James discusses race for Governor with 6 days until Election Day

And thanks for joining us on another busy night. Of all things people, power, and politics, this is The Pulse. I'm Rup Raj. Just six days to go until Election Day, and the candidates are hitting the trail hard to drum up those last-minute votes and to really get their base fired up. That's on top of the other big political headlines. So buckle up. We have a lot of ground to cover in the next half hour. We'll begin here. The race for Senate is getting a lot of attention, of course, but there's a race for governor happening, too. Of course, you know that. We're having a one-on-one conversation with both the candidates before Election Day, starting tonight with Congressman and Republican candidate John James. He'll join us in about 10 minutes. Plus, Detroit News reporter Craig Mauger and communications expert Andrea Beitley break down the big issues for us coming up in just a few minutes. But we begin with a race for Senate because both Republican Mike Rogers and Democrat Dr. Abdul Al-Sayed were on the trail once again today. Rogers holding a rally up in Bad Axe while Al-Sayed was in Wyandotte. It's a campaign that's gotten heated, as you know and personal, both candidates laying out what they see as being on the ballot in their race. Take a listen. This is for all the marbles. And for their part, they don't want to talk about the price of gas. They don't want to talk about the price of groceries. They don't want to talk about seeing a doctor. They want to talk about me and my name and my faith. But me and my name and my faith are not the reason you can't see a doctor, not the reason you can't afford your gas, not the reason that you can't afford your groceries not the reason that our air is unclean or our water is poisoned in too much of our state it is their policies that are doing that it is their war in Iran that is raising the price of our gas and our groceries it is their tariff war that's raising the price of everything else it's this big ugly bill that has made it nearly impossible to see a doctor and is going to make it worse he brought Bernie Sanders and AOC into our state to campaign with them aren't those your favorites not your favorites huh they both support the most radical Green New Deal they are proposing an energy tax that would cost each one of us two thousand dollars a year in extra costs for utilities per house two thousand yes sir we do and you know what they did you know what the democrats did to us in 23 they passed a mini green new deal here in this state you know what happened they raised your utility rates nine times. This is what they're talking about doing to us. It is ridiculous. And we're going to do something about it because we're going to stand together. And if you scan the QR code on the bottom right of your screen, it'll take you to the elections dashboard on Fox2Detroit.com. If you haven't voted, you really want to check this out because we've got information on everything from early voting, those ballot proposals you're deciding on, interviews with all the candidates and the surrogates, including our one-on-one with President Trump, more with Al Sayed with Rodgers. Fox 2 is your home for politics, so we want to make sure you're ready when you hit the polls. Well, you heard Al Sayed mention the war in Iran. That's one of the areas where he and Rodgers actually probably see a little bit more eye to eye on in recent weeks because both have called for an end to that war. And it's a big issue, obviously, for voters as well. You see, new numbers from the Pentagon show the estimated cost of the war for taxpayers, so you and me, has actually grown to more than $47 billion. But this comes amid news the U.S. could restart fighting shortly after the election. The Wall Street Journal reporting the U.S. told allies in the region to get ready for a, quote, short, intense military campaign. President Trump with this message for Tehran. They wanted to make a deal, but they like tapping it along. Maybe they're waiting for the election or something, but that's not going to help them. The election's not going out. President Trump is going to make a decision here. I think it's going to have to be a comprehensive military campaign. It cannot be whack-a-mole what the United States did before. Our Gulf State partners are going to have to come alongside the United States. And the war has driven gas prices sky high. And one of the things we're really watching is whether Americans vote with their pocketbook. This is where things stand right now, according to GasBuddy.com. Just kind of odd to me, but look at the disparity between the United States average and Metro Detroit. It's like, what 77 cents higher united states right now the average in the country 423 in michigan 466 and here in metro detroit 480 a gallon for regular well the federal reserve maintaining status quo keeping its key interest rate at 3.9 percent that's despite inflation staying high but federal reserve chair Kevin Warsh saying he's holding off on a rate hike allowing them to gather more information to figure out what's coming next most economists expect the big bank to hike its key rate at its next meeting in december the president demanding rate cuts but last month the fed raised the rate despite that pressure warsh speaking today saying politics had nothing to do with the decision take a listen i just spent two days with my colleagues uh upstairs i didn't hear an utterance about politics i didn't hear a reference to uh uh politics elections what's happening in the next week or so. I didn't hear anything about it. And I don't believe it had any role in the decision, not just for me, but my colleagues around the room. But I will say it's an information-rich interval in the coming period, having nothing to do with politics. Another key sign, the Fed could raise its rate again before the end of the year. Two officials dissented from the decision to keep the rate the same. Believe it or not, with all that, that's just scratching the surface. So let's pick up the pace and run through some of the other big stories we're on top of right now at this hour, starting in California, where a judge says he's considering appointing a special master to review claims by the Trump administration that the state has roughly 20,000 non-citizens on its voter rolls. That special master would basically figure out whether counties could separate any ballots belonging to ineligible voters. It's not clear tonight what would happen if a special master did find a substantial number of non-citizens on the federal government's list or if it would actually impact the state's results being certified. Voting there has been underway for weeks. But California is not the only state the DOJ is zeroing in on tonight. They want Washington state to set aside any ballots from more than 400 people it claims are not citizens until state officials can verify their citizenship. The state has more than five million registered voters and it issues mail ballots to all of them. The acting U.S. attorney in Seattle, reviewed the list and says one of the people on the list last voted in 1994. Alleged voting by non-citizens has been something the Trump administration has zeroed in on, even though data shows it has happened. And it happens, but it is very rare. And President Trump says his administration is ending a Biden-era rule cutting methane emissions from oil and gas drilling. The president claiming it would save customers and consumers and companies billions of bucks and unlock 210 million barrels of oil. That's about 10 days of U.S. petroleum use. To put that in perspective, the goal is to encourage domestic drilling, but scientists estimate that methane is responsible for about a third of greenhouse gas emissions. We are turning to the race for governor after the break. Both candidates are making their last-minute push for voters with six days left. One of them, Congressman John James, is standing by live next on The Pulse. Back now on The Pulse, looking at all things people, power and politics here to discuss the race for governor, congressman and Republican candidate John James. And by the way, we'll be speaking with Democratic candidate Jocelyn Benson on Monday on The Pulse as well. And so, Congressman, it's good to see you as always. Thanks for joining us tonight. Are you tired yet? Of course not. You get tired when you're done. You know, we have a lot of work to do and the work really starts after we get elected on November 3rd. We have a lot of work to do to get our state back on track. But I truly believe that our best days are ahead with proven leadership that's dedicated to service. The best is yet to come. I heard you on a campaign ad today essentially make a point saying that you do not rubber stamp everything President Trump says and does. I want you to reflect on that for a moment and talk specifically about the things that you've broken with the president about and and what you want viewers to know relative to that. Yeah, I called him out years ago. When he made those disparaging comments about John McCain and third world countries, I've stood up to the administration, said that this trade negotiations will not be born on the backs of Michiganders. And I told him directly to go back to the table because we need to protect our jobs. But at the same time, we need to make sure that we're negotiating the mutual beneficial agreement so we can get back on track. The president also is a big fan of data centers. And I said, that's not his call. That's the call of people, state of Michigan. And I'll respect local control, make sure that we protect our electricity bills from going up, make sure that we protect our green farmland, make sure we protect our water and prevent pollution. Those are just three off the top of my head. I've always put Michigan first, and I'll continue to put Michigan first, but those things don't get reported because they don't fit the agenda. The fact of the matter is I was elected from a swing district twice because people recognize that I will put them first. And so being attacked from the left or being too far right, being attacked by the right, being too far left in a purple state like Michigan might be just right. Well, yeah. And I do want to talk about the data centers and hone in on that. I had the chance to talk to the president about data centers on Sunday when he was here. And he told me that, look, once you incentivize communities by making payouts to communities using some of the profit sharing from the success of these data centers, then perhaps people will change their tune. And I said, that's not happening in Saline. He says, just wait. When that starts happening, it'll be good. Your thoughts on that? Yeah, certainly not happening in Saline, because when he brings the Jocelyn Benson's running mate past Public Act 233, that takes local control away from places like Saline and Jocelyn Benson's husband not only pocketed three hundred seventy thousand dollars to their personal account, not to a PAC, not to a campaign directly into their pockets, three hundred seventy thousand dollars. And this is while he was delivering the hand delivering applications for this data center over the objections of Saline twice. So, again, when I'm governor, I'm not going to have any NDAs. We're going to be protecting local control and we're going to be making sure that we are doing this on the terms of the locals, not on Lansing. All right. I know Ryan Friedrichs, the the husband of Jocelyn Benson and Jocelyn herself have said, look, he changed his position in that particular job that he was in before any of the money that you're talking about was exchanged. But look, disclosures are something that everyone should be looking at closely on both sides of the coin here. In the three minutes we have left. That's right, Rup. And on that disclosure, on 2025, she omitted that information. So what should you have to hide? If you want to learn the truth, go to datacenterdarlings.com, datacenterdarlings.com. You can figure it out for yourself. The truth is out there. You can just go Google it. I want to ask you about the war in Iran in a few minutes we have left here. It is deeply concerning to people that this is a war that the president said would take weeks. And then when he was asked months later whether it would end, he said very soon. It has now been four months since he last said very soon. And now he's saying it could be months still. This is something, this is a war that he said when he first ran, hey, I'm not going to get us into endless wars. Are we in an endless war here? Well, I hate war. I've been. And so, ultimately, we need to make sure that Iran does not have a nuke, and we need to make sure that we have all the resources, making sure we're using diplomatic and economic resources to bring this war to an end quickly. I've said for a long time now, this war needs to be over like yesterday. So, ultimately, we need to make sure that America stays safe, and we make sure that America stays economically whole. This is part of the reason why I have called for the state gas tax to be suspended and also for the federal gas tax to be suspended. Frankly, Democrats have the opportunity to send a bill to the House, and Winnie Brinks was told not to by Jocelyn Benson, because your pain is their plan. Right now, around the country, they're paying lower gas bills. They wanna point the finger at the president, but we all have the same president. Jocelyn Benson said that Indiana and Ohio are eating our lunch. Well, guess what? $3 gas in Indiana. We need to bring our gas lower. We need to make sure that we are having economic energy. And the policies that Democrats have put in place for the past eight years are hurting you and your wallet. We need to make sure that we start bringing our population back here, that we begin growing our economy here. And it's time for a change. I'm looking forward to bringing that change. You got to do it by making the place attractive. My mom and dad moved to Troy, Michigan because the schools were good back in 1982, right? And so now you look at the schools in Michigan and you're talking about a crisis. I mean, we're 45th in the nation and in literacy, we're not doing well. What do you do? How do you start fixing that as governor? Well, it's funny you bring up Troy, Michigan, because in past eight years with Johnson, Benson, Democrats in charge, we've lost 90,000 manufacturing and business services jobs and 90,000 is about the equivalent to the size of Troy, Michigan. We've lost that in the past eight years. And that's just an example of the fact that we're 49th out of 50 in population growth. A number of big things to include education is a reason why, in addition to the failing economy. We're 45th out of 50 in education. And so when I'm governor, we're going to be focusing on the fundamentals. We're going to prioritize educators over administrators. We're going to make sure that our school rooms are not battlegrounds for culture war. And we're going to prioritize phonics, the science of reading. We're going to compensate our teachers. I'm going to opt into the Education and Freedom Tax Credit, which is $1 billion in scholarships to go to families that desperately need it for everything from tutoring to new materials. We're going to restore accountability because right now the only people being graded are our children, and we're grading our children because we love them. Similarly, we need to grade our school systems because we want them to be successful as well. Ultimately, we need to get more resources to get skilled trades as early as middle school and make sure that our kids leave with a certification or license so they are ready and prepared and AI-proof for the future. I'm looking forward to supporting our public schools and all options for everyone to include charter home and private school, because there should be no wrong way for a parent to choose where to send their child to be successful. It's a tall order, but one that the next person who has that job in Lansing has to get on top of and work with the legislature that's willing to do the things that they plan. And so we'll be watching this very carefully. Congressman John James, we thank you for your time here tonight. Thanks, Rupert. God bless. And we're talking with Jocelyn Benson, as we say, on Monday for a conversation about the similar topics that so many people have on their minds. We're keeping our midterm countdown going after the break. Communications expert Andrea Bytley and Detroit News reporter Craig Mauger dive into the big issues. You're watching The Pulse on Fox 2. It is people, power, and politics. Welcome back to Detroit's only nightly political talk show, The Pulse. Here to dive into the midterms, Bytley Communications founder and principal Andrea Bytley and Detroit News political reporter Craig Mauger. It's great to see you both. Thanks for joining us here. Thanks for having us. This is fun to have you both here because Andrea you've been on quite a bit craig we've never had you on what a moment it's a great i'm so excited we're excited to have you uh we run into craig everywhere we cover politics and so it's good that you joined us here today uh Andrea we'll begin with you uh communications wise i want you to take this from and by the way andrea uh helped with the duggan campaign when when he was running messaging um what is missing let's start with the governor's race with messaging right now for both parties? For both candidates, the only thing that matters from here on out is getting people to show up. The actual message, that was months ago. Now it's just the pure show up at this point. We'll get you there, you know, come hell or high water is the only message left. Are they doing a good job, Jocelyn Benson and John James? You know, we're really seeing these bus tours all over the state. Is it effective? I don't know. We're going to find out. We've seen big names come in for both parties with that same just show up message. So we're going to find out here in less than a week. We'll know if it worked. I was doing a little studying of the rallies, right? So I looked at the Obama visit and I was looking more so instead of Obama, looking at the audience. Then I was looking at the Trump rally and looked at the audience. And I looked at the age of the people who are in the audience at both these rallies. These are people who already are going to vote and who know who Obama and Trump are and like them a lot. What about some of the voters who are first-time voters out there, college students, Craig? Are they impressed by Obama and Trump visits into town? That's a great question. But, I mean, you need those people that are the hardcore followers to be fired up to go contact all those other people that might not be as excited to go out and vote. So, I mean, I think these rallies do have a positive impact to show the base that, hey, you've got to get energized. You've got to get out there. You've got to contact. I mean, I was just at an event in Lapeer County where they said, hey, you need to contact 10 people or 20 people or 30 people. So there becomes this wave effect. If one of these people came to Michigan and they had an empty gym here in the final days, that would be bad for them. And both of the, you know, the former president and the current president, raucous events over the weekend. There's a lot of energy there. Yeah. And you've got to drive up that base and get the base to go vote. And as you say, the base become ambassadors to other people who are otherwise unaffected by these campaigns. Let's talk about the Senate race now for a moment. You know, people are asking questions at this hour, especially with six days left. How close will it be? And I've told everyone that I can talk to that asked me the question, who are interested in my answer, it's going to be really tight. We're talking, you know, three to five percentage points at the most. Am I correct in your assessment? Yes, you are. It's going to be really close. We've been seeing new numbers, actually, in your paper, talking about northern Michigan and the Upper Peninsula. Big numbers for the Democrats, surprisingly big numbers for the Democrats. I happened to drive through the U.P. a few weeks ago. More Democrat signs than I've seen, I think, ever. So I think the Democrats have really worked outstate. The question is, can El Sayed pull enough votes from Oakland, Wayne and Macomb counties to prevent Rogers from from winning Oakland and Macomb counties? Craig, your thoughts on the up north vote and the college students as well? I mean, I think it's pointing to something that's going to be key in this election. When you talk to people inside the parties, they're saying, hey, maybe there's not a blue wave across the state, But maybe there's a wave in specific regions of the state. So that map of Michigan, you're going to be seeing that a lot coming up on November 3rd on all the news channels, including yours. And there could be areas like West Michigan, Kent County, where Democrats really do well, win up and down the ballot. There could be other areas like Macomb County where Republicans do a little bit better than they have before. It might not be a blanket situation across the entire state. It might look more divided as we look across the state of Michigan. What are we getting wrong in television media and also print media when it comes to monolithically painting broad brushes? We talk about the Jewish vote, the black vote. Are we are we getting this wrong already? I think there's a lot of focus on some of these kind of, you know, smaller groups of voters, Jewish voters, black voters. These are important coalitions and blocks of voters in this state. But really, when you win in Michigan, you got to win over a whole bunch of diverse coalitions. the working class vote in Macomb County is going to be absolutely pivotal in this election. You haven't heard a lot about that in some of the national media coverage that we've gotten. These college campuses, if there is indeed a big push, and that's an if right now, if there's a big push for Abdul El-Sayed on these campuses and they turn out in numbers that exceed what happened in 2024, that could be pivotal in a lot of races across the state. So there are so many different voting blocks to watch. And, Andrea, that's how Abdullah El-Sayed did so well in Kent County, was a lot of the younger voters and those college students, right? So the push is on. Yeah, the push is absolutely on. Both teams are out there really working. I mean, downtown Lansing saw 100 or so college students from across the country hitting doors in downtown Lansing for Republicans. Not a Republican stronghold. I can tell you that right now. But you're seeing the same groups of people. You're seeing them in Grand Rapids. You're seeing in Kalamazoo. Really motivating students to get out and vote. Is Mike Rogers voice and his message right now resonating with people who are afraid of the unknown, whether it be culture war stuff, religious stuff or socialism stuff? Is that resonating with voters, you think? We're seeing these polls stay so even it is resonating with some voters somewhere. You see the negativity amping up on both sides towards each other. So you know that the negative is making a difference in what's going on out there. Do undecideds move the meter markedly in this election, Craig? Yeah, I mean, I think in Michigan, always those independent undecided voters are going to be the ones that swing it one way or another. But another thing to watch that, you know, I should have added earlier is you've got to watch the margins in all these places. If Abdul, like you might think of some of these counties in the U.P. and just be like, oh, there's not a lot of people that live there. But if Abdul can cut into the Republican margin in a lot of these counties in the U.P., that could be devastating for Mike Rogers. The same thing for, you know, Rogers in Oakland County. He probably is not going to win Oakland County. But if he can cut into the margin that Democrats typically get there, that means Abdul has to do a lot more everywhere else in Michigan. Taking pieces and parts of all of this and making it your own, that's the job, right? Absolutely, that's the job. All right. Andrea Bytley, Craig Magruder, great to see you both. Thanks for joining us here. Come back on The Pulse. Actually, we have a few extra seconds, I'm told. I thought we had 30 seconds left. We have 90 seconds. Oh, yes. Let's go. We have more time. Speed round. Let's do this. Andrea, what is it that you think is going to really move the meter when it comes to social media and ads? What's the message you think for Rogers and then for All Saints? It really is at this point, just show up. And it's micro-targeting specific groups, whether it be you know your farm ag folks outstate, your students in Ann Arbor. It's making sure that people are there. They're actually going to the polls at this point. Craig? I mean, I think you're just going to hear more of the same. You asked kind of what the messages are that work. And when you hear a candidate have the same message for multiple weeks, that's a good sign that they have polling that that message is working. You heard some of the things that Congressman James said that he's been talking about for a while about data centers. Mike Rogers is talking about this Muslim Brotherhood thing. he's been talking about it for multiple weeks i think you're going to hear more about that and then the next couple of days before election day those are definitely at the end of their focus group life those have been tested and tested and tested they're still working the stuff they move off of after a couple weeks which there are some things in this campaign that they've moved off of the Southern Poverty Law Center we haven't been hearing about as much as that yeah well craig and andrea again thank you for your time here tonight on The Pulse we appreciate having you and as we say. We'll have Jocelyn Benson on The Pulse coming up on Monday night. But for now, that is The Pulse for tonight. Thank you so much for joining us. I'm Rup Raj. As always, it was good to be with you.