MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Twenty-four years ago today, September 11, 2001, it was a pretty morning in New York. By about 8:30, the temperature was in the low 60s, bright blue sky, puffy clouds. By 9:15, two planes had smashed into the North and South Towers of the World Trade Center, and the country was forever changed. So was then-25-year-old Elissa Slotkin, a grad student at Columbia University, seven miles away.
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ELISSA SLOTKIN: The smell of that - the burning buildings and that very sort of toxic chemically smell that was just hanging over New York for weeks, if not months, and it completely changed my life - I mean, top to bottom.
KELLY: That is Slotkin speaking to The Washington Post. She told the paper that the 9/11 attacks led her to a job at the CIA, later at the White House, the Pentagon. Her two-decade national security career evolved into a political one. Elissa Slotkin is now Senator Slotkin. The Michigan Democrat serves today on the armed services, homeland security and veterans' affairs committees. Senator, welcome to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED.
SLOTKIN: Thanks for having me.
KELLY: So when I started mapping out earlier this week what I wanted to ask you, I was definitely going to start with Israel's attack on Hamas leadership in Doha. And then Russian drones flew into Poland and NATO scrambled fighter jets to shoot them down. And suddenly, we were watching NATO engaging enemy targets in NATO airspace for the first time. And then in Utah, in our country's latest horror of political violence, the conservative activist Charlie Kirk was shot and killed. I find it hard some days to wake up and know where to start, and I wonder if you feel that from your perch in the Senate.
SLOTKIN: Yeah. I mean, certainly, I think I'm used to that in the national security context where, you know, you can't control events that are happening abroad. I think it's the combination of those with just the events that are going on inside the country - just every single day, something new and different. It certainly feels saturating, and I know a lot of people have frankly just kind of decided they're going on a immediate diet.
KELLY: Just turn it off.
SLOTKIN: Yeah.
KELLY: Which you can't do.
SLOTKIN: No, no.
KELLY: No.
SLOTKIN: No.
KELLY: Nor can I.
SLOTKIN: No.
KELLY: It's the fire hose every day.
SLOTKIN: Yeah.
KELLY: So the institutions that U.S. intelligence and national security has to deal with these are the institutions that were created in the wake of 9/11. And now the Trump administration is working to reshape many of those institutions, pushing through, for example, a nearly 50% cut at the director of National Intelligence on her staff, pushing out the leaders of the National Security Agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency. I could go on.
SLOTKIN: Yeah.
KELLY: What do you make of the current upheaval in the intelligence community in which you used to serve?
SLOTKIN: Yeah. I mean, look, it's difficult to watch. I can't tell you how dangerous I think it is to politicize intelligence. And, you know, it's very hard to see some of these moves as anything other than attempting to shape the intelligence community to the will of Donald Trump. I believe that to be dangerous for the security of the United States. You know, if there's a threat coming from abroad or, you know, something happening, you have to call balls and strikes on that or else people can get, you know, deeply hurt.
KELLY: I will note that Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, sees this totally the other way around. She says she is trying to get politics out of intelligence...
SLOTKIN: Yeah.
KELLY: ...That she's trying to restore the intelligence of the intelligence community. I wonder how fine a line it feels like you are walking as an elected U.S. senator and a Democrat when you criticize the Trump administration. Does that risk wading into the politics of it all?
SLOTKIN: Well, but the thing is, is oftentimes I think Trump has the wrong answer to the right question. It's the way he goes about it, the wholesale slashing and burning of, you know, things and organizations because he didn't like what they did in the last administration.
KELLY: So you're not saying, hey, we couldn't do this better. You're saying, this isn't the right approach.
SLOTKIN: I would say even further, I think with Trump doing what he's doing, let's actually take this as a moment not to just snap back to the same system we had before he came in, but take it as a moment to do a little rethinking of how we are organized as an intelligence community and a Defense Department and other issues as well. I don't like the Democratic response that's, like, just maintain status quo. The status quo was not working.
KELLY: What do you see as the biggest national security threat facing our country today?
SLOTKIN: I really believe that the existential threat to the country is not coming from abroad. It's the shrinking middle-class at home and what that does to our stability here. I mean...
KELLY: Explain.
SLOTKIN: ...If you want to understand why we are at this moment in our history, this fractious, authoritarian moment where people - Americans are turned against each other, I mean, look at what just happened to Charlie Kirk. I mean, if you want to understand, you know, why we are so polarized, to me, it is about the fact that just more and more Americans do not feel like they can save every month and live the American dream. And when you do that, when you can't provide for your kids what was provided to you, you feel shame. You feel anger. You feel cornered, and you start looking for someone to blame. And that is almost always someone who doesn't look like you or talk like you or pray like you.
KELLY: So I was going to ask because I hear you being critical of the approach that the Trump administration is taking, but you've also argued this is a moment of huge opportunity.
SLOTKIN: Yeah, I - yeah.
KELLY: Like, give me an example.
SLOTKIN: Sure. So we understand that it is important that we are - you know, Americans maintain leadership roles in the world. You know, we've made a lot of mistakes. You know, if you're thinking about, oh, different way of doing what we're - what we need to do to be postured for the future, I think we got to change the Defense Department. I think that our way of taking 12 years to go from idea for a new weapon system to actually fielding it doesn't work for the modern age. I think we have a problem with adopting technology fast enough. And that is a real threat to us when China can move, you know, from idea to fielding in five years.
KELLY: So circle back to that pretty morning in New York.
SLOTKIN: Yeah.
KELLY: Obviously, what happened on 9/11 was horrific. But in the days that followed, the whole world stood with the United States.
SLOTKIN: Yep.
KELLY: And Americans pulled together, set aside our political differences - which I'm describing that and it sounds like a time capsule from a different planet. What, if anything, remains of that moment? What gives you hope?
SLOTKIN: Yeah. Gosh, I think about that moment. I thought about it a lot today because even in a place as cynical as New York City, you know, people had their flags out. They were decent to each other. We were all on the same team, and I'm so glad that I got to be there in that moment to see that. And I'm so concerned with how far we feel from that moment.
Look, what gives me hope is that I go home every weekend, and the vast majority of Michiganders live in that 80% middle that don't scream on the internet, that don't, you know, want to hurt their neighbors when they happen to disagree. They just want team normal.
I grew up - my dad's a lifelong Republican. My mom was a lifelong Democrat. It was totally normal when we grew up, and a lot of Michiganders really think about that time and wish for that time 'cause we're very mixed politically. And that gives me hope that my practical, reasonable constituents get exhausted looking at the extremes and just want something normal. And I...
KELLY: To find our way back to the middle.
SLOTKIN: To find our way back.
KELLY: Yeah.
SLOTKIN: That keeps me buoyed.
KELLY: Democratic Senator Elissa Slotkin of Michigan, as you heard. Thank you for stopping by.
SLOTKIN: Thank you.
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