Former GOP Governor candidate Perry Johnson looks ahead

After finishing second to John James for the GOP nomination for Michigan governor, my next guest, well, I don't know what he's going to be doing. We're going to find out, but this is your first long interview since the election. Yes, it is. Absolutely. Well, Perry Johnson, thank you. I just came from the office. Are you back to work? I had, oh yeah. I had the people in from all over the world and we had our first meeting we've had in like three months. For your business or politics? Business. So you're still working? Of course, I'm still working. I mean, obviously. So what happened? Well, what really happened was that Trump came in on Monday. That's what happened. The Trump endorsement to John James. The endorsement wasn't the issue. It was when he came into town that Monday, because he had endorsed in other states. But coming in the Monday before the election with all the publicity on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, it was very devastating. But you had your own rally. We did. It wasn't enough. No. No. As a matter of fact, that was a big issue that we had. And what can I say? The best team you could have had in terms of working out there. We were, we killed ourselves. We probably worked three times as hard as John James, maybe five times. When Mike Cox dropped out, did that hurt you? No, no, that didn't hurt. Mike Cox dropping out didn't hurt. If Mike Cox had dropped out and weren't on the ballot, that would have been a totally different story. Then it would have really helped, you know? So if he had been off the ballot, that would have made an enormous difference. Well, if he would have endorsed you, it would have helped. Well, it didn't matter whether he endorsed me or not. No, I don't think his endorsement helped John James. So why would President Trump coming into town help just rally the votes? Is that it? Do you think that anybody gets more publicity than the President of the United States? No, I don't. And then when the President of the United States gets that publicity on Sunday and Monday and Tuesday, and then he has that rally, and heck, John James didn't even have the money to advertise that he was endorsed. That's true. Right? Well, let's talk about spending. You spent about $30 million? Yes, probably over $30 million, yes. Of your own money? It's my money, yes. Unlike John James, I didn't spend other people's money. It was my money. But $30 million, that's a lot of money, isn't it? $30 million is a lot of money. Do you regret any of the $30 plus million of your own money on this race? Well, it depends on how you view it. If I had not run, I would have regretted it all my life. But I put my heart and soul into it. I went, I think, 12 or 13 days in a row with four hours or less sleep. We had a movement. I mean, if you could go and see where we went, you'd have the reporters with us. And the people, they couldn't fit them into the room. They were packed. The problem was I couldn't get in front of enough people. We have 10.1 million people in the state. Because we have so many people in the state, it's hard to get in front of them. When I got in front of them, we won them over. And we didn't just win them over. They were ecstatic. You got 35% of the vote. We did, yes. Is that good or bad? Well, the bottom line is that we believe that we would have run. If the president had not come in, I believe we would have won. If we hadn't, it would have been razor thin. Why is running for governor so important to you? No. What's important is trying to save the state. I have three boys. I want them to stay in the state. I want my grandkids to stay in the state. My headquarters is in the state. I want to stay in the state. And our state has systematically been stealing money from the people. And I just wanted to stop it. Can John James save the state? I am straight Republican. We know that. But can John James save the state? There are very few people in the entire world that had the background that I had to actually lean the government. You know, I'm a very rare case. And I was willing to devote my time, my energy and everything in order to do this. And you notice I didn't take other people's money. I spent my money and I was not going to take a salary. What I do believe is that we'll be much better off having Republican than having a Democrat. And I will believe that with my heart and soul. So I'm always supporting the ticket. Did you call President Trump and say, Mr. President, endorse me? No, I did not. Did you talk to President Trump during this campaign? During the six months that I was running, no. Would that have helped, do you think? I mean, you wanted his endorsement. Yeah, but he also is in a very difficult situation. Let's be realistic what we have. We have two things going on. The first going on is that he has a war going on that is a very difficult war. And people in general don't like it. He doesn't like it. Okay. Right. Simultaneously, while this is going on, we have prices going up with oil, which affects the pricing all the way across the board, which makes it quite difficult. We have a very, very narrow margin in Congress to the point of almost absurdity. We're looking at, what, six seats and sometimes five. You lose a couple of seats one way or the other, you don't even get the votes. Hold that thought. We're not done yet. We have more. Perry Johnson, his first interview after the election. We want to hear from you. Text us 313 or call us 313-765-8845. We want to read them on the air or go into our Zoom room as well. Detroit Talk City, back with Perry Johnson after this. Welcome back to Detroit Talk City. I'm your host, Charlie Langdon. We've got a lot of people that want to talk to Perry Johnson in his first long interview since the election. He did get 35% of the vote, but all right, John James won. Okay. We got that out of the way, right? All right. Let's go see what people are talking about. Let's take some texts. Okay. Here we go. First one. Are Republicans doing enough to win over Detroit and other heavily Democratic cities? What do you think, Democrats? Do they misunderstand most? What do Democrats misunderstand most about Trump voters? Good question. No, I think we need to do more in Detroit. I don't think there's any question. In fact, I've met with a bunch of the pastures just beforehand because we need to get them on board. And I think we need to make more and more of an effort. Why don't Detroiters vote Republican? Well, I think it goes back to just about all urban cities. Urban cities tend to go Democrat across the board, don't they? They do. Why? And why? It's not entirely clear to me why. I think every state is different. And when you take a look at our state, I don't think anybody can really argue the fact that our state is not a terribly efficient state. And they know that money has been wasted in a lot of areas. Sometimes the people out there just say they're hurting. And I think that we had to eliminate the state income tax and we had to reform the property tax so we didn't get to a point where people were literally forced out of their home when they retired because they couldn't afford to pay their taxes. Yeah. All right. Let's take another text, OK? Here. How about this one? How would you grade President Trump's second term so far? Also, what has Trump gotten right? And where do you disagree with Trump? Get President Trump a letter. Great. Well, I mean, it depends on which way you view it, obviously, in terms of what he did with the tax change. Phenomenal. When you take a look at what he did to try to spur the economy in the United States, phenomenal. But whenever it doesn't matter what president you have, when you're first when you're in a war, it's a very difficult time. I wasn't around when we had World War Two. I wasn't born. So I don't know what it was like. But I know that every single war we've been in has been a problem for every single president that's been in that war. When President Trump, because you were running for officer, you were thinking about running for governor when he said, I'm going to attack Iran. Did you say, oh, no, that's bad? No, I didn't. As a matter of fact, I think the issue was whether or not we were going to allow them to have nuclear weapons and that the problem that we had was the nuclear weapons that were going to be procured over there. And I didn't have all of the detail that he had that was given to him. So for me to go make a decision on that would be pretty absurd. All right, hold that thought. More with Perry Johnson. And again, we do want to hear from you. Text us, call us, Zoom us, a lot of ways to get a hold of us. Detroit Talk City will return in just a moment. Detroit Talk City, you can call us, you can text us with your questions for Perry Johnson. You know him, 313-765-8844. Or you can jump into our Zoom room at 892-490-90290. In fact, speaking of Zoom, take a Zoom call. Papa Dodd from Detroit. Hey, what's going on, Johnny? How you doing today? I think the reason why Perry lost the race for governor is because his commercials, he was in there smiling with Trump. And Detroiters don't like that. We don't want nothing to do with Trump. Maybe if he'd kept Trump out of his commercials, he probably would have got a vote for me. All right, Papa Dodd, go back to your painting there. Thank you for calling in, though. Well, I mean- It's a Republican primary. It's a Republican primary, yes. And 87% of the people that vote in the primary, Republicans, think Trump is fantastic. I mean, the best president in the history of our country. You believe that? So when we say that, I think President Trump's been a good president. Yes, I know the Democrats aren't going to agree, but yes, I do, very much so. I think that this is a very difficult time. I think that it's extremely tough when you have to navigate so many things going on and being in a situation when you're trying to manage a war like this is brutal. Well, and to win a general, you still need that 10 to 20% of the middle of the vote. So you're always going to have your 40, 45% Democrat, Republican. That's a given. It's that middle ground. Is Trump too polarizing? Well, let's see what happens in this election because Trump is not the one that's running. You're going to have a Republican run, you'll have a Democrat one, and the key is the independence. If you were the nominee, would you want- Well, notice that when they did the poll, and you look at the polls on the independence, I was significantly ahead on the independence against Benson and against John James. Why do you think that is? Because I think the people like the idea of not having the government steal your money. I really believe that more efficient government caters to every single person, and they wanted that extra $4,747 in their pocket every year. So do you think President Trump should come to Michigan quite a bit to campaign for John James? And if he does, is that going to help him? I do not have the polling to give you an answer. What do you think? Just gut reaction. If you were the nominee, would you want him in town a lot? Well, I know one thing. I do know that when you have a rally, you have a lot of people going to the Trump rallies, and you see that. Those are hardcore Trump people. They're going to vote for President Trump. They are? You need that middle ground, middle ground. Well, I'll tell you one thing. I'm not going to make John James's decision for him. He's over there. He gets to campaign. I'm out there. I worked my tail off. I ended up losing. I lost. He's looking for a running mate. Would you ever consider that? No. As lieutenant governor? No. And everybody knows that. Come on. I run a company that operates in 67 countries around the world. I have plenty to do, right? We're the largest registrar in the United States. Okay. Let's go to the text right now. Good questions here. It doesn't make a difference whether it's you or James. Would you stand up for the Constitution or rubber stamp Trump? I would always stand up for the Constitution, period. I believe that's fundamental. I've been a constitutionalist, always have been. In fact, that's one of the reasons why I had the entire conservative group behind me. And they weren't all necessarily Republicans. You know, Kristen Megyn Kelly, she's a libertarian. I mean, behind me. Why? I am a constitutionalist. I always believe the fundamental basis of this country and the doctrine of the Constitution, I believe that is fundamental to this entire country. And one of the reasons we've done so well over all these years, 250 years, we're an amazing country. And we're a country unlike any other country in the world. I operate in Europe, and I see what's going on in Europe. And I think it's a disaster. My guy over there in the UK, he's over there telling me it's horrendous. And when we take a look at what goes on, that socialism can be so bad because it takes away all the incentive for people to want to work. Have you ever gone to France and see what it's like in France when you try to get something going? Because they're on a 32-hour work week. They hardly ever work. You can't ever fire anyone. So it's impossible to hire a young person because nobody wants to hire them because they can't get rid of them. All right, let's take a call. Everybody wants to talk to you, Perry Johnson. Let's go to Vanessa. Vanessa from Detroit. You're on Detroit Talk City with Perry Johnson. Vanessa? Yes, I have a comment about the commercial that Mr. Perry made about the other candidate that was running. He made a derogatory comment, I thought it was racist, about DEI and Black Lives Matter. Just because it's Black Lives Matter does not mean that it's a bad organization. Good things have come out of Black Lives Matter. What do you think about that? Thank you, Vanessa. Yes, what we have is a situation where I think people were very upset about the fact that a comment was made by John James that was derogatory when somebody in the Republican Party said that all lives matter. It was during the first debate, I think. Yeah, no, whenever. But the point of the matter is that I believe all lives do matter, and people in the Republican Party really took very hard issue with that, on that all lives matter. When you run these commercials, it's really important to understand that what you have is a team of people that get together and determine what commercials you're going to run based on polling, too. Was this your commercial? You called John James a lying liberal loser? Was that your commercial? I believe that is the commercial that was made. That's your commercial? Yes. I mean, that's lying liberal loser. Do you regret that commercial? No, I don't regret the commercial. We was lying because of the fact that he claimed that he did not vote to defund the kill switch, and he did, okay? Point blank, he just did, okay? When we had the wall, he had voted against the wall, and he said he didn't, and he did, okay? The fact that he is a liberal, well, let's face it. When you have the kill switch, and that is a policy that I regard as almost anti-American, it was one of the main themes that I really campaigned on because I think the fact that the people can just take over your car at any point, and that is gonna be mandated now when all new cars in 27 is a huge problem. I think Melfar had a similar situation. Remember, way back when, he shut off the car. It ended up, the person was in Timbuktu, and when somebody goes and buys a car, now, if they don't make a payment, they can just get it shut off no matter where they are, and this cannot be a good thing. All right, let's take it, everyone wants to talk to you. Let's take this text here. Republicans doing enough to win over Detroit and other heavily Democratic cities, we kind of talked about that. What do you think Democrats misunderstand most about Trump voters? I don't think that they understand that what Trump has done is to actually get the party moved in another area where they're more like the party of the people because you'll notice that the unions are much more supportive of Trump than any Republican we've had in office in years. Some of the UAW members certainly are. Yes, that's what I'm referring to, yes. So when you take a look at that, the entire Republican party has changed dramatically as a result of what Trump has done and the direction that he took. Let's do another call. We got a call from Larry from Warren. Larry, you're on Detroit Talk City with Barry Johnson. Larry? Ah, yeah, I have a question for you. Go ahead. What are the Republicans or the Democrats going to do to save Social Security instead of crashing it in 2032? Social Security, good question. It gets back to the same thing. It's what I ran before. Remember when I ran for president? I wrote the book Two Cents to Save America. I make no bones about the fact that our government is spending too much money. And it didn't matter whether you were a Republican or you were a Democrat. We were spending too much money. And it's completely nuts. We have gone completely wacko. And when you go out there and you spend all this money recklessly, it's going to create a huge problem. How much waste is there in government, do you think? Michigan government, give me a percentage. 5%, 10%. What do you think? My estimate? Yeah. 25%. 25% wasted in Michigan? I believe 25%. That's my estimate. And when I say that, I point to various things that go on that are absurd. We know that in one year alone, and I didn't even mention this much in the campaign, but in one year alone, I believe we overpaid Medicaid and unemployment to the tune of $11.1 billion. And that year, we only collected $11 billion in taxes, income taxes. Are you a fan of this health care for all, Medicare for all? It's genuinely not affordable. You see, we have to make it attractive for companies to come here. Now, how do you make it attractive? Well, if you have the ability to have a company so that it can be profitable and you can make a product for the same amount or less than you can elsewhere, companies will come here. We have a right-to-work law that coerces people to join the unions that is not good. We have an income tax that is not good. Eliminate that. Would you ever consider running for president or governor again or anything again? President? Nothing in life is impossible. I will tell you that nothing's impossible. Now, if I did that, my wife might kill me. Perry Johnson, thank you. Let's do it again. All right, stay with us. We've got the results of our poll and more when we come back.