Former Sen. Debbie Stabenow: The new Gordie Howe International Bridge is a great deal for Canada and us
This corridor is economically vital for the United States and crucially important to our national security.
Feb. 14, 2026, 6:00 AM EST
By Debbie Stabenow
One more day. One more billionaire with a direct line to Donald Trump. One more political move cooked up behind closed doors. One more hit that hurts working families in Michigan and the American people who can least afford it.
Why is President Trump suddenly trying to block the Gordie Howe International Bridge that’s expected to open soon and connect Michigan and Canada? Could it be his desire to create chaos and more distractions, the fact that he’s fighting with Canada, or possibly it’s because a billionaire donor appears to have asked Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick for a favor? My guess is that it’s all three.
On the topic of Local Newspaper Accomplishments, Debbie Stabenow's retirement is bittersweet for me because I remember when she first beat Spence Abraham in 2000 because my parents did some volunteering for her campaign. And then after I won first place in the Future Problem Solving international competition a couple years later, that coincided with my mom doing a history/government teachers internship at Georgetown where she got to meet a bunch of US Senators and Representatives, including specifically the ones from each of their states (as each state picked one or two people to send for this). She met Debbie Stabenow again and told her about my competition, and I got to go to her office and get a photo with her that was on her website for a while! Anyway I'm glad she's had such a long and distinguished career and is now getting some well-deserved R&R but it feels like the end of an era for me that the first Senator I ever met is retiring. Also, in a way, the end of a political era for me, since the 2000 election was the first election where I was really fully aware of what was happening and did anything involving "campaigning" (I was ten and our parents let us "help" by handing out candy at art fairs and carnivals that said "Debbie Stabenow for US Senate" on the wrapper).
(Other Senators I've met, all Democrats: Carl Levin (RIP) came to our polling place in Troy in 2006 and I was there to watch my mom vote and got to talk to him briefly. Outgoing Maryland Sen. Ben Cardin spoke at the first Young Democrats meeting I attended at Hopkins. Retired Maryland Sen. Barbara Mikulski, formerly longest serving woman in the U.S. Senate, came to my line several times when I was working at a Baltimore grocery store in college. I got to shake Elizabeth Warren's hand at an event for her 2012 Senate campaign when I was in grad school in Boston. Also this doesn't really count but one time in DC was going to the subway station by Capitol Hill and saw a very exhausted old man walking there whom I only realized after he passed us by was Bernie Sanders. Don't mind that I didn't get a chance to meet him though, he genuinely did look like he'd had a long day and just wanted to get home.)
Democratic nominee suggests at Michigan rally that rival does not have stamina to handle another presidential term
Ethan Meyers at The Guardian:
Kamala Harris used a rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan, on Friday to seize on reports that Donald Trump had been canceling media interviews to question whether he has the stamina for a second presidency if voters choose him over her in November’s election.
“If he can’t handle the rigors of the campaign trail, is he fit to do the job?” the Democratic vice-president, 59, told rallygoers about the 78-year-old Trump.
She said: “Trump is unfit for office."
Harris and her Republican opponent were in Michigan as the weekend began while trying to shore up support in a battleground state that could decide their 5 November race. Polling suggests Michigan as well as its fellow “blue wall” states of Pennsylvania and Wisconsin remained in play for both candidates as the campaign’s waning days arrived.
“This is the place that is going to decide the election, right here,” Democratic congresswoman Hillary Scholten told Friday’s audience as she opened the event.
Among the crowd, some Harris supporters struck a hopeful tone. “It’s about time for a woman to lead,” said Jenifer Lake, who took her daughter Adeline Butts to the rally for a chance to “see history in the making”.
[...]
Michigan’s Democratic US senator Debbie Stabenow also spoke before Harris, alluding to how it got “scarier and scarier” the more she thought about the proposed policies of Trump’s supporters. The former president has sought to distance himself from the far-right Heritage Foundation, whose Project 2025 plan calls for the mass firings of civil servants and exalts the idea outlawing abortion altogether during a second Trump presidency.
Kamala Harris nails Donald Trump’s declining stamina with this quip: “If he can’t handle the rigors of the campaign trail, is he fit to do the job?.”
Want a candidate who’ll be fit for the entire term? Vote Harris.
Know any good Michiganders who want to bring an end to hostilities in Gaza? Ask them to sign this petition today to demand that the two Senators for the most Arab State in the Union call for a ceasefire.
SenStabenow: Great to meet a real superhero both on and off camera. Thank you, @ChrisEvans, for discussing important issues our nation is facing and taking the initiative to put the real facts out there.
