Sen. Elissa Slotkin says she wants the next generation of college graduates to think twice before taking a job in the Trump administration. In an interview this week, the first-term Michigan Democrat described a post-midterm plan centered on investigations aimed at the officials and aides who carried out President Donald Trump’s agenda, and she said she hopes the prospect of being investigated sends a message to young people considering federal service.

It is an unusually direct statement about using congressional oversight as a deterrent, and it lands as Democrats weigh how to govern if they win in November.

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“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.’”

“The people around Donald Trump who are doing his bidding and enabling this have no such immunity,” said Slotkin, who noted she voted twice to impeach Trump. “So you go after the people who did his bidding.”

This administration is pitting our uniformed military and intelligence community professionals against American citizens. Like us, you all swore an oath to protect and defend this Constitution. Right now, the threats coming to our Constitution aren’t just coming from abroad but from right here at home. Our laws are clear. You can refuse illegal orders. You must refuse illegal orders. No one has to carry out orders that violate the law or our Constitution.

Slotkin made the comments on “America, Actually” with host Astead Herndon. She said that if Democrats retake the House, “and especially the House and the Senate,” the party should pursue three goals: legislation on cost-of-living issues like housing, “accountability” for what she called “unbelievable corruption,” and reforms to “Trump-proof the government.” She said Democrats should “pick signature cases and you have to go after people and projects that are just super egregious,” citing the White House’s East Wing as an example voters “feel.” She also attacked the president personally, saying he thinks “America is mediocre and heading downhill and he just wants to get his,” and that he is “literally milking the cow that is the United States of America for whatever him and his sons can get.” She added that she does not have “a ton of faith that my Republican colleagues are going to have any more strength.”

The third lifted portion above is from a video she posted to X on Nov. 18, 2025. Six Democratic lawmakers with military and intelligence backgrounds appeared on camera, led by Slotkin and Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona, and the group also included Reps. Jason Crow, Chris Deluzio, Maggie Goodlander, and Chrissy Houlahan. They told service members and intelligence officers that they could and must refuse “illegal orders.” Trump responded by calling it “sedition at the highest level” and said the lawmakers belonged behind bars. Pete Hegseth, who leads the Defense Department, censured Kelly.

Psalm 94:20 asks a question that lands hard on this story: “Can wicked rulers be allied with you, those who frame injustice by statute?” (ESV). The psalm is a plea from a people who watched the machinery of law get turned against the righteous, and it names the specific evil of writing injustice into the statutes and procedures that are supposed to protect the innocent. Slotkin is not describing oversight of misconduct. She is describing a plan to make federal service itself a liability, and she says so plainly. That is the difference between accountability and intimidation, and it matters because a republic needs good people willing to serve in it. When a senator says she wants young graduates to fear taking a government job, she is talking about the next generation of public servants as collateral. Scripture calls that framing injustice, and it warns that leaders who use the law this way are not acting as God’s servants but against the very order He established (Romans 13:3-4). Conservative Christians should defend the principle that oversight exists to catch real wrongdoing, not to punish political opponents or scare off the qualified.

Let’s pray for candidates elected who will serve Christ and honor the rule of law, and for leaders who use their authority to promote American liberties rather than intimidating citizens from serving their government.

How are you praying about this issue? Share your prayers and scriptures in the comments below.

(Excerpt from the Daily Wire. Photo Credit: JEFF KOWALSKY / AFP via Getty Images).