The First 100 Days of an Elissa Slotkin Presidency: What the Record Suggests

Hero photo: Dome, Michigan State Capitol, Capitol Avenue, Lansing, MI — File:Dome, Michigan State Capitol, Capitol Avenue, Lansing, MI - 54382249082.jpg, via Wikimedia Commons.

01 The scenario

Elissa Slotkin of Michigan is a first-term senator who spent her career before politics inside the executive branch — the CIA, the Defense Department, and the National Security Council. This article asks a hypothetical question: if she were ever sworn in as president, what would the first 100 days look like based on her documented record? This is a scenario analysis, not a prediction that the person will become president and not an endorsement or criticism of the person.

The premise rests on a specific 2025 record: a Chinese connected-vehicle ban passed into the defense bill, a bipartisan foreign-farmland bill, opposition to an appropriated-funding freeze, and a call for negotiated border legislation. A reasonable inference from these positions is that a Slotkin White House would open with the tools she knows best — the digest notes her own career makes her familiar with which levers are purely presidential, from agency directives to funding-allocation discretion within appropriations.

02 The record: who Elissa Slotkin is

Slotkin is a Democrat and Michigan's junior senator, in the Senate since January 2025 after serving in the House (MI-7/MI-8) from 2019 to 2025, where she won a swing district in 2018 before winning the 2024 Michigan Senate race. Her background is intelligence and defense: a CIA analyst focused on the Middle East, then a Defense Department and National Security Council official.

Her committee portfolio: Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry (Ranking Member of the Livestock, Dairy, Poultry and Food Safety Subcommittee), Armed Services (Ranking Member of the Emerging Threats and Capabilities Subcommittee; also Airland and Cybersecurity), Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, and Veterans' Affairs. The national-security assignments map directly onto her documented career focus on deterring China.

03 China and connected vehicles

Slotkin's Protecting Military Bases from Connected Vehicles of Concern Act was included in the Senate Armed Services Committee's FY2026 NDAA — it bans Chinese connected vehicles from U.S. military bases and DoD installations. Her quote: “One of my top priorities is to stop Chinese vehicles — now selling for roughly $20,000 in Europe and Mexico — from ever entering our market.” She has said she plans broader ICTS supply-chain legislation.

This is the strongest day-one lever in her record: the digest notes a connected-vehicle ban could be substantially implemented via existing executive authorities — Commerce Department ICTS rules, DoD installation-access policy, and tariffs — without new statute, while her bill would codify the military-base ban. In a July 2025 statement with Shaheen, Duckworth, Schatz, Rosen, Merkley, and Kim, she met the speaker of Taiwan's Legislative Yuan — consistent with her documented career focus on deterring China.

04 Agriculture and foreign land ownership

With Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa, Slotkin led the bipartisan FARMLAND Act (introduced March 14, 2025) to overhaul the Agricultural Foreign Investment Disclosure Act of 1978: create a public database of foreign-owned agricultural land, bar foreign-owned land from Farm Service Agency programs, and expand CFIUS authority over food and agriculture — adding the Agriculture Secretary and FDA Commissioner as permanent members, with mandatory review of foreign purchases over $5 million or 320 acres. Her quote: “Food Security is national security, so ownership of our farmland is a fundamental issue.” House leads were Feenstra (R-IA) and McDonald Rivet (D-MI).

The lever split: the digest notes a president could direct CFIUS to weigh agricultural transactions more heavily within existing regulations, though the CFIUS expansion and AFIDA database require Congress.

05 The farm bill and food policy

As an Agriculture Committee member, Slotkin voted NO in committee on the draft partisan Republican farm bill in 2025, citing concerns she raised in questioning Agriculture Secretary nominee Brooke Rollins about balancing “standing up to China while protecting farmers and SNAP.”

Any farm bill requires Congress — this would require congressional approval rather than unilateral presidential action. But the concern she voiced, aligning China policy with farmer and SNAP protection, is a stated priority that would shape a first-100-days agriculture posture.

06 Federal funding and the power of the purse

On January 28, 2025 Slotkin strongly condemned the Trump administration's freeze of congressionally appropriated federal funding, titled “Blocking Federal Funding is Unlawful and Harms Michigan.”

This position reads differently under a scenario inversion: a President Slotkin would control the very funding-allocation discretion within appropriations that the digest highlights as a presidential lever. Her documented stance is that the executive should not freeze congressionally appropriated funding — a self-imposed constraint on day-one power.

07 Border and agency oversight

In January 2025 Slotkin and Sen. Gary Peters (ranking member of HSGAC) led colleagues in a letter calling for negotiations on upcoming border security legislation rather than a purely partisan approach. As an HSGAC member she questioned DHS nominee Kristi Noem on domestic terror threats (January 17, 2025), and as a Veterans' Affairs Committee member she questioned VA nominee Doug Collins (January 21, 2025).

Border legislation needs Congress, but a president's DHS and VA appointees answer directly to the president — the oversight questions Slotkin asked in confirmation are exactly the levers a president sets through nomination choices on day one.

08 What the record cannot tell us

The evidence runs out in specific places. There is not enough public evidence to determine Slotkin's detailed positions on taxes, healthcare financing, and energy — the research pass found her official site front page service-oriented and did not extract her issue pages individually, so no position should be assumed. Her specific vote record on the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (H.R. 1, 2025) was not captured in the research pass.

The exact bill number of the FARMLAND Act in the 119th Congress was not confirmed in the sources consulted — the press release links to bill text but the number was not captured. Where evidence is incomplete, that is stated rather than filled in.

Disclaimer: this article is a scenario analysis based on the documented public record. It is not a prediction that Elissa Slotkin will become president, nor an endorsement or criticism of her or her positions. Where evidence is incomplete, that is stated rather than filled in.