Retired Navy Rear Admiral Discusses Importance of 2024 Election

Friday, January 5th, 2024 -- 1:00 PM

(Bill Glauber, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel) Retired Navy Rear Admiral Michael Smith said he never imagined "a world where I’d spend my post-service life defending the future of democracy from a domestic threat in the form of a former president."

But, according to Bill Glauber with Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, as founder and president of National Security Leaders for America, Smith has hit the road to warn voters about re-electing former President Donald Trump.

Smith was in Milwaukee Thursday to talk about Trump ahead of the third anniversary of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack at the U.S. Capitol. Democrats and their allies have focused this week on Trump's unsuccessful efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

During an appearance at Dryhootch-Milwaukee, a gathering place for veterans and their families, Smith said Trump "is an existential threat to everything I swore to defend ... literally democracy is on the ballot."

"We're not supposed to get involved in politics," Smith added about being a retired officer. "They tell us stay out of politics. But the threat that Donald Trump and his ultra-MAGA accomplices presents, it just compels me ... to break with that tradition."

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