Michael Markeyis bidding to be the Republican nominee for Michigan's third congressional district. I sat down with him to hear his stances on the issues ahead of the August primary. This interview was conducted on June 26th and has been edited for clarity.
TELL US A LITTLE BIT ABOUT YOURSELF. WHO ARE YOU?
Well, so I'm Michael Markey. I'm running for US Congress. You know, I'm a business person, a family man, met my wife here. And we've raised our kids here, built businesses here. In fact, my first business was when I was 14 years old. I had this idea to put Beanie Babies. Do you remember Beanie Babies? So I had this idea to put Beanie Babies in the arcade games, ones with the claws and the joysticks. And it just took off. When I was 14 years old. It was boy, I think like $600 a week net profit. And my dad took me aside, he's like, hey, it's gonna you know, you got to start investing this money and like No dad, Beanie Babies, this is going to last the test of time. And thankfully, Dad was right. And he got me to invest in my first rental property before I was 15. And it fascinated me. So I got a loan from my parents to start that business. But it was at 18.99% interest. They didn't believe in free money. I don't believe in free money. It's one of the kind of cornerstones of our campaign. But it kept me up at night at 14, I was realizing that when I would wake up in the morning, I was more in debt than when I went to bed. And so my dad used that against me or us kind of used that. So when he got me to invest, he's like, It bothered you that you would wake up more in debt? What if you woke up with more assets. And so that's the beauty of investing the money. So I bought my first rental property at 15. Second before 16 commercial real estate, and then I started a financial firm here in West Michigan in 2009. So of course, during the best economy, you could ask for, and everyone said, You're too young, you don't start a financial firm in your 20s, asking people for their life savings, basically. And thankfully, we had faith and we worked hard and God is good. And you know, it just worked. So it went from one location here in West Michigan to three, you know, I've had segments here on Fox for for years. And so, yeah, I mean, business background and set to take this seat back, because I still believe this is a conservative district,
WHAT IN YOUR PAST EXPERIENCE DO YOU THINK IS GOING TO HELP YOU THE MOST IF YOU WERE TO TAKE THIS SEAT?
I think the business background, I mean, I've come out with ideas on Social Security as an example, we put out a plan that actually was validated by a third party, nonpartisan Public Policy Institute, saying that this would make significant improvements to Social Security. And by the way, it doesn't cut any benefits, and it doesn't raise any taxes. So bringing these business ideas like Social Security, I've put out an idea on how to make housing more affordable, put out idea on how to start capping the cost of naturally through free market, capping the cost of college education. Because I think education is one of the biggest benefits for young minds and young kids, and we have to invest in them. So I put out plans that start addressing this. And these are things that everyday people are dealing with. I mean, these are the things the middle class is dealing with. And my philosophy, and I've seen it firsthand, working with individuals for almost 20 years in a financial practice is the very best thing for our communities in our country is the stability of that nuclear family. So everything we're doing, we need to push, how do we make it easier for people to have a family, start a family, grow the family? And so we're putting out a ton of ideas that do just that, really.
WHAT'S THE PRIORITY FOR YOU, IF YOU WERE TO STEP INTO THAT SEAT? TO HELP OUT THE NUCLEAR FAMILY?
Yeah, housing, housing is becoming unattainable very fast. Here in West Michigan, the cost of housing is raised faster than a lot of places around the state. Now, if you already own a home, that's kind of cool. But right now you've got people who can't afford the interest rates have gone up. So I put out a plan a couple of years ago, before I even announced, really criticizing the federal reserve for how they were increasing interest rates. And so I was on national radio, and they're like, but Mike, hey, we got inflation, we got to bring it down somehow. And what I suggested that is one of the things we could be doing is increasing the reserve requirements at our banks, basically making it so they don't loan quite as much out they got to keep a little bit more cash on hand. I said, because that'll make our smaller and regional banks, you know, safer and stronger. I said, because of the way we're raising interest rates, we're making them vulnerable. And then, you know, three months later, I was back on that same radio show, because we had had some of the largest bank failures, you know, in the history of the United States. So we've got to bring down inflation. We got to bring interest rates down. And you know, because those are the things that are just wrecking wreaking havoc on middle class families. I mean, you look at credit card debt, and the cost of credit card debt now it's doubled in the last 24 months.
ON YOUR WEBSITE, YOU SAID YOU'RE FIGHTING FOR MICHIGAN, DC. SO WHAT ARE SOME OF THE THINGS SPECIFIC TO MICHIGAN, THAT YOU FEEL LIKE YOU COULD ACTUALLY COME IN AND MAKE SOME CHANGE?
Well, specific to Michigan, I mean, one of the things that I'm hearing from a lot of people is this idea suddenly that boys can become girls and playing girls sports. I mean, we, you know, we're having that here in district. And some people say, Well, this is a controversial subject, I really don't think it is. I mean, I've got an 11 year old daughter, I was a big athlete. I mean, I played Division one baseball, so I understand the benefit it can have in your life. And I've raised my kids really, with a lot of sports background, because what sports teaches us, I think, this gets lost, but it's the ability to understand that you can rely on others, but also to allow others to rely on you. And those are big life lessons that lead to a lot of success later on life. But suddenly, we're eroding, you know, female sports. If we continue to go down this road where suddenly a boy can become a girl and playing girls sports, we lose the the women's sports. And so that's a title nine issue. And Title Nine is a congressional rule. I don't believe in the government saying you can't do something. But if you're a school who's accepting Title Nine funding, and you're allowing boys to play and girl sports, guess what, we're no longer in compliance with Title Nine. So we enjoy federal funding. And some of them I'm sure, will then go private and continue to do so. But that's something that's affecting West Michigan families. I mean, we've got to make sure we get the government out of the way on things. Make it to where, you know, we're protecting, you know, we're protecting individual rights.
THERE'S A LOT OF CONTROVERSY WITH THAT TOPIC, JUST BROUGHT UP, YOU KNOW, SOME PEOPLE SAY, WELL, YOU KNOW, LESS LESS GOVERNMENT, BUT THEN THERE ARE IF YOU WANT TO MAKE MANDATES ON THAT, WHERE DO YOU STAND ON THAT ISSUE? BECAUSE IT DOES KIND OF GO BOTH WAYS?
Well, I don't think it's mandated, because right now, these schools are accepting federal funding. So they're accepting federal funding, there's federal rules already in place. So I'm just advocating let’s enforce the federal rule that's already in place.
ON YOUR SITE, AS WELL, IT ALSO SAYS YOU'RE A DISRUPTER, A FATHER, AN ENTREPRENEUR. FIRST, I WANT TO ASK YOU WHAT OF THOSE THREE IS MOST IMPORTANT IN THE RACE THAT YOU'RE FIGHTING RIGHT NOW AND IN TRYING TO GET THE NOMINATION?
What's most important to me is always going to be being a person of faith, and being a father. You know, I don't know that being a father is the most important in the race. But that's the most important thing to me. I mean, if you fail at that, I don't care that you win the nomination, or you win that. I mean, if you fail your own family, it doesn't do you any good to be trying to fight for, you know, families across West Michigan. So first and foremost, that's number one for me. But what a lot of people ask me is like, what's up with this disrupter name. And when my team presented, they're like, Mike, you're a disrupter. And I'm like, Hey, I don't really know what that means. In fact, my wife would probably argue more of an interrupter than a disrupter. And they go well, to your story, you know, that I shared earlier with everyone. They go, Mike, you started your first business at 14 years old. You bought real estate by 15. And you started a financial firm in the worst economy we've ever had, hopefully, in our lifetimes. That like that, by definition, makes you a disrupter.
WHAT IS SOMETHING WHERE YOU FEEL LIKE YOU COULD GET INTO DC, WORK ACROSS THE AISLE AND FIND COMMON GROUND? WHAT IS SOMETHING THAT YOU FEEL LIKE YOU CAN REALLY STAND WITH DEMOCRATS ON RIGHT NOW?
Well, I mean, first of all, you know, I don't know that it's standing with Democrats. But there are, like I talked about, we've got 80 million people on social security. They're dependent reliant on the promises that the federal government has made them with their money, by the way, so we need to address this, we need to fix it. We've got runaway housing costs, runaway costs for education. We've put together plans that fix those two, but also tie I think we're because I do hear that from a lot of people that are like, we send people to DC, and all they do is argue and fight. And I can tell you, one of the reasons I think that happens is we keep sending attorneys. Think about it, like 80% of our representation in Congress are attorneys. And I'm not dig on attorneys. We need some of them in there. But 80% of our representation in DC being attorneys doesn't represent our communities. An attorney if they've been in their business for 20 years. They've had 20 years of just arguing and fighting in a courtroom to try to win over basically the one person, the judge. And then we send with DC and all they do is argue and fight and we're like will happen will you send an argue and fighter? So you know, that's why I advocate you got to send a business person like myself, who's used to not always getting everything I want but putting together teams like I haven't accomplished the things. That's one of the things I hate about politics as people ask about your background, and it always sounds like I, I, I. It's not an I. It's a We. And so it's not been just my wife and I and our family, but it's been about the team that I've built around myself and having a shared goal shared vision, here's what we can accomplish, here's how we can help people. So when you send somebody to DC, who has a background doing that, you know, we're actually I'm actually going to get things done. Because to me, it doesn't sound like a fun thing to go to DC, like, this isn't a life dream. But I'm watching the deterioration of this country, I'm watching it to where I've gotten to live the dream of starting a business from nothing. And being able to provide not just for my family, but for the community, I mean, our business, one of the things I'm proud of as a business, we pick a family each year, who doesn't need a handout, but they need a hand up, and we pay their mortgage for a period of time to help them get back on their feet. So I've lived that dream, but I'm watching that become harder for people to attain, because we've gotten excess regulation. So you know, when when we keep hearing Republicans say we need to deregulate, I think we don't need to deregulate, we need to simplify our regulatory environment, because when you simplify the regulations, is support small businesses. And small businesses are the backbone of our economy. They're the backbone of our communities. I mean, there's nobody better in the community than your small business.
WHY? JUMP INTO A WHOLE THE WHOLE POLITICAL ARENA, ESPECIALLY AT A TIME LIKE NOW?
Well, you know, I had a lot of people approached me after 2022 When Hillary Scholten won the seat. And, you know, I said, if she's 80%, of what she has campaigned on, we have a good representative. And really out of the gate, she proved that she wasn't that. She, you know, sold us a bill of goods. That hasn't been true. And I'm looking at somebody who's voting nearly in line with AOC, and Rashida Talib, sitting here in West Michigan, you know, somebody who's telling us that the federal government should choose the type of car you drive, federal government should choose the way you heat your home. I mean, we've got what was this big storm, we're talking about storms earlier, the big storm we had last winter, we had 178,000 people across Michigan, without power. If we switch to this fact that the government's gonna mandate that you heat your home with electricity, that's not you know, uncomfortable in Michigan, if you lose electricity in the middle of winter, that's danger. It's fatal. More people die every year of cold than heat. So, you know, again, I'm gonna go back to the idea of going to DC isn't something that seems fun to me. But I'm watching the life that I inherited is not the or the country I inherited, growing up is not the same country, my kids are inheriting. And I think we've got a responsibility to try to make this world better than the one we inherited for our kids. And hopefully, my kids will do that for their kids. And that's not the path we're going down right now. We're not getting things done. We're 35 trillion. I'm a finance guy. With $35 trillion in debt. We're gaining an extra trillion dollars every 104 days. It's not sustainable. It's going to not only bankrupt this nation, it's going to bankrupt future generations. It's also making us weaker, though. I mean, if the checkbook is empty, how do you spend money on things like education? How do you spend money on things like military? I mean, the world depends on the US to be the powerhouse to create stability around the world. If we empty out the checkbook, though, we can't be that stable nation.
SOME WILL SEE THE WAY THAT PRESIDENT BIDEN WAS LOOKING TO MAKE COLLEGE AFFORDABLE, FORGIVING DEBT, AS THAT'S AN ISSUE, RAISING OUR DEBT, HOW WOULD YOU THEN TACKLE IT IF IT'S NOT GOING TO DO IF WE HAVE THIS DEBT RISING, BUT YOU ALSO ARE TRYING TO MAKE COLLEGE MORE AFFORDABLE?
Paying off debt doesn't make it more affordable? Because the cost is still going up? The way you make it more affordable as you have to give the lenders risk right now lenders have zero risk. So if you default on the loan, the government just says, Hey, well, we'll back it up. And so, you know, when I was recruited to play baseball, they take you around, and they show you the stadiums, and I was a kid. So I was like, Oh, this, the school has a better stadium. I'm leaning over here, then they show you the workout facilities and how we can develop you. Well, the academic area has learned the same thing. They're like, well, you know what, we can recruit kids. And so now you go to the dining hall, or the mess, I'm sure the cafeteria whatever they call it, it shouldn't be called a cafeteria because it's basically a PF Changs. And you go to the dormitory, and it might as well be called a Hyatt. These are not things that lead to employable skills. And so if you're a school, why wouldn't you invest in that? Because you know, you can raise the tuition, you're gonna have more kids and the lenders are going to lend, but if you put the risk the lender that when kids don't pay, they incur the loss, then lenders are only going to start lending towards things that promote employable skills. So you're not going to have all this excess wasteful spending at the college campuses, it forces them to focus on things that are going to make kids more successful later on in life, which is what colleges is for, you know. But, you know, that's, that's where you're letting free market, because right now it's not a free market when the government says no matter what we're going to, we're going to defend these loans, we're going to backstop them. It's not you're not allowing free market to take place.
WHY DO YOU FEEL LIKE YOU'RE THE BEST REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE FOR THIS POSITION,
Because I'm the only one who's actually uniting the party. You know, I've spent time with, you know, let's break down the Republican Party here in West Michigan. And I don't mean any negative connotation of this. But you've got establishment, you've got grassroots, I've brought together both, you know, I'm somebody who clearly can, you know, kind of look the part, if you will, with establishment, but I've ran a financial firm, you know, I speak their language, if you will, but then I've spent the time to get to know the grassroots and be part of them, invite them over, develop a relationship with them. And we don't want you know, neither of the sides to agree everything with. But when you develop relationships, and you bring them together, because what the last race showed us is that you can win a primary in this district, Republican primary with just having part of the party, but you can't win and if you don't have a whole party, so I'm the only one who's spent time with both sides who's been been able to get volunteers and donations from both sides. I mean, we've led in total fundraising, we've led in small dollar fundraising, the third congressional district that the actual Republican GOP has endorsed us in the race. We've got county wide endorsements, the chairs have endorsed. I mean, we've got a huge army of volunteers knocking on doors. So I mean, we're, we're already we've already been the outright clear front runner, but we're really frankly, walking away with this race. And also specifically though, one of the things that's a non starter in the Republican Party, is that the Republican Party is not the party who's soft on China. We're the party who's going to be hard on China. And so there's only two of us in the race on the Republican side, and my opponent in the race, Fox News, did a piece and asked him Hey, it looks like you represented a CCP in a court case against a Michigan manufacturer. And not only did he say yes, I represented the CCP, he goes on to brag that he actually won the case. So I mean, that's a non starter for the Republican base. I mean, I'm sure there's some people who overlook and go, Well, you're an attorney. But this was also an appeals court, like you didn't have to take on the case. And it's the division of the CCP, that was even identified by the Obama administration as being a top espionage threat to US security because they were stealing F 35 secrets and putting him in Chinese Warcraft. So frankly, in my opinion, that's a disqualifier to be part of the Republican Party. But, you know, despite that, or you know, we've led in everything else. And it's been because we've united people, and we brought together ideas, like I believe that a campaign without ideas is like faith without works. It's empty. You know, I was one of the first talking about Goshen saying, No, we shouldn't allow this, we need to fight back the community doesn't want it. I was one of the first to talk about the border, saying I had a very sad have a very simple border policy. It's number one, if somebody deserves to get in we'll let you in, but if you don't, we won't. If you're here illegally, it's time to go home. It's very, very simple. And people say, Wow, that doesn't sound very humane. No, the inhumane thing was encouraging people to come over here illegally, knowing we didn't have you know, from the Democratic Party, knowing you didn't have the authority to do that. You should have had the authority to do it, you don't make promises that you don't have the authority to keep. So we've led on these issues. You know, I was one of the first I got my master's degree from Harvard. And when Elise Stefanik interviewed the president, and she wasn't willing to stand up and condemned hate, you know, the hateful, antisemitic speech. I was one of the first to then get behind Stefanik and say, you know, Claudine Gay president Gate needs to step down, because she's failed to provide a safe environment for kids, which, by the way, is one of the first things that is your responsibility as the president of the university and as a president, the United States, which also first responsibility, provide a safe environment. And you know, they both failed at that.
WHERE ARE YOU FINDING COMMON GROUND AND WHAT THINGS ARE YOU STANDING ON THAT YOU AREN'T ABLE TO UNIFY?
So the things that are common ground and this is even happening with independence when I do talk about the border, I think people like it with that three point plan when I say if you deserve to get in, we'll let you in. Because we all got here that way. You know, I call it front door immigration versus back door. Republicans we believe in front door immigration meaning, knock on the door, we'll open it up, shake our hand, tell us why you're here. What you want to accomplish. If you espouse the American values, the American dream like that's, that's awesome. We all descended from people who came here for those reasons came the right way and came in the front door. So the across the republican party that's uniting people. Talking about how to bring, you know solidify Social Security how to bring down housing costs the education. And frankly, you know, we talked about earlier and said, Well, it's kind of controversial. Another thing that I'm yet to have any single person in the Republican Party and most independents tell me is that they believe boys shouldn't playing girls sports. Show me one father or one mother who goes, I want my daughter changing in a, in a locker room with somebody who used to be a boy. I haven't found a single one. Most people think it's wrong. And so we take care of that now. Because you take care of issues like that, when they're small. That's the only counter argument I've heard is Mike, it's not happening that much. So let's just let it go. And I go, Well, no, because what's what's worse, fixing this now, and there's only a couple, you know, athletes doing it, or 10 years from now, when there's hundreds or 1000s. Like, that's when people are gonna feel like you're actually taking rights away, when they've been able to compete in these sports for years. So you take care of it now, because it's the right thing to do. And that's been the unifying people. You know, there's Democrats who share with that vision, certainly independents. But, you know, that issue the border issue and debt, no one is saying our debts, not a lot. And as me being a finance person, I can talk about the debt in a way, you know, most others can't. But the simple reality is, if you're a Democrat, and you want to see a bunch of green infrastructure, you know, I don't agree with what they're trying to do. I think you should let free market do that. But if that's the stance that you have, if we empty the checkbook, you don't get any of that. And Republicans, you know, we've got infrastructure like border security, we want to spend money on if you empty the checkbook, you can't invest in those things. So both parties understand I don't care what side of the aisle you you sit on, you understand that if we empty out the checkbook, if we max out the visa, anything you want, we can't pay for and that's the path we're headed down right now. And people understand that. That's why we need somebody with a financial background to get to DC. I mean, I think we only have three people in Congress that have any sort of financial background, it probably explains why we're 34 going on $35 trillion in debt.
WHAT WOULD YOU SAY? IN THE SPECTRUM OF REPUBLICAN, YOU KNOW, A LOT OF PEOPLE WILL COME OUT AND SAY, WELL, I'M, I'M A MODERATE WHATEVER IT WERE, WOULD YOU CLASSIFY YOURSELF?
I'm Republican, Republican. Yeah, I'm tired of the labels. You know, because those are the things that divide us. Now, you know, if somebody's not really Republican, like, there's times we'll use that term rhino, because we disagree on one subject. Where we have an issue, though, is there are people who truly don't support Republican values, but they know they can't win in an area without being a Republican. And that's where we have an issue. But for most of our party, we should just be Republican, Republican we agree on so much. I mean, my joke is, you know, my wife and I don't even agree on 85% of everything. And no one calls us a mino, married and name only. She keeps telling me stop using that joke. It's a dad joke. People don't like it. But it seems like, you know, most of the people seem to enjoy it.
I CAN'T SIT HERE AND NOT TALK ABOUT FORMER PRESIDENT TRUMP CONVICTED THE CHARGES. WHERE DO YOU STAND ON THOSE? WHAT'S HAPPENED WITH THAT CASE? AND, YEAH, JUST GIVE ME YOUR THOUGHTS ON WHAT'S GOING ON RIGHT NOW.
You know, my support for President Trump has really been unwavering. I've endorsed President Trump in this race. I'm the only one who has, in the last four years under President Biden have been some of the worst four years that we've ever had. We've got runaway immigration, we've had more people cross our border illegally, in the last three and a half years, then is the entire population of the state of Michigan. We've got now our governor that's offering subsidies to bring people here, which by the way, think about this, we've talked about housing being unaffordable for a lot of working families. Our working families are paying taxes to the state to then give that money away to people who are here illegally to then compete in the rental market, which then drives up price because we don't have more supply of housing suddenly, but you're having more demand. If you increase demand, and you don't increase supply, you increase price. We all know that. So we're literally paying tax dollars to push out our own taxpaying citizens from the rental and and home markets. That's a problem. So you know, right now we look at the path this country is going down. I mean, we've got what two wars going on, on the verge of potentially a World War? I hope not. We've got runaway debt, we've got runaway inflation, we've got immigration that is out of control. I can't point to a single singular success under a Biden administration. So yes, you know, we've got President Trump, he's the Republican nominee. I've endorsed him in this race. I'm gonna support him, because we've got to turn this country around. We have to save this country. That's why I'm in this because I believe we're going down a path where we're losing our country, we're losing our freedoms. That's what the federal government should be supporting, is making sure that they fight to keep all of our individual freedoms and we're losing those things.
ON BOTH SIDES OF THE AISLE. YOU KNOW, SOME PEOPLE SAY, BIDEN, MAYBE NOT MY FIRST CHOICE FOR DEMOCRATIC, TRUMP, NOT MY FIRST CHOICE. WHO WOULD HAVE BEEN YOUR FIRST CHOICE?
You know, I endorsed President Trump and President Trump's my first choice, I can actually tell you the moment in 2016, that I knew I was gonna vote for him. I, my wife and I were watching all the debates, and we watched both Republican debates and Democrat debates. And it was like when we had like the 16 candidates on stage, and it was the Fox News one, and they asked Jeb Bush first they're like, Would you trust a President Trump with the red nuke button? He's like, I don't then he goes on for like five minutes to basically say no. And finally, like, Ted Cruz is like, no, don't give the guy the button. And I pause it before President Trump even spoke, and I go, I know who I'm voting for. And my wife goes, who? I go, I'm voting for Trump. And she goes, how he hasn't even answered yet. I go, it was 12. I go, you just had 11 people on stage tell you they don't trust a President Trump with the red nuke button? I go if you're a Kim Jong Un, how do you not get worried like, hey, if we give this guy a warm glass of water, he might nuke us we needed strength at that time on the world stage. And, you know, I saw it. That's not where I personally thought he was going to be a strong candidate was foreign affairs. But I said, you know, if you've got all these people who are, you know, worried about his demeanor, that is what we need, we need other countries to be worried that they, they can basically now need to start, you know, working with the US, because we keep trotting in, especially as Republicans, we always talked about free trade, free trade, free trade. It's not just free trade, though. It's free and fair trade. And other countries have gotten rid of the fair part. And that's where you see the demise of the US economy and US manufacturers. So yeah, I mean, I remember when I said I was gonna support him in 2016. That was real early on, we've endorsed him in this race. And we've got it, we've got to write this ship, we've got us fix this country. It's not working for average, everyday American families were losing that nuclear family. And when you lose that nuclear family, it's a trickle up or trickle down. I don't care which one you want to say. But social security becomes weaker, like we have an X amount of birth rates that we have to maintain. And as as it becomes harder for people to start and grow families. That's probably the reason why we're not hitting that. So it makes systems like Social Security, Medicare, weaker, because they're built on mathematical assumptions that we're not attaining anymore. The economy, you know, in a developed nation, like the US our economy benefits from rising birth rates, but we have declining birth rates. Why? Because it's too expensive for people to start a family and grow a family.
SO STEP AWAY FROM POLITICS FOR A SECOND. AND JUST TALK A LITTLE BIT ABOUT YOU AS A WEST MICHIGANDER. WHAT DO YOU LOVE ABOUT WEST MICHIGAN? WHAT HAS KEPT YOU HERE? AND JUST YEAH, TELL US A LITTLE BIT ABOUT WHY THIS PLACE, ESPECIALLY IF YOU'VE GROWN A FAMILY HERE.
You know, there's two things I mean, takeaway, you know, everyone's gonna say, my family and the community. And those things are extremely important and I love about it. But when I was growing up, we had a cottage up in like the Mecosta Area, School section Lake area, and when I'm driving back home to Grand Haven, and I start getting on some of the back roads with the pine trees and the sandy soil, it reminds me of going up north. And so the two things that stand out to me are, there's nothing better than getting my boys up. And I mean, my daughter can go fishing with us too. She doesn't like to though. Every once in a while she'll appease me me and go. Mom never goes. But getting up in the morning taking the dingy out and going fishing. You know, we're not getting we're not very good at it. But I enjoy the time my oldest last summer he tried to bail out on going fishing. He's like Dad, I I don't like fishing. I'm like, why he goes, You know, I sit around for an hour for one minute of fun. I go, how dare you and he goes, what and I go, you run track and you swim. I sit around for an hour for one minute. Have fun. So, you know, I absolutely love that. You know, we get to spend a lot of time outdoors. My kids think every turtle that is in the street needs to be saved now. But the second thing and this surprises me because I'm not a I'm not a winter guy. I'm not I don't ski. My knees are bad. I mean, I've had five shoulder surgeries elbow and knee all on this side from baseball. But one of the things I absolutely love is the snow here. I grew up in Mid Michigan and the snow is always brown because we don't get very much of it snows always white in West Michigan because it's constantly coming down. And one of the things I love is this on on a wintry morning. And you've got the car nice and warm. I'm spoiled the steering wheel is heated. But then you've got the cold right here. So you're warm and toasty, but you got this cold front right here that you can feel in the window. I don't know why I love that. My wife is like you're the biggest nerd on some of these things. She's like, your brain has this ability to simplify things down to the most annoying degree, which I think His Terms of Endearment I think that's a loving phrase. I hope so. Yeah, I'm gonna I'm gonna stick with it is, you know, but yeah, I mean, I've been very fortunate like I it was almost 20 years ago, I was working for an insurance company. And they said, What do you think about transferring to West Michigan? And Grand Rapids? And I go, Well, how close is it to Lake Michigan? And they're like, well by now or why am I come in? And so I love boats. I grew up as a young kid, we had a little sailboat. And so I've put that love of boats into my kids. And, you know, I mean, we pretty much we always joke our neighbors joke. We're the weird family. Because we've got, you know, we live on the river, we got the boat in the backyard. And we literally every night you can see us walking down to the boat. But you know, it's and by the way, that's an economics issue is an economics issue. Because I convinced my wife and it's true, I did the math. It's cheaper. She loves it cold, like frigid cold, like I have to go to sleep and like sweatpants in the in the summer. But I'm like, it is cheaper for us to cool the boat down to the 65 degrees you want rather than cool the house. And it's just an economics issue. That's how I got convinced my wife and then the kids love it. I mean, it's just it's a different way of
WOULD YOU SAY A MAJORITY OF NIGHTS IN THE SUMMER. YOU'RE ON THE BOAT?
I think all but five last summer were on the boat. And so we had the storm come through the other day, we were talking about it. And my daughter was talking she was like, Oh, the hail was hitting the front hatch because that's where their bedroom is. And she's like, I thought it was gonna break it but then I knew it wouldn't. I'm like, you know, how can I shouldn't have done this? Because I'm like hail can break we want to go to hell could have broken she's like, Oh, I didn't know
ANYTHING ELSE ABOUT WEST MICHIGAN. I KNOW GRAND HAVENS IS SUPER POPULAR SPOT A LOT A LOT OF PEOPLE IN THE SUMMER LIKE A LITTLE PRONTO PUP STOP, FAVORITE SPOT DATE NIGHT WITH YOUR WIFE.
We are lame date night with the two of us. We literally go to the NW pick up two nice steaks, a nice bottle of wine, and, and then some potatoes. We love to cook together. So we used to do a radio show locally. We did like 300 400 episodes I was talking about I used to have a segment here on Fox every Friday. One of the I'm not giving marriage advice here. We haven't been married. I mean, that long. But you know, one of the things that we feel like, brings us together as a couple and we've recommended on our show is cooking together. Like it's just this simple moment. But like life kind of stops when you're like, hey, how much time you're not cooking together and then sitting on the phone. It's like, alright, we got the potatoes, and you're doing the steak. What else do we need? Who's gonna set the table, you're communicating, you're talking together, you're working together as a team. And, you know, that's one of the things I like about boats too, is her and I people like, you know, you guys do really well together, we're like, Well, you know, we've, it's because we've done it a million times. We've also hit things at the dock like we don't want to hit things anymore. People never enjoy. When you hit something, we we had a sailboat years ago and I had to stop because my shoulder, but literally the first time we take it out and of course first time you take it out you got all the family, you got friends, we've got like 20 people on the sailboat, and the the transmission the foreign reverse is up and down. Whereas you know, normal it's it's foreign, you know, back and I didn't realize that like I hadn't neutral. So, you know, as I'm making the turn into our slip all sudden, it starts going wide. I'm sitting here, like revving the engine and like it's not going anywhere. And then wham we hit the boat next to us. We had been in the marina for three days, I had just met the guy next to us three hours earlier, and boom, we're in the back of his boat, thankfully, at a D in the back. So now I'm like going through the marine. I'm like I better tell him first. So he's sitting there eating and I'm like, hey, you know, I don't remember his name, Bob. And he's like, yeah, nice to see you again. Mike. I'm like, You're gonna hear about this. You should hear about it from me. He's like, Well, I got I just smacked the crud out of your boat. I am sorry. If your day is ruined, I will replace it. I don't know what I gotta do. So of course, face goes, you know, pale. He's, it was all good. But we weren't together because we've had those moments, you know, where things didn't go the right way. And we found it's easier to work together than fight with each other.
YOU HAVE GOT TWO REPUBLICANS GOING FOR THE SAME NOMINATION FOR YOUR DISTRICTS. WHY YOU?
Well support somebody who's actually from this community. I've lived here almost 20 years. Not quite. Not my wife here. We've raised a family here. We built businesses here. I mean, my campaign manager is lived into strict longer my Republican opponent. And, again, I'm gonna go back to this idea that not only have I created opportunities, and I think we got to send a business person, we were going to stop sending attorneys. If you're, if you're happy the way Congress is working, keep sending the same type of people keep sending more attorneys. If you don't think Congress is working, maybe we should stop sending what we keep sending, which are attorneys. But the second piece of that is, you know, every single person I talked to when I share with them, hey, you know, we are the party that's tough on China, we're trying to sit here and tell Democrats, like stop sending signing these non disclosure agreements with the CCP. And yet my primary opponent, he literally got a paycheck from the CCP, it doesn't work in the Republican Party. So you know, that's why we have that support, and actual ideas. I mean, I've told people what I stand for, I've told people what I stand for on the border, what I stand for on inflation and boys playing girls sports, like I get it not everyone's gonna agree with me on those things. But at least you know, where I stand, there's gonna be some people that are like, Oh, he endorsed President Trump. I don't like that. That's okay. But you know, where I stand. And that's the thing that separates me from really, everybody else in this race, the incumbent and my primary opponent is you will always know where I stand, you may not always like it. But I think it's better for somebody to be upfront and transparent. And that's, that's part of the reason we've had the success in the business world that I have. Because I've got clients who don't always agree with it, but but they know where I stand on things. I mean, I'll end with one last story, because I had a client where he's an atheist, and obviously a very strong person of faith. I didn't mean this as a joke to him. But I don't remember what he asked, but he looks at me in the eye. He's like, Well, what do you think about this, this and that? And I go, Yeah, God willing. And he looks at me, he's like, serious, Mike. And I'm like, oh, that's kind of funny. But, you know, we worked together, like a lot of people say, How could those two people ever work together? Because he knew where I stood. I know where he stands. And I'm not going to waver on that. But people are yearning right now. For people, they know who they are. They know what they stand for. They don't always agree with everything they stand for, but they would rather have somebody who's transparent and upfront than somebody they have to guess what you know what they stand for.
FULL INTERVIEW: