Slotkin discussed the despair that many Americans are feeling and their anger over leaders who have not stood up to Trump and his administration.

"Hold your elected officials, including me, accountable. Watch how they're voting. Go to town halls and demand they take action. That's as American as apple pie," she said.

The senator also pushed Americans to organize.

"Pick just one issue you're passionate about and engage. And doomscrolling doesn't count. Join a group that cares about your issue and act. And if you can't find one, start one. Some of the most important movements in our history have come from the bottom up," she said.

Democrat Elissa Slotkin slammed Trump over last week's Oval Office dust-up between Trump, Vance and Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelenskyy, saying Ronald Reagan "must be rolling in his grave."

"We all want an end to the war in Ukraine. But Reagan understood that true strength required America to combine our military and economic might with moral clarity," she said. "And that scene in the Oval Office wasn't just a bad episode of reality TV. It's summed up Trump's whole approach to the world."

Slotkin said Trump "believes in cozying up to dictators like Vladimir Putin and kicking our friends like the Canadiens in the teeth."

Slotkin criticized DOGE and Trump for the "mindless" mass firings of federal workers, only to hire some of them back days later.

"No CEO in America could do that without being summarily fired," she said.

"Is there anyone in America who is comfortable with him and his gang of 20 year olds using their own computer servers to poke through your tax returns, your health information and your bank accounts?" Slotkin asked while delivering remarks on economic security.

While she agreed that America needs a more efficient government, she argued that there is "no oversight" with Musk's efforts.

When Trump lays out his agenda tonight, expect nearly every Republican in the House chamber to give him a standing ovation. The heyday of anti-Trump Republicans is over, because most of Trump’s intraparty critics from his first term are no longer in Congress.

Of the 293 Republican members of the House and Senate on Jan. 20, 2017, only 121 (or 41%) are still in Congress. Some of those who left did so for normal reasons, like losing reelection or retiring due to old age. But many of them retired because they did not like the direction the party was heading in under Trump. And others, such as those who voted to impeach Trump, lost in primaries because Trump endorsed one of their challengers.

This amount of turnover was unprecedented. According to data collected by Ballotpedia and 538, more members of the president's party left the House during 2017-2020 than during any president's first term over the last 60 years.

And the Republicans who have left Congress during the Trump era were more moderate than their replacements. DW-NOMINATE is a metric that quantifies the ideology of members of Congress using their voting records, placing them on a scale from 1 (most conservative) to -1 (most liberal). The average DW-NOMINATE score of the 172 departed members was 0.480, but the average score of the 118 Republicans who were elected to Congress from 2017 to 2023 is 0.544.

In other words, Trump has succeeded at transforming congressional Republicans into a more conservative unit that is less likely to stand in his way.

—Nathaniel Rakich, 538