This next edition of Off the Record features the Republican vice chair of the House Budget Committee and loyal Trump supporter Representative Matt Maddock.

Our lead story, the governor takes a hit with the loss of a semiconductor plant for Genesee County.

The panel, Kyle Melinn, Zoe Clark, and Craig Mauger.

Sit in with us as we get the inside out.

Off the Record.

Production of Off the Record is made possible in part by Bellwethe Public Relations, a full service strategic communications agenc partnering with clients through public relations, digital marketing and issue advocacy.

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

Thank you very much.

Easy, Zoe.

Okay.

We're in a good mood this morning.

Hopefully you are, too.

Welcome to off the record.

You know what?

I thought we started the week with nothing going on.

And then all of a sudden, you know, everything gets floated, starting with Mundy a Mundy plant dow in and over in Genesee County.

A bad one for the governor.

Yeah, because she was hoping that she would get this $55 billion project that was going to be brought in by a company called Sand- SanDisk that was going to create an enormous economic development through that community via the CHIPS Act.

That was something that the Biden administration ha put out there to try incentivize microchip factories and advanced technology companies to come back to the United States.

So they were going to give these companies a bit of seed money to help and state government with a life seed money.

Right.

$6 billion.

When you think about I mean, it's quite some loose change.

Well, it's not subsidy this.

Game and.

It's not subsidizing the whole thing like the Chinese government.

I guess that' what I'm getting at with that.

And but the company did not get the grant when the Biden administration was still in office.

And it got pushed into the Trump administration, which was not all that interested in those projects in general, but they kept this one on the table, maybe out of deference to the governor, because Governor Whitmer wanted it so much.

And they had developed at the Michigan Economic Development Corporation, apparently a $6 billion package, $6 billion package helped bring this company to Mundy Township.

And I'm in basically a field right now in Genesee County.

And this week, the company announced that it was going to happen.

Tariffs, uncertainty, economic uncertainty.

They pulled the plug.

I mean, it's a huge story.

And it's one of those things where a lot of readers and listeners might say, Oh, it's just a project that we lost out on.

We'd lose out on these projects all the time.

The governor had quite literally staked her final two years of her term partially on landing this project.

She said publicly, My goal was to land a semiconductor manufacturing facility by the end of my term, and people might say, Oh we'll just go for another one.

There aren't many of these out there.

I mean, this is something 10,000 jobs that would be revitalizing an entire county, an entire region.

You think of all the spinoff jobs of restaurants that would be filled with workers coming in to get food.

This changes the future of tha region to not get this project.

The lawmakers who represent the area are very frustrated.

It's a huge disappointment.

And for the governor, I mean, how how does she pick up now and find another direction for the final two years trying to turn around the state's economy?

There are a lot of negative signs about what the future might hold for us.

But but the critics, Zoe, are going to say and our friends over at the bridge did the numbers on these.

I'm not a math major so I'm stealing their numbers.

It was only $660 million per job.

Well, so, look, I mean, let' talk about two separate things.

One is sort of the corporate incentive, right, of which we know controversy has surrounded when we're talking about the SOAR fund, something that Gretchen Whitmer, a Democratic governor, interestingly enough, has just pushed so hard for in early in her tenure.

Of course, there seem to be bipartisan support.

Now.

We're just sort of seeing some interesting bedfellows of folks who are opposed.

But this is the conversation about economic incentives per job.

How many sort of dollar are you willing to pay per job?

To Craig's point.

Others will argue, But it's not just, you know, that you're going to get 10,000 jobs that, you know, the median household income.

It's the the what it doe to the sort of regional economy.

The thing is, though like you go back and, you know, Tim, you will remember this well, like there's all these folks who will say like, we don't want these corporate incentives, but the second that a company or a plant goes to a different state, suddenly it's like, well, we didn't do enough.

And you will remember well.

John Engler No more Willow runs right Texas.

Exactly.

And so it is this constant negotiation and debate about what you are willing to put up to bring this and some of it as Paula Gardner of Bridge who has just done amazing work.

I talked to her a few months ago when she's done this math.

And these are the calculation that any executive of any state is trying to figure out can.

Make one point on this.

I mean, there's a lot of talk about this is money for these jobs and people are looking at through that kind of small lens.

There are two other things on this that does not include the federal incentives that were also going to come to this and why you might say, why are we giving so much money to this potential project?

This is not just another project.

If you remember a few years ago during COVID, basically the economy got halte because of supply chain issues that we did not have enough of these semiconductors.

We were on the ropes.

The auto industry was on the ropes.

The entire state's economy is based around.

So the idea of the, hey, we shouldn't provide these incentives to bring semiconductor manufacturing to the United States.

So what are we going to happen?

What's going to happen next time?

There's another supply chain issue.

I mean this is bigger than just jobs.

Yeah, I understand that, too.

But we're talking about the father.

They're going to the governor's administration thought that they were going to put $6 billion of incentives of taxpayer money into this.

I mean, we're.

Building incentives and then tax.

They were to tax to.

Pay $500 million rather than property taxes.

Yeah, I understand.

Well, we'll ask our next guest this question, but would that have gotten through the legislature after what we saw?

I did.

Okay.

First thing's first.

Could that could that have eve gotten through the legislature?

That's wh I was bringing up the SOAR fund, because there's huge conversations right now, which maybe we'll also tal about the fact that we are now, you know, going into the third week in July and we don't have a budget and one of the conversations is the billion of dollars.

Let's get to the fun part o the story, the finger pointing.

Well, there's finger pointing.

And Kyle raises a great question, Would this get through the legislature?

And it gets to the crux of what's happened through this entire year.

So far, the governor has tried to get Donald Trump on her side, President Trump on her side.

If President Trump bless this project and said the federal government's going to provide incentives and this needs to happen to bring this manufacturing back to Michigan, I think the Republicans in the legislature would have a difficult time saying, no, we're not going to do that different.

This would be different, though, from what we're feeling from state government right now, which is no on incentives.

You're seeing that from th Democrats and the Republicans.

Nobody really the appetite for state government to subsidize private industry feels like it's going away.

I mean, I think.

The governo had a private conversation again with the president, and I'm told that she has he's quite rugged.

Well, I mean, he has called her on a number of occasions and vice versa.

She said to the press in a scrum after a separate announcement yesterda that she talked to the president and the line was something lik she said and the president said to tell the medi that we will work together to.

Get something together.

Something well or something else like that.

I mean, to Craig's point, like that.

It's not like these are like millions of different chip plants.

They're like.

Yeah, But the point is, she did not call him on the carpet.

She referred to tariffs.

Now, you could do the math.

Who put the tariff?

Was it the President?

So she was circumspect in return.

And not hauling in and the Democrats.

Mr. Hall and all.

And I assume our guests are going to come to Mr. Trump's defense and say, you know what?

His policies long term are going to pay off in more jobs.

And some are arguing that this was something that the paperwor was sitting on Joe Biden's desk.

And they had a shot at it and they missed it.

I mean, that's Democrats have blamed Biden as well.

I mean, there are Democratic lawmakers blaming both sides of this.

I still think, though, if Governor Whitmer and President Trump stood on a stage somewhere and said, we need this project and we need these incentives, I think it would be very difficult for, we'll hear what Representative Maddock has to say.

But would the legislature stand there and say no to their two parties leaders?

Nah, we're not going to do that.

He might be close to the truth.

Well, you're you're I don't think that we're ever going to see Trump and Whitmer on a stage about incentives, because I don't believ Donald Trump is in large support of those types of corporate incentives.

He is not a handouts kind of guy.

We haven't seen them before.

So it would be a reversa in position for him to do that, which is why I don't think that we would have ever seen that.

But I would not rule out, give the nature of the relationship now from what it was back when, that they might pull something off.

She's got a year and a half.

Well, we were talking about this in our office the other day.

I mean, what is the biggest economic development announcement that we've had during the Whitmer administration in terms of jobs?

I mean, I mean, how many was it?

Thousand.

Well, I got.

You got scaled back.

Yes.

It wasn't, say a thousand compared to 10,000.

That was what?

This was ten.

How do you get to that number with something else?

This does not come around very often.

And it's what, you know, many of us were talking about when there was sort of this shock and, you know, clutching of the pearl when she was in the Oval Office and folks were going, you know, what is she doing?

Why is she.

Yeah, why did you give me to make sur the camera got Tim doing that.

You know sort of infamous photo of that in front of The New York Times.

But, I mean, these were the things that were being discussed.

I mean, we knew Asian carp was we knew the storms up in northern Michigan.

But when Matt Hall and Gretchen Whitmer were there, these are the conversations that are happening with the president.

I thought she might pull it off .

Didn't you?

So remember Foxconn.

Remember how Snyder, Snyder.

Foxconn, they went to Wisconsin and Wisconsin.

It never nothing never really happened when the whole thing fell apart.

And I just bring up Foxconn because when when Snyder wasn't able to land Foxconn, it's kind of the same thing.

There was a lot of being abreast, the gnawing of teeth and like, oh my God, we didn't get Foxconn.

And then it turned out the whole thing fizzled out.

I mean, then you got to wonder about this thing to even if everything, you know, the stars aligne and Trump said yes and whatever, would this have really happened?

I mean, did this compan really have this type of design.

Built in other states right now in.

Michigan was the choice.

Okay.

And they said we were not looking anywhere else.

So those that want to point the finger at Mr. Trump, rightly or wrongly, if the company sat there and said Michigan was our choice, they had the lander, we're not going to do this.

Well, what happened?

Okay, No other stat was coming in to take this away.

What went wrong?

Economic uncertainty and you know, concern over tariffs and what you know, we don't know what going to happen with the US economy.

Mike Duggan picked up something this week that's kind of interesting.

I was pretty surprised at how early it happened.

I mean, the Detroit Regional Chamber is obviously an ally of Mayor Duggan in Detroit, but for them to come out this early when this race is so much in flux and say they're going to endorse Duggan, I mean, that was pretty.

Pretty tradition breaking because the conference, the Mike Duggan conference on Mackinac Island actually paid off or something.

I mean, I thought.

Yes, I mean, obviously they gave him quite a stage.

They gave hi quite a stage at the conference.

But usually what do they do?

They endorse in one primary they endorse in another primary.

They put all of these kind of lines out there, hey, if this person wins, we got this person going to the general.

They're putting everything in the Mike Duggan basket right now.

You know, what I thought was interesting is in earlier in the week, the endorsed Fred Durhal for Mayor.

For mayor?

For mayor.

Like what do you mean?

I mean, Fred Durhal is like in the mid to low single digits in the polls.

People are already voting in the city of Detroit and they're endorsing Fred Durhal.

So in one, they endorsed too late and this on they're endorsing really early.

That's the question they had.

And I would throw this out to the panel.

Why do you think they rule this endorsement out for Duggan?

At this point, I can I don't have an answer to that.

Why not?

It's the middle of summer.

There's nothing going on.

The Tigers are going to win the pennant.

Do you get it out of the way?

And why not?

But from Duggan's perspective what do you want this closer to?

Like next year?

Are you trying to prove to.

people?

If you're building the house, you start with a foundation.

You don't start with the entry point, okay?

You know, you just get the funding.

Now he can go around and say to other chambers, See what your buddies did in Detroit.

Okay, what do you what's the political implications of this for everybody else who's running?

If your name is Benson or Garlin Gilchrist, you're going.

To look this is absolutely fascinating, but I was talking to somebody when Duggan when we were all really shocked just about the independent announcement, who said if this pack board got together tomorrow, it would be a unanimous vote for Duggan.

So I'm not shocked tha the question in conversation...

So what's the impact on the vote in Detroit?

So much for the Democratic.

Bounce right I think what this is doing i this is continuing to legitimize and make it feel less insane of a decision right.

Like this is helping to go.

You know what?

Maybe maybe this actuall is a political path that could.

Work or it could just be that Duggan's got four more months left as mayor of Detroit, and maybe that helps the chamber with the last four months of Duggan's tenure.

Oh.

You cynic, you.

Cynic.

He's got... no I think that train has left.

This Is this is he is he is, yo know, the Mick Jagger of this.

It's like I know the.

Next shoe to drop.

The next shoe to drop is th politics No party thing group.

Okay.

One of the few labels, I think that I think they might endorse him, the national group.

And we've talked about this I mean Rich Czuba pollin before the Mackinaw conference which what did you call it the Duggan conference?

The Duggan conference.

Yeah.

I mean you showed I mean, Rich Czuba said to me that Duggan's pollin numbers are the most fascinating he has seen in his 40 years of polling.

It's still very hard to poll a third party candidate, an independent candidate.

This is still, at this point a theory.

I'm not saying it might not work.

It's it's still a theory that this is a possibility.

It's like eating candy.

It looks good until you swallow it.

I mean okay.

Voters in Michigan have shown no willingness to go for this before polls.

Our guest is chomping at the bit to get in here.

So, Mr. Matt, come on in.

Okay, Representative, welcome to Off the Record.

It's good to see you agai and nice to have you on board.

All right.

So are we brilliant or what?

You are brilliant.

I can.

I believe you've done ove 2500 shows and congratulations.

That's a legacy in this town.

It doesn't mean squat.

Answer the question.

What was the question?

I can't remember.

Look.

Is Mr. Trump responsible for the loss of these jobs?

Are you talking about mone downtown?

Yes, absolutely not.

You know, the cost.

The policy has changed the dynamics of this whole discussion, Did he not?

Tarrifs are designed to brin manufacturing back to the U.S..

Okay.

Where the manufacturing happens to locate depends on a number of things.

And in Michigan, part of the reason that they didn't look locate here is becaus the cost of energy is so high.

In Michigan.

We have some of the highest.

If they just stayed in the entire state.

Okay.

They're still griping about the energy.

Yeah, these people are smart.

They want $6 billion and they want a low cost of energy because when you're talkin about building semiconductors, the cost of energy is like 75 of your cost of manufacturing.

Okay.

And no one's talking about th $260 million that the Democrats in Genesee County spent to prepare the site.

Okay.

They evicted literally 36 families from the from the, you know, forgot how many acres it was.

But, you know, that that is insane.

That should be criminal, you know, and $6 billion represents about $1,200 dollars for every single working person in the state.

We have about a $5 million, 5 million, 5 million workforce in Michigan.

And you divide $6 billion by 5 million people who are working and paying taxes and and carrying the load in Michigan.

That's 1200 dollars per person and that's criminal.

So you would have been a no on that?

Absolutely.

You know what I can tell you a story about four years ago I was sitting at a gas station and they had a woman in front of me.

She was paying for $4 of gas, four $1 bills.

I was standing behind her.

I had two twenties in my pocket and I said to the clerk here, put in her gas tank.

She turned around, she started crying and she said, I'm 56 years old.

I worked two jobs and I have cancer.

Those are the people that the Democrats used to have their backs.

They used to watch out for those people.

Today, why are we taking money from people living paycheck to paycheck in Garden City in Flint and giving it to multibillion dollar companies and multibillionaires?

Why are we doing that?

To me, that's that's that's insane.

And I think it's immoral, to be honest with you.

So you do you think that that $6 billion, you would have been a no vote, but would that have passed the legislature if the governor said we need this in order for Mundy Township to happen?

Mr. Trump said it too.

I don't think you'd have the votes in the Republican caucus to do it today.

They would stiff the President?

Yeah.

President You.

Know what?

The president would never go there.

He's smarter than that person.

The president is a big picture guy, okay?

He's looking at bringing everything back to the United States.

And I look forward to a day, you know, three or four years from now after when the governor back and after we win the Senate back in Michigan to talking about the $500,000, 500,000 manufacturing jobs are going to bring back to Michigan.

And we're how we're going to reduce the cost of energy in Michigan, because what we're doing, our energy companies are run by a bunch of leftis environmentalists, communists, and they're ruining our whole state theory.

You just are the theory you're laying out here.

It didn't work here in this situation.

What do you mean?

There are tariffs in place.

This company is manufacturing semiconductors already outside the United States.

Okay.

This was an effort to bring them back to the United States, to manufacture them here.

Right.

And even with the incentives, they said we can't make this work.

And you're saying it would hav worked without the incentives?

It's not like.

What I'm saying i it would have worked if we had if we had everything.

If we had everything the way it should be in Michigan, where we had a, you know, a 3 cent cost per kilowatt hour of electricity.

But these companies aren't these manufacturing, these high energy consumers are not going to relocate, take relocate to Michigan because we have.

They chose Michigan, kind of every other state.

Because they're going to get $6 billion.

So you don't think any other state was willing to give those incentives?

You know, for, $6 billion they can build their own nuclear plant, can't they?

Because we don't have enough we don't have enough energy in Michigan.

We need...

This is a $63 billion project.

Okay.

So you think you think there is no role for any incentive to help build a $63 billion facility?

I think it's I think it's I think it's a fairy tale, to be honest with you.

Honestly I don't think they ever intended to relocate to Michigan.

I think a lot of these companies, if they if they have a state where they're going to relocat to, they're going to go there, whether we give them the incentive or not, I think that's a scam.

I think they get our taxpayer money and they plan on coming here anyways.

So let's see.

We are sitting here in the third week in July.

There is no budget.

Some of the fewest.

I thought you all wanted to talk about Epstein all day today?

Sure we can talk about Epstein Well, how is Donald Trump handling what's going on with Epstein and the files?

Russia.

Russia.

Russia.

That's what I've seen is this Russia is designed the whole thing is designed in the media to keep the focus off all the great thing Trump is doing for our nation.

That's what's going on.

Okay.

That so the Epstein files.

Russia is what?

The focus on the Epstei files is is designed to keep the focus off all the great things that President Trump is doing for our nation right now.

He has been the most successful president in six months.

He's done more than any other president has done in six months for four American families to make America great again.

He's taken all these bad people off our streets.

But the base of which you're part of is so frustrated with him over this.

Yeah, I agree.

Are you frustrated with him on this?

I'm going to stick with Trump I've been with Trump since 2015.

I'm going to have his back no matter what.

Okay?

He's going to do great and he's going to be the best president we've had in our nation's history.

The Democrats in town.

Let's get on the budget.

Put on your vice president or excuse me, vice chair of the House Appropriations Committee.

Are you guys dragging your feet on the budget?

No, we're not dragging our feet.

Then why are you we not negotiating?

Winnie Brinks is dragging her feet.

I want to tell you about negotiations.

These Democrats are so weird, okay.

That before the negotiation can start, they sit in the room and they figure out how many coffee cups are allowed in the table.

They want a number of different plants in every corner, and they don't sit next to Speaker Hall.

They sit 55 feet away during this long table, and they can't even communicate the whole thing, the whole thing is so weird.

You all haven't even passed the budget, though, yet.

Yeah wh haven't you passed the budget?

That has nothing to do with the Senate.

This has to do with that.

Why hasn't the House passed the full budget?

You want to know the real reason.?

Yes.

Sure.

That's why I'm asking.

Okay.

So when I first got to this town, my messaging was we're going to cut the fraud, waste and abuse in Michigan.

And that was in 2018.

That's never stopped.

So what's happening today?

And it's still happening.

I have I have lobbyists, great, great people there.

There are a handful of great lobbyists in Michigan, Michigan and Lansing.

And they are literally sneaking into my office...

Sneaking?

Sneaking into my office and telling m where the fraud, waste and abuse is and I'm sharing the information with other committee members.

And we are still in the process of doing our due diligence.

We are going through this budget line by line, and we are rolling down every single line item in the budget.

And we are we have identified so much fraud, waste and abuse in Michigan.

Can you give us a few examples?

I want to talk about the education budget.

Right?

Everyone want's to talk about the education budget.

First of a dollar number.

How big is the abuse?

Oh, my gosh, I don't have a dollar.

But wait a second.

You've been crunching the numbers.

Probably hundreds of millions of dollars.

Hundreds of millions?

Hundred of millions of dollars easily.

I'm sorry Zoe.

No, I just, give us...

So our education budget.

I had no idea until this year that there was such a concentration of lobbyists that are focused on our education budget.

And I'm trying to figure it out.

Well, I've figured it out.

There's over 110 different por barrel projects in our education budget, money that does not go into the classrooms, money that goes to all these outside nonprofits run by a bunch of leftist that doesn't benefit the kids.

We cut that.

We also give the Democrats the largest per pupil increase in Michigan history, and they're still saying, no, it doesn't make any sense.

The whole thing is crazy.

Are you willing to shut down the state government?

We're not going to shut it down.

The Democrats are probably goin to shut it down because we are we are giving them a great budget.

We are giving them everythin they want regarding education.

We have a roads plan that that is going to be a historic roads plan in Michigan a historic increase in funding.

And the Democrats I don't I don't get it.

You know, the whole thing is Julie Brixie to me.

What do you mean by that?

The whole thing's crazy.

What what we're trying to do with the Democrats, the whole thing doesn't make any sense.

You know, what Winnie Brinks is doing it, just it's insanity and that, I think the Democrats are all going crazy right now because of Trump and the fact that they're losing their base.

Representative, the state House and the state Senate have passed to the governor six bills so far.

This entire calendar year.

We haven't seen this level o futility from the legislature.

That's a good thing.

Since 1940.

When they didn't even meet, represent.

So why?

So you're saying this is a good thing you guys have only passed six bills?

When you usually pass a 180 by this point?

Because the fewer things we do in Lansing, typically it's better for everyone in Michigan.

And the Democrats aren't going to do anything good for Michigan.

The handful of bills that have been passed have been nonpartisan.

You know, just do nothing bills.

So when will the serious talks begin?

When will you stop counting beans and start negotiating?

We're negotiating right now.

Matt Hall is probably... Where do things stand right now?

I mean, you kind of hear all the different sides, but from your perspective, you know, Governor Whitmer just yesterday said there is going to be no budget without a roads deal.

Right.

I mean, talk... We have we have a great road still.

We're going to.

Well the House Republicans have, you know, their $3 billion.

The governor has there $3 billion.

How are you anywhere close to figuring out where the 3 billion is going to come from?

Our road plan... No, I know where you're from.

I think I mean, at some point you guys have to come to the table and compromise.

Right.

Right.

So where is there compromis right now about that 3 billion and where those dollars are going to come from.

You know, what Governor Whitmer said to President Trump two days ago when Matt Hall was in the White House and the Oval Office was with Governor Whitmer?

Wait Governor Whitmer and Matt Hall were in the Oval Office two days ago?

She said, She said she agree with Matt Hall 70% of the time.

And you know what, Gretche Whitmer is not the problem here.

The problem is Winnie Brinks and her her disjointed Senate members and they can't get their crap together and they have all these crazy, weird demands.

The whole thing's weird.

I don't know how to explain.

I've been in Lansing for seven years and I've never seen such weirdness from the Democrats.

Will you stay for an over time Sure, I think you're on a roll.

I love talking to you guys.

You might think...

I love the fake news.

Alright so...

Drink.

Now it's a reality show.

But in your gut, you think you will hit the October 1st deadline?

I have no idea.

Like I said I've been here for seven years.

I've negotiated many budgets and I've never seen so many things that are so weird.

And the Democrats.

The whole thing is just... Why doesn't the house just go ahead and pass the budget?

I don't know how to explain it.

Is it's weird that the house just doesn't pass the budget?

It's just.

Weird.

I mean, if you look back, the House has usually passe a budget by now.

Yeah.

You know.

When are you going to pass a budget?

I don't know.

That's that's that's, that's.

On that ominous note.

Let's take a deep breath.

Okay.

You have a sip of gin.

Excuse me.

Water.

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