Three Democrats traipse out of the wilderness🌲... and into 2028 🫏
Big Gretch whiffs, J.B. huffs and puffs and Mayor Pete sounds just right on the seminal political question of the second Trump administration.
The question posed was, perhaps, the seminal one in 2025: Is the president in open defiance of a Supreme Court order for refusing to facilitate the release of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a noncitizen living in Hyattsville, Maryland who was shipped to a prison in El Salvador without being charged with a crime or offered a chance to contest his designation as a gang member?
Big Gretch, as she calls herself, played it perceivably small and safe.
Her response to Pod Save America’s Jon Favreau packed all the urgency of a midsummer night’s sigh.
“Yeah, I mean it’s unconscionable,” she began, opting to watch his pitch glide into the strike zone instead of taking a big (#gretch) swing. (#sorry)
“So many of the actions they’ve taken in 100 days, the amount of damage that has been done …”
So many! But he asked you about … a very specific *one* — one that pertains to the type of intrinsic right only afforded in America.
“I’ve continued to stay grounded in talking to Michiganders,” the self-evident Michigan governor continued. “And I can tell you the tariffs are taking a toll. Job losses, concerns about being able to afford an F-150.”
And suddenly, Marco Rubio flashed before my eyes. A very specific form of Rubio. A February 6, 2016 Rubio, whose presidential candidacy (but obviously not career) was flattened by Chris Christie, who called out Rubio’s choice to lean on memorized platitudes rather than substantive answers on a national stage.
Whether anyone noticed or not, Whitmer Rubio’d.
She went on for another 35 seconds without ever mentioning Garcia, blowing purposefully by the thorny question of deportations and due process for people who a good portion of the country see as undesirable.
I understand the politics of pivoting to tariffs, but saying nothing at all about Garcia is the kind of avoidance that doomed Kamala Harris and will chill early state Democrats who will be hyper- sensitive to evasion.
Better have a tight answer to assert exactly what you think about Trump’s crackdown on noncitizens and whether he’s brazenly defying the fragile judiciary. If Whitmer chooses omission in a 2028 Democratic primary, she’ll get thwacked – a la Rubio.
My question is, who is her Chris Christie?