This week’s show is sponsored by:

The first announced candidate for U.S. Senator is state Senator Mallory McMorrow. She exploded into the national spotlight in 2024 after an emotional response to very public personal attacks on her by Republican state Senator Lana Theis went viral. She is an ardent supporter of policies protecting reproductive rights, empowering local communities, and making Michigan a business- and family-friendly state. McMorrow is the Senate Majority Whip, serving her second term in the Michigan Senate.

Prior to her election to the Senate she worked for more than a decade in product design, media and advertising with companies like Mazda, Mattel, Gawker Media, Hearst and other global brands.

McMorrow hit the ground running during her first term in the Michigan Senate, winning policy changes such as ending Michigan’s tampon tax, helping struggling businesses during the coronavirus pandemic, and protecting certain individuals (including domestic violence survivors) by creating an address confidentiality program. She earned her bachelor’s degree in industrial design from the University of Notre Dame and resides in Royal Oak with her husband, Ray, their daughter, Noa, and their rescue dog, Detroit. At 38, she is the youngest person on the list of potential Senate candidates in either party.

This episode is sponsored in part by

===========================

The most unqualified national security team ever assembled demonstrates its total lack of competence…and defends itself by attacking Atlantic Magazine and Jeffrey Goldberg. Their fallback defense: no harm, no foul. The attack was successful so it’s no big whoop. Trump, who appears to be out of the loop on a lot of what’s happening inside his administration, is keeping his focus on leveraging the presidency to make money for himself, while co-President Elon Musk continues his brazen violations of federal laws and the U.S. constitution.

The latest outrages from the Trump-Musk administration: intimidating, punishing and extorting any law firm that dares challenge their mission to destroy the federal government; using the unmatched financial leverage of the federal budget to demand fealty from universities and large corporations; and a new Executive Order which will take away voting rights from untold hundreds-of-thousands of Americans.

This episode is sponsored in part by

Joining the podcast discussion this week is fellow podcaster and longtime state capitol reporter Rick Pluta. Rick is Senior Capitol Correspondent for the Michigan Public Radio Network. He has been covering Michigan’s Capitol, government, and politics since 1987. His journalism background includes stints with UPI, The Elizabeth (NJ) Daily Journal, The Oakland Press, and WJR. He is also a lifelong public radio listener. Rick was one of the first Michigan political reporters to write about “pay-to-play” fundraising, and the controversies surrounding recognition of same-sex relationships. He broke the news that Gov. John Engler was planning a huge juvenile justice overhaul that included adult-time-for-adult-crime sentencing, and has continued to report since then on the effects of that policy decision.

He co-hosts the weekly podcast “It’s Just Politics” with Zoe Clark.

This episode is sponsored in part by

Donald Trump inherited a booming economy from Barack Obama in 2017. It took him three years and one botched pandemic response to send it spiraling towards recession. He’s learned from his first-term mistakes. This time, he inherited an economy the Economist magazine called the envy of the world and has managed to tank it in a matter of just weeks. This time, in between rounds of golf and incessant posting on social media, Donald Trump has managed to take down Wall Street and Main Street by declaring financial war on countries who thought we were allies.

The political repercussions have begun with Trump’s polling numbers tanking, and a majority of Americans for the first time disapproving of his handling of the economy. The vast majority also oppose most of the Musk-led chainsaw massacre of federal employees. 

The end game? Trump and Musk appear to be setting the stage for privatizing things like the Weather Bureau, FAA, K-12 education and the long-sought GOP dream: privatizing Social Security so they and their billionaire buddies can wet their beaks dipping into literally trillions of spending over the coming decades.

In Michigan, 20 months before the election polling shows Jocelyn Benson with a sizable lead in the Democratic gubernatorial race, and Pete Buttigieg the strongest candidate for U.S. Senate – but he’s announced he’s not running for either the Senate or Governor. We do, however, have another entrant into the Democratic race for Governor: Lt. Governor Garland Gilchrist. The challenge for Gilchrist: can the tallest candidate (6’9″) in the mix overcome the longstanding Michigan history that has doomed the gubernatorial aspirations of Lt. Governors for the last 30 years?

The list of would-be Lt. Governors seeking the top job is long, distinguished … and uniformly unsuccessful:

The last Lt. Governor to advance via election was John Swainson in 1960. Lt. Governor William Milliken inherited the job when George Romney resigned in 1969 to join the Nixon cabinet, and went on to serve 14 years as perhaps the best Governor in Michigan’s modern history.

20 months before the election, polling shows Jocelyn Benson with a sizable lead in the Democratic gubernatorial race, and Pete Buttigieg the strongest candidate for U.S. Senate.

This week’s guest is an early entrant into the race to flip. Michigan’s 10th district. Onetime military helicopter pilot John James has run for office, losing twice for U.S. Senate and winning two terms in Congress. In each case, the elections were extremely close. But as every politician knows, close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades. Our guest this week can offer first-hand testimony on the latter – hand grenades. He’s an expert in the subject.

Joining the podcast is political newcomer Alex Hawkins. He served in the Middle East as a U.S. Army “Explosive Ordnance Disposal” Officer. He continues as an Active Duty Veteran and Oakland County Reserve Sheriff’s Deputy. His resume includes working on the staffs of both then-Congresswoman Elissa Slotkin and Senator Gary Peters. Hawkins, 30, is a 2021 graduate of Central Michigan University. He and his wife Amanda live in Rochester Hills.

This episode is sponsored in part by

Donald Trump’s embarrassing DOGE assault on every corner of government continues to misfire. The strategy: set a target for cuts in each agency, immediately fire workers with no consideration of their contribution to making government work, backtrack when those cuts blow up. In the words of Elon Musk, “we’ll make mistakes will act quick to correct.” But the reality is that “all the king’s horses, all the king’s men, can’t put complex programs back together again.” And that means chaos for all Americans and around the world literally tens-of-thousands, many of them children, dying. Anybody want to buy the Department of Justice HQ? FBI HQ? Invent a bird flu vaccine? Put out forest fires

In Michigan, we have two national figures looming high in the headlines. Elissa Slotkin has vaulted onto the national stage with a spot-on response to Trump’s 99 minutes of self congratulations and grievances. Pete Buttigieg tells Stephen Colbert that he’s definitely looking at running for U.S. Senate, possibly setting up an All-Star Democratic primary.  

With the beginning of Trump’s North American trade war the state’s shoppers face ever-higher prices for groceries, the state’s farmers brace for massive export reductions, and everything imported, and the auto manufacturers get a 30-day reprieve as they deal with the uncertainty over tariffs.

Also on our radar:

Joining the conversation is longtime Lansing insider Jeff Padden, the founder of the non-partisan Lansing think tank Public Policy Associates.

Jeff has more than 35 years of experience in the public policy arena, including 10 years as a member of the Michigan House of Representatives, where he chaired the House Corrections Committee.  In addition, he served as deputy director of the Michigan Department of Commerce and director of the Governor’s Human Investment Project. He was first elected to the Michigan House after an upset primary victory over the then-chairman of the House Appropriations Committee.

Since founding PPA in 1991, Padden has led multiyear, multisite evaluations for clients such as the U.S. Department of Labor, the Ford Foundation, and the James Irvine Foundation.  Jeff has designed and led technical assistance and training programs for public agencies and nonprofits.  At the state and national levels, he has guided clients in the development of new strategies, policies, and initiatives.

This episode is sponsored in part by

Waste, Fraud and Abuse: it is either the new right-wing code for trickle-down economics, or another sign of Trump’s dementia. Republicans want us to believe that a $4.5-TRILLION tax cut for rich folks and corporations can be covered without damaging services needed by the rest of us. Their “theory”: we can cover it by having Elon eliminate WF&A, plus enact bigly tariffs on our allies and China. But just in case, Trump asks that the federal debt limit be increased by $4-TRILLION.

Meanwhile, Trump keeps saying he won’t cut Medicare even as House Republicans signal a cut of $800-billion or more. Trump is promising to raise tariffs on Mexico and Canada in a week, posing a direct threat to Michigan’s economy and the jobs of untold thousands.

Another part of Trump’s balance the budget plan: sell U.S. citizenships for $5-million. We simply can’t imagine that a hostile government would use that as a way to embed spies into our society. (All of this is coming from a President who added 8-trillion-dollars to the national debt in his first term, and somehow manage to drive multiple casinos into bankruptcy.) On the plus side, the Musk-Trump Chain Saw Massacre continues to provide gainful employment for a lot of lawyers, with the count of lawsuits challenging them closing in on 100. So far, the plaintiffs are winning as the courts push back against the massive constitutional violations of Musk and the Muskrats.

Governor Whitmer lays out her hopes and dreams for the upcoming legislative session, even as she draws some flack from Democrats unhappy with her cozying up to Trump and state House Speaker Matt Hall. And Speaker Hall has done a 180 on applying the Freedom of Information Act to the Legislature and Governor. He was, as John Kerry memorably said, for it before he was against it.

Making a triumphant return to the podcast is journalist/philosopher John Lindstrom. John covered Michigan State government for more than 42 years before retiring in 2023. For the last two years, he has been a Detroit Free Press contributing columnist. His columns offer rigorous political analysis, of course, but more than that John offers readers the tools to build their own scaffolding. He doesn’t tell readers how to think — he suggests ways to think. John is also the unofficial Walking Wikipedia of Michigan’s political history dating back to the mid 1970s.

Joining him is another veteran of Lansing journalism with a long history covering State of the State messages. Former Associated Press reporter Cindy Kyle covered her first SOS back in 1977. Now retired, she has followed state government ever since including during her 18 years directing communications for our friends at MSU’s Institute for Public Policy and Social Research and at the Michigan Political Leadership Program.

We should mention that they are the John and Mika of Lansing journalism – except they haven’t been to Mar-a-Lago lately!

===========================

This episode is sponsored in part by EPIC ▪ MRA,

Trump isn’t even hiding it anymore. He is the self-proclaimed King of the United States and anyone who questions him will be banished to Gitmo. His Majesty and court jester Musk continue the flood of executive orders, most of them blatantly or borderline unconstitutional. We do a deep dive into the invasion of U.S. government computer systems by agents of America’s first convicted criminal President with MSU political scientist Matt Grossman.

In Michigan,

We have a return visit this week from Michigan State University political science professor Matt Grossman. Among his many efforts he’s been tracking the lawlessness of the Musk-Trump administration’s assault on the federal government, especially the invasion of Big Balls and the rest of Musk’s teenage Ninja Hackers who have infiltrated most of the federal government’s computer systems.

Matt is Director of the Institute for Public Policy and Social Research at MSU He is the author of numerous books on our political world. His latest: “Polarized by Degrees“. He has also published op-eds in The New York Times and The Washington Post.

===========================

This episode is sponsored in part by EPIC ▪ MRA,

“Big Balls” is 19-year-old high school graduate Edward Coristine, who now works as a “senior adviser” in the State Department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Technology. That pretty much sums up President Elon Musk’s reign of terror running through the federal government, even as Trump’s Clown Cabinet gets virtually unanimous support from a spineless U.S. Senate. This week we talk with a veteran of federal departments that are being gutted by the Musk administration.

In Michigan, we have our first polling on how the race for Governor might be impacted by third-party candidate Mike Duggan. We get the detailed findings from veteran pollster Bernie Porn, CEO of EPIC-MRA. Also on our radar: 

Also joining us on the podcast: University of Michigan law professor Sam Bagenstos, who was a senior staffer at what it now Robert Kennedy Jr.’s Department of Health and Human Services, the Project 2025-driven office of Management and Budget, and the probably-soon-to-be shuttered Department of Justice Office of Civil Rights.

Bagenstos took an extended leave from U. of M. to serve in multiple roles in the Biden administration, with senior positions in HHS, the Federal Budget Office and Department of Justice. From June 2022 to December 2024, he was general counsel to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), where he played a key role in advancing and implementing policies across the department, including:

From Inauguration Day 2021 to June 2022, he served as general counsel to the Office of Management and Budget. There, he worked on President Biden’s Day One executive orders; helped respond to COVID-19, including implementing several crucial aid programs; responded to regulations adopted by the prior administration just before the inauguration and helped advance the new administration’s regulations on labor, health, the environment, and much else; helped craft and implement the American Rescue Plan, the bipartisan infrastructure law, and what became the Inflation Reduction Act; and assisted in developing two annual budgets, along with advising the entire Executive Branch on issues of appropriations law and administrative law.

In an earlier stint on leave from the Law School, from 2009 to 2011, Bagenstos was an appointee in the US Department of Justice, where he served as the principal deputy assistant attorney general for civil rights, the No. 2 official in the Civil Rights Division. There, he helped promulgate the 2010 Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) regulations—the first comprehensive update of those regulations since they were first issued in 1991—and led the reinvigoration of the Civil Rights Division’s enforcement of the US Supreme Court’s decision in Olmstead v. L.C., which guarantees people with disabilities the right to live and receive services in the most integrated setting appropriate. He led the negotiations of significant Olmstead settlements with the states of Delaware and Georgia, which guarantee appropriate, community-based services to thousands of people with disabilities. He also personally argued major cases in federal district courts and courts of appeals.

===========================

This episode is sponsored in part by EPIC ▪ MRA,

The Musk coup is moving forward with minimal signs of effective opposition. Congressional Republicans are rolling over complacently while the Musk teenage Ninjas storm federal offices, and Democrats do little other than scream. A lot of federal employees deemed insufficiently loyal to the Mar-a-Lago golf pro are being fired, laid off or encouraged to quit … meaning literally millions of hours of professional expertise will be lost, replaced by True Believers. In Michigan, the race for the U.S. Senate is beginning to take form in both parties. We take a deep dive into the likely primary contests.

Joining the discussion with an update on the turmoil in the state Legislature is veteran Michigan politics and state government reporter Lauren Gibbons from Bridge Michigan. Prior to joining Bridge’s Capitol team, she worked at MLive, where she led coverage of the state Legislature and the redistricting process, and before that covered the state Senate for MIRS News. She has covered the ins and outs of Michigan politics for nearly a decade and has won awards both for her political coverage and her work documenting the Larry Nassar sexual abuse case. Lauren grew up in the Lansing area and graduated from Michigan State University, majoring in journalism and history. She lives in Ferndale, and her party tricks include Irish dancing and telling friends what political districts they live in without looking. She is also an expert on music that highlights Michigan!

The first major partisan battle with the new split-control Legislature is underway, with the Senate majority leader suing the Speaker of the House. We begin this week’s pod exploring that lawsuit with Majority Leader Winnie Brink’s lead attorney in the case: the honorable Mr. Mark Brewer!

===========================

This episode is sponsored in part by EPIC ▪ MRA,

Donald Trump made a lot of campaign promises, big and small. Many of them are pure fantasy and destined to fail. Remember Trump’s 2016 promise to replace Obamacare with something “less expensive and better”? Or his regular proclamations of “Infrastructure Week”? He’d learned from earlier failures. With the price of eggs soaring despite his promise to immediate reduce grocery prices, including eggs, his latest Press Fantasy Writer (a.k.a. Press Secretary) laid the blame on Biden for the killing of millions of laying hens to combat Bird Flu. We can expect the same when inflation is reignited by Trump’s tariffs and tax cuts, his promised ending of taxes on tips and social security don’t happen, and on and on: it’s all the fault of a mess Joe Biden left behind.Just today (Thursday) Trump laid the blame for the tragic D.C. plane crash on the hiring policies of Presidents Obama and Biden in a fact-free rant they called a news conference.

The other Trump tactic already on full display: take credit for things he did not actually do. His first biggie: claiming he’s responsible for turning some valves to restore water supplies for southern California. It didn’t happen.

The Michigan political landscape underwent an earthquake this week with Gary Peters’ announcement that he won’t run for reelection in 2026. It has implications not just for the Senate, but also for Michigan’s congressional delegation and the race for Governor. We will be joined by state capitol politics guru Kyle Melinn from the MIRS news service to dissect the overlapping impacts. Joining the conversation is MIRS News editor Kyle Melinn.

Kyle Melinn is the editor and Vice President of the MIRS Newsletter, a daily on-line political news service covering state government and politics. A professional journalist for 20 years who has covered the state Capitol for the last 13. Before MIRS, Kyle served as a freelance writer for the Boston Herald and as a senior editor for SchoolSports.com.  He has also covered government and politics for The Daily Citizen, in Dalton, Ga.; The Yuma arizona Daily Sun; and the East Lansing Towne Courier.

Kyle is also host of the MIRS Monday podcast, an excellent source of the latest information from state government.

===========================

This episode is sponsored in part by EPIC ▪ MRA,