Joining me now is former Republican congressman from Michigan, Fred
Upton.
Congressman, thank you for being here.
Always a pleasure.
Appreciate it very much.
A big day for you, a busy day for you.
You are now the latest Republican to come out and
endorse Vice President Kamala Harris.
Why now?
Why was this the moment when you thought that was
appropriate?
Well, for me, it was appropriate because I was doing
a whole number of bipartisan events throughout Michigan and, and
here in DC.
And I just thought I didn't want to taint that.
So I said, you know, I got people were calling
me.
I just said, just got to wait till that's over
and then I'll make a decision.
But, you know, Michigan is a key state.
And, you know, as, as we know, the old famous
line, you know, evil only persists when good men stay
silent.
So I'd like to think I'm a good man.
But I'm joining a lot of other former Republican members
of Congress, more than 30 in fact, that have now
said we're not going to support the incumbent or the
former incumbent President Trump.
We're going to go with with Harris.
Well, let me ask you about that because you think
about Congresswoman Liz Cheney, for example, she's been out campaigning
with Vice President Harris.
Do you think her support, your support?
Is it making a difference with moderate Republicans?
I think it's enough.
I think that it does.
And again, Michigan is such a complex state.
I mean, between the Gaza issue and the UAW, the
leadership and some of the rank and file, it's a
purple state for a reason.
And the big purple areas in Michigan, they're Grand Rapids,
they're Kalamazoo, they're Battle Creek, and they're Oakland County in
Ann Arbor, which is a little bit to the left,
but Oakland County next to it.
And what's happened now is between Susan Ford, President Ford's
daughter, myself, Joe Schwartz, former Republican colleague, mayor, very popular
mayor of Grand Rapids, of Battle Creek, Rather, and Dave
Trott, former Republican House member, we've all come out and
endorsed Harris.
And the reason is she can actually, I think, put
together a coalition together of Republicans and Democrats.
She talked about that last night.
Immigration, she'll take that bipartisan proposal that Trump was able
to stop.
She knows about energy independence.
You know, I, I, I know Tim Waltz because I
served with him for 12 years in the House.
He supported the, the pipeline, the Keystone Pipeline when he
was in the House.
He knows the importance of that, of energy independence.
Is this a vote for Kamala Harris and an endorsement
for Kamala Harris or against Donald Trump?
It, it is for Harris.
So for Harris, it's the first time I've ever voted
for Democrat for president.
I mean, I've split my ticket before for down the
down the ballot races.
I've never voted until now for a Democrat for president.
But it's, you know, the world is so complex.
We have to work together.
It's going to be a divided Washington after the election.
And somehow we have to put Humpty Dumpty back together
again.
Well, you talk about the bipartisan Immigration Bill.
Do you support, broadly speaking, her other policies or do
you still align yourself more closely with Trump policies?
For example, he's calling for mass deportation.
Well, no, I don't support that and neither does she.
And that was not part of the bill that James
Langford helped craft.
He looked for more border wall, he looked for more
border agents and he looked for more judges to to
rule on the asylum cases.
You really have to do that through legislation.
You can't really do that by executive order.
You can't just Willy nilly do that.
It's got to come through legislation.
So do you support her other policies, though, on immigration?
Broadly speaking, are you backing her when it comes to
immigration, when it comes to reproductive rights?
She wants to codify Roe for?
Yeah, that's going to be hard with with the Congress.
Let's face it, you need 60 votes in the Senate
to to get things done.
But I supported the effort in Michigan, the ballot initiative
two years ago that removed what would have been a
ban on abortion and even for life of the mother,
as some states now have pursued.
Let's talk about Michigan because you talked about how complex
the mix of voters is in Michigan.
I've been talking to my sources in Michigan who say,
boy, they are really worried Harris allies about her ability
to win because it is so close, because you have
a large swath of voters there who are opposed to
the Biden administration's handling of the war in the Middle
East, for example.
How do you see this playing out in Michigan?
How close is this?
Do you think she can pull out a win?
Yes, she can win.
It's razor close right now.
And you got to remember, going back to the presidential
primary earlier this year, there are more than 100,000 Democrats
who voted no preference instead of voting for for Joe
Biden, the mayor of Dearborn.
I don't know him, but he's a Palestinian dissent.
He has endorsed Trump.
So with that comes votes.
Endorsements do mean something.
And people do look for their leaders for for support.
But you've got that issue, you've got the UAW issue,
the division between some of the worker rank and file
and, and the leadership.
And Michigan's a purple state and there's, you know, people,
you know, we don't register by party in Michigan, unlike
a lot of states or those, you know, I was
with a, a registered Republican in Illinois yesterday.
And she said, you know, I can't vote for Trump.
I would vote for a bag of Fritos before I
voted for for him.
But what, what am I going to do?
And she's registered Republican.
What do you make of of Vice President Harris's closing
argument?
Is this the right way to close to focus on
the fact that John Kelly and others are calling him
a fascist to cast him as a threat to the
democracy?
Or should she be talking about pocketbook issues and reproductive
rights?
I think pocketbook issues is a better way to finish
up.
But you remember, it's still 12 days.
I mean, all of us that are watching this, there's
a new poll, you know, I'll get a, I'll get
a, an e-mail.
There's a new poll.
Someone's up, you know, two points or three points in
Pennsylvania, Michigan or Wisconsin.
I mean, they're coming out so rapid fire that it's
who knows.
And and we don't know where the candidates are going
to be next week.
I mean, they don't know either.
So it's it's the race is up for, you know,
it's up for grabs.
You, of course, voted to impeach former President Trump.
Now here you are endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris.
You've heard the former president talk about retribution.
Are you worried that there could be retribution against you
for this endorsement?
You know, a word to my is this is free
speech.
You know, what drove me to vote for impeachment for
him was and I was there in the capital on
January 6th.
I saw what happened.
I talked to the SWAT officers afterwards.
I had a Capitol Hill policeman from my district who
I knew.
And he described for me what what he saw, big
guy.
The day after that, Trump said, I did everything totally
appropriate.
Those were his words.
And I said that wasn't right.
I mean, I watched a speech on TV that morning
or that afternoon to go back down to the Capitol.
You know, the investigation, I supported a bipartisan investigation.
We know what they tried to do to steal the
election, to deny a number of states from voting.
And, you know, that's my opinion changed real quick.
So you're not worried about retribution?
I, I, I'm, I got a pretty clean record.
I, I'm not running for any office.
I've got 4 grandkids now and I'm very happy.
So it's no one's going to be voting against me
in the in the future because I'm not on the
ballot.
Well, former Congressman Fred Upton, we appreciate your time and
your perspective today.
We really appreciate it.
You bet.
Thank you.