>>> Welcome back.

The guest this week is Dr. Pamela PUGH, the vice president of state board of education, and the lead story, the governor and school masking controversy goes on, and on the OTR panel, Jim, Eric, and ZOEY Clark sit in with us as we have the inside out "off the record."

>> Announcer: production of "off the record" is made possible by the following.

A strategic plan to make Michigan a top ten state in the mission for jobs, a personal income, and healthy economy.

Learn more to Michigansroadtotopten.com.

>> Now this is "off the record."

>> Thank very much.

Welcome back, we are zooming here from studio C, and we have a great panel with with us this morning, Eric, ZOEY, and Jim, great to have you on board.

It is the story dogging the governor wherever she goes, governor, what about the mask mandate?

She really had things to say about that this week.

Let's look in.

>> There are no plans to do any broad mandates.

>> The governor is staying on message and staying out of the political hot water that local school boards are on the state find themselves in.

Some parents want their children to wear masks, and others do not.

Without a state mandate to do it, local school boards and superintendents are forced to make that call, and the governor suggests that some really want to do that.

>> We know that districts in large measure wanted the ability to make chose decisions at the local level.

We're encouraging them to follow the CDC guidance.

>> Those guidelines include using masks and encouraging everyone to get vaccinated.

The chief medical adviser, meanwhile, told the governor the spread of Covid can be reduced with masks, but the governor rejected that advice, leading some of her critics to contend she's not making her decision based on the science.

>> Governor, was the decision based on science?

>> Decisions have always been informed by the science.

>> Well, some would argue if science was dictating Dr. Calhoun to recommend masks, and you're not doing it on science.

>> You know, I think that that's -- that's not accurate.

I think that it is important that we make the science the centerpiece of the work that we do, but, certainly, we got to navigate a number of factors.

>> Including the fact the vaccines are available.

The lobby in the superintendent was asked.

>> Do you want a mandate?

>> It is not what we are asking for right now, but we are asking for help in explaining to the communities the benefits of these types of decisions.

>> Regard less of which way mask decisions go, somebody's not going to be happy.

All right, Eric, what do you think of the news conference?

>> Well, I find it very interesting that she is being so defiant and sticking to this because, like we've said throughout this entire pandemic, she's sticking to the science and what Dr. Calhoun said, sticking to what the CDC has said, and now all the sudden, it seems like she's just taking her hands off the wheel, and that was fine, I guess, during the summer when we saw numbers down, but now we see cases ticking back up, and there's a lot of questions where people are now looking to the guidance, and even some of the people that wanted local control a year ago are now looking and wondering why aren't we being told what to do?

Why aren't we being given this direction, and the governor's handing it off over to the CDC saying just follow their recommendations, make your rules, and you don't need to be told.

It is very interesting that she's sticking to it through kind of going against what she's been saying in the last 18 months.

>> ZOEY, as you know from time to time we reporters overthink stories, okay?

>> No.

>> I know.

It's hard to believe, isn't it?

Let me read this quote from you from that interview.

This question was, was the decision based on science?

The answer was, the decisions have always been informed by the science.

Is there a difference between "based on" and "informed by," or that a nuance that makes no sense?

Help me out here.

>> And what the actual definition of "is" is.

>> Thank you, Mr. Clinton.

>> Yeah, right.

>> This Administration is in a really tough spot right now, right?

That what they don't want to have to do is put in a statewide mask mandate because of, guess what, the politics that we are seeing surrounding all of this.

Unfortunately, this pandemic and vaccines and mask wearing has all be encompassed by the politics of it, and so, you know, there was so much made of when Dr. Jay, as the governor likes to call her, said, you know, this is what I recommended to the governor and then just this uproar why the governor has not done anything, and I think one of the things that in this conversation was sometimes lost out is that this idea that the politics surround it, and we have seen huge rallies of parents and antimaskers, antiVAXXERS, all coined here for the first time, coming out, a doctor and gentleman in OTTAWA County was there to give advice wearing a university of Michigan public health shirt, and one of the folks there said he should probably turn that shirt inside out in that meeting because god forbid you wear something that says "public health" that's the dynamic we are facing, and are Democrats shocked?

Absolutely.

Do Democrats want them to do more?

100%.

we are at 46% of students right now living in areas where mask mandates are in place.

>> Jim?

>> This has exploded here in metro Detroit.

What the governor didn't do, oakland County did, and within hours, we had, as ZOE said, this exploded, parents were protesting against this, and, you know, Clint County, and then Wayne County said, we're not imposing a mandate, and Mccomb County said, we're not imposing the mandate, an then you have parents and families in those Counties saying, we need a mask mandate.

So this is exploding on both sides of the fence, and it is very emotional, and for the governor, it is very simple.

This is politics with a capital "P." >> But she's not used the word "politics" and said in the answer, our science -- everything we do is centered on the science.

That's what she said.

>> But said that and other factors?

>> Yes.

>> Yes.

>> The rest of the answer?

>> We have to navigate a number of factors.

>> There you go, yeah.

>> But she's never going to say she's playing politics on this thing, James.

>> She can't because of everything that happened last year.

She still has lawsuits pending down here in Mccomb County over the shutdowns of restaurants and bars.

She can't say the word "politics" is a factor in this, she can't.

>> So, Eric, what if things absolutely go south here in Michigan, and we begin to look like Florida, let's hope that does not happen, but what does the governor do?

>> Well, that's the big question because even earlier in the pandemic when we were more locked down than Florida, and they were thriving better than us, it looked like the science was showing that maybe lockdowns and masks don't work.

Maybe we need to stay open, and so it is just kind of completely flipped, and so at what point do you switch up the strategy, and like Jim said about the politics, even last week in the press conference, the doctor said that it is her job to recommend public policy, but she understands there are other factors that go into these decisions, and so it even sounded like her disappointment of not being listened to or recommendation heeded was an issue for her, and so we're going to keep things -- seems like in the summer, like I said earlier, the governor took a hands-off approach, and we're going to roll with vaccines, that's the way, our ticket out of this pandemic, and now the delta variant has thrown a wrench in the plans and seems like she's willing to stick with her plan and not reverse course and will, I guess, we'll see coming through the fall if what's going to happen.

>> Well, and I think, you know, to Eric's point, I think these next three weeks to about a month are going to be the most fascinating to watch, right?

This Monday and Tuesday where we, you know, some school districts are starting, come Monday, even more, and then, of course, Tuesday, the 7th, after labor day, and this is where, you know, hundreds of thousands of children are going to be together with teachers, with parents, principals, and coming back home, and we're going to watch those numbers, right?

You'll see a lag time, two to three weeks, but do not be surprised.

We are already hearing of small outbreaks at schools.

So, you know, let's watch the uptick and numbers, and, of course, all of this is happening right in the final month of the governor trying to work with republicans on a budget, and, you know, it has -- those two have gone together in the past, right?

Some of these mandates and orders she has put out and getting a budget done and we've got until September 30th, and meantime, you know, we're going to watch the numbers go up as more and more kids come back to school.

>> All right.

Turning the page, Jim, you had an opportunity to cross-examine the good former chief of the city of Detroit, James Craig.

Give me 30 seconds before we play the soundbite, your exchange with him, but from afar, it looked like kind of a bizarre thing going on there.

>> Well, I want to say this first up front, we are watching James Craig and possible run for governor, he is doing ready, aim, aim, aim, aim, and he said again, I'm still doing an exploratory committee.

What are you going to pull the trigger?

>> He did say two weeks.

Jim, he did say after labor day you'd get a decision.

>> yeah, in two weeks, but does that get a decision?

So he may decide this is not for him and pull out?

>> Are we pretending he didn't say on fox news he was running?

>> Exactly.

>> yeah.

All right.

Let's take a look at the exchange.

He wanted to talk about crime and stuff on the street going on, and, well, others wanted to ask about the T-word.

Mr. Trump.

>> If the president gives me his endorsement, I will accept it, but I want to be defined as James Craig, not Donald Trump.

I'm looking ahead to 2022.

>> But do you need those caveats to get his endorsement?

That's the rest of my question.

>> You asked me a direct question.

>> Yeah.

>> I don't know -- I mean, so I don't know how plainly I can say it to you.

The fact is this.

I talked about the January 9th, and I talked about all the issues, and that is important for me to talk, so at this point, I will conclude.

>> Ouch.

Warm letter to follow.

>> He didn't talk about Jan 9th, and whether the election was stolen to any depth.

He gave his scripted canned talking points on the election, and he said he's a police officer and needs to see evidence that the election was stolen, and he has not seen any evidence.

That is his sidestep on that one.

When we asked about the January 6th insurrection, and he called it an insurrection, he said that the people who did that are criminals and should be prosecuted.

We couldn't get to the question of, was that instigated by then President Trump?

We couldn't get to a lot of questions.

I had a lot of follow-ups there to continue the cross-exemption.

He cut us off and said that's it, that's all I'm answering.

The question James Craig needs to understand is the voters want to hear answers on that, the trump supporters want to hear answers on that, the people who don't support President Trump want to hear his answers on that to determine whether they are going to support him.

>> ZOEY, what kind of a launch was this?

If we can call it a launch.

>> that's the thing this whole, like, he is or isn't he as I noted laughing with Jim.

Remember this was there, you know, he, you know, retires, resigns, whatever you want to say in June, and then says, you know, announcement coming, goes on fox news a week later and says, well, I'm running, and now we are supposed to go he is, isn't he?

He is running, you know, you have the speaker wentworth at the event, and basically, members of the media were told, come, he's going to have this meeting with law enforcement officials, and then, basically, it's in this sort of fish bowl, glass windows, there's amazing photos on twitter where, you know, members of the media are sitting on one side, and he and this team are, you know, on the other side, and you can't hear what they are talking about, and it was not until after that some questions, including Jim's, were able to be taken, and, you know, since then, there's been some goofing around, right?

The spokesperson for the Michigan Democrats went and bought a bottle of windEX to leave at the Michigan republican headquarters saying we want to help with your transparency issues, and the spokesperson for the republican party said, thanks, we'll use the windEX to clean out the oval office after biden.

I mean, just back and forth, but, you know, this was not a launch because he did not officially announce, but as Jim says, it is this sort of aim, aim, aim, but, you know, I mean, we assume this will happen after labor day, and, you know, in earnest, all of these rallies and, you know, more press conferences, and political events will happen including fundraisers.

>> Eric, quickly, but we have to call in our guest, but the good news for chief Craig is this was in the middle of August and the four of us and a couple others were paying attention, okay, and I'm not so sure about everybody here.

[LAUGHTER] Anyhow, look it, he's got plenty of time to clean up his act, doesn't he?

>> Yeah, I believe so.

I was surprised by the reaction to the trump questions when they are, like, focus on Michigan topics, you know, what's the matter if he supports President Trump, but right here in Michigan, we see the republican party pretty much divided between the trump supporters and not.

We have Counties down state centering state Senators from the UP because of their stance on the election and everything, and jackson County sentured the leader, and so there's an interest in where he stands and how he stands on the issues, and that's going to be a message going forward as the police chief, law enforcement officer, and then also standing on the other issues because no matter what happened in the past, people still care, and it is going to go into what they are voting for.

>> What an interesting parallel, Jimmy, the governor dealing with a huge state divide over masks, and the chief dealing with a divide over Donald Trump.

I don't know who has the worst assignment, Jim, quickly?

>> For the record, I want to say, yes, we are on the outside of the fish bowl, but we had a wireless MIC, and I asked to place the MIC on the table to hear the discussion.

The answer was yes, and then the answer was, let me check with somebody, and nope, you can't.

>> All right, Dr. PUGH, thank you for the patience, welcome to "off the record," good to see you again.

You had an opportunity to see last week's program with Tom McMILLAN.

In a word, how would you describe what he said about masks?

>> You know what, during the last state board of education meeting, Mr. McMILLAN called me pathetic so I'll give it back to him.

It was pathetic.

It is unfortunate that this politics is in the way of protecting our children at this greatest time of need.

>> Ms. Clark, first question, please.

>> Sure.

So, doctor, you recently written a letter, it went to governor whitMER about your concerns that there is not a statewide mask mandate.

First tell us a little bit about the letter, and then tell us, have you heard back from the governor yet?

>> Absolutely.

It is unfortunate that the governor, we supported her, and cheered her on as she fought so hard back in march to maintain the epidemic orders of the department of health and human services, and she was able to hold those.

We held up money to go to districts for them to put in things to protect students such as ventilation systems, but she has not exercised that authority, and so then to have Dr. CALDUN come out and really sub Stanuate what we pretty much already knew is that masks work.

And so we need the governor to stand up, and we want her to know we support her in that.

We cannot allow the school districts to do this in a peaceful fashion.

We saw in GENNESSEE County, there's been threats against lives, and this needs to be a mandate.

The longer we discuss it, the more harm we place our children in and professionals in the local level.

>> have you heard back from the governor in your letter?

>> Unfortunately, I did not.

I had a conversation with Dr. Rice, state superintendent of public schools, and he was checking to make sure the governor received the letter.

She -- or her, the person who sits there with us, as, you know, the governor is an exofficial member of the state board of education so we have a representative so he was checking with that person as well so I have not heard back.

>> Eric.

>> Yeah, Dr. PUGH, one of the things I saw our districts up north doing is doing this compromise, hybrid model, where masks for K-6, students not old enough for vaccines.

As a public health expert yourself and state school board, what do you stand on that and the governor did a plan like that, mandate for younger kids and leave the choice up to the older kids?

>> I think we definitely need to protect our younger kids.

I was looking at numbers where it looks like we know that our younger children cannot be vaccinated, but children 12 to 15, it's -- around 30% vaccinated.

All children should be wearing masks, no question about that.

Of course, we'd support a hybrid, but we need to just put masks back on children, and when I look at the data, and I look at data today compared to yesterday, our numbers are far worse.

, also, there was a national report where we are seeing that the children, 16, I believe, to 18, that are being impacted the most by this variant, meaning that the delta variant is proliferating the most in that population.

Our children just need to be protected.

Their teachers need to be protected.

Parents need to be protected.

We know that even though who are vaccinated now we're seeing more, this variant being able to breakthrough and cause not only disease, but complications, and enough for others vaccinated to spread the disease, so, yes, we would support the younger children, but it needs to be a mandate.

We've not changed much since we've -- since last year at this time as far as what we're seeing with numbers.

We are seeing all of our Counties at a high risk level, and so since I wrote the letter, we were at level D, and now we are at level E, according to the state risk levels, and for the CDC, we are at the highest risk level at this point.

>> Jim.

>> We are looking at the numbers that come out of the state health department with breakthrough, even with people who have gotten vaccinated, 23% of the cases are now breakthrough, and 28% of hospitalizations are now breakthrough, and in metro Detroit, heartland schools in livingston County, they had nearly two dozen cases among students, and right now, they have more than 100 students in quarantine because of this, so my question to you, Dr. PUGH, is, is this only a matter of time that the governor will be forced to take this action statewide, in your opinion?

>> Absolutely.

Absolutely.

I think that from a political standpoint and what I wrote in the letter is we're not going to outwit this disease.

Our politics is not going to stand.

This disease has no regard for our politics.

It is going to hurt our children, our families, our communities, and, eventually, anyone who plays politics with this issue.

Let me say to the previous question, when we look at the model that the epidemiologist for the state of Michigan presented, she showed where in an elementary school if you have 25 students, one child has Covid, it will take three hours for 50% of that class to have Covid, to be diagnosed with Covid, contract the disease, whereas if you had a fully masked class, it's 120 hours, so five days, three hours versus five days.

This is not going to end well.

Again, when I look at the data, I look at -- I look at last year, when we did have the masks, did not have the vaccines, and we were doing better on all indicators, hospitalizations, deaths, as well as the disease -- positivity rates.

Yes, it's going to end -- to answer your question, it is a matter of time, and unfortunately, we will lose lives.

We will leave children orphaned, have children who will have symptoms, multisystem inflammatory disease, which we also saw peak in march when we didn't exercise these orders, and so -- when we did have the mask mandates, I'm sorry, but we put children in schools and allowed the legislature to force children in school in march in the time the alpha variant was proliferating during the time children was going to spring break.

We've seen this play out, and we'll see it play out again, and, unfortunately, it will be to the demise of our children and families and teaches as well as anyone playing politics with this.

>> What runs through your mind when oakland County earlier this week passes a mask mandate, and the parents opposed to this staged a protest, literally around the block of the County executive's office, in Pontiac, there was the helicopter flying over.

Did you see the pictures?

What runs through your mind when you see parents react that way?

>> Well let me let you in on something.

I was invited to go to oakland County on -- that was Monday night?

I'm getting days mixed up, but I was invited -- >> yeah, Monday, Tuesday, right.

>> Maybe it was Wednesday.

I think the decision was made on Tuesday.

So I was invited to go to oakland County for a pro-mask mandate.

We had to keep it under wraps.

There were several parents who were organizing this pro-mask mandate, and on Tuesday night at about 7:55, there, I believe, it was late evening, we realized oakland County made the very wise decision to call for a mask mandate, and so I was asked to then go to Mccomb County because Mccomb County had not yet made this decision.

When I was asked to go to Mccomb County, I was told they were still going to do the pro-mask mandate thank you to the oakland County folks for making that decision, but then they pulled off of that, and they said, you know what, it's too dangerous, we're not going to go.

So when I went to Mccomb County, I was told, you probably need to get some security to go with you, and so I paid to have someone to go with me as security, thank goodness I know people so it was just gas money, but I had to come out of my pocket and my position as a volunteer position.

Those people, the health officer, the medical officer in GENNESSE, doesn't have security.

I don't know she has any barriers in front of her home to block her.

People probably know exactly where she lives, and in oakland County, this is the same thing, and so you're putting multiple people's lives in jeopardy, and they don't have the wherewithAL to protect themselves, and it is just not a setup like that.

>> Doctor -- >> So I, I think that that needs to be acknowledged.

>> Dr. PUGH, we'll do an overtime segment with permission, but a final question, cut to the chase here, is governor whitMER playing politics with this mandatory mask issue?

>> Unfortunately, she is.

I understand the tight spot she's in.

I understand that her life has been threatened, and that's unfortunate and unacceptable, but right now, we need her to make a decision for the public health of the people to -- we're in a bad place right now, and, yes, unfortunate she has to do that.

>> All right, a pause here for closed credits.

Everyone take a deep breath.

Do what you need to do in the next 30 seconds as you watch closed credits, and join us at WKAR.org for "OT" and the great panel.

>>> This is made possible in part by the following, business leaders for Michigan has a strategic plan to make Michigan a top ten state in the nation for jobs, personal income, and a healthy economy.

Learn more at Michigansroadtotopten.com.

For more "off the record" visit WKAR.org.

Michigan public television stations cricketed to the production costs of "off the record" with Tim SCUBICK.