MSNBC "The Rachel Maddow Show" - Transcript Interview with Elissa Slotkin

Interview

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Joining us now is Congresswoman Elissa Slotkin. She serves on the House

Armed Services Committee, House Homeland Security Committee. As I

mentioned, she`s a former CIA analyst, former acting assistant secretary of

defense. She worked in both the Bush and Obama White Houses.

Congresswoman Slotkin, I really appreciate you being here tonight. I know

it`s a busy time.

REP. ELISSA SLOTKIN (D-MI): Thanks for having me.

MADDOW: So, you are, as I mentioned there, an unusually sophisticated

consumer of intelligence because of your own background before becoming a

member of Congress. At this point, do you -- do you feel confident that you

know what the story is here, that you know what happened, both in terms of

the intelligence and how it was handled?

SLOTKIN: Well, I wouldn`t say that I feel confident we have the full story.

I mean, I think the biggest thing that I came away from the briefing

scratching my head about was, you know, we can have a discussion about the

veracity of certain reporting. There can be debate in the intelligence

community, I`ve seen that before, and you have to run that down. You want

to know that you`re talking about accurate information.

But I think the bigger more strategic issue is that the senior staff of the

White House did not feel the need to at least let the president know and

say, you know what, sir, we just want to flag this for you. Because between

March 30th and June 3rd, the president had at least four phone calls with

President Putin. So just staffing those phone calls, helping him prep,

thinking about potentially inviting him back into the G7, it`s just -- I

had to ask repeatedly, why was it that you never thought it made sense just

flag this for him?

We`re talking about the protection of U.S. forces. We`re talking about the

most important role for you as a commander-in-chief. So that was the

biggest question I left with. We need to know more about the intelligence,

that`s for sure, and need to understand the debate on whether any agency

has evolved on that debate.

But that fundamental question I think fits into a bigger narrative of the

president really leaning into his relationship with Putin over and over and

over again. And that`s why it prompted so many questions when we see a

story like this come up.

MADDOW: Given your background working on Russia issues, including at the

highest levels of the Pentagon, does this seem like something that Putin

would do?

SLOTKIN: Well, listen, I mean, I used to get an intelligence book every

single morning and before that when I was a CIA officer, I wrote articles

for the president`s daily brief. So I`ve seen a lot of classified

intelligence pretty much my entire adult life. And I think it`s clear, I

mean, we have a very complicated relationship with the Russians.

And once you come into government and get access to those materials, you

know that starting long before, during the Cold War, we have a relationship

that`s diplomatic, but we have a competitive relationship, sometimes an

adversarial relationship, that`s the nature of strategic competitors.

And I do think we`ve seen the president of Russia do things like invade

Ukraine and illegally annex parts of countries. We`ve seen him try to

influence political processes in Eastern Europe and in the United States.

So I do think that they`re sort of like a game of chess that goes on with

the Russians, and you got to make sure you`re playing chess and you`re not

playing checkers.

MADDOW: The mother of one young U.S. Marine who was killed last year in

Afghanistan, who was killed in a green on blue attack, she`s now calling

for an investigation into whether her son`s death was the result of this

Russian bounty scheme. We have started to hear similar concerns from other

family members of Americans who have been lost over the past year, year and

a half in Afghanistan.

I wonder what you would say tonight to active duty service members and

their families who have been hearing about this over the last few days and

who aren`t just angry and bewildered like the rest of us, but really

concerned about this additional threat and the prospect that our government

-- that the president in particular didn`t do anything in response to it,

and didn`t apparently do anything to protect troops in light of these

expressed concerns.

SLOTKIN: Well, this one hits really close home to me. My husband is a 30-

year Army colonel. My step daughter is a brand new Army officer. My son-in-

law is a brand new Army officer. And both of them could be sent to

Afghanistan in the next year.

So it`s personal, it`s not just strategic and national security for us. And

I think every family wants to know that their commander-in-chief is going

to bend over backwards and is going to do everything that he can to protect

them.

And while I have faith that our military in Afghanistan is doing right by

force protection and making sure that folks are, you know, they have the

security that they need on their bases, I just want the president to

articulate clearly himself, that if these allegations are true, he`s not

going to accept it and he`s going to take action.

That`s what we still haven`t heard directly from him, and it`s painful, as

a stepmom with an active duty kid, just say that, say that if we find out

that there were bounties of our soldiers, and God forbid that any of them

were killed because of this bounty that you will not let that stand,

because both personally but also strategically, the message it sends to

Russia and every other country in the world, if we allow that to happen and

we don`t push back, and instead we just continue to bring that relationship

with Russia closer, it`s -- it is just an absolute like foregoing of his

primary responsibility as commander in chief.

So I want to hear him say it and I want to hear him mean it, that if this

is real, he`s going to do something about it.

MADDOW: I cannot imagine those words coming out of his mouth. I mean, I can

-- I could write them, and I know exactly what you`re saying in terms of

what you would expect to hear from any normal American president in this

circumstance. I cannot imagine him speaking those words, but your lips to

God`s ears.

Congresswoman Elissa Slotkin, a member of the House Armed Services and

Homeland Security Committee, I really appreciate you being here tonight.

Thanks for making time.

SLOTKIN: Thanks for having me.

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