The Advocate for Veterans Challenging the DOGE Congressman

Callie Barr is challenging Republican Rep. Jack Bergman, the Congressmember who has spent tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars on meals and hotels for himself.

Callie Barr is a military spouse, an advocate for veterans, teacher, and born and raised Michigander. She’s running to represent Michigan’s First Congressional District. She’s running to make life more affordable in Northern Michigan and the Upper Peninsula.

The Republican incumbent, Jack Bergman, joined the Congressional DOGE Caucus that did Elon Musk’s bidding, which led to profound losses nationwide, including the closure of multiple Michigan hospitals. Meanwhile, Bergman’s major donors include AIPAC and military contractors, ultra-wealthy individuals involved in private equity and AI companies. One such major donor is Elliott Broidy, who was charged with pay-to-play corruption felonies, and pardoned by none other than President Trump.

We talked with Callie Barr about why she’s challenging Bergman to flip this district.

Democracy News: Why are you running for Congress?

Barr: Why am I running? Because enough is enough.

I married my high school sweetheart. He had enlisted in the Marine Corps right after 9/11, and he served in Iraq and Afghanistan. He came back with both traumatic stress and a traumatic brain injury. I got very involved in advocating for military families. In that experience, we lost a lot of folks that were really close to us. When you lose people you’re close with at a young age, you ask yourself a couple questions. What does it mean to be a part of something bigger than you. What does it mean to serve this country?

I’ll never forget my very good friend, who lost her husband. When her husband didn’t come home, she just asked me one question: “Callie, is any of it worth it?” And I’ll be answering that question my whole life.

I think we have a duty, and I feel this strongly, to make this country worthy of the best of us. To be able to answer her, “Yes, it was worth it.” That’s what this race means to me.

Democracy News What are you hearing from people in your district about political corruption?

Barr: Our district is probably one of the hardest hit places in the nation right now, and we have an incumbent who has enabled this national chaos and engaged in his own corruption. Out of every member of Congress, Jack Bergman is the Number One spender of our taxpayer dollars on meals and lodging for himself.

Look at what he spent during COVID. He spent over $61,000 on himself. Most members were getting reimbursed like 600 bucks. And meanwhile, he’s telling folks in my district that we’ve got to tighten our belts. He was cutting food assistance for children, cutting hospital funding. We’ve lost three local hospitals. It’s going to be four lost hospitals soon. Women in the Upper Peninsula have to drive to Wisconsin for labor and deliveries.

Bergman was a part of the DOGE caucus, and they cut protections for our Great Lakes, and everyone should be concerned about that because the Great Lakes are a fifth of the world’s fresh drinking water supply. Meanwhile, he’s picking fights with our Canadian neighbors, who no longer want to come hang out with us, and that means an estimated $60 million economic impact just in one area. So, there’s real harm to our district, and he’s spending all of that money on himself.

Another thing, he claims he’s an advocate for veterans, but he’s trying to promote legislation to protect people who’ve ripped off veterans by thousands of dollars. So, this is someone who is terrible, not just for the district but for the country.

And then there’s the rising cost of gas and diesel, because of a war after there was so much Republican messaging about how we’re going to be in these forever wars anymore. People want to see some checks on this administration’s power. Even people who gravitated toward Trump are talking about seeing people clinging to wreckage after being bombed in the Caribbean, and overwhelmingly, they’re talking about the cost of living. They have to choose between gas, health insurance, and groceries.

Democracy News: When you’re in Congress, what will your priorities be to help working people?

Barr: Number one, we’ve got to make sure that we fund Medicaid. If we don’t, we will lose our hospitals. It’s very scary. We’ve also got to extend these Affordable Care Act subsidies. We can’t just kick people off their insurance and not have a plan. That is cruel.

Democracy News: In Congress, what will you do to tackle political corruption?

Barr: We have to build credibility, which means people have to be held accountable to the law. This is not retribution. It’s just accountability. We’re a nation of the rule of law. And at one time, that was an inspiration to the world.

We can look at the Statue of Liberty. The name of that statue is actually Liberty Enlightening the World, and it was given to us by the French after the Civil War, because they thought, well, here is a country actually living up to its ideals. In one arm, she holds the tablet of law, with the other, she holds a torch leading the way, because for the first time since the fall of the Roman Republic, we had a nation that said we believe we are all equal before the law and one another. Now, unless we can say that with a straight face, we’ve lost credibility, not just with ourselves, but with the entire world.

We need to pass laws that increase transparency and accountability. We’re living in another Gilded Age. We have industries like crypto and AI, and they’re using us to make a tremendous amount of money. What do we get in return? We need to be able to share in that success. That means, obviously, we need to get big money out of politics.

Democracy News: I’ve been asking everyone, with everything that’s happening, how are you coping?

Barr: Running for Congress has been a tremendous privilege. I’ve met so many folks who’ve risen to meet the moment. I’ve got people who stood in 30-degree below zero weather protesting. I’ve met people in their nineties who’ve donated to a political candidate for the first time in their lives. I have been so encouraged by that. You know, there’s that research that just 3.5% of the population needs to rise up against authoritarianism peacefully to create change. I think sometimes we don’t understand how small that number is. It’s a small, committed group that can make change. We need to just keep going. I believe in audacious hope.