Calling on Republican voters to judge him on his record, U.S. Rep. Jack Bergman sat down with the Leelanau Enterprise last week for a wide-ranging interview covering his decade in Congress, the Iran situation, war powers, election integrity, veterans' mental health, and a sharp assessment of the two Republicans challenging him in the August 4 primary.
The conversation came as Bergman was in Washington working to pass appropriations bills before the Fourth of July recess Tuesday, June 30.
This is the first of several interviews for both Republican and Democratic congressmen.
Ten years in, running again
Bergman, 79, a retired Marine lieutenant general first won Michigan's 1st Congressional District seat in 2016. He framed his case for a sixth term around experience, relationships, and a record he said speaks for itself.
"If you want to go backwards, well, then maybe you should consider voting for somebody other than me," Bergman said. "But if you want to continue to go forward with a guy and a team who's getting things done, then I'd respectfully request your vote."
He pointed to the Working Families Tax Cuts Act — passed twice, in 2017 and again this past year — as a tangible fiscal win for constituents, saying filers saw smaller withholdings and larger returns.
He also highlighted his continued work on the House Armed Services Committee, where he chairs the Subcommittee on Readiness, covering personnel, aircraft, ships, and supply chain, and his seat on the Veterans Affairs Committee, which he said was his first choice of assignment when he arrived in Washington a decade ago.
On veterans, Bergman, said reducing the military suicide rate remains unfinished business. He said therapies and counseling models being developed for veterans — including some involving newer treatment compounds — would ultimately benefit all Americans.
"If we get it right for veterans, guess what? Those therapies will work for everybody," Bergman said.
On his primary opponents, Bergman was pointed when discussing challenger Matthew DenOtter, who he endorsed in 2022 when DenOtter ran in a southeastern Michigan district, and who has since relocated to Boyne City.
Bergman invoked what he called the "Five Eyes" framework — a set of leadership principles anchored by integrity. "You either have it or you don't. I would suggest to you, in this case, there's no integrity within the confines of my opponent's body (DenOtter),” Bergman said.
On Justin Michal, a retired Army officer also challenging Bergman in the primary, the congressman said he has told him directly — more than once, at Reagan-Lincoln Day dinners — what he thinks the best path forward looks like.
"I said, Justin, the best thing you can do is just drop out now and endorse me, and let's see if we can make something good happen," Bergman said. "So far, he hasn't heard that message."
When asked to commit to a primary debate against his challengers, Bergman declined, arguing that debates made sense in 2016 when the seat was open and voters needed to choose among seven new candidates. With an incumbent on the ballot, he said, voters already have a record to evaluate.
"It is a waste of everybody's time," Bergman said, before adding that any follow-up on scheduling should go through his staff.
Election integrity and the SAVE Act
Bergman said he remains committed to passing the SAVE Act, which would require proof of citizenship to register to vote. The House passed the measure in February but it has since stalled in the Senate, and President Trump has threatened to withhold his signature from other legislation until it moves.
Speaking from a Republican conference meeting held just an hour before the interview Tuesday, Bergman said he sees a path forward.
"I am cautiously optimistic that we have a couple of options to put the SAVE Act into legislation here sooner rather than later," he said. "The only people who don't want the SAVE Act to pass are those who want to cheat on elections."
FISA and the surveillance debate
On his vote to renew warrantless surveillance powers under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act in May — a vote that drew criticism from civil libertarians and some conservatives — Bergman said the tension between national security and individual privacy is real and ongoing.
"We have to accomplish two things: find out who's doing what in the world that wants to harm us, and we cannot violate those individual rights that people have to privacy," Bergman said. "The devil is always in the details."
He did not offer a direct defense of the warrantless component of the renewal, saying the issue is still being worked through.
Iran: six decades of personal history
Bergman offered some of his most personal remarks when discussing Iran, tracing his connection to the country back to 1964, when his best friend in high school was an Iranian foreign exchange student. He said he later trained Iranian pilots as a flight instructor in 1972, before the 1979 revolution changed everything.
He said Iran is categorically different from other nuclear powers — including North Korea, China, India, and Pakistan — because its current leadership has demonstrated it cannot restrain itself from using nuclear capability offensively. It's important to note that the official stance of the United States Government is that Iran does not have a nuclear weapon.
"Iranians cannot have an enriched nuclear capability. Pure and simple," Bergman said. "And we are going to ensure that."
On the current ceasefire and when Congress should vote on military action, Bergman declined to put a timeline on anything, saying his military background taught him that adversaries always get a vote and that advertising timelines is unwise. He said he would not do anything to "hobble the administration's ability to keep our citizens safe and secure."
On the broader question of whether Congress should formally vote before the country goes to war — something that has not happened since World War II — Bergman turned the question around, asking what precipitated that last vote.
"Do you think this thing called Pearl Harbor precipitated that?" he said. "It's my job, as well as others here, Democrat or Republican, to make sure another Pearl Harbor or another 9-11 doesn't happen."
NDAA and U.S.-Israel military ties
Asked about Section 224 of the House version of the 2027 National Defense Authorization Act — a provision that would deepen U.S.-Israel defense technology cooperation — Bergman said he had not yet reviewed that specific section and would not comment before the vote.
He said his staff was working through the full bill ahead of a scheduled vote.
He praised the bipartisan process that produced the NDAA, calling the working relationship between Armed Services Chairman Mike Rogers of Alabama and Ranking Member Adam Smith of Washington a model for how Congress should function.
When asked directly whether he would support integrating U.S. and Israeli militaries, Bergman was blunt: "Nope."
He said the United States leads the world because it can be trusted, and that its role is to build cooperative international relationships — on defense technology, medical research, and other fronts — without formally merging military structures with any ally, Israel or otherwise.
Ethics complaint
Near the end of the interview, as Bergman was heading for the door, the Leelanau Enterprise asked about a recent ethics complaint involving his campaign. Bergman brushed it aside.
"That's not on my radar," he said. "That's really old news, and it was like nothing really was there. But I'll just leave that for all you guys to pick apart."
Bergman said he would be traveling throughout the district over the July 3rd and 4th holiday, with stops planned from Traverse City through Iron Mountain and Marquette. He left the door open for a follow-up interview before the primary.
Before breaking into the questions at the beginning of the interview, the congressman offered an unprompted endorsement of local journalism, saying he counts on community reporters to deliver information without the spin of national outlets.
"You're not gonna get it through TikTok, and you're not going to get it through CNN, and you're not going to get it through Fox," Bergman said. "What I count on guys like you for is to lay it out in a nonpartisan manner, no bias, Republican or Democrat.”
The Leelanau Enterprise will publish interviews with all candidates in the MI-01 race ahead of the August 4 primary.
