Department of Emergency Medicine

Daniel Barkhuff, M.D., assistant professor of emergency medicine and founder of Veterans for Responsible Leadership

(May 15, 2024) In February 2024, Veterans for Responsible Leadership, a political action committee founded and led by Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine and U.S. Navy veteran Daniel Barkhuff, M.D., held an event called Constitutional Thresholds—billed as an “interactive and immersive tabletop exercise and war game”—in Palo Alto, California, and Washington, D.C., Seven Days reports.

The role-playing game—with players who have served at the highest levels of government, politics, and the U.S. military—explores the possibility that, should Donald Trump win the 2024 presidential election, the next president will have little to no regard for the U.S. Constitution or the rule of law. Given that Trump’s lawyers recently argued before the Supreme Court that he enjoys absolute “presidential immunity” for the “official acts” he undertook during the January 6, 2021, insurrection, this game seems all too real.

“We’re at an unprecedented, risky time in American politics,” Barkhuff said. “We’re walking this line of not wanting to be alarmist, but we kinda need to be.”

Barkhuff, a retired U.S. Navy SEAL who served multiple combat tours in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Africa, has enlisted the support of other veterans and never-Trump Republicans in an effort to prevent a second Trump presidency, which they see as an existential threat to U.S. democracy.

The Constitutional Thresholds simulation was notable for the high profiles of its participants. They included Miles Taylor, a chief of staff at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security during the Trump years; Charles Luckey, a retired lieutenant general in the U.S. Army; William Enyart, a retired adjutant general of the State of Illinois and former U.S. House member; Jean Galbraith, law professor and deputy dean of the University of Pennsylvania's Carey Law School; and George Conway, a lawyer, anti-Trump activist, and the husband of former senior Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway. Benjamin Radd, a lecturer of global studies, international and area studies, and political science at the University of California–Los Angeles, designed the simulation and served as its impartial gamekeeper.

What Barkhuff and his colleagues can’t prevent, they hope to prepare for. To that end, they’ve organized the tabletop exercises, a training tool commonly used in the military and civilian emergency services to game out true-to-life scenarios. Afterward, participants and observers debrief and assess the strengths and weaknesses of their response.

In response to concerns about even contemplating extreme abuse of power by a sitting president, Barkhuff acknowledged the merit of the criticism—under normal circumstances. “But these are not normal times, and exceptional times demand exceptions,” he said. “If the fact that I fought in wars makes me a credible messenger, I’m going to use it to be a credible messenger. This is for all the marbles.”

Several more war game sessions are planned for the months leading up to the 2024 presidential election.