Democratic Sen. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan, a former CIA analyst, said Americans must be prepared for President Donald Trump "to take even more aggressive action to avoid losing" in the November 3 midterm elections, and urged voters to be on alert for any newly announced security threat in the coming weeks.
Speaking at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington on Wednesday, September 30, Slotkin said: "The authoritarian playbook is very clear. When you're at risk of losing, you either A, make up a threat that only you can protect the American people from, or B, find a way for federal law enforcement or the military to seize ballots or voting machines."
In the speech, which focused on lessons from her recent trip to Hungary and Poland, Slotkin said Viktor Orbán had used "plan A" in Hungary, falsely claiming one week before the election that there was a major threat to an oil pipeline in order to be seen as the only true protector of the state. "Luckily, Hungarians saw right through it," she said.
"An alarm bell should go off"
"So, there's a lesson for us. In the run-up to Election Day, we need to be alert and ready," Slotkin said. "If you hear in the next 34 days that there is a new security threat that you've never heard of, that somehow requires federal law enforcement or the military and not local police, an alarm bell should go off in your brain. Do not let him get away with that."
Slotkin also said the president "is already using every tool at his disposal to intervene in our elections," noting that he "has sued 30 states for their voter rolls" and "tried to ban mail-in voting." After Slotkin asked the Pentagon to confirm that troops would not be sent to polling places, the Defense Department told her it "has no plan to deploy active-duty troops or Federalized National Guard to polling sites, nor does it have any plan to interfere with ballots, voting machines, or other election-related materials." Slotkin called the response "a positive sign" but said she still has "no idea what Trump will do."
