Republican Michigan Senate candidate Mike Rogers blasted his opponent, Democrat Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), for defending a Chinese battery plant in his state, noting that she even signed a non-disclosure agreement.
“I saw in your debate with her the other day that she is defending this Chinese battery company moving to Michigan,” host Mike Slater observed during Rogers’ interview on Breitbart News Daily.
“Yes, she says, ‘Oh, well you, Mr. Rogers, you say you care about American manufacturing, but you don’t want to compete against China.’ What is it? What’s the argument? What’s happening with this battery plant?'” Slater asked.
“Well, this is the best gig ever. The government mandates you have to produce a car. … And they do it two ways. They do it by the emissions from the tailpipe. So the only way you meet the new EPA standards is making it electric. And they fine you. When you and I go and buy a pickup truck or an SUV, they get fined. The company gets fined. And this is happening today, so the company obviously has to squirrel around to do this. What the government realized now that they’re in the government car producing business is that they have to have the ability to produce batteries,” he said, explaining that they concluded that they needed to bring in a Chinese company and use their technology in order to implement it.
“And think of this, in the state of Michigan, they gave this Chinese company a billion dollars in cash and prizes, a billion dollars of state taxpayer money that, when it’s up and operating, will eliminate 40 percent of gas-powered engine manufacturing jobs — 40 percent. So they’re using your money to build — to give to a Chinese company to build a product that when they’re fully operational, according to the government mandates, there’ll be 40 percent less labor here in the state of Michigan,” Rogers revealed.
“Now, I don’t know anybody who thinks this is rational or good for the state or good for the environment, by the way,” he continued.
“So let’s go to the billion dollars to the Chinese battery company. Of all countries, China, they’re all state-run, government subsidized industries from the Chinese government, which, by the way, we’re like making them rich too, just with every — all the money we’re constantly giving them all the time,” Slater said, as Rogers noted that the company was denying it was a Chinese company at the time. Perhaps what is worse, Slotkin signed an NDA on this.
“No, no, no, we’re not a Chinese company. We have a Chinese patron back in China, but we’re not a Chinese company.” And then actually, my opponent signed a non-disclosure agreement, secret agreement, through … it’s called MEDC — Economic Development Corporation, to help facilitate and understand all the details of getting the money. And the reason that they signed an NDA is that they don’t want to tell people that they knew that we were going to give a billion dollars to a Chinese Communist Party,” he revealed, noting that locals did their own research and discovered that the company is absolutely “connected to the Communist Party of China, including the chairman of the company, by the way, who is a Communist Party member and very close to the President of China.”
“They fought back and said, ‘Oh no, no, this is good for America. Good for Michigan.’ That’s why they do it. And so you think about — they felt, ‘Well, we have to hurry up, right? We’re going to be in a hurry. We’re telling you you’re going to have to have an all-electric car by, basically by 2032,’ even though the electric grid won’t handle it — 20 percent of commercial trucks by 2032 — which nobody’s had that discussion yet on how disruptive, dangerously disruptive, that is to the American economy. And so they said, ‘Well, let’s get this thing done. Everybody sign non-disclosure agreements, we’ll pretend like nobody’s paying attention, and we’re going to give them 175 million in cash and about roughly 800 million in tax breaks’ — a billion dollars,” Rogers said. “That’s how they did it.”
LISTEN:
He promised he would fight it if and when he is elected.
“There are other ways to do this,” he said, pointing to hybrids as a “beautiful alternative.”
“You know, you still have all the auto workers. Nobody gets laid off. It’s not 40 percent less labor. There’s actually a few more parts in the thing, and it takes emissions out of the tailpipe, which you know, as long as you don’t stop these mandate emissions, we can build hybrids. Americans will buy them. They’re buying them now,” he added, circling back to the NDA and noting it just makes the entire thing “more cynical.”
“[Slotkin] signed an NDA will not talk about it,” Rogers said, “Will not say that this is not good for Michigan.”
Related: Michigan Town Loses Bid to Block Chinese-Owned Electric Vehicle Battery Factory
Breitbart News Daily airs on SiriusXM Patriot 125 from 6:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. Eastern.