Senator Elissa Slotkin, a first-term Democrat from Michigan, delivered a simple message as her party’s official response to President Trump’s combative and lengthy address to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday night: Mr. Trump, she said, was “going to make you pay in every part of your life.”
Ms. Slotkin, 48, fresh off a victory in a competitive race in a critical state, took up the tricky task of giving the opposing party’s answer to the annual congressional address at a moment when Democrats are struggling to find an effective message and messenger for pushing back on a president unbound.
During Mr. Trump’s address, some Democrats heckled him, others held up signs of protest and one lawmaker, Representative Al Green of Texas, was removed from the chamber for a cane-waving tirade in which he shouted that Mr. Trump had “no mandate” for his agenda and refused to sit back down.
In contrast, Ms. Slotkin struck a calm and upbeat tone in her brief remarks, working to appeal not just to Democrats but to Republicans as well by introducing herself via her national security credentials. (She noted that she served three tours in Iraq working for the C.I.A. under Republican and Democratic presidents.)
Ms. Slotkin chose to address the nation from Wyandotte, Mich., a city she noted that both she and Mr. Trump won in November. Mr. Trump’s speech was the longest presidential address in history, but Ms. Slotkin ignored most of what he said and kept a tight focus on her argument that the president’s actions and his agenda would make life more expensive for Americans.
“Your premiums and prescriptions will cost more, because the math on his proposals doesn’t work without him going after your health care,” she said. She noted that “Elon Musk just called Social Security the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time.”