The following is a lightly edited transcript of the September 4 episode of Right Now With Perry Bacon. You can watch this interview here.
Perry Bacon: Good morning, everybody. I’m Perry Bacon. I’m the host of The New Republic’s Right Now show, and I’m honored to be joined today by Garlin Gilchrist. He’s the lieutenant governor of the great state of Michigan. He’s also a candidate to be governor of Michigan. So I’m excited to hear about what’s going on in Trump 2.0 from a swing state, from a purple state, from Michigan. Garlin, welcome.
Garlin Gilchrist: Perry, thank you for having me. Congratulations on the show. I’m glad to be here with you.
Bacon: Thank you. Well, first of all, I live in Louisville myself, but I mostly talk to people who are in Washington experiencing Trump through the Beltway in a certain way. So talk about, as a Michigander, how people in your state, your community, are seeing this administration.
Gilchrist: So to ground you, I live in the city of Detroit—and, yes, you are right that how the damage, and I would call devastation of this Trump regime’s policies, lands in Michigan is different than how it lands in other parts of the country. For example, there are no rural communities in Washington, D.C., but there are rural communities all over the state of Michigan that have safety-net hospitals that service people. And they might be the only maternity ward for a hundred miles. They exist there so women [can] go there to get care and to deliver babies safely and things like that. What this Trump administration has done—this what I call the MAGA murder budget—is it frankly puts those women’s lives at risk. It puts children’s lives at risk. It puts people with disabilities’ lives at risk. It puts seniors’ lives at risk. They’re going to die faster as a result of it. And people from Michigan really feel a sense of urgency about that. And as I go across my state—I’ve been to every county in Michigan, all 83 of them, at least three times, and I’ve been to a lot of ’em here since January this year. And what they’re telling me is that they are worried about their services going away and therefore they’re not having lifelines in their community.
They’re also worried about the economic uncertainty. Michigan is the state that is more susceptible and vulnerable to tariffs than any other state in the country because of our significantly large and strong manufacturing sector. We get hit harder than anybody else. So we’ve seen companies close. There was a 100-year-old furniture company called Howard Miller in Grand Rapids. It existed for a hundred years. That means that they survived the Depression. They survived World War II, but they had to close up shop after a hundred years and lay off 102 people because of the Trump administration’s disastrous trade policies that are not about reshoring anything but are about finding ways to put money in his people’s pockets. So I think people are fed up and frustrated. I think people want to see the state really standing tall and saying, This is what we believe, what needs to be true. We’re in the midst of a state budget negotiation process right now where our Republicans in our statehouse are trying to imitate Trump—where Trump cuts food assistance, they’re cutting breakfast and lunch programs for children.
I’m taking it right to them. I went to serve lunch at elementary school in Lansing yesterday and talked about why this program is so important—because I like kids to eat. I don’t want hungry kids in Michigan, but Republicans do. I did a town hall in Congressman John James’s congressional district talking about the Medicaid cuts because you know what? I want seniors who need that long-term care to be able to have that care. But instead, he voted to cut that care for up to—there are 182,000 people in that congressional district who get their health care through Medicaid. So look, I care about positioning people for success in Michigan for a dream of health and wealth that they have a right to pursue. But people are seeing that this Trump administration is not the one that’s going to get it done. He made promises to people, but he’s a liar—and they haven’t bought it.
We have seen people mobilizing in the streets. I led a rally with 7,000 people on the steps of the state Capitol in Lansing. I led a demonstration in Macomb County just last week with union workers saying, This administration is hurting and failing people in the state. Broken promises again and again, and they want leadership to fix it. And that’s what I’m looking to show from Michigan, from the Midwest, from a swing state that matters: that we can stand tall and fight back.
Bacon: Let me ask about two different groups. You mentioned the diversity of the state. So what are you hearing from people in Detroit, who I assume mostly voted for Kamala Harris? And then what are you hearing when you go to rural areas? Any regret from the people’s vote? Any rethinking about voting for Trump? ’Cause I assume in most rural areas, Trump did win.
Gilchrist: Yeah. In the city of Detroit, people want results—and frankly, that’s true across the board. If we go back to 2024, what I saw is a group of people, called the voters, who were really frustrated with the status quo and wanted Democrats to be as pissed off as they were about the status quo, or the lack of progress, or the lack of pace of progress. That remains true. I think what people are seeing, now that this Trump regime is beginning to calcify, is that this guy’s not getting us to progress. He’s putting money in his own pocket, whether it’s through a crypto scam—and I’m not necessarily anti-crypto, but he’s putting money in his pocket and putting the money in his family members’ pocket—whether it is him saying, You know what? I want to give tax cuts to people who are as rich as I am but actually take money out of the pockets of working people, and I want to give tax cuts to gun silencers rather than making communities safer. That’s what they’re seeing. And so I think people across the board—in urban and rural communities—are saying that. In Detroit specifically, look, people want better outcomes. People want better education outcomes. And they see that cutting the Department of Education ain’t going to get you better outcomes. It’s the wrong answer to the right question, as I think columnist David Brooks said, which I think is right.
In the rural communities, people have urgent needs for housing and health care. When I’m talking to people, they say, You know what? We need more affordable housing because without it, our community’s not going to survive. I went and toured a high school in Northern Michigan. I’m walking through with the principal, and he was telling me about how they’ve been looking for a chemistry teacher for three years at this school—three years with no chemistry teacher. They had two people who would accept the job offers to become the chemistry teacher. But when they came to the community, they brought their families, and they looked around, they said, OK, let me see if I can find a home that can house me and my husband and my two children that I can afford on this salary. They couldn’t find it. And they gave them back the job offer. So what does that mean? That means another family did not move to the community. That means that another school year went by where kids didn’t have a certified chemistry teacher to be able to graduate.
Look, I want kids to become chemical engineers from Northern Michigan. I want kids to be able to become scientists and doctors and medical professionals and nurses. And they can’t do that if they don’t get chemistry in high school. So these are the urgent problems they want solved. And what they see is an administration that, even if they voted for them, is not solving their problems. So what people are calling out for, therefore, are people who will not only stand on our values but who will get things done, who will make this system work for people and change what needs to be changed. Fix what needs to be fixed. Build what needs to be built. Throw out what needs to be thrown out. And so I am standing here as an engineer, as a person [whose] job—that’s what I do; that’s what I learned to do in college; that’s what I do as a public servant—is [to] make systems work for people and fix the things that are broken and build the things that we need. That’s the leadership that they want. And we can demonstrate that and give that at the state level. And that stands in stark contrast with what they’re getting from the federal government.
Bacon: Let me broaden out to the national a little bit. You’ve had the first Black woman on the Federal Reserve; Trump’s trying to remove her. He’s stripping away Kamala Harris’s Secret Service protection. The National Guard may be going to Baltimore. They’re in D.C. You’re one of the highest-ranking Black officials in the country. Do you view this administration as really warring on Black America, particularly?
Gilchrist: The facts speak for themselves. Federal Reserve Board Governor Lisa Cook is a Black woman in Michigan whom he attacked directly. The first Black vice president having her security detail stripped is a direct assault on her. The fact [is] the states with the highest murder rates in the country are states like Alabama and Mississippi and Tennessee. Yet we have not seen the deployment go there. Instead, they’re targeting these cities that are led by Black people and chock-full of Black people and Black voters. So this is not a matter of opinion. It’s a matter of fact, that is what he’s doing and who he’s targeting uniquely. And I think it is incredibly problematic and racist to do so.
Bacon: Talk about—Governor Whitmer of Michigan went to the White House, went to meet with the president. I know you’re close to her. You worked with her for a long time. There’s this picture that became infamous of her trying to stop the picture being taken of her in the Oval Office. Talk about what you all are trying to do in the government. I don’t want you necessarily to defend her—but talk about why it’s important to challenge the president but also work with him when necessary for your community.
Gilchrist: Well, let’s look. What is the job of any public servant, let alone the governor, the lead executive of the state of Michigan? As lieutenant governor, my job is to protect and promote the interests of the people of Michigan—period. And I need to go wherever I need to go—whether that’s in Michigan, somewhere else in the country, somewhere else in the world—to advance those interests. I need to talk to whoever I need to talk to. We need to have a conversation or a confrontation, but I’ve got to do what I need to do. And so look, when this president attacks people and institutions in Michigan, like Board Governor Lisa Cook, like attacking my alma mater the University of Michigan and Grand Valley State University because they have the audacity to have programming to support the success of Black students and students of color on the university—to call them out specifically, we need to have a confrontation about that. When we have an opportunity to get something done for our guard and military personnel in Michigan like we did with Selfridge Air Force Base—yeah, we’ve got to talk about that and get that done too.
So look, the job is to make sure that the people of Michigan understand that when I go anywhere, I am taking their interests. And if we need to have a confrontation, we’ll have that. If we need to have a conversation, we’ll have that too.
Bacon: To finish here, you’re running in a primary. The secretary of state is somebody who’s done some good work and who I think is a good person—she’s running against you. It’s a primary field here. Personally, I know a lot of my friends are focused on how to stop Trump. Democratic primaries are maybe a second priority as long as it’s not Andrew Cuomo, I would say. But in general, talk about why you think you’re the best person to be governor of Michigan compared to the other Democrats running.
Gilchrist: Look, we are in a really tumultuous and unprecedented time. We have deep frustration and anxiety from people about their current situation of not being able to afford gas and groceries and medicine. They have deep anxiety about the future. What is my place in the future of the economy? What are my kids’ job prospects going to be? There was just a story in The Wall Street Journal published today that said that for the first time, you had only 25 percent of people said that they thought that their economic outlook was going to get better and it would be better for their children. People are worried about running in place. I’ve been working this same job and I haven’t got a raise, and I finally got one for the first time in five years and my rent went up exactly the same amount as my raise. There’s frustration there. And what people want are Democrats who are going to—they know that they see the problem and can name the problem, but also can name where the problem came from. Prices are set by corporations who are deciding how much to charge you, how much profit to extract. And you know what? Yeah, part of it is off-kilter because Trump did this tariff policy that made everything more expensive.
I just bought school supplies. You just bought school supplies that are 30 percent more expensive than they were last year. I want people to do something about that. So what I am offering to the people of Michigan is a Democrat who can both get things done and stand on our values. I am running as a person who wants to make sure this is a place where people can stay and succeed and afford to pursue their dreams of health and wealth. My granddaddy came up here from the South. He came up here ’cause there was so much opportunity in Detroit that all he had to do was get to Michigan. He didn’t have a job guaranteed, but he had a promise. It broke his heart that two generations later, his oldest grandson had to leave Michigan to pursue opportunity. I’m going to make it so Michigan’s a place where you can stay and succeed, where people can afford to buy a home, can afford to rent an apartment, can afford to pay for childcare. I opened up 1,400 new daycares in 13 months, built 40,000 affordable homes in three years in the state of Michigan—faster than anybody else ever has.
I’m the only candidate in this race who’s delivered for people in that way. And I’m also the only one who’s showing up in this moment uniquely, standing up to this administration, calling out the Republican members of Congress in Michigan who’ve been complicit to the danger, damage, and destruction being offered by this White House, and offering a vision that says that this state of Michigan is one that has always made and done the things that matter here in this country. The arsenal of democracy, the arsenal of war, put the world on wheels—we’ve done the things that matter. And frankly, it’s time to hold the people accountable who’ve been holding us back. The fact that they’re to pay for tax cuts for rich people and big corporations. That’s how they did this MAGA murder budget that’s hurt people. Republicans in Michigan who were running the state, [who were] in the legislature for 40 years—they passed these tax cuts to rich people and big corporations. That has not worked.
It’s frankly left us with not enough money to be able to withstand this danger coming. We need to tax them. We need to make them pay their fair share. They need to come correct in terms of actually paying what they owe to the people of Michigan who create the value and the values in the state. I’m the candidate who’s going to help deliver that. And so I’m asking people in Michigan to support me, but I’m asking people in America to support that kind of leadership in a Democratic primary where we get to pick the candidates with the values and the fight that we need in this moment. It is time out for the same old, same old stuff. We can’t offer the people who look the same, sound the same, or act the same. This is a different moment. We’ve never seen what we’re seeing right now in 2025 and 2026, and this unique moment provides a unique opportunity for different leadership. And I’m stepping up and standing tall as a part of that.
Bacon: And with that, I think that was a great ending. Garlin, thanks for joining me. I appreciate it.
Gilchrist: Thank you, Perry.