Holiday decorators in Michigan are facing a Grinch stealing part of the Christmas tree business.

The American Christmas Tree Association says most U.S. families use artificial trees that are imported and subject to heavy tariffs.

That could help Michigan real tree growers who provide millions of trees nationwide annually.

But the founder and CEO of artificial tree company Balsam Hill, Mac Harman, says tariffs are forcing price hikes for much of the season’s holiday décor.

The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Mac Harman: For artificial trees, pre-lit trees, all of those are made in Southeast Asia. 87 % of artificial trees imported to the U.S. last year came from China. It’s going to be lower this year because we and many others have diversified our supply chains to other parts of Southeast Asia. But there’s a tremendous amount of labor that goes into a pre-lit artificial tree.

Most of the reasons that people choose artificial trees are around convenience and longevity. What’s really convenient is you don’t have to spend an hour or more stringing the lights on the tree. And that’s a job that Americans don’t like doing when they set up their farm-grown trees.

And it’s a job that Americans didn’t want to do in factories, which is why pre-lit artificial trees were never made in the United States. That’s why we see them coming in from overseas.

From a farm-grown tree standpoint this year, maybe they have some increased costs affecting something they use on the farm. The price of the tree may not change as much.

But you still need the lights and the tree stand. And those are generally imported as well. Certainly the lights are all imported. And so those costs are up even more because, unfortunately, Christmas lights are tariffed even higher than pre-lit Christmas trees.

Quinn Klinefelter, WDET News: When you were looking at what was going on with tariffs as you were plotting your sales for the holidays this year, how difficult was it? Tariffs would go up, they’d go down again. Is it possible, even with diversifying supply chains, that there could be a shortage of trees?

MH: This year has been the most difficult running a business in my 25 years being a CEO, more difficult than COVID. And it is exactly because of trying to manage the tariffs. Literally the day after the presidential election, we started shipping as many products in as we could because it was talked about that there was going to be a so-called Day One tariff on Inauguration Day. So we and most major retailers shipped-in a lot. Then, on Day One, there wasn’t any tariffs.

There was an announcement that there would be a change on April 2nd. So we all scrambled and manufactured as many goods as we could and shipped them in before April 2nd. Everyone kind of independently made a decision to cut back around 15%-20%. So across the industry about 15% fewer trees were imported this year. We don’t have official data yet because the data was shut down during the government shutdown and they haven’t caught up. But we also think demand is going to be a little bit slower because the prices have gone up.

I think what we’re going to see is that there won’t be as many trees available at clearance. There are consumers who say, “Hey, an artificial tree lasts me 10 years. I can get by with the one I have this year. I’m going to wait ‘till after Christmas and buy one next year.” I don’t think we’re going to see as many of those deals this year. And we’re starting to see across the major retailers, as well as Balsam Hill, that we’re running out of stock on the most popular models because there just aren’t as many to go around this year.

QK: Let me play devil’s advocate. President Trump has long argued that the reason he wants to use tariffs is because he wants to have products made in the U.S. Obviously I’m paraphrasing, but if you’re making something and you’re depending on imports, well, you should be making it in the U.S. instead. So there might be a little bit of short-term pain, but suck it up and start building your stuff in the U.S. What’s your reaction to that argument?

MH: I think it’s fantastic that the president wants to bring strategic good manufacturing back to the U.S. I’d love it if my cell phone, telecommunications equipment, ships, things that we need for our defenses could be made in the U.S. What I don’t think needs to be made in the U.S. are non-strategic goods. And certainly Christmas trees are a non-strategic good, meaning that they don’t have any national security interest.

And they’ve actually never been made in the US. So it’s not even a matter of bringing it back. When the idea for the pre-lit artificial tree came about, the workers in the factories that made unlit artificial trees said they literally did not want to get paid to put lights on a tree. They said they were going to go find another job. And the entire industry moved in the early 1990s over to Thailand at the time.

We are in discussions with the Trump administration in D.C. Pretty much every official I’ve talked to, and I’ve had the privilege to talk to many, agrees with that. We’re hoping that, once things settle down with the U.S. Supreme Court case over IEEPA authority for tariffs, we will see more targeted tariffs. Just like we’ve seen these carve-outs for things that don’t grow here, like bananas and coffee and chocolate, I think we’re going to start to see that for some other non-strategic industries. So I’m hoping that we will see some tariff relief for the Christmas industry in the coming months.

QK: If you did want to try to start making them in the U.S. in some fashion, would that even be possible?

MH: We looked at that back during the first Trump administration. The only way we could manufacture artificial Christmas trees, pre-lit artificial trees in the United States would be if we could invent ways that reduce the labor costs. And we got to a point where a tree that we sell today for $800 would need to sell for about $3,000, back when we looked at this six or seven years ago. And that just isn’t feasible. We have taken another look at it now and not enough things have changed to make any difference in that.

I’ve spent a lot of this year in Washington, D.C., talking with the administration as well as Congress about this holiday decor issue. What we’re hoping for and what we think is going to happen is that President Trump’s going to do something like he did back in 2019, when he was putting the 301 tariffs on China in place. He delayed them until after Christmas to help Christmas retail. That’s public, he spoke about it. At the same time, many Christmas decorations were placed on list 4B, which was tariffed at 0%. So pre-lit Christmas trees have not been tariffed above 0% until this year.

I do think we are going to see some kind of relief from the administration. Going into the mid-term elections next year, you want consumers to be really happy. If everyone goes into Christmas and the conversation around the dinner table is about how expensive the mashed potatoes and the roast beef are, or whatever you’re eating, that’s not going to be a super Merry Christmas from at least an economic standpoint. For us, even though we’ve already imported all the goods we’re going to sell this year, if we know relief is coming next year, there are ways we can cut costs even more. We could potentially lower prices as we’re selling things for the rest of this season.

Right now we’re staring at even higher tariffs next year because the tariffs would be in place for the whole year. Whereas this year they’ve been in place only part of the year. And we brought a lot of our inventory in before those tariffs went into place.

The head of Macomb County’s government says the economic uncertainty felt in some sections of Michigan has yet to truly impact his area.

County Executive Mark Hackel summed up the situation in his annual State of Macomb County speech.

Hackel says the county is not just weathering the ebbs and flows of the overall U.S. economy but thriving in the midst of them.

The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Mark Hackel: With our financial situation, our economic foundation, we’re in a great place. I know the things that you’re hearing across the country are challenging. But there’s so many things that kind of help lift us up. We’re pretty diverse too, though we rely heavily upon the automotive and defense industries and manufacturing. But the reality is Macomb is in a very sound place.

Quinn Klinefelter, WDET News: President Trump’s tariffs have impacted various segments of the U.S. economy, including the auto sector, which does have a pretty significant presence in Macomb County. Some of the prices for vehicles are starting to climb now. Do you have any concerns about how tariffs or the overall economic outlook are going to impact jobs or other parts of Macomb County’s economy?

MH: We’re always concerned about what happens at the federal and or state level that may have an impact on our economy. But look at what happened in 2010. There was a huge challenge with manufacturing, job losses, housing shortages that we faced back then. And we doubled down on manufacturing. By doing so, we’ve seen our economy continue to grow here.

Macomb County is a $54.2 billion economy. That’s bigger than the states of Vermont and Wyoming. We are right now at an all-time high. There’s never been a better time in Macomb County with our economy being as robust as it is right now. So whatever might happen with some of these tariffs or other economic concerns, we’re not seeing it directly have an impact right now. We’re in a good place with that.

QK: There is some financial stress in other parts of the country, other parts of Michigan, other parts of metro Detroit, for that matter. In your view, why is Macomb County doing well when some of these other places are having a bit of a struggle?

MH: We decided to double down on manufacturing. We retooled some of our manufacturing facilities. They’re different than they once were. We upgraded them. We really put a full-court press on making sure people understood that with our workforce, from concept to consumer, no one does it better than right here in southeast Michigan. And Macomb County is a major part of that. We are the defense capital of the Midwest. More contracts are awarded to Macomb County, as far as the actual number and the money associated with them, than anywhere else in the entire Midwest. So we keep promoting that, we keep pushing that.

And I think all the attention that we’ve been trying to drive has really helped us. We used a protecting growth strategy when we first got in and worked with the state on that. And we’ve done so well that we’re not really as worried about protecting anymore because we’re seeing that continuous growth. So we’re fortunate. Working with everybody has really had an impact on where we’re at today.

QK: In last year’s State of the County speech, you said that Macomb needed to focus on partnerships instead of partisanship. There was a line about not reaching across the aisle but getting in the aisle. How’s that bipartisan effort been going for you?

MH: Aside from a certain election here or there, for the most part, partisanship is not our conversation. None of that drives what we do here in Macomb County. People are willing to work with each other. You’ve heard that phrase, “Us versus everybody.” Some sports teams use it sometimes, municipalities or communities use it, as a sense of pride, a sense of esprit de corps. But when I look back on 15 years of how Macomb County has got to where it’s at and how we’ve evolved, we’ve kind of flipped the narrative on that. We look at it as, “Macomb with everybody.”

We’re trying to partner at the local, state and federal level. And never do we look at it as, “We can’t talk to them because they’re Democrats or Republicans. We can’t let their idea soak through or let them get successful because their party may get credit for it.” We don’t talk about that, don’t think about it. It’s a call for everybody who wants to come to be part of the solution. And if somebody looks more like they’re wanting to be part of the problem or be just a naysayer, we accept that. But the reality is we continue to forge ahead with people that want to provide solutions and help us get to where we need to go.

QK: When you talk about bipartisan cooperation, there are elections next year that could be pretty significant on a number of fronts. Michigan U.S. Rep. John James, for one, is running for governor and leaving a seat open that represents part of Macomb County. And there is a gubernatorial race underway. Whoever ultimately wins, what would you like to see from Lansing that you think could really affect Macomb County?

MH: That same willingness to partner and work with us rather than figure out how they could get credit by giving support to one particular area or segment of the state as opposed to somewhere else. Ensuring they are not ignoring any community within the state of Michigan. Specifically for Macomb County, whoever the governor is needs to realize they’re not the governor on behalf of the party, they’re the governor on behalf of the people. So govern on behalf of the people. That’s all I ask from whoever the next governor is. Work together on projects that matter, whether it’s in Macomb County, southeast Michigan or beyond.

QK: In terms of the partnerships that you’ve had, are there specific projects that you would like to see either the state or the federal government partner with Macomb on? Or projects that you’re pleased that they have partnered with you on to date?

MH: I’ll go with the ones I’m pleased that they have done to date. We got some support from the state because they realized the importance of our new jail project. It isn’t just about a jail. It’s about dealing with people that are going to be assessed for mental health or substance abuse when they’re brought in at the first point of contact. Every municipality now is partnered-in on this particular facility. We make a determination whether there’s any substance abuse, then decide what we need to do. The state partnered with us with some financial contributions because it impacts the state prison system too. When people are leaving our facility and sentenced on a felony, they’re going to the state facility. We look at what happened with Mound Road, a quarter of a billion dollar project. We got some state funding to help support that as well as federal and local. And then look what happened with Selfridge Air National Guard Base and us pushing the defense industry here in Macomb County. We are the defense capital of Midwest. And I do declare that at some point in time we’re going to be the defense capital of America.

There’s so much happening and we’re so excited about that. But there’s more to be done. We’re partnering on trying to figure out how we retool a facility or find a new use for the Romeo Ford engine plant. We’re looking at the Romeo airport. There’s a lot more that we need to do with our water quality. The support we get from Candice Miller and her team at Public Works. I’m telling you, there’s another trusted voice and a fierce advocate for cleaning our waterways and making sure we’re addressing underground issues. So, a lot has been happening. We’re going to continue those conversations and hopefully wherever the next governor is, they’re willing to address the issues that we’re talking about as opposed to politics.

The whole issue of where we’re headed as a region and even as a state is incredibly important. The biggest thing is that we all need to come together because we need to be competitive with other regions around the globe. And southeast Michigan is a major player. But our biggest challenge right now is our workforce, making sure that we’re attracting people to this area so they take on these jobs. That provides better opportunities for these manufacturers or companies that do the things that they do here in southeast Michigan. Us all coming together to promote the region as one.

The Trump administration wants to cut the number of waterways protected under the Clean Water Act.

Some business owners and developers say the move would help them operate better because it would change which wetlands and streams legally count as an “official water of the United States.”

Those designations are covered by the Clean Air Act, which was originally written in part by the late Michigan Congressman John Dingell.

His wife, current U.S. Rep. Debbie Dingell, says protecting streams and wetlands helps stop pollution from flowing to large bodies of water like the Great Lakes.

The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.

U.S. Rep Debbie Dingell: People that are seasoned, like myself, know what our waters used to look like. And John Dingell was really the significant author of the Clean Water Act, along with the late former U.S. Sen. Ed Muskie. And he did it because the Rouge River caught on fire. Now, the consequences of what this administration is going to do would undermine the strong protections that have kept our water safe and healthy and have cleaned them up. So I’m very concerned that we not go backwards. We see the Great Lakes and our Detroit water system is significantly improved from where it was 30 years ago, 40 years ago. But we have to keep cleaning it up. And taking away those safeguards endangers our water.

Quinn Klinefelter, WDET News: Some environmental groups often raise concerns about runoff from farmland into waterways or companies dumping there illegally at times. Now they say this change proposed by the Trump administration could increase the chance of those types of activities happening. Do you agree with those kinds of concerns?

DD: I’m very, very concerned about what this means and what the real consequences are. Lake Erie has seen very significant experiences of algae blooms. People have actually been told not to drink tap water. So I think it’s very important that we make every effort to continue to clean up our water, protect our waters. And the administration’s announcement that they were going to roll back Clean Water Act regulations worries me greatly.

QK: On the other side, some business owners and farmers, among others, have said that they think the change will help them. It’ll limit the costs and regulatory red tape, they say, of having to check if a stream or other waterway on their property is covered under the Clean Water Act. They say it should be something that states regulate more than the federal government. What’s your reaction to those comments?

DD: We need to have federal regulation. Because here’s the reality. Water doesn’t say, “oops, I’m at a state line.” Do you think Lake Erie or the Detroit River know when they’ve crossed a state border? I think we should all be working together to keep our water safe. But when water runoff is going into major tributaries like the Huron River, the Rouge River, then goes into the Detroit River, which goes into the Great Lakes, there are consequences when there are things in those waters that are not safe. Things the public needs to be protected from. I want to reduce regulation. I want to look at how we can simplify. But undermining the goal of clean water is something that worries me greatly and something I will always fight for.

Detroit Mayor-elect Mary Sheffield is shaping her administration’s personnel and policy priorities.

A group of 18 committees will advise Sheffield about what issues to tackle first.

She calls it the most inclusive mayoral transition in Detroit’s history.

Attorney Butch Hollowell is leading Sheffield’s transition team, as he’s done for many other officials.

Hollowell says he finds this change in city leadership unique in a variety of ways.

The following interview has been edited for clarity.

Butch Hollowell:  We’re off to a flying start. I think the whole team and the whole city is just energized behind the first woman mayor in the city of Detroit. She came in with 77% of the vote. That in and of itself tells you that there’s a mandate from our community for what Mary Sheffield stands for. And that’s making sure that we have a city where everyone feels that they’re included as we deliver core city services, improve the quality of life and address these issues at the kitchen table level. Mayor-elect Sheffield has asked me to put together a transition team that’s smooth in terms of the handoff from the Duggan administration to the Sheffield administration. And that it is the most community-driven transition in Detroit’s history.

Quinn Klinefelter, WDET News: What is your role specifically in the transition? Do you recommend certain people to lead on policy or do you say there’s certain positions on the mayor-elect’s staff that have to be filled right now? How do those nuts-and-bolts work?

BH: It’s a little premature to talk about that. Right now what we’ve done is focus on 18 different policy areas such as infrastructure and transportation and housing and education, the meat-and-potatoes issues that affect Detroiters on a day-to-day basis. Once we get down the line with those discussions, we’ll also begin to think of what should the administration look like and what skill sets would be necessary to carry out those policy initiatives. That kind of tells you the kind of person needed to head this agency or that agency.

It’s interesting, the cross-section of amazing Detroiters that have agreed to participate in this. You’ve got the city’s premier grassroots agency for Latino issues working with the chief operating officer of Henry Ford Health. You’ve got the individual who heads the neighborhood community violence initiative on the grassroots level working with the chair of Huntington Bank. We have the East Side Community Development head working with the vice chair of the Detroit Pistons. We’ve never had that kind of a team all in one room, all rowing in unison on the same boat and with the same oars. It was inspiring.

QK: Were you choosing specific individuals for this? Did people volunteer and say, “Boy, we want to help?” How hard was it to decide who was going to be on the transition team?

BH: First of all, nobody told me, “No,” not one person. We looked at people who have a certain skill set in an area, people that have known the mayor-elect, who know me. Then we have an internal team that we kind of bounced some names off of, and I reached out and made phone calls about whether or not they’d be willing to serve. Ultimately that decision was presented to Mayor-elect Sheffield. She’ll make the call for each one of those leadership positions.

Part of it was to explain what we wanted from them. We want concrete plans that can be achieved by this new administration in the 100 days, the first year and the first term in office. They’re going to be looking at what Mary Sheffield’s been saying on the campaign trail. What is her vision for this city in a particular area? And then we test that against national best practices. Is there something that they’re doing in Philadelphia that’s really great or something they’re doing in Los Angeles that particularly works? Maybe we’re the best at it. But maybe we can learn from others. Then the third part of it is to ask each one of those co-chairs to use their own background and experience to work with each other, work with their committees and come up with these concrete results.

We want concrete plans that can be achieved by this new administration in the 100 days, the first year and the first term in office.

QK: There’s always competing interests in various groups. Do you have a sense yet as to what the initial major priorities would be for the mayor-elect? As you say, she mentioned several on the campaign trail.

BH: There two parts to that question. The first part is some things overlap. For example, you can’t talk about transportation by itself, given that 35% of Detroiters go outside of the city for employment and come back in every day. Transportation has to be top of mind also as an economic development issue. And even though there’s a separate economic development team, there are educational initiatives that are important for that and other areas. So we talked about that internally in the work group saying, “You’re going to have some overlap. That’s okay. Just make sure that we have open lines of communication.”

The other part about it is yes, there are some priorities that the mayor-elect had talked about on the campaign trail, particularly just really lifting up the community violence initiative that’s gotten the buy-in, I think, from the entire city. That’s a real top priority for us. Education is a top priority as well. We’ve got to make sure that our kids are ready for the workforce and ready to be able to enter into civic life. Transportation is a critical area, as I said, so that people can get around efficiently. And, of course, the neighborhoods. We need to make sure that everybody feels and can recognize that everyone has a say, everyone has a stake. She wants everyone to know that’s being honored. Those are things that jumped out. There are certainly others but we’ll get through that as this process evolves.

You’re given such a short window in which to bring these plans to fruition and make sure they’re not just something that’s going to sit on a shelf and gather dust. These are action plans. We’re very committed to saying to each of these 18 groups, “Come up with, not a laundry list, but a list of two, three, four things that can be achievable, that Detroiters will see the results of in a focused period of time.” Again, in that first 100 days, first year, first term.

Detroit is preparing for a mayoral election filled with “firsts.”

For the first time in a dozen years voters will elect a new leader to guide the Motor City, as Hizzoner Mike Duggan leaves to make an independent bid for governor.

And the next mayor will become either the first woman or, as far as city historians can tell, the first clergyman to ever sit atop Detroit’s government.

Blazing a political trail

History was on display at a recent news conference in Detroit’s Dexter-Linwood neighborhood.

Detroit City Council President and mayoral candidate Mary Sheffield stood in front of a historic-but-abandoned apartment building.

The structure is on a fast-track for development because of a program Sheffield helped create to address the city’s lack of affordable housing. She called it one of many initiatives she pursued during her dozen years on Council.

But Sheffield is also fully aware that she herself is at the precipice of Detroit history.

Sheffield is the first woman in more than 30 years to make it to the general election for mayor.

“I have thought about it,” she said. “I definitely lead with the fact that I’m the most experienced candidate, I just happen to be a woman. But I do think it sends a powerful message that we are ready for women leadership in Detroit. Most importantly it shows our next generation of women that they can be anything they put their mind to.”

Sheffield says she believes Detroiters are finally prepared to send a woman to the mayor’s office.

“That’s what I’ve heard. I’ve been campaigning for a year now and there’s a lot of excitement. In 324 years we’ve never had a woman lead. We’ve had 75 mayors in Detroit. Not one has been a woman. We’ve seen women lead in other cities, so it’s not new.” 

Tough enough to be mayor

Many women have chaired Detroit’s City Council.

But some who sought the mayor’s job, like former Council Member Saunteel Jenkins, say they ran into gender-based roadblocks.

“There is still a real power base and a voting base that, for whatever reason, doesn’t believe women should be leading,” Jenkins said.

She came up just short of being one of the top two finalists in this year’s mayoral race.

But Jenkins is a veteran campaigner for political office.

And she says women candidates deal with a level of scrutiny their male counterparts do not.

“Things as little as the height of the heels you wear or if you have on heels at all,” Jenkins said. “I was talking to someone just recently about when Jennifer Granholm ran the first time for governor in Michigan and how much time they spent even on her hair color. Because people would judge her based on how blonde she was or was not.”

Jenkins had navigated political gauntlets before.

Yet despite having served as City Council president and the CEO of a non profit, Jenkins says it was clear a different standard applied to being the executive officer of Detroit’s government.

“There were people who said, ‘Leading Council, that’s amazing. But the mayor’s office? You sure you want to do that? That’s a tough job.’ As if women would not be tough enough to do that. And that was a question I was asked often, are you tough enough for this job? It’s not something that people would ask a man.”

Mixing ministry with the mayor’s office

The candidate vying with Sheffield to be Detroit’s next mayor has faced his own questions — because he is a man of the cloth.

The Rev. Solomon Kinloch, Jr. spent his primary election night victory speech hammering Sheffield. Not for her gender, but for what he alleged is her neglect of neighborhoods where a majority of children still live in poverty.

“Where do we go from here? Detroit deserves results,” Kinloch told the crowd of supporters. “We deserve more than you just talking the talk. We deserve you stepping up and standing up and walking the walk.”

Kinloch has said he’ll continue pastoring his Triumph Church if he’s elected mayor. He calls his campaign an extension of his ministry.

“This gives an opportunity to see the preacher in a different role. To know that all of us got a responsibility, not to just do something from a spiritual perspective, but to do something social and political. That’s my rearing and my raising. And if I don’t do nothing else, I believe that this is a great opportunity to inspire an entire city that ordinary people can do some extraordinary things.”

The bully political pulpit

But other pastors in the Motor City say mixing politics and the pulpit often means walking a treacherous moral tightrope.

The Rev. Nicholas Hood III was a Detroit City Council member in the early 2000’s and twice made unsuccessful bids for the mayor’s office.   

Hood says while on Council he had to serve both the public and his own conscience.

“It’s one thing to take a position on any issue from the perspective of political expediency. But then to add the burden of deciding if this is morally right. Does this position jive with my faith and what I think God would expect of me?” 

Hood says running for office was not exactly what some of his congregation expected. Or approved of.

“My church members always raised an eyebrow. They were proud of me. I think they still are. But people would say, ‘I don’t want you to be corrupted. Politics is corrupt.’ I would always counter, ‘But that’s all the more reason why you need people like me to get engaged.’ ” Detroit’s churches do have a history of being politically active.

Sheffield noted that fact during a recent and contentious televised mayoral debate with Kinloch.

She said, “We have a pastor here who has not developed one unit of housing. But we have a lot of your peers who’ve joined in our faith-based initiative, where we’re gonna be supporting our faith-based institutions to spur economic development and build housing here in the city of Detroit.”

Kinloch’s response was one of many testy exchanges between the two mayoral contenders.

“Mary, it’s disingenuous for you to assault me and my church for all of the work that you know we’ve done in this community. Triumph Church and Solomon Kinloch have done more for this community than anybody you know.”

Voters prepare for history

The heated tone of the debate bothered some voters, many of whom praise outgoing Mayor Mike Duggan for progress made in the city during his tenure.

Detroiter Ronald Ferguson, for one, says he’s seen broken streetlights come on and blighted buildings come down in his neighborhood.

But Ferguson questions how much Sheffield had to do with that.

He says Kinloch’s message of reducing poverty resonates with him.

“I feel he’s for the people. And I think he’ll do a better job than what we’ve seen over the past 6-10 years from his opponent,” Ferguson said. “She’s been Council President for so long. Yet where’s all the results from her efforts? So I’m ready to try something different to see if I can get a different result.”

But there’s a different vibe at a watch party where Detroiters viewed this month’s acrimonious televised debate.

Voters there, like Arlyssa Heard, had few concerns about Sheffield’s record.

Heard says she values both Sheffield’s service and the historic nature of the Council President’s run for mayor.

“I think it’s important,” Heard said. “I think it also is a statement that as long as you’re qualified, whether you are a woman or a man, it means something. But I think it would be great to see a woman lead this town. I don’t know if that’s gonna have anything to do with my decision. But I think it would make for some good things to talk about the next morning over coffee.”

When that sun rises after Election Day it will mark a new dawn for Detroit politics, whether it’s a woman or a minister set to occupy the mayor’s chair.

More election coverage

Detroit’s mayoral candidates came out swinging during a debate televised on WXYZ.

Detroit City Council President Mary Sheffield and the Rev. Solomon Kinloch Jr. used the time to both address issues and criticize each other with increasingly personal attacks.

Morning Edition – Detroit Host Pat Batcheller asked WDET’s Quinn Klinefelter about the messages the candidates were sending to voters.

Quinn Klinefelter, WDET News: They agreed on several core issues. They said Detroiters need better access to affordable housing, more investment in neighborhood communities and additional methods to fight crime and poverty.

Council president Mary Sheffield said she worked with outgoing Mayor Mike Duggan to deliver Detroit from bankruptcy.

But she wants to cut even more red tape to bring new business to the city at a time when federal Covid relief funding is running out.

QK: Reverend Kinloch is a political newcomer. But he says he is well-versed in one of the long-standing complaints in Detroit, that residents in the outer-ring neighborhoods just don’t feel the benefits from the investments made downtown since the city emerged from bankruptcy.

Pat Batcheller, WDET News: Neither Sheffield nor Kinloch are incumbents in this campaign. But Sheffield has served for a dozen years on the City Council. How did that play into the debate?

QK: Kinloch questioned just how effective Sheffield has been on Council.

She touted numerous programs she initiated, especially in regards to affordable housing and fighting crime.

Sheffield also alleged Kinloch did little to use his bully church pulpit to aid those efforts.

PB: That was only one in a series of contentious exchanges between the two candidates. And they seemed to become more personal as the debate wore on.

QK: Yes. In fact, the two traded accusations about possible corruption in their financial dealings.

Kinloch, who is in effect the challenger of a veteran, if young, incumbent government official, cast Sheffield as someone more interested in headlines and social media posts then residents’ concerns.

PB: Do we have any idea how this is all playing with voters?

QK: We gained a small window on those opinions courtesy of WDET’s Alex McLenon, who was with voters at a debate watch party.

He talked with Detroiter Chiara Clayton, who says she was not a fan of the attacking style of either candidate.

QK: We’ll see if that happens during the joint appearances the candidates have set over the next few weeks.

More election coverage

Only a few weeks remain until Detroit’s city elections. The results will impact the entire metro region.

Candidates want to reach undecided voters like Uber driver Deaujejuan Braxton.

He says he’s seen some positive changes in his eastside Detroit neighborhood.

But Braxton says there are still issues that Detroit’s next mayor needs to address.

The following interview has been edited for clarity and length. 

Deaujejuan Braxton: A lot of gentrification, first and foremost, is going on. Even rent prices have almost doubled, in some cases, just over the past few years. And of course, if the people can’t afford it, they’re forced to move. Even looking at a lot of the high-rises downtown, it was elderly people living there and they are getting moved out. New business is coming in. And you can see the switch.

As far as the good happening, there are some small programs you hear about that certain organizations are coming up with to help the people that still live here. Affordable housing programs, a little stipend in order to maybe pay your first month’s rent, even help with paying the water bill or a light bill, things like that.

Quinn Klinefelter, WDET News: Some people I talk to about stuff going on in the neighborhoods say crime is still an issue. What’s your view about that?

DB: I see crime as going down, actually. I spoke to a law enforcement officer who got into the Uber,  he was a 911 dispatcher. And he told me that people have a false perception of there being a high crime rate. He said it’s actually relatively low in comparison to other places. But he said they do have a high theft issue, specifically downtown, as far as stealing cars. He said not really violent crimes as much.

My thing is, we need more programs for children in the city to get them off the streets and out of this poverty that they’re facing. Because there’s a lack of good paying jobs. We’re not even making a living wage here. And if you’re not making a living wage, we know that there’s going to be more crime due to that alone. Because you have to survive, you have to live, you have to eat, have a roof over your head.

QK: We do have the city elections underway right now in Detroit. Have you been following any of the candidates or any of the issues that they bring up?

DB: In regards to voting for anybody to have some type of high office, I feel as though they should have some high level of morality, just in general. You have to believe in God, first and foremost, to me. If you don’t, I feel like you are subject to do anything at any given moment based upon the current circumstances in your life, whether it be embezzling money or anything else, if you fall on hard times. You have to have something outside of yourself to keep you grounded.

I came across some people at grocery stores who try to get you to sign a petition to have people show identification in order to vote. I definitely don’t agree with that. They probably are putting me in a database to try to figure out who I voted for. They’re going to look at the demographics of your race, your age, and they’ll put all that into play as soon as you show your identification. That’s a worry, because when you give up your freedoms in any capacity, you’re subject to give up all of them later on.

More election coverage

It’s the home stretch for Detroit City Council candidates with election day only about a month away.

On the city’s northeast side incumbent Scott Benson faces a challenge from a life-long resident of Council District 3, Cranstana Anderson.

She’s a former UAW local official and administrator who works from home preparing taxes.

Anderson says she wants to change how city government operates on the eastside.

The following interview has been edited for length and clarity. 

Cranstana Anderson: For instance, the rainfall sewage fee. They call it a fee but it’s actually a tax. If people want to build around their homes and they put more cement down, there is nowhere to absorb the rainwater. So your drainage fees are higher. A lot of churches experienced it because they made parking lots or created more sidewalks. Anything that is not grass or trees to absorb, that rainfall becomes an additional charge.

Quinn Klinefelter, WDET News: If you were elected to council, how would you address those kind of problems?

CA: I would first have to see how we get out of something that we got into. I really believe Detroit not having control over the water has led to these types of actions by leadership. The water bill used to be less than what it is every month now, even every three months. So, it seems like that’s a long-term consequence of them giving control of it to the Great Lakes Water Authority.

QK: There’s been a lot of talk about a “financial cliff” that Detroit could be facing because federal funding and some other money is running out. Some of the mayoral candidates have talked about increasing revenue by perhaps raising certain taxes on things like events downtown. Do you think that that’s a way to go?

CA: I do believe that we’ve given out enough tax abatements and incentives for those businesses downtown to be a contributor into paying a higher tax, if that’s what’s going to help the neighborhoods. Because originally, that’s what downtown was getting built up for. It was to change the dynamics of the way downtown looked, to change the dynamics of economic growth in Detroit and build-up downtown. But it was also supposed to contribute to building up the residential communities, making sure those who have retired, bought their home, worked their 30 years, are not left out. And that’s what we want to focus on, not leaving those who have already paved the way for us to stabilize the community be forced out by business or investors. I believe in gentrification versus nullification. So if it’s nothing, then gentrification sounds pretty good when it’s nothing.

QK: I still hear lots of concerns about crime, not just on the northeast side, but throughout the city. If you were on council, how would you try and help address that?

CA: I would try to create some different policies about how we retain our public safety officers. I believe when they were given the option to live outside of Detroit, that’s when we had more crime created. The crime rate is just at a flat line right now. I don’t see the quality of policing in Detroit, in my area and in many other areas, the way it used to be. When I grew up, relying on police was the route to go to keep the community safe. But now, to engage with them, to build a certain amount of trust with them, and have none of our officers that want to live in Detroit, that says a lot about their policing.

There’s a lot that needs to be done. But I want to make sure we look right.

QK: You’ve mentioned that you’d like to see more political accountability. Do you think that’s lacking at the moment with some of the Detroit officials?

CA: Yes, especially mine, in my district. I think we’ve compromised our office.

QK: You’re talking about Detroit City Council member Scott Benson. There had been some allegations made about bribery charges. But federal authorities said that they had closed that case. And Benson said he and his staff came up completely clean. So, in your view, wouldn’t that kind of clean his slate in terms of that?

CA: No, not with me. Because I’m analytical. I’m from Detroit. And I know everybody who is in prison is not guilty and some of those who are guilty are still walking around.

QK: In any political campaign it is often hard to beat an incumbent. And you’re the challenger in this one. What do you say to people in District 3 if they ask why they should vote for you for council?

CA: Because I understand exactly the hardships that they’re going through. I am a person that’s just like them. And I will fight harder for them. The people who live there, who built there, who are maintaining their property and shopping in that area, doing business in that area, should be entitled to good service. There needs to be some type of resources made available that help these residents qualify for the investors that we want to come into our community.

As far as jobs go, you have the Work First program. But the jobs pay minimum wages, $15-$16 an hour. That’s just not a fair wage. We’re supposed to live off 30% of our income. How do we manage that? Affordable housing is $1,200 and your wages are $1,500. What does that calculate up to? That calculates up to a struggle.

One of the things that hasn’t been invested in is the blighted buildings in my community. A lot of schools shut down. And no one’s talking about doing anything with them except maybe utilizing them as training spots for the police or other public safety departments. These are buildings in the community that used to educate. And we believe, not just myself but a lot of residents, that we can turn these buildings into community hubs where they teach about things like drones, auto mechanics. We don’t want those buildings torn down. We want to utilize those buildings to put back into the education system what they took away. Creative arts. Let the residents, the children, tap into their natural talents or introduce them to the skills that they don’t know they have. Those are places that we can renovate and make into state-of-the art facilities. To make sure that we have the resources not 50 miles from us, not across town, but right here in our own community, where our children can actually walk to school. There’s a lot that needs to be done.

But I want to make sure we look right, so that we don’t invite the wrong type of activity into the community. Get rid of what we do have that’s not a positive influence in our community. Our children are becoming a product of their environment. We say we want to help them, but we have an overpopulation of alcohol stores. We have a population of marijuana dispensaries. It’s legal and a lot of people voted for it because they were tired of people going to jail for marijuana, which is understandable. But it’s something we need to go back to the drawing board about to make sure that it’s regulated properly, that our children don’t have such easy access to it. It’s really hurting us. And in order to build a community up, you have to eliminate the things that take them down.

More election coverage

In about a month Detroiters vote to re-shape the city’s government.

After a dozen years, a new mayor will lead the Motor City.

But Detroit City Council member Scott Benson hopes one thing stays the same. The incumbent is running for reelection to represent northeast Detroit.

Benson says Council District 3 faces a flood of problems, including dealing with actual and sometimes massive flooding.

The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Scott Benson: We still have to help with public safety, we still need to help with jobs. We still need to help grow our infrastructure. We need to reboot our infrastructure, in many ways. Our infrastructure is hundreds of years old in certain places within the city of Detroit. And you don’t see it, so it’s easy not to think about it. When we look at stormwater infrastructure, advocating for new pipes, advocating for green stormwater to make us a more resilient space, that takes work. And it doesn’t happen without the heavy lifting and being very strategic and prescriptive around how we rebuild our city from underneath the ground as well. We can get the development from private investment. But the infrastructure, that’s public investment. We have to work with the state, the county and the federal government, which has its ebbs and flows, as we all know. We have to work with all those partners to make sure that we continue to invest in our infrastructure.

Quinn Klinefelter, WDET News: When you are trying to pay for that work, there’s been a lot of talk about the so-called “financial cliff” the city’s facing because federal and other sources of funding are running out. In your view, what should the city do to get more revenue in?

SB: I want to go back to that statement about the financial cliff. I am a fiscal hawk on the Detroit City Council. We have been very strategic in how we utilize that federal funding. It was used as icing and not the cake. We have lived beneath our means in the city of Detroit. I want to continue to ensure we do that we save more than we spend. And we just saw where the mayor made the announcement that we got about a $60 million surplus that we’re going to reprogram this year. So we are in a position where we’re not worried about the loss of federal money.

To get more money in, we’re going to have to continue what we’ve done. Since I’ve been on the Detroit City Council there’s been over a 50% increase in the General Fund. We need to continue that growth. Which means we need more investment, we need to continue population growth. And that’s how we grow our General Fund.

QK: Some of the Detroit mayoral candidates have talked about possibly raising taxes on certain things in the downtown or other areas. What do you think of those proposals?

SB: The one that I’m thinking of is a tax on events. I’m not opposed to that. I believe the thought is that we would use that revenue to offset other tax obligations. It would be an additional opportunity to reduce property taxes. We have to figure out a way to reduce the cost to live in the city of Detroit when it comes to operating a home. We have to incentivize people to move back into the city of Detroit. And our property taxes and our car insurance, that’s a disincentive. We need to figure that part out. But having a tax of that nature, it hits on the downtown-specific events and it’s something that’s been done successfully around the country. So I am more than happy to take a look at how we can implement something like that in the city of Detroit.

If we want to grow our city, we have to do it by bringing in everybody.

QK: When I talk to some people around the city, they still bring up the specter of crime. They fear sometimes being in their own neighborhoods, including over in your district, which I go through every single day. In your view, what can be done about that? I know you favor the ShotSpotter system, which is supposed to alert police when it detects gunfire. And there’s lots of talk about community policing. But if you do something like add more personnel to the police department, that would take extra money. So what do you see as the best ways to address crime?

SB: ShotSpotter was something that I championed back in 2015, before it was cool. CVI, community violence intervention, I’ve also championed that in the third district. and we’ve seen results. So I continue to champion those items. We’ve given a pay raise to our police department so that we can keep and attract additional police officers. But we’re going to have to continue to leverage those items because we are not a wealthy district. We don’t have any of the traditional sexy neighborhoods. But we see a huge brunt of the crime, which means that my bosses, the residents, are often victims of crime. And when you tell other people, “Hey, come to the city. We’ve got all these assets, the quality of life that you’re looking for.” People say crime, either real or perceived, is an issue. If we want to grow our city, we have to do it by bringing in everybody. Income diversity is something that we need here in the city of Detroit.

QK: You’d been caught up in some controversy a while back as part of a federal corruption investigation into several public officials in the city over bribery allegations. They charged former Detroit City Council Member Andre Spivey with that. But they closed other cases at the beginning of this year with no charges filed against anyone else, including yourself. Do you feel exonerated after all that? Or are there any lingering concerns that somehow you could have been tarnished to where opponents can try to throw something at you about it?

SB: Any time that the federal government comes to your house unannounced, that’s a problem. But the grand jury did not indict anyone in my office, in my colleague’s office, none of us. The federal government even provided a letter indicating they were dropping the investigation, which it rarely, rarely does. There’s always going to be that. “Oh, your name was spoken with those words.” But you know what? They took a very deep dive into me, my personal finances. And we came up clean. My team came up clean, my colleague’s team came up clean. So I do feel exonerated.

QK: One thing I try to always ask anybody that’s running for office is why people should vote for them. So what would you tell voters? Why should they reelect you to Council?

SB: Number one, I have added value to my district when it comes to jobs. And I am all about jobs. My three priorities are jobs, jobs and more jobs. And we are not a typical area where people think about investment. Because we are overwhelmingly low-income in the third district, it does not mean that we are low-quality. I fought for the “Dining with Confidence” ordinance when I saw there were a number of major restaurant chains that thought they could serve residents on the northeast side of Detroit poisoned food, improper food. I fought very hard and lost once but won the second time to get an ordinance that holds restaurants accountable. They have to publicize their scores when it comes to their food compliance and food safety. It’s not just about being treated well in the downtown area. We pay taxes on the northeast side of Detroit as well.

More election coverage

Film director Ken Burns has gained fame with his acclaimed examinations of the U.S., beginning with his dramatic documentary on the Civil War.

Now Burns is coming to Detroit to promote his latest look at a conflict that shaped the nation, the American Revolution.

He says it stands as a portrait of a people who came to defy a king.

But Burns says it also created unanticipated ripples that set both the nation and public broadcasting on the course they follow today.

The following interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Ken Burns: We’ve been working on this for almost 10 years. When I started, Barack Obama had 13 months to go in his presidency. After the Civil War series came out in 1990, I said we’re not gonna do any more wars. But I got lured into doing World War II because I heard that something like 40% of graduating high school seniors thought we fought with the Germans against the Russians in the Second World War and I just kind of banged my head against the wall and said, “Come on, we’ve got to do it.” And before the ink was dry on that I said we’re doing Vietnam. And before the ink was dry on Vietnam, somewhere around December of 2015, I just said, “We’ve got to do the American Revolution.” Because in these complicated and I think difficult times, it’s important to know our origin story. I also think that we have smothered the revolution in sort of a gallant, bloodless myth. It’s encrusted with the barnacles of sentimentality, perhaps to protect the big ideas happening in Philadelphia.

We don’t want to deal with how violent it was. And it was its own civil war, in a way our Civil War isn’t. There’s large amounts of civilian death in a small set of colonies that has around 3 million people at the time that the revolution begins.

Going beyond statues and monuments

KB: What I found is that by digging deep into the story it doesn’t diminish the big ideas, it makes them even more inspiring. I think the American Revolution is the most important event in world history since the birth of Christ. For the first time, people aren’t subjects, they’re citizens. That’s worked pretty damn well and has spread across the world.

And now, as we begin to fear for that system, it might be good for all of us, regardless of where you come from, to go back and find purchase, to find some place, somebody to identify with in the story of the American Revolution. And it doesn’t have to just be the top-down folks. They’re all there, all the bold-faced names, now more dimensionally real. George Washington’s a real person. John Adams is a real person. His wife, Abigail, is a real person. So is Jefferson. You get to know them in different ways then just people in history textbooks. But you also get to meet literally dozens of other people. A 10-year-old gal from Yorktown, a 14-year-old who joins the Patriot army right after Lexington and Concord. A 15-year-old who signs up the next year in the summer of 1776 and fights throughout the war. Free and enslaved African Americans, Native people, German officers, soldiers and their wives. The King of England, his ministers. The French. We like to think of it as our little struggle to throw off tyranny. But it is, in fact, this global struggle that is the third or the fourth world war fought over the prize of North America. It’s just as good a story as I’ve ever come across.

Democracy was not the plan

Quinn Klinefelter, WDET News: In some of the episodes the narrators call it the most consequential revolution in history. They also say the founders were not doing it to create a democracy, that democracy came as an unintended consequence. That sounds a bit different from what many believe was a fight to free ourselves from a king.

KB: So think about it. The guys that sort of foment the revolution are men of property, sometimes of wealth. They’re certainly free of debt. And they assume they’re going to create a republic of an aristocracy, what today we’d call elites, though it didn’t have any of its pejorative connotations then. It meant the best of the best. But in order to win that war, in order to beat the British, it’s not going to be the sturdy militiamen who are going to disappear to plant crops or disappear to go back because they miss their family. It’s going to be teenagers. It’s going to be ne’er do wells. It’s going to be felons. It’s going to be second and third sons without the chance of an inheritance. Those people are going to do the fighting and be there at the ultimate victory. You’re going to have to throw them something.

So, beginning in Pennsylvania with their state constitution, they’re beginning to extend it not just to propertied men, white men, but to all men. The quarrel over the rights of British citizens becomes blown out into universal rights. Remember, this is the Enlightenment. They are taking these big new ideas and they’re saying, “Hey, we could actually start a government with these big new ideas.” Everybody’s been a subject. Now we’re citizens. That takes great responsibility. Pursuit of Happiness is not just a hedonistic pursuit of things in a marketplace of objects, but lifelong learning in a marketplace of ideas. That’s a big deal and you have to extend it. You’re gonna realize that 15-year-old kid from Connecticut who’s gonna fight throughout the war, you gotta give him something. So democracy is not the object of the revolution, it’s a consequence of it.

A film with no pictures

QK: You’ve developed a kind of signature approach in these documentaries, having actors read from old letters or journals and kind of slowly zooming in on photos and things. But there were no photos in the American Revolution, just paintings. In terms of pure filmmaking, how difficult was it to tackle something from almost 250 years ago?

KB: It’s tough to rely so extensively on it for a war. You put three or four paintings together and they start to look like cartoons. So maps take on greater importance, the actual documents and diaries, signatures, the stuff of where people lived. But it also required me to get over a kind of reluctance about using reenactments. Not to restage a battle but to follow soldiers for years and years. Having people who are fanatical about getting exactly the right uniform, whether it’s a French a German hessian uniform, a British soldier, an American militiaman, an American continental, the Native Americans, the Black Americans who fought on both sides, whatever it might be. To follow them around and do it in an impressionistic way that you could treat the live cinematography like paintings, then treat the paintings and the drawings and other things as if they’ve got dimension. And it works. I think people will really appreciate us getting out of our comfort zone and trying to figure out how to bite off more than we can chew. And then learn how to chew it.

QK: Do you enjoy getting out of your comfort zone and biting off more than you can chew?

KB: I’ve always done that. I have on my desk something from Tyrone Guthrie, the late founder of The Globe Theater in Minneapolis. And he said, “We’re looking for ideas large enough to be afraid of again.” And that meant taking risks.

A nation that was always divided

QK: This documentary about the origin of the nation comes as our current country is pretty bitterly divided. Do you see lessons from dissecting the American Revolution that you think could help bridge some of those divisions that exist today?

KB: The past is always a great teacher, so the simple answer is yes. But we’ve always been divided. Certainly our revolution is a civil war, in a way our Civil War isn’t. The American Revolution had, unfortunately, large civilian deaths. In our Civil War there’s relatively few outside of Missouri and eastern Kansas. It’s a sectional war, one part of the country against the other. It’s armies fighting. Only one or two civilians die at the Battle of Gettysburg, which is the biggest battle ever fought in North America.

What’s happening in the American Revolution is that civilians are killing each other and being killed. Loyalists are killing patriots. Patriots are killing loyalists. Both are killing the disaffected, those who sort of want to keep their heads down and not be engaged. There’s some battles in which there might be a British officer leading the loyalists, but everybody else who is killed or wounded is an American. This is a big deal. And I think it will be a surprise to people. First, to just sort of exhale and go “Okay, we’ve always been divided. Now, where can I find purchase in this story?” And I think what we will find is there will be strange allies among those who dedicate themselves to watching all six parts and 12 hours of the documentary.

They will begin to see the whole purpose of the revolution was to do something different in the world. This idea of citizenship and being responsible, that there are no kings, that this is anti-monarchical, the first time that it ever happened, is a huge, huge thing.

The assumptions, the superficial, conventional knowledge many Americans have of the revolution, I hope, will be blown out of the water. And then replaced with something much more complex. And that’s the problem. When we talk about divisions, we think about our political life, in which everything is binary. But there’s nothing binary in the world.

We introduce you to a person that we’ve all heard of, who is deeply flawed, who’s rash on the battlefield, who actually makes a couple of major tactical mistakes in the course of the war that lose two major battles. But without him we do not have a country, full stop, period. His name is, of course, George Washington. But to get to know him away from the dollar bill, away from the mythology of cherry trees and not telling a lie, is to meet somebody who is the only person you can say that if he had been killed, we would be speaking British English, or we would be speaking French or Spanish. He’s that consequential a person. You don’t want him as a one dimensional figure.

Choosing stories not sides

KB: Unfortunately, our political discourse is always an on-off switch. It’s a red state or a blue state, I’m right, you’re wrong, my way or the highway, whatever it is. When life, as we all know, is much more complicated than that. And I think this is where a good story can come in.

The novelist Richard Powers said, “The best arguments in the world won’t change a single person’s point of view. The only thing that can do that is a good story.” I’m not looking to change a specific point of view, I’m trying to be like an umpire calling balls and strikes. Sure, the highlight reels show Babe Ruth hitting a home run. But he only comes up once every nine times at bat, and a lot of times he strikes out. So let’s look at the whole picture. Who are the other eight players, right? This is what good storytelling is. And we’re drawn to good storytelling because of the degree of complication that exists within and between people.

We talk today, in this binary computer and media world, as if heroism is perfect. The Greeks, who we’ve inherited the idea of heroism from, knew that it was a negotiation, sometimes a war, within an individual, between their strengths and weaknesses. Achilles has his heel and his hubris to go along with his great strengths So all of a sudden it’s no longer white hat, dark hat. It’s succession. Everybody’s got motives, everybody’s got complications. Nobody’s perfect. Everybody is interesting. And that’s what we tried to do with all the histories we’ve told. But none seem more urgent than delving into a more accurate and complicated story of our founding

QK: Why none more important than that to you?

KB: Quinn, I won’t work on a more important film than this, whether it’s the Civil War or the Holocaust or Vietnam, even the national parks or the Roosevelts. Because I think it’s really important to come to terms with where we were born, what the hallmarks are of that birth, what the sacrifices were of people. And it’s not just me, I’ve heard this from people who’ve had the chance to see it over the last six months that it’s been essentially done.

The film raises the question of which side would I have been on? There’s no shame in being a loyalist. A loyalist is a conservative. The British monarchy is the best system of government on earth at that moment, so far. To say all my prosperity, all my health, all of this good fortune comes from that is to be loyal. The Patriots are offering something that has seems to have zero chance on April 19, 1775, zero chance of success. So instead of making the loyalist villains, they become important part.

We’re drawn to good storytelling because of the degree of complication that exists within and between people.

KB: We meet a guy, a loyalist, who has left his Vermont territory, moved to Canada, set up a legion, a regiment, of loyalists, and come back to fight. And during a battle he is about to lose he hears somebody say, “You damn Tory!” This person sticks him in the breast with a bayonet, it’s deflected off the bone, and he is obliged, as he said, to destroy him. The person is he’s destroying is his best friend growing up. That’s the American Revolution too. And that’s something in which we can begin to understand that it isn’t just these simple, binary structures. Certainly, because there are no photographs, there’s no newsreels, we’re back to the age of paintings. Some have cartoonish qualities, some are more accurate. But it’s hard to find a foothold. And what we’ve spent the last nearly decade trying to do is to give ourselves and therefore our audience, a foothold in which they can understand our origin story.

Government funding cuts are a call to action

QK: You speak of “complications.” Your documentary is also coming at a time when a presidential administration has cut funding for public broadcasting and clawed back money that was already given for the next couple of years’ budgets. How is the cut and the claw back affecting your work?

KB: It’s pretty devastating. We’ve directly lost over $4 million in money that was already committed to upcoming projects. Fortunately, not this one. The money had already been paid out. It’s so incredibly short-sighted. This will hurt Homeland Security, emergency alerts. These are all things that have now just been sacrificed. It’s really tough.

QK: Congress had designed the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to be separate and hopefully not influenced by political considerations. Yet now the funding has been cut on grounds that a president says he doesn’t like the political tone of stories. What’s your reaction to that kind of move?

KB: I think it’s throwing the baby out with the bath water. PBS was the only place William F Buckley, who was the most conservative voice in America, had a TV show. And “Firing Line” ran for an awfully long time. It becomes terrible that in a country that’s born first and foremost in the First Amendment of freedom of speech and freedom of press and assembly and religion, someone would find that hearing an opposing point of view was bad. Because that’s not the way we roll in the United States.

QK: No one has a crystal ball, but where do you see public broadcasting in general going in the future, after all this?

KB: I think we’ll get through this. A huge majority of the people who avail themselves of NPR and PBS, a huge majority of your listeners, are not members of your station. But if we can up that number, we can offset some of the losses. And I then think our job is to begin to tell stories of restoration and repair, of reconciliation.

It also is incumbent upon us, with the gift of citizenship, that we be active. With our vote, first and foremost, but also with our education. That’s what pursuit of happiness means. You’ve got lifelong learning. And that’s what the sadness is, because that’s what PBS and NPR are committed to. So, I think we just have to give our effort towards supporting and sustaining this idea. The great gift of the foundation of the United States is that people were no longer subjects, but citizens.

Michigan’s state government could shut down in about a month unless lawmakers reach a deal on a new budget.

The negotiations between House Republicans and Democratic senators and Governor Gretchen Whitmer have reportedly been tense.

Senate Democrats approved a budget proposal in May.

House GOP members recently passed their budget plan.

House Speaker Matt Hall says one of the major priorities for Michigan is finding a new source of revenue for road infrastructure.

The following interview has been edited for clarity and length

Matt Hall, Speaker of the House: We’re going to have a major cliff in our road funding coming very soon as the governor’s borrowing runs out. She’s borrowed billions of dollars and kind of kicked the can down the road on road funding. A lot of the federal money is running out. A lot of that was from the COVID-19 pandemic, the big infrastructure money.

We got a letter from the Whitmer administration, the transportation department and the labor department. What they told us is if we do nothing, 8,000 Michigan workers are going to lose their jobs because there’s not any more road building or bridge building to do.

I looked at this and said, “wow, this is bigger than any economic development project that Whitmer has done.” We said not only could we create jobs and save jobs if we invested in roads, but we hear from all of our constituents that there’s many bridges that need to be fixed and particularly local roads need to be fixed.

We saw Gov. Whitmer win her election campaigning on fixing the roads. So we said, what if instead of growing all these departments of government, if we invested in roads? I looked at some of these departments and they’ve increased a lot since Whitmer became governor. What I realized is they had the money the whole time to fix the roads. Instead they spent it growing state government departments. So we put together a plan to fund the roads, put the $3.4 billion that are needed to fix the roads in permanently.

And according to Whitmer’s administration, that’ll create over 20,000 jobs a year. So we’ll save the 8,000 jobs and we’ll create 20,000 jobs, and the citizens will benefit because they’ll get good bridges and good roads.

Quinn Klinefelter, WDET News: There are some critics that say they’re concerned about some of the cuts you propose in the budget. For instance, those affecting the Michigan State Police and Health and Human Services. I’ve heard some medical officials say they fear your budget makes big cuts in state funding for hospitals and could force some of the smaller rural ones to close. What’s your reaction to those comments?

MH: The hospitals, they lie. These hospitals make record profits year after year after year and they charge a lot of money to people. But the fact is our budget funds rural hospitals $250 million. We appropriated $250 million for rural hospitals.

When you’re changing the status quo, when you’re eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse in government, the special interests complain. That’s why nobody’s done it before. We identified $5 billion of waste, fraud, and abuse in this state budget. We found 4,300 ghost employees in the state government. Those are positions that have been unfilled for years. It amounts to $500 million a year. And they squirrel this away year after year after year. That’s why there’s $6 billion sitting in bank accounts for state government at the end of the year. If they don’t spend the money they get to keep it. They put it in a bank account and that’s why they inflate the size of these budgets.

We said, let’s take half of that $6 billion, pay off the governor’s borrowing, and we can put another $330 million a year into roads. So we’re trying to make better use and get value for tax dollars out of this budget.

The state police have had hundreds of unfilled positions for years and years and years. They’re never gonna fill these positions. And what they do is they keep the money. They create all these positions, the politicians fund it and it just sits in these bank accounts. It’s part of the $6 billion I talked about. So when we’re saying why don’t we give you the money you’re actually gonna spend, that’s not a cut. That’s a better use of tax dollars.

When you’re changing the status quo, when you’re eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse in government, the special interests complain.

What Democrats are saying is let’s keep the 4,300 ghost employees. Let’s keep these departments where they are. There’s no waste, fraud, and abuse in government. We’re gonna raise all your taxes next year.

We’ve demonstrated we have the money to do this without raising taxes. We just have to spend it better and that’s what the House budget does.

QK: We’re in the school season now. Some school officials have talked about not knowing how much money they’re gonna have to spend one way or the other. Where does the school budget stand in terms of state funding?

MH: My hope is that we resolve the school budget first. Along with roads, I’d like to see us get a school budget done early in our process.

We passed a school budget months ago. It’s been sitting in the Senate. We tried to come to agreement by the statutory deadline, July 1st. Democrats walked away from that negotiation.

We put up for a vote a legislation that says if the politicians don’t get a budget done on time, then they don’t get paid. The politicians here do not have enough skin in the game and sense of urgency to get these budgets done early. And as a result, they shouldn’t get paid. We put that up for a vote, the Democrats voted no and it failed. Now we’re back having conversations. They resumed when the governor and I and [Senate Majority Leader Democrat] Winnie Brinks met. I hope we can resolve our differences and get an education budget done.

We’re trying to restore funding that the Democrats cut for school safety and mental health. Even for private schools. You saw what happened in Minnesota. We want to fund a school resource officer in every school district and restore the mental health and school safety funding. And then we want to empower our local districts to make the decisions that they need to instead of Lansing politicians telling them how to spend their money.

QK: In terms of the Michigan Senate, an issue that interests a number of people in the metro Detroit region is that the senate recently passed a plan to raise tipping fees for waste disposal. They were trying to limit some toxic material from coming into disposal sites. What’s your view of raising those tipping fees?

MH: The Democrats tried to move legislation last year to raise taxes on everyone’s trash. If you raise taxes on the trash companies and their costs go up, they’re passing those taxes onto the customers, right? The Democrats didn’t even have the votes to get this done when they controlled the House, Senate, and the governor’s office. So now that the Republicans are in control of the House, I don’t expect that you’ll see us move it. It’s a lot to ask for a $200 or $300 tax increase on a service that people need to have.

QK: At the moment it seems the House and Senate budget proposals are still billions of dollars apart. There has to be a state budget finalized in about a month or risk a government shutdown. In your view, how realistic is it that Michigan could be getting close to a government shutdown?

MH: Right now, the Senate Democrats are not moving forward in a manner of really looking at the budget and eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse. What they want to do is just add 4% on what we did last year and call it good.

At the end of the day, there’s a lot of alignment between Gov. Whitmer and the House Republicans. We want to fix the roads, we want to invest in schools and we support public safety. So my hope is that she gets the legislative Democrats in line, they empower her as their leader, and she negotiates a deal with us.

Once they do that, we’ll be done in about two weeks. Right now, what you see is a lot of these legislative Democrats are kind of following the model of this New York City mayor candidate, [Zohran] Mamdani. They are buying into rhetoric like that from [Michigan U.S.] Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed when he says we should take the Republicans and bring them down into the mud and choke ’em out.

You see Gov. Whitmer embracing President Trump and trying to lead the Democrat party in a more cooperative and bipartisan direction. I hope the Democrats in the Senate empower Gov. Whitmer and support her because then we’ll get a deal done very fast. But if they go the route of this Mamdani, the direction that they are heading, then I think it’s going to be a real challenge to get a budget done.

The national Democratic party is weighing proposals behind-the-scenes that could give Michigan a leading role in the 2028 presidential nominating process

The party is deciding which state will hold the first presidential primary election.

Iowa and New Hampshire had long been the initial states to host a Democratic primary or caucus. That changed in recent years.

Former President Biden pushed to set South Carolina as the first state to hold a Democratic primary in the last election cycle, though New Hampshire jumped ahead of it with an unsanctioned contest.

Now those states and Iowa are jockeying again for the pole primary position, along with Michigan and Nevada.

Michigan Democratic Congresswoman Debbie Dingell is part of a committee determining the 2028 primary order.

Dingell says the decision will impact the presidential candidates’ policy priorities.

The following interview has been edited for clarity and length

U.S. Rep. Debbie Dingell: The state that goes first is the state that gets a lot of attention. The candidates spend a lot of time there. The press spends a lot of time there. The country knows what the issues are there. But, unfortunately, some of the states that have gone first do not reflect the diversity of the country. They don’t have solid organized labor groups that, quite frankly, people have thought of traditionally as Democratic-leaning, but are not always these days Candidates should have to talk directly to the people about the issues that are going to determine the election in November.

Quinn Klinefelter, WDET News: When you’re looking at it from that point of view, is Michigan a good choice to go first?

DD: I refuse to say that Michigan should go first. I don’t think any state should have a lock on going first. I think states like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, purple battleground states that determine the outcome of what happens in November, should be part of the early process. Candidates should have to talk about the issues that are gonna determine the outcome in November.

QK: When you look at states like Michigan that have a large population, some people worry that they are too big for candidates to connect on the ground with many individual voters. They think those states favor candidates who have a lot of money to buy commercials. Do you think that’s a legitimate criticism, not just of Michigan, but of any larger state?

DD: I think that candidates are gonna have to be on the ground in larger states as well as they’re gonna have to be in the smaller states. And these larger states actually are dealing with the kind of issues that determine the outcome in November. Candidates should have to appear there. Work there. Win there. And part of that is raising money. That’s part of winning, to be perfectly frank. But I also think it’s more important to have “retail” politics. Going to union halls, talking to working men and women, hearing what they think, getting into senior centers, getting into veteran’s halls. Many of these purple states have a whole lot of different stakeholders that need to be heard from. And the candidates need to be talking with them about how they feel about the issues.

QK: I’ve heard some Democrats raise concerns about certain states, including Michigan, where they fear the party could become divided right off the bat over the situation in Gaza. States where there might be a large Arab or Jewish population. States that saw the rise of the “Abandon Harris” or “Abandon Biden” movements in the last presidential election over their support for Israel. Do you think there’s any legitimacy to that criticism?

DD: First of all, I think that while we do have a significant Muslim population and a significant Jewish population in Michigan, this is an issue that matters around the country. And I think it is better to talk about those issues early than to be losing in November and talking about it for the first time. I think it’s very important they be part of the early discussion.

QK: You were saying in 2016, when people thought that Hillary Clinton had a pretty good lead over then-candidate Donald Trump, that you thought Trump was actually making many more inroads among working-class people than was shown in polling. You predicted he had a good shot at winning in Michigan and elsewhere. When you look at what Democrats need to do now, both in the primary process and going forward, period, do you think your party needs to strengthen those kinds of “working-class” connections more than they are currently?

DD: Yes. That’s why I think that they have to campaign in states where those groups matter and where the stakeholders matter. I knew Hillary was gonna lose before that November election because I was in those union halls. Too many candidates don’t walk into a union hall. They need to.

The governors of several states are sending hundreds of additional National Guard troops to the nation’s capital.

Trump administration officials reportedly say some National Guard members in Washington, D.C. may now carry firearms, reversing previous assurances that all troops would be unarmed.

That worries one former Detroit police chief and deputy mayor.

Isaiah McKinnon was a young police officer working with National Guard troops when violence broke out in Detroit during July of 1967.

McKinnon says he’s had concerns for decades whenever the U.S. military mixes with the nation’s civilian population.

The following interview has been edited for clarity and length

Isaiah McKinnon: I’m always skeptical because my experiences going back to the late 1960’s with the National Guard were not good. I hope that people understand this is not a dig at the National Guard troops themselves. But I think that if we use people who are not trained in law enforcement, it’s like a police officer going to war in a foreign country. You’re not trained for that. You’re trained to deal with domestic type situations. And that bothers me. Because when I saw the National Guard here in Detroit and the things that they did, it was frightening and scary.

Quinn Klinefelter, WDET News: That would have been during the 1967 Detroit riots or rebellion, depending on who you talk to, when you were not the chief but a police officer. Why was working with the Guard scary?

IM: They assigned a squad of National Guard people with me, a young officer. We were riding in Jeeps. I had been in Vietnam as an Air Force person and watched the military, and I was impressed with how they reacted to certain situations. But these National Guard people in Detroit, they were young people too. They asked me, “How are we going to do this? What are we going to do?” And I said, “Guys, listen, what we’ll do is we’ll look for looters. We’ll look for people that’s doing wrong things and bad things. And if we have to lock them up, that’s what we’ll do.” Well, as we’re driving in our Jeeps down the streets and patrolling one National Guard member said, “There’s someone moving up in the window on one of the streets.” It was, I think, Chicago Blvd. He started shooting at the window. I said, “Wait a minute! Did you see anyone? Did you see a gun or something?” “No, but it was suspicious.” You don’t shoot on suspicions. Those are the things that scared me because they had no idea of what they were there for. Doing things like shooting the street lights out because they don’t want people to see them. Now, we are years past that. But what are these guys [in Washington, D.C.] going to do when they come into a community? If there’s a domestic situation, are they thinking that they have to use ultimate force to take someone down?

QK: In a military situation, that’s what they would do, right? Try to get rid of the lights or that kind of thing.

IM: Yeah. But I saw National Guardsmen shoot at people and thank God they missed. In fact, my brother, who is now deceased, he told me a similar story. He was walking down 12th Street in Detroit and a number of National Guard people came in that area. They told the people to leave and the people started yelling and screaming back at them, which is a normal thing that people in these kinds of situations do. So, they started shooting at people. And I’m going, again, my God. These are the experiences that I’ve had and other law enforcement people have had. We don’t want to knock the National Guard. But when you bring someone into a domestic situation one has to be trained, for their safety and for the safety of the people that they might be interacting with.

QK: Now, to be fair, a Pentagon spokesperson claims that these particular National Guards people have been trained in de-escalation tactics and crowd control. And I know the Guard does help in certain natural disaster situations. But the Pentagon is also saying that the National Guard in Washington is going to, “Provide a safe environment for law enforcement officers so they can make arrests and be a visible deterrent for violent crime.”

IM: I would have to see it to believe it. I think people say things to make it sound better. But the reality is that you don’t know until they’re there and they have these interactions with people, someone screaming, yelling, throwing bricks and bottles at you. Do they start using ultimate force on them? Police officers have gone through countless hours of training about dealing with these kinds of situations. You can’t just go into a city and say, “My people are trained, they can handle that to relieve the officers.” So they relieve the officers and then what happens? What is making something safer for a police officer who’s responding to a situation or patrolling an area? It appears to be a convenient thing to say. But the reality is, we’ll see as things go on.

QK: You have experience as an officer and police chief and also as a deputy mayor. So you’ve been on both sides of governing and running a police department. President Trump says there is an emergency situation in Washington, D.C., so therefore he’s had to act. Others say they fear he could do the same thing in some other large cities. From your vantage point, do you fear that this could be the precursor, somehow, of the president, in effect, trying to take over police departments across the country?

IM: The proof is in what is happening right now. You had the mayor of Los Angeles who said, “We don’t need you.” The governor said the same thing. So did the mayor in Washington, D.C. If there’s a need to make the officers safer, let us hire more officers who are trained regularly to handle these kinds of situations. We’ve seen what has happened in other locations, whether it’s untrained officers or untrained troops that go in, it does not help the situation in that respective city. There’s a distrust of police officers. But there’s even more distrust of someone who comes in who the community doesn’t even know. I’ve seen this in all my years and it’s frightening to me, when you bring in troops. Someone said to me last night, “Dr. McKinnon, I never thought we would see troops patrolling the streets of our cities when there’s not a rebellion, there’s not a riot, there’s not these horrible things going on, but under the auspices of ‘We’re going to make things safer for the police.’” The way you make things safer for the police is, number one, hiring more law enforcement officers. Number two, you deal with the mental health situations of people and other things to calm or quell the actions that are going on in a respective location.

A Michigan Congresswoman is taking aim at stores she claims abruptly change prices depending on who is shopping.

U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib says big stores do more than use data to decide what coupons to send customers.

She alleges they consult security cameras and personal profiles, then adjust the cost of a given product.

Now the Detroit Democrat is introducing a bill in Congress to stop what she calls “surveillance pricing.”

U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib: (Interview edited for clarity.) These big grocery stores like Target and Walmart are using surveillance of the way we shop, our ethnic backgrounds, our income and creating personal profiles on us. So my bill would prevent and prohibit them from using these characteristics about yourself, your shopping patterns and so forth, to fix the price. Especially when they are primarily looking at whether or not you could afford a price hike. It bans electronic shelf labels in large stores where they can automatically change the price. If there’s a heat wave they might want to price gouge and increase the cost of water. Or maybe they know this is a product you have to buy, you buy it every single time, and they’re increasing the cost because they know you got a raise at work. Again, a lot of this is personal data and personal information that should not be used in deciding what the price is. Everyone should be charged the same no matter their background, the color of their skin, their income, their ethnicity, where they shop, things of that nature. And so, we’re trying to prohibit this.

QK: Companies use so much data now to have an algorithm to send offers or other things that they target to customers. In your view, how can the government enforce or ensure that they’re not using that data to charge different prices for different people?

RT: Right now there’s no enforcement arm. So the bill establishes an enforcement arm within the Federal Trade Commission to hold corporations accountable. Our neighbors are struggling. Many, many have seen up to a 28% increase in the price of groceries. These corporate grocery chains are feeding customer data into algorithms and using big tech to decide whether or not they’re going to charge us more. This bill makes that illegal. And it pushes the Federal Trade Commission to prevent price hikes based on what I believe are discriminatory practices and violating people’s privacy. Companies should not be allowed to use any of this information, including electronic labeling or personal information, to charge you higher prices.

QK: Companies will argue that they’re doing this because it’s what customers want. If you’ve always bought a certain kind of bread, for example, they’re going to send you all these bread offers. Are you able to do something that would stop price gouging while still allowing them to continue sending you the offers they think you’re going to want?

RT: Do you not believe these big corporations want you in the stores? They just want to be able to squeeze more money out of you. They send you the coupons because they know these are the items you buy. But they’re going to use electronic labeling and examine what apps you are on and use facial recognition to increase costs on you. Much of it’s going to be done without your knowledge. It’s about how far they can go in charging you and knowing that you can afford it because they looked up and created a profile that says this is how much they make. Or this is an item they need, because maybe this is a personal hygiene item they’re required to use. Whatever it is, no one’s gender, color of their skin, income or the location that they’re shopping at should be used in fixing the price.

This all started when the head of Pepsi was interviewed when prices went up during the pandemic. The cost of groceries just skyrocketed. After that people thought it would stabilize and the prices would go down. But in his comments, he said, “Well, no, we’re not going to decrease prices. The people are already getting used to it.” For many of my residents and families, that’s what they want us to push out against, this increased cost when it’s not needed. They want fair prices, not based on any of this personal information and data.

QK: If it’s not some kind of an antitrust situation, can Congress or the government actually have an effect on what prices companies set?

RT: Absolutely. We saw this with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. CFPB did this with the big banks, where we watched how they built their business plans based on junk fees. We saw how Delta Airlines was charging more for family units regarding seats. All of that to say you saw CFPB, which unfortunately is under attack by the Trump administration, go after student loan servicers, go after a number of these companies. They set up their business plan to be profit-driven without protecting consumers. Laws are in place for different kinds of price fixes and increases. But there’s no prohibiting using surveillance pricing to jack-up prices. That’s where our bill comes into effect, trying to give some sort of enforcement under the Federal Trade Commission to push back against those practices.

QK: Congress has battled repeatedly this year, in particular, about budgetary items and spending or cuts demanded by the Trump administration. In this kind of a climate, are you concerned whether your proposal can make it through that partisan maze?

RT: I think that there’s so many residents across the country that see price-fixing and gouging and increases on their families, no matter if they’re Republican or Democrat. They don’t see this as a partisan issue. And I’m hoping when they understand this is an invasion of privacy, that technology is being used in this way to hurt families, I really believe they’re going to reach out to their members of Congress and ask them to support something like my bill. To push back against stores that have already been under fire for increasing costs when there’s heat waves and when there’s desperation among the community that they’re in. I think there is going to be a big, very non-partisan way of approaching this issue that’s going to be seen outside of Congress and not based on party affiliation. It’s already a struggle for many of our families to get fresh food. The basic grocery store trip should not be something where they’re going to get scammed. That’s what we’re trying to prevent here.

Business leaders say President Trump’s tariffs on various countries and products are creating a high level of uncertainty for companies.

That appears especially true for small business owners who often operate with razor-thin profit margins.

A national coalition of CEO’s called Small Business for America’s Future estimates owners of smaller firms account for the vast majority of U.S. imports, the kind directly impacted by tariffs.

The group recently drafted a letter to President Trump and other officials claiming tariffs place a disproportionate burden on small businesses and are creating a crisis for owners.

That includes Farmington Hills, MI-based Blitz Proto, a company that specializes in helping customers bring ideas from design and engineering to production.

Blitz Proto CEO Carrin Harris says tariffs are making it hard for her company to survive.

The following interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Carrin Harris:  Blitz Proto is a small, three-person team. We’re focused on bringing innovative ideas to life. We help companies make prototypes from toys to medical devices and auto parts. Most of our prototypes involve electronics. That’s why we are having difficulty with the tariffs right now. Most of the electronic parts come from China. But we also do machining. So, the cost of all materials for machining has gone up. Aluminum, steel, everything’s going up quite a bit.

Quinn Klinefelter, WDET News: Have you been able to absorb some of the costs from the tariffs? Or do you have to pass the full cost on to consumers?

CH: We do work on very small margins. We have done what we can to absorb the cost. But for the most part, we are passing it on to the customers.

QK: How is that going over?

CH: So far, it has been very difficult. Many of our customers come to us with very small budgets and they can’t afford the additional cost to make their product. So, we have lost some opportunities this year due to the increased costs that we’re passing on.

QK: There’s been reports that some suppliers are demanding additional payments to cover tariff-related costs they say they were not expecting. Has that happened with your business?

CH: Yes, it has. We had placed some orders back in December. Then we received communication from our vendors telling us the cost had gone up. They’re attempting to absorb the costs as well but they had to pass some additional fees on to us to account for the tariffs and duties and additional shipping costs.

QK: How does that affect your business? I imagine it impacts not only costs but also quoting people what you might have to charge them or the time frame for when you’ll be able to deliver a product?

CH: Yes, it has. We have changed our policies internally this year. Our quotes are now expiring in one week rather than one month. And a lot of our lead times are being pushed out because the shipping times are much longer.

QK: It must be difficult to form a business plan with that kind of a situation.

CH: It has been extremely difficult. I’m doing the best that I can to assure our customers that we are exploring alternative vendors. We’re looking into more suppliers here in the United States, although costs for items coming from the United States tend to be quite a bit higher, sometimes three times the cost.

QK: You are one of the owners included in the letter sent to President Trump and other officials regarding tariffs and how they’re affecting small business. President Trump has said over and over that he loves tariffs. But he’s also proposed huge tariffs and then reduced them and then added others. Given all that, how realistic do you think it might be that he could reverse course on any of these tariffs, especially ones dealing with electronics from countries like China?

CH: It does sound like a possibility. But it’s pretty unpredictable. I’m hoping that he’ll at least choose and stick with a tariff rate so that we can anticipate better. Because we quote customers ahead of time, sometimes months ahead of time, so they can plan their budgets. If they’re ready to start a project and the cost has skyrocketed in the meantime, they usually have to scrap the project.

QK: The president said earlier this year that his use of tariffs could mean, for example, that maybe someone can only buy two dolls for a child this year for Christmas instead of 30. That’s as he says he’s bringing manufacturing back to the U.S. For you, whose company actually makes prototypes for toys, among other things, what do those comments mean to you?

CH: It really means the supplier that wants to create a new toy is probably not going to do it. We are a very small business among many small businesses and these tariffs are threatening our livelihood. We already are working with almost no capital. So I don’t see how we can sustain this in the long run. I’d like to see more consistency.

QK: How long have you had your business going and how has it been doing?

CH: We started in mid-2022. It’s done pretty well up until the tariffs were put in place. We had really good outlooks for this year. We’ve formed a lot more customer relationships and have had a lot of new opportunities this year. Unfortunately, a lot of those customers have held back from putting in orders that they planned on making with us this year. I am sure that’s due to the fluctuating cost.

QK: And not being a huge corporation, I imagine you don’t have the extra assets or resources available to help tide you over the way that a large company might?

CH: We’ve actually had some suppliers tell us that big corporations came in and bought up all of their stock. So they wouldn’t actually honor the orders that we’d already put in and paid for.

QK: How can they do that if you already paid for them?

CH: That’s a good question. They didn’t really have any answers for us

The entertainment world lost an iconic actor this week.

Loni Anderson refused to play a stereotypical “dumb blonde” on “WKRP in Cincinnati,” a hit television show about a fictional easy-listening radio station abruptly switching to rock and roll, which aired from 1978 to 1982.

Instead, she reinvented the character of receptionist Jennifer Marlowe as “the smartest person in the room,” one who much of the show revolved around.

Anderson earned two Emmy nominations for the role.

She died Sunday after a prolonged illness, just a few days short of her 80^th birthday.

But despite having more than 60 acting credits spread over decades, Anderson always celebrated her time on WKRP.

That included an appearance in 2012 at the Motor City Comic Con.

At that time, Anderson told WDET’s Quinn Klinefelter that coming to Metro Detroit felt like a return to very familiar surroundings.

Loni Anderson: (Interview edited for clarity.) I am from Minnesota, so I am a Midwest girl and spent some time in Detroit. I drive American. I’ve driven a Cadillac, not the same Cadillac, since 1979. I’m an American car driver and a Midwest Sunday school teacher. So it seems just like home to me.

Quinn Klinefelter, WDET News: You’re going to a comics convention and you’re renowned for movies and shows like WKRP. That’s all TV and film. Why be at a comics con?

LA: I think we may be the token actor-comedy people. There are other similar people there like Dawn Wells, who did “Gilligan’s Island.”  More cartoony, granted, than our show. But I think it’s just a celebrity gathering and everybody comes and chats and has a good time. I get to sit with Howard Hesseman, who played WKRP disc jockey Dr. Johnny Fever, and reminisce. We just had lunch last week with our whole WKRP cast and it was really fun.

QK: You all still stay in touch?

LA: Yeah, we are like a family. We get together a couple times a year. And everybody emails one another or texts one another. I think we started together, we were all new together and it makes a bond.

QK: Those kinds of bonds aren’t always there in the entertainment business.

LA: No. And we were so lucky because all of us went on to do other things, other series. There was something special about WKRP. It was interesting because women on television in that era were either sexy detectives or sexy something else. But nobody was sexy-funny. And nobody blonde on TV then was very smart.

QK: But your character, Jennifer Marlowe, was really smart and really tough.

LA: Hugh Wilson, who created the show, we talked about it. I wasn’t really blonde before WKRP. And we said, “Okay, who is this woman? What is she about?” And Hugh said, “Let’s make her like movie star Lana Turner and the smartest person in the room.” And that’s kind of where we went. That was the taking-off place for her. And in 1978, that was changing the face of glamorous women in television.

QK: So you started off from that premise, you didn’t have to really push or fight to get her that way?

LA: In the pilot, she wasn’t that way. She was just kind of a one note. And after the pilot, we talked about that. We thought she should be something more, so let’s be really innovative. And at the time it got a lot of attention.

QK: How close are you to Jennifer Marlowe, to the character in WKRP?

LA: Kind of close. I’m not as, let’s say, as facile with a quip, because when you have writers, of course, you can be brilliant immediately. The things that Jennifer said I would maybe think of on the way home in the car, way after the fact. But otherwise, I think I’m pretty close. I don’t date just old guys and have their wheelchairs in the closet. So that’s not the same. And unexplained wealth, God only knows where it comes from. So, there were some mysterious things about Jennifer.

QK: If you look yourself up online, you actually have a bit of mystery too. We all know not everything online is always accurate. But a lot of posts refer to you as being in what they call a “self-imposed exile” the past few years. Is that a fair description?

LA: You know, I don’t think of it that way. I am a reluctant celebrity who always wanted to be an actress. I think today’s generation is more celebrity-driven. And I don’t really want people to know that I’m going to the drugstore or when I go to the market or if I’m going to be at a restaurant. I think it’s just a different era. And when I’m private, I’m private. If I’m a working actress, I’m a working actress. And I don’t want to work unless I think it’s fabulous, because I’m spoiled. I’ve had wonderful scripts to do. And to me, a lot of stuff isn’t worth going out the door for. I have a family, I have grandchildren even. And everybody keeps me pretty busy. If a good acting role would come along or something I said, “I really want to go and do this, it would be fun,” than maybe. But those are harder to come by, especially as actresses get older, too. So I guess I got picky. When you have that kind of show that you start off with, WKRP, and a nice career with other great, well-written series, you do get spoiled.

QK: When they’re advertising this Motor City Comics Con now, they’ll hype not only just the comics, but they’ll put WKRP right at the top of ads and say, “This is why you should come.”

LA: Because I think it’s iconic. Just within the last week I got a bunch of calls from people saying we were on a list as one of the best 50 television shows of all time. And when you’re in something iconic, no matter how much work you do, you’re always connected with it. Like Henry Winkler is always the Fonz from the TV show “Happy Days.” Sometimes you just have that breakout thing. You either embrace it or you hate it.

QK: Some actors think it’s like a millstone around their neck after a while.

LA: Some people feel that way, I embrace it. It was a fabulous experience. I made great friends. I’m still all their fans. And when it comes on television, I still appreciate it. I like that It’s still rerunning yet to this day, that’s very cool.

QK: Anything you would change about it now, when you look back with 30 years of hindsight?

LA: Oh, no. I never like that. I always think that everything that happened to you makes you who you are. It all went into the mix. And if you like who you are today, which I do, then if you changed one thing you wouldn’t be the person you are today. So I would change nothing.

QK: Well, now I have to find the one thing to do that will make this interview really stand out.

LA: Oh dear. What is it?

QK: What’s the one thing that you’ve never told anyone that you could say right now?

LA: Ha! The things that people don’t know about me? Well, I’m kind of a closet jock. And I love to fish. Of course, I grew up in Minnesota with all those lakes. If I want to get my blood pressure to go down, I just remember those mornings when the sun was rising on the lake and it was like glass. And I was fishing with my dad.

It’s been one year since Michigan native Paul Whelan returned home after being wrongfully imprisoned by Russia on what he and U.S. officials call bogus espionage charges.

Former President Joe Biden personally greeted Whelan when he landed on U.S. soil.

But Whelan faced a harsh reality after the media spotlight faded. He’d lost his job and his home.

He lives now with his aging parents in Manchester, MI, and relies on donations to a GoFundMe account.

And Whelan says he’s having mixed success cutting through a web of state and federal bureaucracy.

Paul Whelan: (Interview edited for clarity.) Yes and no. In Michigan, you have to work here for a certain period of time before you file for unemployment. As I had been in a foreign prison, the work I was doing in the labor camp didn’t count. So Michigan rejected any claim for unemployment benefits. They were very sympathetic and wished that they could help me. We went through the appeal process. We spoke to everyone, government officials even spoke to the unemployment bureau on my behalf.  But they said, at the end of the day, there weren’t any exceptions in the law and there was no way that they could do anything for me. This is an issue that we’re trying to take up with the Michigan Legislature to ensure that people in my situation return home, including a Michigan resident that’s currently being held wrongfully in Russia, they are properly taken care of.

As far as the federal government goes, the Levinson Hostage Recovery and Hostage-Taking Accountability Act says the government should provide five years of medical, dental, psychological care for returning hostages.

Quinn Klinefelter, WDET News: But Congress has never funded it,

PW: Exactly. And when I discuss it with the U.S. State Department, they say, “Well, Congress didn’t give us any money. But we’re not an insurance company anyway, so we’re not sure, even with the money, how we would provide that.” I’m trying to get in front of U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and President Trump right now to discuss these issues. Because these are major concerns for the families and the hostages once they come back. Congress did a good thing, putting that piece into the law. They think that the State Department is providing this care for us, but the State Department isn’t. And I think if the right people get together and understand the situation, it’s one of these things that could be taken care of very quickly.

QK: Have members of Congress actually told you that they thought it was being taken care of?

PW: Oh yeah. As soon as I got back the House committee and the Senate committee that handle foreign relations, that were involved in my issue, said, “Hey, we’ve improved the Levinson Act since you’ve been gone. There’s this five-year health care provision.” Now they know that there’s an issue and the State Department knows they’re an issue. But it’s a matter of getting something accomplished, getting it funded, and then having the State Department actually provide the benefits to us.

QK: There were certain Michigan members of Congress that were trying to lobby on your behalf, as well as other hostages, to fix some of those issues. Have you gotten any sense from them as to whether there’s any movement, especially in the current political and financial era that we’re in?

PW: Congresswoman Haley Stevens and Congresswoman Debbie Dingell have probably done the most. I’ve interacted with those two the most on these issues. Haley has some bills that are going through Congress to add compensation for former hostages to the Levinson Act. Her and Debbie are also looking into why the State Department isn’t doing what Congress thought they should be. But it’s a slow process. One of the things that was passed recently says the State Department is supposed to issue a Certificate of Invalidity signed by the President. It basically says any arrest, trial or conviction in a foreign country when you’re wrongfully detained is null and void. Employers, people like that, should take the president’s signature as proof the conviction was fake and done for diplomatic means.

QK: Has Trump signed it?

PW: He hasn’t signed one for me yet. Again, this is something that Congress passed and the State Department’s supposed to be providing these certificates. I’ve inquired several times. It’s the Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs office that handles this sort of thing. It’s probably something minor. There aren’t that many of us. I think it’s something that would be easy to do. But we haven’t gotten to the point where they’ve issued these certificates. We’re working with the State Department, we’re working with Congress. I’m glad to have the partnership of many U.S senators like Michigan’s Elissa Slotkin, she’s doing a lot for hostages. She’s behind us. The same for Michigan U.S. Sen. Gary Peters. We have a lot of good representation. It’s just a matter of getting these things in front of the right people and making sure that the right things are happening.

QK: There have been several prisoner swaps of late involving the U.S. Have you stayed abreast of those developments? What’s your view of them been?

PW: Ten people just came back from Venezuela, which has a habit of giving people back and then grabbing another group. So we’re telling everyone to stay out of Venezuela. Iran has returned citizens. We’ve had citizens come back from other countries. There have actually been some citizens who were rightfully held in prison who have been transferred back to the United States through the International Prisoner Transfer Program, which is very good. The U.S. Justice Department owns that.

I’m still in contact with several former hostages, including one from Dearborn, Sam Farran. He and I were in the U.S. Marine Corps together. He was held about 10 years ago for six months by the Houthi rebels and released. He has a very interesting story and wrote a very good book about his experience and how the government interacted with him. And former hostages like Evan Gershkovich, Alsu Kurmasheva, Brittney Griner, Trevor Reed, people that were very closely related to my situation. We email back and forth, we text, we have phone calls. I always say it’s kind of like the Island of Misfit Toys, ha! It’s a unique club. There are several other former hostages involved and they give us a lot of good insight about the things we’re going to face and how to overcome obstacles with the government.

QK: You have also talked about staying in touch since you got back with some of the people who had been in the Russian labor camp with you. Are you still communicating with them?

PW: Yes. Interestingly enough, the prison camp I was in is now a prisoner of war camp for Ukrainian soldiers. The people that I was in prison with are now in different camps around the country. They still have burner phones (obtained by bribing guards.) Russia is still as corrupt as ever. So we stay in touch using Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Telegram, these different online services. It’s interesting because they’re telling me about life in different penal colonies. They’re telling me about the corruption there and the way things are done in these other areas. They have a lot of challenges going to these very, very stark areas, the backwoods of Russia, where there’s a lot of corruption, especially now that the economy is really bad there.

I continue to get feedback from prisoners, some firsthand, some secondhand, that have gone to the war. They’re telling me where they are.

QK: Are they calling you from the front lines?

PW: Yeah, they’re sending text messages and whatnot, saying where they are, what equipment they do and don’t have, what food they have, what the conditions are like. When I was in the camp I was passing that back to our people. And here I’m doing the same thing. It’s a bit of a moral obligation to help the people in Ukraine. And also to give the information to our people to use for the purposes of shutting Putin down and ending the war. Too many people have died on both sides and unfortunately a lot of people from my camp went to the war. That’s the way things are in Russia.

Some of the prisoners from my camp have been released and sent back to their own countries. It’s interesting to see how they are now overcoming being incarcerated in Russia and getting back to normal life where they’re from.

QK: You had talked about trying to get back to your own normal life, about the trauma from having been in a labor camp. What would you want people to know right now, one year down the road from where you had this intense spotlight on you, the president putting a pin on you and so on?

PW: The only real PTSD issue that I deal with is when I’m in a hotel room. When I was arrested, I was violently arrested by a rogue foreign intelligence agency in a hotel room and I was dragged out. As soon as I came back home I started traveling, visiting Washington, D.C., visiting different places, friends. And when I stay in hotels, it brings back that memory. I’m past the point of stacking tables and chairs and dressers and things in front of the door to keep people out. But I am reminded that not that long ago I was in a hotel room on vacation and I was violently arrested. In terms of getting back to normal, I’m applying for jobs. But they say, “You have the training,  experience and education. But you also have a six year gap in your career that other candidates for the same position don’t have.

QK: Does it matter if they’re aware of why you would have a six year gap of any type?

PW: Everyone’s aware. Everyone knows that this occurred. This is one reason that we’re trying to get the Certificate of Invalidity from the president to help with these situations. It’s extremely trying, especially when you don’t qualify for unemployment.

QK: You’re still staying with your parents, right?

PW: Yeah. You’re basically doing everything from scratch by yourself. I’m still using a GoFundMe account to take care of necessary living expenses. I’m also using it to advocate for hostage aftercare and helping the people that are still in the camps overseas that are really just as wrongfully detained as I was.

I’m getting a lot of support from the local communities. If I go to Detroit Metro Airport, people at the Delta counter know me. If I go into the Sky Club, they know me by name. They were watching TV all day in these clubs in the airport and they’d see my picture. Or they find out my name and they’re like, “Oh, you’re that guy the Russians held for five-and-a-half years.” And it’s funny because it’s happened all over the United States, not just in Ann Arbor or Michigan. It’s a nice feeling to know that people were paying attention and that there is that interest. And we have a lot of good support from Congress. The hostage issue is an American issue. It’s not one state over the other. Every Congress person, every senator, is involved.

QK:  It’s bipartisan?

PW: It’s probably the only bipartisan thing that’s going on in Congress right now. There’s a subcommittee in the U.S. House working on making sure that the IRS doesn’t come after us with penalties for taxes owed while we were gone or for not filing properly. They’re trying to work on Social Security reporting for the period that we were gone, so that we don’t have a zero for our income. When I start drawing Social Security, if there’s a six year gap because of a hostage issue, that means I get much less in benefits than my peers would. And then just looking at other areas of the government, someone needing help to get a driver’s license or a professional license that they now have to go through retraining to get. There are some licenses that I’ve had to acquire again that the GoFundMe account is paying for.

QK: You also have a new license plate on the vehicle that you were leased.

PW: The state of Michigan was quite nice. They gave me a new Marine Corps veteran license plate and customized the number for me. It’s “5Y7M5D.” That stands for the five years, seven months and five days that I was wrongfully detained. It’s a bit of humor showing that the Russians didn’t win in this situation, that I’m going back to my normal self. I tell people what the plate stands for and they snicker. And that is the sort of thing we should be doing. If I didn’t travel, the Russians would have won, right? If I don’t talk about my experiences, then the Russians would have won.

Detroiters face a pivotal primary election, and early voting is already underway. 

For the first time in a dozen years Mayor Mike Duggan is not seeking reelection.

The candidates vying to replace Duggan differ on the specific policies they want to pursue. But most agree one of Detroit’s pressing needs is increasing its supply of affordable housing.

Candidate DaNetta Simpson says she has a plan to address the situation that would help residents pay to fix-up their current housing. She says it’s just one of several issues driving her bid as an independent candidate for the top job in Detroit’s city government.

The following interview has been edited for clarity and length.

DaNetta Simpson: What I would do, as far as the neighborhoods, is set up an insurance program for the residents to pay into for repairs for their homes. And we’re not going to go by income, only that they’re occupied and that they are on the tax rolls. All you have to do is show proof of ownership and pay a monthly or yearly fee. We will put all this money in one particular bank account, let it draw interest and then have it go to repairing our neighborhoods.

I will also freeze the property taxes while we’re doing these repairs. I will also grandfather the property taxes for people that’s been in the neighborhoods for more than 20–30 years.

Also, crime in our communities is out of hand. Gun control is out of hand. I want to prevent guns from falling into the wrong hands. Now don’t take me wrong, we do not want to take your firearms. We just want responsible owners. And there’s people out here that cannot own firearms.

Quinn Klinefelter, WDET News: So, what would you do to keep them out of the wrong hands?

DS: I will have enforcement in public places to search for them. Or post signage stating that firearms are prohibited from being there when they’re carried by people that’s not licensed to have them. We need a gun trafficking law that will stop the drive-by shootings in the neighborhoods. I know we can’t control the way an individual thinks. But at least if we have a law on the books to prevent the shootings from happening; maybe they won’t commit those crimes in places like parks. Kids are getting killed at the parks, getting wounded at the annual fireworks display, in large crowds at concerts, bars. We can control some of that. And it’s time for us to make our public places safe. Fix up our neighborhoods as well and children will not see blight again.

QK: Detroit will be running out of the pandemic relief money that the city used for various projects. It’s been allocated. Just about every candidate running for mayor now says the city needs to find new sources of revenue. Do you agree with that? And where would you look to find new revenue?

DS: Yes, I do agree with that. But everyone in Detroit is not eligible for loans. So my program, insurance deterioration, will cover everyone. And this will bring in revenue for repairing the homes, gutters, porches, roofs, sidewalk repairs, your fences, your garages, etc. We got to get the homes fixed up and safe so people can be in livable conditions.

QK: As part of that, you’ve talked about instituting some new policies regarding trash pickup in the city?

DS: Yes, that can be revenue for the city as well. Because there are people out here who are not paying for trash pickup. I know apartment buildings have a different ordinance. But if everyone pays for trash pickup along with their occupancy certificates, that will help deter blight in the neighborhoods. Because when tenants have to vacate premises, they leave them full of trash. Some of them put the trash on the streets where it doesn’t belong. So, I feel that they need to pay for a trash fee.

QK: Some of the other candidates have mentioned possibly having to create some new local taxes, service taxes. Would you favor that kind of approach as well?

DS: No, I feel that we’ve been taxed enough. That’s the old way to do things, raising taxes, cutting here, cutting there. We need some new ideas. We can’t run the city the old way. They are still trying to run the city like when the taxes first started on properties. We can’t keep taxing the citizens.

QK: The person that’s been running the city for the last dozen years, Mayor Mike Duggan, is not going to be running it anymore. He’s not seeking reelection, he’s running for governor. When you look at what Duggan has done, do you see things that you want to build on? Or is there some other direction you think the city should go?

DS: The difference between him and I, is that he was previously a Democrat and I have always been an independent. I have suggested some of my ideas to his administration and he has followed them. Those ideas are criminal expungements and swapping the old jail for Dan Gilbert to buy the site to develop on. I have been a part of the change and I would like to continue that. And this deterioration insurance will be a change for Detroit.

QK: You have made a couple of runs previously for mayor. Is there something you see differently that you can propose this time than in your previous campaigns?

DS: I would say I still have the same ideas. But when you don’t have the money to reach the people, when you don’t have radio time, television time and you don’t have the money for mailings, then you can’t reach all the constituents like the other candidates can.

QK: So this time you think you’re getting your message out more widely?

DS: Yes.

QK: I typically ask anyone who is running for an office what their pitch would be in the end to voters. So what would you tell Detroiters? Why would you be the best candidate for mayor compared to all the others campaigning right now?

DS: Because I will show independent thinking. The others want to raise taxes. I have something to offer the citizens where we don’t need to raise the taxes. We just need to stand on our own two feet and we can fix our neighborhoods ourselves. I will be an independent thinker instead of a dependent thinker.

QK: Dependent on what?

DS: Dependent upon the old. And it’s not the old that will take us to the next level. We need fresh ideas in here.

The Trump administration is making changes in security procedures at the nation’s airports. Officials say new technology now allows travelers to pass through checkpoints without having to remove their shoes. And soon, they vow, passengers may be able to bring full bottles of liquid onboard aircraft.

But the new scanners needed to screen travelers are large and expensive. Some experts say the federal government must move cautiously.

University of Michigan Associate Professor Javed Ali was a senior analyst for U.S. Homeland Security in the years following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. He says there were good reasons for checking shoes and liquid containers at airports.

The following interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Javed Ali: First there was the 9/11 operation, which was so big and broad and so sophisticated, getting trained pilots to commandeer airplanes and fly them into buildings. But that gap was closed pretty quickly. Then just a couple months later, by December 2001, we saw al-Qaida pivot to a completely different type of tactic using a single operative, Richard Reid, taking a flight bound for Miami from Paris with bombs in his shoes. That’s what led to the rule of having your shoes X-rayed up until very recently.

By 2006, al-Qaida continued to innovate and adapt and think about new ways to attack aviation, even though Osama bin Laden was on the run, in hiding, and the group was under serious pressure. Most of its senior command structure had been killed or captured, but they were still focued on attacking aviation bound for the United States. That’s what led to what was called in 2006 the “liquid bomb plot” against transatlantic planes leaving from Britain.

I was at Homeland Security from 2003–2007 and sort of lived through some of these moments. It was pretty significant and the threat was just off the charts in terms of al-Qaida’s relentless focus on attacking aviation. These international terrorist groups are very adaptive and they’re always looking for opportunities to try to plan or plot the next major attack against the U.S. homeland, even if they’re under significant pressure or their organization has been degraded. That certainly has been the lesson since 9/11. So there’s likely still some type of threat out there against global aviation.

But hopefully with these new measures that either are in place or will potentially be put in place for different types of threats, it will continue to keep the flying public safe. I’m making the assumption that there wasn’t a political dimension to these new measures. It was not just because we are in 2025 and people are tired of having to take their shoes off if they’re not in TSA PreCheck or some other trusted traveler program. But I can’t say that for certain. That’s just an assumption I’m making.

Quinn Klinefelter, WDET News: How would you say the government should balance ease of traveling with ensuring that you’re secure while traveling?

JA: Maybe we’re at a moment where we can pull back on the screening of the shoes because there is a technological solution to that. It’ll be interesting to see if the liquid restriction rule also goes by the wayside. That was al-Qaida’s last major effort to attack the homeland, at least at the scale of the 9/11 attack. They tried to do that afterwards, but nothing at the scale of that August 2006 plot. And that was a close call. And with the al-Qaida folks who were involved in that, in Pakistan and in Britain, that was as serious as it could get.

Luckily, the worst case didn’t happen. But that’s why that rule is still in place for 20 years. The threat of terrorists trying to bring some kind of liquid explosives onto planes, even in small amounts, may still be high, even if the rule gets rescinded or adjusted moving forward.

QK:  You’ve discussed terrorist groups. But there’s always concerns over the “lone wolf” operatives or domestic terrorism. Any concerns about lessening current security procedures in regards to the possibility of homegrown terrorism?

JA: That’s a great question. In the post-9/11 era we have not seen what you and I would consider homegrown extremists or pure “lone wolves” or offenders try to conduct attacks against the aviation system here in the United States. It doesn’t mean that people haven’t thought about it, there may have been people who had the idea. But interestingly, in the post-9/11 era, the threat to U.S. aviation up until now has always been directed from groups overseas, first al-Qaida and then ISIS.

QK: As we are talking right now, you have just finished traveling by air and going in airports yourself. What do you think of the process? Was it a drawback for you to go through certain things and wait? Or were you willing and happy to go through that procedure in order to ensure there was as much security as possible?

JA: You might be asking the wrong person this question, because I was a former U.S. government counter-terrorism official. So I knew exactly why these rules and processes are in place, to keep the country safe. And that includes myself, when I was traveling on airplanes in my government years. And now that I’ve been out of government, I travel very routinely as well, including today when I left Detroit Metro Airport and landed here in Washington, D.C.  I never see this as an inconvenience, just part of the process we all have to live by. And, again, there are real threats out there that would like nothing more than for all of these rules to go away or create this perception that there are vulnerabilities that could be exploited. I also am in some of the trusted traveler programs too. So that is another thing that any person can apply for. If you’re able to get into those programs it expedites the process at the airports as well.