Elissa Slotkin calls backlash to threat of prosecution comments 'manufactured outrage'
Washington — Senator Elissa Slotkin of Michigan found herself at the center of a political firestorm last week after a widely circulated video from an October 13 University of Chicago event showed her advocating for legal consequences against those who “enabled” the president, framing the threat of prosecution as a necessary deterrent for young people stepping into government service.
During a CNN interview on Monday, Slotkin defended her remarks by dismissing the subsequent backlash as “manufactured outrage,” telling Jake Tapper that politicians often manufacture outrage over legitimate policy concerns. She explained her goal this way: “I want young people coming out of school to say, ‘Should I go work for the Trump administration? Like, that sounds fun, I might get an opportunity.’ 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,’” she said.
The criticism from fellow Republicans escalated after Senator Mike Lee of Utah called it “absolutely disgraceful” to “threaten young Americans for participating in politics and serving their country” with legal retribution. In response, Slotkin told Tapper that while politics has become messy, involving interns and Hill staff who worry about their careers, “that’s manufactured outrage. That’s his specialty.”
She further clarified that her remarks targeted only individuals engaged in unlawful activity, explicitly stating she had no intention of pursuing prosecutions based on political affiliation alone. “If you are violating the law, then you should be held accountable, and that includes people who are supporting that activity,” she told CNN. “You're not breaking the law? No problem. We can have disagreements all day long.”
This is not her first time making a similar argument. Earlier in 2025, Slotkin and a coalition of Democratic lawmakers urged military personnel to “refuse illegal orders,” framing the call for moral courage against legal violations regardless of rank.
“My point is, do not get yourself involved in illegal activity,” she told CNN, drawing a direct parallel between her past warnings and the current administration. “Whether you’re the uniformed military or a civilian in government, if you’re being asked to do something by the president or his team, that’s illegal, you have a responsibility to reject that.”
Despite her clarifications, the White House did not directly address Slotkin’s statements. Instead, a Trump spokesperson pointed to the president’s previous social media comments, where Trump mocked her idea that prosecutions might scare youth away from politics, claiming her statements show Democrats are “getting their a-es kicked.”
In a separate appearance on MS NOW’s program “Deadline: White House,” Slotkin pushed back on the notion that the hostile reaction to her comments was purely partisan. “I do think there's something about being a woman and criticizing them and calling them out on that corruption that really gets under their skin, obviously, or they wouldn't respond,” she said, adding that Republican critics were more focused on her gender than her policy arguments.