Levin Goes Lower 5-20-19

ML: Representative James Lower. How are you, sir?
JL: Thanks for having me on.
ML: It's a pleasure. Uh, you live in Justin Amash's district, is that correct?
JL: That's correct, just in Greenville there.
ML: What are the major towns in this district?
JL: You know, it's a big district. Grand Rapids is probably the biggest city, and there's Greenville and Ionia, uh, Battle Creek down in Calhoun County, Hastings, and a lot of rural agricultural land as well.
ML: And it's clearly a Republican district, right?
JL: Yes, it's been Republican for several decades. It's been a very strong pro-Trump district.
ML: What is Justin Amash's philosophy? It's loosely referred to as "libertarian" but, given his outburst on Twitter, he's clearly not a Constitutionalist, is he?
JL: You know, I wouldn't agree that he's a Constitutionalist. He's been very consistent - I think what he's been consistent in is, uh, supporting himself. Sort of a caucus of one and a party of one and that's made him very ineffective in Congress. He's only gotten one bill signed into law over the last 10 years and it was to rename a post office, uh, in the district. So it's time for a change. I mean, enough is enough. The straw that broke the mule's back was obviously him calling for our President to be, uh, impeached
ML: And tell us about you.
JL: Okay, well, I'm Jim Lower. I grew up in Ionia County, uh, you know, lived out in the rural part of the district for most of my life. Um, currently the state representative for the 70th district. Uh, went to school in Michigan State and also a downtown Grand Rapids, Grand Valley for my MBA. Helped out a variety of campaigns over the years, ran for county commissioner and was elected at a young age. And I have a wife, Kristen, uh, and two small children. I have a son, Aaron, who's a year and a half and a daughter who's four months old, and you know, what was really -
ML: Tell us about your philosophy in politics.
JL: Oh, I'm - well, I'm pro-Trump. You know, very pro-life, pro-second amendment, pro-jobs. Uh, pro-family values. Basically, you know, standard Republican platform, and I voted that way too in the state House.
ML: How did Justin Amash become a Congressman?
JL: You know, a lot of us supported him. I supported him in 2010 when he first ran. He ran on a good platform and it made, it made sense at the time, but, you know, where's the beef? There hasn't really been a lot of results as far as that platform's gone.
ML: Was he a state rep[resentative] before this?
JL: Uh, one term. That's correct.
ML: He's a lawyer, I take it?
JL: Yes.
ML: And are there other people lining up to run against him, too?
JL: You know, I'm not sure about that yet. There's - there's some other people that have maybe talked about it, but, you know, we came out today and had a really, uh, great roll-out, got a lot of attention, both statewide in the district and nationally, and my goal would be to be consolidated as the pro-Trump conservative alternative to Amash, and that way we have a better chance at winning. If people support my candidacy at VoteLower.com it's more likely we can beat this guy. If we get a crowded primary, with a bunch of people in it -
ML: You'll lose if you get a crowded primary. You'll lose.
JL: Exactly.
ML: 'Cuz he has name ID.
JL: Exactly, exactly.
ML: Now, let me ask about that. You - you're a legislator. He's a Congressman. How much bigger is the population that he represents than the population you represent?
JL: Uh, it's about times seven, roughly. Seven times as big.
ML: So you're gonna need a lot of money to get name ID out there.
JL: Absolutely, we need a lot of - it's gonna be an expensive race. I don't think he's gonna, you know, go down without fighting, so we'll need at least a million, a million five, maybe more.
ML: Is he gonna run for re-election? I keep hearing he may run as a Libertarian for President or something. Did you hear any of these things?
JL: You know, we're hearing that. Nobody really knows for sure. It seems difficult to imagine he'd wanna give up the microphone that he has right now, you know, as a member of Congress, but, you know, it's tough to figure out.
ML: At the beginning of the show, I went through aspects of the Constitution and his arguments, and he really has this all upside down, doesn't he? Isn't the President the victim? Isn't the Constitution being undermined by all these processes? Isn't the prosecutor out of control issuing a report like this? I mean, how does a Constitutionalist come down on the side of impeachment?
JL: I- yeah, I'd love to know the answer to that as well. I mean, if you look at this whole Mueller investigation, there's nobody in the world that would have recommended that Trump be impeached or that Trump be indicted or whatever else than Robert Mueller, but even he couldn't come to that conclusion after, you know, this huge taxpayer finance boondoggle of an investigation, so I mean, for the Congressman to come to that conclusion, I just don't know what he's looking at.
ML: Well, suddenly he's all, he's very popular with the media and very popular with Democrats like Tlaib from Detroit and so forth. So he's, he's uh he's a gadfly, isn't he, basically?
JL: Yeah, I mean, the - it's sad, you know, at this particular point in time he seems to have more in common with, uh, Rashida Tlaib, not only on, uh, Trump's impeachment, but she's, you know, anti-Israel, he's taken some votes against funding for military aid for Israel, and uh, national defense and things like that over the years, so really that's kind of the direction he seems to be headed in, and I want to put a stop to it and I want to represent that district and actually get things done for our community.
ML: Isn't that in part what's going on here, that he really is upset about what, uh, not completely but in part, what the President has done with the, uh, country of Israel?
JL: I'm not sure what the motivation is, to be honest with you.
ML: Okay. Now have you, uh, you ran for delegate. You were thinking of running for Congress against him before?
JL: I was. We were planning on a July rollout. We'd been putting together a team, you know, we aleady had a strong team in place, we were gonna do a July rollout, but then after Saturday's, uh, Twitter storm, we figured there was no time like the present to make sure people in the district knew that, uh, there's a strong conservative pro-Trump alternative at VoteLower.com, which is, you know, "vote" and then "L-o-w-e-r" dot-com.
ML: Alright, I'm gonna think about whether I endorse you or not, 'cause I don't know you, but I'm thinking very hard about this, because uh, publicly, you sound like a very solid good guy. Tell me about your voting record.
JL: You know, it's been a very conservative, uh, voting record over the years, you know, hundred percent voting record with Michigan Right to Life, you know, Farm Bureau chamber, I've been very successful working with my colleagues as Republicans, but I've even worked with Democrats and gotten some common sense ldgislation through and signed by - signed by our governor. I think that's a big contrast too, you know, being able to actually work with our caucus, and you know, I would help to chair the recruitment team for the House Republican campaign committee here in Michigan, and in a very tough election year, we were able to retain a majority, and I worked with our speaker on that, so I'm a team player, and I'm someone that helps get other conservatives elected and other Republicans opposed to, you know, attacking them in the media and not being, uh, part of the - part of the team.
ML: Anything else you wanna tell us?
JL: No, I just appreciate - I really appreciate you having me on, it's been, it's been great to be on your show. I thank you for considering endorsing me and for the listeners that are listening to this show, please consider checking out my website, VoteLower.com. You can donate on there. We're gonna need a lotta help to win this election.
ML: Alright, sir. We appreciate you taking your time with us.
JL: Okay, thanks, Mark. Appreciate it.
ML: Take care. Sounds like a very attractive candidate so far. I'm gonna dig into this a little bit more. My problem here, folks, is this. To turn the Constitution on its head during this time when we're trying to defend the Constitution and republicanism. It's not stabbing us in the back, it's stabbing us in the throat. What Justin Amash did here, playing to the Democrats, playing to the media, pretending he's the pure Constitutionalist, is appalling. Absolutely appalling to me. And think about this: if he succeeded, and the President of the United States was impeached, I want you to think about what would happen to the country, and I want you to think about what happened to your vote, what would happen to the 2020 election. It's like these Never Trumpers, I suspect he's a Never Trumper, quite frankly, but it's like these Never Trumpers, if they had succeeded, can you imagine? We have Never Trumpers who didn't vote for Trump and act- some of them actively voted against him. Can you imagine if Hillary Clinton had been President, who she would have put on the Supreme Court for those two vacancies? What the circuit courts would look like for the rest of our lives? What would be going on on the border, rather than a President trying to stem the flow? Probably handing out, uh, popcorn? I mean, just think about all the things that would be going on. So, you know, we have to try to do things where we can, when they, uh, when they confront us, and this is one of them. I'll be right back.