Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) is facing formal ethics complaints and sharp criticism from President Trump after remarks she made at the University of Chicago last week about young people who might consider working in the Trump administration, according to reporting by the Chicago Thinker, the student publication that first surfaced the comments.
Slotkin was appearing at the university’s Institute of Politics for an on-stage interview with Vox editorial director Swati Sharma (the source does not identify the interviewer by name, referring only to “the editorial director of Vox”), a setting one account described as a friendly crowd on a predominantly liberal campus. During the conversation, she described what she hoped a Democratic victory in the Senate this November would accomplish.
What she said
According to the Chicago Thinker, Slotkin said she wants young people leaving school to weigh whether government service under Trump is worth the risk, and she described that as a deliberate goal.
“I want young people coming out of school to say, ‘Should I go work for the Trump administration? That sounds fun, I might get an opportunity.’ I want them to be like, ‘Lord, that might be buying myself a ton of problems that I don’t want, so let me avoid participating in that. I want that deterrence message sent,'” she said, in the account published by the student outlet.
The Thinker reported that its team was in the audience and published the remarks days later along with social media clips. Michael Bicksel, a University of Chicago student and senior editor at the paper, wrote the original story.
Slotkin’s response and the pushback
Slotkin has since said she meant that anyone in the Trump administration who breaks the law should be prosecuted — a position her critics concede is broadly uncontroversial. But the Thinker argues that reading doesn’t hold up against the fuller exchange, noting that the interviewer responded to her “deterrence message” line by suggesting opponents could be made “a pariah politically, socially, maybe even legally,” and that Slotkin nodded along.
In the days since, the senator has faced formal ethics complaints — with the Thinker predicting more to come — and condemnation from President Trump. She has also taken to the airwaves to dispute how her comments have been characterized and to cast herself as the target of an unfair pile-on.
The Thinker’s account is bluntly hostile to that framing, arguing that Slotkin walked into a sympathetic venue and said what she meant until conservatives in the room recorded it. That characterization comes from an opinion piece by the reporter who broke the story, not from neutral observers.
Other Democrats drawn in
The student outlet also points to fellow Democratic senators it says have backed Slotkin or escalated the rhetoric. It cites Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV) as taking Slotkin’s side, and reports that Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) threatened Mike Davis, founder and president of the Article III Project, after Davis responded to Slotkin’s remarks. According to the Thinker, Kelly said that “if we are still a country of laws, then the FBI director should have a couple of agents visit Mike Davis and ask him some questions.” Those quotes and characterizations have not been independently verified by this outlet.
The episode lands with the midterms roughly two weeks away, and the Thinker argues it offers a preview of how Democrats would treat not just Trump and his inner circle but younger staffers across government if they retake power. The piece also points to past investigations and prosecutions of Trump and his former officials as evidence of what it calls a partisan prosecutorial instinct.
Why it matters politically
The substance of the fight is narrower than the volume of the reaction suggests. Slotkin’s defenders say she was talking about accountability for lawbreakers. Her critics say the words “deterrence message,” delivered about young people considering a job in a specific administration, describe something else: making government service under a political opponent socially and professionally costly.
That distinction matters in a midterm cycle where both parties are competing for the votes of young people, including college students who make up a slice of the electorate in battleground states. For Republicans, the clip is a ready-made argument that Democrats want to punish conservatives for working in government. For Democrats, the risk is being pulled into a conversation about retribution at a moment when they would rather be talking about the economy and health care.
The Thinker closes by calling on Democratic officials and candidates to say whether they agree with Slotkin, and urging young conservatives not to be intimidated out of public service. Whether the story travels beyond conservative media — and whether Slotkin’s explanation satisfies the voters she needs in Michigan — will be settled in the final stretch before Election Day.
Source: www.dailywire.com — https://www.dailywire.com/news/we-broke-the-elissa-slotkin-witch-hunt-story-this-is-what-democrats-didnt-want-you-to-hear