In a rare interview, Ambassador Bridge owner Matty Moroun complained about being vilified and denied that his business moves were all about Matty Moroun.
Moroun, 85, told Fox2's Charlie LeDuff : "I'll tell you what, I stand for principle. I stand for our country. If I was dressed up in the American flag, everything would be fine. I am the American flag. I will do the best thing I can for our country and I've done it all my life. I'm a quiet, private man, but somebody decided to make me something other than being private. I didn't. I went through 80 years without being anything but Matty Moroun."
LeDuff also asked about the money he poured into Proposal 6, which would have required voters to decide on bridge projects. He had hoped the proposal would have stopped a move to construct a government-built bridge from Detroit to Windsor. He may now try to go to court to block it.
LEDUFF: You were trying to stop a public competing bridge. You lost. You spent a lot of money. You now have a war with the governor. Now what? Are you going to lay down and let him build the bridge or are we opening another chapter here?
MOROUN: First of all, I don't think it's possible for them to build another bridge. They've got too many problems, too many problems. They're almost insurmountable.
LEDUFF: So why spend $40 million fighting something that they can't build anyway?
MOROUN: I just don't want them to mess our bridge up. I want to have our own right of ways, which we're guaranteed, I thought. But maybe they aren't. I don't know.
LEDUFF: You've been accused that those ads were misleading, that the governor says all costs will be covered by Canada and our contribution will come out of the tolls, and you're saying that's not true?
MOROUN: It's not true at all. How do you say when you borrow $500, they're going to take it out $5 a week out of your pay, that it's free? Would you say that was free?
LEDUFF: I would say if you're going to loan me the money and you're going to pay me back through the tolls, I would say it's almost free.
MOROUN: But the tolls are your wages.
Asked further about who he cared more about, Matty Moroun or the American taxpayers, here's what he had to say:
LEDUFF: Who are you more worried about -- the American taxpayer or Matty Moroun enterprises?
MOROUN: Our country in my book always came first, in my trucking, in the bridge, anything that I have, I love my country first. It gives me the opportunities. Otherwise, I would never have them. When I was tossed in jail without one word from my mouth, I was so tickled that I lived in the United States, that the courts let me out. I didn't dangle there. I'm 85 years old. This is the best country the world has ever known.
LEDUFF: You know what's funny, you remind me of a Dickens character -- the kid in rags who comes up to be the richest man in the country maybe and you go to jail and lots of people are happy because they call you a devil, that you own ghettos, that you won't fix that train station, that you're selfish, it's about Matty Moroun and let him rot in hell.
MOROUN: That's the propaganda. The truth is there's a hundred buildings like me in Detroit, like the train station, that are empty. I've got one of the hundred and I'm getting vilified. Not because of the train station, that's a rouse. It's because Canada wants to own the bridge. They can't build another one. It will not work.
