# Elissa Slotkin Elissa Blair Slotkin (b. July 10, 1976) is a [[Democratic Party]] U.S. Senator from Michigan and former [[CIA]] analyst who spent the first half of her career in intelligence and defense before entering electoral politics. She is one of a small cadre of national-security professionals in [[Congress]] and has become a primary target of [[Donald Trump]]'s [[Stochastic Terrorism]] apparatus — most notably through his November 2025 "SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!" posts on [[Truth Social]] (see [[Donald Trump - seditious behavior punishable by death]]). ## Background Slotkin grew up on her family's farm in Holly, Michigan. She earned a bachelor's degree in rural sociology from Cornell University (1998) and a master's in international affairs from Columbia University (2003). The September 11 attacks occurred during her first week of graduate school in New York City and reshaped the trajectory of her career. ### CIA and Pentagon career After graduate school, Slotkin was recruited by the [[CIA]] as a Middle East analyst. She completed three tours in Iraq alongside the U.S. military, working as a militia expert during the [[Iraq War]]. Between deployments, she held intelligence and defense positions under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, including roles at the White House and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. In 2011 she moved to the [[Department of Defense]], and from 2015 to January 2017 she served as Acting Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs — one of the most senior civilian defense-policy roles in the Pentagon. That background in both intelligence collection and defense policymaking gives her a credibility on national-security issues that few members of [[Congress]] can match. ## Political career ### House of Representatives (2019–2025) In 2018, Slotkin flipped Michigan's 8th Congressional District — a historically Republican seat — running on her national-security credentials and a focus on health care. She won reelection in 2020 and again in 2022, each time in a competitive suburban-rural swing district. ### 2024 Senate race When longtime Democratic Senator Debbie Stabenow announced her retirement, Slotkin entered the race to succeed her. She defeated Republican [[Mike Rogers]] — himself a former FBI special agent and congressman — by a razor-thin margin (48.6% to 48.3%) in the November 2024 general election, one of the most closely watched Senate contests in the country. Michigan's status as a critical swing state made the race a national bellwether. Slotkin was sworn in as Michigan's junior U.S. Senator in January 2025. She serves on the [[Senate Armed Services Committee]] and the [[Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee]]. ## The "seditious behavior" episode (November 2025) On November 18, 2025, Slotkin and five other Democratic members of [[Congress]] — all veterans of the U.S. military or intelligence services — released a 90-second video titled "Don't Give Up the Ship." The video reminded active-duty service members that the Uniform Code of Military Justice gives them the duty to refuse manifestly illegal orders. The six lawmakers were Slotkin, Sen. [[Mark Kelly]], and Reps. [[Jason Crow]], [[Chris Deluzio]], [[Chrissy Houlahan]], and [[Maggie Goodlander]]. The video did not name Trump, did not reference any specific order, and restated black-letter military law that has been taught in military legal training for decades. Two days later, [[Donald Trump]] responded on [[Truth Social]] with a series of escalating posts calling the lawmakers "traitors" and declaring their video "SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!" He also reposted a user's comment reading "Hang them George Washington would." The full sequence is documented at [[Donald Trump - seditious behavior punishable by death]]. ### Aftermath and retaliation The consequences for Slotkin were immediate and concrete. Michigan State Police responded to a bomb threat at her home. She reported a surge in death threats. The [[FBI]]'s counterterrorism division opened an inquiry against all six lawmakers — a remarkable instance of the [[Weaponization of Government]] in which the federal law-enforcement apparatus was turned against sitting members of [[Congress]] for the act of stating existing military law. Slotkin's response was direct: "I refuse to believe that we're going to use fear and intimidation against people we disagree with. And I'm not going to be forced away from speaking up on behalf of my country." By January 2026, Slotkin confirmed she was under investigation by federal prosecutors in Washington, D.C. — an escalation from the initial [[FBI]] inquiry. The episode stands as one of the clearest documented cases of a sitting president using [[Stochastic Terrorism]] to generate real-world violence threats against a member of the opposing party, followed by the state's investigative apparatus being deployed to reinforce the intimidation. ## Senate record (2025–present) ### Defense and Armed Services As a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Slotkin has used her national-security background to press the administration on defense policy. In April 2026, she confronted Defense Secretary [[Pete Hegseth]] during an Armed Services hearing, pressing him on whether he would deploy uniformed troops to seize ballots or voting machines — tying her earlier confrontation over the "seditious behavior" episode directly to concrete election-integrity concerns. In June 2026, Slotkin voted against the Fiscal Year 2027 [[NDAA]] in committee, citing the cost of Trump's military operations in [[Iran]] (an estimated $1 billion per day) and introducing two amendments to protect elections from illegal military interference. Republican committee members blocked both amendments. Despite her "no" vote on the overall bill, she secured over 40 provisions for Michigan, including $200 million for a new F-15EX facility. ### AI and technology policy Slotkin has emerged as one of the Senate's most active voices on [[Artificial Intelligence]] and defense technology. She introduced the AI Guardrails Act, which would require human authorization for any autonomous weapon to attack, block the use of AI for nuclear weapons, and prohibit its deployment for mass domestic surveillance. As she put it: "Congress is behind in putting left and right limits on the use of AI, and the first place to start should be at the Pentagon." In August 2026, she introduced additional legislation on AI functional bills of materials through the Armed Services Committee. Her broader national-security vision — which she has called a "national security war plan" — centers on reviving the middle class, winning the global technology race against China, and rethinking how Americans are protected in an era of shifting geopolitical realities. ## RWKB significance Slotkin sits at the intersection of several major threads this collection documents. Her [[CIA]] and Pentagon background makes her a credible authority on defense and intelligence matters — not a partisan critic but a career national-security professional. Trump's "seditious behavior" attack on her and her colleagues represents the most explicit instance of a sitting president publicly calling for the execution of sitting members of [[Congress]] for a speech act, a case study in [[Stochastic Terrorism]], [[Authoritarianism]], and [[Democratic Backsliding]]. The subsequent [[FBI]] investigation and bomb threats demonstrate how presidential rhetoric translates into both state action and real-world violence — the [[Weaponization of Government]] operating in tandem with stochastic targeting. Michigan's position as a swing state adds electoral significance: Slotkin's razor-thin 2024 victory over [[Mike Rogers]] makes her seat a likely target in 2030, and her willingness to confront the administration on defense, AI, and election integrity from the Armed Services Committee makes her a persistent friction point for the Trump agenda. ## See also - [[Donald Trump - seditious behavior punishable by death]] - [[Mark Kelly]] - [[Stochastic Terrorism]] - [[Weaponization of Government]] - [[Authoritarianism]]