The 2028 Democratic presidential primary has arguablky been underway since early 2020 when Joe Biden sealed the nomination, so it’s only natural likely candidates have started making national TV appearances to serve as Democrat Party leaders since they were thrashed in November. On Monday’s CBS Mornings, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer received a rhetorical massage masquerading as a book tour for the young-adult version of her memoir.
Of course, topics such as this never came up.
Instead, co-host Tony Dokoupil first noted Democrat Alissa Slotkin won an open Senate seat even though President Trump won the state and if there’s a “lesson in that split-ticket situation.”
After Whitmer only conceded the state “tends to go back and forth and likes some balance and I’ve won twice with big margins within two years of Donald Trump also carrying Michigan,” she pivoted to making herself seem relatable and unobjectionable:
I think it’s to keep listening to the people. And that’s part of what I talk about in my book that we made for young adults. These are lessons that you can use at any age, right? Learning how to listen is a superpower that not enough people tap into.
Featured co-host Vladimir Duthiers brought up the illegal immigrant deportation raids and if she had an opinion on them, but Whitmer again had a meandering, vanilla answer about “planning...for...a number of different scenarios” and “treat[ing] people with dignity” who are grappling with “legitimate fears and concerns” while also “following the law.”
Co-host and Democratic donor Gayle King went to “Donald Trump’s proposal for tariffs, which could greatly affect the state of Michigan and the auto industry” and Whitmer again only stuck to the surface-level with the admission she’s “not against” them, “but we’ve also got to be very strategic” so allies don’t end up “saying yes to China.”
Thankfully, Dokoupil went back to her absurdly esoteric answer about deportations:
Great question from CBS’s @TonyDokoupil to Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer on deporting dangerous criminals. Notice Whitmer wouldn’t even commit to supporting that....
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) January 27, 2025
Dokoupil: “So, taking inspiration from the theme of listening and that section of the book there about the… pic.twitter.com/Po1twaZMN7
Having faced down the hardball, King went full gush over Whitmer’s alleged “superpower” being listening, which sounded great, but falls flat when one considers her devotion to abortion and draconian Covid-19-era restrictions (click “expand”):
KING: We all keep going back to the listening — importance of —
DOKOUPIL: I love that section.
KING: — I love that, too, the importance, you call it your superpower. But the advice from your grandmother, wish I could have met her, work hard, don’t get married until you’re 28, never part your hair in the middle. I think Ester Whitmer was on to something there. But the listening — there’s a great anecdote where you had gone to visit a hospital and you were talking to the mother of a patient. You said, what can I do for you? And she just said, fix the damn roads —
WHITMER: Yeah.
KING: — which became a rallying cry for you —
DOKOUPIL: On the side of the bus.
KING: — on the side of the bus, so I’m curious about, you said superpowers is listening whether your talking to a student, whether you’re talking to a President. That seems to be a lost art for those of us — many of us in this country.
WHITMER: It’s really important. It’s my favorite thing about being governor and serving the public is I get to engage with people on the ground and find out what’s going on in their lives so that I can stay focused on what’s going to make their lives better. It is a skill that you can use whether you’re in second grade or in high school or you’re 54-year-old governor — or bout to be 54-year-old governor of Michigan. And when I asked that woman, you know, what’s important to you, I thought she’d talk about health care.
KING: Yes.
WHITMER: We’re in a children’s hospital, her child’s in the hospital.
KING: She was blunt.
WHITMER: Maybe we’d talk about childcare or education, she talked about roads. And the reason why is because when your road — when you have to fix the busted tire on your car, it’s money out of your rent, it’s money out of childcare. And that’s — that’s really what’s important for people.
King kept control the rest of the way with a softball about the kidnapping plot against her (which was — how should we put it — full of Swiss cheese holes) and observation that this version of “the book ends with a Q&A with your daughter, done by your — your daughters — done by your sister, which we get some insight into how this governor thinks.”
To see the relevant CBS transcript form January 27, click here.
