Michigan Sen. Elissa Slotkin
Appearances
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Mike Waltz Leaves the Group Chat & Trump’s Town Hall Gets Racist | Sen. Elissa Slotkin
He is. He is Pete Hegseth.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Mike Waltz Leaves the Group Chat & Trump’s Town Hall Gets Racist | Sen. Elissa Slotkin
I mean, you know, I don't think anyone feels great about where we are right now.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Mike Waltz Leaves the Group Chat & Trump’s Town Hall Gets Racist | Sen. Elissa Slotkin
Yeah, he has four jobs now. And I think that... The truth is like there are some really serious international challenges and we just can't have the B team in here. We need serious people. And I think that Pete Hegseth should resign and is just not where we need to be.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Mike Waltz Leaves the Group Chat & Trump’s Town Hall Gets Racist | Sen. Elissa Slotkin
Well, Michiganders are very independently-minded people, as you know. I'm a Michigander. Yes, he's a Michigander, and we're very proud of him, right?
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Mike Waltz Leaves the Group Chat & Trump’s Town Hall Gets Racist | Sen. Elissa Slotkin
Yeah. And, you know, I think, so we're independently minded, but I think the two things that really came through in the last election was, one, it was a pocketbook election, right? People wanted someone who was going to put more money in their pocket. And then number two, if I can be frank, is a little harder to grab onto. It's like people are looking for a little alpha energy.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Mike Waltz Leaves the Group Chat & Trump’s Town Hall Gets Racist | Sen. Elissa Slotkin
And I think I had, like, a little bit more alpha energy than the average Dem, and I want us to get more alpha energy. Okay, okay.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Mike Waltz Leaves the Group Chat & Trump’s Town Hall Gets Racist | Sen. Elissa Slotkin
I just think well, okay, you're a Midwesterner and let me explain for those who are not Midwesterners like think of who we identify with as like our big leaders right right now.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Mike Waltz Leaves the Group Chat & Trump’s Town Hall Gets Racist | Sen. Elissa Slotkin
Most popular man in Michigan is the coach of the Lions right Dan Campbell and go lines and and he is just but he like he loves big he's tough with people but he like well hug you and give you know and cries eyes out with his guys do great like we want leadership right we're in a moment of crisis in the country and a moment of change as well.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Mike Waltz Leaves the Group Chat & Trump’s Town Hall Gets Racist | Sen. Elissa Slotkin
And so we want leaders who can, like, lead us through and light the tunnel so that we can get through this moment of our history. And that is, like, not a quiet, calm diplomat. You know, that is, like, let's go. And I think that is what Michiganders are looking for in their leaders in the state, but also across the country.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Mike Waltz Leaves the Group Chat & Trump’s Town Hall Gets Racist | Sen. Elissa Slotkin
It's actually what Michiganders said. There was a poll in February, and those were the words identified most with the Democratic brand.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Mike Waltz Leaves the Group Chat & Trump’s Town Hall Gets Racist | Sen. Elissa Slotkin
And I think that, you know, again, I don't think it's just Trump voters who want something different. I think our government is a 20th century government, and we're in the 21st century. It needs to change. No one loves our health care. No one loves how we do education. No one loves how our government works.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Mike Waltz Leaves the Group Chat & Trump’s Town Hall Gets Racist | Sen. Elissa Slotkin
So we need to change it, but we want responsible change, not reckless change, not just breaking stuff to break stuff.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Mike Waltz Leaves the Group Chat & Trump’s Town Hall Gets Racist | Sen. Elissa Slotkin
I think we need to hear that. And I think that Michiganders understand that, like, we can't stay the same. We can't look backwards. We have to look forward. But we want to know who that is. And I think the Democratic Party should be leading instead of just saying, no, no, no, status quo, status quo, don't change. No, embrace change. But, like, put your marker down on what you think should happen.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Mike Waltz Leaves the Group Chat & Trump’s Town Hall Gets Racist | Sen. Elissa Slotkin
Talk about how we need a stronger middle class in this country because it's shrinking. It is. Like, don't try to hide it. It is.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Mike Waltz Leaves the Group Chat & Trump’s Town Hall Gets Racist | Sen. Elissa Slotkin
So to me, that's like the vision piece. And then because I'm from the national security world, like at the Pentagon, you don't go to the bathroom without a plan, right? Like you're constantly planning.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Mike Waltz Leaves the Group Chat & Trump’s Town Hall Gets Racist | Sen. Elissa Slotkin
So I think, like, Democrats need a plan. And I've been in the Senate for, like, 112 or 15 days, and I got tired of waiting for someone else to do it. So I just, like, wrote a war plan, decamped with a bunch of my closest, like, friends and advisors, and wrote our best stab at what we should be doing as a country to push back on the threats to our economy and our democracy.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Mike Waltz Leaves the Group Chat & Trump’s Town Hall Gets Racist | Sen. Elissa Slotkin
I mean, yeah, look, I got the chance to give the response to the State of the Union and I made a choice to do that from Michigan. Because if I could give a speech that could work in Michigan and not turn me into a Saturday Night Live skit, then I thought I think it would work for the country.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Mike Waltz Leaves the Group Chat & Trump’s Town Hall Gets Racist | Sen. Elissa Slotkin
Like Michigan, I think, is a good bellwether, a good canary in the coal mine on what's going on, particularly on our economy right now. And so what all I can do is, like, take the lessons every single day from what is going on, no shit, no kidding, in my state.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Mike Waltz Leaves the Group Chat & Trump’s Town Hall Gets Racist | Sen. Elissa Slotkin
And then sort of express to people that I'm going to go fight for them and fight for my state. And that means a good thing for us, but a good thing for the country, too.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Mike Waltz Leaves the Group Chat & Trump’s Town Hall Gets Racist | Sen. Elissa Slotkin
I didn't say alpha male.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Mike Waltz Leaves the Group Chat & Trump’s Town Hall Gets Racist | Sen. Elissa Slotkin
But it's alpha. You don't have to be a male to be alpha energy.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Mike Waltz Leaves the Group Chat & Trump’s Town Hall Gets Racist | Sen. Elissa Slotkin
Well, that's what we have to do. I think there's no choice. And I think you're right that the attack ads and framing your enemy, your adversary is what happens in political campaigns. But like, suck it up, buttercup. We got to turn that around.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Mike Waltz Leaves the Group Chat & Trump’s Town Hall Gets Racist | Sen. Elissa Slotkin
Right? Like, you can't just let someone else define you. You have to say what you're about, not just what you're against. And I think Democrats, you know, what Trump is doing is unprecedented. And so we're on our heels. We're trying to figure out where to look first. So, you know, we got to understand that we have to have a plan to know where we're going as a group, right?
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Mike Waltz Leaves the Group Chat & Trump’s Town Hall Gets Racist | Sen. Elissa Slotkin
And stop turning our guns on each other as Democrats, right? Can we all agree that that, like, where the adversary is in this situation? So, you know, I think that is what we owe to the American people, actually.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Mike Waltz Leaves the Group Chat & Trump’s Town Hall Gets Racist | Sen. Elissa Slotkin
Yeah.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Mike Waltz Leaves the Group Chat & Trump’s Town Hall Gets Racist | Sen. Elissa Slotkin
Yeah. Well, Michigan, I think, is like uniquely positioned to be extremely vulnerable to these tariffs. One, because our manufacturing sector and how we've been working for a long time to build our supply chains with Canada, our neighbor, and then also our farming industry, right, who gets all the retaliation. What we're seeing right now is like peak uncertainty.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Mike Waltz Leaves the Group Chat & Trump’s Town Hall Gets Racist | Sen. Elissa Slotkin
People are just feeling like COVID times, like I don't know what to do. Do I invest? Do I not invest? Do I build that factory? Do I not build that factory? Do I expand? Do I make those orders? And right now, the first sort of like tip off we're seeing is cut down in like orders. So trucking is down, right? The number of hours our truck drivers are driving are going down.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Mike Waltz Leaves the Group Chat & Trump’s Town Hall Gets Racist | Sen. Elissa Slotkin
And I think that's just the start of this. And, you know, if you're lucky enough to be a bigger business, you can go cut a deal with the White House.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Mike Waltz Leaves the Group Chat & Trump’s Town Hall Gets Racist | Sen. Elissa Slotkin
He's created this unbelievable marketplace of like every country has to come to me, every industry. But if you're the small guy, the small business owner, the guy who owns a supermarket in my town, no one's cutting him a deal. And he's at risk of going under. So he's slow rolling us into a recession.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Mike Waltz Leaves the Group Chat & Trump’s Town Hall Gets Racist | Sen. Elissa Slotkin
And we need to be clear about that because he promised he was going to put more money in people's pockets. It's the opposite. It's the opposite.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Mike Waltz Leaves the Group Chat & Trump’s Town Hall Gets Racist | Sen. Elissa Slotkin
I think I would let them speak for themselves, but I think they're either going to be really right or really wrong.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Mike Waltz Leaves the Group Chat & Trump’s Town Hall Gets Racist | Sen. Elissa Slotkin
And I just don't have faith that there's some Wizard of Oz behind Donald Trump coming up with a grand plan that's going to make this all work. All I see every day is people are paying more for goods. Yeah. No plan on housing. More for energy. I mean, more, more, more, more, more.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Mike Waltz Leaves the Group Chat & Trump’s Town Hall Gets Racist | Sen. Elissa Slotkin
So if you're the guy who said you were going to actually bring money into their pockets, instead he's making you pay in every part of your life.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Mike Waltz Leaves the Group Chat & Trump’s Town Hall Gets Racist | Sen. Elissa Slotkin
It's weird to clap for that, by the way.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Mike Waltz Leaves the Group Chat & Trump’s Town Hall Gets Racist | Sen. Elissa Slotkin
Yeah. I think, look, I think part of what I worked on in this kind of war plan is if you're an activated person and you want to do something, do one of two things. Either go deep, particularly on an issue of democracy and corruption, because every single day he is threatening our democracy and he is like milking the cow of America as like a full time job. Right.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Mike Waltz Leaves the Group Chat & Trump’s Town Hall Gets Racist | Sen. Elissa Slotkin
Or go deep on the things that really affect people's pocketbooks. Right. So the economy, Social Security, health care, you know, VA benefits. So one of those two one of those two categories are, to me, the place where people should go deep. And you can't tune out. It's it feels comforting to stop reading the news and not be engaged.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Mike Waltz Leaves the Group Chat & Trump’s Town Hall Gets Racist | Sen. Elissa Slotkin
But I will just tell you, as I'm the youngest Democratic female senator right now and I wouldn't be here. Yeah. I just have to say, like, if previous generations had given up and been like, you know, it's really hard right now. Like, think of the women who fought for 100 years to allow me to get to this spot.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Mike Waltz Leaves the Group Chat & Trump’s Town Hall Gets Racist | Sen. Elissa Slotkin
Like, we don't have the right to tune out when previous generations fought and fought and fought. So I can do that.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Mike Waltz Leaves the Group Chat & Trump’s Town Hall Gets Racist | Sen. Elissa Slotkin
Trump derangement syndrome is stage five, no vaccine, no cure, no therapeutic.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Mike Waltz Leaves the Group Chat & Trump’s Town Hall Gets Racist | Sen. Elissa Slotkin
Safety concerns growing after another plane crash here in the U.S.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Mike Waltz Leaves the Group Chat & Trump’s Town Hall Gets Racist | Sen. Elissa Slotkin
You know, it's pretty good.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Mike Waltz Leaves the Group Chat & Trump’s Town Hall Gets Racist | Sen. Elissa Slotkin
Yeah, it's good.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Mike Waltz Leaves the Group Chat & Trump’s Town Hall Gets Racist | Sen. Elissa Slotkin
English would be fantastic.