Rep. Slotkin says it’s time to stop ‘playing defense on democracy’

U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin speaks in Traverse City, May 31, 2024 | Susan J. Demas

U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-Lansing) says that if she’s elected to the U.S. Senate this year, she wants to use her background as a former CIA and Defense Department official to build a proactive strategy on basic rights and democracy.

“I’m so sick of playing defense on democracy — waiting for the next shoe to drop, the next bad Supreme Court decision, the next horrible state law out of Texas,” Slotkin said at an environmental protection event in Traverse City on May 29.

In an interview with the Advance last month, Slotkin noted that conservatives had “a 50-year plan to get rid of the right to an abortion” and Democrats need to organize and develop a “10-year plan to get it back.

“I come from the Pentagon where you don’t go to the bathroom without strategic planning,” she said with a laugh. “It’s a place where you’re trained to constantly be thinking about the long game and how do we organize with all the interested stakeholders at the table to get to that goal.”

Slotkin noted that she’s 47, “which is young for the Senate” and added that “amazingly, if I’m elected, I’ll be the youngest Democratic woman in the Senate.” She said that she wants to change the way senators approach the job.

“I think that we’ve had amazing senators, but most of them were elected years and years before former President [Donald] Trump, before the polarization that’s come in the past six or eight years,” she said. “The whole world has changed around the Senate and the Senate needs to change with it. Most importantly, the Supreme Court has changed.”

The Advance talked to Slotkin before the U.S. Supreme Court this week ruled in Trump’s favor in the immunity case, but asked her what the implications would be if they reached such a decision.

“I think we have a much more strategic problem if that happens, because it says something not just about this president but about any president,” she said. “It seems to, in my mind, open up a situation where any president from any party can do whatever they want when they’re in office, and I have a problem with that. So, I think that would certainly, to me, rock the foundation of democracy more than a single conviction [of Trump] in a New York court.”

Slotkin said even people who have been “desensitized” to the threats to democracy may begin to ask: “If a Supreme Court that’s giving carte blanche to the next president, do I really want that to be Donald Trump?”

The three-term congresswoman who has represented parts of Mid-Michigan and Southeast Michigan, is running in the Aug. 6 Democratic primary against actor Hill Harper . Businessman Nasser Beydoun was disqualified from the ballot and has endorsed Harper.

The GOP primary features former U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers (R-White Lake), who has been endorsed by former President Donald Trump; former U.S. Rep. Justin Amash (I-Cascade Twp.), businessman Sandy Pensler and Dr. Sherry O’Donnell.

At the Traverse City campaign event, Slotkin sprinkled personal anecdotes between talking about efforts to protect the Great Lakes, combat PFAS and preserve farmland, as well as other issues including gun reform, the housing shortage and the economy.

“I work with some interesting characters and I know we all work with those people. We all have those people who’re like, ‘Oh my gosh, Crazy Jenny is back doing whatever she’s doing at the watercooler,’” she said, laughing. “When [U.S. Reps.] Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) or Lauren Bobert (R-Colo.) are one of your peers, it just brings a whole other level to that interesting coworker thing.”

In her interview with the Advance , Slotkin talked about the U.S. Senate campaign and carpetbagging claims, how important abortion right are this election, the Israel-Hamas war and where disinformation threats are stemming from. She was also asked about the presidential election, although the interview took place weeks before the first debate between Trump and President Joe Biden, whose performance has been widely criticized and sparked some calls for him to withdraw from the race.

The following are excerpts from the interview:

Michigan Advance: How will your campaign change now that it’s a two-person race in the primary instead of a three-way race?

Slotkin: I have been trying to focus on what I would do for Michigan. What I plan if I’m elected. I’ve put out things like my opportunity agenda, which are literally a report card you can grade me on, on what I want to do particularly for the city of Detroit and other cities in our state. I really don’t have an interest in getting into a nasty back-and-forth in a primary. I didn’t get into politics six years ago because I wanted to fight other Democrats. I got in because of extremism and dangerous ideology on the other side of the aisle. So, it’s not going to change a lot for me because I’m focused on what I want to do, not on attacking a primary opponent.

Michigan Advance: Democrats have accused Mike Rogers of carpetbagging , and that’s a charge that you got in both 2018 and 2022. Do you think it’s fair to question his residency and his commitment to Michigan?

Slotkin: I think that he wasn’t living here when he decided to run for Senate, and had a house in Florida and had been registered in places like Virginia. I think the voters are going to have to decide what they think of that. For me, it was absolutely true that I had been away for years after I graduated, serving in places like Iraq for three tours alongside the military, and serving in the CIA and the Pentagon. I think he had choices when he left in 2014 and where he wanted to live and make his life, and he made those choices. The voters are going to have to decide for themselves whether that matters to them.

Michigan Advance : Your former opponent, former state Sen. Tom Barrett (D-Charlotte), is running again for your House seat this year, and he said that he’s not as concerned about abortion being an issue because he’s not running against a woman this time [he’s running against former state Sen. Curtis Hertel (D-East Lansing)]. Do you think that abortion is as salient of an issue as it was in 2022 or do you think that Republicans are underestimating it?

Slotkin: I think the Republicans haven’t stopped for one minute trying to continue to go after a woman’s right to choose in different ways. And so, they shouldn’t be surprised that it’s still a salient issue because they’ve continued to go after it constantly. Getting rid of Roe was there going through the front door. They’ve got 10 things going on through the back door.

I’ve had to vote … against pro-life measures, I think in the past year, 10 times. They want to prohibit a right to the medication that performs an abortion. They want to prohibit women traveling for an abortion, and military women traveling for an abortion. They want to go after the personhood of an embryo, which is why IVF temporarily was banned in Alabama. That means things for contraception. They have not stopped, and because they haven’t stopped, it’s continued to be a salient issue.

To be honest, the people who are coming up to me and talking to me about this are not just women anymore. In the first days after Roe [fell], it was women. But the most common thing I hear is something that happened to me at the Detroit Airport maybe two months ago now, where a guy came up to me and he looked a lot like John Federman — kind of bald, beard, hoodie, shorts. So, I cannot tell whether he’s a Democrat, Republican. I have no idea how he votes, but I know he’s making a beeline for me, so I’m kind of girding myself for it. And this happens pretty regularly to me.

So, he comes up to me and he said, ‘Look, I wanted to shake your hand. … I’m a lifelong Republican, but I got three daughters. … And these guys are a mess, who knows what right they’ll take away next?’

That to me encapsulates what I’m hearing. That it’s not just that they went after Roe . It’s that in their chaos and in their hollowness on ideas and ideology, they are just firing bullets at anything related to rights and access. And it scares people because they don’t know what life will be like for their kids under that chaos. So, it’s not just choice; it’s the chaos that’s going on right now ideologically on that side of the aisle.

Michigan Advance: Polling released ahead of the Mackinac Policy Conference showed that less than half of Michigan voters strongly believe that democracy is the strongest form of government. And 17% said it doesn’t matter if our government is a democracy. How concerning is that for us as a country, and also in terms of our standing in global affairs?

Slotkin: That poll, I think was one of the most disturbing polls I’ve seen in the last six years of my elected life. It wasn’t about any one candidate; it was just about how people feel about their form of government. And in a multi-racial, multi-ethnic experiment, which is what our country is, you’ve got to have some core values. In my mind, believing in our system of government and in democracy is one of those core values, or at least should be.

… When I got to the conference, I was talking about it with some of the senior [Detroit Chamber of Commerce] people. We were all about to start this big three days of basically policy speed dating, so I think it kind of got lost in many ways in the activity of the conference, but that was a poll that sent a shiver down my spine more than most.

Michigan Advance: You talked at your event in Traverse City that it’s time to stop playing defense on democracy. What would your plan be?

Slotkin: … I think you need to organize. I come from the Pentagon where you don’t go to the bathroom without strategic planning. It’s a place where you’re trained to constantly be thinking about the long game and how do we organize with all the interested stakeholders at the table to get to that goal. That’s how you do operational planning; that’s how you do strategic planning. You do that in a war zone, you do that in a certain policy you’re trying to push in Washington. You’re constantly strategizing. You’re not just waiting for the next bad thing to happen. In national security, of course, around the world, there’s always going to be bad actors and something bad happening. So how do you organize?

In the world that I come from, you literally get all the stakeholders together around a table. That means people in government, people outside government who are organized around a certain topic, and you figure out what each stakeholder around the table, what their particular job is. The place where I see this most obviously not happening and where we desperately need it to happen is getting back to a federal right to an abortion.

We all know that … two years ago, Roe was overturned, and what a dramatic effect that’s had in our country. And states like Michigan have done the right thing and organized and tried to protect themselves where they can. But the truth is, we need a federal law that authorizes abortion. And if women in Indiana and … Texas and women around the country are in states that don’t happen to have an open-minded government, I’m not going to leave them behind. And the other side had a 50-year plan to get rid of a right to an abortion, so can’t we have a 10-year plan to get it back?

So I think, frankly, when I think about why I want to be in the Senate, it’s not just the power to legislate and the power to appropriate money, which are given by the Constitution. But it’s also the convening power of a U.S. senator, [being] one of 100, to bring all those stakeholders around the table. … It’s the convening power to put those strategies together to go on offense and not just wait for the next bad decision to happen.

Michigan Advance: Right now, Former President Trump is leading President Biden in most polls in Michigan. Why do you think that is?

Slotkin: I’m always a little cautious about polls in general. I think I’d take it with a grain of salt, especially this many months ahead. … But I think it’s no secret that the average Michigander isn’t super excited about a 2020 rematch. I think they’re kind of feeling unmotivated about both candidates. The supporters of Donald Trump, especially now after the conviction, are very fired up, so it doesn’t surprise me what we’re seeing in the polls. I just have to believe that as the election comes closer into focus, people will have to make a call. What goes on between now and the election will help push them in one direction or the other if they’re undecided. But I think what we’re seeing in these polls is a general lack of enthusiasm for that rematch, and I hear that.

Michigan Advance: How significant is it that Donald Trump was convicted on all felony charges on [May 30]?

Slotkin: Obviously, I think it was a sad moment for the country. I know that some people were celebrating. I didn’t feel celebratory. I think that it’s a sad thing and I’ve had to try and explain it to kids since the conviction. It’s just sad. We want presidents, whether they’re Democrat or Republican, to be respectable people, and a felony conviction doesn’t meet that in my mind.

Frankly — I don’t know why — I had been thinking about [former President] Jimmy Carter, who’s, I think, coming to the end here. And the the contrast between someone like a Jimmy Carter and a Donald Trump — whatever you thought of Jimmy Carter’s presidency — you can’t deny that he was a man of integrity. Anyways, it just made me sad more than anything.

I just don’t think it’s going to deeply affect many people’s views. I think if you really loved Donald Trump ahead of time, then you’re more likely to think that he’s been wrongly convicted. And if you didn’t like Donald Trump and you feel vindicated that a jury convicted him. And for that thin slice in the middle, I don’t know. I don’t know that that shocks them into voting for him or against him. So, I don’t know that it has this earthquake effect on the election, especially since we are many months out from the election itself.

Michigan Advance : Are you concerned that President Biden’s policy on the Israel-Hamas war could cause him to lose Michigan?

Slotkin: There’s definitely so much angst around this issue. I tell people, ‘You can’t overstate how it’s roiling the state of Michigan,’ because we have the large Arab, Muslim-American population. We also have a sizable Jewish population. It’s obviously going on our campuses and University of Michigan and now Wayne State. But also because Michigan is a place where we’re very integrated — where my parents’ local high school is literally half-Jewish, half-Muslim American that has off for Jewish high holidays and for Eid. We go to school together; we play on the same sports teams; we go to the same restaurants. We are integrated, so it’s even more personal when conflict like this comes up. And so many people in our state have personal connections to people in the Middle East, so it doesn’t surprise me how much this is roiling our state.

I certainly think that there’s going to be a lot of people who are not going to vote, and I’m sad about that because it makes me concerned about the future, particularly at the top of the ticket. But I’ve just talked to many, many people who say, ‘I can’t. I’m too hurt. I can’t do it.’ What I’ve been telling people, is you got to vote for your kids. Staying home or voting for a third party is a vote for Donald Trump at this point, just by the math based on what happened in 2016. But I definitely think it is a major issue for the state of Michigan, obviously, and then also for our potential election results.

Michigan Advance: You have extensive experience in Middle Eastern affairs between your time with the CIA and the Department of Defense. Do you think there needs to be any changes in President Biden’s policy in the Israel-Hamas war?

Slotkin: We need a negotiated ceasefire. The only way to start having a conversation about the day after and about anything related to the election is to start with a negotiated ceasefire. Obviously, we’ve had constant attempts to do that that haven’t worked since the temporary one back in November. I think even as recently as this week, Biden has been publicizing some of the details of the ceasefire negotiations in order to sort of force both sides to come back to the table and negotiate in earnest. I think that’s a positive role that we can play, but I think we need hostages back. No country would leave hostages there.

We need humanitarian assistance for people who desperately need food and water and medical supplies. I think all of those things can be true at the same time. I’m deeply affected by serving three tours in Iraq alongside the military and watching the United States make mistakes in our wars. Israel has the right to go after the perpetrators of the attack on Oct. 7, just like we went after bin Laden for a decade after he attacked us [on 9/11]. They have the right to go after the perpetrators. But often the way you prosecute a military operation means more than what actually results from that operation. I served in places like Ramadi, where we tried to bomb our way out of an ideology, and it just doesn’t work that way. So, look, I believe in Israel’s right to go after the perpetrators, the organizers, the funders, the suppliers, but what comes with that is also a responsibility to do better on civilian casualties.

Michigan Advance: What are the biggest disinformation threats this election, and where are they coming from?

Slotkin: That’s interesting. So, I think that we all had the experience, I think retroactively after 2016, of watching how Russian propaganda influenced the election. We know that Russians purchased ads on places like Facebook that created ads in support of Donald Trump and against Hillary Clinton. We know that there was propaganda that was put into our system. Honestly, I think right now what I watch most closely because I see it of course in my own accounts, is just the proliferation on platforms like X of bots. And individual accounts that are not there as good American citizens participating in open dialogue, but that are there to influence, to propagate misinformation, conspiracy theories, and a different form of warfare, frankly. So, that I think is just prolific on a platform like X.

… What I think is really interesting is that what we see is instead of trying to create their own content, let’s say folks who are emanating out of Russia. … Anytime there’s division among Americans, the bots swarm to exacerbate that, to highlight that, to make it seem extremely prevalent where it might not be. They are exploiting our own differences against us, and that’s a well-worn tactic going back to the Cold War, but they would do it through newspapers and through other means. Now, it’s just with a click of a button, you can take honest differences between Americans and make it sound like we’re at each other’s throats constantly. It creates fear, and that fear makes people go to their corners politically. So, I think to me, that’s probably the most vulnerable place is this use of bots to exacerbate divisions between Americans.

Michigan Advance: Is China a factor?

Slotkin: So we do see similar type of activity coming out of China. I think the Russia example, it’s much more connected to leadership in Russia. I think we saw years ago how these groups are basically loosely, there’s just these farms where, internet farms where they are loosely tied to the Russian government. I think that we don’t see as much of those ties with the Chinese, but there’s definitely actors. And not just from those two countries obviously, but definitely actors in both Russia and China that are using our open internet, our open system, to exploit the differences between us and make us look like we’re a mess — more a mess than we might actually be. That’s, to me, dangerous.

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U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin speaks in Traverse City, May 31, 2024 | Susan J. Demas

U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin speaks in Traverse City, May 31, 2024 | Susan J. Demas

U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin speaks in Traverse City, May 31, 2024 | Susan J. Demas

U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin speaks in Traverse City, May 31, 2024 | Susan J. Demas

U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin speaks in Traverse City, May 31, 2024 | Susan J. Demas

U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin speaks in Traverse City, May 31, 2024 | Susan J. Demas

U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin speaks in Traverse City, May 31, 2024 | Susan J. Demas

U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin speaks in Traverse City, May 31, 2024 | Susan J. Demas

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