Daniel Howes, Senior Editor, Business & Columnist, Detroit News

0:00We close out with an old friend, a senior editor, business, and columnist, an all-around good guy from the great Detroit news, Mr. Daniel House. Hey, buddy. It's been a long time. Yeah, sure has. I even heard you say, hey, Deb. Hey, Deb. In a while. Not dumb. No, not dumb. Why did they call you dumb, Paul? Well, for good reason. So, Paul, you dumb, I've never called you dumb, at least not to your face. Yeah, that's right. He calls me dumb, and he was the moderator for today's DEC event. I just watched David Bird, who started our show before all the other things that were going on. David Bird, the CEO of U.S. Steel. How did that conversation with him go as the moderator and what were maybe the big takeaways? Well, I thought he went really well. I mean, I started out talking about, you know, he'd been here when they were trying to get approval for the acquisition by Nippon Steel. So, he was a little circumspect that that last time.

1:01But this time, he could talk about what it was like to be in the Oval Office with President Trump in the early days of his administration to potentially give him approval and approve the deal, which he ultimately did after telling David that he was not in support of the original deal as a Japanese company with own U.S. Steel of all things. But he relented, and it was interesting to hear him talk about how the President negotiates that you hear about, but you don't hear a lot from eyewitnesses. I thought that was pretty significant, and he's good at telling that story. He's one of those kind of guests that if you just have a few punch points, they kind of carry the conversation because there's an enthusiasm and he speaks in full paragraphs. We told us when he was here two years ago, and thanks to the certainly good job Steve Gregorian does

2:03in getting these great guests and getting them back, he told us two years ago he was very concerned for the existence of U.S. Steel and how we needed this deal done with Nippon Steel and that the President was against it, and a number of people were against it. Steel workers' leadership was against it, big time. But now they're singing a different tune. Well, I mean, we've seen this before, we saw this in this town, I don't know if you remember, but you know, Rouge Steel, which had been a unit of Ford Motor Company, then it was spun off into its own Rouge Steel, it was traded on the exchanges, and then they were acquired by a Russian steel manufacturer. Because the Americans that were looking at it at the time, all they wanted to do was acquire it, take the customer book, as it were, and shut it down. And the Russians were willing to invest, and they were here for a while, I think, until things got dicey around the global financial meltdown. But you know, we've seen situations where these assets have been grabbed up by foreign countries,

3:07happened with China as well as next year up in North, I think, Saginaw. That was a former Delphi unit, they took that over. So this is a little different kettle of fish, and you know, the Japanese are a very staunch ally of the United States, and Nippon Steel apparently supposed to be one of the leading steel manufacturers in the world. Well, and according to, all right, now we're getting a report, police sources, so we can confirm and say this, that the shooter in West Bloomfield at Temple Israel is dead. The active shooter at Temple Israel is dead. And we're going to try to bring you the conversation on Channel 4 right now with Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard. Let's try to pick that up right now, Daniel Howes. I apologize, but if anyone understands this, you do. Here he is.

4:08Oh, we don't have it yet. Okay. So we're going to have it as soon as we can have it, because they were also saying earlier that there was concern, there might have been other shooters, and there was no way to know if there was just one. Well, and given this environment we're in, the nation is in with Iran. You just don't know anything like this happens. You don't know if there's connections. So I think everybody's on a bit of a hair trigger. Hair trigger, we're doing our best to keep calm, and give information that's only been verified, and the verified information from Michael Bouchard is, the shooter, at least one of them, if there is only one, and we hope and pray that's the case, is dead. We got to go. Daniel Howes. It's been too long. We're going to get you back again, my friend, from the Detroit News. He's a great guy. Standby for news in the J.R.F. News with Ryan Hermany. Marie will have more information. We'll talk to you tomorrow, regards, Paul W. Smith. We pray everyone's safe.