Democratic senators say they will not back down after Trump administration tries to indict them

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(11 Feb 2026) RESTRICTION SUMMARY: ++SOUNDBITES SEPARATED BY BLACK FRAMES++ ASSOCIATED PRESS Washington - 11 February 2026 1. Sen. Mark Kelly and Sen. Elissa Slotkin walking out for press conference 2. SOUNDBITE (English) Sen. Mark Kelly, (D) Arizona: "I want to be clear about something. This is not a good news story. This is a story about how Donald Trump and his cronies are trying to break our system in order to silence anyone who lawfully speaks out against them. And to send a signal to every American that they better think twice before they speak out or they might be next." ++BLACK FRAMES++ 3. SOUNDBITE (English) Sen. Mark Kelly, (D) Arizona: "Federal prosecutors went to a grand jury to seek criminal charges against members of the United States Senate for something we said. They tried to have us charge and thrown into jail because we said something that they didn't like. Because we repeated what the law actually is. This happened here. This is straight from the authoritarian playbook. This did not happen in Russia." ++BLACK FRAMES++ 4. SOUNDBITE (English) Sen. Mark Kelly, (D) Arizona: "Folks, this is the master alarm flashing for our democracy. It is threatening the very foundation of our system that we have a right to free speech, to lawfully speak out and protest our government without fear of retaliation." ++BLACK FRAMES++ 5. SOUNDBITE (English) Sen. Mark Kelly, (D) Arizona: "Senator Slotkin and I, we did not ask for this. We're just the first through the breach. But you'll be damn sure that we are not going to back down. We've been in war zones for this country. We've fought our country's enemies. This doesn't intimidate us. And we know that this is much bigger than the two of us. The most patriotic thing that any American can do right now is to continue exercising our rights, continue speaking truth to power, and not backing down." ++BLACK FRAMES++ 6. SOUNDBITE (English) Sen. Elissa Slotkin, (D) Michigan: "But to be clear, this is not about the content of this one video. Let's call it for what it is. The President is using our justice system to weaponize against his perceived enemies. I think that we've come to a really sad moment in America where the paradigm of leadership has come in completely reversed. In 2026, instead of looking to our elected leaders like the President as setting an example, it is now up to individual citizens in their private capacity to uphold the values of democracy, free speech, liberty, justice." ++BLACK FRAMES++ 7. SOUNDBITE (English) Sen. Elissa Slotkin, (D) Michigan: "I appreciate Senator Tillis saying something. I certainly, he's gone further than anybody else. But it's just a sad moment when anonymous grand jurors, just citizens called at random in Washington, DC, have more bravery to uphold basic rule of law and stand for that than some of our colleagues here in the Senate." ++BLACK FRAMES++ 8. SOUNDBITE (English) Sen. Elissa Slotkin, (D) Michigan: "Both of us have put our lives at risk. Neither of us enjoy this. I certainly have worked alongside the FBI and the Department of Justice as a CIA officer my entire life. I have great respect for what the career professionals do. They keep us safe every single day. So I don't enjoy waking up and having those same organizations targeted and pointed against me for freedom of speech. I don''t. But he's counting on us to feel weak in the knees and to bow out. And I think that's why we went the opposite direction, was to say that point directly to the President." 9. Cutaway of Kelly and Slotkin leaving room STORYLINE: Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork Twitter: https://twitter.com/AP_Archive Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/APArchives ​​ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/APNews/ You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/youtube/202f42270ecd48e7915c1468abdf45eb