Senator Elissa Slotkin reveals how she wants to hold Donald Trump’s inner circle accountable beyond impeachment. In her remarks, Slotkin discusses the need for deterrence and explores ways to ensure accountability for officials connected to the Trump administration. Her comments raise questions about congressional oversight, political responsibility, and the limits of impeachment as a tool for holding government officials accountable.
Watch the full report for Slotkin’s remarks and the broader political debate surrounding Trump, his allies, and potential accountability measures.
#ElissaSlotkin #DonaldTrump #TrumpAdministration #TrumpNews #USPolitics #Impeachment #PoliticalAccountability #Congress #Senate #Democrats #Republicans #TrumpAllies #BreakingPoliticalNews #AmericanPolitics #PoliticalNews
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Watch the full report for Slotkin’s remarks and the broader political debate surrounding Trump, his allies, and potential accountability measures.
#ElissaSlotkin #DonaldTrump #TrumpAdministration #TrumpNews #USPolitics #Impeachment #PoliticalAccountability #Congress #Senate #Democrats #Republicans #TrumpAllies #BreakingPoliticalNews #AmericanPolitics #PoliticalNews
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NewsTranscript
00:00Welcome to tonight's Institute of Politics event, Senator Alyssa Slotkin, a live recording of America Actually.
00:06I'm Audrey Krajewski, a second year at the University of Chicago, where I study economics and English.
00:13On campus, I am involved in undergraduate student government, where I am the current faculty and board of trustees liaison.
00:20I am also involved on the board of campus and student life and the office of the provost sexual misconduct
00:27student advisory board.
00:29I'm originally from Grand Rapids, Michigan, and I'm especially honored to welcome a fellow Michigander tonight whose career has spanned
00:36national security and public service.
00:39Senator Alyssa Slotkin has dedicated her career to serving the American people.
00:45Before entering politics, she worked as a CIA analyst, where she completed three tours of Iraq alongside the U.S.
00:52military.
00:53She served in national security roles in the White House and the Pentagon under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack
01:00Obama.
01:01In 2018, she was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, flipping a traditionally Republican district, before being elected
01:09to the U.S. Senate in 2024 to represent Michigan.
01:13Joining her in conversation is Ested Herndon, IOP board member, editorial director at Vox, and host of the podcast America
01:23Actually.
01:24Before we begin, please take a moment to silence your cell phones.
01:28During Q&A, a microphone will circulate and will prioritize student questions first.
01:34The IOP would like to invite students to compete in our Fall 2026 Policy Challenge, focused on local K-12
01:42education reform.
01:43The winning team will receive $500 per person.
01:47Register your teams of two to four students by Monday, October 19th, or check the flyers outside if you need
01:54help finding a team.
01:55Also, on Monday, October 19th, at 5.30 p.m., we will convene an interactive forum in the style of
02:02Jubilee's Spectrum videos, hosted by IOP Pritzker Fellow Amanda Littman.
02:09Please visit politics.uchicago.edu for more.
02:13Tonight, Layla and Ella from the IOP Student Advisory Board are here, so please feel free to chat with them
02:19after the event to learn more about how to get involved.
02:22Another opportunity to meet student leaders and learn more will be at the Student Advisory Board Student Coffee Hours this
02:31Friday at 9 a.m.
02:33Now, please join me in giving a warm round of applause to Senator Alyssa Slotkin and Astern Hendon.
02:50It's so exciting to be here.
02:51Thank you all so much for coming.
02:53This is the third live recording I've done with the IOP, and I love every single one of them, partially
02:59because the questions we get at the end are so great.
03:02So no pressure, y'all, but there is some form of it because I always expect the IOP and University
03:08of Chicago to produce something special.
03:11Thank you so much, Senator Slotkin, for being here.
03:13Thank you all so much for being here.
03:15We're going to have like a 45-minute-ish conversation.
03:17I plan to talk about 2024, looking ahead, national security, a lot of the things that are happening in our
03:25country right now.
03:26And then also, as I said before, we'll make sure to answer it for student questions at the end.
03:31I should also say, like, you know, I love these live recordings because when I listen to a podcast that's
03:37live, I always am really jealous when the audience is really into it.
03:40And so I hope at some point you'll do the same for us.
03:45Let's jump into it, though.
03:46You know, Senator, you came on my podcast, The Run-Up, in 2023 that we were doing about that presidential
03:52election.
03:53And I'll never forget that interview because you were one of the few Democrats at the time who were kind
03:57of calling out the party's weaker position heading into that election.
04:01You were mentioning things like the real inflation crisis, the real immigration crisis, and saying that the party needed to
04:07reposition itself as it entered into 2024.
04:11Obviously, that didn't work out so great for Democrats.
04:14So I wanted to start kind of with that diagnosis.
04:18Democrats lost every swing state in 2024.
04:21Every demographic almost moved toward the right.
04:24What went so wrong for the party?
04:27And what went so wrong in Michigan specifically?
04:29Yeah.
04:30Hello, everybody.
04:32So, look, I won in 2024 on the same ballot with Donald Trump.
04:37So, you know, it was the closest Senate race in the country, 19,000 votes.
04:42So it was a nail-biter.
04:43And I think what we fundamentally never got, and look, the way that election went down with Kamala Harris having
04:51three short months to run a presidential campaign was already kind of on our heels.
04:57But we just weren't ruthlessly focused on the issues that the American people were ruthlessly focused on, which was their
05:05pocketbooks.
05:07And, you know, you could knock doors in Michigan, in Macomb County, and, you know, we did knock doors, and
05:13we'd say, okay, where are you?
05:15And they'd be like, look, I don't really like Trump, but I just am gambling that he's going to put
05:19more money in my pocket.
05:20Now, obviously, that did not turn out.
05:23But the big thing was Democrats were unable to focus on just a few things.
05:31Democrats were for everything.
05:33And so people couldn't figure out our priorities.
05:35That makes a lot of sense to me.
05:37We've heard Democrats kind of reposition themselves after 2024.
05:40But we haven't heard, like, necessarily folks say that they should have done something differently.
05:45You mentioned kind of the slowness of Biden to drop out of the race, kind of crazy circumstances of that
05:50race.
05:50When you look back, do you wish you maybe said something more, that your party said something more, even about
05:55Joe Biden's initial attempt at re-election?
05:57I mean, I think most people feel that, yes.
05:59I think people feel like, okay, there was this, like, taboo.
06:03You know, the reason why when we did that podcast together, I got all kinds of blowback is because I
06:08deigned to say that it was going to be hard to run with Joe Biden at the top of the
06:12ticket.
06:12And that might not be a winning, you know, strategy.
06:15And I took a ton of crap for that.
06:18And other times after that, in retrospect, I think most people feel like we should have had a healthy primary.
06:24He should have been a one-term president and acknowledge that going into the election year.
06:28We should have duked it out in the primary the way we're about to in 2028.
06:34And gotten to a candidate that had a sharper message and a longer runway.
06:39That makes sense.
06:40You know, since 2024, the party has been kind of consumed by some of these primary fights, particularly this year.
06:46And I know the typical way we split that up is progressives on one side, moderates on another side.
06:51I've heard you previously argue that's the wrong way to think about it, kind of in those firm ideological camps.
06:56If that's the wrong way to think about it, what's the right way?
06:59Yeah. Well, first of all, I've spent a lot of time traveling to the middle of the country, particularly Kansas,
07:06Wisconsin, Indiana, Ohio.
07:09And when you talk with people, Trump voters or people who consider themselves very progressive, like most normal people don't
07:17walk in and say, like, this is my label and I'm here as that label.
07:21Most people come into the room and they're like, I just I don't know how I'm my kids going to
07:26be able to afford a house.
07:27And I was able to afford a house when I was 24 years old.
07:30I don't know how I'm going to be able to take my kids on vacation.
07:33My dad used to be able to take us on vacation.
07:35So there is this feeling of the absolute existential threat to the middle class.
07:42I feel that more than I feel labels.
07:45And I think that what people want, what I hear over and over and over again is a a new
07:52generation of leadership.
07:53They need to look different, feel different, have a different vibe.
07:57And B, they want big and bold ideas.
07:59Yeah. Now, back in the Senate, you know, I'm a freshman senator and I when I sit in the room
08:07with the 47 Democrats and we eat a lunch together, like, yes, they serve Jell-O.
08:12Like it is it is like sort of more like high school than I could express to you, like which
08:17table do you sit at when you first get there?
08:20It's weird. But we sit together a lot.
08:23And I don't I don't think the divide is moderate versus progressive, particularly in the era of Trump.
08:30I think it is fight versus flight.
08:32I literally think regardless of your persuasion, like, do you believe that we need to think differently about how we
08:40exercise power and oversight in the era of Trump?
08:42And if we don't, we're at risk of losing our country as we know it.
08:47Or do we believe like, you know, Alyssa, if we just wait and like, you know, politics is cyclical, we
08:53don't have great tools right now.
08:55So there's really not a lot we can be doing.
08:57Just wait. And you see, like, they'll come back to us.
09:00The voters will come back to us. And like, I may be more on the moderate side of the spectrum,
09:05but I am on team fight.
09:07And I need other people, members of team fight to be coming into the Senate.
09:12That, I think, is the divide more than just the traditional moderate versus progressive.
09:17That rings true, particularly because we hear that so much.
09:19People definitely want a version of the party that exercises its power.
09:24But I guess I'm also asking, like, what if we put that fight versus flight paradigm on us?
09:29Like, what is the part who should the party be fighting for?
09:33Who are they fighting against?
09:34Yeah. So I think the truth is we as a country are in so much trouble if we cannot work
09:42hard and get in and stay in the middle class.
09:44Like, I think it's an existential. I think I'm a national security person by training.
09:48But I think the existential threat to America is not from abroad.
09:51It is that threat to the middle class and the American dream.
09:55Because when you can't achieve things when you work hard, you look to blame people who don't look like you
10:02or talk like you or pray like you.
10:04So we turn and Trump picked up on this immediately. Right.
10:08He said to his sort of deal with the American people is like, you're struggling.
10:12You think it was easier in the past.
10:15Well, there's someone to blame for that. Right.
10:17There's an immigrant to blame for that or DEI is to blame whatever it is.
10:22It's an external group.
10:24And he picked up on that and has played it to the hilt.
10:27But I think he's been able to exploit it because as a diverse nation, if we can't get ahead, we're
10:33in trouble.
10:34So to me, that is the existential thing we should be focused on.
10:39And the Democratic Party should be the lobbyist for the middle class.
10:44We should be fighting so that every American, regardless of their circumstances, have the opportunity to achieve the middle class
10:49and far beyond if that's what they want to do.
10:52The middle class has no lobbyist in Washington.
10:54Every other interest has a lobbyist.
10:56The middle class does not.
10:57And that is, in my mind, is what we should be fighting for.
11:00You know, I've heard you say that Democrats also it's about performance, that Democrats need to talk in plain English,
11:06that you feel like somewhat that the party got away from communicating in a way that most people can kind
11:12of get to.
11:13I wanted an example of that.
11:15Like, is there a time that you've been in maybe one of those lunches or been somewhere else and you've
11:19heard Democrats talking in a way and you're like, nobody normal talks like that?
11:24Like, give us an example.
11:25Yeah. Well, I wouldn't.
11:27Literally last week, I was talking to a senior person at an AI company, an AI company that's in the
11:34news all the time.
11:34And they kept talking to me about, because, you know, we've been talking about their, how these AI companies are
11:41literally scared of what they are creating and their creations are committing felonies.
11:46They keep telling us.
11:47They keep telling us.
11:48We're committing crimes.
11:48Right.
11:49And they kept talking about, quote, misalignment incidents.
11:54And I was like, I'm sorry, you keep using that term misalignment incident.
11:58Do you mean fuck up?
11:59Yeah.
12:00Like, screw up, mistake, like whatever you want to call it.
12:03But and just I think you get a lot more credibility if you were like, this wasn't supposed to happen.
12:10It was an accident.
12:11And we're trying to figure out how to make sure it never happens again, as opposed to saying, I think
12:15we need to discuss some misalignment incidents.
12:17We all know what you're talking about.
12:19Your creations are committing felonies.
12:21So I think that's an example from my Democratic peers.
12:26I hear it every day.
12:27You know, like my team knows that they're not allowed to use the word utilize in a press release.
12:33Like, it is important that we learn to utilize.
12:35In English, when we're talking with each other, you're never going to say, Alyssa, how do you utilize the Internet?
12:40You're going to say, how do you use that sucker?
12:42Sure. Yeah.
12:42So I think it's just about I make my team read things aloud.
12:47Yeah.
12:47So because if it sounds jargony, don't say it.
12:51Yeah. Yeah.
12:51No, that seems like a good rule.
12:53I you mentioned kind of big, bold ideas and the desire for Democrats to have more of them.
12:58I wanted to kind of interrogate what those are.
13:00I mean, if you hear the kind of, you know, progressive or side, they will talk about Medicare for all.
13:05They'll talk about abolishize and they will say that the moderates don't have their kind of matching ideas to meet
13:11the scope of people's problems.
13:13What are those ideas that feel like they can speak to the deep economic frustrations feel that people feel?
13:21Give me some examples.
13:22Yeah. So I think they're generally in the categories of house, health and cleaning up politics.
13:31Those general categories on housing.
13:33Like Trump has declared an emergency on everything.
13:36He declared an emergency against Canada.
13:38Declare a housing emergency like we are in a housing emergency.
13:42We're down four million units of housing.
13:44And if you can't be on a pathway to buying a house, you feel like a failure in America.
13:49Everyone should be able to buy a home.
13:51You have to save for it.
13:52But buy a home, declare a housing emergency.
13:55There's a ton we can do to suspend things, regulations and help build a boom of housing development.
14:01Health care.
14:02Look, we are at a moment in our history where people across the board, regardless of how they vote, they
14:11do not believe that the health care system is working.
14:14I mean, we have people who are cheering when a health care executive gets murdered on the street because everyone
14:20has their horrible story and experience.
14:23So we need some kind of public insurance option for anyone at any age.
14:28You can call it Medicare for all.
14:29You can call it a public option, whatever the hell you want to call it.
14:32It is health care so that every one of the folks graduating here has a system to go on instead
14:37of having to only rely on expensive employer provided insurance.
14:40So those are the things that I think are the big obvious ones.
14:45But I think it is clear to me that we need something on AI, like the opportunity cost for all
14:52the polarization in our country is that we haven't been talking nonstop about AI left and right limits for like
14:58four years.
14:59And now we're like, oh, crap, they're committing felonies.
15:02We better do something about this.
15:03In my mind, there's not going to be a presidential candidate that is going to get elected without having really
15:11big thoughts on like big and bold ideas.
15:14I personally believe if you create something, you can be held liable for the things that that creation does.
15:22Right.
15:23And that is radical concept, but needed desperately for AI.
15:28Yeah.
15:29You mentioned the third plank about cleaning up government.
15:32I wonder what are some of the ideas on that front, because I got to say, that's something we hear
15:36so much about.
15:38Like you heard Democrats talking a lot in 2024 about defending democracy, when a lot of times I feel like
15:43what we hear is people a desire to improve it, a desire that the kind of status quo wasn't fully
15:48working right now.
15:49When you say clean up government, what does that mean?
15:51I just like a radical reform and ethics package so that people have some shot of believing in their elected
15:59officials and their judges again.
16:00OK, so that means a massive movement to get money out of politics, ban corporate PACs.
16:06That would be an easy one.
16:08I believe in term limits and age limits, whichever comes first for the Supreme Court so that it's kind of
16:15controversial in D.C.
16:16So, I mean, so is like a controversial, so is a stacked Supreme Court.
16:22Yeah.
16:22Right.
16:22That's controversial to me.
16:23So I think so that like presidents there, we get into a routine where they're, you know, every term or
16:30so there's a new Supreme Court justice who's coming off and a new nomination.
16:34It's not this like race to stack the courts.
16:37I think we need a massive review of ethics rules and so that you can't take, you know, big vacations.
16:44You have to declare your cryptocurrency, which right now there's no requirement.
16:48I mean, there's a huge package of reform that has to go on.
16:52And I think that no stock trading or prediction markets, if you're a member of Congress or a spouse, like
16:58you can't come from a sensitive meeting, classified meeting, and then come out of there, move stocks around, go on
17:06prediction markets, make $100,000.
17:08Like, I think we're going to invade Iran tomorrow.
17:10Well, you just were told that in a briefing.
17:13So I think there's a massive package of reform that's needed.
17:17I wanted to kind of focus on national security.
17:20Obviously, you come from that world.
17:23Let's think about the current war with Iran.
17:26Have those actions, has America initiating that made Americans safer?
17:31No.
17:31I don't know how on any measure you can say that we are safer.
17:36In fact, right now, and again, I'm trying to be objective because I voted against this war.
17:42We should not have gone into this war.
17:43I served three tours in Iraq.
17:45War means something.
17:46Okay.
17:47People get killed.
17:48People get maimed.
17:49It's a serious endeavor.
17:52By any measure, the Iranians have more power over strategic geography and hold more of our U.S. military and
18:01partner nations at risk than they did before we started this war.
18:05And you can talk about what we've done to their nuclear program.
18:10We struck them two Junes ago and hit their nuclear program.
18:13They now have veto power on what goes through the Strait of Hormuz.
18:18Yeah.
18:18And we have Americans paying over a billion dollars out of their pocket for this war already, and it's not
18:25even done.
18:26The wild part is Donald Trump knew all these warnings before he took this action.
18:31I mean, we interviewed John Bolton, who talked about, in the first term of Trump, talking him out of this
18:35based on the possibilities of these very consequences materializing.
18:40I mean, in some ways, it feels kind of perplexing that we have arrived at this point, considering Americans' widespread
18:47disapproval of this war.
18:50Like, what can be done, particularly because it seems like we have a president that's ignoring kind of Congress's role
18:56in this whole thing?
18:57Yeah. I mean, I think the president who campaigned against getting into more wars in the Middle East, I think
19:04this is what happens when someone gets into an echo chamber with only supporters whispering sweet nothings in their ears.
19:13He had done Venezuela. He had done strikes in the Caribbean.
19:16He had taken more military action in his first year than any president in U.S. history, and he got
19:22high in his own supply.
19:23He literally convinced himself that he could just do this on the cheap, even though we had been in an
19:29adversarial relationship with Iran since 1979 and had not gone to war for a reason.
19:34OK, so that's my only explanation for how he deluded himself into going into war.
19:41I think it is, to me, there is not a military option for ending this war, you know, at least
19:51at the status quo in which we started it, without some insane decision to send in ground troops, which I
19:57think he's not even crazy enough to do.
19:58And so there will be a deal cut. And you all as students here and people listening should evaluate that
20:06deal based on what we had before the war and what we had after the war and not let him
20:12snooker us into thinking we are better off.
20:14I guess that's what I was going to ask next. Like, is the route of exit now just kind of
20:19a white flag?
20:20I mean, what would you advocate in terms of how the U.S. should get out of this?
20:24I think my I know what is the conversations that are happening are about a deal.
20:30Right. And the deal with Iran, you know, feeling their oaths is we get some say or some financial benefit
20:37from every ship that goes through the Strait of Hormuz.
20:40Or you can pay us off in another way. You can relieve some sanctions. But somehow or another, we're getting
20:46ours.
20:47And I think, again, objectively, we are that puts us in a worse position than we were before this war
20:54started.
20:54I was thinking about this issue a little earlier today, and I was actually reminded of the DNC in Chicago
20:59when Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee at the time,
21:02promised that the U.S. would have the most lethal military in the world.
21:06I always remember that word because it kind of shocked me at the time. Like, should that be our goal?
21:13Well, look, I mean, you I'm a believer that you can have significant strength in your military that deters bad
21:22actors from doing stupid things.
21:24OK, why didn't Iran take over the Strait of Hormuz 30 years ago when they had that strategic geography?
21:31It's because they felt deterred that the U.S. military would come for them. Right.
21:35So deterrence is an important part of keeping Americans safe.
21:40I think the nature of warfare is totally changing.
21:43I think the young people in the audience who care about national security are going to have to think about
21:47it in totally different ways,
21:49because this same war is exposing how some of the things that used to be our strengths, big basing opportunity,
21:56big bases where we could launch lots of ships or planes, big equipment, big missile and missile defense capabilities are
22:06now vulnerabilities
22:07because the Iranians and others have figured out and spent 20 years trying to undercut those advantages.
22:14So kamikaze drones that are a version of like you can jimmy rig from an Amazon drone are now killing
22:22Americans in the Middle East.
22:23And that creates a whole new set of thinking that we have to do on the future of warfare, not
22:30to mention A.I. and technology.
22:32But but I do still believe that deterrence matters.
22:37And I feel like the history on warfare has proven that over and over again.
22:43In some ways, it sounds not dissimilar from Trump's peace through strength, an idea, but an execution.
22:49Well, look, Trump just riffed off of Reagan.
22:52Yeah, he didn't make that up. He didn't make that up.
22:54But I think the the it is this idea that you're trying to deter traditional military threats.
23:03That's gone on forever.
23:05What has changed? And we saw it on 9-11.
23:07Right. Is that if an enemy is going to figure out new ways to attack you that undercuts your advantages,
23:14that is a very different environment for us to be in.
23:18And it just requires different ways to to think about the future on the domestic front.
23:24Like you were central to a recent New York Times story about the outgrowth, the political violence and violent threats
23:30in America.
23:31I wanted you to just let us like give us an insight into that day to day.
23:35How has that been tangible for you in your time of office?
23:39I mean, my security dudes are here.
23:41I mean, the the I think the the I think it's hard to overstate what happens when the president tweets
23:49that you should be investigated,
23:51arrested and hanged for sedition a dozen times.
23:55It's purposeful.
23:56It brings out the crazy across the country, including people who live down the street from you, threatening the same
24:03thing.
24:04We had bomb threats at my farm, suspicious packages dropped off at my house.
24:11My family, anyone who had my last name, you know, my dad was swatted in the middle of the night.
24:16So the police were called out on a fake threat and pounding on his door.
24:20My brothers had to have cop cars in their driveways.
24:23And then there's the actual legal consequences.
24:27Right.
24:30The the Department of Justice opened up an investigation.
24:33You've got to get a lawyer.
24:34You've got to set up a legal defense fund and pay forty thousand dollars a month in legal fees.
24:39You've got to start thinking through what happens to your life if they take you to the grand jury, which
24:44they did.
24:45You know, during that day when we weren't in there, I mean, you don't I said, what's going to happen?
24:50And they said, well, Senator, if they come back and they move ahead on criminally indicting you, you're going to
24:56have to surrender yourself to the Department of Justice.
24:58And I and you start thinking about how to what I'm a CIA officer by training who's worked alongside the
25:05military and the law enforcement my entire life.
25:07And now I'm being accused of being a traitor.
25:10I mean, it is it changes your whole perspective on what's going on in our country.
25:16And yes, the threats go through the roof, but also clarifies that what this man is doing is right out
25:24of an authoritarian playbook, a well-worn authoritarian playbook that have seen play out in countries across the world.
25:32But just like there's an authoritarian playbook, there's also a counter playbook, right?
25:37There's also a narrative on how you push back.
25:39And I just think for me, that experience was deeply clarifying on like where we are in our history as
25:47a country right now.
25:48You know, the authoritarianness of Trump has been so central to the second term.
25:52It is the explicit goal, I think, of the Project 2025.
25:56I guess I how has how would you describe how different the second term has been for maybe the first
26:03term?
26:03I think we all kind of feel a difference.
26:06But from your position, what is that difference?
26:08I think he's unmoored from any ideology.
26:12He's unmoored from, you know, some of the more normal people who were in his administration in the first.
26:18The guardrails are gone.
26:19The guardrails are completely gone.
26:21And, you know, I was thinking about it the other day, and I really, I actually don't think in this
26:27term he cares at all about making America great again or whatever his slogan is.
26:31I think that he thinks America is mediocre and heading downhill, and he just wants to get his.
26:38That it's literally milking the cow that is the United States of America for whatever him and his sons can
26:44get, whatever him and his friends can get,
26:46with no accountability, with no guardrails, and without a sense that he wants us to succeed.
26:54I actually think when he says, you know, AI only needs to be, you know, governed by me because I'm
27:01a genius at this stuff.
27:02I think he understands that without guardrails, something bad can happen, and he doesn't care.
27:08He only cares about self-interest.
27:10I mean, it's so kind of wild, but I guess one of the questions I have is Congress has kind
27:15of abdicated some of its own power in this process.
27:18Like, how does that branch reassert its role so that people believe in the kind of checks and balances that
27:26I feel like has kind of washed away?
27:28Yeah. So, look, when I think about, hopefully, Democrats doing well in a few short weeks here, you know, the
27:35election is the end of one phase,
27:37but a much more important phase then comes into focus, and that's what you do with the power that you've
27:43won.
27:44Yeah.
27:45And Democrats have still not totally found their footing since Trump won, since he won in 2024,
27:52still trying to figure out who they want to be when they grow up.
27:54But I think if we manage to win the House, and especially the House and the Senate, there's three things
27:59we need to do.
28:00Yep.
28:00One, we need to pick two or three big pieces of legislation that speak directly to people's pocketbooks and go
28:07hard on those.
28:08So I would say housing and health care.
28:10Number two, we do have to have accountability for the unbelievable corruption that we are living under right now.
28:17But you can't just make that your whole personality, right?
28:21So you have to pick signature cases, and you have to go after people and projects that are just super
28:28egregious.
28:28So everyone knows the East Wing of the White House, right?
28:33And people feel that in a way that's different from a nameless contract at the Pentagon or whatever.
28:38So you need to pick those signature cases and go hard on accountability, not just Trump, right?
28:45Because, of course, there will be moments of, like, let's go after Trump himself as someone who voted to impeach
28:50him twice.
28:51Like, he's still there, right?
28:52But the people around Donald Trump who are doing his bidding and enabling this have no such immunity.
28:59They have no immunity the way the president does.
29:02And to me, he couldn't do any of this stuff without all those people saluting and supporting it.
29:07So you go after the people who did his bidding.
29:10And then third, the one that I think you're speaking to, is we have to Trump-proof the government going
29:16forward so that no president of any party can ever abuse the system the way he did.
29:21Because we figured out, under Trump, that a lot of the stuff that we thought were laws were actually just
29:27norms, standards, habits, expectations, good citizens.
29:33Shame was required.
29:35Shame was required.
29:35And when you have a president who has no shame, they just walk all over that.
29:39And then even for things that were laws, the penalties, the teeth were not there.
29:44So you make an ad that plays during a football game, a political ad paid for by U.S. taxpayer
29:51dollars, like your dollars, the penalty is like you have to pay a fine.
29:56Well, if they got the money and they got all the keys to the government, they're going to pay that
30:00fine and not worry about it.
30:01So how do we get teeth to the things that were laws and strengthen those other laws going forward?
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