Gaines asks whether Slotkin’s ‘offense’ targets young conservatives

Slotkin said she wanted graduates to question jobs in the Trump administration and wanted a deterrence message sent, putting young conservatives’ public service at issue.

Riley Gaines asked on Oct. 22 whether Sen. Elissa Slotkin’s call for Democrats to “go on offense” meant weaponizing the federal government against young conservatives, quote-posting the Michigan Democrat’s message from the same day¹. Gaines was not the first to raise that worry. Sen. Mike Lee accused Slotkin of threatening young, politically inclined Americans², and OPM Director Scott Kupor wrote that she was “endorsing political prosecutions to dissuade patriotic Americans from serving their country.”

“endorsing political prosecutions to dissuade patriotic Americans from serving their country.”

Scott Kupor

Slotkin’s post read, in full, “We need to go on offense.”³ Slotkin posted it days after a fight broke out over her own words. She spoke at an Oct. 13 University of Chicago event, a live recording of Vox’s America, Actually podcast, where Vox editorial director Astead Herndon asked how Congress could reassert its role as a check on the Trump administration⁴.

CNN reported her answer. If Democrats regained the congressional majority, she said, they should pass major domestic bills and use oversight to pursue “signature” examples of corruption, reaching beyond President Donald Trump to the aides who did his “bidding.” Then she named her audience. She said she wanted recent graduates to question whether they should work for the administration, and she wanted “that deterrence message sent.”²

Slotkin later recast the point. On CNN’s The Lead, she said her point was that people should not get involved in illegal activity, and that anyone asked by the president or his team to do something illegal had a responsibility to reject it². That is not what she said in Chicago the point she said she had made earlier. Every public servant already has a duty to refuse an illegal order.

Slotkin’s post is a single line and names no target for the “offense.” Gaines supplied the target in her question.

Slotkin’s office describes the Chicago clip differently in an Oct. 19 release, which cites the Detroit News to say the circulating clip cuts out Herndon’s question about whether impeachment should be a focus for a Democratic House. The release quotes the Detroit News saying, “She never mentioned prosecution for staffers or prospective staffers in the exchange.”⁵

Families have a stake in whether government service stays open to young people without partisan reprisal. Congress should investigate misconduct, but lawful public service is not grounds for punishment. As the midterms approach, with both parties bracing for a wave of congressional investigations if Democrats win, parents and voters should press candidates to say whether oversight will expose misconduct or be used to deter young people from public service².

Gaines asks whether Slotkin’s ‘offense’ targets young conservatives

Sources