On Saturday evening Jackson County Democrats gathered in Kansas City for their annual Truman Gala. Featured speakers included Senator Claire McCaskill, Senator Catherine Cortez Masto, Representative Emanuel Cleaver, and State Auditor Nicole Galloway. Several hundred were in attendance.

“…To say it politely, there’s been some change in Jefferson City recently. Uh, even just about a week ago we had a new governor that was sworn in and became the new governor of the state. And I’m here with a message from Jefferson City. Eric Greitens has left, but the corrupting influence of secret money and the anonymous insiders behind him remain. Corruption is state government got worse under Eric Greitens. After refusing to resign after bipartisan calls for month he finally called it quits when he was ordered to produce phone and other records involving secret communications about dark money and his hidden donors. I do not think that timing was coincidental…”

“…It was really interesting. Because when you had these two guys who’d never run for anything and they were buddies and they rode into Jefferson City on their white horses. They were going to clean up all the nasty corruption in Jefferson City. [laughter] Remember? They, they went after everybody. It didn’t matter if you were a Democrat or a Republican, you were all dirty if you’d been serving the public for longer than ten minutes. And the governor said he was going to come in to office and do things differently. [pause] Little did we know that meant sex in the basement with his mistress…”

“…Mel Carnahan, Bob Holden, Jay Nixon went years and years and year without a scandal, a whiff of scandal. We put these guys in office and we’ve got felony charges in about ten minutes. So I really do think what Eric Greitens’ time in government taught us is there’s nothing wrong with vetting people for office through years of public service…”

“…Look, this man has done some stuff. And you’re gonna see it. The world is going to see it. Some stuff that’s going to make your hair stand up on its end. On your head. His head, too. [laughter] The front art. [laughter] This is the most ill equipped man in the history of this republic to sit in the White House. And every single day he walks around attacking all of the previous presidents. I mean, if, you know, I can’t get embarrassed anymore. People, a lot of people in Washington, they, two days ago, were embarrassed because he didn’t know the words to God Bless America. I, I wasn’t, I, I can’t get embarrassed by him anymore…”

“…I was in Europe and that’s all they wanted to talk about. The same thing, uh, about Donald Trump. What’s wrong with America? We are ceding our spot s the leader of the free world. Angela Merkel, right now, is the leader of the free world. [pause] And everybody in the world knows it…”