The Michigan Democrat Who Said “Enough”
Slate News
Slate Podcasts
4.5 • 6K Ratings
🗓️ 3 May 2022
⏱️ 29 minutes
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Summary
Michigan state Senator Mallory McMorrow went viral in April for striking back at an extreme characterization made by a Republican colleague. The video of McMorrow’s speech—viewed over 14 million times—tells a bigger story about how national political rhetoric is affecting local political debates. But is the senator really demonstrating how to reset the terms of debate? Or is she just one more person who went viral for speaking to her echo chamber?
Guest: Mallory McMorrow, Michigan state senator representing Grand Oak and the suburbs north of Detroit.
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Transcript
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| 0:36.7 | So Senator McMoro, you've been really really busy. Do you feel like you have stepped off of |
| 0:42.7 | the roller coaster yet? Oh my goodness, no. Michigan State Senator Mallory McMoro has been doing |
| 0:50.9 | interviews non-stop since April 19th. That's when she tweeted out a video of herself. |
| 0:57.3 | Thank you, Mr. President. In it, she is standing on the floor of the Michigan Senate and she is |
| 1:03.2 | delivering a speech calling out a Republican colleague for using the increasingly alarmist |
| 1:09.2 | language of the modern conservative movement. I didn't expect to wake up yesterday to the news |
| 1:15.2 | that the Senator from the 22nd District had overnight accused me by name of grooming and sexualizing |
| 1:22.8 | children in an email fundraising for herself. This speech has more than 14 million views. |
| 1:32.5 | So I sat on it for a while wondering why me? And then I realized because I am the biggest threat |
| 1:40.0 | to your hollow hateful scheme because you can't read that the president called you. He did, |
| 1:46.7 | and I missed the call. Because I was putting my daughter in a bed and didn't have my phone in the room |
| 1:53.2 | which is incredibly embarrassing but he left a voicemail. Well, did he literally leave a voicemail |
| 1:57.2 | like, hey, it's President Biden. Oh, yeah, an actual, an actual voicemail and clarify, he said, |
| 2:02.5 | you know, hi, it's Joe Biden, the president as if I wouldn't know. |
| 2:05.8 | Which, pretty funny. The president was calling McMorrow because the speech tapped into something |
| 2:13.9 | for a lot of people, a brewing anger at conservative smear campaigns and a sense that McMorrow's words |
... |
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