Voter Tells Slotkin She Feels Dems Have Gone 'Radio Silent'—Then Slotkin Calls Out Her Own Party

Forbes Breaking News

During a townhall on Monday, Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) was told by a voter she felt there had been a "bloodless coup" and Democrats were not fighting Republicans.

Transcript

00:01Okay. Chokeway. Yeah? Oh, I'm sorry.

00:05Hi. Cindy Ellis from Sawyer, Michigan.

00:09And my neighbors, actually.

00:11And neighbors. My lord, these people really have the hot hand over here.

00:14Everyone's... If you want to get a question asked, then just ask the partridges.

00:18So many of us Democrats are feeling helpless and

00:21like our elected representatives besides you and

00:26Joe, you've gone radio silent on us. Where are they?

00:28And it kind of feels like there's been a bloodless coup.

00:32And many of us are sleepless at night, pacing, and we want to know

00:36what can we do?

00:39Yep. Okay. That's the right question.

00:45And it's making me think I've got to visit Sawyer, Michigan, because it's a hotbed

00:48of activity.

00:52So this is the question. And it's why I started off

00:56by describing that the debate among Democrats is not progressive moderate.

01:02It is, do you see this president as an existential threat to democracy?

01:09Because if you see something as an existential threat, then you have to speak out constantly.

01:14Then you have to go hoarse.

01:15Then you have to be providing legislative ideas.

01:17Then you have to be moving constantly.

01:19And a lot of my colleagues just say, you know what?

01:22I've been around a long time. Just wait.

01:24All these things will reverberate on Trump and people will come around.

01:29And I just, I can't subscribe to that.

01:31So let's talk about what we can do.

01:34So, so, um, I am, uh, a data nerd and a student of history.

01:42And so, and I like to be effective because I can yell and put that on the internet all

01:47day long, but I want to actually change things.

01:50So let's look at what was the most effective pushback we did during the first Trump administration.

01:57What is the thing that Trump ran on, obsessed about, focused on, and then we thwarted him,

02:04we stopped him from doing his number one goal, the ACA and Obamacare.

02:10He was obsessed with repealing Obamacare.

02:13He ran on it.

02:14He cut TV ads on it.

02:16When he first came in his first year, he was obsessed with it.

02:19Actually, the House of Representatives under his party voted to repeal Obamacare.

02:24And why did it get killed in the Senate?

02:27Because John McCain came in and voted against it, right?

02:33But why did John McCain feel so confident that he could buck his party and vote to save Obamacare?

02:41Because the public had turned against what Trump was trying to do.

02:47The public said to themselves, wait a minute, you're going to take away my protection for

02:52people with preexisting conditions.

02:53You're going to take away my kids being on my care until they're 26.

02:59You're going to take away affordable health care so that I'm going to go without again?

03:04No.

03:05And the public turned against it.

03:07And the man is a populist, right?

03:10He doesn't have a strong ideology.

03:13He does whatever the public wants.

03:15He changes with the wind.

03:17He can be for something and then against something in the same day.

03:21So that is what that model of turning the public on to what he is trying to do is the model.

03:30And it's why I'm talking again about health care.

03:33Because the story he began in 2016 is the same story he is pursuing today in 2025.

03:40It is part of the same goal of saying, I just don't like that in the United States of America,

03:46we're going to help people get health care.

03:49He just doesn't like it.

03:50If you can't afford it, you shouldn't have it.

03:52And that's his view.

03:54And to me, the thing you can do is help educate your fellow neighbors on what is happening to

04:03their health care.

04:03That means posting something on social media.

04:07That means writing an op-ed for your local newspaper.

04:11That means going and helping to arrange a little teach-in or educational event.

04:16There are a million things we did in that time frame that, by the way, weren't told to you from

04:21the top down.

04:22People just organically did it in 2017 and 18 and 19.

04:28That's what I need from you today.

04:29I need you to help explain to people in real terms.

04:34And again, the way we're going to be able to do this is when people start getting their

04:38letters about rate increases.

04:41Take that letter, scratch out your address, right?

04:46So no personal information in there.

04:48And post that sucker online so that everyone knows that I am having to pay more because

04:53of what this man is choosing to do.

04:55And that education is what we need to turn the tide.

05:00It is public opinion and Michigan is a swing state so they really care what happens here.

05:06Public opinion here matters more than most states in the country.

05:10So education, education, education, public, public, public is what I need if you want to

05:16join the fight.

05:18Okay?

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