Moderate, Mask Off

The self-described moderate has a plan, and the plan is deterrence.

Speaking October 13 at the University of Chicago's Institute of Politics — during a live recording of Vox's "America, Actually!" podcast — Sen. Elissa Slotkin told the audience that Democrats thinking about impeachment were thinking too small. What she wants, she said, are "signature cases": prosecutions aimed "not just focus on the president, but on the people who enabled him," targeting "some of the most obvious and harmful abuses of taxpayer dollars."

Then came the part she wanted the students to take home. "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,'" Slotkin said. "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.'" Her summary, verbatim: "I want that deterrence message sent."

The clip, posted by the student paper The Chicago Thinker, went viral on October 17. Slotkin describes herself as falling on the "pragmatic and moderate side of the House" — a positioning that now shares a stage with an on-the-record pitch for prosecution-as-career-counseling. Moderation, it turns out, is a spectrum, and one end of it wants your résumé to come with a legal disclaimer.

The underlying reporting is filed in the Evidence Locker: New York Post (2026-10-18); Daily Caller (2026-10-19).