Thanks for joining us for this next edition of Off the Record with former Democratic congressman from Michigan, Andy Levin, who's been asked to run for president.

Our lead story, a battle over freedom of speech in the Michigan House.

On the OTR panel, Craig Mauger, Jordyn Hermani, and Rick Pluta.

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.

A chatty group here this morning on as we're getting closer to spring, aren't we, guys?

Yes, yes, yes, indeed.

All right.

We're also getting closer to a showdown that we had this week in the Michigan House regarding a state representative, Josh Schriver of Oxford.

What did he allegedly do wrong?

Well, he amplified a social media post from a more right wing commentator to keep it brief.

This is called the Great Replacement Theory.

Or he basically retweeted a chart, showed a bunch of little white people on it and many, many more little black people on it.

And basically, Shriver retweeted this and with a bar chart or a bar graph going down, implying that, you know, I don't even know he's...

The great replacement theory is and it's widely debunked is that elites are trying to organize a systemic people replacement of white people with people of color.

And it's ridiculous but it literal means that's the other part of the theory.

It's not just, hey, there are demographic trends happening here.

It's that there is someone puppeteering this to bring in minorities, to have a political wins for Democrats ultimately.

And that is what the very radical diminished the I don't know, social effects of white people.

It's it's just absolutely ridiculous and so paranoid conspiracy theory that has no merit and was pretty soundly rebuked by Democrats in the Michigan House led by the House Speaker, Joe Tate, who did what as a result?

Removed him from his committees, took his office assignment, and, you know, basically said that the only right that he still has as a state representative is to introduce legislation and vote on legislation in the floor.

Well, that he has a desk somewhere.

The defenders of the representatives say basically the speaker neutered him back in his district.

He's unable to really represent his constituents.

Yeah, that's what some of the defenders say.

I mean, meanwhile, Josh Schriver is getting a growing social media presence.

I was at the Oakland County Republican Party convention last night.

He gets up and gives a speech.

And, you know, I'm standing in another room and I hear someone say, we are being invaded.

That's what Josh Schriver tells this crowd.

And the reception was overwhelmingly positive to Josh Schriver at the Oakland County convention last night.

So you can kind of see the place we are in our politics right now where there's almost an incentive to give air to these incredibly false conspiracy theories because of how extreme some of the individuals at the base, bases of both political parties have become.

But it's interesting, though, because you you have obviously Democrats widely rebuked this, but you do have some pushback from his own colleagues in the Michigan House in 98 to 5 vote out a resolution that didn't mention him by name.

I think that's the key here.

The resolution, it was not a rebuke of Schriver directly.

And you wonder if they put Josh Schriver's name in that resolution and what he actually did.

What would the vote have been on that?

We don't we don't know.

But I think what you're getting at is that now there is attention focused on Josh Schriver, that there is attention.

We're talking about it now on on what he said and and it's you know, that that like you said, you know, the tweet amplified it and now does the discussion and amplify it even more.

Well, other of his defenses, yes.

Okay.

But the other his other defenders have said free speech.

No, no.

That's how the legislature is now.

All right.

This is something that's been kind of getting under my skin, the concept of people yelling, well, this is free speech.

Sure.

He has every ability to say to amplify whatever he wants.

That is not freedom from consequences.

So the consequence here, obviously, you know, when we talk about free speech, it's freedom from the government coming after you.

I understand the irony here, him being a House Rep.

So this is quite literally, you know, the government coming after him.

But this is also his job.

This is no different than a boss telling you, hey, you made a really poor mistake in putting out this social media post.

It reflects poorly on our values.

So we're going to have to demote you.

We're going to have to pay.

We're going to have to do something.

That's what's going on here.

So the speaker is the boss of the House, but his constituents are the one who elected him and who have the power to hire and fire him.

And as the the person in charge of the house, Joe Tate and the Democratic leadership have to thread a needle, which is at what point.

At what point does someone espousing an unpopular view and in this case a ridiculous or ridiculous view, cross the line from representing a particular point of view of the people who sent you there to something that is so toxic that it needs to be dealt with and, you know, Joe Tate of and the House Democratic leadership, obviously, you know, said to Josh Schriver, this is where you crossed the line.

Well, and I don't want to take away from the fact that we're treating this as this this is something that's unfounded.

I mean, even within the last decade, if I remember correctly, Larry Inman had his staff stripped from him like several years ago.

But this is not the first time.

This is not the first time.

And that was led by a Republican House at that point.

So this is pretty common in terms of why we shouldn't say comment.

But it is sort of the the method of operation for rebuking if you do have a lawmaker.

Yeah, it's not unprecedented.

We can't.

Like, I just I feel like that's also kind of being lost in here is people saying, well, you're disenfranchising his voters.

He he did that.

Well, we should also point out, just because you opened the door on that is that it's not that his constituents because constituent service is something that a representative is expected to do.

That constituent services still exist.

It's just being handled now by the House instead of specifically by Josh Shriver's office.

So the question it is where the real chairperson of the Republican Party, please stand up.

I again, I think this is the second time I've been on the show and said this.

I don't want to say who is the chair because I don't really know right now.

But we do understand that the Republicans National Committee believes that it's Pete Hoekstra.

Christina Karamo believes that she's the chair of the Michigan Republican Party.

And what to watch here is what occurs on March 2nd.

March 2nd is the date of the presidential caucuses for Republicans.

Republican delegates are scheduled to gather in Detroit.

That is a meeting that's been organized by Christina Karamo.

How does Pete Hoekstra handle that meeting?

Does he have a separate caucus for his people?

You asked him that question.

He didn't really.

He said he was going to run the meeting.

Right.

Which is he going to walk in and take a gavel out of Christina Karamo's hands?

Well.

Or will Christina Karamo, come in and take the gavel out of Pete Hoekstras hand?

Thats exactly possible.

But she did say in her statement that if the courts ordered her out, she, quote, did not want to go to jail.

So does that if the courts act before March two, it's null and void what you just presented?

Completely true.

But what does it mean if the courts act?

Do you feel, Christine Karamo will take a court order from Kent County Circuit and say it's over, I'm going home now?

Or will she have She'll.

Well, don't want to go to jail for.

Don't she appeal that?

Right.

That Christina Karamo, part of her argument is that the judicial system, which the Kent County Circuit Court is part of, doesn't have jurisdiction over an internal party matter.

And I think you nailed it that she that that in all likelihood there will be appeals and will the will those appeals play out in time for it to be activated for the primaries and the caucuses?

My expectation is that there will either be one caucus where everyone gathers and there's a vote on who's chair, Karamo or Hoekstra, or there will be two caucuses, one in Detroit, one somewhere else, and we'll see which caucus gets more delegates.

That's my that's also not unprecedented.

Although, Tim, you would remember this, I think it was 1987 when the Republicans were preparing to send separate delegations to the national convention.

And then it was up to the national convention to determine is the Pat Robertson thing.

Yeah.

And there was actually there was a deal made beforehand over, you know, how many delegates each you know, each faction got to send.

Well, see, so does this stuff get in the way of Peter Hoekstra putting Humpty Dumpty back together again?

In terms of the Republican Party?

Party Yes.

I mean, absolutely.

You still have a sect of of Karamo supporters who are behind her every stretch of the way.

I think that a part of this is going to also maybe come down to we talked about, you know, the RNC.

They've recognized Hoekstra as the chair of the Michigan Republican Party.

So maybe we're putting a lot of pontificating behind this that, you know, once those delegates get sent out, if they only recognize his faction, is that not as good as done for her?

I mean, she can keep holding meetings, she can keep showing up places.

She can keep saying she's chair.

But if everybody else is not acknowledging that reality, she's as good as you were.

Me saying that we're chair of the Michigan Republican party.

The bigger impact is in terms of fundraising.

And we've already seen, you know, the Michigan House Republicans set up a parallel system for doing their own fundraising.

Does it affect fundraising and does it affect organizing and does it create disenchantment within the coalition that will affect election?

Mr. Hoekstra has already made the phone calls for the major funders to the the former chair, Bobby Shostak.

To Mr. Weiser.

The bank account, not the checkbooks, are going to start to open for Mr. Hoekstra.

They will, but what account will they be going into?

Because Christina currently right now is controlling the bank accounts from everything that I know she has, the party's website.

Mr. Mauger open up another bank account.

You can open up another bank account.

But with the FEC, the official Michigan Republican Party account is under the control.

From what I understand at this moment of Christina Karamo.

Mm hmm.

Yeah.

So, I mean, its not as simple as just open up another bank account, you know, and, you know, who are the bills being sent to and who is expected to pay the bills?

Just all kinds of complex.

There's a risk.

I think there's there is a political risk here to Donald Trump and what he has done on this.

The people that are with Christina Karamo, are a lot of those grassroots activists that will go out and knock doors for 10 hours.

And Trump is really risking alienating these people to some degree by what he's done with Hoekstra.

For people that don't follow this he endorsed her for this job.

And Christina Karamo is saying to her, the people who are following her, that Donald Trump got it wrong.

Yeah.

And remember that there's you know, there's there are three ways to vote.

There is to get out and vote for one side.

There is getting out and voting for the other side.

And then there's not voting at all.

And quickly, was anybody surprised that a guy dropped out of the US Senate race by the name of James Craig?

Yeah, I. I am not surprised.

I'm surprised it happened so soon.

And and I'm surprised that he's looking at running for mayor of Detroit.

That was the beauty of that story.

It's amazing how James Craig just can't give up and go away.

It didn't you know, it didn't happen and we're sorry.

Well he did go away, that was a problem hes not running.

And then he came back.

He disappeared.

Yeah.

And a lot of people aren't surprised by it and say, you know, his campaign was it was struggling and failing.

But in the polls, the polls that were available, he was one of the lead GOP candidates for this job.

He still had his fingers crossed with Donald Trump would say that didn't happen.

All right, let's call in Andy Levin, Mr. Levin, welcome to Off the Record.

You smiled when we did the Senate the open that they asked you to run for president.

That is true, is it not?

The progressives, Tim?

I haven't been able to talk about that without cracking up, but yeah, yes, true.

They did.

They did.

Okay.

So assuming that they try to find somebody else to send a message to Mr. Biden, are they basically committing political suicide by going that route, sir?

No.

Well, now you see what's happening here in Michigan.

I mean, basically, I ended up having like a zoom meeting with these folks.

They were very impressive political professionals, professors from different places.

Tim, They are really concerned that Joe Biden can't win Michigan and the presidency, the Electoral College in November unless he changes course on Gaza.

And now you've seen that transmogrify into the, you know, listen to Michigan campaign, which is saying to voters who are upset, you know, don't stay home, don't vote for my friend, former colleague Dean Phillips or whatever.

Come out and vote, participate in the process and have your voice heard on February 27th and vote uncommitted so you can express your anger to the president and say, is that a wrongheaded strategy to vote uncommitted?

I really don't think so.

I mean, for one thing, remember in 2008, Barack Obama couldn't get on the ballot here and 40% of people voted uncommitted, including me, because we we wanted Barack Obama, not Hillary Clinton.

I mean, which is fine.

People who wanted Hillary, fine people wanted a Barack.

But, you know, it was a good strategy for him then.

I I doubt uncommitted is going to get 40% because it's not a similar situation.

Right.

Representing a major political, you know, candidate.

But my goal is for Joe Biden to win on November 5th.

And Tim, if you start doing the arithmetic right, he won by 150,000 votes in 2020.

If you take out Arab-Americans, if you take out Muslims more broadly, if you take out voters of color more broadly, if you take out young voters, I don't see how we can get there.

And we must win on November 5th.

I am really strong for Joe Biden on November 5th, but I think this is actually a really smart strategy to engage people and get them in the process and say, express yourself, because I literally don't think we can win unless he does change course.

So this will hopefully, like help send a message, but also it keeps those people in the game.

But no matter what, I mean, you could call it uncommitted, you can call it whatever that this is essentially an anti Biden strategy, that it is taking the president to task for something that you're unhappy with.

And I mean, isn't that still a a Biden suppression effort because you're not getting what you want?

What if the president doesn't turn around and do that?

I mean, that's going to affect your prospects on November 5th, when turnout is critical to what happens in that election?

Alright two things, Rick.

Number one, the people who are going to vote uncommitted, it's not as if they were going to go vote for Joe Biden on the 27th.

You know, they were going to stay home or vote for third party or whatever.

I think both of those are worse options.

But the other thing is, when my wife takes me to task for something I did wrong, or we do that with each other as friends, as lovers, as spouses, you know, really, we care about each other.

That doesn't mean I'm against my wife or she's against me.

It means we have an honest, deep relationship and we care about each other.

And, you know, if you have a friend who's an alcoholic, you better confront them.

You better say, Hey, you know, pal, I'm not going to give you money.

I'm not going to buy you another drink, whatever the situation is.

Right.

I'm going to be honest with you.

We got to leave this bar right now and I'm taking you home.

I mean, that's being a good friend.

So you you bring up the youth vote, you bring up the Muslim-American vote.

I mean, in your mind, what does the Biden campaign have to do, if anything, frankly?

I mean, I've heard from a number of young voters saying that it's passed the point of no return for them.

They can't stomach the thought of voting for Biden in November, even though they voted for him in 2020.

So I guess, what do you see as the course of action here to get these voters potentially back on the wagon?

Yeah, Jordyn great question.

And I don't think that the political advisors can do anything.

I don't think this is about really great messaging or smart advertising or anything like that.

We need to change course.

Joe Biden, this most experienced foreign policy president in a long time, longtime chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who's known as every Israeli leader, going back to, you know, Golda Meir, who knew Arafat, he needs to step up and be a peacemaker and really exert American leadership.

Call the EU and Egypt and Jordan together and hold a diplomatic summit and say the carnage needs to end the destruction of Gaza needs to end.

There is no military solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The occupation needs to end.

We are going to do the really hard work of getting you Palestinians and Israelis together and saying somehow you both deserve self-determination.

You both deserve your human and political rights.

We're going to insist now that you come up with a way to live together on this little piece of holy land that we all care about so much and that you all deserve to live in.

And I think the president can do that.

I expect he will be taking steps that to really change things.

And Jordan, you know, the question is how many people are just mad and how many people are?

I forget, how would you put it exactly?

Very well, you know, beyond, you know, return or something.

I think that a lot of these voters will come back and support Joe Biden in November as long as as we really change course here.

We need all those hostages freed in exchange for, you know, freeing a lot of Palestinian prisoners.

And we need to really move in in a much more muscular American leadership direction.

And I think he needs to do that to win.

Look, I think he's been a great president in a lot of other ways.

You know, how proud was I in the 117th Congress to work with him to pass the kind of investing in America agenda, really to have a kind of industrial policy in this country for the first time in a long time?

Really... For the people who you referenced who aren't going to come back to Joe Biden.

There are people in this state who I have spoken to who said they will not vote for Joe Biden no matter what he does now in November.

I wanted to ask you this question.

In your mind, who would handle the conflict in Israel better, Donald Trump or Joe Biden over the next four years?

No, it's an obvious one.

Of course, Joe Biden will be much better than Donald Trump.

Look at the horrifying things Mr. Trump just said about our European allies, like pay up or I'm going to encourage Russia to invade you.

I mean, that's insane.

It's unhinged and it's un-American.

And Joe Biden.. Do you have any concerns that you're stoking that.

That's your viewpoint over the next four years.

Do you have any concerns that the approach that you and others, a lot of elected Democrats in the state are orchestrating in the primary could hurt Joe Biden in November?

I'm trying to get at what is the ultimate outcome of the strategy in your mind.

The best case scenario is that he changes his stance.

But isn't there also a risk that potentially he loses in November because of the, you know, ire that this is creating right now?

The ire is not being created by the vote uncommitted, committed campaign.

And with all due respect, Craig, you all are bunch of really amazing political reporters.

I'm a movement organizer, right?

I come out of the labor movement, environment, environmental movement and so forth.

I am talking to these folks every day and helping them find their voice, encouraging them, keeping them active instead of checking out is really a great way to help Joe Biden win in November, because they will feel good if he really changes.

They will feel like, yes, we got out there, we set our peace and we were heard.

I mean, this is really in a way, this is what democracy is about.

Democracy isn't just voting.

Democracy is organizing, coming together with you, fellow citizens.

I mean, it's a beautiful thing that's happening.

Young Jews, young Arab-Americans, Christian mainline Protestants, the people involved in this are really activated.

And I feel like this can really help Joe Biden.

Doing nothing.

But doing nothing just leads to cynicism and people checking out.

That's the big problem with American politics, right?

People just don't even vote.

They don't even pay attention.

But what is the power behind your movement if the the end game already is vote uncommitted in the primary, but vote Biden in in November?

I think if you know, if we can come in second.

Right.

If if if you know, the uncommitted vote comes in second or even does you know, I don't know what it means getting as many people as possible to vote for Joe Biden in November regardless.

Right.

Right.

Congressman, has have you talked to the governor about coming on board with this effort?

No, that would, Tim.

I mean, look, she's a co-chair of the president's reelection campaign.

That's not realistic or I wouldn't ask her to do that.

You know, she's taken on that role and she's doing a great job with it.

And I respect that.

I just look, I'm here seeing that the young people.

Right.

I have four kids who are, you know, from 18 to 30.

I have all my former staff, many of whom are deeply involved in this campaign, in the in this effort.

I have my congregation, you know, I've been involved with young people since I was a student organizer to when I created Union Summer for the national AFL-CIO in 1996.

You know.

Right.

All throughout my life.

And I'm telling you, Tim, young people are really upset about this.

And I don't want to see a situation like during the Vietnam War where we had this huge fracturing that ended up being a problem for a really long time.

I want to help people find their voice, stay in the process and speak to the president, and I hope a lot of them will vote for him when you know when November comes around, which is quite a few months from now.

And I think I forget who said it, whether it was I think, Craig or Rick.

But, you know, this is really a situation where you have young people and voters more broadly who are really upset.

And I think if change happens and the alternative on November 5th is Donald Trump or Joe Biden, they're going to be happy that he changed their President Biden be led in a different way on this.

But they're all going to also get to look at if if Donald Trump became president again, it will be a disaster for the environment.

On climate change.

For education.

Sorry, respectfully, though, I mean, it sounds like the argument, which I have been hearing from individuals who are currently supportive of President Biden, which is, well, what are you going to do, vote for Trump?

And like, what what kind of message does that send to these individuals who are not content with the way that the president has been handling Gaza, who is not content with the way of student loan forgiveness of myriad things that I've heard from from younger voters?

I mean, at the end of the day, it still sounds like this boils down to, okay, you can vote uncommitted now, but what are you going to do come November?

Vote Trump?

Which just sort of to a lot of young people leaves a bad taste in their mouth.

You know, Jordyn I really agree.

I think that the the role that President Biden and Democrats running for House and Senate and so forth need to play is both to say Donald Trump is literally a threat to our democracy.

He is speaking undemocratically and so forth.

He says he will be a dictator on day one hahaha and all of those things, but also say, look at what we've done.

I mean, we look at what we did in the Inflation Reduction Act, the biggest climate change legislation ever and it's being implemented.

Look at what President Biden has done on student loans.

He's actually done more than any other president...

Congressman.

What he hasn't done is because of a Republican Congress.

So Congress.

So reelect him and a elect more democrats.

Very, very quickly so are you going to run for Congress again?

Oh, and I'm not running for anything in 2024, Tim.

I don't have any specific plans beyond that.

Thank you, sir.

It was great to have you on our program.

Give our best to your father, please.

I will.

He's 92 and going strong, Tim, and I'll.

I'll tell him you said hi.

All right, let's do it next week.

Joe, teach speaker of the House sitting right there or right here.

See you then.

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.

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