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On Monday evening, Democratic Sen. Elissa Slotkin called President Donald Trump an “existential threat to democracy” during a town hall event in Michigan. Slotkin’s remarks sparked an animated discussion on “The Weeknight,” during which co-hosts Symone Sanders Townsend, Michael Steele and Alicia Menendez questioned whether the senator’s statement matched up with her party’s practices.
Sanders Townsend said that although she believed Democrats have gotten the message from their base that they need to do more to fight the Trump administration, the party must show the American people what that fight looks like.
What they have to do tactically to deal with this moment is potentially different than what they need to do in order to win elections.
alicia menendez
The Biden White House official argued that, so far, Democrats’ resistance to Trump has been full of contradictions. “I mean, just last week you had Cory Booker on the floor, basically getting into it,” Sanders Townsend said, referencing the New Jersey senator’s fiery floor speech over his objections to a bipartisan policing bill.
But, as Sanders Townsend noted, just weeks before that speech, Booker voted to confirm Trump’s nominee for U.S. ambassador to France, Charles Kushner — Ivanka Trump’s father-in-law — who served time in prison on a conviction for witness tampering and tax evasion before being pardoned by the president.
“Democrats can’t have it both ways,” Sanders Townsend said. “Either we fight or we [don’t] fight.”
Steele agreed with that analysis, calling it the “core” issue at play for Democrats fighting the Trump administration. The former Republican National Committee chairman also noted that lawmakers across the aisle wouldn’t take a similarly ambivalent approach if a Democrat were in the White House: “They would have drawn a very clear line in the sand that they disagree with this administration.”
But part of the challenge for Democrats, according to Menendez, is that “what they have to do tactically to deal with this moment is potentially different than what they need to do in order to win elections.”
Menendez said Democrats have to weigh issues like the economy while acknowledging such challenges are “all happening in the shadow of an existential threat to democracy.”
“And if it’s a threat to democracy, act like it’s a threat every time,” Sanders Townsend added.
You can watch “The Weeknight” co-hosts’ full discussion in the clip at the top of the page.