Representative Ranjeev Puri is the new House Democratic speaker.

At least he starts in that new job next year.

He's in the queue.

So sit in with us as we get the inside out.

Off the record.

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

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And now this edition of Off the Record with Tim Skubick.

Thank you very much.

Studio C and the dus is beginning to settle in town.

But it's still a little rough out there.

Chad, how's the Benson transition going?

Well, the governor elect i facing some backlash right now from Democrats over some of the picks that she's put on her transition team.

The first one is Gary Torgow the chairman of Huntington Bank, a longtime Democratic powerbroker, very close to a lot of Democratic, leadership, but also a board member of tw of the, curse words of Lansing these days, DTE Energy and Blue Cross Blue Shield.

This is causing a lot of angst among the left to the progressive saying, look, what's the problem?

We just voted to get money out of politics.

We voted to ban DTE money from being in your pocket, and then you're going to put a board member on your transition team.

Also o her board is Christina Grassi, who is just fresh off of chairing the Michigan Economic Development Corporation.

Kind of another curse word in this town right now.

And so again, another another figurehead, from the, MEDC leadership, was was the, the chief legal counsel to the governor before.

Now she's over at Hahnemann.

Again, just mor and more backlash from the left that this this looks like more of the, the inside ball.

Same old group, running Lansing.

Not to speak for the administration, but wouldn't they say we wanted what we thought were the best people to help in the transition and therefore, that we we made the call?

Yes.

I mean that was one of their arguments.

These are the best people.

But, you know, the the, the progressive wing of the Democratic Party feels very empowered with the, with them getting, you know, defeating Hale Stevens in the US Senate race, getting Abdul El-Sayed elected and other progressives, down the ticket.

And so now they're starting to flex their muscle, and, and the new governo is going to have to figure out how to manage this wing of the party.

Yeah.

I think that this is, indicative of some of the issues that Democrat will still have to work through.

Certainly it was a good election night for Democrats.

It was very rosy across the state, across the nation.

But we saw all of these divide play out throughout the primary cycle, especially, even leading through the general election.

And those issues aren't going away.

There are going to be differences of opinion, particularly betwee those very progressive Democrats who want to see change, wh want to see turn over and power.

That's also playing out at th congressional level right now.

But in the state, we're going t see similar themes as, as said governor-elec Benson comes to power.

Go ahead.

Oh, I was going to say, you know, Benson ran on the fact that she was not bought, that she was going to work for the people, and at the same time held utility roundtables and spoke about how she was going to reform the Medici.

But if you have the same people that were running these institutions that, you know, are a part of these board that bring money into politics, I'm not sure if that connects really well.

The glib people in town will say, these are just the Democrats being Democrats.

The problem with Democrats is there's so many of them in little different factions.

And when our guest comes in later on today, you know, that caucus, you could see is not totally united because there are groups that have different agendas, don't they?

Yes.

As compared to th Republicans who are just either either for or not.

Okay.

And this this is a little unique.

We have, a Democrat succeeding and Democrats.

And so some of the some of the folks in Governor Whitmer circle are now in Governor Benson or, governor elect Benson Circle.

And so this i this was kind of to be expected.

One of the things this things is still kind of the unanswere question is who is going to be in the, in the, in the office with her, on day one?

I mean, right now at this hour, we don't know who the chief of staff is going to be.

To the new governor, and Curtis Hertel Jr.

the chairman of the Democratic Party, announced this wee he's going to seek reelection.

And he was long thought by I mean, or long desired by the lobby core in particular, to be the chief of staff, they thought they would do quite well.

Can work with Curtis Hertel Jr.

Yeah, we know this guy.

And he's decided to run for chairman of the the state party again.

It seems in part because he worked to get Michigan as an early state in 2028, and they want to keep the momentum going.

They know the national spotlight on Michigan is going to be immense.

For the 2028 presidential, Democratic primary.

And, and they want Democrats in particular leadership.

They want their, their star you know, chairman who just won, you know, a historic election you know, up and down the ticket to be and be in that seat.

Well, for the uninitiated, the chief of staff is sort of like a de facto, deputy governor.

Okay.

This is the person you go to when you're working on something.

Somebody you can trust, someone who's at your side, has your back.

And that's a critical point.

It is.

And I think there's still in addition to some of those key leadership roles, there's still a lot we don't know about the policy agenda.

What, governor elect Benson and the legislature.

Well, we'll hear from we'll hea from a speaker elect soon, but I think there's still a lot we don't know about what they want to do.

And perhaps they're keeping it.

Keeping it close to the chest, because of some of these different factions, and and some of these different interests in terms of what should, what should start, what the pace should be.

So so I think those questions do remain to be answered on and how especially the Democrats will address voters concerns with affordability in particular?

I mean, affordability was the big word.

I mean, you couldn' go two minutes without hearing a Democrat mention the word affordability.

Iran war, the Donald Trump, no matter what on what part of the ballot they were on, it was those three things.

It eviction.

But it was it was never backed up with a policy.

It was always, oh, there's health care talking points.

Talking points.

It was never, oh, we're going to do data today.

It was it was broad ideas.

And I think that's going to it's going to hurt them down the line because they need direction especially with a lot of new members.

Well, the problem is the go ahead.

Well, and one of the, one of th things that the governor like, did a promise on the campaign trail in in debate with John James in Detroit, which is going to she was going to craft a subnational agreement with Canada to essentially go around Donald Trump's tariffs.

Now, several legal experts, plus former Governor Rick Snyder, have said this is not possible.

This is not legally possible.

There's not a constitutional way to do to go around and usur the president and his tariffs.

And so this is going to be a really interesting challenge it does to try to do thi in January, to try to basically, you know, do something, go to court, fight for it.

And, and, and pursue some way to sort of, relieve the tariff burden that, that, Michiganians have absorbed.

And to Chad's point.

I mean, during the debate, I was there in the press conference afterward and I asked her, are you just going to stop Customs and Border Protection from collecting that money?

And she said yes and offered nothing more than that.

And there are several issues like that when it comes to affordability.

And I think another one would be high gas prices.

You know, that's that's always been an issue that politician just have a hard time addressing because there's so many national, international factors in cost of gas.

One is the taxation on gas but gas tax pays for road fixes.

And so that would be a really tough thing to navigate.

Maybe the best thing that could happen t her would be 3.50 a gallon gas.

It would be would be a relief to not have to touch that issue, with the ten foot stick.

She's got to replace the money.

Yes.

And and I mean, there's another problem.

Outgoing Governor Gretchen Whitmer is leaving Jocelyn Benson about a $275 million a year credit card bill.

You know, this is a tradition from governor to governor.

Granholm did it to Snyder.

Snyder did not leave a credit card bill, for for Whitmer, but Whitmer borrowed $3.5 billion that will cost, some somewhere in the range of $5 billion with interest over over 25 years.

And that bill is due and ever it has to come has to be paid.

That was a big part of this, road funding deal last year with the marijuana tax.

Was trying to secure a tax that would pay for the credit card bill of Gretchen Whitmer.

And and that's why you won't see anybody try to repeal that wholesale, tax unless, unless obviously the Supreme Court.

One of the positive signals she has and she's going to restore the quadrant system.

For the uninitiated, it means the two Democratic leaders come in the room, the two Republican leaders and the governor.

Sit down.

Now, governor Whitmer starte her administration doing that, but it's sort of kind of lost some of its pop.

But it's been a way to show he' she's all about collaboration.

Okay.

If you listen to her, it's collaboration.

And, you know that's how you get stuff done.

It certainly is how you get stuff done.

I mean, and I think Whitmer had the benefit of going in into a divided government so she could kind of cut her teeth on and working with everybody there and and coming from the legislature herself in a previous years, she understood how it worked so that that helped her along the way.

For Benson, she gets the trifecta, and she has never been in the legislative body.

So she's going to have to slowly work into that.

And I think havin that group around her will help.

She also has a healthy Democratic majority in both chambers, which is helpful.

There is roo for a couple of defections, but, you know, it's still something where, you know, you still have to, but, you know, work with those.

I think it's a little more dangerous to have more people because then everybody gets a happy appetite and now we got power.

I know what I want, let's go and get it.

Rick Snyder, his second term, he had 26 members in the Senate, I believe, if I recall.

And that was that was hard to operate.

They didn't do much for him.

In many respects if you got a 1 or 2 point margin, it's a it's a little easier because you got to keep everybody in line.

Now it's, you know, every it's every man and woman for themselves.

What about the fact that we have such a brand new people coming in?

Did you know, for example, tha 55% of the members of the state Senate will be female which is a history making move?

Did you know that?

I did not know that.

Yeah.

Isn't that incredible?

Yeah.

So let me just take you back to the dark ages.

Back in 1967, there was one female senator, Lorene Beebe from Dearborn.

When she wanted to go to the bathroom, the sergeant at Arms had t clear out the John for the men because there was no female bathroom.

That's how far the Michigan Senate has come.

Did you know that Chad-a-roo?

No, I did not know.

Yes, it's the truth, believe me.

And it was.

It was an incredible story.

This has been a long time coming.

There has been a lot of effort, particularly on the Democratic side.

But Republicans to have made efforts to recruit women to run for these offices.

And this is bearing fruit.

And, you know, we've slowly seen that number increase over the last several election cycles.

But it's clear that in Michigan, there's appetite for for some sort of parity in the legislature.

We've we've seen, you know, eve at the at the statewide level, we have another incoming woman, governor.

She has it's she is making history by having a woman LG this i this is something that I think, you know voters, voters are clearly fine with electing women representation.

What's happened to Speaker Hall?

Well, he, I wouldn't say he's gone into hiding, but he hasn't been talking much.

And for a ma that's so gregarious as he is, that was omnipresent on the o the media scene here in Lansing, he's just not talking.

How come?

I mean, who knows?

But yes, it is interesting.

After all the press conferences and all the, jabbing at our guest and all the other and jabbing at us too, for that matter.

He ha he is seems have nothing to say.

I reached out this week, and the word that came back, it'll be a little bit before he talks.

So you can make of tha what you want more than I got.

Matt Hall will be back.

Oh, yes.

There's a although, you know, two thing like somebody raised the issue, but how do you how about even going to the Trump administration?

Have you heard that?

They're going to be looking for people.

Anything is possible.

Anything is possible.

Right.

Let's call in the incoming speaker of the House.

Mr.

Speaker-elec congratulations on your new gig.

Thank you.

Thank you for having me.

Let's let's just cut to the chase.

How is the house going to b different under your leadership than the current speaker?

I think that there's going to be a stark contrast.

I think that's what the people of Michigan just, sent a mandate last week as we flipped 11 red to blue seats, the most since 1964.

If that's not a mandate from the people of Michigan, that they wan a different style of governance.

I don't know what is, but, you know, for me, I'm someone that wants to think big, dream bold, and you restore the normalcy of our institution to deliver for the people of Michigan.

I don't want any artificial funnels limiting the progress we can work, or passing the least amount of bills in the history of legislature.

I, conversely, want us to do to be one of the most productive sessions measured by my impact, not necessarily by the amount of PPAs or laws.

So, yes, you watched the current speaker's behavior.

What things did you say to yourself, If I'm speaker, I will never do that?

You know, I just think it was the we spent the last two year led by leadership in the House, through th lens of political divisiveness, I think issues that were meant to divide, our caucuses and our parties were just the baseline of how we operated and and the underpinnin of every decision that was made.

I think the institution operates best when we are deliberating bold and transformational policies that are going to actually improve the lives of Michiganders across the state.

You know, not just for one political party, but for the 10 million people that call Michigan home.

And so I look forward to, restoring that normalcy to the institution of making sure that, we're producing policy that's actually going to improve people's lives.

Representative, I fired up the old, data center fueled AI machine and, and asked you to tell me all the insults that Matt Hall has said about you.

He has called you useless and ineffective.

He says I don't need you.

He called you a radical left leader.

Say, you're very dishonest.

Said you has a have a ver negative governing philosophy.

How would you describe your your governing philosophy?

I would, describe it as, very collaborative.

I'm someone that is very self-awar of the things that I'm good at, but more importantly, what I'm not good at.

And I realize that I don't always have, the best idea in the roo and that I it's very important that I surround myself and create, foster an environmen for the best ideas to to rise.

And so, I'm gifted, a sizable caucus coming in with a, immense amount of diversity in terms of the ideological perspective and racial, ethnic and, geographic.

And so I look forward to, to champion that caucus to, t to bring out the best ideas to, to meet this mandate that the people of Michigan, gave us to, to actually deliver.

The last time there were majorities, Democratic majorities in both the House and Senate.

We saw this breakneck speed for the first few months, and then it kind of came to a screeching halt the next year.

Under your leadership, what do you anticipate the pacing of some of these, some of these bills?

Is there a similar backlog of Democratic priorities going into this session?

Yes.

I think, you know, when again, when you create this artificial funnel to to be the least productive legislature, in, in history, there is an immens amount of bills that have been, held up and progress really has been stymied.

I think it's been an unproductive two years.

And so I think as Lansing Democrats, we're all in alignment that we need to get this trai back on the track and deliver.

I think we're going to spend a lot of time putting thought and being very methodical in terms of the sequencing of how the two years goes.

Obviously, we all know the two years fly by.

And there is just a limited window, before people's minds start moving to the next election and everything.

But, there's a lot of thought going into, how we approach these two years to making sure that they are productive and that we are, utilizing the, the, the majorities tha the people of Michigan gave us.

You know, a week ago you led all your new lawmakers into the chamber.

It was it was a long line.

Yeah.

It was a lot of clapping.

You know, and in many ways, the legislature is a big box of cats.

And the ones you want to get them out and heard them, it's hard to do that.

You have a very diverse caucus.

How are you going to keep them together and get them working towards the end goal, which is affordability.

So for me, I take a lot of pride, in the fact of the ideological diversity that makes up the House Democrats.

We are not a caucus that, falls in line, albeit I wish it was sometimes.

But, I think our caucus represents the values of 10 million Michiganders because the reality is, is that, the 10 million Michiganders don't agree on every issue.

And so our democracy works bes when there is healthy discourse and debate.

And so, again, the charge that I've had as leader, and I hope that transitions into a speakership is making sure that, all sides of this caucus have a seat at the table, that we're allowing the best ideas to flow to the top, and we're building consensu in alignment to be productive.

How will Democrats try to revers Donald Trump's cuts to Medicaid?

We, I think, are ready to stand up.

You know, I think the health care and the onset of the big, beautiful bill, and the way that the schedule is designed to to really for those to exasperate right when we take office is going to be the forefront of what we need to deal with.

You know, our, our fiscal situatio right now is not the healthiest.

And so this is going to take a lot of thought.

The reality is, the sad reality is, is that the state budget cannot make up for, everything that comes out of D.C.

as you all know, I think about 40, 41% of our state budget comes from federal funds.

And so any time that there is, some disruption or chaos in D.C., it deeply debilitate our state budget and our ability to to respond to that.

And so, you know, we we were ensuring that we have strong health care access, that we're doing whatever we can to making sure that health care costs are limited is going to be a priority for for Lansing Democrats.

I know it's something that I share our governor elect chairs and the new Senate majority leader as well.

And so, these are conversations that are going to be, I think, forefront to to our approach.

Do you have any members of your caucus who want to get even with the Republicans?

I'm sure there is.

You know, I have a large caucus Tim.

I got 63 members.

There's a lot of opinions in that caucus.

In fact that's been discussed and caucus.

The I'm.

I'm sure it has.

We've we've had a lot of caucuses.

So do you want to get even with the Republicans?

I you know, I don't I don't know what you mean.

You know, by my get even I think, you know, my charge right now is to.

Let's define terms, okay?

They want to do it.

They want to send a message to the Republicans.

You walked all over us for two years.

Now we're going to walk all over you.

You know, I think there will be a tim and place for for that mindset.

But that's not going to be my natural cadence.

I like I said, we are Team Michigan House Democrats, whether we've been in majority or minority, our hands have always been extended to fight for good policy and to stand up for the people of Michigan.

And so we are going to craft good policy.

We're going to think big, dream bold.

And if the other side is willing to put down their political gun, so to speak, and fight for the people of Michigan, then they will have partners that are willing to do that.

But therein lies the problem for the leader.

All of your diverse caucus, not everybody is going to get what they want when they want it.

And so you're going to be the bad guy to say, you know what?

I hear what you're saying, but we just can't do it.

Yeah.

That's leadership.

That's that's that's nothing new to this.

And you're willing to take the flak by doing it.

You have to be.

If you're not, then you probabl shouldn't sign up for the job.

You have to be able to say no to your caucus.

I think the, the, the ability that I've had and kind of the approach I've taken to my work is I've been very transparent with my caucus in terms of how decisions are made, or we've opened up the forum to actually have a discussion on issue that maybe I even disagree with when I say, hey, let's let's talk about it an we'll talk about it as a caucus.

And I think as if, you know my ask of my caucus is to bring, a levelheaded approach and an open mind to knowing that not every idea you have is maybe something the entire caucus can get behind.

But, a healthy discourse and debate is a necessity to to good governance.

If I walked into every conversation thinking I had the best idea, the best idea wouldn't, come to th top every single, single time.

And so, I actually maybe I'm crazy, bu I enjoy that aspect of the job.

I enjoy being a facilitator and a collaborator to making sure that, all sides feel included, and, and they have a voice at that table.

You enjoy people not being happy with you?

I again I wouldn't call it an enjoyment, but you have to get comfortable with it.

I get I could hand out I've, I've used this joke, a couple of times.

I could hand out apple pie to my, my caucus.

And there'll be some people that say it's not warm enough will be.

Some people say it's not cherry pie.

It will be.

Some people will say, you didn't give me ice cream.

But the reality is, is, politics is more of an art than a science.

And, I think it is not a necessity for us to agree on every single issue.

There' nothing wrong with disagreement.

I think where leadership is defined is how you, navigate those conversations to continue to find alignment for these two years and hopefully beyond, to making sure that we are as productive as we possibly can be.

You mentioned the state's financial picture and a lot of the options out there for policies that could make life more affordable for Michigan residents are pretty costly.

They would cost the state a lot of money.

Is there appetite in your caucus for looking for sources of new revenue, or is this more looking at, trying to stretch an already stretched thin budget?

I thin it'll be a little bit of both.

You know, I think before we dive into that, we need a little bit of context of why we are here.

Our fiscal situation looks bleak because of political choices that were made in DC.

There is, obviously the big, beautiful bill that was passed that is going to, caught, that's going to be paid fo on the backs of working people.

We have, a very unpopular war that we're losing that's driving up costs.

It's pouring fuel on this inflationary environment.

And then we have, this latest round of federal tariffs that are disproportionately affecting Michiganders.

The this isn't some meant to be some Partizan jab or, or anything more than jus an objective economic analysis from third party outlets.

That said, I think it's going to cost Michigan families 5 or $6000 more than any other state in the country.

At no point this term did I hear House Republicans or Michigan Republicans stand up and say, hey, maybe these policies are disproportionately affecting our state.

It shouldn't matter what letter is next to the president's name.

We should stand up for the people of Michigan.

And albeit maybe two weeks before the election, some people defected.

But the realit is that the people of Michigan, said that they now trust Democrats, to right the ship and steers out of this volatility to do what's best for our state.

And so we don't need to ou fiscal situation to be this bad.

As a point of everything I just said, this is because of faile political choices that were made by an administration that's disproportionately targeting targeting Michigan.

And so we're going to do whatever we can at the state leve to right the ship, so to speak.

And there's obviously a constitutional obligation for us to balance this budget.

We're walking int potentially a budget shortfall.

I've heard estimates, over $1 billion potentially.

And that's not going to be easy to do, but it's going to like but the formula is not hard when you find yourselves in this situation.

There's really just two levers to pull.

You either need to increase topline revenue or find efficiencies and close loopholes.

And so it'll be some portion of that.

But as we get more int the term and later into the year and get a better economic analysis of where exactly this is going to fall, I think that can dictate how we approach this speaker.

Like, do you have a coupl of years to turn things around?

And a lot of these challenges are hard challenges.

And you you mentioned that a lot of them have to do with what's happening at th federal level in that two years.

Is it just going to be trying to convince the people of Michigan that these federal pressures are what's leading it, or are Democrats going to be abl to bring some actionable change?

Again, I think it's a little bit of both.

I think we would be remiss if we didn't talk about the, immense harm that these policies have caused our state.

That is why we are here.

And so we're going to do an overtime segment.

So you want to complete that answer after we do close credits.

Can we do a deal on that?

Got it I very good.

Go to wkar.org for more of our conversation with the speaker elect on right here on Off the Record.

Please do that.

Okay, folks.

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