Elissa Slotkin

Two weeks ago, six US lawmakers, all military or intelligence veterans, released a cryptic YouTube video where they spoke directly to American service members. They were Senators Mark Kelly (Arizona) and Elissa Slotkin (Michigan), and Representatives Jason Crow (Colorado), Chris Deluzio (Pennsylvania), Chrissy Houlahan (Pennsylvania) and Maggie Goodlander (New Hampshire) “Right now, the threats to our Constitution aren’t just coming from abroad, but from right here at home,” one of them said. “Our laws are clear: You can refuse illegal orders,” said another. “You must refuse illegal orders,” said a third. “No one has to carry out orders that violate the law or our Constitution.

“I’m that same woman from Michigan,” Governor Gretchen Whitmer told Fox 2 Detroit Tuesday night, when asked about her changing relationship with President Donald Trump. Yet for progressive Democratic voters, Whitmer’s willingness to appear – reluctantly in the Oval Office three weeks ago, less so Tuesday at the Air National Guard Base at Selfridge, where Trump invited her to speak at the lectern prominently bearing the seal of the President – is viewed as anathema. Who’s right in this moment? Will Whitmer’s multiple appearances and plaudits for Trump become something she intensely regrets when the Democratic party’s presidential primaries begin apace? Or is the True Gretch author sly as a fox?

"He [Donald Trump] sees American leadership as merely a series of real estate transactions." That was the verdict of the Democratic senator Elissa Slotkin following the President’s address to Congress. Trump 2.0 does, admittedly, have the appearance of a political version of The Art of the Deal, in which the Donald is prepared to leverage a bilateral compact with every country in the world — so long as the price is right. There are no friends in The Art of the Deal, no permanent friends anyway, only prospective business associates. Ukraine wants the flow of armaments to resume? Sign over the rights to half your natural resources.

Did Iran’s ayatollah have the worst birthday ever? His eighty-fifth kicked off with a bang, as Israel retaliated after Iran’s unprecedented strike across the Jewish state that featured a failed barrage of lethal drones over the weekend. What comes next from Iran remains anyone’s guess — but the Israeli response, which struck an Iranian military but not nuclear site, served as an undoubted shot across the bow to the largest state sponsor of terrorism. The message was that it can’t attempt to directly attack Israel’s homeland without consequences and that Israel has the capability to attack Iran’s nukes if they so please. Iranian proxies, like Hamas, not only invaded Israel on October 7, but have been plaguing global shipping routes for months.

Paying homage to Republican national security officials and touting your allegiance to intelligence agencies might seem like an odd strategy to channel the enthusiasm of anti-Trump voters this election cycle but it’s the course chosen by a handful of CIA-operatives-turned-Democrats with decent odds to win House seats today. Foremost among them is Elissa Slotkin, a former ‘Principal Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Policy’ in the Obama administration who is quick to point out that she also served dutifully under George W. Bush, and apparently assumes that will have electoral appeal among voters in Michigan’s 8th congressional district.