(energetic music) - [Tim] Welcome back, our guest this week is former Michigan Republican Congressman Mike Rogers, who's eyeing a bid for higher office, maybe.

Our lead story, hearings on the gun safety bills commence.

On the "OTR" panel, Kyle Melinn, Lauren Gibbons, and Rick Albin.

Sit in with us as we get the inside out, "Off the Record."

(energetic music) - [Announcer] 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 you very much.

Welcome to Studio C as we continue with guns being the major issue this week.

Let's see what was going on on one front.

The gun safety lobby is telling lawmakers in this committee, if somebody shows up at the polls with an assault weapon, that is wrong and therefore all guns at polling places should be banned.

- If someone's standing next to a ballot box in full body armor and an AR-15 or another weapon, I think there's an implication of intimidation just by being there.

- [Tim] But the pro-gun lobby was quick to assert that the mere presence of somebody possessing a gun is not intimidation unless there is a threat to intimidate.

This lobbyist for the Open Carry pro-gun group tells the House Committee this.

- The number one thing we didn't hear was a single example of how a firearm was used to do any of this.

Not one single example, let alone how existing law wouldn't already handle that with punishments greater than the ones you proposed today.

- [Tim] The creation of gun-free zones around voting drop boxes 40 days before the election is just one of about a dozen so-called gun safety proposals now in the hopper, as the two sides in the gun debate try to influence lawmakers one way or the other.

This gun advocate, for example, calls these election bills a problem in search of a solution that will send innocent gun owners to the slammer.

- They're dangerous and you will lead to otherwise law-abiding citizens ending up in jail for accidentally walking through one of these countless gun-free zones that you're now going to establish around drop boxes around the state.

- [Tim] The sponsor of the proposals reports that one out of six local clerks reports being threatened, and 77% believe those threats are on the rise.

The Detroit City clerk who did not attend the hearing did tell the committee that after the last election, she was confronted outside her home by a 6'3'' 250-pound man who told her.

- "I've been waiting for you at work so I decided to come to your house.

Why did you cheat and why did you allow Trump to lose?

You are going to pay dearly for your actions in this election."

Mind you, he was approaching me in a threatening manner, coming closer and closer, and my only recourse was, "I have COVID and I'll spit on you."

- The committee did not vote on these proposals, but will at a later date.

So Lauren, something unusual in our town, an actual hearing on gun safety legislation.

- Yeah, I think that hearing and the hearing we saw yesterday on some of the other gun reform proposals out there shows just the different direction that Democrats are clearly taking on this.

They're taking it very seriously.

Democratic leadership in a call yesterday was on a call with Everytown and Students Demand Action saying that they were going to take action.

And that is a very different, very different direction than Republicans who were very hesitant to take up anything that would look like gun control to some of these gun rights advocates.

So very clearly we are seeing a different path forward from House and Senate Democrats.

- Well, we shouldn't be surprised.

I mean- - They said they would do it.

- Democrats have, yeah.

In fact, we shouldn't really be surprised by anything we've seen in the past 60 days.

This is what Democrats said they were going to do, and now this is what Democrats are doing.

Now, they may be doing it in a way that we haven't seen before, not necessarily through regular order, even though this was, as you pointed out, a time where they did have a scheduled hearing.

But I think there's gonna be a lot of conversation and there's gonna be a lot of pushback.

And there is also that other set of gun legislation that was introduced last year that is to some degree more bipartisan.

There may be a place for that to come into play, too, but the arguments are gonna remain largely the same that we've already heard.

And the argument from Democrats is, we have to do something about gun violence.

It's hard to argue with that.

The Republican argument is, anything that you pass isn't going to prevent the things that you're trying to prevent, necessarily.

And we'll see which argument prevails.

- Yeah, I mean, the Michigan State shootings I think accelerated the timeline just a little bit, but this was going to happen.

So this legislation that you promote here in this piece is one of, I think, four pieces of legislation that's gonna move quickly.

It's gonna be kind of the first wave.

We're gonna see this red flag law that if somebody thinks that you're a threat to yourself or others, they can call it judge and have your guns taken away.

Safe storage, requiring gun owners to lock up their guns so kids and other people don't get at it.

And then expanded background checks.

These are the first wave, but we're gonna see others as well because Democrats are serious about changing people's attitudes about guns.

And I think we're seeing that just not only in the legislation that's moving, but also with the numerous groups that are holding press conferences.

I mean, Lauren, you mentioned one press conference.

There was another one later in the day with pastors talking about people being responsible for guns.

I kind of equate this to just an overall messaging repetition to people almost like the drunk driving stuff in the '80s and the '90s where people are being told and reminded over and over again, we don't have a problem with your guns, just be safe with them.

- Well, this is the Governor's key weapon, public voices being heard on her side of the issue.

But don't discount the gun lobby either, Rick.

- No, and and you have to remember, too, that this daily repetition, and that's what it's been, I mean, there's been something almost daily, is a powerful tool, but the gun lobby is a well-oiled machine and they're a well-financed machine.

And let's not just talk about the gun lobby.

Let's talk about gun owners.

There are people in this state who have guns who don't use them for nefarious actions who are responsible and take care of them, and they are concerned about some of these things.

I think the red flag law particularly concerns some of those folks because they worry that that could be used somehow in an inappropriate way.

- Without due process.

- Right.

- That's their major fear.

- But you saw at the House hearing yesterday on some of those other three major buckets of gun regulations that are being proposed, you know, we saw some moderate Republicans come out.

Fred Upton was there saying that other Republicans have supported things like red flag laws or, you know, stricter background checks in some cases, especially in areas that have been similarly impacted by mass shootings.

And his question to presumably the Republicans on the panel is, who is going to do it if not you after Michigan State?

And I think the Michigan State tragedy does really put a lot of this into...

It's not quite, you know, as Kyle said, it's not necessarily tailored to what happened at Michigan State, but certainly it puts that legislation at the forefront and has a lot of people and students who are showing up at the Capitol almost every day asking, "What are you going to do?"

- The Freep did an interesting story.

It got kind of a headcount that they did, and they found two votes in the Senate, Republican votes and a couple of wishy-washy ones.

I think she can pick up some Republican votes.

- Oh, I think there will be some Republican votes on this because the public attitude is shifting more towards some type of regulation because it's the only thing that you can feel like you can do about these shootings, and not just the ones at Michigan State, but the ones at shopping malls and across the country at nightclubs and what have you.

What can we do about this?

There's a lot of hand-wringing and a lot of people who are very uncomfortable with guns, and they see this type of legislation as doing something.

I mean, whether it's effective or not is almost beside the point of the whole idea of doing something.

So I do believe that the Republicans, I don't think that they're on an issue that is gaining momentum right now.

I feel like they're losing the tug of war on it.

- Jeremy Moss made a good point on the program last week.

He said he sees an analogy between what happened on the vocal opposition to Prop 3 on the abortion issue.

He said those people were loud, they were strong, and they are out of touch with the electorate.

Fast forward to the gun safety issue.

He believes they have the public on their side, much like the public was against Proposal 3 so it's an interesting parallel.

All right, so the Governor swung and she missed on the $180 check.

How come?

- Well, there was some, there were... Republicans were not thrilled with the idea because the $180 checks for every tax filer proposal, it would have essentially not triggered an income tax cut.

It was an idea that Democrats had to put some of this money out there so the revenue wasn't enough to put this income tax cut trigger in place.

- [Tim] So much for that.

- So much for that.

The Senate Republicans have power to block immediate effect.

Under the legislation, the $180 would have only come out if immediate effect was granted.

It wasn't and now we are here where the $180 checks seem to be not happening at this point.

- And the trigger will apparently be pulled.

- And that's what it looks like, that we are gonna see an income tax rate reduction next year, not this current year, from 4.25% to 4.05% unless something happens.

Unless the governor pulls something out of her hat and says, well, I don't think that this law that activates the trigger is legal or there's some type of suit that muddies the waters or- - [Tim] Ooh, she's call up the Supremes.

- Who knows?

I mean, I don't wanna say it's gonna happen, but I mean, that's what it's looking like right now.

- In other words, she's not gonna take this lying down.

- Well- - Well, and the messaging out of her office weeks ago when we were at that media conference afterwards and was talking to one of the staff people and they said, "Well, we don't believe that this is ongoing.

We think that this is just for one year."

- Yeah.

- And Republicans have sold this as a year... Once it comes down, it stays down in their minds.

- And listen, the liberal Democrats are just scared as all get out on this thing because that's a 800 or $600 million hit every year out of the general fund budget.

Pretty soon you're talking about real money and you're cutting services.

- Well, and if we have a recession that come... Well, when we have our next recession, the Democrats, if they're still in charge, don't wanna be in a position like they were in 2007 where they had to get everybody together and vote for an income tax increase.

And we saw what happened during the Blanchard years when they had to do an income tax increase.

It is always extremely difficult.

And the Republicans, when they're the minority, they can stand firm and say no to it and force the Democrats to make that unpopular vote that they just frankly don't want to do if they don't have to.

- Rick, speaking of history, was also made in the Michigan Senate as they voted to expand the civil rights law to include the gay community.

That was a long time in waiting.

- It was, and again, it was one of those very high-priority items for Democrats that they've talked about for years.

- Check it off the list.

- They've tried to do it even when they were in the minority, and they repeatedly would take it to whoever the Senate majority leader was at the time.

And they constantly kind of got a no, it's not necessary.

We think this is covered.

Democrats clearly did not think that those civil rights were covered.

And they, I think that again, you can't be surprised by what they're doing.

They really are going down that list of priorities that they've talked about for a very long time.

I was thinking back to an interview I did with the Governor a few days after the election, and virtually everything that has happened save maybe the $180, though she did say in that interview, "and I'd like to give something back to taxpayers."

Didn't specify what it was.

So everything that she talked about then is what's been happening in the last 60 days.

And I think that Democrats have probably moved more in the last 60 days than I would've expected them to.

- Yeah, and I think it's important to note on the Elliott-Larsen changes especially, you know, in 2014 a Republican was trying to make this happen and got primaried successfully.

He was kicked out of the legislature and now we- - [Tim] He was seated in the balcony when they voted on it.

- He was, he was.

- Frank Foster.

- Yep, yeah.

- Now a lobbyist.

- Yeah, and he was there and you know, on Wednesday we saw a few Republicans vote for it.

So it does point to a little bit how the pendulum has shifted on this issue more generally, but it was always something that Democrats had supported.

- This basically says, you cannot lose your home or your job because of what your sexual preference is, and the House will say yes.

- The House is gonna say yes.

The Governor's gonna sign it this month, at some point they'll take this on.

This is all part of social progress that we just continue to see on this and many issues.

The Democrats, I think, will have history on their side on this one.

That was an argument that Jeremy Moss made during his Senate comments.

- But the religious preference language that the Catholic Conference and others wanted was not even debated.

Is this a lawsuit waiting to happen?

Yea or nay?

- [Kyle] Yeah, oh sure, oh sure, yeah.

- Yes, okay.

- Whether it's victorious or not.

- Let's call in a guy named Mike Rogers.

Mr. Rogers, come on around here and grab a seat.

Boy, been a long time since we've seen you.

- [Mike] Tim, how you doing?

(dramatic music) - Not yet.

- Not in front of us.

- Not yet.

- Mr Rogers, here's my opening question.

- Yes, sir.

- US senator, president of the United States, which title does your wife like?

- (laughs) She likes private citizen, I think.

- [Tim] Ooh, she has not signed off on any of this stuff?

- Not true, she helped start with me something called leadamerica.org.

- [Tim] Yeah, but what about running for the US Senate or for President?

Are you interested?

- I haven't said no, but I also haven't said yes yet.

We're on a listening tour around the country, and we're also talking about real solutions through leadamerica.org.

- There's no other reason to go to the Iowa State Fair and eat a corn dog, right?

- I had a meat sundae, which I didn't even know was a thing until I got to the Iowa State Fair with mashed potatoes and a tomato on top.

It looks just like a sundae, but it's all meat underneath.

You know, it was fantastic.

- Belabor the point, let's make it clear, you are interested in running for president or the US Senate, true?

- I can't say I'm not interested, but this- - [Tim] Why are you playing games with me?

- Well, because this is not really the original intent.

One of the things that we, reason we started this, which is the reason I ended up showing up in places like New Hampshire and Iowa and South Carolina, Nevada in a couple of weeks, is to have this conversation about getting Americans to stop putting their fingers around each other's throat every political season.

And could we develop some solutions that we could start building coalitions around to actually fix real and big problems in America?

- Let's let Rick pick up the questioning from there.

- Well, I appreciate what your goal, what your stated goal is, but the fact is that this is the actions of a man who is looking at something more serious than just fixing problems by going from state to state to state and this- - I can't think of anything more serious than helping fix problems.

- Well, the thing is that you don't go as a private citizen to Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina and effect that change.

If you're going out there, you're trying to build some type of a foundation, and I hate continuing to belabor the subject- - Belabor it.

(panel laughing) - But it was very much like when we had Perry Johnson, a few weeks ago, he was talking about running a Super Bowl ad but wouldn't say why he was running a Super Bowl ad.

Well, we're not the brightest.

Well, I'll speak for myself.

I'm not the brightest guy ever assembled at this table, but it doesn't take a genius to know that there's something more going on out there.

And I know you can't say, I'm running for president 'cause that starts the clock and then you have to start a whole bunch of financial stuff, but you are at least interested.

- Well, listen, I've been encouraged, which is great by people on the ground, but again, and this is, I'm being very candid, the reason that my wife and I started leadamerica.org was not for that.

It really was, could we find a way, I mean, politics looks broken.

I mean, it looks broken everywhere, and we have huge problems facing this country.

And when I've been going around the country just talking about, listen, China is getting ready to push us off the world stage economically, diplomatically, militarily, and we've got some things to do to get ready for that competition.

And you can't do it when your politics are this small.

And so what we said is, could we help that narrative?

And that really, candidly, that's why we showed up in these, what we would all know as early primary states.

And what we found was people were very receptive to this message, despite what you see in the national news and the polling.

You know, I've met with Trump people and not Trump people and everybody in between.

And people, I think, are ready for solutions.

- [Tim] Lauren.

- Yeah, what lane are you hoping to appeal to?

You started to get into it, but you know, as this, especially in a time where Republicans seem pretty divided, especially, you know, as a private citizen or otherwise, you know, what type of voter do you see yourself trying to appeal to right now?

- Well, when you look at what the issue sets are for Americans, when you look at inflation, jobs, and the economy and national security, the top three issues where most Americans draft in about saying, and by the way, in both parties and say, these are the three big issues we've gotta work on.

And when you look at what the national scene is about, you know, candidly, grievance politics.

You know, the sugar high of a, I slapped my opponent and I get, you know, 400,000 likes on my Facebook page is not working and it's not working for the country.

I mean, we have serious problems.

Think of this, last year, 50% of high school seniors couldn't read past the sixth-grade level.

50% in America today where China's teaching quantum physics in the eighth grade.

We have these huge challenges.

If we don't start coming together and having conversations that are actually meaningful and understand, hey listen, we got it for 20 years.

Nobody bothered us.

Guess what?

Somebody wants to bother us, and it's time for us now to come back together and start solving these big problems.

And I think we can do it, and I know we can do it.

- Mike, you left the political scene in 2014.

What did you do since then, and what has got you back interested and engaging in kind of this political arena that you left eight, 10 years ago?

- Yeah, so I've been in the tech space.

I have done cybersecurity companies.

I'm the chairman of something called the MITRE Corporation.

It's 10,000 engineers doing really important national security work for the country.

I have started and invested in some companies.

I actually just invested in one recently in a Michigan company here.

And I'm an advisor and I'm on their board trying to help grow that company.

And it's, you know, phenomenal technology in the national, in the cybersecurity space.

It's called a data loss company.

I can really get geeky on you if you want.

It's sorta...

Your viewers would love it.

I'd spend 10 minutes on it.

So I've been doing lots of tech.

- [Tim] Click - Yeah, exactly.

Lots of tech, lots of business work.

And I'll have to tell you this, being in the business world in the way that I have, and these are startups, you have to be innovative.

You have to be quick.

You have to act bold.

You have to act fast.

Sometimes it works.

A lot of times it doesn't.

You gotta regroup, you gotta redo it.

And I looked at all of that and thought, "Wow, that's the exactly the kind of experience I wish I had when I was back in Congress."

And I think we need a little bit more of that business experience with somebody who understands how to pull the levers and has been successful at pulling those levers to get something done at the federal level.

- And that's why you decided to get back engaged and get involved.

- No, again, really it was, my wife and I were sitting having coffee one day and we said, "Man, something doesn't feel right in this country.

People are..." - [Tim] Driven by Mr. Trump?

- No, I think it's driven by both sides of the aisle, candidly.

I mean, we're at each other's throats.

I mean, and that's the art of the day of new politics is, how fast can I get my fingers around there and choke you to the ground?

And that's just not healthy.

It's certainly no way forward.

And that political discouragement we found everywhere.

You know, farmers, law, I mean, everybody that we talked to and we said, hey, could we try to change the narrative?

That's what we started to do.

- Did you at one point say that if Donald Trump runs for president and I run, I will stay in.

Did you say that?

- If I ever made the decision to run, there is no candidate that would prevent me from doing that.

- And so he would not scare you out of the race if you got in.

- [Mike] There's no candidate that would prevent me from getting in if I've determined that's the right thing to do.

- And so then what would your appeal to the party be with 30% of the vote going to Mr. Trump?

- You know, I mean, I don't want to get into the analytics of all of this, but you know, I've talked to a lot of folks who actually supported Donald Trump who I think are ready to move on.

And these are hardcore Trump, you know, '16, '20, thinking about '24 who have decided that, hey, maybe it's just different.

Listen, there was, you know, all of the policy, none of the tweet might be a good winning message.

- [Tim] So he's a has-been.

- I don't know that.

I think he still has a lot of sway in the Republican Party.

He's gonna have some very hardcore voters in the Republican Party.

But if you look at everything that's out there, there are more Republicans looking for another candidate than there are supporting Donald Trump at this moment.

And again, my argument is, hey listen, for the betterment of the party, for the country that is facing this huge challenge coming down the pipe, we had better get our act together and maybe it's time to move on.

- What is the most important component of our security that you're concerned about?

You come at this from the background of being the chairman of the Intelligence Committee.

You have your own personal background, military.

What is it that we aren't doing that we should be doing?

Because obviously, we hear, at least anecdotally, of threats from China on a regular basis.

- So a couple of things.

Our military is not exactly focused in the right direction.

And then here's what I say.

Listen, we're treading water on the military and defense side.

They're beating us on certain technologies, hypersonic missile systems, in space they are causing us...

The Chinese have militarized space.

Now, remember we used to own space as the US, the country.

Nobody ever contested us in space.

Guess what?

That's no longer true.

Their navy has surpassed the United States Navy in number of ships.

They're the number three nuclear arsenaled country in the world and it's likely more modern than ours.

And so when you look at those big challenges, okay, we got some work to do.

But I also frame it when I'm out talking to people about, are we ready to actually compete with China?

This cannot be a military-only endeavor.

If we do that, we're gonna get into a place that none of us want to be, which is armed conflict with China.

Nobody wants that even though these reports are coming out.

You had the Air Force come out and say, "Get ready for war with China."

The Army just came out recently and said, "Let's prepare for war for China."

Those are pretty, those are pretty strong words.

There is a whole bunch of other things we have to do to compete.

We can't have an illiteracy problem in the United States.

We have a literacy problem in the United... Matter of fact, it's a crisis.

And so when I talk about fixes, it's also here domestically.

We can't spend money the way we're spending money.

Pretty soon the interest on the national debt will be larger than the Department of Defense budget.

It's not sustainable.

And by the way, Medicare is going into cash deficit in 2028, right?

So we have to have real hard adult conversations about how we get ourselves right to prepare to compete with China economically.

And if we want that prosperity to go forward, you can't do it the way we're doing it, certainly in education.

I argue we need a public service requirement.

It will be different than one size fits all, but you have to have people engaged so that they get to know somebody that doesn't look like them, talk like them, came from their same ZIP Code and does something good for their country because we spend so much time telling each other why we're different.

We don't spend enough time- - Will you stay for an "OVERTIME"?

before we take the question from Lauren?

- [Mike] Sure.

- Great, go ahead.

- To go back to your previous point about former President Trump, do you feel as though Michigan Republicans are ready to move on?

The State Party Chair that was recently elected was a staunch Trump supporter.

- Yeah.

I mean, there are.

I run into staunch Trump supporters all over.

And listen, the policy, and here's what we have to do.

The policy that happened on eliminating regulation, tax cuts, those are core, age-old Republican principles, right?

You know, less taxes means more prosperity.

Less regulation means better opportunity in business.

So those principles hold true.

And I think now what it is, you know, there was a style to this, but it's pretty hard to argue when you look at what happened around the country on candidates who modeled that very acerbic tone with the public in places that matter in say, I don't know, 2024, as an example, we didn't do very well.

Matter of fact, we lost about six states that were won in '16 that we lost in '20.

And by the way, the folks who took that style, not necessarily policy, but the style didn't do well in 2022.

I just don't know if that's gonna change between '22 and '24.

- Sit tight, we'll take a quick break here for close credits.

We'll be back with more in the "OVERTIME" by going to wkar.org with Mr. Mike Rogers and this great panel, see you there.

- [Announcer] 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.

For more "Off the Record," visit wkar.org.

Michigan Public Television stations have contributed to the production costs of "Off the Record."

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