way people are appointed to university boards at the U of M, MSU and Wayne State.

Let's take a look at the trifecta.

MSU's political trifecta of Jim Blanchard, Gretchen Whitmer and John Engler are pushing har to put on the ballot in August for you to decide a constitutional amendment, it would remove all of the current MSU boar members by the end of the year, and then give Governor Whitme the power to appoint new members to the board.

And the new governor.

Coming in in the new year would have some appointments as well, along with one seat coming from the MSU Alumni Association.

And all of this would also happen at the U of M and Wayne State.

There is a new sense of urgency, however, to do this, given the decision by the current MSU president to resign because his relationship, he says, with some of the members of the board, was, quote, unsustainable.

University board candidates are pick that party convention by the two major political parties.

MSU grad Jim Blanchard argues the current system of letting them do the work is not working out.

The political parties have done a terrible job vetting their nominees, and it shouldn't be elected.

That should be appointed.

Nobody knows who these people are.

They don't, you know it's not.

And there's no way to hold them accountable.

You end up with these people with huge egos.

Given the fact that MSU has had six presidents in the last six years, and there is politica infighting on the current board and on previous boards as well, MSU grad John Engler predicts qualified would be new presidents at MSU are never going to even apply for the job.

Who would apply?

I mean, this, you know, I mean, I I'm afraid I know who would apply, but that kind of person is probably who we absolutely don't want as president.

Mr.

Engler has lobbied House Republican Speaker Matt Hall to move quickly on this ballot proposal.

And, well, Mr.

Engler thinks the speaker supports the concept.

He is not secured from the speaker.

A hard and fast yes will do this by June 5th.

I think Matt Hall wants to do the right thing.

The urgency for the legislatur to act has never been greater.

So the question is, can this unusual, bipartisan MSU trifecta pay off?

We're about to see well, and we are about to see that yesterday After that story aired, that Mr.

Hall has sort of thrown some cold water.

All in all, this yay or nay?

Yay, he has thrown a little cold water.

I look two thirds majority each chamber.

That's a tough, role to Hall.

Yeah, but you know what?

You can get it in a second because they did it on the constitutional amendment to change term limits.

Now, that was self-serving.

Okay.

The lawmakers had a little they had a dog in the hunt on that one.

Well, they can.

But it can be done.

It can be done.

And look, this is something that's been talked about for years.

I mean, even before the crises that these three major universities now, for years, people have said these people ought to be appointed.

Michigan is an outlier among states.

Four states are doing this.

Yeah, exactly.

We're an outlier, very unusual and obviously elected boards.

There's turmoil on all thre of these boards, not just MSU.

They're big problems.

Look at the Democratic state convention and they denied renomination to one of their incumbents.

Wayne State has been at war for years.

So I mean, this should end.

Well and the U of M's had problems with Mr.

Ono.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Mike Duggan, U of M president.

Big Gretch, MSU president.

There you go.

Problem solved.

Next story.

Now we can go home.

Listen.

That may happen tomorrow.

Okay.

Then we have to come back.

Im trying to keep you.

You know, ahead of the game.

A little bit here.

Chuck, what do you make of this?

Look at Mr.

Engler and Mr.

Blanchard are students of this process.

The ions are fired up now.

This is the moment they think.

I think people are starting to come to the sense that they're getting sick and tired of this and they're very, very concerned.

And I think a lot of alum are concerned about it as well.

I also agree that the speaker looks at this and said, this is a tough one to be able to necessarily take on, and it doesn't necessarily solve the problem.

He wants something in return though, you know, this is Matt Hall being Matt Hall.

Right.

Well right.

But but but you could hav the governor appoint the people.

And if you have the wrong type of governor appointing the wrong type of people, you could still have turmoil on these boards.

Probably somewhere i there is a hybrid of some type.

That's a little different than what we have now, but there's also some pointing involved, and maybe the terms are longer and staggered in a way where you have the electorate have some say so in it, but you also have some appointing it.

I don't know how you exactly pull that off, but that may be something you can swap.

If it were just a debate ove the university board positions, maybe it's possible to get a deal done soon, but this is all wrapped up in a larger conversation.

The resolutions introduced in the House and Senate right now would also change the way the Attorney General and Secretary of State are nominated.

Mr.

Hal wants to have a closed primary.

What they have to do, they have to go home and say, we want to separate this.

Out of all of that, we'll pledge for you.

That will help you on that stuff.

The but they need to get this on the August 12th ballot in order to eliminate all the board people before the end of the year.

Hall cannot sell this to his caucus without that closed primary, because there are people in the Republican Party, in the Republican caucu who think, well, if you move AG and Secretary of state to the primaries, then Democrats are jus going to meddle in our private.

They'll come over and pick up the property.

Yeah, the candidates registration.

And he's got a point there.

Yeah.

You just had a representative Maddock on a week ago, and he just trashed the idea of giving up on convention.

So this is the kind of resistance you're going to get in the legislature to, putting this resolution through on a two thirds vote.

And I think it's going to be very tough for Hall.

And, you know, you're right when you say it's not unique to MSU.

But this story on this board goes all the way back to John Hann leaving the university in 1969.

And and here was the story.

Gus Scholl was the head of the AFL CIO.

He wanted Soapy Williams, former governor, to be the president of MSU.

Remember that?

Okay.

And he leaned on the board, okay.

In the board didn't do it.

The board did not do it.

They voted 5 to 3 to bring in Cliff Wharton.

And the three no votes went to Mr.

Wharton, Doctor Wharton and said, you'll be packing your bags in a few months.

Okay.

Now it didn't work out, but my point is, there's been a long history in all these universities of this kind of internal squabble.

But you know what?

I'm not sure the votes are there to do it now.

Yeah.

I think it's a tough sell on the legislature, especially so quickly.

I mean, these resolution were just introduced last week.

So, will there be negotiations?

I'm sure there will be talks, but June 5th, that's like a few days from now Tim.

It's like a week.

Hello.

Yeah.

Yeah.

The Selfridge thing that they're celebrating is a bipartisan moment.

Should have been easy.

Everybody agreed they passed two different versions.

They squabbled over it for a couple of months and then got it done and had a Kumbaya moment.

Pressure.

Governor Whitmer said the other day that she's not running for president, and Governor Whitmer said the other day would never say never.

Excuse me?

Did I lose something in the translation there?

Can we coin that phrase right here, right now?

Whitmer walk back.

Well, yeah, it's not original Jimmy but youre retired so we don't expect anything new.

But no, but I like it because here she slams the door on it and then a few hours later.

Not so fast.

Why?

Who does that?

Why?

Why did she walk it back?

Well, because you should never say never to.

Well, yeah, she realized that.

Look, why didn't you realize it when she said, I think she feels fear that she's not going to do it in 28.

Look at she' not going to run for president.

Yeah, she's not.

In 28.

Ever.

What about 32?

What about 36.

She said she's 55 and still has gas in the tank too.

Yes.

And 5 is young to run for president.

And more expensive.

Even if she doesn't want to run for president.

Being talked about as a presidential contender is good for anyone's political career.

Bingo.

Whatever job she wants next.

So you know closing the door just means she's not going to get the attention she might be looking for at a national level for some other opportunity.

And she's.

Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, because she is relatively young, she's got all kind of time and potential out there.

And it's just what comes on the table.

And this is something that really interests her and, and and what does she really want to do right now?

I have no idea.

She wants to take some time off.

I strongly advise that she take some time after she does this, sit down for a little bit, figure out you know, what is it I really want?

Well, and maybe and maybe it's just to make a lot of money.

She can go out and be like Jennifer Granholm and represent data centers.

Oh, she didn't say that, did she?

Im saying it.

I'm saying it.

She's doing quite well with that.

We presume because she was up on the island.

Yeah.

Touting that.

This governor can probably do anything she wants to do because a lot of people will want her to do something X, Y or Z, don't you think?

Yeah.

Yeah.

There would be no, no shortage of opportunities.

I mean, somebody, Jim already mentioned one possible one, right?

Yeah.

Michigan State, Duggan, U of M Whitmer, MSU president.

It's a great story.

But a cabinet position in the future.

If she was, on the short list for Joe Biden's running mate.

I mean.

And she said yes and she said she would've said yes.

Not running for president doesn't mean you're not going to run for vice president.

So there are lots of other opportunites.

She could write another book too.

Well the book she wrote was not a book, okay?

It was a book.

But it wasn't about what we wanted to read about.

Okay.

With all deference to her guides to get through life, which was important.

So.

Democrats have a majority on the MSU board.

They can make it happen just like that.

They get a point for it.

All right.

We, lost this week.

Former state senator Jo Schwarz, who was one of a kind.

Would we all agree around this table?

And how ironic, on the program he did with those whose last one was on May 19th, 2023.

And, Chuck, you asked him a question about where the Republican Party in Michigan was.

And here was hi answer to your question, please.

I forgot I asked the question.

The traditional Republican Party, as it existed prior to to President Trump, Doesn't exist anymore.

And many, many traditional Republicans, myself included, have, Not happily said we can't really be supportiv of the party, as it now exists.

And he also said, I did not leave my party.

My party left me.

Yeah.

Which is a great line.

And that's a strong consensus behind the scenes among Republicans, no question about it.

You know, the 2020 election, and the 2016, you know, Trump came in like the bull in a China shop and he was calling th traditional Republicans rhinos, even though they had been Republicans for decades.

You want to say something here?

No.

You look perplexed.

You know, and this is interesting.

I was thinking the other day the fact that Duggan had to pull out of thi gubernatorial race independent.

And I was thinking about Trump could have run as an independent.

I don't think he would be sitting in the white House today if he had, but I think he was smart enough to figure out, I've got to get into on of those parties, which party?

And he figured out that th Republican Party was the party.

Well he used to be a Democrat, wasnt he?

But he made it into his party now.

And the Republican Party.

Yeah.

That he first became a member of is not the Republican Party that it was.

So where do these independent, former Joe Schwarz go?

What do they do?

Well, I mean, Joe Schwarz already, you know, endorsed Kamala Harris for president the other year.

So, I mean, a lot of the have left the Republican Party, at least as a, as a voting base.

Yet the Republican Party won the presidency.

So there was a major realignment.

The old Republican Party is gone, but the new Republican Party did pretty well a couple of years ago.

So, it' not as if it's on life support.

What do you remember?

The old Republican party can come back.

The question is, can they retain a lot of the people that Trump brought in and the MAGA base, can they keep those people and still get the moderates like Joe Schwartz and other traditional Republicans back?

That's the real test post-Trump for the Republican Party.

That's the key word after Donald Trump, right?

Who steps i and how do they reshape, remold, reacquaint themselves with the party?

My guess is it's going to be something very different, because this Donald Trump is unique and you aren't going to get a second one.

Exactly.

Theyre going to have to temper the energy level.

Absolutely.

And take out the angst.

Yeah, I don't think like Trump, you know, being term limited out is going to immediately change the direction of the party.

You know, he's goin to keep his hands on the levers.

We see it right now and all sorts of mid terms.

Cant last forever.

Sure.

But he'll be around for another few years.

Make sure that big role and who his successor is.

Precisely try to ordai who that person is going to be and tell the mega crowd this is my guy or lady, please vote for the and they'll say, where do we go?

You know, we're with you, Mr.

President.

Well, goodness gracious, Jimmy, nice to see you.

Thank you.

You, for how you still got time to get out to your boat.

Okay.

Also thank to everybody else on the panel.

And thank you for tuning in next week.

More Off the Record right here.

We look forward to seeing you then.

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