Mike was raised in Iowa but left when he was 18. Now he lives and works in Utah. I talked with Mike on the flight from Chicago to D.C.
The first thing I asked him about — Sen. Mitt Romney.
“Not a fan,” he said. “Not many people in Utah are fans. I know most of the country hates him and blame Utahans for that. We need to take the responsibility for that, but in the primaries, that’s where it’s at and the primaries are corrupt in Utah and that’s how he made it. But nobody likes Mitt Romney.”
If he had the chance to talk with Romney, one-on-one, for just a couple of minutes, Mike said there would be no words spoken.
“Probably no need to talk,” he said. “There’s nothing you can do to talk to that guy. He’s either fully corrupt intentionally or he’s being blackmailed. Words are not going to have any effect on Mitt Romney. He is what he is — he’s part of the Swamp.”
When President Donald J. Trump started his campaign for President a handful of years ago, Mike said he was open to him and had no hard feelings toward Trump.
“I knew he was kind of bombastic, but I was fine with that,” he said. “He had a TV personality. But he was talking and he was saying all the right things. Almost from the time he came down from the escalator I was resonating with his message.”
Trump’s previous Democrat activity didn’t bother Mike, who said Trump knew in order to play the political games required in New York, you had to be a Democrat.
As the race went on, it became clear Trump was the right man for the nomination.
“The further along you go, the other candidates knocked themselves out and we saw they were all part of the Swamp,” he said. “Jeb Bush, Cruz — I was a Cruz fan for a while, I even shook his hand when he came out to Utah and asked him a question about H1B1. But he’s not the solution. The outsider Donald Trump is the solution and he’s got the best ideas.”
Now, five years or so later, Mike is headed out to D.C. for the first time in a few decades.
“It’s going to be epic,” he said. “I just expect a huge outpouring of support. I don’t know that we’re going to change minds, but we’re definitely going to have an impact. We’re going to be around like-minded people in volumes like we’ve never seen before. We’re going to know that we’re right, that we’ve got the correct message. Whether the politicians do what they should do as they’ve sworn to an oath, I don’t know. But either way, it’s going to be epic.”
A concern of Mike’s is the apathy many people have toward this election
“A lot of people don’t plug into the same news I do and they’re not looking,” he said. “They are kind of apathetic as far as how it goes — they think it’ll be fine either way. If Biden wins, it’ll be fine. They’re just not educated. They’re completely clueless as far as what’s at risk here.”
Much more is at stake, he added, than just one election.
“This election is not fair,” he said. “But it’ll be the last election that there’s any integrity whatsoever if it’s not corrected. Your vote will not count in any state in any election from here on out and people will get the feeling they won’t vote because they know the vote won’t count. It’ll be just like Venezuela. Eighty percent of the people don’t vote in Venezuela because they know it’s rigged.”
Mike described himself as a conservative.
“That carries negative connotations…so many people have hijacked the conservative message and they’re not conservative,” he said. “I’m America first — American workers, American people — that’s my party.”
I asked Mike how critical it will be for the eventual 2024 GOP nominee to have stood up for President Trump in this moment.
“Oh, it’s huge,” he said. “But if Donald Trump doesn’t win, there’s no point in having a 2024 election.”
Ultimately, Mike stands firm against one of the most well-known goals of the Democrat Party.
“They want to do a complete reset,” he said. “They want to fundamentally change the United States. I don’t believe it needs to be fundamentally changed. I just think we need to get the crooks out.”
