Last week, Michigan Sen. Elissa Slotkin gave a speech at a progressive think tank where she gave a stern warning about America’s shrinking middle class.

She says the middle class has been shrinking since the ’70s, making it more challenging for young Americans to become as affluent as their parents. Part of the reason for that, she says, is how much the economy has changed structurally, and the failure of government to change along with it.

“We were already taking on water as the middle class, and now we’re about to hit a Category 5 hurricane in the form of artificial intelligence,” she said. “We gotta reset on how we do the basics of government and of our lives and focus on those essential things.”

Slotkin says part of the solution is to build more housing, expand access to health care, invest more resources in small businesses and to ban donations from corporate Political Action Committees. 

Metro Producer Sam Corey spoke with the senator about her “economic war plan” to build up the middle class, and why she says Democrats should be on the offense right now. 

—WDET’s Jenny Sherman contributed to this report.

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Today on The Metro, we continue our coverage on the fight over public media funding and what’s at stake for local news and music stations across the country.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order to eliminate funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) due to alleged bias. Now, in the House Rescissions Act of 2025 — which narrowly passed the House last month — he’s asking Congress to claw back CPB funding that has already been approved.

The Senate Appropriations committee held a hearing on the bill last month, and the Senate will need to vote on the package by July 18.

If passed, local stations — including WDET and the programs you love — would face profound impacts. At WDET, about 6% of our annual budget comes from CPB.

Kelly McBride, senior vice president at the Poynter Institute, serves as NPR’s public editor. She says in her role with NPR, she serves as an independent critic of NPR reporting, engaging with listeners and critiquing public media stations when appropriate.

McBride spoke with Metro co-host Robyn Vincent about how public editors at major media outlets help hold journalists accountable, and how NPR could improve its coverage of federal funding cuts to public media and allegations of bias.

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Federal funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) is the focus of a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing on Wednesday. 

The publicly-funded nonprofit, which provides funding to PBS, NPR and its affiliates like WDET, would lose $1.1 billion — two years’ worth of funding that has already been approved by Congress — if the bill passed by the House earlier this month gets Senate approval. It would also rescind more than $8 billion in funding for foreign aid programs addressing global public health, international disaster assistance and hunger relief.

That bill passed in the House by a margin of 214 to 212, with four Republicans crossing the aisle to vote against the package. There were also four Democrats and two Republicans who did not vote on the bill at all.

President Donald Trump has already signed an executive order to eliminate CPB funding, claiming all public media is biased, but the Rescissions Act of 2025 would go beyond that, revoking funding already approved by Congress.

Today on The Metro, we break down what it would mean for public media organizations like WDET if the legislation gets Congressional approval.

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The House of Representatives narrowly approved legislation Thursday to eliminate the next two years of federal funding for public media outlets.

It did so at the direct request of President Trump, who has accused NPR and PBS of bias against conservative viewpoints as part of his broader attacks on the mainstream media.

The measure passed largely along party lines, 214 to 212, with two key Republican lawmakers switching their votes from “no” to “yes” to push it over the finish line.

The legislation is the first request by the Trump administration for Congress to claw back money it already has approved through annual spending bills. The bill reflects a list of cuts totaling $9.4 billion that were requested by the Office of Management and Budget. The bulk of the cuts — $8.3 billion — are to foreign aid programs addressing global public health, international disaster assistance and hunger relief.

Read the full article at NPR.org

From 1965 to 2017, John Conyers Jr.  dedicated his life to serving all people and creating new pathways for Black Americans, even serving in the Korean War.

He was a vocal supporter of the Civil Rights Movement, and also marched alongside Martin Luther King Jr. During his time in Congress, Conyers was a founding member of the Black Caucus and was instrumental in solidifying Martin Luther King Jr Day as a federal holiday. 

His son, John Conyers III, recently published a biography of his late father titled “My Father’s House: An Ode to America’s Longest-Serving Black Congressman.” He joined The Metro to share more about the book, and his father’s life and legacy.

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