David Remnick: When Elissa Slotkin narrowly won her Senate seat in Michigan last fall, she was one of four Democratic senators to claim victory in states that also voted for President Trump. It made other Democrats sit up and take some notice. Since then, the party has turned to her as someone who can bridge the red-blue divide. She delivered the Democratic Party's response to Trump's speech before Congress back in March. So the party is putting Slotkin front and center, but she's also giving the Democrats a dose of tough love. She thinks that they need to start projecting what she calls alpha energy. She said identity politics needs to go the way of the dodo, and that Democrats should drop the word oligarchy from their playbook. Senator Slotkin prides herself on bipartisanship. She believes that finding a path forward for the Democrats absolutely demands old school collaboration in Congress.

Elissa Slotkin: For me, as someone who's new to this body, 30 days in this body, I will always seek to work where I can with my colleagues, but not at the expense of the fundamental freedoms and our democracy. That may not be politically palatable back home, but I don't care. Because if we can't do it, what is the point? What is the point of being senior elected leaders in this body if you don't stand up for the country that you love? There's no king in this country. There's an elected president. Please stand up on behalf of your country.

David Remnick: I spoke to Elissa Slotkin last week. Senator, you won the Michigan Senate seat in a state that voted for Donald Trump. Given your own track record, what do you think those voters saw in both you and the person they voted for for president?

Elissa Slotkin: Well, you know, I think the way that I've boiled it down is basically two things. Number one, I focused pretty religiously on economic issues. I mean, the vast majority of my TV ads and my mailers and my digital stuff was about pocketbook issues in one way or another. I think there was a question about Democrats in general and what their priorities were and if their priorities were actually lowering costs. Then the second thing is a little bit more ephemeral. It's harder to grab. That's just kind of an alpha energy thing, right?

I mean, I think people are looking for leadership and to lead through the dark tunnel into the light of a very complicated time in our country's history. They want a little alpha. That's not a male, female thing. That's just a leadership thing. I obviously have major disagreements with the way Trump leads, but I don't think most people would deny he's got alpha energy. For me, especially going into communities, in order to win and represent my state, I've got to go into very conservative, very red areas, very Republican areas. My whole strategy is lose better in red areas. Go in and meet enough people and surprise enough people that you peel away some of those voters and you lose better, with 41% of the vote instead of 35% of the vote in a certain county or an area.

I think part of that is, it's not about your policy papers that you write on your website. It's not about wonky stuff. It's just, do they get the leadership vibe from you? I think I had a few more ounces of that than maybe the average Democrat, and it helped me in some of those areas where Democrats kind of lost pretty big.

David Remnick: Just to be clear and not to make a stereotype of anybody's position, is what you're saying that if you stray from issues like high prices, just economic issues, bread and butter issues, that if you start talking about democracy, if you start talking about oligarchy or all the other issues, or even corruption, when it comes to Donald Trump, that in a place like Michigan, you're going to fail?

Elissa Slotkin: Well, I think you have-- we can walk and chew gum, right? I think there is no way I would ever say with what Donald Trump is doing to roll back our democracy, that we shouldn't be watching those issues and activated on those issues. We should. As someone who's been in national service my whole life, that's what we're trying to do here, is preserve our democracy, but I think if you're only doing that and not speaking to people who are really struggling to pay their bills, you're just having half a conversation. In Michigan in general, if you're not talking about the economy, you are literally having half a conversation.

I've had someone say to me like, "I can't pay for my kid to go to summer camp with democracy." So it's not that people don't care. They do, but if you're working two jobs and have crappy health insurance, it's just not the thing that's keeping you up at night. I have made this very plain, that Democrats can do more than one thing, but in my part of the world, you've got to speak from people's pocketbooks and their kids as a first place to go.

David Remnick: Do you think that Kamala Harris failed to address economic issues?

Elissa Slotkin: Well, look, she had what? 100 days, something very, very short, but I think what ended up happening is people couldn't tell what our priorities were at the highest levels. There were so many priorities that there were no priorities. Again, I have no love for Donald Trump, but he just really made it an election about your pocketbook, and every yard sign, everything he did was just focused on that. So people said, "Well, look, I don't really like everything he has to say, but I want more money in my pocket. I'm going to vote for the person who's going to put more money in my pocket.

David Remnick: More than anything. More than immigration even.

Elissa Slotkin: For sure.

David Remnick: Yes.

Elissa Slotkin: Yes, of course, immigration is an issue that polarizes a lot of people, activates a lot of people, but even if you look back, the way that Trump and Vance were talking about immigration was also as an economic issue. Vance made this false claim that immigration was why housing was so expensive.

Vance: In Springfield, Ohio, and in communities all across this country, you've got schools that are overwhelmed, you've got hospitals that are overwhelmed, you have got housing that is totally unaffordable because we brought in millions of illegal immigrants to compete with Americans for scarce homes.

Elissa Slotkin: You couldn't get a house that you could afford because of immigration. It's a false story. They were turning immigration into an economic issue because that was the lead foot, certainly at the end.

David Remnick: Senator, a number of your colleagues have come on our show recently, Cory Booker, Chris Murphy, John Fetterman, very different Democrats in temperament and sometimes ideology. They've said, and they've spoken to the subject of what the Democrats have gotten wrong both immediately and recently in the recent years. I'd like to hear from you what you think the Democrats should be doing right. You said they need, as you said in more expurgated terms here, "the goddamn alpha energy of Detroit Lions coach Dan Campbell." Explain to non NFL fans what this means and what it means more generally.

Elissa Slotkin: Sure. Well, look, I think, to be honest, that kind of coach Persona is exactly what I'm talking about, Dan or otherwise. You've got to play defense with muscle. Right now, Lord knows, with Trump having the House, the Senate, and the White House, we should be playing a more muscular defense. We should be organized and standing up in a more deliberate and forceful way, more strategic way. We should be separating, like, I'm sorry, the issues of Greenland are not where we need to be losing our minds. We need to be focusing on the things, again, that are deeply affecting our economic security, our national security, and our democracy.

We should be playing much more robust defense, but then we should be playing offense. You've got to offer something to beat the other guy, right? For me, I've been toying with this idea of giving a talk sometime later this month that I just called Slaughtering Sacred Cows. That we as Democrats need to also realize that while certainly people who voted for Donald Trump wanted change from their government, that actually, a lot of people don't think the government is working for them. A lot of them want government to change. We have a 20th century government and it's the 21st century.

David Remnick: What sacred cows would you slaughter?

Elissa Slotkin: For example, to me, I think we need to be honest that while many regulations are done from goodness, we want to protect our environment. We want to protect public health. When you overlap 20 different regulations so that it becomes impossible to get a permit to build a manufacturing site for 15 years, then we've lost the forest for the trees. I am 100% willing to have a real conversation about peeling back regulation. I don't want to hurt the environment or all these other things that we care about, but my farmers, they've been responsible, good actors for 25 years, right?

They get evaluated on how they climb ladders. I'm like, "What? Do you do it ass backwards? How do you go up a ladder?" What I'm seeing is we have overregulated to the point of not being able to get our dollars out. Look, I think about this for things that are very much important democratic agenda items that we've gotten in our own way by making so many rules and regulations that you can't actually move quickly and show that democracy and government can work.

David Remnick: Regulation or overregulation is one sacred cow that needs slaughtering, in your view. What other sacred cows should be brought to the butcher?

Elissa Slotkin: Let's take one that's fundamental to who we are as Americans. Immigration, right? Everyone knows our immigration policy is broken. Is there a single person in this country who thinks our immigration system is working? It's not working for the immigrants. It's not working for employers. It's not working for the economy. We need more, actually, immigrants, in order for our economy to be completely unleashed, we need a legal, vetted way to get people in. For years, people have been talking about comprehensive immigration reform. That we can't do a deal, Democrats and Republicans, unless we get everything.

David Remnick: In fairness, there was a bill that was sunk by the Republican party.

Elissa Slotkin: 100%, right?

David Remnick: Yes.

Elissa Slotkin: Everybody has blame to go around on this issue. My thing is, you know what? It's so broken, I'll take incremental immigration reform. I will take-- I don't have to make it all work out in a perfect plan. I will just double the caps of every legal visa category today. I'll work with anybody who's willing to do that because we need more legal, vetted immigrants coming here, working here, building their lives here. To me, that is controversial. I'm going to get some emails about that statement. Okay?

David Remnick: Right.

Elissa Slotkin: I think we need to be willing to say that not everything can be perfect in this world. I'll take some change rather than no change and waiting for the perfect to be the enemy of the good.

David Remnick: I'm speaking with freshman senator, Elissa Slotkin, of Michigan. This is The New Yorker Radio Hour, with more to come.

[music]

Elissa Slotkin: This is The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick, and I've been speaking today with Senator Elissa Slotkin, a Democrat of Michigan. The word oligarchy describes the concentration of political power by the ultra wealthy. Many Democrats these days are using the term to critique how Donald Trump has transformed Washington, not to mention the influence of Elon Musk, but Elissa Slotkin has taken issue with the term. We'll continue our conversation now. Senator, your fellow Democrats, Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, are now on a national tour called the Fighting Oligarchy Tour. It's drawing big crowds in the tens of thousands. You have said at the same time that Democrats ought to stop using the word oligarchy. Why? What's your difference either in style or opinion with that?

Elissa Slotkin: It was literally just the word. My dad asked me what it meant and then a bunch of other people asked me what it meant. That's it. It's just a word. Just say we have no king or whatever you want to say. I think actually it says a lot more about the state of the Democratic Party that we are arguing about a word [crosstalk]

David Remnick: Not to put too fine a point on it, but oligarchy means something other than not just having a king. It means not elevating Elon Musk or other billionaires to a degree of such power that they're interacting with government in a way that leaves the rest of us relatively impoverished by comparison.

Elissa Slotkin: I'm in full support, good energy at the rallies. As I said, the base.

David Remnick: So it's the word.

Elissa Slotkin: It's literally a word. I know the media likes to get seams between Democrats. It's the word, and that people were asking me what it meant. Can we just reframe the-- Just say what you said.

David Remnick: Bernie Sanders responded to your criticism recently on NBC saying that you think the American people are dumb.

Bernie Sanders: I think the American people are not quite as dumb as Ms. Slotkin thinks they are. I think they understand very well, when the top 1% owns more wealth than the bottom 90%, when big money interests are able to control both political parties, they are living in an oligarchy.

David Remnick: What's your response to him?

Elissa Slotkin: I think that as someone who just won on the same ballot with Donald Trump, as someone who represents a very independently minded swing state, as someone whose dad asked her what the word mean, I don't think people are dumb. I just think the Democratic Party can speak in plain English and be more effective.

David Remnick: Fair enough. You were in Iraq for the CIA, and just days ago, the Trump administration decided on some big cuts at the agency, around 1200 people. What do you think of that?

Elissa Slotkin: I think in general, I agree with this premise that we need to change the government. I worked in the government my entire life. I ran a big office at the Pentagon. If you had said to me, "Hey, we've got to take an 8% cut," I know exactly where I'd cut. This idea that there's no fat on the bone is not accurate. I'm sorry, it's just not true. What I cannot subscribe to is the completely reckless way they're going about this. Absurd things like sticking everyone's job name into an AI powered algorithm, and cutting out anyone who had the word diversity, including energy diversity, you know what I mean?

Stupid stuff like that, but then stuff that literally keeps people safe every day. People who are testing water, people who are looking at national threats. We need responsible change, not reckless change. What this guy is-- firing people on a Friday, including my own family members, and then rehiring them three weeks later because you made a mistake, any CEO in America would be fired for that, and they're just being sloppy about it.

David Remnick: Tell me about your family members. Who was fired?

Elissa Slotkin: My stepbrother was fired. He just had started after 25 years working in his State, he had just taken a new job as a supervisor at a federal agency. Because he was last in and had not even been there for a year, they fired him. Then he started looking for another job. He was talking to people, he'd been in that business many years. Then three weeks later, they gave him full back pay and brought him back. It was only out of his dedication to the people who were working for him that he walked back into that place, but come on, no company in America runs that way. That is just sloppy and completely astrategic. That's what he's doing across the government, including on positions that protect people from harm.

David Remnick: Do you view Donald Trump as a boon to or a threat to national security?

Elissa Slotkin: I think that many of his policies make us extremely vulnerable to threats coming from abroad and then internal threats. I think, honestly--

David Remnick: Explain that specifically, if you don't mind.

Elissa Slotkin: Sure. I think he sort of made a hobby out of kicking our allies in the teeth and cozying up to our adversaries. He's gone hostile against people who we actually work with every single day in the intelligence community. We share threat information. We tell each other about a terrorist plot that's underway in each other's countries, people we work with every single day.

David Remnick: You're talking about the Europeans, the Canadians, Australians.

Elissa Slotkin: Not just our English-speaking cousins, lots of other countries.

David Remnick: Sure.

Elissa Slotkin: I've seen in my time countries flag for us that there's a terrorist threat that starts in the Middle East but is going through servers in Europe that's targeting stuff in the United States. Because we're allies, they flag for our law enforcement and our intelligence community, "This is going on," and we work with them to shut it down, every single day. I can give you stories about how in a globalized world, we need friends to keep ourselves safe every single day.

David Remnick: Can you be specific about the way that's changed since January 20th?

Elissa Slotkin: Well, first of all, I think that because he's cozying up to adversaries, because information has been leaked, intelligence has been leaked, because it's unclear what the Trump administration's relationship is with the Russians, for instance. I know that there are countries who are hesitant to be as open armed about their sharing as they were in previous years under Democrat and Republican administrations. There's definitely, I think, a concern.

David Remnick: At what point do you think that at least some, at Least some of the constituents that voted for both you and Donald Trump will say, "You know what? I have lost faith in Donald Trump. I feel betrayed by Donald Trump. Donald Trump maybe didn't mean what he said when he said he was going to make life better for me. Instead he's made life better for what Bernie Sanders would call millionaires and billionaires."

Elissa Slotkin: I think there's some people who have already started in the privacy of their own homes to think about that. I think there are die-hards who are going to be with him because they think that he's wizard of Oz behind the curtain, and there's some grand plan. What was interesting to me was actually a couple of weeks ago, I was pumping gas at a gas station and the truck next to me had a Trump sticker on it. The guys pumping gas next to me were throwing trash in the trash can and everything. They said, "Oh, we recognize you, and we know who you are," and everything. They were still definitely pro Trump guys. It's Michigan, so we get along. It's still very cordial and respectful.

We kind of ended the conversation, I'm still pumping my gas. They came back around and one of them said, "I will say I voted for more money in my pocket, not this yo-yo shit on tariffs." That to me, again, if there's an election tomorrow, does that guy continue to vote for Trump? Maybe, but they're voicing to a Democrat at a gas station.

David Remnick: Wait a minute. Why is he still going to vote for Trump if it doesn't help him economically, which you're saying is the singular topic, the singular issue for those voters? What makes those voters continue to support Donald Trump if they're feeling betrayed in the most important way?

Elissa Slotkin: They would say it's too soon to tell. They would say, "I still think that there's a grace period," and a lot of my guys who are union members will tell me like, "There's a grand plan." "You can't figure out a grand plan, Elissa, in 100 days," they would say to me. I think that we're in this wait and see kind of period, and he's going to have to own his policies. By the way, Democrats are going to have to make him own his policies. This is what I'm talking about, about having a stronger defense as well as an offense. We need to show people what the Trump administration is doing and make it real to them. We can't speak in percentages, and we can't speak in talking points.

David Remnick: One of the areas where you've been very critical of the Democratic Party in general is identity politics. You said that identity politics needs to go the way of the dodo. You said that on NBC. Tell me more about that. What do you mean precisely about that?

Elissa Slotkin: Again, this is about priorities. If people hear us talking about identity issues 80% of our time and the economy 20% of the time, that's just not where the public is in a state like mine, that's just not. It's not that people don't have sympathy. I grew up in a gay home. My mom came out in suburban Detroit in 1986. We hid it. I got all the way through high school without anyone knowing. It was a different time. You're not going to find someone who feels more strongly about gay rights and about-- She died before gay marriage was legal. I went through the pain of the hospital having to allow her partner to make decisions even though they weren't legally married.

It's not that those aren't important issues. It's just when you are trying to speak to people, you need to speak to their broadest sense of needs, and that they need to understand that your priorities are their priorities. That is what I mean, is when you lead with the identity politics, it's like you're missing what 80% of at least my people are talking about.

David Remnick: You said that Pete Hegseth, Secretary of Defense, should man up and resign. Pete Hegseth went before a Senate committee, and some of the Republicans, Joni Ernst being one of them, knew pretty darn well about the level of, I don't know, foolishness, all the flaws that we know only too well, and yet voted for him. This carried through with any number of other appointees. This is an administration dominated by people who are, above all, obedient. Obedient. That's the quality they seem to share most of all. How do you talk to your Republican colleagues about that, especially since you're a great believer in bipartisanship?

Elissa Slotkin: Yes. Well, look, even-- I just finished a hearing for some Department of Defense nominees, and I was in the elevator with a Republican colleague who had gone before me. I said, "I disagree with pretty much everything you said in your question." You know that what he's saying is BS, you know, right? It's like a tap dance, and then, frankly, for some of them, "Look, I want a seat at the table," is literally what one of them told me.

David Remnick: Why? Why is it so great to have a seat at a table that you don't believe in?

Elissa Slotkin: You're really going to have to ask them. I think, look, I remember a moment early in my tenure as an elected representative, 2019, I had just gotten elected in 2018 representing a Trump voting district. The minute I get to Congress, everyone's talking about impeaching Trump, impeaching Trump. I knew that if I said, "Okay, yes, let's go and impeach Trump," I was going to be a one-term congresswoman. I understood that. There'd be a push, a push, and a number of us would push back. In the fall of 2019, that's when we first got reporting that the President had told Zelensky, "Unless you give me dirt on Joe Biden, I'm going to stop your weapons and helping you and supporting you."

For me and a number of others, it just was beyond the pale. I had to say to myself over the course of a weekend, like, "Yes, I'll probably lose my next election, but I have to be able to look myself in the mirror in my life." We wrote an op-ed, a group of us, we were all service and veteran folks saying, "You know what, we may lose our seats, but this is just beyond the pale." We did it. I did these town halls. I had 500 people at a time heckling me and screaming at me and very, very unhappy, but it was the best lesson I could ever learn as a new elected official.

Risk your job in your first year because, number one, you're liberated, right? You can do what you need to do, what you think is right. Number two, actually, I had people coming up to me, a lot of Trump voters who would say to me, excuse my French, in the airport, they'd be like, "Look, I don't really like you, I don't really like your party, but I saw you did that, you did those town halls and that took balls." It was some respect for risking your job, which is just a thing that's not done a lot in politics. You're going to have to talk to them, but I will just say, again, history is not going to judge those folks well, who knew better, but protected him.

David Remnick: Senator Slotkin, I know you have a vote and I will leave you to it. Thank you so much for your time.

Elissa Slotkin: Thank you. Appreciate being here.

David Remnick: Elissa Slotkin was elected to the Senate from Michigan in 2024, and before that she served in Congress from a district around Lansing.

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