Nathaniel Rosenberg photo
U.S. Sen. Murphy (right): Harris's campaign represents broad "defense of democracy."
Kamala Harris and Liz Cheney aren’t the most natural of political allies.
But, when faced with the prospect of another Trump presidency, “there’s a lot of unusual partners being joined together today in defense of democracy. That is the actual stakes today.”
U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy offered that national political assessment Friday afternoon during an unrelated visit to New Haven.
Connecticut’s junior U.S. senator, a Democrat, came to town to tour MakeHaven and ClimateHaven on Chapel Street, before heading out to The Shack community center in West Hills.
He’s currently seeking a third six-year term in office, and faces challenges by Republican candidate Matthew Corey, Green Party candidate Justin Paglino, and Cheaper Gas Groceries Party candidate Robert Hyde, in the Nov. 5 general election. Early voting has already begun.
At the end of his Chapel Street visit, Murphy, a potential contender for Secretary of State in a Harris administration, answered questions about what he’s seeing in the final two weeks of the presidential race between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump.
In particular, he was asked about the Democratic nominee campaigning so closely with Cheney, an anti-abortion Republican whose father was one of the architects of the Iraq War. Could this bid for suburban conservatives’ votes harm Harris’s support with the anti-war left and other members of the Democratic base?
“Democracy is on the line,” Murphy replied. “Of course I disagree with Liz Cheney on lots of things, but I won’t be able to have an open disagreement with anybody in this country if Donald Trump wins and does what he says he’s going to do, which is to punish people who disagree with him.”
Thus the unusual partnerships — like Harris and Cheney.
“I just want to preserve my ability to be able to object to my government when they do something I don’t want,” Murphy continued. “And I think that’s what Liz Cheney is interested in as well.”
He said she likely worries that, if Donald Trump becomes president, “we lose our democracy, and so she will lose her ability to protest what Kamala Harris does as president, because everybody loses their ability to protest if Donald Trump makes good on his promise to use law enforcement and use the U.S. military to incentivize his political opponents to remain silent.”
Murphy pressed on that critique — of Trump’s threats to use the levers of government to exact retribution on his political enemies — when asked if he is worried if Trump’s rambling speeches indicate diminishing mental acuity. Murphy focused instead on the message Trump is delivering.
“What he has been saying recently about using the military in order to punish his political opponents is the scariest stuff that he has said over the course of his short, disastrous political career,” he said. “That should be bone-chilling to everybody in this country.”
Trump has repeatedly suggested using the military to target domestic political opponents, including in an Oct. 13 Fox News interview, where he described congressional Democrats and election protesters as “the enemy from within.”
For Murphy, that rhetoric is one reason he is backing Harris, and why he sees the campaign as a broader “defense of democracy.”
A second Trump term, the senator warned, would see him surrounded by “MAGA sycophants” with no one inclined to check his most extreme impulses.
The senator is confident that Democrats will deliver a “big victory” for Harris in Connecticut, but acknowledged that the race is in a dead heat nationally. Ultimately, he predicted that voters would rally around the Harris in the race’s final 11 days.
Click on the video below to watch the Independent’s full interview with Murphy.