Welcome back.

State Senator Mallory McMorrow would like to be Michigan's next U.S. senator.

She's announced her candidacy this week and is selling a book at the same time.

Our lead story, the president's tariffs on foreign cars coming into this country.

Not everybody agrees on OTR panel.

Craig Mauger, Clara Hendrickson and Jonathan Oosting.

sit in with us as we get the inside out.

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

Learn more at bellwetherpr.com And now this edition of Off the Record with Tim Skubick.

Thank you very much.

Welcome to Studio C on a really interesting week in our state with all the ice storms and the like.

But this story is wishes I'd taken more econ, you know, when I was in school.

Tariff's.

Okay.

What's going on tariff wise.

Well, they're finally happening.

You know it's been stop and start and stop and start and now we have tariffs on auto imports, foreign cars coming into the country, and we'll see what happens.

I think it's been fascinating to sort of see the delays here.

And then this implementation finally, because this isn't really like a controlled experiment, a lot of Democrats who even say like there's merit to pursuing tariffs and as a way to bring manufacturing jobs back to the US.

But they have to be done with intention and companies need to know what's coming down the pipeline.

And so the fact that there's just been so much uncertainty, how much is that going to create some potentially additional pain than would have otherwise taken place?

Yeah, I don't think being an economist will necessarily help you here.

I think we're in uncharted territory.

I mean, I think we know there's going to be some short term pain.

The president has acknowledged that we've already seen some churn in the auto industry just yesterday.

Prices are going to go up.

These are a tax on goods.

But the long game is, you know, this is reshuffling international trade.

And I don't think anybody really knows how it's going to land in the end.

But the stakes are obviously very, very high for Michigan especially, which there's a lot of international trade across the border with Canada, the auto industry being tied in with Canada and Mexico and globally.

So it's a really big deal.

I mean, the stakes for Michigan are just you can't say how high they are going off the charts.

I mean, we are a state that depends on the auto industry.

It drives everything that happens with our economy, whether that's good or bad, that's where we are.

And we're a state when there's a downturn that feels it worse than other states.

Those are just facts that people should should keep in mind as they're watching all of this play out.

The Dow lost 1600 points yesterday.

There is already some signs that the state's economy is turning negative.

We've had the lower the largest increase in our unemployment rate of any state in the country over the last year.

We went from 4% to 5.4%.

We have one of the largest unemployment rates in the country at this moment.

So if things continue to go down and there are more layoffs and the auto industry kind of falters, at least temporarily, there is going to be a lot of problems in the state of Michigan.

And that's something we should all be thinking about.

The US auto industry, too.

There's an agriculture is another big industry in Michigan.

We've seen, you know, last time Trump, you know, tried a smaller scale tariffs in 2019, the retaliatory tariffs put on the US.

We're specifically targeting the agricultural industry.

And that could have a big impact on Michigan as well.

The UAW, have they started to walk back that original position?

Remember, the president was all in on this thing.

And then Debbie Dingell had a gig earlier this week with one of the aides of the president who sort of said, well, you know, we like tariffs, but we don't like what's going on.

They didn't say that in the first round.

No, and that's been a lot of the press releases from the Democratic leaders of Michigan.

Tariffs aren't necessarily bad, but we can't just throw them on in a hasty manner, which is a really confusing message, I think, for a lot of people who will be reading that.

I think it's wanting to have it both ways, wanting to have it both ways at a time where, you know, the prices people will be paying could go up, at least temporarily.

People are losing money in their retirement, I mean, thousands of dollars.

And then you get these kind of muddied statements coming out that, hey, you know, it just depends how you approach this.

And it doesn't really speak to the reality that people are facing some of the UAWs initial positive comments were specifically about the auto import tax.

You know, specifically they're saying that to the USMCA have not resolved these trade imbalances or led to more jobs in the United States domestic production.

But, of course, the president has gone way beyond that this week with the quote unquote, reciprocal tariffs, which in a lot of cases are much more than reciprocal.

So, I mean, there is sort of a UAW and maybe some politicians who are trying to walk that line and separate these different tariffs.

But, you know, they're all kind of in the same bucket at this point.

I was thinking about this this morning, too.

It's just it's striking to look at the two different approaches of former President Biden and former President Trump.

Their end goals are the same, essentially bringing more manufacturing back to the United States.

How did Biden want to do it?

He was going to provide these incentives, trying to get companies to build these large semiconductor product projects in the United States.

Now, Trump is doing it through issuing these tariffs.

It's just two completely different directions aimed at the same goal.

What do you say, carrot and stick?

Yes, exactly.

Well, utensils were different.

Scalpel versus sledgehammer.

Yeah.

Okay.

Chainsaw, I believe, is the DOGE.

I'm sorry.

Craig talked about this sort of being a very high stakes moment for Michigan's economy because of its reliance on the auto industry, which is true.

That's a very high stakes moment for Trump and his message on trade.

I mean, we have this bipartisan consensus that trade liberalization would sort of bring economic growth and it would be good.

There's an economic consensus now that that created a lot of regional imbalances, and there were winners and losers from that bipartisan consensus.

No politician has done more to reshuffle the politics of trade policy than Trump.

He's finally moving forward with his tariffs.

And this is going to be a big test to see whether there's political support for that, depending on what happens.

In our town.

If you're sitting down at the Capitol, when they come back and you're writing the state budget, you write two state budgets, the one that we want to do or the one that we may have to do, it will be fascinating to see what for people who don't follow that process, I mean, they're constantly every quarter about a revenue estimate, about what's going to be flowing into the state coffers.

And that's the basis for making the budget the next revenue estimating conference.

You know, those are really usually quite boring, but this one might be interesting.

What are they going to say?

I mean, how do you project what to base this budget on?

That's the point that you're getting to.

And it's a it's a quite a question.

Yeah.

Yesterday, Governor Whitmer even brought up she's concerned about the impact this will have on schools.

And you don't immediately see a connection there.

But it seems like what she's talking about, I think maybe you guys reported on it was sales tax.

If consumers stop purchasing, is purchasing as many goods, If we really do go into a recession, it's going to mean less sales tax and a big portion of the sales tax funds.

Schools in Michigan.

So, you know, there are going to be interesting ramifications potentially down the line that folks might not have thought of.

And then all of a sudden, the $10,000 per pupil is looking like it may not happen.

We're going to have to make some choices.

You're going to have to make some serious choices.

You're not going to be able to free up $3 billion from the current budget for roads like Matt Hall, Speaker Hall has talked about.

Well, it does.

It's a predicament.

It really is.

And speaking about predicaments, let's talk to our guest who's in the predicament of running for the U.S. Senate.

Let's see how she's doing.

Senator, Senator, welcome back to Off the Record.

It's good to see you.

Good to see you.

A busy week for you.

A little bit.

Now let's talk about your book.

Tell the people the name of the title.

And after you do that, the question is, when people get done reading the book, what would they have learned that they didn't know Going in?

the book is called Hate Won't Win.

Find Your Power and leave this place better than We Found it.

That's Chapter 1.

It's a full book.

So it's a book in two parts, which I think is unique for politicians memoirs.

The first part is a memoir, but really to demystify the idea that I was in any way unique or special in getting into this role, I Googled how to run for office after the 2016 election.

People will learn about a lot of trial and error in the book.

How I really struggled with fundraising.

I have an anecdote about calling a friend named Brian from college, who lived in Chicago and just how awkward it was to stumble through.

I'm Mallory McMorrow, and you probably don't remember me.

And the last time I saw you, we were at a kegger drinking beer out of a Frisbee.

Can I have 50 bucks?

And him hanging up on me?

And you just build up a muscle like anything else.

The second half of the book is what I am most excited about.

It is a step by step guide.

How to for anybody who wants to get involved and figure out how to make real change in their communities, how to find your motivation, how to find your voice, how to tell a story, and how to interact with elected officials in an effective way.

I saw when you were writing the book, when you decided to do it, did you know you're going to run for office?

Higher office?

No.

Oh, come on.

No, I didn't.

Oh, this is.

You had nothing else to do.

And I said, I'll write a book.

I wrote the book every morning for about a year from 4 to 7 a.m. before my daughter woke up, before my phone started ringing.

And that was a process that started a few years ago.

I finished the book over a year ago, so the timing is very coincidental.

Who's got one?

Senator?

The title Hate Win that came from a speech you delivered on the floor of the state Senate in 2022, I believe it was.

A colleague had suggested calling you a groomer because you were supporting LGBTQ kids at the time.

Obviously, that speech went viral, led to this book deal, I assume, and propelled you into the public consciousness nationwide.

At the same time, we saw some of that mindset from that attack be successful politically for Donald Trump, for his allies who are now rolling back or trying to block trans rights kids in high school sports, for instance, hate won't win.

But is it winning?

Hate's definitely having a moment.

I think that is true.

And people looked at the headline and that the book title and said, is this actually reality?

And the case that I'm making is it's a call to action.

It is not a guarantee.

It requires all of us to participate and use our voices.

And we're in a moment right now where Donald Trump ran on a platform of lowering people's costs.

And we see people across our state saying, I did not ask for these tariffs.

I did not ask for what's about to happen to my retirement.

Why are you spending all of this time and energy focusing on issues that aren't impacting my life?

And that's an opportunity for people to step in and raise their voices.

Well, on the tariffs question, part of your strength I've heard you describe is messaging right in your viral speech.

You're holding up Project 2025 at the DNC.

How should Democrats be messaging this issue?

We talked earlier about the UAW, maybe going back and forth a little bit.

How should Democrats or progressives or liberals, whatever, be messaging this issue right now on tariffs?

Well, Jonathan, I think you hit on it exactly when we started to hear about the tariff conversation specifically related to the auto industry and setting up the auto industry to be able to compete with the increasing success of China.

That is a strategy I think that many Democrats in the state of Michigan would get behind because there is a possibility to bring more jobs into some of these idled plants.

Maybe bring another shift back online.

But what we saw announced this week on so-called Liberation Day is blanket tariffs on everything from every country.

You know, I don't know about you.

I'm a big Arrested Development fan.

The joke of Michael, what if bananas cost $10 was supposed to be that a joke and now people are heading to the grocery store?

I got a text this morning of somebody who saw unroasted coffee beans and thought for a second about, okay, do I buy those?

And actually put in the work to roast them myself, because we're not going to be able to afford anything very soon.

There's always money in the banana stand.

Always.

My sense.

Senator, I want to learn a little bit more about your policy agenda.

If you're elected to the US Senate.

If you could wave a magic wand and change three things in federal policy, what would they be?

So what we're going to be laying out is a vision for a new American dream that falls under three buckets Success, safety and sanity.

Success, meaning I am a member of the millennial generation, the first generation that by and large is going to do worse than our parents.

We are a generation that does not expect that we'll be able to afford to buy a house.

Raising a family or starting a family is off the table for too many people.

So that is really piece one is reclaiming the American Dream narrative for people to show that if you work hard, you should be able to live the life that you dreamed of in a place like Michigan, and that includes maybe even going up north in the summer and having a place that you can rent and bring your family.

For safety.

That is about protecting our fundamental civil rights and liberties, our voting rights, on continuing to tackle gun violence, something that's been a priority for me in Lansing, where we've been arguably more successful than what we've seen in Washington.

And bringing that approach and then sanity, especially in this moment.

I had a constituent tell me, I just want government to be boring again.

I don't want to have to watch the news.

I don't want to scroll social media and worry about what you guys are doing or saying or who's calling who a groomer.

And that is an approach that I want to bring back to to Washington and lead from Michigan in a way that I think we've been very productive and pragmatic in a way that's sorely needed.

Over the last decade a lot of the major Democratic races in the state have been decided by kind of powers that be ahead of time.

You know, they figure out who the nominee is going to be for Senate, and everyone aligns behind the person or governor.

Everyone aligns behind that person.

This moment with you kind of getting into this primary race signals something different because the powers that be aren't necessarily aligning behind you.

There's some indication that other people are being recruited to run siting U.S. House members.

Is that something that has crossed your mind?

Did you have any hesitation about that?

And then two, did anyone ask you, hey, don't run for this, it's not your turn yet.

Or tell you that.

They did.

not going to name names, but that is something that was asked of me and, you know, I ran for office for the first time in 2018 when nobody asked, I looked it up.

I figured out how to do it.

I figured out who represented me and put my name on a ballot and was told then that I had no chance of winning.

One of my local Democratic Party leaders said, That's cute.

You're going to get destroyed, but you can build your name recognition and run for city commission next time.

I think that Michiganders are tired of watching parties anoint people.

They want a choice.

We heard that loud and clear in 2024 that voters want to decide their own future, not have it decided for them.

So it was important for me to announce first to come out of the gate with our vision, and the response has been incredible.

We raised over $1,000,000 in the first day.

We got donations from all 83 counties and all 50 states.

One of the you won't name the names of who kind of told you this.

Was their message essentially, you should run for the state Senate again.

You should run for the U.S. House.

I'm just curious of how this process works, because we don't often get a window into it.

Yeah.

And first of all, I will say that by and large, as we've reached out to people, they've been very supportive.

But there have been one or two people who the message was, you know, it's not your turn.

Somebody else is looking at it and you may want to consider running for Congress.

And you told them, take a hike.

And I said, I'm announcing on Wednesday.

Dana Nessel has suggested that people that are trying to work with Donald Trump are going to regret it.

Do you agree with her?

I think the attorney general is doing an incredible job in her role.

I don't know when she sleeps, the number of lawsuits that she's filing and pushing back on the Trump administration when there is overreach and overreach, that number one, violates the Constitution, breaks the law or hurts Michiganders.

At the same time, we've seen Donald Trump really take out personal vengeance on people who dare to stand up for him.

We've seen that this happened in Maine with a governor who dared to speak out and that he's denying that state funding that hurts the residents of that state.

So it's a tricky tightrope to walk to be able to use your voice to push back.

But this is a man who there's no rhyme or reason for why he does what he does.

And everybody has to play their role.

The question was, is the governor taking the right course by trying to cooperate?

I think she has to.

You know, I don't envy the position that she's in.

But again, you know, if she stands up and says something that may get her flowers from the Democratic base, that's something that we all celebrate.

But then he denies our state $1,000,000 just because she spoke out as somebody who serves on the Appropriations Committee in the state Senate, that puts us in a really difficult position to try to figure out what type of a budget we passed.

So, in effect, Ms.. Nessel, who could be an opponent in this race, has got it wrong.

No, she's doing what her role is.

Wait a second, You can't have it both ways, You can.

You can understand that there is a different role between the governor and the attorney general.

Well, Apparently the attorney general doesn't understand that she's telling the governor that what she's doing is wrong.

Well, I'm not Dana Nessel, but I think both of them are doing their roles effectively.

Can you expand on what you just said about the governor?

I mean, a lot of people will be interested in those comments.

We've seen U of M say they're doing away with their DEI policy is getting blowback from a lot of Democrats.

The Black Legislative Caucus, including we've seen major law firms in DC reach these compromised deals with the Trump administration.

But you just said the governor should, you know, is right to not come out and criticize.

Am I interpreting that correctly?

I think that she is being really thoughtful in how she responds and when she responds, you know, she's up north right now dealing with the ice storms and the impacts we are going to need federal funding from the Trump administration to respond to a disaster that we've seen in our state.

The number of people who are still without power and the amount of money that it is going to take to repair the damage is going to be astronomical.

So I do believe she is in a really tough spot to be able to use her voice to stand up in the way that she needs to stand up while also not doing something that unintentionally inflicts harm on the residents of Michigan.

So what about if you were in the Senate then, right now?

I mean, there was a lot of blowback from some grassroots Democrats for Gary Peters and Elissa Slotikin voting for Trump nominees, for instance, for various jobs in D.C. Would you be willing to reach across the aisle and work with Trump or would you be part of the quote unquote, resistance?

You got to reach across the aisle when you can?

You know, here in the state, I have built up a reputation for bipartisanship, particularly on economic development.

I have been very critical of our state's approach to leaning too heavily on large incentives and trying to reform SOAR our state's largest economic development incentive tool to focus more on community investment and prosperity.

And I've worked most notably with John Damoose, a Republican from Northern Michigan, on introducing that legislation, will be reintroducing that legislation soon.

So I'm always willing to work with whoever wants to work, but I also have a track record.

If you were going to stand in the way of that progress, I'm going to stand up and I'm going to fight back.

In the role in a legislative body is, in my mind, very different than that of the executive, where you are the singular person who's responsible for for leading the state.

I think you have a little bit more flexibility in the legislative body to stand up.

I have to admit I haven't read your whole book, but I did read some bullet points that said something to the effect of one of the arguments you make is that the place to make real change is local government, not federal government.

Why are you running for U.S. Senate if you believe that?

So the book is targeted at anybody and everybody who wants to make change.

And what I've seen happen is people who call me and they say things like, I have sent emails to our U.S. senators, I've sent emails to the president, and I'm not seeing the change that I want.

The argument in the book is to start local and work your way up that if you care very deeply about, you know, the through line of the book is gun violence prevention and my my red flag law that maybe start with a resolution in your city council, then work up to have a relationship with your state representative or your state senator, and you are more likely to see movement than just starting at the top.

Why?

I am now running for the US Senate is I believe we need a real partner on the federal level.

In a moment where Republicans in the Senate are completely abdicating their responsibility to be a check on the administration, they're giving up their role to give Donald Trump everything that he wants.

And as I think about the future of Michigan and Michiganders, we have to defend this seat to make sure that we're defending Michiganders.

Let's talk about practical politics.

If you were in the Senate today, you would have vote to get Mr. Schumer out of the leadership position, yay or nay?

Yes.

Okay.

And so secondly, do we conclude from that that you wanted to shut down the government because he voted to keep it open?

No.

So we saw our delegation split on the vote.

Gary Peters voted in favor of the continuing resolution.

Elissa Slotkin voted against it and we saw Mitch McConnell.

How would you have voted?

Well to be fair, I was not in all the negotiations, but based on the public statements that I saw, I would have voted no and I align with Elissa's reasonings.

She said that in the negotiations she had asked for a guarantee that Donald Trump and Elon Musk would no longer fire federal workers at will, would not slash the Department of Education in half.

I had a town hall in Birmingham where out of 100 people, three federal workers had been fired and that she said she also wanted guarantees that if they appropriated federal dollars, that those dollars would be used as anticipated.

And because she could not get that, she voted no.

And instead, you're effectively just handing the Trump administration the keys through September with no ramifications.

This is going to be a crowded Democratic primary for the US Senate.

How are you planning to stand out and what makes you different from your potential opponents in the race?

Right now It's not crowded.

There's only one person in the race and it's me.

And this feels like a moment.

And the response from our launch is indicative of this, where people are looking for somebody new, somebody who has a different voice, somebody who knows how to cut through, somebody who reaches people where they are, somebody who knows how to communicate in a very real way.

You know, I started doing on Instagram ask me anything just about every week.

And I've grown on that platform from 20,000 followers to 90,000 followers, just answering people's questions about, are we going to be okay?

Some people ask me what's happening to the nine bills that are in the state House and how are they going to get to the governor?

So there's people who are very involved and in the weeds and then people ask, what's your favorite Bluey episode and how do you sleep at night?

And how do you balance being a mom and being a legislator?

And people want to know how the people that they elect to represent them.

And that is something that I think is unique to me that I will be able to bring to this job that is very fresh and new to the U.S. Senate, where there are not that many younger elected officials.

I would be the youngest would be an attack dog if you have to.

If I have to, of course, and I always have been.

Well, Mike Duggan says that's the wrong strategy, that people are fed up with that I think people are fed up with fighting for fighting sake.

I am not going to be the equivalent of the Nancy Mace of the Democratic Party where you're just picking fights and trying to go viral constantly.

I never wanted to go viral, but when somebody comes at me and comes at people who I represent and who I care about in a way that is incredibly damaging, I am going to stand up for them and I'm going to clearly articulate what we are fighting for.

So people want to see a fighter, watch how people responded to Cory Booker taking to the Senate floor, standing there for 25 hours to uplift the voices and the fears of his constituents.

That is what they are looking for.

Do you think go back to your comment earlier to Clara about a new generation of leadership in your in your announcement.

You said something to the effect of the people who are in DC are going to be the ones who can fix the mess in DC.

There are some members of your own party in Congress considering a run for US Senate.

Were you referencing them?

I think the approach in Washington is wrong and I am carving out a lane for myself as somebody who I think it's a sweet spot of being an outsider to Washington while not being a complete newbie.

I know how to operate in a legislature, both in the minority in the majority, and I'm making the case for myself.

So it wasn't a shot at Haley Stevens for instance?

Individuals No, absolutely not.

You know, here's your problem.

You get in the US Senate, you have no power at all.

You're a newbie and newbies have nada.

I think I've got a track record that says otherwise.

You know, when I came into the state for the US Senate, it's a little different.

It is a little different, but the skill set is the same.

Do you want to stay for a little bit of overtime?

Can you or not.

What time we got?

Sure.

I got you.

Okay.

All right.

Well, good.

It be bad if nobody is in that seat over there.

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