Daniella Gibbs Léger: Hey everyone, welcome back to “The Tent,” your place for politics, policy, and progress. I’m Daniella Gibbs Léger.
Erin Phillips: And filling in for Colin Seeberger, I’m Erin Phillips. Daniella, welcome back.
Phillips: We’ve had quite a few sicknesses on the team—
Phillips: —a sort of rotating carousel of colds, if you will.
Gibbs Léger: Yes, we have. I truly do not like this time of year because it is just sickness upon sickness upon sickness.
Phillips: Yeah. Well, we’re wishing the best for those members of our team who are sick now, and glad we’re both feeling better—
Phillips: —since we were both sick last week. But I heard you’re back at it this week with a great interview with a former CAP Action colleague.
Gibbs Léger: That is right. I spoke with Ed Chung. He is currently the vice president of initiatives at the Vera Institute. And we talked about what the next Trump administration will mean for criminal justice and immigration, and how to protect against some of their most harmful plans.
Phillips: A really important conversation as we head into the new year. But before we get to that, we’ve got to get to some news.
Gibbs Léger: Yes we do, Erin. So by now I’m sure our listeners have heard that Trump has designated Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, to run a so-called Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE for short—
Gibbs Léger: —I hate that name so, so very much—along with fellow billionaire Vivek Ramaswamy.
Now, I want to dig into these plans for a moment because, yes, of course, we all want a government that is more efficient. But I am deeply concerned that this commission is really a front for gutting America’s middle class to pay for Trump’s disastrous economic policies, which include huge tax breaks for large corporations and his billionaire buddies.
Elon Musk has said he wants to cut $2 trillion—with a T—out of the federal budget. But we’ve run the math, and it is impossible to achieve savings of that size without cutting critical benefits that the American people rely on—ones that President-elect Trump already called for cutting in his planned budget the last time he was president. So here are just some of the programs that look like they may very well be on the chopping block: DOGE could eliminate the government-provided health care services that are available for the close to 16 million veterans in this country. It could entirely cut the Head Start program, which provided 833,000 low-income families with no-cost child care services in the 2023 fiscal year.
Musk and Ramaswamy’s plans could also put around 7 million people at risk of losing assistance for heating and cooling their homes by nixing the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program. And DOGE could eliminate NIH’s [National Institutes of Health] research for cancer, strokes, and other biomedical research that seniors rely on. The U.S. Marshals [Service] and the entire FBI could be shut down, as could the public agency that keeps our drinking water safe.
I mean, this is really dangerous stuff. And even more worrisome, Trump and his allies have signaled their willingness to illegally impound funding, basically to circumvent Congress in order to make these unilateral cuts. All of this puts the programs and services that Americans rely on at risk.
Phillips: Yeah, Americans want their government to protect their pocketbooks, their way of life, their health. That’s not what Trump, his nominees, or his allies in Congress seem to be focused on. Along with the conversations about DOGE, a number of Republican legislators have expressed interest in cutting Social Security and Medicare, even though Trump promised on the campaign trail that he wouldn’t make cuts to these programs, probably because he knew how popular they are and how many Americans rely on them.
It’s pretty remarkable. I mean, Donald Trump and his allies have been talking a big talk about lowering costs, yet, as we’re mere weeks away from his inauguration and the start of the next Congress, where are the plans to tackle inflation? Where are their plans to lower the cost of housing? Where are their plans to lower drug costs? The plans to make it easier for Americans to get by? I mean, you won’t hear about them because they don’t exist.
It’s clear that power is the priority for these people, not to mention rewarding their billionaire buddies for their support. It’s why Trump has already tapped at least 11 billionaires to serve in his cabinet—eleven—and it’s why Republican leaders in the House and Senate are prepared to extend Trump’s tax cuts for the rich and corporations. They’ll pay for those tax breaks by slashing the programs Americans rely on, some of the ones you mentioned.
Look, Donald Trump likes to talk a big talk about how he’s “America first,” but I’m really concerned that this administration is MAGA first, America last.
Gibbs Léger: Exactly, Erin. But let’s turn to the international stage now because there was a huge development in Syria’s yearslong civil war over the weekend. And here to talk to us about it is Allison McManus, managing director of National Security and International Policy at CAP Action.
Allison, welcome back to “The Tent.”
Allison McManus: Thanks for having me. Great to be here.
Gibbs Léger: So after years of civil war, Syrian rebels seized power over the weekend and the regime of former President Bashar al-Assad fell. Can you explain what happened, and why the rebels were finally able to break through in this conflict? Like, what has changed?
McManus: First thing I want to emphasize here is what we’re talking about isn’t necessarily just a yearslong civil war. We’re talking about the toppling of a 50-plus year dictatorship.
The Assad family—the father and then the son, Bashar al-Assad—ruled Syria with an iron grip for decades. And so for many, many Syrians, this is the first in their lifetime that they’ll know Syria without an Assad in power. So I think that’s a really important thing to emphasize.
In 2011, when we saw uprisings happen across the Arab world, we saw people coming into the streets demanding democracy, demanding dignity, demanding rights, it was the same in Syria. There were, at first, peaceful uprisings calling for the overthrow of Assad. Assad responded with extreme brutality. And this was extreme brutality not only from his own forces, but critically that was bolstered with Russian air power and with support from Iranian-backed militias on the ground.
This quickly radicalized much of the opposition, and we saw different factions across Syria take up arms. Some of these were much more religious, Islamist in character—this would include ISIS by 2015—but also other factions, some that were al-Qaida affiliated. One of these ended up becoming Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham [HTS], which we may have heard of in the news.
Eventually, the conflict between many of these factions and Assad reached a point where Assad had re-exerted control over much of the country and pushed these factions, many of them, into the northwest part of the country, into a region called Idlib. Some other factions, particularly Kurdish aligned, were in control of an area in the northeast.
This was the state of affairs for the last years, particularly since this deal to bring the factions into the northwest. What has happened now since 2022: two major wars, one in Ukraine—which has preoccupied Russia—one in now Gaza, but also Lebanon over the last years—which has preoccupied Iran.
What this has meant is that Russia and Iran are preoccupied with these conflicts elsewhere, so don’t necessarily have the same kind of capacity and strength to be able to back Assad. These rebel groups recognized that this was their opportunity and began taking over town by town by town.
What was really shocking is that there was absolutely no opposition. Without Russia and without Iran, there was no real force to speak of that would stand up for Assad. We saw the regime-aligned forces taking off their uniforms, dropping their weapons, and simply retreating. So truly remarkable in the span of 11 days, after a 50-year dictatorship, that we’ve actually seen that Assad fell.
Phillips: Wow. The regime before was obviously downright horrible, as you mentioned. I think there’s a lot of hope right now that there’s a new path forward, but the rebels who took power are not perfect. You alluded to some of their roots. Can you talk a little bit more about these rebel forces, what their background is, and what are some of the risks we should watch for as they chart a new course forward for the country?
McManus: There’s a whole constellation of different groups. The one that I would focus the most on is HTS. Its leader, [Mohammed al-]Jolani, is somebody who fought in Iraq, was actually in a U.S. prison because of his engagement in Iraq. I mean, this is a hardened militant. This guy’s whole credentials are that he is a fighter.
As he came to Syria, he was aligned with the Islamic state and then became aligned with al-Qaida. Over the past years, he has moved away from these jihadist groups and sort of taken up the mantle of Syrian nationalism with HTS. So we’ve seen this evolution away from jihadist groups—who may have had this kind of more global, anti-U.S., anti-Israel posture—to something that looks more about what it means to take power in Syria, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that this group is the paradigm of liberalism.
What remains to be seen now is what happens now that Assad is out, now that HTS has taken control. We’ve seen some signs already that there is a willingness and a desire to actually turn that control over to civilian government, having a prime minister be able to take some power. But it’s going to be a long, long road ahead.
HTS, again, is a rebel group that was able to set up some governance structures in Idlib. It’s going to look a lot different now in terms of what governance in Syria will look like across the whole country. We have a number of different minority groups, also a number of foreign interests now. We’ve seen that Turkey has become more engaged in the northeast. Israel has become more engaged around the area in the Golan Heights.
So the true political trajectory is really unclear. The only last thing I would say is that there would never be any hope if Assad hadn’t fallen. And so while the future may be uncertain, it’s been really incredible to hear from Syrians how hopeful they are that now, OK, maybe they’re going to need to negotiate what that future looks like, it doesn’t mean that things are just going to be rainbows and sunshine from here on out, but there’s actually a chance to create something better.
Gibbs Léger: So you mentioned about Turkey and Israel and their activities in the region, and there’s been a lot of activity in the region by international actors since the weekend. The U.S., for instance, struck ISIS targets.
What impact do you think these activities could have as the rebels try to create legitimate authority? And is there a role for the international community to play during this period of transition?
McManus: To answer the first question, Daniella, I would just very briefly—because there’s a lot of interests at play—but just very briefly outline what some of these foreign interests are in Syria.
So you have Turkey. Turkey has taken at least, we could say around 4 million Syrian refugees. That has put a strain on Turkey’s ability to provide, to actually host. So [President Recep Tayyip] Erdoğan is certainly interested in seeing a chance for these refugees to return home. Turkey has also fought a consistent battle against its Kurdish population, which it sees as a threat to Turkish unity, and Syria is home to a Kurdish minority as well in the northeast, who are well armed. The YPG [People’s Protection Units] is what the Kurdish militia is called there. And so Erdoğan may also have interest in trying to push back on that Kurdish territory in northeast Syria.
Israel has occupied this area on the border of Syria and Israel called the Golan Heights. It is now pushing past the Golan more into Syria. Its interest there is to further cut down Hezbollah’s ability to supply and create what Israel is saying is a buffer zone for security reasons there. So that’s another interest.
Russia has two military bases in Syria, a naval base and an air force base. These are really critical to Russia’s ability to project power, not only in the Middle East, but across Africa as well.
The United States has around 900 troops on the ground that played a big role in the fight against ISIS. ISIS is still present on the ground in Syria, and particularly in the al-Hol refugee camp. There’s tens of thousands of ISIS and ISIS-affiliated fighters, so that might not be a presence that the United States will be quick to take out.
And then, of course, Iran has its interests. So there’s all of these different interests at play. That’s going to be something that will be difficult for a new government to manage as it’s trying to preserve its territory and set up systems of governance that could allow for governance of all these different areas.
In terms of where the international community can be helpful, obviously, as we’ve discussed, it’s going to remain to be seen the nature of governance that the Syrians set up. And so obviously there will be some caution about granting too much legitimacy just because people are saying the right things. There’s going to need to be sort of a period to wait and see what these structures look like.
But I do think that the international community should be supportive of Syrians as they are trying to establish these governance structures and should certainly push back on any of these efforts to incur into Syrian territory at this really delicate time. Even if some of our allies like Israel and like Turkey may have their own interests, I do think it’s worth saying, “Hey, take a step back. This is still Syrian sovereign territory.”
The other thing is that there’s been years of conflict and years of deprivation. Frankly, Assad ran the country into the ground. Real loss of economy. And so there’s going to need to be a lot of rebuilding.
This is an area where the international community can play a role—just how to help Syria get back on its feet, make sure that Syrians have access to the kind of economic opportunities that they need. The complicating factor there, of course, is that HTS is a foreign terrorist organization. That can put a real chilling effect on the ability to get funds in if it’s seen to have negative legal ramifications.
And so there may need to be a rethinking about how the United States—assuming Jolani doesn’t dissolve HTS, which would probably be the best path forward— how to facilitate the delivery of capital goods and services into Syria.
Phillips: Lots of factors at play to be sure. Thank you so much for joining us and breaking this down for us, Allison.
McManus: Thanks so much. Thanks for having me. It’s actually great, for once, to be here to talk about foreign policy.
Phillips: Yeah. Well, that’s all the time we have for today. If there’s anything else you’d like us to cover on the pod, hit us up on Twitter, BlueSky, Instagram, and Threads @TheTentPod. That’s @TheTentPod.
Gibbs Léger: And stick around for my interview with Ed Chung in just a beat.
Gibbs Léger: Ed Chung is the vice president of initiatives at Vera Institute. Before joining Vera, Ed was the vice president of Criminal Justice Reform at the Center for American Progress and CAP Action, and was an old co-host of CAP’s podcast. He previously worked at the [U.S.] Department of Justice [DOJ], the White House Domestic Policy Council, and on the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee. He began his career as a federal prosecutor in the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division and as an assistant district attorney in Manhattan.
Ed, thanks so much for joining us on “The Tent.”
Ed Chung: Oh my goodness, it’s so good to be here.
Gibbs Léger: Welcome back!
Chung: Oh, it’s like alumni weekend or something like that. It’s homecoming. So this is great to be here.
Gibbs Léger: Exactly. Exactly. Well let’s jump right into it. So we have heard Trump reference plans to go after what he calls the quote-unquote “enemy within,” which is what he calls any American who disagrees with him politically. He’s discussed using the Department of Justice and even the military to target both political figures and everyday Americans protesting his policies.
What do you think these plans will look like? What guardrails are in place to protect Americans from this kind of abuse of power? And should we be concerned that Trump could make good on any of these threats?
Chung: Well let’s start out with that last question, and absolutely, yes, we should be preparing, we should be anticipating that he will make good on these threats.
I mean, that’s one of the lessons learned from the first administration. It’s one of the lessons learned from the campaign. Because we’re already seeing things that are happening now in preparation for the administration that he already promised. So we as a country do ourselves a disservice by not taking seriously campaign promises of our candidates, especially Donald Trump.
So how this will look like is—it’s really difficult to imagine because we’re suspending what we know of in our history of rules, norms, guidelines, even regulations and laws. Going after political opponents can look a few different ways. One is—and this is well documented—it’s utilizing the Department of Justice, where I used to work.
A lot of the policies and the ways that decisions are made in terms of who to go after—there’s a lot of discretion. We all know that prosecutors have a lot of discretion overall in our criminal justice system of what types of charges to pursue. And these are the most serious, right? So if you’re going after criminal cases and criminal prosecutions, those are the most serious.
So one of the other things to note is that our criminal laws are generally broadly written because you don’t want to have criminal laws that are so specific that you have to have new laws every time you’re trying to prohibit something. So they’re very broadly written, especially conspiracy laws and things like that. So a lot of fact patterns can come under them. So yeah, there is this possibility—and maybe even a likelihood—that the powers of DOJ’s prosecutorial and investigatory work will be utilized against political opponents.
One thing to note really is even if something doesn’t get to the level of prosecutions—and your question is what are the guardrails? One of the guardrails is the court system, and things that are prosecuted have to go through a court system.
But even just the investigation itself, that is a taxing, cumbersome, burdensome process that requires a lot from an ordinary citizen, but also from people who are in elected positions or higher and senior positions, and it at the very least gums up the work that they’re doing. But even more so, subpoenas, information gathering, all of those things that come with a federal investigation before it even touches the court system. Those are some of the things to be on the lookout for.
Gibbs Léger: Trump has also talked extensively about his immigration plans, which include immediately embarking on mass deportation efforts and mobilizing National Guardsmen to detain immigrants. He’s also suggested that he’ll try to end birthright citizenship and deport U.S. citizens.
Can you talk about how he might try to carry out those plans and their legality, and what Americans should know about the potential impacts of this scheme?
Chung: Birthright citizenship is a really interesting one. What most constitutional scholars are saying is that this is something that can’t be undone just by the administration alone, not by executive order, as I think Trump has suggested.
But it’s a constitutional issue. And this is why, in years past, the composition of the courts is so important, and especially the Supreme Court. I think there is some hope that if it ultimately comes down to some kind of legal challenge to birthright citizenship, that there are enough protections, even from the current composition of the court, to ensure that that type of precedent remains.
But all of the other immigration policies that Trump campaigned on, those are the most immediate things that I think the entire general public, progressives overall are the most worried about.
How does this play out? Well first, our immigration system gives a lot of power to federal authorities. And so if somebody is already in a deportation proceeding, those are the ones that I think you don’t need extra power to do anything. Already DHS [U.S. Department of Homeland Security] and the immigration system, there’s ability to do that.
In addition to that, though, when we’re talking about mass deportations, the scale of which Trump is saying, there will need to be more, at least resources. And the thing that we’re looking at at the Vera Institute of Justice where I work is: 1) are there local law enforcement that is going to be either encouraged or in some way coerced, conscripted into helping the Trump administration by, for example, withholding or conditioning federal funds to those jurisdictions?
What people may not know is that DHS, the Department of Homeland Security, includes FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency. And FEMA has funds, jurisdictions all over the country—billions of dollars worth, and rightfully so—but that is all under the DHS’ authority. And so is there a possibility and a probability that those funds are going to be contingent on cooperation with Trump’s immigration proposals? Yes, certainly I think that is a possibility.
Gibbs Léger: Well, that’s terrifying. Let’s talk about something also terrifying. Trump recently nominated Pam Bondi for attorney general after receiving huge backlash for his nomination of Matt Gaetz.
Now for those who may not be familiar with her, Bondi is a staunch Trump loyalist who has worked as a lobbyist on behalf of corporate clients for several years. So can you talk to our listeners about her record, the ethical concerns surrounding her nomination, and how she might help Trump weaponize the Department of Justice to do Trump’s bidding, and why this would be a dangerous prospect for someone serving in the role of attorney general?
Chung: Well, Daniella, if you want to talk about something that’s positive, let’s talk about my Detroit Lions instead of your New York Giants. We can do that.
Gibbs Léger: I was wondering how you were going to fit that in here.
Chung: We’re going to weave it in—
Gibbs Léger: Very nice. Very nice.
Chung: —because it is the way to do that. I, obviously because of my employment history with the Department of Justice, have really grave concerns about any nominee. And so I want to kind of pull this back and not focus necessarily on Pam Bondi, but on whomever Trump nominates and puts in power.
Because what we know is that there’s a kiss-the-ring requirement that he has. And that means that he has said he wants to, as we talked about earlier, go after political opponents and discard any of the wall that there might be between a political and career or civil servant aspect and roles to the Department of Justice.
The biggest benefit and advantage of a well-functioning Justice Department is its independence. And when I was here at CAP, actually, we wrote a report going into the 2020 election to try to protect against those things, especially when it comes to criminal prosecutions. We gathered a group of former high-level DOJ officials, former U.S. attorneys, and one of the recommendations that came out of that was put into regulations, not just as a norm or a Department of Justice policy, the separation of discussions of criminal prosecutions with political components of the White House and have that be a wall. And the Biden administration did that. The anticipation is that that’s not going to happen next time.
The other part of this is that any attorney general will also look at the civil servants there. Now, I was a civil servant. I was a career staffer. I was a career attorney at the Justice Department. And with it comes a requirement in hiring that your political affiliation and your beliefs are not part of any kind of employment decision. And that’s the vast majority. I mean, there’s only a small part of the Justice Department where you have political appointees in charge. But the vast majority of everything else, in terms of handling cases and prosecutions, it’s done by career prosecutors. If you get rid of that, then truly the independence of the Department of Justice is going to be lost.
And that is really concerning, whether it’s Pam Bondi—I mean, when Matt Gaetz was removed from consideration and Pam Bondi was put in, whoever it is, they’re all going to have the same requirements to do Trump’s political bidding, and that’s really the big concern. So if Pam Bondi is put forward and confirmed, or if it’s somebody else, the same issues will remain.
Gibbs Léger: I want to talk about the private prison industry. They have seen their stocks jump since Trump’s election win. Now what role could private prisons play in his criminal justice and immigration plans? And what impact could that have on justice in this country?
Chung: Yeah, it’s really, I think, the second part that you’re talking about in the immigration plans. If the mass deportation process is going to happen as Trump has campaigned on and promised, then there will be a need—looking at it from, obviously, their perspective—there will be a need to put people in detention somewhere.
And the motive, the profit motive, the corporate motive that comes with that, in terms of lobbying legislatures and lobbying Congress and putting the money in for those purposes, it’s—not to use the technical term—but it’s that icky feeling, right?
Chung: It’s that grotesque way of having harmful policies coupled with what appears to be corrupt motive. And that’s going to go forward.
But it’s also the public aspects of this—prisons and jails that are funded by the public that are also going to be part of this entire deportation and more tough on crime, more arrests, more incarceration aspect of it, too.
Gibbs Léger: So, let’s move to maybe a slightly better topic.
Chung: I feel like I’m bringing zero holiday joy to this to this conversation.
Gibbs Léger: It’s very, very low vibes right here. President Biden has an opportunity to exercise his powers of clemency in the next several weeks to protect vulnerable individuals under the next Trump administration. That includes folks with federal death sentences, individuals in the home confinement program, or individuals with low-level drug offenses, for example.
So can you talk about why it’s important that he carry out broad clemency actions for these groups and how it will protect them from the next administration?
Chung: Yeah, this is a question about hope because this is one area where the president and, at the state level, governors can exercise their authority and really just cut through all of the BS. And if they want to provide clemency, meaning a commuting of a sentence, shortening of a sentence, or a pardon—as we have seen, obviously, President Biden do in certain situations—to provide relief from the harshness of the criminal justice system. And so there are people, for example, who are on home confinement right now that were released during the pandemic, that were placed in home confinement, that are still on home confinement. And even though the people who are there, they don’t pose a threat to the safety of the community or anything like that, they continue to be there. And their sentences can be either commuted or pardoned.
Death penalty, as you were talking about, this is a broad power that, for example, we know President Obama utilized. It was one of the most aggressive uses of the clemency powers to right some of the wrongs of the criminal justice system. And so that’s something that any president can and should do. And President Biden has the opportunity to have a positive note during the last months and weeks of his administration through that.
I want to just pause here, if I can, Daniella, to mention that these issues are things that, for me and my career, have been core. And at the Vera Institute of Justice, we just recently put out a podcast, a limited series podcast, four episodes that traced the last 30 years ever since the 1994 crime bill, which was the largest public safety and criminal justice bill in our country’s history.
And I encourage your listeners to go check that out. It’s hosted by Josie Duffy Rice, an attorney and a journalist and a great writer. And we go through some of the last 30 years, myth-busting about some of the things that you may have heard of, but also highlighting kind of the hope that we have because this actually has been and is a bipartisan issue.
And so it’s called “The 30 Year Project.” It’s available where every, you know, on all platforms—what is it? Subscribe? Like? And—
Gibbs Léger: Yes, five stars, all that.
Chung: All that good stuff, too, yeah.
Gibbs Léger: Awesome. That sounds really, really great. For my last question, I want to talk about something that Trump did in terms of—he wove an insider versus outsider narrative throughout the election that allowed him to push many of these dangerous policies and one that painted immigrants as criminals and folks with any kind of criminal record as almost subhuman and one that cast America’s cities as being overrun with crime, despite the data saying otherwise.
So how do we combat this narrative during the next administration and fight against the likely violent, authoritarian law enforcement policies, and how can we work toward this affirmative vision instead?
Chung: Yeah, I mean, in our criminal justice movement space, for example, we’ve said for a while that data alone and evidence alone is not enough.
People don’t react personally to data and research and so forth. It has to be combined with a narrative, but also with an understanding and an acceptance of what people are observing. Whether they are observing and taking in things that are actually, you know, real and substantiated, or whether they are taking in disinformation as well, we have to understand that and recognize that. And so our immediate reactions can’t only be, “Well the data tells us otherwise,” because people aren’t experiencing that.
The other thing—and especially in the criminal justice and public safety spaces—even if violent crime comes down, what people see on the streets themselves may not rise to the level of criminal conduct. But if you see things like disorder or things that just feel out of the norm around you, those things shouldn’t be dismissed, and they should be properly addressed by officials, by governments, by society.
And so I think part of this is rethinking what we prioritize when we govern. I think that’s the things that progressives have been thinking about, and there’s been a bit of a blame game, there’s been a bit of recounting of how things are. But what’s important, I think, as for a lesson for me, is are we governing with the immediacy that is necessary? And are we connecting with people on the policies that we have?
So even, again, in public safety, if we’re talking about policing or if we’re talking about the criminal justice system or anything else, we have to match it up with people’s experience and bring them to a place, if we want to have policy change about what’s necessary.
In the next four years, I don’t know. Because the Trump megaphone is going to be what we experienced plus more from Trump 1.0. And so the defensive work that’s going to have to happen on the ground is one part of this. But I personally am trying to get myself to a position of mentally getting over a malaise, but also finding the energy and the devotion to do this on a day-to-day basis, right?
And it’s tough, you know. You know this, and I think people who are listeners know this, that it’s the anticipation. I’m about to turn 50 this year, Daniella.
Chung: Yeah, right? And it’s the anticipation of turning 50 that is weighing on my mind. And so like, when it happens, we’ll get over the hump. When this administration takes into office, we will, I think, be energized to act even more. But the preparation to that point, I think, is important. And I don’t want to, in any way, equate turning 50 with a new Trump administration. But, yeah.
Gibbs Léger: It’s a milestone. We’ll just leave it at that, how about that? Well, Ed, I want to thank you for coming back and joining us on “The Tent,” and thank you for all the great work that you all are doing at the Vera Institute.
Chung: Oh, this is such a pleasure. Thank you so much for having me, and go Lions.
Gibbs Léger: I can’t even say go Giants, so just, yeah. Thanks, Ed.
Gibbs Léger: Well, that’s going to do it for us, folks. Thanks for listening. As always, please go back and check out previous episodes. Before we go, it’s that time of the year, Erin. It’s time to talk about our Spotify Wrapped or Title, whatever they call their end of the year thing, thing.
Phillips: Right, you use Title, to be clear.
Gibbs Léger: I do use Title, yes.
Phillips: And we know that Colin, who’s not here, uses, is it, Apple Music?
Gibbs Léger: Apple? I think he’s Apple Music.
Phillips: Apple Music. I just know he’s not a Spotify guy. He’s very clear about that.
Phillips: Yeah, but what was on your wrapped for the year, Daniella?
Gibbs Léger: So, not surprisingly, a lot of Beyoncé—
Phillips: Love that for you.
Gibbs Léger: —a lot of “Cowboy Carter” was on there. And coming in late at the end of the year has been Tyler, The Creator.
Gibbs Léger: Yeah, I’ve been listening to his album, like, nonstop since it dropped, what, a month and a half ago? So, it’s pretty amazing that it’s crept up there.
Phillips: Really creeping up there, yeah.
Gibbs Léger: Yeah, exactly. And then, of course, Kendrick Lamar. “They Not Like Us” got a lot of airplay, and his new album is also very fantastic.
Phillips: Very good, yeah.
Gibbs Léger: Yeah. What about you?
Phillips: Well the thing for me is I always look at the minutes listened because I am a music fiend, and I think I clocked in at 78,000 minutes of music this year, which is a little embarrassing to say.
Gibbs Léger: That’s not embarrassing. Music is wonderful.
Phillips: I feel like people are talking about, like, “I was in the top 0.05 percent of artist listeners.” And I’m like, “I think I was in the top 0.05 percent of listeners to music generally.”
Phillips: But I did have some staples. I like to listen to some like heavier music, some punk music, some metal music.
But the recognizable names—I’ve got Noah Kahan in my top five.
Phillips: Big, big folk fan. I like Maisie Peters. Maisie Peters is in my top five. So, you know, a little pop snuck in there along the way.
Gibbs Léger: No Taylor Swift in there?
Phillips: No Taylor Swift in there, no.
Gibbs Léger: I will say, the end of the Eras tour was this past weekend.
Phillips: It was, that’s right.
Gibbs Léger: And even though I did not go to any of the shows, I felt oddly emotional about it ending?
Gibbs Léger: And I don’t know if it’s just because girl power, yay, and all of that. But I think it’s because when you look at those concerts and the people who go and the community and the joy—this past year’s been a bit of a dumpster fire, but that’s been nice to see. So maybe that’s what it was that got me in my feels.
Phillips: Yeah. As someone who goes to a lot of concerts, like I go to at least one concert a week, I really liked seeing the Eras tour for people who don’t go to as many concerts and how they got to experience that sense of community that I love and feel at concerts all the time. I thought that was really cool. So I’m also a little sad to see it end.
Gibbs Léger: Yeah. Well, we’ll see what next year brings. Maybe another tour. Beyoncé, please, I need to save my money in 2025. Do not announce a tour.
Phillips: Well Kendrick already announced his tour, so you better get on that.
Gibbs Léger: And I looked at those tickets, and I was like, “OK, I think we’re going to just wait for a minute and see.”
Phillips: Fair enough, yeah.
Gibbs Léger: But anyway, that’s it for us this week. It’s cold season, y’all. So do what you got to do. Get your flu shot. Get your COVID shot. Take care of yourselves. And we’ll talk to you next week.
Gibbs Léger: “The Tent” is a podcast from the Center for American Progress Action Fund. It’s hosted by me, Daniella Gibbs Léger, and co-hosted by Colin Seeberger. Erin Phillips is our lead producer and guest host for this episode. Kelly McCoy is our supervising producer, Mishka Espey is our booking producer, and Muggs Leone is our digital producer. Hai Phan, Matthew Gossage, Olivia Mowry, and Toni Pandolfo are our video team.
Views expressed by guests of “The Tent” are their own, and interviews are not endorsements of a guest’s perspectives. You can find us on YouTube, Apple, Spotify, Google Play, or wherever you get your podcasts.