ICYMI: “Republicans Manufactured a Faux Controversy About Elissa Slotkin” 

WASHINGTON, D.C. –  This week, U.S. Senator Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) has been the target of attacks from President Donald Trump and right-wing media figures. As these attacks continue the media is examining this false controversy created in wake of Slotkin’s remarks. 

WHAT THEY ARE SAYING: 

The New Republic: Trump’s Vile Tirade About Sen. Elissa Slotkin Exposes Sleazy MAGA Scam 

• The Michigan senator said nothing remotely alarming, but MAGA-world ginned it into a “controversy.”  

• Slotkin says “accountability” for the Trump administration requires Congress to pick high-profile examples of its “corruption.” She adds that such oversight should “not just focus on the president, but on the people who enabled him,” that is, on officials “who are doing his bidding.” Slotkin says she hopes real oversight might dissuade young people from joining the administration if they conclude association with a corrupt administration will buy them “a ton of problems.” 

• What really happened with Slotkin is that she pointed out the obvious: Trump’s corrupt and potentially criminal schemes depend on underlings being willing to carry them out—and a Congress that has dispensed with its oversight role entirely.  

The Atlantic: This Is Not a Cycle of Retribution 

• Donald Trump has spent nearly two years investigating, suing, or prosecuting anybody in politics, media, or government who ever defied him. Now, with Democrats poised to win control of one or both chambers of Congress, the administration and its allies are prepared to slip back into their familiar pose of victimhood. 

• Slotkin made these remarks last Tuesday, attracting little notice at the time because she didn’t say anything particularly noteworthy. Five days later, a tidal wave of conservative outrage suddenly crashed over her. 

• The outraged responses omitted the first part of Slotkin’s remarks, which point out the need to investigate the administration’s pervasive misconduct. Out of context, it sounds as if Slotkin is threatening young Republicans because of malevolence. But in context, her comments are understandable, even generous. If you knew a young person who had been planning to go to work for Elizabeth Holmes, deterring them by exposing the Theranos founder as a con artist would have been doing them a favor. 

MS NOW: How (and why) Republicans manufactured a faux controversy about Elissa Slotkin 

• What Slotkin actually said wasn’t especially remarkable. Last week — the president got the date wrong — the senator spoke at an academic event at the University of Chicago, where she made a brief, unscripted comment about accountability for those who work within a corrupt bureaucracy and discouraged younger people from joining corrupt bureaucracies. 

• The senator added that meaningful congressional oversight should focus not just on Trump, but on officials who’ve “enabled him” and are “doing his bidding.” 

• Stepping back, a few elements to this nonsensical “controversy” stand out. First, the degree to which Trump and his party appear terrified of any scrutiny, accountability or congressional oversight into corruption allegations is tough to miss. 

• Second, Republicans are so desperate to make the case that Democrats are trying to weaponize government — even as Republicans themselves brazenly weaponize government to a degree without modern precedent — that they’re forced to concoct absurdities like these. 

The Detroit News: Dem probes of Trump should deter grads from working for him, Slotkin says 

• Michigan U.S. Sen. Elissa Slotkin tangled online with conservatives angry over her remarks last week about holding Trump officials accountable for corruption and specifically her suggestion that such moves might dissuade young graduates from going to work for the administration. 

• The clip circulating on social media cuts out journalist Astead Herndon’s question that Slotkin was responding to on stage at the university about whether impeachment should be a focus for a potentially incoming Democratic-controlled U.S. House of Representatives. She never mentioned prosecution for staffers or prospective staffers in the exchange. 

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