YouSaid · the spoken record

Elissa Slotkin

lines on the record: 65
first: 2021-12-16
most recent: 2021-12-16
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Yeah, I went there. I went there and I spent the day there and I went everywhere. I went to the mayor's office and the fire station, the VFW and the diner, and we got invested in their sewage problems and in their infrastructure problems and all these things. And people would say to me, we haven't seen a Democrat here in 40 years, right? You have to go to places and you have to help people's pocketbooks, their kids. And that's how you campaign differently. It's not, at least in my experience, it's not Twitter.”
2021-12-16 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 471 — Rep. Elissa Slotkin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That is where some of my concerns about the strategic play of the Democratic Party really come into the forefront is in rural America. And I won my district last time, not out of the suburbs and the places that also voted for Joe Biden. My district went for Donald Trump, where I succeeded was in these small towns, small communities, 1,200 voters. And why did I do well or maybe even just lose better in those communities?”
2021-12-16 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 471 — Rep. Elissa Slotkin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, first of all, it's not final. So I can't, you know, can't say anything definitive. Secondly, asking a Michigander where they live or where their district is without having a video where I can hold up my palm, my mitten, and show you visually where I am in the state. It's very hard for us, Michiganders, but it's a mid-Michigan kind of center of the state around centered around Lansing, Michigan. We don't know exactly what will happen. It's going to be getting exciting here to find out in the next month or so, but it looks like it's going to move towards Lansing at the center with a lot of much more rural counties surrounding it. And I think”
2021-12-16 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 471 — Rep. Elissa Slotkin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“My constituents have just as much of a right to be represented as yours. And by the way, 7% of my districts on Twitter. So if your sense of what we should do on something is being primarily pulled out of Twitter, maybe that's where your district is that is not what affects people's pocketbooks and their kids in my world. So you respect me, I respect you. It's got to be two-way street.”
2021-12-16 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 471 — Rep. Elissa Slotkin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, so for me, I negotiated with Pramilla Jayapal. Right, like we don't agree on a lot of things, but I feel I can negotiate in good faith with her. And that's what I need as someone who comes from background of negotiating international agreements. Do you think when I sat with the Russians or I sat with the Iraqis or I sat with all these folks that we loved each other all the time? God know you negotiate with people who you don't agree with, but you got to negotiate in good faith and you got to be aiming towards substance in my book and not just the ding you're going to, you know, the sexy tweet you're going to have. And what I guess ask from my progressive colleagues and many of them understand this is that you represent your district and I'll represent mine. And I won't tell you how to represent the Bronx. Don't tell me how to represent Mid Michigan. We are different people and my people.”
2021-12-16 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 471 — Rep. Elissa Slotkin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So it varies. I mean, look, I will work with anyone, Democrat or Republican, if you're there to work, if you're based in fact, if your logic is sound, and you're ready to negotiate and you understand that compromise isn't a dirty word. I will work with anyone on either side of the aisle. And there are Republicans who I work with every single day under those guidelines, and there are progressive Democrats I work with every single day. There are progressive Democrats who are there to work. and get their thing done.”
2021-12-16 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 471 — Rep. Elissa Slotkin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So I just want to acknowledge that we had six Democrats who voted against the bill, but we had, I think, 10 or 11 Republicans.”
2021-12-16 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 471 — Rep. Elissa Slotkin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, and yeah, just as an interesting anecdote since you were asking about all of this is the infrastructure bill, which is an extremely popular bill and once in a generation investment and infrastructure that we need would not have passed the House in the end if we hadn't had at least some Republicans vote with us. And I give them a lot of credit.”
2021-12-16 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 471 — Rep. Elissa Slotkin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Totally predictable. And I told I was speaking in front of a bunch of my operating engineers right after we passed it. And I'm like, you better believe I'm going to keep book on all the policy.”
2021-12-16 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 471 — Rep. Elissa Slotkin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I guess I don't have the perspective because I've only, I mean, you know, I've only been here three years, but in those years, it has definitely gotten harder, right? So, and I hear about these. Good old days, you know, with the sort of Tip O'Neill having a drink with Ronald Reagan. It's kind of this iconic thing. And I do think it's gotten harder. That said, I think it's both better and worse than what people think. It's better in that there are still Democrats and Republicans who spend time together and work together. And I'm in a group called the Problem Solvers Caucus bipartisan caucus. You literally have to find someone of the other party to link arms with in order to get in this group. You take a civility pledge. You don't campaign against each other and you work every week on legislation. We worked quite a bit on the infrastructure bill that just got passed.”
2021-12-16 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 471 — Rep. Elissa Slotkin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“To my bosses who are my constituents, right? I mean, I think people forget that, again, in Congress. It's not your peers who can fire you. It is the people you represent. And those are your bosses. So that's who I answer to.”
2021-12-16 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 471 — Rep. Elissa Slotkin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“From the coasts. And I think it's important that we have more Midwestern leadership in the top ranks of the Democratic Party, that we have a variety of experiences. And that was what I communicated to her, right? I'm not a personal backstabbing person, but that's what I feel. And so I didn't vote for her in 18. I didn't vote for her in 20. We continue to work together all the time. She is the speaker. And look, I'm a respectful person, but we disagree on a number of things. And I've tried to be transparent about that.”
2021-12-16 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 471 — Rep. Elissa Slotkin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Look, when I made that decision as a candidate, I wanted to be upfront and direct and transparent with her. So before I ever talked about that publicly, I asked to speak with her. I had never talked to her before. And I walked her through my reasoning. And that doesn't mean she liked it, but I tried to be respectful, I guess, is the point because I come from a culture where you may not always agree with the person in leadership, but you respect the importance of leadership and therefore you treat people decently. I've tried to keep that up. But to be honest with you, it is very hard to be in the Midwest and see yourself in the Democratic Party. The leadership tends to come.”
2021-12-16 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 471 — Rep. Elissa Slotkin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Where every vote is meaningful. So I think that surprised me. And I still culturally want more organization, more structure, more strategic planning, more message planning. And that's been the hardest part of culturally getting used to this place.”
2021-12-16 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 471 — Rep. Elissa Slotkin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That there was a strategic plan. And then when I couldn't find it, I assumed they just weren't telling the freshmen because they didn't want it to leak or something. And I think what has been one of the hardest parts for me coming into this place is that I don't think that Congress operates. I know it doesn't operate like that. It's 435 entrepreneurs, right? who are working, especially when you have a...”
2021-12-16 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 471 — Rep. Elissa Slotkin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“On in the country in 2017 18 was just very different. When I came to Congress, I have some friends who will tease me about this now. I went around asking everybody, okay, we just won. We retook the house. That was the plan. Now what's the strategic plan? What are we going to do with it? We all talked about the importance of healthcare and bringing down the price of healthcare and bringing down the price of prescription drugs and doing infrastructure. So what's the plan? When are we doing those things? What does it look like? What's the timeline? I brought my Pentagon and CIA brain to U.S. Congress and assumed”
2021-12-16 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 471 — Rep. Elissa Slotkin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, look, I had at the Pentagon had gone to brief and testify in front of Congress many, many times, especially on the issue of ISIS. And it spread across Iraq and Syria. So it's not like I was unfamiliar with some of the problems in Congress. I mean, I would go and brief and I would walk away and I'm like, well, that was not a club. I was looking to be a part of, right? I mean, and so it was not on my plan to run for Congress. I just felt something had to be done with what I was seeing going on in the country. I had worked for Republicans. I worked for George Bush in the Bush White House. And he was the one who pulled me down to work for him on Iraq. And I was there the day that he left office and the next week when President Obama came in and did the same job for two very different presidents. But what was going on?”
2021-12-16 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 471 — Rep. Elissa Slotkin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Let's just say this it's a big decision to declare a policy of regime change through public statement. It's a profound decision to make. And I wasn't sure we knew we were making it, right? It's something that sounds strong in a public statement, but behind it has a whole lot of meaning. That was not something at the time I felt was well thought through”
2021-12-16 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 471 — Rep. Elissa Slotkin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That our policy is for them to go, there is no negotiating something. And I remember kind of stopping in my tracks, especially as someone who had worked many, many years in and on Iraq, saying, oh my God, you know, is this where we're going again? Yes, I worked and had to deal with the aftermath of so much of what went on in Syria, particularly ISIS and the rise of ISIS and takeover of Iraq and Syria. But when you're in national security, sometimes you have a voice and sometimes decisions are made for you and you have to adjust and react to it.”
2021-12-16 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 471 — Rep. Elissa Slotkin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And, but I will be honest that many of us inside the National Security world did not feel like we had a voice in that conversation. And I remember, I can remember the moment when the statement came out from the White House, President Assad had been using chemical weapons against his people. There was terrible things going on. And the word came out from the White House that, quote, Assad must go. Three words. And I remember turning to a colleague of mine, I said, that's regime change. If we're not leaving the door open for negotiation with a terrible human being, right, a terrible leader, the alternative is regime change. And once you tell one of these autocratic leaders,”
2021-12-16 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 471 — Rep. Elissa Slotkin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, I mean, certainly, you know, anyone who worked on the Middle East and it was the Arab Spring. We were watching kind of monumental change going on in a region that was considered to be pretty static.”
2021-12-16 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 471 — Rep. Elissa Slotkin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But the truth is, I've gone to a lot of vigils and church services, and the emptiness people feel knowing that we have a culture where kids kill kids and not knowing how to stop that. It's really made a lot of people kind of question what to do because it's so big. You know, I think in January we'll be able to have quiet conversations about what more people think needs to be done, but right now it's just that visceral crisis response.”
2021-12-16 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 471 — Rep. Elissa Slotkin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Oxford is a very conservative community and a lot of responsible gun owners. And look, I grew up in a gun owning family. My dad is a responsible gun owner. I think what has been sort of a unanimous sentiment is that these parents need to be held accountable. There is a mountain of evidence that allowed our prosecutor to charge them. responsible gun ownership means that if you have a child in the home and you give them easy access to that weapon if they go off and do something horrible injure someone injure themselves commit a crime you should be held accountable for that or at least have the option and um i think that's the most kind of common sentiment in terms of next steps”
2021-12-16 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 471 — Rep. Elissa Slotkin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Visceral fear. And it was actually a nine millimeter. And so not an assault weapon. It was given to him, given to him by his parents on Black Friday. They went out and bought it and gave it to him and he went to the range with his mom on Saturday. And I think”
2021-12-16 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 471 — Rep. Elissa Slotkin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah. No, I've worked on a lot of difficult things and seen a lot of difficult things. And the past two weeks have been some of my hardest work experiences because there's just something. Just so horrible about kids killing kids in a school, right? In a place that's supposed to be a safe place. And I think most of what I've been doing is just, I would call it crisis response. And the sort of blast wave that comes when something like this happens to an entire community. And that blast radius has spread over a ton of our state because we have copycat threats and kids out of school. We really haven't gotten kids back consistently to school in many, many school districts in Michigan. And, you know, there's a lot of just”
2021-12-16 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 471 — Rep. Elissa Slotkin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Actually, we still meet on the anniversary of his death. Sometimes, you know, by phone, sometimes by Zoom, but for his 10-year anniversary, which was in 2018, we met in his family's home in New York. People came in from all over the place. I mean, because of course in the green zone, there's Australians, there's people from other countries, there's people in uniform at a uniform. So we've through the, I think, supportive his family really kept that up, which is helpful. And now his kids are basically grown. It's amazing.”
2021-12-16 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 471 — Rep. Elissa Slotkin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I think just particularly actually on my third tour, we were being rocketed so frequently. Most of many, many folks moved into Saddam's palace and were sleeping on cots because at least it was, you know, sort of a hardened structure rather than the trailers. We were living in. You know, we lost a lot of really good people and people who were, you know, for instance like just at the gym, you know and a friend of mine, Stuart Wolfer, there was a group of us. We always had dinner on Friday night at the Chow Hall and we had dinner and I sat right across from them and heard about his kids and his life back home and, you know, his life as a jag and all these things. And then Sunday he was gone. He was hit at the gym”
2021-12-16 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 471 — Rep. Elissa Slotkin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Everything's great. You see it for what it is when you're there. You just want your friends and your colleagues to survive and to, and you want the Iraqis to have a life. So you do everything you can to make sometimes bad policy better.”
2021-12-16 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 471 — Rep. Elissa Slotkin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“how they were getting their weapons, where they were getting their money, their training, traveling around the country, getting a better assessment of that and making some of the first connections that this stuff was really just being provided by Iran to shoot and kill, shoot at and kill U.S. forces. So very different things. Third time I was doing a negotiation on our withdrawal. Very different things. But when you're there I don't think there's anyone who serves in these places and who thinks, yeah, our strategy is going great.”
2021-12-16 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 471 — Rep. Elissa Slotkin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We're very, very different. My first tour, I was very junior. I had less than a year under my belt at the CIA when they sent me. And I was there to help our operators, you know, refine their collection and what we were getting from the Iraqis. And I was the backup briefer to the ambassador, you know, kind of the underling. And then the senior briefer to the ambassador, the U.S. ambassador, John Negroponte at the time, fell just by chance in Saddam's palace and broke her wrist and her knee. And all of a sudden, I'm now the lead briefer for the ambassador and also briefing the commanding general, General Casey at the time. That was very different than, say, my second tour where I was leading a team looking at the connections between the militias and the rockets that were being fired at us and the And elsewhere in Iran.”
2021-12-16 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 471 — Rep. Elissa Slotkin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, I never had to use it. And frankly, if I, as a CIA analyst, was having to use either the Glock or the M4 that I was carrying, then something had gone very, very wrong, right? It was like, then if I'm in, there's an IED attack in a convoy vehicle's I'm in and it's a last resort self-defense kind of move. I was not on the front lines, but look, anyone who served in Iraq, either in the green zone or many, many of our other foreign operating bases, there were certain times, especially in my second tour and third tour, where you are just being, there were rockets and mortars coming from militias constantly. There was constant threats anytime you got on the road. So I don't think anyone would call serving Iraq safe, but I just was not on the front lines in combat.”
2021-12-16 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 471 — Rep. Elissa Slotkin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And then just, I mean, obviously, I'm on the armed services committee. I focus a lot on China. And it is very, very clear that there's real opportunity costs for the investment we made in 20 years in Iraq and Afghanistan. But when we're putting so much effort, so much time, so much equipment, so many of our resources into those wars versus keeping closer tabs on what China was doing with their military and investments in money. I mean, I just, I think that we can't forget the opportunity costs when it comes to looking at us versus China.”
2021-12-16 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 471 — Rep. Elissa Slotkin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I certainly think it was a mistake. And actually, I had friends in graduate school, you know, there were a lot of people who were very upset about the run-up to the war. And when I You know, how we know that you had grave concerns about this war. And I said, yeah, but now we're in, right? And so once we're in, I want to come out of there as cleanly and as responsibly as we can. And we had real fights over this. But I think certainly I don't think there's a way to look back on that war and see it as anything other than a strategic mistake for a whole bunch of reasons.”
2021-12-16 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 471 — Rep. Elissa Slotkin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Every morning. And if you are the author and the thing goes through editing and you think it's lost its meaning, you as a junior analyst get to say, nope, I veto this going to the president. It's gone too, you know, it's changed tone. You have autonomy to say no. And a lot of them voiced real concerns about a potential war with Iraq. And I was shocked by that that they were that open.”
2021-12-16 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 471 — Rep. Elissa Slotkin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Right. And I was already someone who had worked in the Middle East. Like you said, I had taken many years to learn Arabic. And it was like, what are we doing? We're going to background or expertise in the Middle East, I think was appropriately skeptical of a large invasion of Iraq. And here come the CIA analysts. And I honestly expected them to just toe the line, right? to toe the line of the time, which was we've got to go and there's a connection between, you know, Iraq and Al-Qaeda and all that kind of stuff as much as they could talk about. And these analysts were, I think, probably more open than their bosses knew they were being and they were saying, look, we are here in our jobs because we get to speak truth to power. We write the president's daily brief. That's basically like a classified newspaper.”
2021-12-16 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 471 — Rep. Elissa Slotkin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Were effective, but they were effective not in the way that you would expect. I think I went into it. This is, if you fast forward to the fall of 2002, that's the run up to the Iraq War Right”
2021-12-16 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 471 — Rep. Elissa Slotkin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, actually, the same professor, his name is Dick Betts, you know, a year after 9-11, I'm in my second year of graduate school, and I got an email from him. You know, this is back, there's no smartphone, so you have to go to the computer lab to check your email. And I got an email kind of late that said Alyssa, I signed you up, you know, the CIA recruiters are coming to campus, and I signed you up for a small lunch at the faculty house. You know, here's the times. And I honestly, I had never really thought specifically about the CIA, but I didn't want to insult the professor. So I ran home, I put on the only suit that I had, ran back and went to the lunch. And it was about, I think, six students, maybe three or four analysts from the CIA who I now know were sort of like tapped to do this recruitment mission and go around the country.”
2021-12-16 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 471 — Rep. Elissa Slotkin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“From a whole different group of professors and students who were headed for national security work. And I remember clearly I'm still very close with this professor. He said, if you're in here, it means you want to go and serve your country. You're almost certainly going to go to Washington or go into the military or go into the State Department and go abroad. This is where we train people who want to go into national security. And I remember like Just knowing in my gut that this was the place I was supposed to be, I changed my concentration that week, I think. And from there, the rest is a very different path.”
2021-12-16 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 471 — Rep. Elissa Slotkin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, like I said, 9-11 was so early in my graduate school experience that we were still basically doing orientation and introduction. And one of the things that they were doing was each major basically was having kind of an open house and you could go and hear the pitch from the lead professors on that major and kind of what trajectory would that put you on and what jobs do people typically go into? And of course I had applied to do international development work. That was, you know, and I thought maybe I'll go be the head of some large non-governmental organization one day that is all over the world. That was sort of the vision. And after 9-11, I'm like, no, no, no. I'm going to a few others. And I went to the concentration called International Security Policy. And I heard”
2021-12-16 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 471 — Rep. Elissa Slotkin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I mean, you know, what I remember that entire fall and into the winter was whenever they would find the remains of a fireman, police officer, I think as tradition goes, they would have the procession often down Broadway and you would hear the bagpipes. And I remember just being in class all fall. And you'd be sitting there talking about some whatever, you know, unrelated thing, and you'd hear in the distance bagpipes and you'd know they found another person and they're laying his remains or, you know, to rest. And it was a horrible thing that happened, but I'm so glad that I got to see that city and our country. And experience what it can be like when we really remember we're on the same team. It's very important now when things are so difficult now that I have that reference point To sort of be a touchstone for me.”
2021-12-16 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 471 — Rep. Elissa Slotkin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It was like New Yorkers were talking to each other and putting their arms on each other. You know, and I remember the woman of cashier at the little grocery store, Bodega, I said, I'm so sorry you have to be working and the line is out the door. And she's like, this is the best day I've ever had. Every single person has asked me how I am and thanked me for my work. And then the funeral.”
2021-12-16 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 471 — Rep. Elissa Slotkin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So that became kind of a year long vigil. And what I will remember always were two things. You know, obviously you remember the smell and the sound of F-16s flying over, I mean, a jet. Flying over Manhattan is not a normal sound. I remember those two weeks afterwards how people treated each other.”
2021-12-16 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 471 — Rep. Elissa Slotkin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“What they had more than anything at the hospital was to complete overload of their telephone lines because families were looking for their loved ones and calling every single hospital in the city. So what they needed were people and they set up like banks of phones. And of course, they had very few people who had been transported there. And so volunteers could say, I'm sorry, sir, you know, your wife isn't a patient here. There was a ton of students who could not get over the bridges and under the tunnels to get home to New Jersey or wherever they lived. So I had a couple of students who slept on my floor that night for a couple nights, actually. So we organized kind of a round robin to make sure people had a place to stay. It just, it, and then I lived on the street with a fire station. And, you know, they lost, I think, three guys.”
2021-12-16 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 471 — Rep. Elissa Slotkin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You saw the plane go in, you saw people trying to jump from the fires. I mean, it was a very visceral coverage there. And the students started to get organized. We actually thought, like a lot of people, there'd be a lot of wounded. I mean, the truth is, you either walked out yourself or many people perished. I mean, there just wasn't a ton of, but there's a hospital very close to Columbia. So we knew, we thought they were going to need blood and they were going to need volunteers. And the truth was”
2021-12-16 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 471 — Rep. Elissa Slotkin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, I had just moved back to the United States. I had been, again, working abroad. And it was my second day of school. I was actually in a remedial economics class. And I stepped out to make Xerox copies of something, I think, for the professor. And I walked out and this guy I had met in orientation said, oh, it's so weird. A little plane just hit the World Trade Center. And, you know, that kicked off basically every student in the program circling around the one television in the student lounge. We watched, you know, obviously the second plane. Anyone who's in the city was watching New York One, which had a live feed and unfortunately.”
2021-12-16 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 471 — Rep. Elissa Slotkin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You know, refugee and immigrant communities. So that was sort of the track that I was on. And 9-11 was really the thing that was sort of the pivot from development work to national security.”
2021-12-16 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 471 — Rep. Elissa Slotkin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Frankly, I really didn't travel outside the United States as a kid, but that's what I love to read about. And that's what I love to just sort of learn about. I have a big history buff. I don't know how it really got started because I didn't have a real experience traveling abroad, but I just, it sounded amazing. And I just really wanted, you know, even going to Cornell versus going to Michigan or Michigan State was controversial because we have great state schools. And I just wanted to like see new things and go places. And so this was my way to do that. And actually, I did, you know, after college, I did work, you know, I first, very first job was back in East Africa, in Tanzania. And then I worked in inner city Boston with.”
2021-12-16 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 471 — Rep. Elissa Slotkin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Open up a shop. Right, right. And to be honest, I was just always interested in international development, international affairs. I did my junior year abroad in Kenya.”
2021-12-16 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 471 — Rep. Elissa Slotkin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, well, actually, I think that major has now been renamed International Development, which is probably a better name for rural sociology. And you can imagine my dad, you know, neither of my parents went to college and they were like, what the hell are you doing? I mean, you know, it just didn't think you.”
2021-12-16 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 471 — Rep. Elissa Slotkin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“To ignore your constituents, vote against their interests, and keep your job. And my husband's 30 years in the military, we met in Baghdad. And I've worked alongside the military my whole career. We have a term for that. And it is literally dereliction of duty. It's fireball offense. And that was the first day I put something out on social media like, you know what? Watching this thing, this press conference, I'm a seriously thinking I'm going to run for the seat. And then two months later, we officially, we got in. And a year and a half later, we fired him.”
2021-12-16 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 471 — Rep. Elissa Slotkin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source