“WE DON’T AGREE ON EVERYTHING”: Elissa Slotkin Reveals Details Of Her Bond With Abdul El-Sayed

I can only use my relationship with now my fellow Senator-elect as an example, right? We don't agree on everything. I mean, quite literally, we'd be driving to an event together and we'd be having a debate in the car about issues, but we do it respectfully and we do it with the goal of coming out with something that we all agree on. And that's, I think, what we're going to have to practice in the House and Senate is how do we... get together and say okay the truth is everyone couldn't agree on the fact that our health care system is broken. We may have differences on how we want to fix it but the value that underlies that is that the people are desperate for us to fix health care. That's a lot better than the conversations I have with some of my Republican colleagues where they just genuinely don't accept the value that we need to fix health care. So I can sit in a room with someone who believes deeply in Medicare for all and find common ground with them. That is not hard. If you understand that the mission is to help people, if your issue is just to score points against the other faction, first of all, I think that that is shirking your responsibility as a leader. But I also think that is... To me, not what we are going to demonstrate going forward, because what does unite us are these economic concerns that the American public have been so clear about. I would never go into details of my private conversation with my fellow senator elect. But look, I think there's going to be constant debate among Democrats. That's not a bad thing. But what matters is what does it produce when you're done with that debate? Does it create a stalemate where we can't get anything done? Or does it create in the first 100 days, bill after bill after bill that forces the president to be if he wants to be stupid and veto a prescription drug bill, let him do that. But get to where We can put forward legislation that people understand will put money in their pockets. Wouldn't it be stupid to veto Trump now? I'm gonna go with what my team says here. I think he's rightfully reading that this president is a narcissist who's obsessed with himself. But our job as elected leaders is to deliver real things for people. So if slapping Trump's name on it and putting it in gold letters would get it through, hell yes, I would do that. Because the way that I'm going to be measured and graded is on what actually happens for people in Michigan. So I agree with the sentiment. I think that it's sad that we're all coddling a president who we know just got shellacked in the last election. But we have two more years with him, and I can't wait two more years to deliver something for the people of Michigan. How do you react to those hecklers this morning protesting the leadership? I wasn't here when that happened. I think, look, Again, we have a healthy debate going on. I'm focused on the Senate. That's where I serve. And I think, again, for the Senate in particular, I just I was so thrilled to be able to be in that freshman orientation and watch all these very different Democrats get elected from very different places, come into a room, get to know each other, start talking about what they have in common. Generational change is what I'm interested in in the Senate where I serve. Yeah, you just mentioned that we're gonna have a much different and diverse set of senators. What skills do you think are needed to lead that? group of senators that would be different than what is needed now. You know, I think a lot of my views on leadership come from working in the national security world and serving three tours in Iraq, working alongside the military my entire life. Life. A good leader is not one that just specializes in one thing. A good leader looks at all the skills of these very different people and says, how do I make them work in concert? So for instance, you know, in the military context, you've got the infantry and the air power and the logisticians and everyone has a different thing that makes it work all together. That's how I want Democrats to work together as a team. I would say in particular, what I feel strongly about is that number one, The newer members have really figured out messaging in the 21st century, so let those newer members be out front, right? We don't need the same strategy we've always had of the same old press conference, the same old strongly worded letter. Let the new generation design from beginning to end that messaging play so that The American public understands what the heck we're doing, right? And then secondly, I feel very strongly that we need a joint committee on artificial intelligence, bicameral, bipartisan, just like we did on nuclear power back in the 40s and 50s that sets up the whole framework and left and right limits on AI. While we're busy bickering with each other, Democrats and Republicans, There's an opportunity cost, and we have not done what we need to do on AI, and I think the next generation of leaders would be great to serve on a serious AI committee. Senator Collin, Senator Sloan. Yeah, I mean, I think people are under extreme economic stress. They literally think the American dream may not be open to them, that if they work hard and play by the rules, They can get ahead. I mean, that's what we were taught. And they feel like that's not available to them. They feel shame around that. And then AI comes in and they say, holy moly, it's going to get even worse. What are my kids going to do for a living? What does this mean for my job, the future of work? I think the backlash, so many things we see in technology now is this fear of what that means for them who are already under stress. So the data center thing, there's no left and right limits. The future of AI in the workplace, there's no left and right limits. The future of AI in healthcare decisions and in warfare, decisions of life and death, there's no left and right limits. If we were healthy politically, we would have been working on this for the past five years straight. We haven't. And in September, I think the whole country kind of woke up to the concerns about some of the AI frontier models in particular, and their reaction is just to say, stop, stop, stop, slow, slow, slow. We need to hear that and do our jobs as elected officials to put left and right limits up. Subscribe to One India and never miss an update. Download the OneIndia app now.