‘She knows us’: Whitmer talks grit, groceries and the promise of a Harris presidency

Being “that woman from Michigan” as former President Donald Trump once called Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, isn’t the insult he thinks it is, she said on stage at the Democratic National Convention Thursday night.

“Being a woman from Michigan is a badge of honor,” Whitmer exclaimed, received by applause from the Chicago audience filled with other women from other states wearing white outfits like hers as an homage to the suffragettes who fought for women’s right to vote over 100 years ago.

Women have a long history of “GSD” Whitmer said, censoring her usual “get sh-t done” call to action to “get stuff done” to the laughter of the convention attendees.

Whitmer has been frequently mentioned as a future presidential candidate. She was considered to be on the presidential ticket by both President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris in 2020 and 2024, respectively. Whitmer also gave a speech at the 2020 DNC, which was virtual due to the pandemic.

A member of a “sandwich generation,” Whitmer told attendees about entering the Michigan state House at 29 years old, giving birth to her first daughter while caring for her mother, who was dying of brain cancer.

“It was hard, but not extraordinary. It’s life,” Whitmer said, adding that it underscored why she entered government.

“Those nights reminded me who I was fighting for, people just trying to make it. Kamala Harris knows who she’s fighting for, too. She took care of her mom, who also battled cancer. As president, she’ll fight to lower the cost of health care and elder care for every family. She’s lived a life like ours. She knows us,” Whitmer said. “Donald Trump doesn’t know you at all. You think he understands that when your car breaks down, you can’t get to work? No, his first word was probably ‘chauffeur.’”

Trump has never had to check to make sure he could afford all of his items at the checkout line, Whitmer said, questioning if Trump has ever “been to a grocery store.”

America needs a strong leader who can handle a crisis because they’ve lived a life similar to the rest of the country where things go wrong and people still need to pay their bills, take their kids to school and go to work, Whitmer said.

The past few years have been riddled with crises, Whitmer told the convention, in the form of floods, fires, the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol by Trump’s supporters and the 2020 plot to kidnap Whitmer in 2020.

“We don’t know what the next four years will bring, but what we do know is this, through it all your life won’t stop. … And then one day, when you’re just trying to get everyone out the door, a news alert goes off, something happened, something hit the fan. You’ll ask, ‘Is my family going to be OK?’ And then you’ll ask, ‘Who the hell is in charge?’ What if it’s him? What if it’s that man from Mar-a-Lago?” Whitmer said.

In a crisis, the country needs someone who’ll tell the truth and make a plan, Whitmer said. And though no one gets to choose what catastrophes and trials America will face, voters have the opportunity in November to choose who’ll be in charge.

“Why wouldn’t we choose the leader who’s tough, tested and a total badass,” Whitmer asked the crowd. “I know who I want as our commander in chief. America, let’s choose Kamala Harris.”

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