Sen.-elect Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) said President-elect Trump’s nominations are being treated as a “parlor game” by lawmakers in Washington.
“I was a CIA officer. I know very intimately how important these jobs are for keeping us safe from attack. I think that Washington is really treating this as a parlor game right now, but the truth is, if you have someone who doesn’t act on really sensitive, important intelligence, Americans can die here and abroad,” she told the Detroit Free Press in an article published Friday.
Slotkin served three tours in Iraq as a CIA analyst before representing Michigan in the House.
“To me, you have to have people of character and competence in these jobs, and that’s my standard,” she shared.
Trump has received criticism for nominating former Fox News host Pete Hegseth to head the Department of Defense, former Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard to be the director of national intelligence, in addition to his longtime aide and transition team leader Linda McMahon for the Department of Education post.
Slotkin said she would support some of Trump’s proposed nominees and wait for formal investigations before voting for others.
“I think some of them out there that have been nominated I would vote for, and others I may not, but I got to see the full file paperwork. There’s a vetting process, background checks,” she stated.
Discussing the Democrats’ disappointing performance in this year’s elections, in which Republicans secured a trifecta, Slotkin said her party’s messaging and rhetoric weren’t effective in reaching voters.
“I think the preachiness sometimes — the faculty lounge approach to problems — comes through preach from some in the Democratic Party, and it’s just different,” she stated.
“If you live in a swing state or live in [politically] mixed communities, sometimes even Thanksgiving dinner has become uncomfortable. But so many people don’t,” Slotkin continued.
“So many people here [in D.C.] come from either very red states or very blue states, so that humanity that we can see in each other, even when we have very different views of who should be our president [is lost]. It’s very dangerous that we’ve lost that in lots of parts of the country.”
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