Everyone’s yelling & no one is listening.
When Charlie’s away the girls will play: Karen Dumas hosts while Charlie is off two-timing the show in New York with his BFF Chris Cuomo.
Just Kristina: The “demonic” Chairperson of the MIGOP, Kristina Karamo sits in with Karen to discuss how she’s going to rebuild the party.
Trump Trouble: Both Karamo and Michigan Rep. Elisa Slotkin find some common ground when comparing the former President’s upcoming indictment to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s joyride to spring break.
Strange Faces in Old Places: When Karen Dumas tweets someone always tries to bring the heat. This time she explains her response to a tweet about “white faces” in Detroit.
Everyone’s Miserable: WalletHub reminds Detroit that not only are we unhappy, but we’re the most unhappy.
The Art of Timing: Comedian Detroit Red clearly lost it.
Transcript:
Campaign finance law is a tricky thing that trips up people all the time. Yeah. Charlie Lauff pointed out in a column this past week. The difference here is that somebody went after Donald Trump. Nobody went after Gretchen Whitmer for her private jet flight to Florida way back when. And the trouble that she got had in accounting for that, is it selective prosecution.
I mean, I think that when you’re a public figure, you open yourself up to extra scrutiny and people are looking from all sides what you’re doing. And that’s part of the job. So Donald Trump was our president. People are going to look at what he did. And for me, that’s just part and parcel of being a person in public
Live downtown Detroit. It’s
The
Bullshit.
Just a breaking this dobo bullshit. Dobo bullshit.
All right. Charlie is not here, but I am and Mark is here and community Detroit Red is here. But Mark, before we move on, let me, well, first, Charlie’s in New York City. He’s hanging out with his other best friend. Chris,
I feel like he’s cheating on us.
Two timer.
Yeah. Wait a
Minute. Tucker. Carls is going to be awfully disappointed he’s hanging out, but that invite you to check it out tonight, news Nation, 8:00 PM Eastern Standard Time. You can check out his interview with Chris Commo. So before we go into that, I want to talk about that call olden open just a little bit. Yeah, mark. Little surprised that Alyssa Locken really didn’t defend Gretchen.
I am utterly shocked. She didn’t just tow the party line and defend her. I don’t know. I mean, she took a pause right before she answered there. So that’s knocking around in her head. But we all know she’s running for a Senate seat, right?
I know, but usually it’s always the party loyalty to the end. And she did not defend her. She said, Hey, you’re in public office. She kind of justified the scrutiny. Yeah, that Charlie put her under in his Detroit News column last
Week. Well, what I noticed was she did a very good job of saying the president, but not the governor. In her answer, she kind of answered without answering.
Okay. But she said though, it applied because Devin asked her, he said, well, what’s good for the scrutiny of Donald Trump has to apply to Gretchen
Well and herself. Right. Because she put herself out there and Charlie nailed her. That’s right where she was living. And
Devin mention that.
Yeah. How con. Little convenient. But that’s all right.
Whatever.
Well, we’ve got a great show for you today. Luckily, we’re going to talk to Christina Carmo. She’s the chair of the Michigan g o. She’s carved out some time on her busy schedule to talk to us. But Mark, let’s thank our sponsors, get that out of the way, and then let’s get to the show.
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I’m going to get him to reset the time on my vcr. Still blinking 12.
That was weak. Try again.
Oh boy.
Try again,
Bubba. Boom. All right, go ahead.
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Hey, no. Speaking of adr, maybe we can hooked them up with Gilbert and they can get my Section eight department done a little
Quicker. Oh yeah. And if anybody missed that, you got to go to the no BS news hour.com to the website. YouTube, you’ve got to check out the piece that Red did. How do you end up in everything? You’re in every commercial. You’re in every spot.
I work very cheap. Damn near for free. All right,
Well good. Well, look, I want to be respectful of Christina’s time. She’s chair of the Michigan g o p Christina, I also want to thank you again publicly for making yourself available. I was able to do a column on Christina a couple weeks ago for the Detroit News, and I thank you sincerely for that. But let’s start with the clip that you saw Melissa, and she said, Hey, persecution is not subjective. And she didn’t really defend Governor Whitmer in terms of public scrutiny as we see Donald Trump headed to New York, expected to turn himself in tomorrow. Let’s talk about that a little bit. Her audios, you
Are a public figure. Public scrutiny is just part and parcel sale of what happens. Alyssa has some questionable situations herself where it appears that she has a residential address where she doesn’t actually live to help her run in a particular congressional seat. And that’s one of the problems that we have. However, it does seem to be very selective and one sided because whether it’s Gretchen Whitmer with that situation, or whether it was Gretchen Whitmer where her collecting illegally millions of dollars under this bogus SOS rule where you can collect more money beyond the campaign contribution limit as long as you’re under recall. I mean, the list goes on of double standard. And that’s kind of been the problem for many people. It seems to be only one side of the aisle is being held accountable when they’re being accused of potential illegal activity. And it means you can go a list of things, whether it’s the nursing homes with Gretchen Whitmer, it just seems like she gets away with it. And that’s the kind of a lack of accountability in our government that people like myself have a problem with.
Well, Donald Trump is headed to New York, expected to turn himself in, that is at the top of every newsfeed right now. What’s your take on what’s happening with him?
Well, I mean, I know my answer is always going to be filtered through the lens of the fact that I’m the G o P chair, but just speaking objectively as a citizen, it’s purely political. Because the thing about it is, is there’s no substantial evidence to this guy’s claims that are being made additionally. You know, wait six years later while the guy’s running for reelection to now suddenly dig back and say, oh, well he potentially may have paid someone off. That, from my understanding is actually the alleged issue is a misdemeanor, but being potentially moved to a felony felony status when this DA is received over a million dollars from George Soros. So when you put all those puzzle pieces together, it comes across as purely political and it’s a flimsy case. So it comes across like a political stunt. And that to me, it doesn’t rise to what he is Biggs is charging him with. And Braggs, excuse me, is charging him with, and it, it’s purely political. I don’t see any substantial merit in the claims being made. So do you think it’s not a broken gun
Case? So do you think this is an attempt to somehow, I would say on one hand, undermine, but I’d say on the other hand, almost elevate his opportunity right in his campaign because I can’t help. Oh, he wins. He wins. Yeah. I can’t help but think that if he runs, he’s going to win.
Well, yeah, it does give him a vis, it does help in the sense of that there’s a sense across America that there is a massively corrupt government, and it’s a deep state that picks and chooses winners and losers irrespective of what the people really want. That information is filtered to us based on what these operatives have in store for us in the future. And this just plays right people’s feeling that those who seek to tell the truth get unnecessarily pu persecuted in the public eye. So it definitely feeds into that and it will be a benefit to him because if you look at the direction the country is going in with Joe Biden, people are not happy. And speaking of the two-tier system, I mean, look at Joe Biden and his family’s ties to the Chinese Communist Party. I believe he’s a highly compromised president, highly compromised. And when you look at what’s going on with Goshen and all these other factors, it seems to be that keeping President Trump out of office is necessary to protect some other crimes that other individuals may be involved in, including Joe Biden.
I’m not nuts about what Alvin Bragg’s doing right now, but I feel like some of the stuff might feel a little conspiratorial to some people. I feel like there’s a little bit of a boogeyman syndrome on both sides, be it Soros, be it the Koch brothers, be it whomever. My question regarding this indictment and unsealing it, would you change your tune when they unveil it on Tuesday? We don’t know what’s in it and say what you want about Bragg. He’s done a really good job keeping that quiet. I mean, what would you feel if more things come out or how would you approach that?
If you have something without a shout of a doubt that a crime has been committed, then we’ll assess that as that evidence is presented to us. But the problem is, coming out of New York, they have a history of being very targeting Donald Trump. I mean, you had the Ag of New York run that I’m going to go after Trump. That was part of her, one of her campaign pledges. Now I know that this is a different individual, but that’s the problem, is that when you have individuals who are campaigning or you have an individual such as brags who’s connected to a highly partisan individual who has an agenda to throw one man in jail, it just doesn’t pass the muster of blind justice. And that’s the problem. So we’ll discuss that when the evidence is unsealed to us that he claims that he has. But again, when we look at all the factors, that’s what makes people very concerned that this is just a political case. And if it can happen to a former president, then there’s no hope for the rest of us.
So I want to ask you if he is found guilty on this, it goes all the way through, do you think he should be allowed to serve as president?
Well, again, it go, goes back to what evidence did they have. That’s always my thing because I mean, there’s things said, I mean, myself being in the public eye and someone being involved in the politics, I mean, there’s tons of claims that are made about individuals in the public eye that are totally false. I mean, I have false accusations made about me by my ex-husband in court. So I mean, as someone who’s experienced false claims being made against you, again, I would like to see the evidence. I would like to see everything before I’m making a comment about what if scenario.
But the thing about it is that he would be allowed, he can serve as president even if he’s incarcerated. So whether we think he should or not, he has the legal right to serve in that capacity,
First American president to serve from H Blocks. Well
Then that’s okay too. Certainly, I certainly know, know about public scrutiny. It is no fun when you have false accusations thrown at you. It is really no fun. But Christie, let, I’m sorry, go ahead. Right. Oh, I’m
Sorry. No, go ahead. I guess basically what I would like to know because of what our ideal of a president should be in this country, do we have one if, what is it he, well, you supposed to be what? Respectful, respected, okay. Image of honor and integrity.
So Donald, for So Clinton, I mean, we can go, and I’m not, this isn’t, isn’t justify, this is justify anybody, but I’m saying we’ve not had a perfect elected official from the president. Yeah. We always had a person should be presidential. But then when you look at the demeanor that even Barack Obama held, he was still scrutinized even for things about the color of his suit,
But he was never convicted. That’s my, if they go forward with this in the end and they give him this conviction, he would technically be a criminal or convicted, a person convict, convicted of a
Crime, convict a criminal, the arrest of criminals that just act
Right. That’s what I’m saying. Kick off. So how would it look if we have, okay, since he can still
Serve fair, Christina, what do you say to that?
How would it look?
Well, here’s my thing is this is why I struggle with sometime in my answer and you see some hesitancy on my behalf because look at Joe Biden. I mean the ties his family have, the Chinese Communist Party and his son has ties to Ukraine. And the overwhelming evidence that when Joe Biden was vice president, his office was up for sale. And we want to get into Ashley Biden’s diary and what happened with project.
Well, that’s fine. I mean,
All this stuff around Joe Biden is beyond
Criminal. I think everybody in this wo room would agree. We’re not fans of either one of ’em. We don’t like either one of them. And what Trump did have ties to China as well. He paid taxes there. His daughter got some, what’s the word? Some patents there, which some pretty
Nasty stakes too.
I’m not surprised by that. But I wanted to go back to something, Karen, that you said about being attacked for your thoughts and coming on the show is interesting. I have not seen you do many interviews aside from the print interview that you did with Karen. Is there a general fear that you don’t want to talk? Maybe
She likes me better. That’s
It. Well, everybody likes you better than say maybe a national outlet or even Flashpoint. We saw Devin on the open. Is there a hesitancy because you don’t think you’ll be treated fairly or you’ll be portrayed differently as opposed to just getting out there and speaking? Because my pet peeve is you have people on the right go on Fox, people on the left go on MSNBC, and never the twain shall meet. And that drives me up a wall. Is there a reason we haven’t seen more of you or is that my perception?
Well, I do get out there. I want to be more available. I think oftentimes when I was running for sos, it’s, it’s a different strategy than when you are chair of a party. Because for me right now, my goal is to make myself as available as possible to everybody to scrutinize me and ask me questions. I think one of the things why it’s so important for me, because there’s this perception of who I am that are just not accurate. If you Google my name, they’ll portray me as this nuts person that I’m not. But also it’s this image of what it means to be a Republican who we are as a Republican party. And I think we’ve made somewhat the mistake of being close and going into our bubble. And I think that goes for both parties where everybody just wants someone to stroke their ego and be a yes man.
I also will say this, sometimes it is unfair. I mean, I’ve gotten situations where people ask you gossipy questions or things that aren’t really intended to actually bring out the truth and help the public, but then at the same time, that’s actually can be a good situation to be in because then the public gets to see everything unscripted, unfiltered. So for me personally, I mean, we’ve made a pledge to talk to everybody, and we want those tough questions because we want to give those answers. And we want people to see more of who we are as Republicans because the stereotype of what we’re about just simply isn’t reflected in what we seek to accomplish for our country. So for me personally, I’m glad to be on the show and I like for people to ask me tough questions, you know, try to give a thoughtful answer because oftentimes what happens is, is that when you try to give a very thoughtful answer, it gets chopped up in the sound bites.
I’ve had that happen to be before. Like Tim Skk did it perfectly recently. I went on his show and he totally misrepresented my comments in the article he wrote, and he’s supposed to be a longtime credible journalist, and he showed that he wasn’t because he totally misrepresented what I said. So oftentimes people don’t want to go on these shows because not your show, but I’m just saying on various shows or outlets, because someone will sound bite what you say, run it with a headline and completely, I mean, when he ran was totally false. Totally run a false article and then the public just reads the headline and believe the headline and don’t vote to investigate any further and then draw a conclusion on you based on someone’s intentional misrepresentation of what you said. Christina.
Christina, would you be on the show today if Charlie was here because you’ve had run-ins with Charlie?
Yeah, I would be on the show with Charlie. Yeah. Yeah, we did have a very public a fallout, but I would talk with anybody. I think that when you have an unfiltered, unscripted set up, I think that’s what’s best for the public.
All right. Let’s bring it back to Michigan just a little bit, and your agenda as chairperson. Some of the things that you think, you talked a little bit about the compromised image of the Republican party, certainly you’ve got senatorial seats. Let’s talk about what that Republican or your agenda looks like as chair.
Well, we are really big on making sure that the needs and the wellbeing of Americans, specifically my role as M I G O P, chair of Michiganders are put first. One of the big things that we’re pushing back against is a go the Goshen Battery factory that’s potentially being built in Mecosta County with Michigan tax dollars. And what’s very concerning is this company and their governing documents for their corporation swear Allegion to the Chinese Communist Party. And they have to submit themselves to the Chinese Communist Party constitution, and they have to also implement other Chinese Communist Party initiatives within Michigan or wherever they’re operating their corporation. Well, when we learn that that is absolutely horrific and irrespective of political affiliation, we should be against those things. I’m also concerned with Gretchen Whitmer, her revitalization plan in Michigan either involve the Chinese Communist Party or the World Economic Forum when revitalization of Michigan should be Michigan dollars.
Michigan companies, Michigan and Michigan investment. But also my concern is that these dollars are going to companies or organizations that have potentially conflicted interest than with the wellbeing of Michigan. One of the things for me is this very personal turning our state around. I’m a millennial, I’m 37, and what I’ve witnessed is my generation, a large chunk of my generation, has got up and left this state because the lack of opportunity in Michigan, when we talk about healing the family structure, we also oftentimes think of like mom, dad, child. But what about the other end of life? How many people children left Michigan because of the lack of opportunity? How many people are aging alone? How many grandchildren are growing up without their grandparents? I think of the valuable role my grandparents paid in my life, played in my life is because of a lack of opportunity in this state and the poor quality of education. So we are committed to making sure that we have candidates running who are actually going to solve these issues and not play into the unit party dynamic. I’ve been very open about that, is that we have members within our own party who have done things that are corrupt or wrong. So we don’t want to engage in the unit party scheme. We actually want to make sure that our candidates are running, winning, and we’ll solve problems for Michigan families.
So who are some of the candidates in the queue that you have, that you’re nurturing, that you’re preparing, you’ve got upcoming Senate race, give us some insight into that succession plan.
So as chair, I do have to remain neutral, so I can’t show any partiality towards particular candidates. I do need to state that upfront just so you guys understand my answers why. So we do have two candidates running for US Senate, Nikki Snyder and Michael Hoover who are running for us in, I know it’s early and we’ll see what happens if more individuals choose to jump in that race. A priority for us is making sure we secure that seat because this is the first time this seat has been open and well over 20 years since Spence Spence Abraham was last time that seat seat was open. Additionally, taking back the Michigan House is a top priority for us. So those are our two big priorities and making sure that our incumbents win reelection, that’s very important for us. And then making sure that those vulnerable seats that we’re able to flip and we believe that what our message and what our strategy, we’ll be able to flip those seats.
Because again, our focus is protecting Michigan and there’s a lot of power in pulling politics back local. I think one of the biggest mistakes that we’ve made is we focused our eyes federal. I mean, think of how we even talk about our elections. We talked about last November’s elections as midterms. Even in the language we use that signified that the only the presidential year elections are most important when in reality most people don’t know. Your county sheriff can tells the affairs to pound sand if they want to do something unconstitutional in your county. So those local elections are so critical, and so we want to bring the focus back local, that way people value every election from school board all the way up to president know election is irrelevant. As we want to also educate the public more of how government impacts our everyday lives. I think that’s one of the biggest mistakes we have Americans have made is not valuing those local seats.
I think that’s a good plan. I mean, what’s the old saying? All politics is local, our local, right? I mean, it starts where you live and then goes upward to that point, and maybe this is cynical of me, but it is all about money, money, money, money and getting the word out there and the things we hear is that because you are now the chairperson of the M I G O P, the money isn’t coming in or people are staying away. The spin on that and how do you get the money back in?
Yeah, and I think that is a very fair question. I’m glad you asked it because that’s the way you’ve been set up. It’s like now Carmo is chair, everybody’s walked away. It’s like, well actually these people walked away before I became chair. So what you do to bring them
Back? Yeah. How’d you get ’em back?
Yeah. Yeah. So way you bring people back is through a competent party. I think I heard a quote somebody said that Republicans have made the mistake in the past that a lot of times the Republican donors have walked away because the party has operated from a point of access instead of a point of winning. I just think strategically, we haven’t done things that are very beneficial to winning elections. I mean, I haven’t seen any real strategy in the past. It’s been just raises money, knock doors and winning elections like, wait a minute, there’s way more involved to win elections. There’s way more community building, there’s way more important messaging. There’s way more listening that needs to be involved and winning. So staying a party that actually represents our interests. If you notice that people discuss oftentimes like a fracture within the Republican party is because you have a lot of people in office and who run the party who despise the activists and the local Republicans and don’t honor our wishes.
So my election is not so much about me, it’s that people wanted a chair who actually is going to honor their wishes and advocate for our party platform unapologetically, and also push into spaces that are not traditionally Republican. Our party has operated from a protectionist lens instead of a growth lens. And that’s been a massive party that the base is furious about. Cause we’re like, we got to grow our party and spread our message. And so those are some things that are going to bring funds in. So we are not concerned about lacking of funds simply because a lot of people have never given to the party because they don’t trust it. And what we are seeing is for the first time people saying, I actually am going to give to the Michigan Republican Party to actually believe in the direction it’s going in. And so that’s, I think has been the schism, even though it’s a difference with the Democrats is you don’t see a schism because they follow what the base wants. Whereas with the Republican party, there’s this separation where this base gets despised. Well, with our leadership, that’s not going to happen anymore. So people are going to want to give to the party cause they’re going to see positive advancements.
Well, Christina, two more things that I want to ask. Certainly as the first black woman to head the Michigan g o p, I mean, there is both a burden, a responsibility as well as an opportunity for you. And we talked a little bit about that in the column, but what is the core for you in terms of, because people tend to traditionally, and in my opinion sometimes incorrectly think that all black people vote Democrat and all white people vote Republican when certainly that’s not necessarily true. But what will you do to change that perception?
Yeah, one of the things we did is during the SOS race, we spent a lot of time in Detroit and really Flint, one of the things we want to show people is that we’re policy first and we actually have solutions that have solved the problems that impact your everyday life. I think there has been a sentiment within the party in the past that going to places like Detroit, like Flint Lock, Saginaw, Benton Harbor, is a waste of time because these people are always going to vote democratic. And my philosophy is that no citizen is a waste of time. No person is not important to talk to. So my philosophy is that we want to go and talk to people and hear their concerns and discuss how we offer solutions to their problems. And also to your point, there are a lot of like-minded people from these communities.
So you have a particular district, whether it’s a house seat or what have you, and you may have a black or Latino person from that community who was like-minded. Well if we’re not engaged in that community, then how can that candidate be, have the support necessary for them to run and win. So being involved in every community across this state means also not taking rural communities for granted. Because one of the things I’ve noticed is that oftentimes the Republican party, rural communities are taken for granted from the Republican party, just like black communities oftentimes are taken for granted from the Democrat party. So we want to make sure that no community is taken for granted, that everybody’s concerns are heard. In that way we can have solutions for people’s problems. Cause that’s what it’s about. It’s not about occupying power for the sake of being empowered. It’s about occupying these spaces so we can actually solve problems and improve quality of people’s lives.
Well, I had one more question, but Mark has another question. So go ahead. I’m sorry. No, that’s fine. No, that’s fine.
Go ahead. You talk about all the different communities. Well, there was one community and some Republicans within that community that were not very happy with the I G O P’S Twitter page linking guns to the Holocaust. And the tweet is still up there. I viewed it, honestly, I thought it was a troll, and I thought the Michigan Democrats played into that troll. But you left it up there. Do you think some of this rhetoric is harmful in getting up? Because you’ve expressed more ideas today than I’ve ever heard from you that yeah, I get it. I see what you’re trying to build, but then that rhetoric does that kind of damage
Or seems counterproductive
Because that’s what people see because that’s short. It’s on Twitter, it’s a meme. How do you tone down that rhetoric and do you want even want to tone it down?
Yeah, I think that’s a fair question. Lemme ask you why do you see it as a troll?
Why did I see it as a troll? Because I have seen those memes before and I’ve seen it get responses and likes and retweets. I don’t think personally you’re going to win comparing anything to the Holocaust.
So we have a Holocaust museum here in Oakland County. Why do we have that museum?
I don’t know why.
That way, we’ll never forget what happened. That way we can never make sure that it never happens again. So my point is pointing to a historical event should never be seen as controversial. And I respect the fact that people may not agree with me. It’s so point to a historical event, it should not be seen as controversial. And that’s what to me is very, I still have not heard a reasonable explanation. We have monuments all over our states and our nation pointed to historical events that we commemorate for a variety of reasons. Maybe it’s the horrific event that way we want to commemorate to make sure it never happened again and honor the victims. But there’s also times we want to commemorate people who do fantastic things. So pointing to the Holocaust is not a negative thing. It’s a one of the most well-documented atrocities in humans.
But wasn’t it the analogy?
It’s how you do it.
Yeah, I think it was the analogy that was used in the tweet that raised ire that that’s my assumption.
Yeah. Well, and I understand some people may feel that way, but the thing about it is, I believe it’s an accurate analogy because whenever governments get abusive, it doesn’t happen overnight. It’s a slow walk. And part of the Nazi regime was to disarm the individuals that they wanted to mass murder. And so for me, when I look at human history, even as I pointed to ’em in our press conference, you look at the history of our own country. I mean in our own country, we have a history where we’ve targeted individuals for mass murder and enslavement. So when you look at human history and the tendency of governments to abuse citizens, I mean, there’s a study done by the University of Hawaii on deicide and deicide is when the government mass murders its own citizens. So when you look at that in context of history, to me pointing to the holocaust is no worse or better than pointing to any other historical event.
It’s a historical event. And so I know there were different people in outrage and there were other people who agreed with me. So I mean, it’s an image that there’s a Jewish organization who fights for gun rights, have shared the image. So I mean, it’s a lot of people in my opinion, who looked at history saying, we have to learn. So I still don’t think an adequate case has been made as to how we were trivializing it. And one of the things that I won’t submit to is the outrage culture. This is not about the Holocaust specifically, but in general as a society, we have this outrage yet if enough people are outraged and screaming that we have to conform. And it’s like, well, unless they provide a logical argument, I’m not going to. I want evidence.
Well, people will listen to the screaming more than they will the ideas. So it just kind of gets me
Ask you this, isn’t that an indictment on our culture then that people listen to screaming over evidence and lock?
It may maybe. But are you playing into it then?
I would say no, because I’m articulating it. That’s why I open myself up to scrutiny. That’s why I put myself in positions where people can grill me on these things. That way I can provide evidence for the claims I’m making. And even when we did the press conference, no one was able to refute the logical reason why we shared it and why we maintained it. It was more of a, people are upset. Well, we can’t make policy decisions based on people being upset. We have to always go for logic and evidence because that’s what’s long term going to impact people’s lives. And I think one of the mistakes we’ve made is buying into outrage culture. Even if people don’t have any evidence or real logical reason why they should be bothered or want something, we still just succumb to it because enough people are screaming and yelling.
And I think that’s bad position for us as a country to be in. And pointing to history is never controversial. I mean, you had Governor Whitmer who was so such a liar, and I’m going to say that accuse us of anti-Semitism. I’m like, really? That? That’s not even credible. If people say, well, you shouldn’t have said it because it’s trivializing it. I don’t agree. But we can have that conversation. But now that Michigan Democrats are going so far to accuse people like, I’m not going to play that game. That’s ridiculous. Who said anything insulting or demeaning about Jewish people? Nobody. So it was a flat out false claim that she’s capitalizing that reveals her nature more than anything, in my opinion.
Well, Christina, I want to be respectful of your time, but early on you mentioned a lot of concern about China, the relationship with Biden’s and zeros and the whole nine yards. The other thing that is taking a front row seat right down out your opinion on is TikTok.
I don’t like TikTok, but one of the things I want to do is scrutinize this bill that’s supposedly going to ban TikTok. Because one of the things that I’ve noticed in government, and this is broad spectrum, is that oftentimes a bill is marketed to us, but there’s a bunch of pork and other things packed into that bill that can be highly problematic. So we don’t want a situation where we’re being told, or the government just wants to ban TikTok but baked into that bill because suppress other first amendment rights and other access to information that could be an infringement, just our constitutional rifle for us to operate as a free society. Because one of the things that’s necessary for us to operate freely is the access of information. And there has been a suppression of information. We saw it.
It’s been, it’s like that everywhere in the very thing that I hear coming out in the hearings, all the other platforms. And whether you’re in the airport, I mean all these other processes are doing the very same thing that they’re accusing this one platform because it has a Chinese relationship or allegiance, not allegiance alliance. It’s all the same thing. So again, we go back to how we started the conversation, it can’t be subjective scrutiny.
Yeah, I agree with you. And that goes back to your point, Karen, I think it should be, in my opinion at first when I first read it, I’m like, absolutely. Just my visceral response. Absolutely. Ban TikTok, Chinese Communist Party, their problem, their enemy to our country. But then to your point, Karen, as I began to scrutinize and look through things a little more carefully, I’m kind of going, I don’t know if this is something the government should do. I think this should be consumer savviness, that we no longer use TikTok because this opens the door for the Bannon of other applications and other information accessing. And like you said, other apps are really doing the same thing. So you
Really are. I’m
Comfortable with
That. Well, Christina, I want to thank you for making time today. I want to invite you back when Charlie is here and we’re going to hold hands. We’re going to have a different conversation. But I do appreciate your access and your willingness to try to offer feedback and accountability for who you are, the decisions you’ve made. I applaud. I appreciate you. I took a lot of hits for that piece. I mean, they were all over me, but I’m good with it. I applaud and appreciate who you are, whether I agree with everything or not. So thank you so much for taking time to be with us today, and we look forward to you joining us in the studio one day.
Yes. Thank you so much, guys. God bless.
All right, thanks, Christina. Yeah, so I appreciate that, mark. I mean, as always, we always talk about the people that will not come on the show. Sure. Whether Charlie’s here or not, people are selective about where they will go and what they will talk about. And she thank you for asking her the difficult questions.
Well, people don’t want to listen anymore. Everybody wants to talk. I know, right? And there’s so many ways to talk and I’ll listen to her and I disagree with a lot of the stuff,
And that’s okay.
And sure,
That doesn’t What makes us the middle.
Yeah.
Everyone’s not met
And everybody’s not her and everybody ain’t Trump, but we bring it all together. So Exactly. We make decisions with information.
But it was interesting because she was talking about retaining talent here in the state of Michigan. And that kind of leads into a little bit of the other part of the conversation that I wanted to have today. And they’re kind of like two or three prongs that lead into that. There were some tweets and people were saying, oh, I’ve never seen, I’ve lived in Detroit all my life and I’ve never seen so white people walking down seven mile and they’re walking their dogs at night. And I hear people say this all the time. And so I responded to one of the tweets, here we go, boy. Yeah. And that’s true.
Every time Karen responds, it’s, it’s a problem on Twitter, it’s
Always a, well, not really, but it was a little issue. And I said, well, you’ve got MD as mayor. I said, you’ve given bus to the governor. I said, you invited them to the cookout. I said, the takeover is real. And so people were like, oh my God, I’m so disappointed that you said this. You’re a bigot. No, I’m not a bigot. That’s not necess that. That’s nowhere near true.
What did they object to though? Word takeover? I
Don’t know. But I never said white people weren’t in the city of Detroit. I never said they weren’t welcome in the city of Detroit. But there is a difference in terms of the presence and the prominence that we see and people in the city are taking notice.
Can’t help but take notice. I mean,
Yeah. And then this guy’s ask me, he named all these different places in the city. He says, I bet you don’t even know where they are. I said, what makes you think that? I don’t? And he says, well, and this was the crazy
Thing. Why is that the test
Anyway, man? Well, I said, I don’t know what your point is, but he said, I lived in there twice. Twice. And I said, there’s the difference right there. I’ve lived here all my, other than being away. I said, I’ve lived here all my life. What are you talking about? What are they trying?
Are they trying to prove and win? Don’t you know what, it’s Twitter. They just want to yell.
I don’t know. See, it’s a thing of claiming ownership. Sure. You want to be known as a true Detroiter. So you go through this thing of what I know and where I’ve been. The point is, if you’ve been a lifetime Detroiter, you cannot help but see the change
And feel some kind of way. Yesterday we went to brunch in West Bloomfield. We went to two different restaurants. I saw more Detroiters. And I mean, these are people that I knew or recognized than have seen in the city. So Nolan Finley, the editors of Detroit News, wrote some time ago, where are all the black people? They’re in the suburbs. Because I didn’t get the level of discomfort in those two restaurants that I do in restaurants in downtown Detroit. Really? And see, and that’s something that you and I would wouldn’t understand that. No, and that’s what a lot of people were talking about. But people are, wall Street Journal did a story. People are leaving the city. Christina talked about, and we talk about all the time, the draining of talent here in Michigan. People are leaving. Steve Ling for the Metro Times did a story about black people moving out of the city. They’re leaving at an alarming rate. Charlie talks about the economics of it. It’s not just the black and white, but it’s the economic side of it.
And people got to understand too, a lot of times, if you want your kid to get a better education, which goes to the economics of the city, we know that the Detroit public school system has struggled for years. It has not always been at its top. And a lot of parents, people left because they wanted to get they kids in areas with maybe better education. But you
Know
What? Closer to a job.
I understand that. But let me say this, and I tell PE kids this all the time. When they say, well, where do I go for school? What do I do? It’s not where you go. It’s what you do. Because you have kids that come out of Detroit Public Zoo. Now, it may not be, it’s not the level of excellence. Recognize that it once was, I will give it that. And we continue to turn out and push through because of state law, right? Push through children that aren’t prepared. That’s a bigger issue. But you’ve got kids that come out that go to Ivy League schools. Definitely. So it’s there. It’s not where you go. It’s what you do while you’re there. So if your parent is putting a level of demand of excellence, they’re giving you support and the resources, you can go to the worst school, but you’re going to do well. So I don’t want to want that to be an excuse for people not to succeed because they went to a substantial No,
No. And my point wasn’t to say it is because the schools are getting better. My point is, is that with crime education, public services, a lot of Detroiters were making enough income to say, Hey, and I want to go across eight miles.
And those were a lot of the comments read that people were saying, I moved to Detroit. And I was disappointed because the reality didn’t match the narrative that the city services weren’t there. If I call the police, the guy we know. So they’re buying into that. And there’s a person who’s a reporter and an anchor here in the city that moved to Detroit. And she said on the air, Hey, my taxes and cost for living in Detroit Triple. And the return wasn’t there without a doubt. So without a doubt. But let me tell you this, and I say this all the time, I am kind of sensitive to it. Because once upon a time, nobody wanted to have anything to do with Detroit. They would come down to the city, they’d come to a game, they’d trash it, and it, they, I’m scared and the whole nine yards. And now it’s like, it’s the cool thing to do. Well,
Let me ask you this. As a fat white, straight man from the suburbs, so
I don’t even know all that Mark.
I don’t live in the city. I’m not going to live in the city, but it’s the heartbeat of the metro area. So I want what’s best for it. So why, I guess the question is, why are some people so proprietary over their neighborhood when we all want to see it do bad? We all want the same fucking thing. What? Help me understand that. I don’t get
It, but it Who’s expense now? Sure. Let me say this. And this is honest, and I know it’s going to be, oh, this is, but there are always white people here. There’s nothing
New.
Where I, there were, but we all got along. Yeah. They did not come into the city trying to change what made Detroit, Detroit. You’ve got people that moved into an area close to Shane Park, and then they worked to have a noise ordinance. You moved next to an amphitheater, right? Don’t come here and try to make this what you left. Come here and enjoy Detroit for what it is and for who it is. Let me, I saw, I went to the store, the Indian Village market, and the cleaners, every person I saw spoke to me except the white guy who’s getting in his car from the store and he’s looking around. If you’re afraid, don’t come down. Detroiters are friendly. Yeah, we speak, we look, we whatever. If you don’t want to be here, or if the people already here make you uncomfortable, don’t come
Here. Well, I would like to say this too, because I work down town. I pimp hotdog on the weekend.
Pimp
Hotdog. Yeah. That’s how I make myself feel better about it. Hot dogs.
Alright, pimp and wieners.
Pimp wieners
Your expertise.
I’m not saying, I can definitely say, you know, see the change. And I don’t want it to be a misconstrued message here that black folks don’t want white folks in Detroit. I don’t care who comes to Detroit, come. All we saying is don’t be surprised that Detroit has been here all their life. Take notice. We
Know what’s here.
We know what’s here. We see the changes. And let’s still say this. I’m going to say it. I see where a lot of what’s being put down here to attract these folks, neighborhoods are still getting neglected on a daily basis. So
No, there’s no money to be made in the
Neighborhood. There’s no money to be made. So you as a neighborhood person, you get this feeling like, Hey, you, you’re doing all this to bring new faces, new folks. And I’m still sitting over here hanging on, surviving, representing what a true Detroiter is.
But I understand, and let me say this, I think that actually WalletHub said that Detroit is one of the unhappiness. What are we like 52 or 54 out of 56.
We are dead last right
On in terms of being unhappy. And my column tomorrow is about why we’re unhappy because so many residents for so long have just been disregarded and overlooked and disrespected. I mean, listen, now I understand that you cannot rebuild or sustain a city on public housing or, right. I get that. It takes money, it takes investment. But I also think that it requires engagement on the part of the residents and investment into the residents. It has to be a collective
Effort. Work in sewer lines, work in power. Do
You think,
I mean, I’m just saying, yeah, if you want to really do something to make everybody happy, make the city work first.
Well, and we’ll talk a little, because there are a couple new positions that have come out in the city, Charlie and I talked about. And it’s like, okay, how does that fit? What is this for?
Can you give me one example? Are these bullshit titles
Of, for something that should be obvious, but I
Want, and where’s that money coming
From? Sustainable green something,
Right? For something like that. But I want to say two things. One, the guy that called me a bigot on Twitter, I said, well, my dad would disagree. And he quoted the tweet and he says, oh, your dad would be okay with this tweet. And I said, actually he would. I said, but if he didn’t understand, he’d ask. I said, and if after asking he didn’t agree, he would still respect the difference of opinion. And there, and therein lies where we have to go. We’re not all alike. I know we were supposed to talk about the LSU and the Iowa and the difference between the two star players. The perception that’s where we are as a community and as a country. And it’s unfortunate, but we are different. And we have to stop being angry and upset because someone is not like us.
I always try to tell somebody, an alarm going off. I always like to try to tell my kids, look, everyone’s not you. Yeah. Different doesn’t equal bad. And that’s okay. Change doesn’t equal bad things change because they need to. Things are different. So you can learn from ’em. And I don’t, I guess when we get older, we’re, I think it’s normal biology just to be stuck in your way with your group. But it doesn’t mean you have to fucking fight about that. But
I think that’s why everybody’s so angry. It’s like, okay, I don’t, everybody in this room and on this show is different. We live
Different. That’s
What I love about it. We look different. We think, we don’t even always agree, but we bring all those perspectives together. Exactly. Cup on the pretense of enhancing how we live for everybody.
Especially when red tells a joke That bombs, that
Was a great joke earlier. I’m not going to tell it no air, but it was a great joke here.
It was not. But I’m going to close on this note because everybody talks about Detroiter. Oh, I’m a Detroiter. Where do you live? I live in Farmington. Let me clarify everybody one last time. If you were born here, you’re a native Detroiter. If you live here, you are a Detroiter. If you used to live here, you are a former Detroiter. Everybody else is just a fan.
Hey, can I add to that?
No, you can’t. No, no. Right. Quick. Why are you ending ruining such a great ending,
Right? That’s a great ending. Brad, come on. You know, timing. Come on
Man. Let’s, let’s see if you ruins it. Okay, go ahead. Red.
If you’re from the west or the east of Detroit, stop fighting from you. You’re from different cities. You all are from Detroit.
That’s, that’s a real thing. No, see, he bombed
Again. Said it way better.
See you Thursday.
