On a stage in Fairfield — with four stops behind him and two more ahead at opposite ends of Connecticut — it was as good a time as any for U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., to field questions about aging and the prospect of running for a fourth six-year term in 2028 at age 82.
Blumenthal, who lives in Greenwich, began his day Wednesday with an event in Hartford, then ones in Norwich, Mashantucket and New Haven. After a one-hour conversation with Executive Editor Elizabeth Hamilton for The Connecticut Mirror’s “In the Room” series, it was to be back to Hartford to accept an award and then down to Stamford.
“So, it’s been a light day,” Blumenthal said, smiling.
At the CT Mirror event, held at the Sacred Heart University Community Theater in downtown Fairfield, Hamilton tried with limited success to engage the senator in a conversation about age and the road ahead. Another term would keep him in the Senate until age 88.
“How are you thinking about this issue?” Hamilton asked. “Because 88 —”
Blumenthal interrupted.
“Here’s the thing, Beth. As I go around the state of Connecticut, and I do travel a lot, I show up. I’m proud of showing up, and I listen,” Blumenthal said. “What I hear from people is, ‘Thank you for fighting. Thank you for standing up. Thank you for standing strong against this [Iran] war — senseless, reckless war.’”
The audience began to applaud.
Blumenthal barely paused.
“‘Thank you for fighting the increasing cost of living.’ The price of diesel is 80 plus percent higher than it was just a year ago,” he continued. “The price of heating oil is 86%. We’re facing a perfect storm for consumers. ‘Thank you for fighting for lowering costs. Thank you for fighting ICE. Thank you for fighting the Department of Homeland Security that is brutally and inhumanely enforcing these laws.’ ”
There was more applause.
And more to his answer to the question he interrupted.
“People want a fighter. People want someone who is willing to stand up and take stands, and they want candidates with courage and character,” Blumenthal said. “I hope I fit that profile. I’m more energized than ever right now because of this challenge that our democracy confronts. You know, this is why I became a public official. Mark Twain used to say that the two most important days in your life are the day you were born and the day you figure out why.
“This is my why moment.”
Blumenthal, a former U.S. attorney and Connecticut attorney general, said Democrats regaining the majority in November would mean congressional investigations of President Donald Trump’s business dealings from the White House. The president has disclosed his income was $2.2 billion last year, nearly quadruple from 2024.
“In this administration, there is a through line of corruption,” Blumenthal said. “The president made $2 billion last year, $1.4 billion of it from crypto. I guarantee it’s not by dint of any intelligent investing. It’s because foreign governments have stacked cash in his crypto enterprises — World Liberty Financial, his meme coin.”
World Liberty Financial, the cryptocurrency company started by Trump and his sons, sells a digital currency, a stablecoin. The senator has hopes of becoming chairman of the Homeland Security’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, a role he held when Democrats last held the majority.
“There is a kind of intertwining or interlocking of corruption that over that next two years, if I am chairman, I would try to uncover and untangle,” he said. “And I wouldn’t have prosecutorial authority. I’m not the U.S. attorney anymore or the attorney general, but we could at least uncover it.”
As Blumenthal was speaking, CBS reported that Trump was floating the idea of the federal government developing his Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Fla., as a presidential retreat for future presidents. There was no discussion of cost.
Blumenthal, whose relationship with Trump has been fraught since the president’s first tenure in the White House, said he was hopeful Trump would enforce the Russia and Iran sanctions bill he negotiated with the late Lindsey Graham. The measure was named the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026.
“The president has to enforce the law, and I don’t think I’m revealing any secret here that the president doesn’t seem to have a lot of respect for the law. He has broken the law in the way that he’s used his existing tariff authority,” Blumenthal said.
Blumenthal, as was Graham, is an admirer of Ukraine’s resistance to Russia and a strong proponent of the U.S. taking stronger steps in defense of Ukraine. He said the Russia sanctions bill includes “incredibly scorching, wide-ranging sanctions against financial institutions, oligarchs, energy companies tied to Russia.
“What Ukraine has done is going to go down in the history of warfare as one of the most extraordinary achievements of all time,” Blumenthal said. “When you think back to four years ago, almost five years ago now, and our own military said that Ukraine was going to fall in a matter of weeks.”
Blumenthal smiled recalling his travels with Graham.
“I don’t think we voted the same way more than a handful of times, but we traveled to Ukraine probably eight, nine times together. I’ve been there 11 times, most recently, a little more than four weeks ago,” he said.
Blumenthal said he hoped Republicans would urge the president to use the tariff tools handed him by the two senators.
Hamilton tried to end the event on a light note, asking Blumenthal about his reading habits.
“I am reading an absolutely chilling book on biological warfare,” Blumenthal said.
“Oh, that’s happy!” Hamilton said.
Blumenthal said he is reading the nonfiction book “Biological War: A Scenario.” The New York Times called it “a sobering new book” in which “Annie Jacobsen considers the potentially civilization-ending impacts of biological war.”
The senator recommended it.
Courtesy of CT Mirror
