Dem Sen stokes anger with remarks on Trump probes as a warning to young workers
WASHINGTON, DC: Democratic Senator Elissa Slotkin has faced backlash from conservative figures after suggesting that investigations into President Donald Trump and officials who enabled his actions could serve as a warning to young people considering joining the Trump administration.
Democrats have signaled plans to pursue wide-ranging congressional oversight and investigations into Trump, his family’s business dealings, and his administration’s policies if they regain control of Congress in the midterm elections.
Dem Sen stokes anger with remarks on Trump probes as a warning to young workers
The controversy started after Elissa Slotkin made the comments at a University of Chicago event last week. She was asked how Congress could act as a check on the Trump administration.
Slotkin said that if Democrats regain control of Congress, they should pass major domestic policy bills and use their oversight powers to investigate significant cases of alleged corruption in the Trump administration.
She said the focus should not be limited to Trump but should also include aides who helped carry out his actions.
“I wanna look at these signature cases and not just focus on the president but on the people who enabled him,” she said.
“I want young people coming out of school to say, ‘Should I go work for the Trump administration?’ … I want them to be like, ‘Lord, that might be buying myself a ton of problems that I don’t want. And so let me avoid participating in that.’ I want that deterrence message sent.”
Reacting to her remark, Senator Mike Lee accused her of threatening young Americans who want to participate in politics and public service.
Try it, @ElissaSlotkin. Learn about the Second Amendment, sweetheart.
— 🇺🇸 Mike Davis 🇺🇸 (@mrddmia) October 18, 2026
Mike Davis, the head of a conservative legal group, also criticized Slotkin and accused her of trying to scare people away from government service.
Davis wrote that Slotkin should “learn about the Second Amendment, sweetheart.”
Slotkin has also criticized Davis’s remarks, saying that comments of this nature could encourage threats against her and her staff. She said such threats were being made almost as if they were a game.
Slotkin hits back against Mike Lee
The controversy intensified after a group that describes itself as the University of Chicago’s “leading student-run conservative & libertarian publication” shared a clipped version of Slotkin’s comments on X. The post had been viewed more than 7 million times.
It is absolutely disgraceful to threaten young Americans for participating in politics and serving their country.
— Mike Lee (@SenMikeLee) October 17, 2026
In response to that clip, Lee wrote, “It is absolutely disgraceful to threaten young Americans for participating in politics and serving their country.”
Slotkin said in response on X that the Utah Republican was “lying about what I said,” and wrote, “spare us the manufactured outrage.”
Spare me the pearl-clutching — especially from Republican Members of Congress and online MAGA grifters who have cheered President Trump's weaponization of the government against those he doesn’t like, as recently as last week. This is a subject I know something about: Less than a year ago, Trump directed the DOJ and FBI to investigate me, and then tried to criminally indict me for a 90 second video, exercising basic free speech. The same free speech you’re exercising now, lying about what I said in this clip. If not for an anonymous group of grand jury members standing up for America's laws, I’d be criminally indicted for sedition. President Trump has turned the government against people, with raucous support from you and virtually all D.C. Republicans. So spare us the manufactured outrage. America must be a place where the rule of law still matters. Those laws should apply to everyone equally. If you have aided in the corrupt use of U.S. taxpayer dollars to benefit the President or his family, or you have violated the law in order to carry out guidance from the President, you should be held accountable. And given how rampant that corruption appears to the average American, people looking to work for his Administration should realize that while the Supreme Court has granted the President immunity, it has not done the same for those who do illegal things at his behest.
— Elissa Slotkin (@ElissaSlotkin) October 19, 2026
“If not for an anonymous group of grand jury members standing up for America’s laws, I’d be criminally indicted for sedition. President Trump has turned the government against people, with raucous support from you and virtually all DC Republicans,” she wrote in a post to Lee.
