February 1, 2023 • 48 mins
Tudor Dixon is a former Michigan Gubernatorial candidate and podcast host.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, everybody, welcome to another episode of the Buck Sexton Show.
I have Tutor Dixon with me now. Not only does
she have the coolest name that I've heard in a
long time, and my name is Buck Sexton, so I
feel like I know something about at least unusual names.
Her name is just straight up cool. She ran for
governor of Michigan came really close to defeating the wicked
(00:21):
Witch of Michigan, Gretchen Whitmer, which would have been amazing.
I is a mom, is an American patriot wife, commentator,
soon to be podcaster, Michigander. Tutor Dixon, great to have
you on. Thank you. I'm happy to be here. So
how do you decide it? I would like to start
with the origin story. You know, it's almost like a
comic book. How do you decide to get into this game?
(00:44):
I mean, you know, I was rooting for you so
much because I was a New York Erd in the
pandemic and Michigan was one of the only places where
I didn't expect the lockdowns to get as crazy as
it got, if that makes sense New York LA DC, Sure, Michigan,
is that what happened? Right? Yes? So we were watching
(01:04):
this happen, and the origin story kind of goes back
far because my origin story in Michigan starts in a
steel foundry. So I spent most of my career in
the steel foundry on the shop floor, working the product through,
helping make sure we get it on time to our customers.
And then in twenty seventeen, I had a friend come
(01:25):
to me and say, I don't know if you know
what's happening in our schools, but it's really kind of
this anti American message, and I want to provide a
news service for middle and high school students that would
be pro America but also talk about jobs. And that
was near and dear to my heart because it was
really hard for us to find people to come and
work in the shop. And I thought, this is great.
(01:45):
This is an opportunity to introduce young people to manufacturing,
and I think that's lost on a lot of young
people these days. But then as we expanded that, we
grew into conservative media, into the political world, and then
twenty twenty came and I saw factory shut down, I
saw people out of work, I saw our communities really
(02:06):
falling apart, and I saw my own kids, my own
kids at home, they're not at school. My ten year
old at one point looked at me and she goes, mom,
I was putting in her bed and she started crying,
and I said, why are you crying, honey? And I
think as adults, we started to forget that our kids
were home for so long without ever leaving the house.
They weren't even allowed to go to the grocery store
(02:28):
with us. And she looked at me and she said,
I think this is what it feels like to be depressed.
And that was sort of that crowning blow where I said,
we've got to do something and talked to some friends
and we thought who's going to run? Who is going
to run for governor in Michigan? And we talked to
folks in Lancing. There wasn't that traditional politician type person
(02:51):
stepping up to do it. And I had this crazy
moment where I was like, how surely hard could it
be to run for governor? And it turns out it's
kind of hard. Tell me, actually, I want to get
back to the running for governor thing in a second.
I'm just curious about that. Again, as somebody who wasn't
in politics, you just decided to run for governor in
a serious, a serious state. You know, it's not like
the governor of Rhode Island. Let's be honest, you know
(03:13):
what I mean. I mean, you know, no offense or
Rhode Island. But come on. But but you know, you know,
I'm just saying, Michigan's got a lot of people. So, uh,
the steel foundry. You when someone sees you, I don't
think they're thinking, this is somebody who was on this
on the floor of the steel foundry. Um, what is that? Like?
(03:33):
How is the American steel industry doing. I'm always curious
about about that. I wonder, you know, we were the
best in the world. Are we still the best in
the world? And tell me about the steel Well, I
think this is a really interesting because the steel industry, well,
I come from the foundry industry. So what we're doing
is we're pouring molten metal into a sand mold in
(03:54):
making a product for someone like a Caterpillar or a
John Deer. So we did a lot of mining mill terry,
heavy equipment, farm equipment, things like that, but you're making
pieces for someone else. And this was something that over
the Obama years really saw a lot going to China
and China was really taking over that space, and they
really have. There's not that many steel foundries left in
(04:17):
the United States, and it's such a crucial part of
what we do because, as I said, it's in all
of your farm equipment. I mean, this is what your
vehicles are made out of. This is what your military
vehicles were made up. We made quite a few parts
for the MRAP vehicles at that time, and you just
think about the idea of these things coming over from China. Now,
(04:37):
a lot of our military equipment has a ninety percent
or eighty percent by America clause, but you still have
a portion of that that can come from another country.
And so I know you hear people on our side
of the aisle talking about America First quite a bit.
So I think America First is something that we have
to break into a few different categories when we look
(04:58):
at America First, because coming from the steel industry, I
knew what it was like. I watched our patterns, our
parts go overseas bit by bit by bit until our
foundry closed and many other foundries closed. So I think
when we think about America First, we really need to
think about how much do we feel comfortable having in China,
(05:18):
and then how much of that do we need to
bring back to the United States. But some that question,
real quick, tutor, how do we bring it back? Is
it just because the labor in China is obviously a
lot cheaper? Do we have advantages either technologically or just
do we just make a better product here? How do
we bring it back here? Is a tariff something that's
(05:39):
That's what I was going to say. A lot of
people don't understand that it's some of these parts. Once
you close the factories, these factories don't start up again,
and there aren't a lot of people out there that
are saying, what should I do? Why don't I start
up a steel foundry. They're very hard to start up,
and it's very hard to operate. There's not a whole
lot of knowledge of how to do it yet left
in the United States. So certain trades are really being
(06:00):
lost completely to the United States. So in that case,
I would say, well, how do we find a friendly
country to make sure we're outsourcing to a friendly country,
and then if we can, over time bring that back.
I would love to see those jobs come back, but
I want to be realistic too and say there are
certain technologies that we do really well, and there are
certain technologies that are a lost art in the United
(06:20):
States that we need to find an allied country rather
than an adversarial country to do business in. And I
know that's an unpopular view, but I'm coming from a
place of really having seen it been on the shop floor,
and I know we have great steel foundries here. As
much business as we can put on them, we should,
But in the cases where you just can't find a source,
(06:41):
you need to go to an allied country. That's so
important that we start talking about that relationship with our
allies and making sure that's secure. If you think the
United States sent one hundred and fifty billion dollars worth
of product to China last year, China sent five hundred
and sixty billion dollars worth of product to the United States.
So although they are very reliant on us to be
(07:04):
their biggest buyer, we are also very reliant on them
for our pharmaceuticals, for our steel, for almost every product
there's a piece of it in China. When you think
about five hundred and sixty billion dollars worth of imports.
I was just talking to General Mattis over the weekend
and I said, so, don't you think that that seems like, well,
China doesn't really want to attack us if we are
(07:25):
their biggest customer. And he said, but you're thinking from
a logical standpoint. You're thinking from a logical point of view,
and that's not necessarily how you have to think when
you're talking about countries like that, which I think is
something we have to remember, and that's something that goes
beyond government, that goes to the private sector, because you know,
and I know that the majority of these companies our
(07:46):
private sector. This isn't our military equipment, this isn't all government,
this is private sector. So when you think about not
having pharmaceuticals, we really need to be pushing those companies
to use friendly countries or come back to the United States.
Want to ask you about running for a governor in
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can all watching at home or listening donate as well
if you can so. Tutor running for governor, you're hanging
(09:13):
out with some friends. You're in Michigan, You're like, no
one else is running. Gretchen Whitmer's horrible, like truly horrible.
I don't really care. I'm gonna say this. You know,
I'm in Florida now. I was in New York for
almost forty years of my life, give or take the
college years and some CIA years thrown in there. But
I don't really care about other states governors very much.
Right if someone asked me, what do I think of
(09:33):
the governor of Wyoming, I don't even know. The governor
of Wyoming is off the top of my head. Am
I gonna lie? Your governor, though, was like Fauci in
a wig, Like your governor was the absolute worst. So
you step up to stop the madness? What's that process? Like?
I mean, what did you learn from doing it? And
would you do it again? I've said to people, maybe
(09:55):
it's like pregnancy and you forget and then you do
it again. Maybe there's that chance, because it really is very,
very hard. It's interesting because I think what people don't understand,
and this is one of the questions we got over
and over again. It was like, why don't you come
out and say these things are lies or why do
they Why are they allowed to lie about you? When
you're a public figure. You know this buck, they can
(10:17):
say things about you and there's no defamation clause. You
can't go after them, so they can make up anything
they want. And I think that was the hardest part
was seeing them make things about my family, seeing them
make splice up my words and create commercials out of
things that I didn't really say, to make it look
like I said something that I hadn't said. That was
(10:37):
really challenging. But also, I mean, the whole process is
incredibly brutal because you go through this battle with your
own side first. You're fighting your own side first, and
it gets really ugly, and people that you have trusted
for years do things and turn against you, and you think, wow,
this is really harsh. I mean, you remember Donald Trump.
A lot of times, Donald Trump Junior has come out
(11:00):
and said, you know, my dad when he went down
that escalator, said now we find out who our friends are,
and that's really exactly right. You find out who's going
to call you and say did you say this? You
find out who's going to come out and say something
about you behind your back, and it was that was
pretty shocking. But I think that, you know, going around
the state, the thing that was the most surprising to
(11:20):
me that was nothing to do with me at all.
Going around the state. If you go to other states,
you see things thriving. I mean, we've gone to Dallas,
We've gone to Nashville and seeing folks down that you
know down in Nashville, and those cities are just booming.
They have cars everywhere, people are driving around, all the
(11:40):
restaurants are open. I think people don't realize in Michigan
we lost full communities. So as I was campaigning, I
had people really literally falling into my arms and crying
and saying, bring back our communities. We used to have
a whole row of restaurants down the street, and out
of the six restaurants that we're here, there's one left
our community. And that was really the sense of community
(12:03):
totally lost. And so that was the most surprising thing
to me. As I started leaving the state to travel
to some other cities and talk to folks about investing
in Michigan, I saw, Wow, the rest of the country
is really bounced back and Michigan really hasn't. But the
overwhelming joy of people too, the resilience of the human spirit.
(12:24):
Going out and talking to these people and even through tears,
they're just holding my hands and saying, we're going to
pray for you. We want to see this happen. And
it was such an amazing experience for people who are
concerned about running for office because it's brutal and you
get attacked in the media, and the media is not
your friend, especially if you are on the right side
(12:45):
of the aisle. The media is not your friend. I
have to tell you it is the most rewarding thing
you can do to go out and talk to people
and give them hope. That was just amazing and I
really encourage other people to go out and attempt to
serve if you can. Yeah. Well, on the on the
media side is you'll be seeing more and more going forward. Tutor.
(13:06):
For every fifty people on Twitter who tell you that
you know, meaning me in this case, you go to
tell me that I'm I'm horrible, dumb, ugly and should
you know, go jump off a bridge. There'll be one
person who comes up to me in an airport or
while I'm in line at the grocery store who's like,
I love your show and all I ever remember is
that person. We do it for that person, right the
(13:27):
other their blue hair and their cat food. You know
they're sad. They're sad, and those are not real people.
And that's what I try to explain to people that
the Twitter verse is not the average person. The average
person isn't on Twitter. They're not They're not looking at
what you're doing on Twitter. Twitter may set a media narrative,
(13:47):
but the people are totally different. Tonight, I was at
my daughter's basketball game. I'm just watching the basketball game
and this woman kind of comes down the bleachers and
sits next to me, and she said, I just want
to tell you that we watch your entire race and
we were so proud to be supporting you. And it
really is so humbling because you feel like, wow, I
(14:08):
didn't even know that these people were out there, that
they felt that way about me. And what can I
do to keep that promise in other ways? And that's
something that's been important to me in this If I
can't be serving them in that way, then I believe
that God put me on this journey for some reason,
that there's still a path to helping folks and making
sure that we bring those communities back whatever way I
(14:30):
can do that, And so that's why I'm still in
the game and I'm still focused on serving people. However
I can. Did your daughter's team win, by the way, No,
it was terrible. They got blown out. Oh man, that
could be a rough one. What was it? I mean
was it was the other team? The other team just
usually at that level. I coached high school soccer at
one point. And if you have one or two players
(14:51):
who are going to go, you know, go. You can
always tell to one or two players on a team
that are going to go college, especially if they're going
to go play D one. That's the team that usually
there's water that's not happening. It wasn't happening. Now. Well
it's sixth grade though, so sixth grade everybody is still
kind of, you know, learning their own body too. So
I mean, you go in and you never know. But
(15:13):
the funny thing is, so my sixth grader plays basketball,
and then my fourth graders play with their twins and
they play basketball. And we are truly the shortest people here.
So we live in an area of Michigan that is
very Dutch, and Dutch people are all extraordinarily tall. Like
we walked into school the first day, and people were like, oh,
look at those tiny little children. But they were actually
(15:33):
in the class with the other kids. They just thought
that they were tiny little children. So no one expects
my one daughter, she's the smallest one of my twins,
to be anything on the basketball court, and she is
like so awesome. She goes out there and she made
four baskets on Saturday and she's just like this little ringer.
No one expects it, which is kind of cool to
watch when they're I mean, there was this guy was amazing.
(15:56):
Did you watch I used to watch the Ian Clay
makes fun of me and says that I don't like sports.
That's actually, as I've gotten older, I don't really watch
munch professional sports. I do like playing sports, and certainly
hope to, uh, you know, coach my own kids one day.
But way back in the day, I did watch NBA.
Do you remember there was a guy, Muggsy Bogues who
was in the NBA. I think he was five foot five.
(16:17):
There was a there was a player in the NBA.
He's a famous player. And then there was a guy
named Spud web This is back in the early nineties,
and Spud Webb actually won the slam Dunk contest and
he was five foot nine. So I'm just saying, tell
your girls, there's a chance she will defy genetics and
still be able to play basketball. But she's really I mean,
(16:39):
I never You know, It's funny because as a parent,
there are things that your kids do and you never
thought that could be possible. You know, you're like, that's
not part of us. Didn't come from me, it didn't
come from my husband. So then they do something and
it totally blows your mind. My one, my oldest daughter,
is extraordinarily shy, and she went to school and she
(17:01):
went to this school's new three. When COVID hit, we
moved them to this school. And she's tried out for
the play, never done anything like this before. And the
girl at the front desk said to me, well, Larkin's amazing.
She's going to Hollywood. And I will confess that as
a mom, I thought she must have the wrong child
because Larkin is shy. She's not, that's not her. And
(17:22):
then she comes out on stage at the play and
she's singing, and she's like amazing. And I turned to
my husband and I'm like, did you know how she
could sing? It's like, how do we not about our
own kid? You know? But I think that's the coolest
part about parenting. Sometimes your child does and then you're like,
where does that come from? But it's amazing, And there
are things that are not amazing that they do too.
(17:44):
I've heard stories about that, you know. I'm actually I've
got to ask you a few questions here. I gotta
ask you for some advice in a second, because uter
I'm getting married in just a matter of days, so
I want the woman, thank you. Yeah, I want the
woman's perspective on how to make everything go as smoothly
as possible for me for the next forty years or so.
So we'll get to that in just a second. Yeah,
(18:06):
I'm sure you've got some thoughts. Heads up, if you're
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one eight hundred LifeLock. And all right, tutor, Now this
is the part of the podcast that everyone's gonna have
to take notes on. So you're how many kids you have? Three?
(19:32):
You have three kids? Four? Four kids? Okay, so you
are a happily married wife and mom with four kids.
How do I follow in the footsteps here? I mean,
obviously I can't personally have the four kids, but I'd
like to have two or three getting married? How do
I have happy wife, happy life? You know? I mean
if I had the answer to that, then I would
(19:54):
not be podcasting. I would just be laying back and
when my private jet going wherever I wanted. Right as
everybody wants to know what the answers. We are complicated people.
Women were complicated. It's very special. Yeah, yes, so, and
we like to make sure it's specialized to each one
of us so that you are always confused. That's the goal. Wow,
(20:17):
it's working right now. I'm confused. Right now. I want
an advice, and I feel like I know even less
than two minutes ago. But I think so you know
that they say there's a love language, and I don't
know if I really haven't read that book, but I
will tell you that for me, if my husband empties
the dishwasher or does the laundry, I am like, that
is so amazing. And I think that at one point
(20:40):
on the campaign trail, someone said to me, so, what
are your hobbies? And I thought, the only thing coming
to mind right now is laundry, because when you have
four kids, it's all you do. So when those chores
are picked up by him, it's just such a relief
and it makes me feel so happy inside. But I
think everybody's different, so you know, what my love language
(21:02):
is is obviously different than how someone else feels like
they're cared for and taken care of. But that I
think is the most important thing really in a relationship
is communicating what makes you feel like I'm there for you,
that I'm a partner. And that's where I think we
so oftentimes split in cases where we feel like we're
doing it alone, we're doing life alone. And it might
(21:23):
not be that you're doing life alone, but it might
just be that you don't know what the other person
needs to feel like they have a partner. A teammate
alongside them, and when you have four kids, it is
We're at the point where my girls are my twins
are nine, and then I have eleven and thirteen, and
it is a battle. You know. I thought, I kept thinking,
once they can tie their shoes, life won't be so
(21:45):
much easier. Then you have these moments where you think, well,
once they can read, life will be so much easier.
And it really is just a different level of heart.
That's why that partnership with your spouse is so key,
that partnership where you feel like I'm safe with this person,
because life is hard, and I think people expect life
(22:06):
to be so easy. You know, I look at some
of the things that we fight about in campaigns and
I think life is not easy. You know, when my
girls were when my twins were two, I had two,
four and six when I was diagnosed with cancer, and
that was one of those moments where I thought, gosh,
if something, if this goes south, the twins probably won't
(22:28):
remember me. My middle daughter won't likely remember much, and
my six year old will have very faint memories of me.
And if you don't have that person that support next
to you, saying we're going to power through this. It's
really hard. I mean, I just think it's a matter
of finding where you prop up the person when they
are falling over and making sure you're doing that. May
(22:50):
ask what was the what kind of cancer were you battling?
At the time, I had breast cancer, So that was
really a shocking moment. It was interesting because I mean,
maybe this is too much information, but you all know
this now. So when I went in, I was nursing
at the time, and I would have never thought that
(23:10):
this is what cancer felt like. I went into the
doctor and the physician's assistant was like, how long have
you had this lump here? And I didn't think anything
of it. So she sent me for a mammogram and
an ultrasound. And I went in for the mammogram and
the girl said, you know what, the mammogram is totally clean,
there's nothing there. They did send you for an ultrasound,
(23:31):
so we'll do one just to be safe, but you're
going to be fine. And I went in for the ultrasound,
and you know, you go in and they're like, how
many children do you have? Oh? Four? Hold are their names?
And then they do the ultrasound and their faces all
changed and there it's like how many children did you
say you have? And I remember thinking this is really
not this is not a good reaction. They said, would
(23:53):
you mind staying for a biopsy? And so I stayed
for the biopsy and then it was like a miscommunication
between the biopsy doctor and my doctor. My doctor thought
that I knew, so that she called me into her
office a few days later and I walked in and
she just immediately started handing me cancer brochures and I said,
(24:14):
do I have cancer? And she said, I thought they
already told you. So then was the journey of what's next.
And it's funny because when you end up with a
diagnosis like this, everyone around you wants you immediately to
go straight to the doctor and get it fixed, get
it fixed. And I was sort of one of those
people that wanted to talk to a few different doctors
(24:35):
to find out and I recommend that. I really. I
think it's so often as people we think whatever the
first doctor says, we have to listen. The doctor is
the person of authority. We just have to go with
that person. And the first doctor I talked to was
just not the person. I ended up going to Johns Hopkins.
And this is how cool this story is. After my surgery.
(24:57):
Three years after my surgery, my breast surgeon called me
and he said, and you think about this after all
of these other people have gone in, because if you're
in Johns Hopkins Cancer Center, you have somebody coming in
every five minutes with breast cancer. But three years later,
the surgeon called me and he said, I've a young woman,
she's thirty five. She has the same cancer you have,
(25:19):
and she's really scared. Would you call her and talk
her through it? How amazing is that? Yeah? Yeah, I
mean I also I think that's so important whenever someone
has a really serious health issue, that there's that first thing.
The first step is the feeling of alone. And you know,
when you're dealing with the health system, and I've had
to deal with this with family members and who have
(25:40):
had to go through you realize one of the things
that I think you're you have to fight along the
way is the recognition that it feels sometimes like nobody
cares about what you're going through. But you you know,
when you're making your way through the hospital corridors, waiting
in the waiting rooms and waiting for the meetings and
the scans, and you know, my grandmother had had can
sir and Juste, you had multiple cancers at the same time.
(26:03):
And being able to talk to somebody who's gone through
it and come out on the other side as you
have in particular, as you know, health healthy, and you
know prosperous as you've been, I think that would be
a very powerful I didn't know by the way that
you would you would have been through that, that you
are a cancer survivor. So I'm glad that you've got
great car at Johns Hopkins University. So you're a mom.
(26:25):
You have thought lots of battles already come out of
it successfully. What do you particularly energized about these days?
What do you see and you're like, this is the issue,
this is the thing I'm trying to transition to someone.
I do a lot of work on the border, and
I think that immigration is a fascinating and really important
(26:46):
illegal immigration specifically, What for you right now is the
thing that you are the most we need to fix
this in this country. Well, it's funny that you bring
up immigration because I probably have a slightly view on
it than maybe other people, but maybe not. Maybe other
people just haven't really talked about it this way. But
(27:08):
as I told you, it's difficult to start a steel
foundry in the United States because that's not the skill
set that we have anymore. But my dad recently helped
someone start a new foundry up in Indiana, and he
wanted to bring in folks from the Czech Republic in
Ukraine that we're specialists in their field. But according to
these immigration documents, to be considered a specialist in your field,
(27:32):
you had to have a degree in that field. Well,
we need laborers, and these are people that are truly
specialists in pouring molten metal. And that may seem like
you can just pour it any which way, but it
really is something that you have to be skilled to know.
And so when you talk about immigration, I think about
immigration reform, Michigan is dying for workers right now. We
(27:52):
need workers in hotels, we need workers and restaurants, we
need workers in factories. These are in many cases skilled
labor that want to come into this country that can't.
So when we keep hearing from everybody, oh, there's just
people that want to come in. There's people that want
to come in. You cannot tell me that the United
States of America with the intelligent people that we have
(28:13):
and the data that we have and the technology that
we have, that we would not be able to create
an immigration system that would be able to match people
to the open positions that we have, and say, if
you are able to do this job, and you want
to stay in this job for however long, you can
earn your green card or you can you can earn
(28:35):
your citizenship over time by filling a position that we
simply cannot fill. And this is the time. I mean,
you're hearing about the lack of workers, right, aren't you. Oh? Yeah, absolutely, well,
one thing that I'm hearing a lot. We actually just
talk to chef Andrew Gruel, who runs a restaurant out
in Los Angeles about this, and I think it's really
(28:56):
important that we can't get people to show up to
work because we keep thinking, you pay them more than
what they can get from the system and they'll show up. Right,
So it's twenty If minimum wage in Los Angeles is
fifteen dollars, which I think it is, it's something like that.
But if somebody can make the equivalent of ten dollars
or twelve dollars an hour staying home with welfare and
(29:17):
various benefits that they have unemployment for however long they
can get at things like that, you have to pay
them a lot more than a little more than that
to make them show up to a job and actually
give you eight hours of their day. And that's where
he says, there's a golf right now. There are a
lot of people that are in kind of the gray
economy side hustles, get money from the state, have their
hands in different things. And when you say, okay, well
(29:39):
I'm paying a good wage, they say, yeah, but I
have to show up to get that wage. This other stuff.
I do whatever I want, which I mean, it was
it was eye opening to hear it from somebody who's
trying to run a business and keep a balance sheet healthy.
But that's what we keep saying in Michigan. Where did
everyone go? And there are so many, as you put
inside hustles right now, and even young people, even my
(30:00):
own kids, talk about, well if I were to grow
up and work on Instagram or work on and I
keep saying that's those are not really real jobs. I mean,
for some people it really it's a real job. She's
on a podcast and she's like, it's not a real job. No,
I like that, that's fine, that's good, It's okay, fine.
I mean, Claydon I joke around of this all the time.
(30:21):
We're like, how can we get paid to do this?
It's crazy? But go ahead. And it's not that I
would say to my kids, you know, only a few
people actually get to be football stars. But it is
kind of like that, you know, this is not you
that this is a really hard career to make money.
And it is not like you're going to go to
a restaurant and get hired and be able to work
right away. But there are so many young people that believe, well,
(30:44):
so and so can just travel around the country and
take pictures and become very wealthy. And so is that
causing a lack of work ethic? Is it just because
it's easy to make a few dollars here and then
take a few days off. We do seem to have
a work ethic problem in the United States, and I
don't know that we've really identified where it's coming from.
(31:05):
In Michigan, I've had people come up with all kinds
of theories. Oh, the marijuana industry, it pays under the table.
Maybe they all went there, But how could all of
these people go. Now, Michigan's unique. We have people leaving
the state as well, so we're losing population. That always hurts.
But where are all the workers? And yet you have
all these people that would love to come into the
(31:26):
country and fill those jobs and not necessarily have a
minimum wage that puts the restaurant out of business. We
have some interesting things going on in Michigan where you
might get rid of tipping, have all servers make a
certain minimum wage. Some servers don't like that because if
they get tipped at a restaurant, they can make way
(31:48):
more than minimum wage. So it's a tough situation because people,
I don't know. People don't seem to want You're right,
they don't want to work the full day. You have
made people so jealous of you they just want your job.
But well, to see they have to recall though that.
For example, there was a time when I had to
show up to the NYPD and clock into the minute,
(32:09):
and if I was one minute late, I had to
literally one minute late for my tour. I would have
to fill out forms explaining why I was late. I
would have to add time onto the back. So when
you've done those kinds of jobs where they want. I
mean the same thing the CIA. I mean, it's the CIA.
They know where you are, right So when I would
come in, you're expected to be there the certain hours
(32:31):
you're there, and they're also people talk about overtime and stuff,
but we would just you would work way more hours
than what was expected. I mean we were in a
war office effectively the Rock office, and so there wasn't
a lot of like, oh it's five o'clock, time to go,
you know, if there was work to be done, people
just stayed and did it. But yeah, no, absolutely, I
mean coming into media, I joke about this with people
(32:51):
all the time in the business. I'm like, this is
it is a gift. I feel like everybody who gets
to make content and inform people for a living is
credibly lucky. And if you've done other jobs as I
have before this, and I was doing intel work for
about seven years, then when you get to do this,
you say to yourself, well, this is really this is
really a special thing. I mean, I could be sitting
(33:13):
here people don't even know. I could be sitting here
in my pajamas right now doing this podcast. They don't
even know. That would not have flown in the Iraq Office.
Let me tell you that it was jacket and tie
every day there. So I think if I were the
King of New York that I could fix New York
City pretty quickly because I know the city super well
and I understand the deficiencies. I firmly believe that, like,
(33:33):
if New York would just bring me in and let
me be more than the mayor, I have to be
kind of the dictator of New York, Like I couldn't
have like the city council chirping in my ear about
some nonsense. If they just empowered me, I could fix it.
Detroit used to be one of the greatest cities, one
of the greatest cities in America. Now Detroit unfortunately, I
mean I grew up, I watched the RoboCop movies, you know,
Beverly Hills Cop. I mean, Detroit has a reputation as
(33:55):
a city and it's not a particularly pleasant one for
the last twenty thirty years or so. Could it be fixed?
Do you think you could bring Detroit back? Well, I
will tell you one of the you asked earlier, what's
some of the most shocking stuff you discovered on the
campaign trail. There is a significant amount of corruption in
(34:17):
the state of Michigan. So that is part of the
big problem in Detroit. But of course, yes, it can
be fixed, it can be brought back. Detroit should be
I mean, Detroit really should overtake Chicago and be the
big city of the Midwest because it's beautiful. We have
an incredible landscape. You can just go up, just go
north of Detroit. You'd be at right on and on
(34:38):
an island. You can be vacationing. You can go up
to mackinaw you can vacation. You can come over to
my side of the state, be at the beach. Michigan
is an absolutely stunning state. You can go skiing, you
can go skiing, snow skiing in the winter, you can
go water skiing in the summer. And you have this
beautiful city right on the edge of the state. And
(34:58):
you can go back and forth to Canada. You can
go over there and gamble if you want, you can
come right back. You can do all kinds of fun
things from the state of Michigan and from the city
of Detroit. But we have and it has built back
quite a bit. Detroit is much better than what you
think of Detroit from the past. The reputation of Detroit
(35:20):
has kind of stuck with it. But if you go
into Detroit now, there's so many communities that have been
built up, really beautiful communities, and it does have a
ways to go, but it's certainly not from the standpoint
of you see the murders in Chicago and Saint Louis
solid time, Detroit is very dangerous, but we don't have
(35:41):
that kind of level of crime. So I do believe
that that's been worked on. There's the opportunity to increase
community policing to make sure that we are building back
that city and get investors. But to get investors into Detroit,
you really have to make Michigan as a state more
appeal and that's one of the things that we talked
(36:02):
about quite a bit on the campaign trails. How do
we make Michigan more appealing to businesses. I think in
the last ten years, Dallas has increased by two hundred headquarters.
The state of Michigan doesn't have that. So if we
can make the state of Michigan look better and build
the roads that we need for new businesses, make sure
(36:23):
that we get our energy costs down, bring more businesses here,
then we can build up Detroit. We can have investors
come and build up Detroit, but really Detroit gets a
bad rap. It has cleaned it up quite a bit.
There has been a lot of good work in policing
done there to bring the city back and make it safer.
Needs to be more done in the city of Detroit,
(36:46):
but I would love to see if be the shining
star in the Midwest. Yeah. I do think at one
point it was the highest back in the fifties, the
era of Ford. Obviously, it was the highest per capita
concentration of millionaires of any city in the United States,
which I think is as an interesting statistic. And also
there's all these you've probably seen it, these urban tours
(37:07):
or urbanum kind of photography landscape things were they'll go
and they'll show these beautiful old buildings in Detroit that
have been abandoned. You know, these these things that were
built that looked like cathedrals practically, I mean, they're they're
amazing structures have just been you know, left left to
grow with vines and trash and everything. So clearly there's
(37:31):
a great history. I have heard the downtown has gotten
a lot better. I've actually I've never been to Detroit.
So maybe this is an opportunity for me to put
it on the way, come spend some money in the
state of Michigan. But I will say that if we're
being really honest about Michigan, you brought up forward, what
a perfect time to talk about the fact that the
automotive industry is leaving the state of Michigan. And Gretchen
(37:53):
Whittmer will go out every day and tell you all
of the auto jobs that she's brought back. We lost
thirty two thousand auto jobs I think thirty four thousand,
eighty two thousand jobs total in the state of Michigan
while she was governor. But our auto jobs have really
really declined over the past four years. And the auto
company she'll tell you that the auto companies are coming here,
(38:14):
that we're getting these battery plants. But you're seeing the
battery plants. Go into Ohio, go into Tennessee, go into
North Carolina, and where the battery plants are, you will
see the assembly plants because that battery is the same
size as the vehicle. So right now, I had a
donor say to me, well, we didn't want to support
you in the race because we weren't sure what would happen.
(38:38):
So we cut a deal with Whitmer, and she said
that she would do all these things if we if
we donated to her, and then can you believe one
of the first things they decided to do was go
after right to work in the state of Michigan. Yeah,
I mean, yeah, how did you not? I mean, you know,
(38:58):
I know that you're in the commentary role now, you're
not an active race. Is Gretchen whit Or a bad
person because what she did during the pandemic makes me
think she's a bad person. I'm just going to ask you.
I will just say that my interactions with her were
always very pleasant. So you are such a nice person.
I have to say, you're a very nice lady. I'm impressed.
I haven't even met her, and I want to tress here.
(39:20):
I'm like, I cannot believe with you to keep going.
I'm sorry, Well, she was always very nice to me.
I don't like her policies, I mean, and I will
never like her policies because her policies are very progressive.
She is a very far leftist. So this is not
somebody who is I mean, she's talking about shutting down
our pipeline and that's something that nobody really addresses. A
(39:42):
few people address, but this is something that she's been
pushing for four years, shutting down our pipeline in the
state of Michigan. She's very progressive with hunting. They came
out with this new hunting rule where if you shoot
a deer, you have to report it on this website
now within forty or seventy two hours. And our hunters
are like, you know a lot of times we're out,
(40:02):
you know, a week where we don't have any service
and we can't do this. How it doesn't matter if
you get a misdemeanor. Why do you have to report
shooting a deer? I don't know what's the point of that.
The Department of Natural Resources has to know if every
time there is a deer that is taken out of
the herd, and they keep track of exactly how many
(40:22):
deer are shot of a year, which I understand, but
it's the amount of time that you have to have
it done and you have to do it online. This
is something that is not easy for our hunters. But
then they're coming out with these rules. Agencies that are
not legislators are coming out with rules that end up
with misdemeanors if you don't do them. And guess what
if you get a misdemeanor, then you lose your CPL.
(40:44):
So you can have your your guns taken away, you
can have your rights taken away because someone who's not
a lawmaker made a law that results in you getting
a misdemeanor that results in no CPL. Are you Are
you a hunter? By the way, I am not a hunter,
but I spend a lot of time so I spent
a lot of time with hunters while I was campaigning
and learning. You know, I'm one of those people that
(41:06):
I feel like I have to do it so I
can totally understand it. So one day they said, do
you want to go bear hunting? And I'm like, of course,
But inside I thought, I'm gonna tell you. I'm gonna
tell you right now toooter just you, me and the
many many people who will hear this. So this is
like we're in a friend zone here, um the trust tree.
(41:26):
I think bears are so cute. I could never shoot
a bear. I' this is my fear. I'm like, we're
gonna I'm gonna be really strong, I'm gonna I'm gonna
watch this happen, and I'm gonna be And I worried
about it for two weeks beforehand, and I'm like, what's
it like? You know, in my mind, we are out
all day going through the woods, you know, in in
(41:48):
all Camo and trying to find these deer and we
get there and like, no, you ride in a car,
you would look for the tracks and then you chase
the steer down. But fortunately we were a week before
you could actually shoot the deer. So this was just
like practice deer or bear chasing. Bear bear chasing. Yes,
so we couldn't shoot any bears while we were out there,
(42:10):
but we could track them down and chase it. And
then they send these dogs. The dogs are really chase. Yeah,
so it was it was a rough I just want
to be friends with the bear and let them get
a picnic basket. I think they want to be friends
with you, though, so you should be careful. That is
probably true. Actually they're probably you know, they're they're they
look cute from afar. I remember I saw grizzlies up
(42:31):
in Alaska and from far away, you're like, they're majestic
and beautiful. And then it got within about fifty yards
of us. And I was like, um, we all have
fifty cowhandguns. Right, like you start to your your whole
sensibility goes from uh, these things are amazing. I feel
like I'm, you know, watching Wild Kingdom and Richard Attenborough's
narrating to We're not gonna like get eaten right, you know,
(42:53):
It's it shifts very quickly when they get much known.
The grizzlies aren't there. Well they are. We have black bears.
They're a little bit more cuddling, but I don't like
giant trash pandas they're like they're like overgrown raccoons. Most
most black bears aren't really that big. Um. Before before
we close, actually I have I have kind of a
serious question, political analysis question. I want to ask you
(43:14):
more about about hunting and well, actually a quick one.
What is the most underrated place in Michigan in your mind?
You know, whether it's a city or a place to go, Like,
what's the place that you know? You would say, um,
you know, like I don't know. If I were talking
about New York, which I know super well, I would
(43:35):
say underrated, although everyone knows everything in New York, but
the North Shore of or rather the North Fork of
Long Island is really amazing and you get a lot
of the advantage of the very famous Hampton's Beaches without
the price and the craziness for example. Right, So, well,
we we spent a lot of time in the Upper
Peninsula of Michigan, and I think that if you haven't
(43:57):
been there, I mean, it is truly God's kind country.
It is the summertime, it is so beautiful. We went
in the summer, and we went in February. February. You
have to be a harder core to go in February,
because I thought, I live on the west side of Michigan.
We get like effect snows, so in my mind, I'm
thinking I've seen a white out. I know how bad
snow is. No, it was nothing compared a white out.
(44:19):
I mean, I couldn't even see my fingers in front
of my face. This was so snowy. But we got
to see the dog sled rice. If you have never
done that, that's what I think is underrated. You've got
to go stand out in the cold with your hot
cocoa and watch these people, these mushers get on their
sleds and take off and just know that they're going
to be outside in this frigid, cold night after night,
(44:41):
snuggled up with their dogs, and it is pretty majestic
to see that happen. I mean, this might tell you.
I'm the guy at the ski lodge who is all
about room service and like the hot tub situation everyone.
You know, Yeah, I have no shame. I'm like this,
I'm taking a spot whatever it else's snowshoe or mushing
or whatever. One last thing for you, just how do
(45:04):
we get a Republican to win? This was the serious
question that I was going to ask you, how do
we get a Republican to win in Michigan in twenty
twenty four, because that's obviously really important. Well that is okay,
So this is the major question in the state of
Michigan because you know that Michigan not only did we
(45:24):
lose the governor seat, but we lost the state and
the State House and State Senate, so we always we'd
had a majority for forty years, lost everything. So for Michigan,
I think it's really important to look to Florida. And
I say that because I think so many people say
to me regularly, Oh, Rhonda Santis has been able to
do great things in Florida, but Rhonda Santis has only
(45:46):
been able to do great things in Florida because so
much of the procedure on the ground was set up
in the past for him. And I mean that by
Rick Scott, by Jeb Bush. The ground game that we've
talked about so much about mail in ballots. You know,
Florida was never complaining about this. They knew that a
lot of their population is using mail in ballots, so
(46:07):
they had that ground game of chasing ballots. We as
Republicans have a habit of chasing voters. We have rallies,
we talk to people, we want to get people together,
and we think we've got all these voters. But for
Democrats that this is a machine we want. If you're
a Democrat, we want ballots in our bag. We know
we have them, they are packed away, those votes are
(46:31):
we already have them, We've already counted them. So that's
what we have to change our mindset as Republicans and
say we've got to play. We've got to play on
the same level. We have got to make sure that
we're doing that, that we are identifying new voters, we
find out who they are. And Florida has done this.
Florida has registered more Republicans every single year. A ground
game like you would not believe, going out using data
(46:52):
checking to see how many people are in this neighborhood,
how many are Republicans? The rest who aren't registered are
probably Republicans. Will go do that and they go and
they register them. Then they hunt the mail in ballots.
They've got this down. So I'm saying for all states.
If you're looking at all states, all states that are saying, wow,
how are we going to get back in the game
(47:13):
as Republicans win. Let's take a look at what the
successful states have done, what their motto or what their
method has been to get those ballots and bring that
to our other purple states and turn them red. But
it's hard, it's work. It's got to be a lot
of raising money, it's got to be a lot of
people on the ground. This is a business. This is
(47:34):
not this is not just a feeling. It's got to
be a business mindset of we have a job to
do and we've got to get it done. Tutor, thanks
so much for being with us here today on the
Buck Sexton Show. Where can everyone go to follow your work,
your projects ahead, help you save Michigan, make Michigan. Great again,
all of it well we are. I'm at on Twitter
(47:56):
at tutor Dixon, on Facebook at tutor Dixon, and the
tutor dixon dot com website is under construction. We will
be unveiling something new soon, so stay tuned for that
and check back in. Tutor Dixon, thanks so much for
being with us. Good to see you. Thank you so
much
Hey, everybody, welcome to another episode of the Buck Sexton Show.
I have Tutor Dixon with me now. Not only does
she have the coolest name that I've heard in a
long time, and my name is Buck Sexton, so I
feel like I know something about at least unusual names.
Her name is just straight up cool. She ran for
governor of Michigan came really close to defeating the wicked
(00:21):
Witch of Michigan, Gretchen Whitmer, which would have been amazing.
I is a mom, is an American patriot wife, commentator,
soon to be podcaster, Michigander. Tutor Dixon, great to have
you on. Thank you. I'm happy to be here. So
how do you decide it? I would like to start
with the origin story. You know, it's almost like a
comic book. How do you decide to get into this game?
(00:44):
I mean, you know, I was rooting for you so
much because I was a New York Erd in the
pandemic and Michigan was one of the only places where
I didn't expect the lockdowns to get as crazy as
it got, if that makes sense New York LA DC, Sure, Michigan,
is that what happened? Right? Yes? So we were watching
(01:04):
this happen, and the origin story kind of goes back
far because my origin story in Michigan starts in a
steel foundry. So I spent most of my career in
the steel foundry on the shop floor, working the product through,
helping make sure we get it on time to our customers.
And then in twenty seventeen, I had a friend come
(01:25):
to me and say, I don't know if you know
what's happening in our schools, but it's really kind of
this anti American message, and I want to provide a
news service for middle and high school students that would
be pro America but also talk about jobs. And that
was near and dear to my heart because it was
really hard for us to find people to come and
work in the shop. And I thought, this is great.
(01:45):
This is an opportunity to introduce young people to manufacturing,
and I think that's lost on a lot of young
people these days. But then as we expanded that, we
grew into conservative media, into the political world, and then
twenty twenty came and I saw factory shut down, I
saw people out of work, I saw our communities really
(02:06):
falling apart, and I saw my own kids, my own
kids at home, they're not at school. My ten year
old at one point looked at me and she goes, mom,
I was putting in her bed and she started crying,
and I said, why are you crying, honey? And I
think as adults, we started to forget that our kids
were home for so long without ever leaving the house.
They weren't even allowed to go to the grocery store
(02:28):
with us. And she looked at me and she said,
I think this is what it feels like to be depressed.
And that was sort of that crowning blow where I said,
we've got to do something and talked to some friends
and we thought who's going to run? Who is going
to run for governor in Michigan? And we talked to
folks in Lancing. There wasn't that traditional politician type person
(02:51):
stepping up to do it. And I had this crazy
moment where I was like, how surely hard could it
be to run for governor? And it turns out it's
kind of hard. Tell me, actually, I want to get
back to the running for governor thing in a second.
I'm just curious about that. Again, as somebody who wasn't
in politics, you just decided to run for governor in
a serious, a serious state. You know, it's not like
the governor of Rhode Island. Let's be honest, you know
(03:13):
what I mean. I mean, you know, no offense or
Rhode Island. But come on. But but you know, you know,
I'm just saying, Michigan's got a lot of people. So, uh,
the steel foundry. You when someone sees you, I don't
think they're thinking, this is somebody who was on this
on the floor of the steel foundry. Um, what is that? Like?
(03:33):
How is the American steel industry doing. I'm always curious
about about that. I wonder, you know, we were the
best in the world. Are we still the best in
the world? And tell me about the steel Well, I
think this is a really interesting because the steel industry, well,
I come from the foundry industry. So what we're doing
is we're pouring molten metal into a sand mold in
(03:54):
making a product for someone like a Caterpillar or a
John Deer. So we did a lot of mining mill terry,
heavy equipment, farm equipment, things like that, but you're making
pieces for someone else. And this was something that over
the Obama years really saw a lot going to China
and China was really taking over that space, and they
really have. There's not that many steel foundries left in
(04:17):
the United States, and it's such a crucial part of
what we do because, as I said, it's in all
of your farm equipment. I mean, this is what your
vehicles are made out of. This is what your military
vehicles were made up. We made quite a few parts
for the MRAP vehicles at that time, and you just
think about the idea of these things coming over from China. Now,
(04:37):
a lot of our military equipment has a ninety percent
or eighty percent by America clause, but you still have
a portion of that that can come from another country.
And so I know you hear people on our side
of the aisle talking about America First quite a bit.
So I think America First is something that we have
to break into a few different categories when we look
(04:58):
at America First, because coming from the steel industry, I
knew what it was like. I watched our patterns, our
parts go overseas bit by bit by bit until our
foundry closed and many other foundries closed. So I think
when we think about America First, we really need to
think about how much do we feel comfortable having in China,
(05:18):
and then how much of that do we need to
bring back to the United States. But some that question,
real quick, tutor, how do we bring it back? Is
it just because the labor in China is obviously a
lot cheaper? Do we have advantages either technologically or just
do we just make a better product here? How do
we bring it back here? Is a tariff something that's
(05:39):
That's what I was going to say. A lot of
people don't understand that it's some of these parts. Once
you close the factories, these factories don't start up again,
and there aren't a lot of people out there that
are saying, what should I do? Why don't I start
up a steel foundry. They're very hard to start up,
and it's very hard to operate. There's not a whole
lot of knowledge of how to do it yet left
in the United States. So certain trades are really being
(06:00):
lost completely to the United States. So in that case,
I would say, well, how do we find a friendly
country to make sure we're outsourcing to a friendly country,
and then if we can, over time bring that back.
I would love to see those jobs come back, but
I want to be realistic too and say there are
certain technologies that we do really well, and there are
certain technologies that are a lost art in the United
(06:20):
States that we need to find an allied country rather
than an adversarial country to do business in. And I
know that's an unpopular view, but I'm coming from a
place of really having seen it been on the shop floor,
and I know we have great steel foundries here. As
much business as we can put on them, we should,
But in the cases where you just can't find a source,
(06:41):
you need to go to an allied country. That's so
important that we start talking about that relationship with our
allies and making sure that's secure. If you think the
United States sent one hundred and fifty billion dollars worth
of product to China last year, China sent five hundred
and sixty billion dollars worth of product to the United States.
So although they are very reliant on us to be
(07:04):
their biggest buyer, we are also very reliant on them
for our pharmaceuticals, for our steel, for almost every product
there's a piece of it in China. When you think
about five hundred and sixty billion dollars worth of imports.
I was just talking to General Mattis over the weekend
and I said, so, don't you think that that seems like, well,
China doesn't really want to attack us if we are
(07:25):
their biggest customer. And he said, but you're thinking from
a logical standpoint. You're thinking from a logical point of view,
and that's not necessarily how you have to think when
you're talking about countries like that, which I think is
something we have to remember, and that's something that goes
beyond government, that goes to the private sector, because you know,
and I know that the majority of these companies our
(07:46):
private sector. This isn't our military equipment, this isn't all government,
this is private sector. So when you think about not
having pharmaceuticals, we really need to be pushing those companies
to use friendly countries or come back to the United States.
Want to ask you about running for a governor in
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can all watching at home or listening donate as well
if you can so. Tutor running for governor, you're hanging
(09:13):
out with some friends. You're in Michigan, You're like, no
one else is running. Gretchen Whitmer's horrible, like truly horrible.
I don't really care. I'm gonna say this. You know,
I'm in Florida now. I was in New York for
almost forty years of my life, give or take the
college years and some CIA years thrown in there. But
I don't really care about other states governors very much.
Right if someone asked me, what do I think of
(09:33):
the governor of Wyoming, I don't even know. The governor
of Wyoming is off the top of my head. Am
I gonna lie? Your governor, though, was like Fauci in
a wig, Like your governor was the absolute worst. So
you step up to stop the madness? What's that process? Like?
I mean, what did you learn from doing it? And
would you do it again? I've said to people, maybe
(09:55):
it's like pregnancy and you forget and then you do
it again. Maybe there's that chance, because it really is very,
very hard. It's interesting because I think what people don't understand,
and this is one of the questions we got over
and over again. It was like, why don't you come
out and say these things are lies or why do
they Why are they allowed to lie about you? When
you're a public figure. You know this buck, they can
(10:17):
say things about you and there's no defamation clause. You
can't go after them, so they can make up anything
they want. And I think that was the hardest part
was seeing them make things about my family, seeing them
make splice up my words and create commercials out of
things that I didn't really say, to make it look
like I said something that I hadn't said. That was
(10:37):
really challenging. But also, I mean, the whole process is
incredibly brutal because you go through this battle with your
own side first. You're fighting your own side first, and
it gets really ugly, and people that you have trusted
for years do things and turn against you, and you think, wow,
this is really harsh. I mean, you remember Donald Trump.
A lot of times, Donald Trump Junior has come out
(11:00):
and said, you know, my dad when he went down
that escalator, said now we find out who our friends are,
and that's really exactly right. You find out who's going
to call you and say did you say this? You
find out who's going to come out and say something
about you behind your back, and it was that was
pretty shocking. But I think that, you know, going around
the state, the thing that was the most surprising to
(11:20):
me that was nothing to do with me at all.
Going around the state. If you go to other states,
you see things thriving. I mean, we've gone to Dallas,
We've gone to Nashville and seeing folks down that you
know down in Nashville, and those cities are just booming.
They have cars everywhere, people are driving around, all the
(11:40):
restaurants are open. I think people don't realize in Michigan
we lost full communities. So as I was campaigning, I
had people really literally falling into my arms and crying
and saying, bring back our communities. We used to have
a whole row of restaurants down the street, and out
of the six restaurants that we're here, there's one left
our community. And that was really the sense of community
(12:03):
totally lost. And so that was the most surprising thing
to me. As I started leaving the state to travel
to some other cities and talk to folks about investing
in Michigan, I saw, Wow, the rest of the country
is really bounced back and Michigan really hasn't. But the
overwhelming joy of people too, the resilience of the human spirit.
(12:24):
Going out and talking to these people and even through tears,
they're just holding my hands and saying, we're going to
pray for you. We want to see this happen. And
it was such an amazing experience for people who are
concerned about running for office because it's brutal and you
get attacked in the media, and the media is not
your friend, especially if you are on the right side
(12:45):
of the aisle. The media is not your friend. I
have to tell you it is the most rewarding thing
you can do to go out and talk to people
and give them hope. That was just amazing and I
really encourage other people to go out and attempt to
serve if you can. Yeah. Well, on the on the
media side is you'll be seeing more and more going forward. Tutor.
(13:06):
For every fifty people on Twitter who tell you that
you know, meaning me in this case, you go to
tell me that I'm I'm horrible, dumb, ugly and should
you know, go jump off a bridge. There'll be one
person who comes up to me in an airport or
while I'm in line at the grocery store who's like,
I love your show and all I ever remember is
that person. We do it for that person, right the
(13:27):
other their blue hair and their cat food. You know
they're sad. They're sad, and those are not real people.
And that's what I try to explain to people that
the Twitter verse is not the average person. The average
person isn't on Twitter. They're not They're not looking at
what you're doing on Twitter. Twitter may set a media narrative,
(13:47):
but the people are totally different. Tonight, I was at
my daughter's basketball game. I'm just watching the basketball game
and this woman kind of comes down the bleachers and
sits next to me, and she said, I just want
to tell you that we watch your entire race and
we were so proud to be supporting you. And it
really is so humbling because you feel like, wow, I
(14:08):
didn't even know that these people were out there, that
they felt that way about me. And what can I
do to keep that promise in other ways? And that's
something that's been important to me in this If I
can't be serving them in that way, then I believe
that God put me on this journey for some reason,
that there's still a path to helping folks and making
sure that we bring those communities back whatever way I
(14:30):
can do that, And so that's why I'm still in
the game and I'm still focused on serving people. However
I can. Did your daughter's team win, by the way, No,
it was terrible. They got blown out. Oh man, that
could be a rough one. What was it? I mean
was it was the other team? The other team just
usually at that level. I coached high school soccer at
one point. And if you have one or two players
(14:51):
who are going to go, you know, go. You can
always tell to one or two players on a team
that are going to go college, especially if they're going
to go play D one. That's the team that usually
there's water that's not happening. It wasn't happening. Now. Well
it's sixth grade though, so sixth grade everybody is still
kind of, you know, learning their own body too. So
I mean, you go in and you never know. But
(15:13):
the funny thing is, so my sixth grader plays basketball,
and then my fourth graders play with their twins and
they play basketball. And we are truly the shortest people here.
So we live in an area of Michigan that is
very Dutch, and Dutch people are all extraordinarily tall. Like
we walked into school the first day, and people were like, oh,
look at those tiny little children. But they were actually
(15:33):
in the class with the other kids. They just thought
that they were tiny little children. So no one expects
my one daughter, she's the smallest one of my twins,
to be anything on the basketball court, and she is
like so awesome. She goes out there and she made
four baskets on Saturday and she's just like this little ringer.
No one expects it, which is kind of cool to
watch when they're I mean, there was this guy was amazing.
(15:56):
Did you watch I used to watch the Ian Clay
makes fun of me and says that I don't like sports.
That's actually, as I've gotten older, I don't really watch
munch professional sports. I do like playing sports, and certainly
hope to, uh, you know, coach my own kids one day.
But way back in the day, I did watch NBA.
Do you remember there was a guy, Muggsy Bogues who
was in the NBA. I think he was five foot five.
(16:17):
There was a there was a player in the NBA.
He's a famous player. And then there was a guy
named Spud web This is back in the early nineties,
and Spud Webb actually won the slam Dunk contest and
he was five foot nine. So I'm just saying, tell
your girls, there's a chance she will defy genetics and
still be able to play basketball. But she's really I mean,
(16:39):
I never You know, It's funny because as a parent,
there are things that your kids do and you never
thought that could be possible. You know, you're like, that's
not part of us. Didn't come from me, it didn't
come from my husband. So then they do something and
it totally blows your mind. My one, my oldest daughter,
is extraordinarily shy, and she went to school and she
(17:01):
went to this school's new three. When COVID hit, we
moved them to this school. And she's tried out for
the play, never done anything like this before. And the
girl at the front desk said to me, well, Larkin's amazing.
She's going to Hollywood. And I will confess that as
a mom, I thought she must have the wrong child
because Larkin is shy. She's not, that's not her. And
(17:22):
then she comes out on stage at the play and
she's singing, and she's like amazing. And I turned to
my husband and I'm like, did you know how she
could sing? It's like, how do we not about our
own kid? You know? But I think that's the coolest
part about parenting. Sometimes your child does and then you're like,
where does that come from? But it's amazing, And there
are things that are not amazing that they do too.
(17:44):
I've heard stories about that, you know. I'm actually I've
got to ask you a few questions here. I gotta
ask you for some advice in a second, because uter
I'm getting married in just a matter of days, so
I want the woman, thank you. Yeah, I want the
woman's perspective on how to make everything go as smoothly
as possible for me for the next forty years or so.
So we'll get to that in just a second. Yeah,
(18:06):
I'm sure you've got some thoughts. Heads up, if you're
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one eight hundred LifeLock. And all right, tutor, Now this
is the part of the podcast that everyone's gonna have
to take notes on. So you're how many kids you have? Three?
(19:32):
You have three kids? Four? Four kids? Okay, so you
are a happily married wife and mom with four kids.
How do I follow in the footsteps here? I mean,
obviously I can't personally have the four kids, but I'd
like to have two or three getting married? How do
I have happy wife, happy life? You know? I mean
if I had the answer to that, then I would
(19:54):
not be podcasting. I would just be laying back and
when my private jet going wherever I wanted. Right as
everybody wants to know what the answers. We are complicated people.
Women were complicated. It's very special. Yeah, yes, so, and
we like to make sure it's specialized to each one
of us so that you are always confused. That's the goal. Wow,
(20:17):
it's working right now. I'm confused. Right now. I want
an advice, and I feel like I know even less
than two minutes ago. But I think so you know
that they say there's a love language, and I don't
know if I really haven't read that book, but I
will tell you that for me, if my husband empties
the dishwasher or does the laundry, I am like, that
is so amazing. And I think that at one point
(20:40):
on the campaign trail, someone said to me, so, what
are your hobbies? And I thought, the only thing coming
to mind right now is laundry, because when you have
four kids, it's all you do. So when those chores
are picked up by him, it's just such a relief
and it makes me feel so happy inside. But I
think everybody's different, so you know, what my love language
(21:02):
is is obviously different than how someone else feels like
they're cared for and taken care of. But that I
think is the most important thing really in a relationship
is communicating what makes you feel like I'm there for you,
that I'm a partner. And that's where I think we
so oftentimes split in cases where we feel like we're
doing it alone, we're doing life alone. And it might
(21:23):
not be that you're doing life alone, but it might
just be that you don't know what the other person
needs to feel like they have a partner. A teammate
alongside them, and when you have four kids, it is
We're at the point where my girls are my twins
are nine, and then I have eleven and thirteen, and
it is a battle. You know. I thought, I kept thinking,
once they can tie their shoes, life won't be so
(21:45):
much easier. Then you have these moments where you think, well,
once they can read, life will be so much easier.
And it really is just a different level of heart.
That's why that partnership with your spouse is so key,
that partnership where you feel like I'm safe with this person,
because life is hard, and I think people expect life
(22:06):
to be so easy. You know, I look at some
of the things that we fight about in campaigns and
I think life is not easy. You know, when my
girls were when my twins were two, I had two,
four and six when I was diagnosed with cancer, and
that was one of those moments where I thought, gosh,
if something, if this goes south, the twins probably won't
(22:28):
remember me. My middle daughter won't likely remember much, and
my six year old will have very faint memories of me.
And if you don't have that person that support next
to you, saying we're going to power through this. It's
really hard. I mean, I just think it's a matter
of finding where you prop up the person when they
are falling over and making sure you're doing that. May
(22:50):
ask what was the what kind of cancer were you battling?
At the time, I had breast cancer, So that was
really a shocking moment. It was interesting because I mean,
maybe this is too much information, but you all know
this now. So when I went in, I was nursing
at the time, and I would have never thought that
(23:10):
this is what cancer felt like. I went into the
doctor and the physician's assistant was like, how long have
you had this lump here? And I didn't think anything
of it. So she sent me for a mammogram and
an ultrasound. And I went in for the mammogram and
the girl said, you know what, the mammogram is totally clean,
there's nothing there. They did send you for an ultrasound,
(23:31):
so we'll do one just to be safe, but you're
going to be fine. And I went in for the ultrasound,
and you know, you go in and they're like, how
many children do you have? Oh? Four? Hold are their names?
And then they do the ultrasound and their faces all
changed and there it's like how many children did you
say you have? And I remember thinking this is really
not this is not a good reaction. They said, would
(23:53):
you mind staying for a biopsy? And so I stayed
for the biopsy and then it was like a miscommunication
between the biopsy doctor and my doctor. My doctor thought
that I knew, so that she called me into her
office a few days later and I walked in and
she just immediately started handing me cancer brochures and I said,
(24:14):
do I have cancer? And she said, I thought they
already told you. So then was the journey of what's next.
And it's funny because when you end up with a
diagnosis like this, everyone around you wants you immediately to
go straight to the doctor and get it fixed, get
it fixed. And I was sort of one of those
people that wanted to talk to a few different doctors
(24:35):
to find out and I recommend that. I really. I
think it's so often as people we think whatever the
first doctor says, we have to listen. The doctor is
the person of authority. We just have to go with
that person. And the first doctor I talked to was
just not the person. I ended up going to Johns Hopkins.
And this is how cool this story is. After my surgery.
(24:57):
Three years after my surgery, my breast surgeon called me
and he said, and you think about this after all
of these other people have gone in, because if you're
in Johns Hopkins Cancer Center, you have somebody coming in
every five minutes with breast cancer. But three years later,
the surgeon called me and he said, I've a young woman,
she's thirty five. She has the same cancer you have,
(25:19):
and she's really scared. Would you call her and talk
her through it? How amazing is that? Yeah? Yeah, I
mean I also I think that's so important whenever someone
has a really serious health issue, that there's that first thing.
The first step is the feeling of alone. And you know,
when you're dealing with the health system, and I've had
to deal with this with family members and who have
(25:40):
had to go through you realize one of the things
that I think you're you have to fight along the
way is the recognition that it feels sometimes like nobody
cares about what you're going through. But you you know,
when you're making your way through the hospital corridors, waiting
in the waiting rooms and waiting for the meetings and
the scans, and you know, my grandmother had had can
sir and Juste, you had multiple cancers at the same time.
(26:03):
And being able to talk to somebody who's gone through
it and come out on the other side as you
have in particular, as you know, health healthy, and you
know prosperous as you've been, I think that would be
a very powerful I didn't know by the way that
you would you would have been through that, that you
are a cancer survivor. So I'm glad that you've got
great car at Johns Hopkins University. So you're a mom.
(26:25):
You have thought lots of battles already come out of
it successfully. What do you particularly energized about these days?
What do you see and you're like, this is the issue,
this is the thing I'm trying to transition to someone.
I do a lot of work on the border, and
I think that immigration is a fascinating and really important
(26:46):
illegal immigration specifically, What for you right now is the
thing that you are the most we need to fix
this in this country. Well, it's funny that you bring
up immigration because I probably have a slightly view on
it than maybe other people, but maybe not. Maybe other
people just haven't really talked about it this way. But
(27:08):
as I told you, it's difficult to start a steel
foundry in the United States because that's not the skill
set that we have anymore. But my dad recently helped
someone start a new foundry up in Indiana, and he
wanted to bring in folks from the Czech Republic in
Ukraine that we're specialists in their field. But according to
these immigration documents, to be considered a specialist in your field,
(27:32):
you had to have a degree in that field. Well,
we need laborers, and these are people that are truly
specialists in pouring molten metal. And that may seem like
you can just pour it any which way, but it
really is something that you have to be skilled to know.
And so when you talk about immigration, I think about
immigration reform, Michigan is dying for workers right now. We
(27:52):
need workers in hotels, we need workers and restaurants, we
need workers in factories. These are in many cases skilled
labor that want to come into this country that can't.
So when we keep hearing from everybody, oh, there's just
people that want to come in. There's people that want
to come in. You cannot tell me that the United
States of America with the intelligent people that we have
(28:13):
and the data that we have and the technology that
we have, that we would not be able to create
an immigration system that would be able to match people
to the open positions that we have, and say, if
you are able to do this job, and you want
to stay in this job for however long, you can
earn your green card or you can you can earn
(28:35):
your citizenship over time by filling a position that we
simply cannot fill. And this is the time. I mean,
you're hearing about the lack of workers, right, aren't you. Oh? Yeah, absolutely, well,
one thing that I'm hearing a lot. We actually just
talk to chef Andrew Gruel, who runs a restaurant out
in Los Angeles about this, and I think it's really
(28:56):
important that we can't get people to show up to
work because we keep thinking, you pay them more than
what they can get from the system and they'll show up. Right,
So it's twenty If minimum wage in Los Angeles is
fifteen dollars, which I think it is, it's something like that.
But if somebody can make the equivalent of ten dollars
or twelve dollars an hour staying home with welfare and
(29:17):
various benefits that they have unemployment for however long they
can get at things like that, you have to pay
them a lot more than a little more than that
to make them show up to a job and actually
give you eight hours of their day. And that's where
he says, there's a golf right now. There are a
lot of people that are in kind of the gray
economy side hustles, get money from the state, have their
hands in different things. And when you say, okay, well
(29:39):
I'm paying a good wage, they say, yeah, but I
have to show up to get that wage. This other stuff.
I do whatever I want, which I mean, it was
it was eye opening to hear it from somebody who's
trying to run a business and keep a balance sheet healthy.
But that's what we keep saying in Michigan. Where did
everyone go? And there are so many, as you put
inside hustles right now, and even young people, even my
(30:00):
own kids, talk about, well if I were to grow
up and work on Instagram or work on and I
keep saying that's those are not really real jobs. I mean,
for some people it really it's a real job. She's
on a podcast and she's like, it's not a real job. No,
I like that, that's fine, that's good, It's okay, fine.
I mean, Claydon I joke around of this all the time.
(30:21):
We're like, how can we get paid to do this?
It's crazy? But go ahead. And it's not that I
would say to my kids, you know, only a few
people actually get to be football stars. But it is
kind of like that, you know, this is not you
that this is a really hard career to make money.
And it is not like you're going to go to
a restaurant and get hired and be able to work
right away. But there are so many young people that believe, well,
(30:44):
so and so can just travel around the country and
take pictures and become very wealthy. And so is that
causing a lack of work ethic? Is it just because
it's easy to make a few dollars here and then
take a few days off. We do seem to have
a work ethic problem in the United States, and I
don't know that we've really identified where it's coming from.
(31:05):
In Michigan, I've had people come up with all kinds
of theories. Oh, the marijuana industry, it pays under the table.
Maybe they all went there, But how could all of
these people go. Now, Michigan's unique. We have people leaving
the state as well, so we're losing population. That always hurts.
But where are all the workers? And yet you have
all these people that would love to come into the
(31:26):
country and fill those jobs and not necessarily have a
minimum wage that puts the restaurant out of business. We
have some interesting things going on in Michigan where you
might get rid of tipping, have all servers make a
certain minimum wage. Some servers don't like that because if
they get tipped at a restaurant, they can make way
(31:48):
more than minimum wage. So it's a tough situation because people,
I don't know. People don't seem to want You're right,
they don't want to work the full day. You have
made people so jealous of you they just want your job.
But well, to see they have to recall though that.
For example, there was a time when I had to
show up to the NYPD and clock into the minute,
(32:09):
and if I was one minute late, I had to
literally one minute late for my tour. I would have
to fill out forms explaining why I was late. I
would have to add time onto the back. So when
you've done those kinds of jobs where they want. I
mean the same thing the CIA. I mean, it's the CIA.
They know where you are, right So when I would
come in, you're expected to be there the certain hours
(32:31):
you're there, and they're also people talk about overtime and stuff,
but we would just you would work way more hours
than what was expected. I mean we were in a
war office effectively the Rock office, and so there wasn't
a lot of like, oh it's five o'clock, time to go,
you know, if there was work to be done, people
just stayed and did it. But yeah, no, absolutely, I
mean coming into media, I joke about this with people
(32:51):
all the time in the business. I'm like, this is
it is a gift. I feel like everybody who gets
to make content and inform people for a living is
credibly lucky. And if you've done other jobs as I
have before this, and I was doing intel work for
about seven years, then when you get to do this,
you say to yourself, well, this is really this is
really a special thing. I mean, I could be sitting
(33:13):
here people don't even know. I could be sitting here
in my pajamas right now doing this podcast. They don't
even know. That would not have flown in the Iraq Office.
Let me tell you that it was jacket and tie
every day there. So I think if I were the
King of New York that I could fix New York
City pretty quickly because I know the city super well
and I understand the deficiencies. I firmly believe that, like,
(33:33):
if New York would just bring me in and let
me be more than the mayor, I have to be
kind of the dictator of New York, Like I couldn't
have like the city council chirping in my ear about
some nonsense. If they just empowered me, I could fix it.
Detroit used to be one of the greatest cities, one
of the greatest cities in America. Now Detroit unfortunately, I
mean I grew up, I watched the RoboCop movies, you know,
Beverly Hills Cop. I mean, Detroit has a reputation as
(33:55):
a city and it's not a particularly pleasant one for
the last twenty thirty years or so. Could it be fixed?
Do you think you could bring Detroit back? Well, I
will tell you one of the you asked earlier, what's
some of the most shocking stuff you discovered on the
campaign trail. There is a significant amount of corruption in
(34:17):
the state of Michigan. So that is part of the
big problem in Detroit. But of course, yes, it can
be fixed, it can be brought back. Detroit should be
I mean, Detroit really should overtake Chicago and be the
big city of the Midwest because it's beautiful. We have
an incredible landscape. You can just go up, just go
north of Detroit. You'd be at right on and on
(34:38):
an island. You can be vacationing. You can go up
to mackinaw you can vacation. You can come over to
my side of the state, be at the beach. Michigan
is an absolutely stunning state. You can go skiing, you
can go skiing, snow skiing in the winter, you can
go water skiing in the summer. And you have this
beautiful city right on the edge of the state. And
(34:58):
you can go back and forth to Canada. You can
go over there and gamble if you want, you can
come right back. You can do all kinds of fun
things from the state of Michigan and from the city
of Detroit. But we have and it has built back
quite a bit. Detroit is much better than what you
think of Detroit from the past. The reputation of Detroit
(35:20):
has kind of stuck with it. But if you go
into Detroit now, there's so many communities that have been
built up, really beautiful communities, and it does have a
ways to go, but it's certainly not from the standpoint
of you see the murders in Chicago and Saint Louis
solid time, Detroit is very dangerous, but we don't have
(35:41):
that kind of level of crime. So I do believe
that that's been worked on. There's the opportunity to increase
community policing to make sure that we are building back
that city and get investors. But to get investors into Detroit,
you really have to make Michigan as a state more
appeal and that's one of the things that we talked
(36:02):
about quite a bit on the campaign trails. How do
we make Michigan more appealing to businesses. I think in
the last ten years, Dallas has increased by two hundred headquarters.
The state of Michigan doesn't have that. So if we
can make the state of Michigan look better and build
the roads that we need for new businesses, make sure
(36:23):
that we get our energy costs down, bring more businesses here,
then we can build up Detroit. We can have investors
come and build up Detroit, but really Detroit gets a
bad rap. It has cleaned it up quite a bit.
There has been a lot of good work in policing
done there to bring the city back and make it safer.
Needs to be more done in the city of Detroit,
(36:46):
but I would love to see if be the shining
star in the Midwest. Yeah. I do think at one
point it was the highest back in the fifties, the
era of Ford. Obviously, it was the highest per capita
concentration of millionaires of any city in the United States,
which I think is as an interesting statistic. And also
there's all these you've probably seen it, these urban tours
(37:07):
or urbanum kind of photography landscape things were they'll go
and they'll show these beautiful old buildings in Detroit that
have been abandoned. You know, these these things that were
built that looked like cathedrals practically, I mean, they're they're
amazing structures have just been you know, left left to
grow with vines and trash and everything. So clearly there's
(37:31):
a great history. I have heard the downtown has gotten
a lot better. I've actually I've never been to Detroit.
So maybe this is an opportunity for me to put
it on the way, come spend some money in the
state of Michigan. But I will say that if we're
being really honest about Michigan, you brought up forward, what
a perfect time to talk about the fact that the
automotive industry is leaving the state of Michigan. And Gretchen
(37:53):
Whittmer will go out every day and tell you all
of the auto jobs that she's brought back. We lost
thirty two thousand auto jobs I think thirty four thousand,
eighty two thousand jobs total in the state of Michigan
while she was governor. But our auto jobs have really
really declined over the past four years. And the auto
company she'll tell you that the auto companies are coming here,
(38:14):
that we're getting these battery plants. But you're seeing the
battery plants. Go into Ohio, go into Tennessee, go into
North Carolina, and where the battery plants are, you will
see the assembly plants because that battery is the same
size as the vehicle. So right now, I had a
donor say to me, well, we didn't want to support
you in the race because we weren't sure what would happen.
(38:38):
So we cut a deal with Whitmer, and she said
that she would do all these things if we if
we donated to her, and then can you believe one
of the first things they decided to do was go
after right to work in the state of Michigan. Yeah,
I mean, yeah, how did you not? I mean, you know,
(38:58):
I know that you're in the commentary role now, you're
not an active race. Is Gretchen whit Or a bad
person because what she did during the pandemic makes me
think she's a bad person. I'm just going to ask you.
I will just say that my interactions with her were
always very pleasant. So you are such a nice person.
I have to say, you're a very nice lady. I'm impressed.
I haven't even met her, and I want to tress here.
(39:20):
I'm like, I cannot believe with you to keep going.
I'm sorry, Well, she was always very nice to me.
I don't like her policies, I mean, and I will
never like her policies because her policies are very progressive.
She is a very far leftist. So this is not
somebody who is I mean, she's talking about shutting down
our pipeline and that's something that nobody really addresses. A
(39:42):
few people address, but this is something that she's been
pushing for four years, shutting down our pipeline in the
state of Michigan. She's very progressive with hunting. They came
out with this new hunting rule where if you shoot
a deer, you have to report it on this website
now within forty or seventy two hours. And our hunters
are like, you know a lot of times we're out,
(40:02):
you know, a week where we don't have any service
and we can't do this. How it doesn't matter if
you get a misdemeanor. Why do you have to report
shooting a deer? I don't know what's the point of that.
The Department of Natural Resources has to know if every
time there is a deer that is taken out of
the herd, and they keep track of exactly how many
(40:22):
deer are shot of a year, which I understand, but
it's the amount of time that you have to have
it done and you have to do it online. This
is something that is not easy for our hunters. But
then they're coming out with these rules. Agencies that are
not legislators are coming out with rules that end up
with misdemeanors if you don't do them. And guess what
if you get a misdemeanor, then you lose your CPL.
(40:44):
So you can have your your guns taken away, you
can have your rights taken away because someone who's not
a lawmaker made a law that results in you getting
a misdemeanor that results in no CPL. Are you Are
you a hunter? By the way, I am not a hunter,
but I spend a lot of time so I spent
a lot of time with hunters while I was campaigning
and learning. You know, I'm one of those people that
(41:06):
I feel like I have to do it so I
can totally understand it. So one day they said, do
you want to go bear hunting? And I'm like, of course,
But inside I thought, I'm gonna tell you. I'm gonna
tell you right now toooter just you, me and the
many many people who will hear this. So this is
like we're in a friend zone here, um the trust tree.
(41:26):
I think bears are so cute. I could never shoot
a bear. I' this is my fear. I'm like, we're
gonna I'm gonna be really strong, I'm gonna I'm gonna
watch this happen, and I'm gonna be And I worried
about it for two weeks beforehand, and I'm like, what's
it like? You know, in my mind, we are out
all day going through the woods, you know, in in
(41:48):
all Camo and trying to find these deer and we
get there and like, no, you ride in a car,
you would look for the tracks and then you chase
the steer down. But fortunately we were a week before
you could actually shoot the deer. So this was just
like practice deer or bear chasing. Bear bear chasing. Yes,
so we couldn't shoot any bears while we were out there,
(42:10):
but we could track them down and chase it. And
then they send these dogs. The dogs are really chase. Yeah,
so it was it was a rough I just want
to be friends with the bear and let them get
a picnic basket. I think they want to be friends
with you, though, so you should be careful. That is
probably true. Actually they're probably you know, they're they're they
look cute from afar. I remember I saw grizzlies up
(42:31):
in Alaska and from far away, you're like, they're majestic
and beautiful. And then it got within about fifty yards
of us. And I was like, um, we all have
fifty cowhandguns. Right, like you start to your your whole
sensibility goes from uh, these things are amazing. I feel
like I'm, you know, watching Wild Kingdom and Richard Attenborough's
narrating to We're not gonna like get eaten right, you know,
(42:53):
It's it shifts very quickly when they get much known.
The grizzlies aren't there. Well they are. We have black bears.
They're a little bit more cuddling, but I don't like
giant trash pandas they're like they're like overgrown raccoons. Most
most black bears aren't really that big. Um. Before before
we close, actually I have I have kind of a
serious question, political analysis question. I want to ask you
(43:14):
more about about hunting and well, actually a quick one.
What is the most underrated place in Michigan in your mind?
You know, whether it's a city or a place to go, Like,
what's the place that you know? You would say, um,
you know, like I don't know. If I were talking
about New York, which I know super well, I would
(43:35):
say underrated, although everyone knows everything in New York, but
the North Shore of or rather the North Fork of
Long Island is really amazing and you get a lot
of the advantage of the very famous Hampton's Beaches without
the price and the craziness for example. Right, So, well,
we we spent a lot of time in the Upper
Peninsula of Michigan, and I think that if you haven't
(43:57):
been there, I mean, it is truly God's kind country.
It is the summertime, it is so beautiful. We went
in the summer, and we went in February. February. You
have to be a harder core to go in February,
because I thought, I live on the west side of Michigan.
We get like effect snows, so in my mind, I'm
thinking I've seen a white out. I know how bad
snow is. No, it was nothing compared a white out.
(44:19):
I mean, I couldn't even see my fingers in front
of my face. This was so snowy. But we got
to see the dog sled rice. If you have never
done that, that's what I think is underrated. You've got
to go stand out in the cold with your hot
cocoa and watch these people, these mushers get on their
sleds and take off and just know that they're going
to be outside in this frigid, cold night after night,
(44:41):
snuggled up with their dogs, and it is pretty majestic
to see that happen. I mean, this might tell you.
I'm the guy at the ski lodge who is all
about room service and like the hot tub situation everyone.
You know, Yeah, I have no shame. I'm like this,
I'm taking a spot whatever it else's snowshoe or mushing
or whatever. One last thing for you, just how do
(45:04):
we get a Republican to win? This was the serious
question that I was going to ask you, how do
we get a Republican to win in Michigan in twenty
twenty four, because that's obviously really important. Well that is okay,
So this is the major question in the state of
Michigan because you know that Michigan not only did we
(45:24):
lose the governor seat, but we lost the state and
the State House and State Senate, so we always we'd
had a majority for forty years, lost everything. So for Michigan,
I think it's really important to look to Florida. And
I say that because I think so many people say
to me regularly, Oh, Rhonda Santis has been able to
do great things in Florida, but Rhonda Santis has only
(45:46):
been able to do great things in Florida because so
much of the procedure on the ground was set up
in the past for him. And I mean that by
Rick Scott, by Jeb Bush. The ground game that we've
talked about so much about mail in ballots. You know,
Florida was never complaining about this. They knew that a
lot of their population is using mail in ballots, so
(46:07):
they had that ground game of chasing ballots. We as
Republicans have a habit of chasing voters. We have rallies,
we talk to people, we want to get people together,
and we think we've got all these voters. But for
Democrats that this is a machine we want. If you're
a Democrat, we want ballots in our bag. We know
we have them, they are packed away, those votes are
(46:31):
we already have them, We've already counted them. So that's
what we have to change our mindset as Republicans and
say we've got to play. We've got to play on
the same level. We have got to make sure that
we're doing that, that we are identifying new voters, we
find out who they are. And Florida has done this.
Florida has registered more Republicans every single year. A ground
game like you would not believe, going out using data
(46:52):
checking to see how many people are in this neighborhood,
how many are Republicans? The rest who aren't registered are
probably Republicans. Will go do that and they go and
they register them. Then they hunt the mail in ballots.
They've got this down. So I'm saying for all states.
If you're looking at all states, all states that are saying, wow,
how are we going to get back in the game
(47:13):
as Republicans win. Let's take a look at what the
successful states have done, what their motto or what their
method has been to get those ballots and bring that
to our other purple states and turn them red. But
it's hard, it's work. It's got to be a lot
of raising money, it's got to be a lot of
people on the ground. This is a business. This is
(47:34):
not this is not just a feeling. It's got to
be a business mindset of we have a job to
do and we've got to get it done. Tutor, thanks
so much for being with us here today on the
Buck Sexton Show. Where can everyone go to follow your work,
your projects ahead, help you save Michigan, make Michigan. Great again,
all of it well we are. I'm at on Twitter
(47:56):
at tutor Dixon, on Facebook at tutor Dixon, and the
tutor dixon dot com website is under construction. We will
be unveiling something new soon, so stay tuned for that
and check back in. Tutor Dixon, thanks so much for
being with us. Good to see you. Thank you so
much
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