Colin Seeberger: Hey everyone, welcome back to “The Tent,” your place for politics, policy, and progress. I’m Colin Seeberger. I hope all of you are looking forward to the July 4 holiday weekend. I know I sure am.
Last week, Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D) of Michigan paid a visit to the Center for American Progress Action Fund, where she talked about her plan for Democrats to meet the urgency of this moment. As you will recall, she was first elected to the House of Representatives in 2018, during the first set of midterms after President Trump’s first inauguration, and she won her race for Senate in 2024 in a state that voted for Donald Trump again. She reflected about the lessons she’s learned since then and the economic and narrative playbook she’s putting together for Democrats to fight back against Republicans’ attacks.
We loved the conversation so much we wanted to share it with you, as well as a conversation that Sen. Slotkin had with CAP Action CEO Neera Tanden. I hope you enjoy.
Neera Tanden: I guess I’ll start off with the last point that you made about political reform and the moment we’re in. So we’ve never seen an administration like this, where one day we’re discussing a Qatari jet that could be essentially gifted to the administration.
But I also think that when we are concerned about public outrage, there is a perception that the system is corrupt, which in some ways insulates criticism of White House. Your economic war plan focuses on addressing the core economic challenges, but I’d love to have you talk a little bit more about public distrust, concerns about corruption, and then how that makes it harder or easier to address economic challenges.
Sen. Elissa Slotkin: I mean, I think you’re right. And it’s hard to hear with everything that’s going on in the White House, but people back home in Michigan perceive the system is corrupt.
Everybody’s a mess. And to the point where sometimes you’ll say, “Look, the president of the United States is turning the White House into a milking cow that he’s using for his own purposes.” And they’re like, “Yeah, but the whole thing’s corrupt,” right? It deflates criticism because there’s this expectation at this point that politicians rig the system for themselves. And I think that you have to have a radical package of ethics and money reform in order to even start to right that ship. And I think sometimes it surprises people because I tend to be more on the pragmatic side. I had decided originally, in my first campaign, I wasn’t going to take corporate money, and in all, I did the bill to ban stock trading and all that stuff.
But I never want someone to question why I am voting for something, right? So I think it undergirds every vote. Why is this happening? Why is this elected official—is it really because they’re trying to protect me? Or is it because they’re trying to insulate some industry that’s given them a big check?
So I think until we do that, we can have strong proposals—and we should—but there’s always going to be this lingering question. And so, sometimes in this town—more often than not, lately—sometimes you get the left and the right agreeing on things. It’s kind of like the political spectrum meets around the back.
Yeah. And I think on campaign finance reform, on ethics reform, it would be really powerful if we could ever get to that point. And if there’s ever a president who’s going to force us there, it might be this one.
Tanden: Great. And then to follow up on some of the points you made, I would just ask how you see the current debate.
You talked a little bit about reconciliation and some of the impact of the cuts on health care for working-class people. But in a world in which it feels like we’re moving backward on costs, how do you see the opportunity to advance on something like health care costs?
Slotkin: Well this is why it’s extremely important to understand and focus ourselves as Democrats, as Americans, on this issue of the economy and of cost because this is what the president ran on. This is the lead foot in any pushback on him. A Qatari jet, we can talk about that all day long, but what he’s doing is distracting us from talking about the very thing he ran on, which he said he was going to put more money in people’s pockets.
Slotkin: And in every single category—your groceries, your insurance, your utility bill—go down the list of how a family does their budget, and he’s making them pay more, not less. And we should be relentlessly talking about that.
Slotkin: And I think that’s what happens when we don’t have a plan that we cohere around, is that everyone talks about the thing they think is really important, which is fine—
Slotkin: —except you do need to convey who we are to the rest of the country.
And to me, that’s why the economy and costs are kind of essential, but they’re also a unifying factor for whether you’re a moderate or progressive or anything in between.
Tanden: Right. And I’d like to just drill down even more on that. Because what’s interesting about the first six months—although of course you could be confused to think it’s six years—but in the first six months of this administration, which is very different from the first administration, if you look across issues, you talked about the broad tariff policy and rising costs. The reconciliation package will make, as you noted, health care more inaccessible and expensive, not just for people on Medicaid but for everyone else.
In a weird way, the administration, it’s not that they’re not talking about these policies; it’s that the burden of their policies are disproportionately on working-class people.
Tanden: I mean, they tried with the ACA [Affordable Care Act], but that didn’t actually succeed. And their first tax plan in the first administration was just a tax cut plan. It didn’t raise costs for anyone. So, I guess, what is your analysis of what we should be doing on that contrast point?
Slotkin: I mean, again, I think the president has long been very good at saying one thing and doing another, and then not having accountability for what he’s actually done. And so it’s our job to expose that accountability. And because I am an analyst by training, I went back and thought about the first administration and what was the single best success Democrats had in his first term, where we absolutely obliterated a signature goal for him. It was on pushing back on him repealing the ACA, or Obamacare.
Slotkin: He put it out there, he ran on it, he celebrated it, he did rallies on it. Then he got into office, and he talked about it obsessively for the first six months. He made the House of Representatives actually vote to repeal it. And it was because John McCain (D-AZ) came in and did the big thumbs down. But why had the mood shifted in the country so much that John McCain could vote against his party and vote it down?
We had done just a massive education campaign in rallies and op-eds and grassroots work to explain to that voter, that citizen who actually doesn’t really watch the news a lot, who doesn’t think politics has anything to do with them. They suddenly were like, “Wait a minute, you’re going to take away my health care? Wait a minute, I have a preexisting condition and you’re going to make it so that I can get charged more? My kids can’t stay on my health insurance until they’re 26?” Suddenly, we went to that middle group of voters that decide elections and decide a lot of public opinion, and they shifted. And he could not achieve the goals—to the point where he knows now that he can’t talk openly about cutting your health care. He has to hide it.
So that to me is the model for—if you want to be effective—and we all want to be effective—if we want to be effective at pushing back on him, that is the model. He’s a populist. So when you turn the public against his ideas—and that’s what’s going on—I think right now we’re trying to educate on Medicaid and on SNAP [the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program] and all these things, that doesn’t mean we always have the angle, right? But that, to me, is the playbook for how you push back in this term.
Tanden: And I think he probably learned some lessons because he talks about reconciliation a lot less than he talked about ACA. In fact, he spends a lot of time talking about other things. But, I mean, we’d note that the popularity of reconciliation is approaching the popularity of ACA repeal.
I’m going to ask a question. You said you talked about analysis, and people should get their questions ready. I’ll go to audience questions soon. But I guess a question that I struggle with a lot and just really welcome your analysis is to figure out where to go, we need to understand where we came from.
And there was an agenda over the last couple of years to invest in America, to pass legislation that would create jobs. Seventy percent of the jobs created from the IRA [Inflation Reduction Act] bill—CHIPS, IRA infrastructure legislation would go to people who don’t have a college degree. Many of those jobs were consciously focused on places that have been left behind.
And it didn’t seem to resonate over the last couple of years. So I guess I’d ask you, what’s your analysis of that? Was it that it wasn’t well communicated? Are the ideas wrong? You talked about industrial policy, that this was an industrial policy. Is that insufficient? There’s cost of living to like an overwhelming issue. What’s your analysis?
Slotkin: Yeah. I think there was a lot of important things that got done. I mean, I voted for them, right? But I think we now have to understand that we live in an era where, if a tree falls in the woods, if you do an important policy, but people can’t see it and feel it and smell it and understand where it came from, then don’t expect credit.
Slotkin: And I think this is what we have to grapple with also as Democrats, right? We passed really important legislation, but how much of that money got out? Why didn’t it get out? I come from a state, obviously, where a very topical issue is electric vehicles.
Slotkin: And if you vote on a lot of money to get charging stations all over the state, but you still can’t drive up north in Michigan on an electric vehicle easily, well, then people don’t see it. They don’t feel it.
So I think people feel like the federal government has become so slow and lumbering, at best, that it can’t meet their needs. And if they’re not—like I said, if they’re not doing the basics and making it easy to get into and stay in the middle class, then they’re not real excited about your new-fangled thing. Because they feel like, “What’s the point? OK, great, you did this, but I can’t save enough money to send my kid to summer camp.”
Slotkin: So you have to get the basics right first, and then you’ve got to message.
Tanden: Right. And then also, on cost of living, we had an election in New York City. Assembly Member [Zohran] Mamdani (D) won the election, had a lot of people come out and vote for him.
I guess I just wanted to ask your perspective. He focused a lot on cost-of-living issues. How do you see the election results?
Slotkin: I mean, I will admit to not being a huge student of New York City politics. But I think that what I can take from it, the message that came across loud and clear to me, was number one, people—just like in November—are still really focused on costs and the economy and their own kitchen table math, and they’re looking for a new generation of leadership. Those were, to me, the two big takeaways. And I think this is why, again, it reinforces for me: We may disagree on some key issues, but understanding that people are concerned about their family budget, that is a unifying thing for a coalition. So I think the message, at least for me, was clear.
Tanden: And then just to follow on that, there’s a rich debate in the Democratic Party around fighting versus conciliation. I mean, I’m not sure what the right term for the opposition of that is. And then there’s ideological debates. And I guess to me, I think that sometimes people confuse the two, fighting versus an ideological debate. Because you see lots of people who are out there trying to fight, who—some are moderate, some are really progressive.
I guess I would ask you just at a broad level, what do you think of those debates, and how do you describe yourself in the kind of fighter, nonfighter ideology, et cetera?
Slotkin: So I would say—I’m coming up on six months that I’ve been in the Senate, and my hot take is that we no longer divide along progressive versus moderate lines. I think that’s very 2017, that debate. I think the debate is how do you answer one single existential question: Is the second Trump administration an existential threat to democracy, or is the second Trump administration bad but, kind like the first Trump administration, survivable if we just wait it out?
And how you answer that question puts you in one camp or the other. And I serve with people who are like, “This is existential. He’s threatening the very bones of our democracy.” That’s the camp I fall into. And then—
Tanden: I was going to ask.
Slotkin: Yeah, that’s my camp. That’s the camp. I think that is the camp.
But then there’s a lot, a lot, of people, Democrats, who are like, “We just got to wait for him to overplay his hand, and the people will turn on him.” And so it’s mixing up like a mixing bowl these labels of progressive, moderate, whatever. That’s less relevant. It’s fight or flight.
And so I think that is more what I see. And I think we are churning behind closed doors to figure out which camp is going to win. But I also just want to say, I can’t put out a war plan without noting that in order to actually execute, coming from the Pentagon, the Marines need to talk to the Army. The Navy needs to be in touch with the Air Force.
Democrats are very disparate. We’re like a solar system with no sun. We got a lot of planets, some with their own gravitational pull. We got a lot of stars. But there’s not enough cohering us. And you can’t retake the town of Mosul without a plan, but then also a coordinated effort by all parties to specialize and do things. Everyone has a different role to play. Right?
Slotkin: The infantry is different from the air cover, but you work as a team.
And I think this is what is the second part of my concern, is that we don’t act as a team. And when we do that, when we don’t work as a team, we turn our guns on each other. And it’s so, so, so fruitless.
Tanden: Yeah. 100 percent agree. Definitely would like to have the guns outward instead of inward.
Tanden: I think we’re going to go to questions from the audience. I have a few here, and some reporters. Ken Thomas from The Wall Street Journal: “You spoke of the need to ban members of Congress from trading stocks and cryptocurrencies. To what extent do you believe these restrictions should cover spouses and family members? And how robust should the fines be? The current fines are fairly insignificant.”
Slotkin: Yeah. So right now the rules are that if you trade a stock, you have to notify within 30 days, you or your spouse. So of course, banning should be spouse, and I think I even had dependent children in the legislation—I have to go back and check. But it should be expansive. If the point is to try and reclaim a little bit of grace and trust from the American people, go big on a reform package. And we should make it really painful to violate the rules.
And yes, right now, there are good Twitter folks who will put out people’s trades and will write articles about this. People need to feel it in their pocketbooks. People need to feel it in the news stories—media, would love for you to write a little bit more about this. We’ve had some weird moments around the tariffs of just absolute—
Slotkin: I mean, either someone’s got incredible luck of the Irish, or a bunch of people made a shit ton of money on some of the decisions that were made by this White House in the last six months. And it’s all out there.
Tanden: Like, probably with some inside tips.
Slotkin: That’s what I’m saying, yeah.
Slotkin: Like, that’s what I’m—you’re either incredibly lucky, or you had some heads up.
Slotkin: And so exposure is good. Fines are better. And then you need to enforce these things, right? I think that—maybe it’s because of my background, I do not mind making examples of people to reset the tone.
Tanden: Great. And then the second question: What strategies do you envision for convincing your colleagues and the party to adapt your approach? And what can voters, middle-class voters and others do to support it?
Slotkin: Yeah, I think the—I wasn’t asked to do it, no one suggested it, I didn’t ask permission—but I think we need more ideas and vision, period, in the party. Anyone who’s putting something out right now, obviously, books that are being written and stuff like that that everyone’s talking about.
So more ideas, good. And then can we try and find ideas where we agree rather than just focus on the ideas where we don’t agree? And I think for many of my peers—certainly for those who ran in tough states, purple states or red states—there’s a lot of alignment on the economy and on getting back to basics.
Slotkin: And so I think I just got tired of waiting for someone else to put something out, and just said—in the world that I come from, at the Pentagon and at the CIA, if you see a problem, you don’t just wait and let it fester. It’s a bias towards action.
Slotkin: And I think sometimes Democrats don’t have a bias towards action. We have a bias towards navel-gazing or—
Tanden: Or admiring the problem.
Slotkin: Or admiring the problem, as we’d say at the Pentagon. And that needs to stop. And I think we got a real splash of cold water in November on that.
Tanden: And I guess I’d follow up. I think it’s really important for us to think about our affirmative agenda, but also to think about a discipline around our critique, right? So, again, we’ve talked about this, but in many ways, what’s sort of shocking about the moment that we’re in is that this is an administration whose policies are being born by the very people—disproportionately born, the harm is being born disproportionately by the people who just voted for them. Right? So, I mean, I think the thing about discipline is it’s important to have it across the spectrum. In a game, it’s important to have discipline on offense and defense.
Slotkin: It is. I would add to that, though, that we’re never going to break through just once if we all get on the same talking points.
Slotkin: There’s also a very hard to hold onto thing that I see in Michigan all the time, which is like, Democrats have lost some of their alpha energy—I keep saying this—some of that bravado, some of that football coach energy.
And when you talk to people in my town, right, because I live in a town that voted for Donald Trump. I’ve never won my town. I’ve never won my precinct. I’ve never won my neighbors—they’re lovely, but we just disagree on national politics. I brought my town supervisor as my guest to Trump’s swearing in, and he cried when I called and said, “Do you want to come with me to Trump’s swearing in?” He’s such a fanboy that he just—completely reduced to tears.
So, in Michigan and in other places outside of the beltway, we live our lives where, my dad was lifelong Republican, my mom a lifelong Democrat. That used to be very normal. Sometimes people are not looking for the 13-page policy treatise on the website. They’re looking for you to just show some fight and some planning and some—be the coach that’s going to lead people from a losing record to a winning record. And how are we going to do that and bring people along with you? And we don’t do that. We’re very, like our book-reading hands. We’re very much like, “This is what we need to”—you can feel it.
And I don’t love this idea that, “Well, people were voting against their interests,” or whatever. Their interest was in believing in somebody, that someone was going to do something different. And while I don’t believe Donald Trump for one second on what he’s been selling, he at least was offering something different. And we need to hear that.
Tanden: Yeah. I also think what you described—which is having a plan, leading people, telling them what it is, and really believing in your own plan, believing in what you’re saying—that’s also a definition of leadership.
Slotkin: It helps when you believe your own plan.
Tanden: Yes. I have one last question here, which is: With Georgia and now New York working to open new nuclear power stations, how can we make sure the important part of clean energy policy doesn’t disproportionately affect disadvantaged communities?
Slotkin: I would note, add to that, Michigan is probably going to be the first to reopen a previously closed nuclear power plant. So we are moving out on the all-of-the-above energy approach. I think this was kind of my point, is: We need it all. We shouldn’t preference some. We shouldn’t downplay others. We need to allow the marketplace to also help in this moment. But we need to, again, rebuild in a different way.
So if we’re going to expand energy, we know the history—certainly, we know it in Michigan—of the dirtiest coal plants being put in the poorest communities. We know that the air quality in a place like Detroit is markedly different than in the suburbs just 40 minutes away. So we have to be willing to accept that and understand that we’ve had an issue with equality and who gets the downsides of our environmental policies in previous generations.
And I think some of the ridiculousness of what’s been going on around energy is that the president and the Republicans say that they care about energy for the future, but they’re trying to cut off at the knees a bunch of different types of energy because it is “woke” or whatever.
And those people, they do not care about the cost of energy for citizens. They don’t. Because those are other types of energies to hook into the grid and help create more supply so that people aren’t paying absolutely absurd electrical bills. I mean, that’s what’s going on right now.
Tanden: And also, if you care about costs and cost of living, you wouldn’t be decimating a whole slew of plants that will come online in the future.
Tanden: We are at time. I want to thank Sen. Slotkin for your great remarks.
Seeberger: Well, that’s all the time we have for today, folks. Stay cool out there, take care of yourselves, enjoy the holiday break, and we’ll talk to you next week.
Seeberger: “The Tent” is a podcast from the Center for American Progress Action Fund. It’s hosted by me, Colin Seeberger, and Daniella Gibbs Léger. Muggs Leone is our digital producer, Kelly McCoy is our supervising producer, and Mishka Espey is our booking producer. Jacob Jordan is our writer. Hai Phan, Olivia Mowry and Toni Pandolfo are our video team.
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