As we speculated in last week’s podcast, Donald Trump spent most of his two-hour diatribe in Macomb County talking about … Donald Trump, dedicating about 5% of his speech to actually supporting the BIg Lie believers leading the GOP state ticket. Also in the political headlines this week: longtime Republican powerbroker Bob LaBrant calls this year’s GOP ticket “the most unqualified state-level ticket in recent Michigan history” as he actively supports the entire Democratic statewide slate; the state Legislature takes a small step towards a less chaotic election with bipartisan support for making the counting of Absentee Ballots more timely; and the rhetoric is becoming more heated from opponents of the the Voting Rights and Reproductive Freedom ballot proposals.

Early voting has begun and the battleground races in Michigan have the attention of the nation. Four of Michigan’s 13 congressional districts are considered tossups.We’ll talk with one of the candidates in that spotlight: mid-Michigan two-term Representative Elissa Slotkin.

Representative Slotkin defied the political odds in 2018, ousting Republican Congressman Mike Bishop even as Donald Trump was winning in her congressional district. She was reelected in 2020, again in a district carried by Trump, downing challenge Paul Junge.

Slotkin was raised on the family farm in Holly. She has been in public service since graduating with a Masters in International Affairs from Columbia University. After graduate school she was recruited into the Central Intelligence Agency. Fluent in Arabic and Swahili, she served three tours in Iraq as a CIA analyst.

During the George W. Bush administration, she worked on the Iraq portfolio for the National Security Council. During Barack Obama's presidency, she worked for the State Department and the Department of Defense. Slotkin was acting assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs from 2015 to 2017.

In Congress she is recognized as an expert on national security issues, and also for her ability to work across party lines as a member of the bipartisan Problem-Solvers Caucus.

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This week's podcast is underwritten by Practical Political Consulting and EPIC-MRA. We thank them for supporting "A Republic, If You Can Keep It."