MI GOP Speaker Humiliated for Taking Credit for Air Force Base He Voted Against

MI GOP House Speaker was humiliated with his own voting record against Selfridge Air National Base even as he took credit with Pres. Donald Trump and Gov. Whitmer over it.

The Daily is journalism for the people. Please support our work by becoming a subscriber.

Michigan House State Speaker Matt Hall (R-Richland Township) has apparently formed himself after the Republican Party’s convicted felon and adjudicated sexual assaulter leader Donald Trump.

Hall spent a press conference lobbing Trump-borrowed insults at State Rep. Mai Xiong (D-Warren) because she criticized him for canceling a legislative session because Trump was in the state.

“We have this very low IQ representative named Mai Xiong, probably one of the dumbest ones in the Legislature, and I saw this video of her, and she’s like ‘the House Speaker is not here today. We need to have session. You know? We need to work for the people of Michigan, Macomb County’,” Hall said.

Then, he took credit for Selfridge Air Force base, which he’s been voting against funding for several years.

“Well, where was I? While she’s doing nothing for her county and for her district. I was in Macomb County, right near her district, delivering a new mission with President Trump for Selfridge Air Force Base. So I hope she thanks me. That would be nice. Wouldn’t it be nice if Mai Xiong made a video thanking me because she’s not doing anything anyway.”

Macomb County, by the way, is a large source of any Trump support in metro Detroit.

Xiong took this as an opportunity to remind everyone of Hall’s voting record on that exact Selfridge Air National Guard Base, which is… he voted no on funding it. Repeatedly.

@repmaixiongThank u, next #greenscreenvideo #thanku #thankyou #thankyounext #mileg #michigan #selfridge #macombcounty #nationalguard

Tiktok failed to load.

Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser

In the 2023-24 fiscal budget, Hall voted AGAINST $13 million for Selfridge Air Force Base.

In the 2024-25 fiscal budget, Hall voted AGAINST $15 million for Selfridge Air Force Base.

But it is true that Hall met with Trump in the Oval Office in an attempt to lobby to secure new fighter jets for Selfridge. There has been bipartisan work for years on behalf of Selfridge, including by, per Bridge Michigam, “US Sens. Gary Peters and Elissa Slotkin, both Democrats, and Republican US Rep. John James…”

But Hall poured water on any of his own efforts by blaming Biden and Obama for not getting it done before, even as Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer graciously handed out extra credit gold stars to Trump. The pettiness is exhausting.

Hall seemed to suggest that Donald Trump did all of this work: “Yesterday's announcement by President Trump is going to secure the future of Selfridge Air National Guard Base for the next 30 to 40 years. This is a very big deal for our national security, our economy and our entire state,” Hall wrote on X.

But wait.

He also took credit for doing the work even though he voted against funding for Selfridge Air National Guard Base, although he did lobby Trump.

“I'm very grateful I had the opportunity to work with realDonaldTrump to get this done and bring this opportunity back home to Michigan.”

This whole debacle actually reveals the nefarious than the way Republicans often take public credit for popular things they voted against, thereby cementing the misconception in their supporters’ minds that they are both “against spending” but also somehow responsible for things that require spending.

This gap in basic knowledge about how government works allows Republicans to continue lying to their base about their own priorities and about the nuances of “spending.” It enables a most problematic narrative that spending on things like this for other people is bad, but spending on things like this for a Trump district is good.

It is, ultimately, an expression of the lack of empathy, lack of love for fellow citizens and lack of true patriotism (not to be confused with nationalism) that has overtaken the Republican Party.

Republicans play the stereotype of the divorced parent who only shows up for the fun stuff and somehow manages to be more loved and respected than the person putting in all of the work.

Whitmer’s Long Game?