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Breakfast with a top Dem on Trump assassination attempts, battle for Senate

At a Monitor Breakfast last week, Sen. Gary Peters – chair of two key committees – talked Trump assassination attempts, the race for the Senate, and his frugal habits.

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Troy Sambajon/The Christian Science Monitor
Sen. Gary Peters of Michigan, chair of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, spoke to reporters at a Monitor Breakfast at the St. Regis Hotel in Washington on Sept. 17, 2024.

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After a summer hiatus, Monitor Breakfasts returned on September 17 with Sen. Gary Peters. You may not know the Michigan Democrat – but he’s right in the thick of things.

At the top, we delved into the two assassination attempts on former President Donald Trump. As chair of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, Senator Peters is immersed in his panel’s bipartisan investigation into the first attempt in July.

Now, after last Sunday’s apparent second attempt, Mr. Peters is eager for more details – but “clearly,” he said, “what happened in Florida is very troubling,” as my colleague Cameron Joseph wrote last week.

The original reason for last Tuesday’s well-attended press breakfast was to grill Mr. Peters on his other big role: chair of the Senate Democrats’ campaign committee, which faces an uphill battle to keep the majority. And so we toggled back and forth between the two topics – from matters of life and death to the politics of 2024.

Mr. Peters is focused on protecting vulnerable Democrats in conservative Montana and Ohio, as Cameron noted in his second story on the breakfast. But the senator also argued that two Senate Republicans, Ted Cruz of Texas and Rick Scott of Florida, are both beatable.

Then there’s the matter of Michigan itself, a key swing state for Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris. Check out Story Hinckley’s recent piece on that battleground.

As always, a fun part of our breakfasts is getting to know the guest. And I immediately saw why Mr. Peters was floated as a possible running mate for Vice President Harris. He’s got the same “Midwestern dad vibe” as Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz – including his habit of holding on to beloved old shirts.

“I consider myself frugal,” Mr. Peters told us, speaking of campaign money. “My wife has a different name for it.”

After the breakfast, I asked Mr. Peters to elaborate, and he mentioned an ad called “Frugal” from his first Senate campaign in 2014. It features his family’s then-30-year-old washing machine, shoes with holes, and a ratty old sweatshirt.

He said people still ask him, “Did you ever replace that sweatshirt? Did you ever get a new washing machine?”

Watch the full Monitor Breakfast on Youtube below.

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