Kansas Senator-Elect And Bernie Sanders Urge Democrats To Focus On Problem-Solving Over Retribution

Adam Hamilton won a shock victory against incumbent Republican Senator Roger Marshall in Tuesday’s midterm elections, making Hamilton the first Democrat to win election to the Upper House from Kansas in nearly a century.

Despite Hamilton’s major unexpected victory, the Kansan urged Democrats, who won in a landslide on Tuesday, to use their congressional majorities to address the fundamental, cost-of-living related issues that propelled them to power instead of focusing on retribution and investigation against Republican President Donald Trump and his allies.

“If I spent the next two years, my first two years in the senate, in investigations, I’d be deeply disappointed. I want to get to work helping the people in my state and helping the people across the country,” Hamilton told NBC’s “Meet the Press” show on Sunday.

Hamilton emphasized that he favored “setting up guardrails” for the Trump administration and would push to bring hostilities with Iran to a close “as quickly as possible” while also forcing Trump to justify any new imposition of tariffs to Congress.

The Kansan also said that corruption involving “insider trading” and the president’s alleged profiteering should be tackled.

“Republicans and Democrats don’t understand how a president makes a billion dollars in his first year back in office,” Hamilton claimed, a probable reference to Trump reportedly making over $1 billion from business dealings in cryptocurrency in 2025.

However, the Senator-elect warned that the “blue wave” seen on Tuesday would be “one and done” if the Democrats don’t “get to work on helping people.”

Former Democratic presidential candidate and current (Democrat-aligned) independent Senator for Vermont Bernie Sanders also spoke to NBC’s Kristen Welker on Sunday, and had a similar message for Democratic Senators and Congresspeople:

“Senator-Elect Hamilton made a good point. Do we want to hold the Trump administration accountable for their illegal, unconstitutional actions? Absolutely. But at the end of the day … we cannot spend all of our time investigating Trump, we have to stand up for working-class families. Make a real difference in their lives!”

Hamilton and Sanders’ pleas come after Trump accused Democrats threatening his political allies with impeachment of “extortion at the highest level” and “Weaponization and Lawfare,” warning them that he was “ordering the Department of Justice to look into … threatening letters” sent to Republicans by “Democrat Political Leaders.”

For their part, many prominent Democrats have signalled that they are beginning preparations for lengthy investigations into senior members of the Trump administration, with the incoming Democratic Chairman of the House Oversight Committee Robert Garcia, warning Trump and his team after Tuesday’s result to “lawyer up.”