WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - The WRFH Interview: State Sen. Joe Bellino, 05/21/26

Episode Date: May 22, 2026

Michigan State Sen. Joe Bellino joins WRFH's Malia Looke for a conversation. From 05/21/26.

Hello and welcome. You're listening to WRFH Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. I'm Malia Look, interviewing state senator Joseph Bolino, who represents the 16th legislative district, including much of Hillsdale County out in Lansing. Thank you for joining, Senator. Well, thank you for letting me join. Absolutely. So yesterday, Michigan's Bureau of Elections recommended that two gubernatorial cases, candidates, one Democrat, one Republican, be removed from the August primary ballot due to invalid signatures. This reflects a narrowing of the race stage. Do you have any predictions for what will be coming during the review? No, I don't. And this is not the first time we've had problems with people getting signatures. As you know, four years ago, there was fraud involved in the signatures and two candidates were kicked off and it made for a tougher primary for Republicans. So here we are again. People can't get their signatures. And in fact, I just heard today about

three hours ago that Mayor Duggan from Detroit is not going to run as independent. It's not we just have the two parties running. And we'll see what happens. I know that we have some people on our side that are very strong, Eric Nesbitt and John James being two of them. And then we have Joslyn Benson on the other side. We'll see what happens. I like our chances, Republican chances, this fall. Things in Michigan are, our unemployment stinks. Our schools are not doing very well. Our average wages are way down. And we've fallen so far behind other states the last eight years. It's a wonder why anybody would vote Democrat this fall. You just mentioned a few of the Republican candidates. I was wondering, is there like an unofficial person who,

you think is pulling ahead, or is this something that we're just waiting to see play out? Well, I look at all the polling, and I'm sure the next couple of days, more polling will come out, because all the polling up till today had Mayor Duggan in the race. He was always polling third, but he was taking 27 percent, so that's going to be gone, and we'll see what happens. I like our chances. I love our candidates on our side. I'm not a big fan of Mr. Johnson, the guy with all the money, not a big fan of his.

But I know that Eric Nesbit would be a wonderful governor. And I'm assuming that John Jays would too. So we'll see what happens for the primary and we'll go from there. A new poll released by the Detroit Regional Chamber had a sort of hypothetical three-way race going. And this is, I guess, sort of outdated because Duggan is no longer involved. But it did seem to indicate a shift in voter support for the gubernator race. where in January, the prospective Republican pulled ahead of Jocelyn Benson, but now things seem to have changed. So, like, with the influences of the Iran war and, like, national politics, and especially after the May 5th special election,

do you think that this is an indicator of wider unhappiness with the Conservative Party, or do you think this is just one poll? That's one poll. Let's talk about that special election in Saginaw, Midland. We knew we were behind on that months and months ago when the governor finally called an election 300-something days after the seat was empty. Now remember, if this would have been a Republican governor, all we'd be hearing about for the last year would be how many people of color have not got representation in the Senate. But we didn't hear one Democrat say that because they didn't really care. So the governor played her cards. She called the election late. Republicans are not great at coming out for special elections. We know that. We've got to take a few points off our numbers for special elections. And we weren't about to waste two or three million dollars and spend that kind of money like the Democrats did to win that election because we want to win it in the fall. And our candidate is a wonderful man.

He's a great businessman. He's got a good family. He's in the race all the way through November. He knew he was probably going to get his butt kicked in this special election, which he did. And we put no creams on that because Mr. Tumny, Tony is staying all the way to the end in November. And I think we're going to pull a big upset there and win that seat come November because we'll get our people out and we'll separate what's happening nationally with what's happening in Michigan.

Yeah, I know gas prices are high. I know people upset about that. And it's causing a little bit of inflation. But you've got to keep your eyes on what's happening in Michigan only. And that's what we'll do. And that's what we'll push to win the races. We've actually talked about this before, like the Republican platform going into the primaries. So is it that the way that Republicans are combating a lot of like the Democrat rhetoric on effectiveness is to continue doing the same strategy of separating state versus federal level?

Yeah, yeah, we got to separate what's going on with the state, what's what's going on federally. In the state, all you're doing is open your eyes and read any paper, a liberal paper or conservative paper, and you find out what's happened to education. We're 44th in grade reading and education in the country. Years ago, the MEEA used to tell us, we don't want to be like Mississippi. Give us raises because it's all about the kids. Well, we gave them raises. And we're spending more money on each child than we ever did ever before. And now we're behind Mississippi.

And they are the golden child of American education right now, the state of Mississippi. So I want to be like Mississippi now. I want to raise our reading standards up there. You look at average wages. We have dropped precipitously the last 10 years in Michigan for the average wages, and we're down in the 40s now for late, high 30s or early 40s for the country, and that really stinks. And then you look at other things like our unemployment. We're one of those highest in the nation.

How many people do we have living that are on the social welfare system? We are really high. And I'm hoping that the new rules put into effect for Medicaid, where if you're healthy and you can work, you go back to work. We don't pay for your insurance because I'm hoping that brings more people out into the workforce. But I'm not counting my chickens on that because once you become lazy in life and you got all that free money from the federal government and your free phone and your food and your place to live, you don't want to work anymore. I saw a staff the other day and it was confirmed by a Democrat friend of mine. if you're a single mother with two kids, you're getting over $50,000 a year in benefits. Where is the impetus for people to work?

If they can get that kind of benefit, it's why would you want to work? So we need to change that attitude. And when we do, Michigan will be a better place to live. Going back to the separation between state politics, national politics, do you think that that separation includes affiliation with Trump? Yes, yes, sometimes it does. But we have no tight races in Michigan now that President Trump has come out and endorsed somebody. He hasn't done that yet. He's sitting back in the governor's race.

I know he was upset that John James left Congress to run for governor. So he has not endorsed John James and he has not endorsed anybody else. But we saw what happened this week with President Trump endorsing candidates in primaries all over the country. And his candidates seem to win. Besides the endorsement, we have something we haven't had before. We got a president who wants to get involved in the races on our side. And President Trump has more than a billion dollars at his disposal. This will be the first time in years that congressional races and Senate races,

we won't be outspent by the Democrats. We're going to be outspent in Michigan on our governor's races and our Senate race, their House races, because the Democrats of Michigan, they bring in millions of dollars from out of state. and we don't do that as Republicans. We shy away from that. But with President Trump behind us, it's very possible when he puts his money behind our candidates for Senate and governor and other tight races like Tom Barrett, the district from Lansing all the way to Oakland County, congressional district. When he does that, we're going to bring home the bacon come November.

All right. You're listening to WRFH Radio Free Hillsdale 101.1.7 FM. I'm Malia Look, interviewing Michigan State Senator Joseph Bolino. In the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court's decision pertaining to the Voting Rights Act, Michigan Democrats have introduced their own version meant to strengthen what they see as protections for voters. What exactly are they proposing? Well, they're proposing to go back to the old ways where they can have majority black districts and have representatives of color in inner city.

And I, you know, I'm not going to tell the Democrats that they don't know what you're talking about. But the Supreme Court has spoken. The Supreme Court says there's going to be no prejudice when it comes to elections. If you're in a district as Democrat, you vote for your Democrat or a Republican or vote for Republican. You know, Democrats like to yell about what happened in the Supreme Court. They don't want to talk about the Republicans that won or lost. that were African-American in races around the country.

Do you know there's some congressmen in our national Congress that are Republican, that are black, that are not allowed to be in the black caucus? You know why? Because they don't think like liberal black people. They're conservative. So they're kicked out of the black caucus. So when they tell me that we got to have these majority of black districts, I say BS.

You won't even let people of color that look just like you into your black caucus. So don't tell me you need a representation more in Congress or the Senate. So I love what the Supreme Court did. They finally broke it down saying no race coding, no racial stuff anymore in elections. Just have a district, run it, and we'll see what happens. I know that a lot of states have gone on to talk about redrawing their maps. would this affect how Michigan does its districting? No, I don't think so because we voted for the redistricting commission,

which I can tell you right now, is not a middle of the road redistricting commission. We found out after they set the maps the first time when the federal government said they were, when the judges said they were racist because they were prejudiced against black people. That was before the Supreme Court ruling a few weeks ago. We found out after that that one of the judges said they were racist against black people, that was before the street court. the main leaders of the whole redistricting commission who were supposed to be independent, excepted a job for a far left-wing liberal nonprofit. Now, let me tell you something. Those liberal left-wing nonprofits, they don't hire middle-the-road people. They don't hire centrist

people. They hire people to think just like them. So this guy fooled us, told us all he was independent. Come to find out, he's a freaking liar. He's on that commission. So going back to your question, I don't think our commission would be changed. Now, some maps may be changed. If it ends up going on the Supreme Court, they had to change them once already. Who knows, may have to change them again. I believe that if they didn't have the maps they had the first time that the redistricting commission made, we wouldn't have Mallory McMorrow in the Senate. And she wouldn't be running for a federal Senate race in Michigan because you wouldn't be in the House Senate because a black man from Detroit got outvoted because they screwed them over and are not in the district.

So we'll see what happens. I love what the Supreme Court did. Sometimes they make decisions I don't like, but in a whole, they're an analytical, smart bunch of people, unlike the Michigan Supreme Court, which today has only shown they're a partisan hack of lawyers that only want to do what they think is right for their people. We were previously talking about Eric Nesbitt for,

the governor thing, but he recently wrote a letter to the Department of Justice requesting an investigation into Governor Gretchen Whitmer and whether she was complicit in the recent $20 million fraud case. This has, I guess, been unfolding for a while. I was wondering, what would an investigation really look into? Well, Eric's a fine man. You know, he's a Hillsdale grad, and he's my leader of my caucus. And he told us he was writing that letter. We want the DOJ to come down and look at the facts that we already know of. This lady was a great friend of the governor for years, through tons of parties. This lady only gave to Democrats. This lady had a sham in a nonprofit that she started, that she put her paperwork in after she got the

money. And then she went out and spent all kinds of money on luxury stuff just for her. You've probably heard about her, $4,500 coffee maker she bought, which I can't fathom. I got a 1999 Mr. coffee in my office. It does just fine. But she's got a $4,500 coffee maker. And the address she used to pay her bills or a nonprofit was her own home. And so, you know, this lady was a fraud to begin with. This lady was a fraud who was a great friend of the governor. who threw a fundraiser to raise her almost $20,000. I believe the governor knew exactly what was going on, paid off a friend of hers by making sure that $20 million went to her friend,

Faye Madoon, and I believe the governor's hands are wretched with a crime, and I hope the DOJ comes down and investigates it. Nesbid did say that if Whitmer is complicit, she would face appropriate, or she should face appropriate consequences. I guess would you speculate that means in terms of like criminal, civil, or is there like just like a course for recall? Well, it's too late for a recall. She'll be done at the end of the year and we'll get through the courts by then.

But she should say serves some kind of a penalty if they find out she's complicit in giving a friend $20 million. And this friend turns around and gives a bunch of Democrats thousands and thousands of thousand thousand of dollars. That is a crime. If you're a government agent, elected like me, and I make sure a friend of mine gets 20 million bucks, and my friend turns around and duels out 100 grand to my other friends who are running for office, that's a crime right there. So I hope that DOJ investigates it and all the way to the end, and they show us what the governor really knew what's going on when Faye Badoon asked for that 20 million. And I'm really upset

about this because for months, when it first came out, the Democrats on the Senate, Senate side, and namely Senator Moss, would always get up, when I would give a speech about it, he would get up and say, I want you to know that Republican Speaker, Jason Wentworth, had his name on that, and so he's the reason she got $20 million. Well, as it's come out the last few weeks with the emails and text messages, he had nothing to do with it. And Faye Badoos, people were telling him, I'm getting $20 million. There's no more negotiations.

That's how it is. So she had talked to the governor's people. She knew she was getting $20 million, but the governor can't put her name on that money. It's got to be somebody in the legislature. So the speaker's name was on it, and it looked like he asked for her friend, his friend, Favadoon, who he had never met before,

or if he didn't meet her, it was a real quick thing. The governor orchestrated this, and I hope the federal Department of Justice proves this, and we do something to the governor. Civil, a big penalty, whatever it is, Just show people you can't do this in government. You can't be the governor of Michigan and get your friend $20 million just because she's a nice lady and she gave you money and threw you a fundraiser. That should be a crime.

You're listening to WRFH Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. I'm Malia Lick interviewing Michigan State Senator Joseph Bolino. The Selfridge National Guard Air Base was finally approved for $152 million. worth of additional funding. Republicans had initially hoped this bill would pass by the March break, but it's been delayed by two months. So what happened? What was the process there? Well, what happened was that the Senate had their own idea that the Speaker of the House and most Republicans in the Senate agree with the Speaker that if we give the federal government this money right now, they can start with new runways at

at the base and that'll assure that we're going to get the next fighter plane in there. So, and if we didn't, we might not get it. So we heard from people in the Air Force that they were going to try to wait out Trump and not bring this base in and go somewhere else.

That's the federal politics. But the state politics is the Senate Democrats did not want the money coming out of the budget until next year. Why is that? Well, the governor's gone. And the governor's pet project she wants fun of this year might have to be cut because there's $152 million less if we're doing it for

Selfridge. So they approved it for next year. The Speaker of the House said, no, no, it's got to be this year. You know that. So he was going to hold everything up until Selfridge was gone. Luckily, he talked to the governor, and the governor talked to people of the Senate Democrats, and they finally brought it forward. I mean, it was such a charade two weeks ago.

They had Senator Hurtell, who's in a tough race up there. We're probably going to meet him. He's got the area around Selfridge. He gave a big speech about how proud he was that they were going to get the money next year. And he knew if they got the money next year, it's possible that the Jets would never come to Selfridge. So it was a big sham by the Senate Democrats. But luckily, the Speaker put pressure on him. It was brought to a vote.

I think we only had one or two no votes in the Senate. And the governor's going to sign it. So we're going to build new runways of Suffrage and we'll get the new fighter pilot. flight. What are some of the benefits that this upgrade would bring? Well, it's great benefits for Michigan because it keeps us on the map when it comes to defense. You have to remember, World War II, we were the arsenal of democracy. We made thousands of tanks and are not made Michigan anymore. They're made Lyme, Ohio. We made thousands of planes. We don't make planes here anymore. We made hundreds of ships. We don't make ships anymore on the west side of the state or the

east side. So we were the Arsenal democracy. We've lost almost all that. If suffrage goes after Oskota and the base is in the UP, we want everything left but Grayling and maybe Camp Custer to keep the military presence of Michigan. So I want that fighter jet in Michigan being a security for Michigan and the country. And I want to keep people in Michigan employed at that base, unlike what it would happen if they shut it down. That's my goal. And I'm glad we've got it through it, the governor's going to sign it, and we're going to get the money there to get the plane in. I guess lastly, House Democrats recently proposed a package of bills that would pave the way for

legalized assisted suicide. For now, the proposal only pertains to terminally ill adults, but I just wanted to know your thoughts on it and what the Republican response has been and will be to it. Well, I have all the compassion to world for somebody who's dying of cancer or has a debilitating disease like ALS, Lugaric disease, something like that. That really stinks when it's in your family or you have it. But I as a Republican, a pro-life Republican, like all of us in the House of Senate, we can't vote for a bill. And we won't vote for a bill that's going to let people just say, yeah, I'm having a bad life. I don't like it.

I think I'm going to take my life because that's what's going to happen. It's going to end up being like Oregon in other states. and it won't be just for terminally ill. It'll be for anybody having a bad day, and they can do it. I am against that. I believe all Republicans in the House and Senate today are against that. And I don't think those people in the House, that that bill won't even have a chance to have a hearing in committee. So that makes me happy because we have control the House.

Because if we don't have control of the House, they're going to push the bill through, get it through, and get over the Senate. And then who knows what happens? I'm against it. And we'll see what happens. but I don't believe we'll oversee the light of day with that bill. All right. Thank God. Thank you again for your time, Senator Bellino. This has been Malia Look with Michigan State Senator Joseph Bolino,

who represents the 16th Legislative District, including much of Hillsdale County, on WRFH Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM.