U.S. Sen. Elissa Slotkin from Michigan is giving the Democratic response to President Trump’s address to a joint session of Congress Tuesday night.
“I’m looking forward to speaking directly to the American people next week. The public expects leaders to level with them on what’s actually happening in our country,” Slotkin said in a post on X after Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer announced that she was giving the response.
“From our economic security to our national security, we’ve got to chart a way forward that improves people’s lives in the country we all love, I look forward to laying that out.”
What to know about Sen. Elissa Slotkin
Slotkin, 48, was a former CIA officer who worked in national security roles in the Pentagon and both the Bush and Obama administrations and has touted her work across the aisle as a moderate Democrat. During her time as an officer, she served three tours in Iraq alongside the U.S. military.
In the Obama administration, Slotkin briefed the former president on some of the most sensitive national security issues before she was nominated to serve as the assistant secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs at the Pentagon, according to her bio on the Senate website.
Slotkin was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2018 and was reelected in 2020 and 2022. She was mostly known for pledging on the campaign trail to bring her bipartisan approach to the upper chamber. Slotkin said her bipartisan approach comes mostly from living in a household where her father was a Republican and her mother was a Democrat.
“I believe in bipartisan legislation. It’s always better when it’s bipartisan,” Slotkin told CBS News Detroit in a one-on-one interview in October 2024.
“The idea that I would just be so partisan that I couldn’t have Thanksgiving dinner with my dad just doesn’t work for me. National security, we’re just not trained that way,” she added.
Within months of longtime Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow announcing that she would not seek reelection, Slotkin announced her bid shortly for the seat, becoming the first Democratic candidate to enter the race. In the August 2024 primary, Slotkin held a strong lead against actor Hill Harper before taking on Republican Mike Rogers in the general election.
The Slotkin-Rogers race became one of the most watched because Michigan had not elected a Republican in over three decades. Slotkin narrowly beat Rogers in November, resealing the Democratic control over the two U.S. Senate seats.
She received four committee assignments in the Senate: Armed Services, Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, Agriculture, and Veterans. She was one of four Democrats to win a U.S. Senate race in a state where Mr. Trump won.
Prior to the 2024 election, Slotkin told CBS News Detroit that she was focused on the military and economic threat, particularly from China.
“I think it’s a different type of threat, but because we depend on them, we have a globalized economy; but whether it’s their military advantages that they have in some cases or it’s the way they have just dominated our supply chains and have a veto on our economic security, to me, it’s really important, on a bipartisan basis, for us to come up with thoughtful plans on how to make sure we’re prepared militarily if we need it, but also that we take a real serious approach to China investing in things like our farmland, our manufacturing facilities,” Slotkin said.
