Colin Seeberger: Hey everyone. Welcome back to “The Tent,” your place for politics, policy, and progress. I’m Colin Seeberger.
Erin Phillips: And filling in for Daniella Gibbs Léger, I’m Erin Phillips. Colin, it’s cherry blossom season here in D.C. Have you seen any cherry blossoms yet?
Seeberger: I have. And actually my daughter, when we’re driving down the street, she has started saying, “Pink flowers, pink flowers,” every time we encounter one. And I’ve definitely been making use of the good weather from this past weekend and doing some long walks and just enjoying being outside.
However, it seems like Mother Nature cannot make up her mind because we are waffling from summer weather to 30 degrees and freezing it seems like every few days.
Phillips: Yeah, hopefully it’ll warm up and be more consistent, and maybe I will borrow your daughter’s “pink flower, pink flower”—at least mentally, on the inside.
Seeberger: You know what? It cheers me up, so go ahead.
Phillips: Well it may be beautiful outside, but unfortunately there is some ugly stuff going on in Washington. But I heard you had a spicy conversation about it this week.
Seeberger: I sure did. I talked to George Conway about the Trump administration’s neglect for our national security and judicial system, as well as the need to hold the Trump administration accountable.
Phillips: There’s so much to discuss there, so I can’t wait to hear it.
Phillips: Yeah. But first, we’ve got to get to some news.
Seeberger: Oh boy, Erin. Where do we even start with this today? Let’s talk about perhaps the sloppiest national security breach I’ve seen in government perhaps throughout the course of my entire career.
Earlier this week, we learned that the president’s national security adviser, Michael Waltz, messaged plans about recent U.S. strikes against Houthi rebels in Yemen to a group chat that included a number of top administration officials via a messaging app named Signal.
He also apparently—because, of course—included The Atlantic’s editor Jeffrey Goldberg in the group chat, which contained classified national security secrets.
Seeberger: Yeah. Oh, my bad. Happens all the time, right? It’s easy to roll your eyes over how ludicrous this story sounds, but here’s why we need to take it seriously.
The Trump administration is making Americans less safe, and they’re lying to you about it. Trump said earlier this week that Mike Waltz has his full confidence. I think those service members whose lives were put at risk because of this administration’s reckless communications would beg to differ.
Officials shared classified details about military strikes and the positions of our service members on this group chat that put our troops’ lives on the line. As Connecticut Congressman Jim Himes (D) said earlier this week, “It’s by the grace of God that we don’t have dead pilots or sunken ships right now.”
Two weeks ago, Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, announced a crackdown on leaks within the intelligence community and said that, “Any unauthorized release of classified information is a violation of the law.” How can you enforce a law like that if you can’t even follow it yourself? Also, this app isn’t allowed to be used on most federal phones, meaning they were likely communicating about top secret information from personal devices.
Just a week ago, the Pentagon actually sent out a warning to all folks who work for the [U.S.] Defense Department, letting them know about Signal’s security vulnerabilities. And yet, several of these Trump officials were traveling in foreign countries—including in adversarial countries like Russia—when these Signal texts were flying around. The CIA director, John Ratcliffe, revealed the name of an undercover CIA agent on that thread, according to Jeffrey Goldberg. And there’s a decent chance that the Russians actually picked up those communications.
And honestly, it’s really a miracle that the Russians didn’t hand over any of this information to the Houthis so that they could attack our troops conducting the mission in real time or retaliate for these strikes.
It really must give our allies pause about whether they think that they can share intelligence with the United States and know it won’t end up in the wrong hands or compromise their own intelligence sources. Would you trust the people on that group chat to keep our top military secrets safe? Especially when they speak with such disdain about our most steadfast allies.
Phillips: Well I’m no national security professional, but my answer is probably not.
Seeberger: You know? I think you might be in good company.
Phillips: Yeah, I think so. For an administration that talks so much about law and order, it sure seems like this group of people is comfortable breaking the law in a number of ways. I mean, who knows if this is even the first Signal thread that this crew has started up to discuss top secret information? It’s just the one that we got leaked. It may not be the first.
And I agree with Sen. [Mark] Warner (D-VA), the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, who called for Mike Waltz and Pete Hegseth’s resignations. I think Tulsi Gabbard should get the boot for this, too. The Trump administration hasn’t had any problem firing veterans, scientists, or nuclear weapons experts, so I don’t see any reason why they should hesitate here.
Donald Trump frequently says he’s hired “the best people,” but this is a government comprised of sheer incompetence, and that incompetence comes at the expense of, as you said, American security.
And you don’t have to take our word for how serious this is. In 2016, when news about Hillary Clinton’s communications on a private email system broke, Pete Hegseth said what she had done was, quote, “criminal,” and that she should go to jail. Marco Rubio, now our secretary of state and someone who was also included on this infamous Signal chat, said in 2016 that people should be held accountable if they break the law.
So I also have to say the administration’s response to this has been appalling. They’ve obfuscated, played dumb, tried to pin the blame elsewhere, instead of owning up to wrongdoing and pledging to ensure it doesn’t happen again. We’ve got this “drip, drip, drip” situation where we’re learning from subsequent reports that some of the people on the chat were overseas—as you said—including in Russia, while they were having these sensitive conversations. Russia, by the way, has attempted to hack the Signal app many times in the past and even succeeded in using it to spy on Ukrainian military members.
In testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee earlier this week, CIA Director John Ratcliffe doubled down and refused to admit this was even a mistake. He and Tulsi Gabbard alleged they didn’t know DOD [U.S. Department of Defense] policy forbids controlled, unclassified information on unsecured devices—alarming—and Gabbard refused to acknowledge she was even a member of the Signal group chat or disclose whether she had used a personal or government-issued device.
Seeberger: It’s honestly—it’s offensive, right?
Phillips: It’s astounding. Yes, it is offensive. They similarly tried to dodge questions on the chat when they testified before the House Intelligence Committee on Wednesday. It’s like dodging the questions all over the Hill.
So whether it’s our national security or the security of Americans’ hard-earned rights and benefits, what the American people need to know is that this administration isn’t being straight with you. Republicans in Congress are unwilling to hold them accountable. They’re trying to cover up what happened because it can’t be defended.
Seeberger: You know, Erin, I really can’t believe the level of incompetence we’re seeing from the administration—on this on so many levels.
I also, though, can’t believe that in some states it’s already election season.
Phillips: Me neither, Colin. It’s too soon, I think.
Seeberger: It sure does feel too soon. But this week, we actually saw Democrats racked up major wins in state House and state Senate races in Pennsylvania, winning an outright majority in the state House and flipping a Senate district Trump won by 15 points in 2024.
But the biggest contest of 2025 is actually slated to take place next week on April 1, when Wisconsin voters will head to the polls for, among other things, a key seat on the state Supreme Court. Despite the election being held on April Fool’s Day, it’s really no laughing matter at all. Here’s why.
This race is so important. The winner of the election will also determine whether the majority on the Wisconsin Supreme Court shifts to full MAGA control or, really, stays in the hands of a pro-democracy majority. So safe to say: stakes are super high.
Wisconsin’s supreme court is poised to rule on a number of critical issues in the coming year, including the future of local abortion access and the state’s electoral maps. So the court’s majority will likely influence the outcome in those key cases.
On top of all that, this election is also widely seen as a bellwether for the upcoming 2026 midterms and how the country is feeling about the start of the Trump administration, which helps explain why the race is breaking donation records left and right. Total spending from individuals and third-party groups is expected to exceed over a $100 million before the race ends next week. Again, we’re talking about a state supreme court race. $100 million—
Seeberger: —is a staggering, staggering sum. And there’s one person in particular who’s funneled a lot of money and influence into this race. You might have guessed: I’m talking about Elon Musk, President Trump’s top political donor. Musk and groups he spearheaded—like America PAC and Building for America’s Future, whatever that is—have poured more than $13 million into Judge Brad Schimel’s campaign. And over the weekend, he even held a virtual get out the vote rally for Schimel on his social media platform, X.
Schimel, unsurprisingly, is a MAGA loyalist endorsed by Trump who has run on an extreme, right-wing platform, including 2020 election denialism.
Phillips: Yeah. It’s bad enough that Elon Musk is destroying the programs and services Americans rely on at the federal level. Now he’s sort of wading into these state races and placing his thumb on the scale in a state judicial race.
Musk knows Brad Schimel will do anything Trump and his extremist billionaire friends tell him to do, no matter the cost to Wisconsin families. He wants a loyal pawn who will execute his and Trump’s extreme agenda on issues like redrawing the electoral map, as you said, for future elections to disenfranchise democratic voters.
And of course, it’s interesting to note that Musk’s car company, Tesla, sued Wisconsin mere days before this race kicked off over a state law banning carmakers from owning and operating dealerships in the state. That case is expected to make its way to the state Supreme Court. So it hardly seems fair that Musk gets to bankroll the campaign of someone who could soon be the deciding vote in a case in which he has a personal financial stake.
Phillips: It’s yet another example of the world’s richest man using his money to try to buy political outcomes and position himself above the law. The upshot here, though, is that the Democratic candidate, Judge Susan Crawford, has led an incredible grassroots campaign that’s beaten the record for most money ever raised by a U.S. judicial candidate.
She’s been able to do this because her campaign really is the people versus Elon Musk—or Elon Schimel, as she calls her opponent Brad Schimel. People are angry at Musk’s agenda, which has, of course, included taking an axe to the agency that administers Social Security checks to seniors, gutting veterans’ health care, emergency response to things like bird flu, and school lunch funding for low-income kids. And they’re responding by pushing back against his attempts to meddle in these state races, and no better example than this Wisconsin race.
Seeberger: Yeah, I’ll definitely be keeping an eye on this race and look forward to seeing the results come in. We could be seeing the first signs of the American people really saying that they have buyer’s remorse over the second Trump administration. So we’ll definitely be keeping tuned.
Phillips: For sure. Well that is 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.
Seeberger: And stick around for my interview with George Conway in just a beat.
Seeberger: George Conway is the president of Society for the Rule of Law and a co-host of the podcast “George Conway Explains It All” on The Bulwark.
Prior to that, he spent more than 30 years as an attorney at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz. In 2019, he helped found The Lincoln Project, a group of former Republican strategists working to defeat Donald Trump and Trumpism.
George Conway, thanks so much for joining us on “The Tent.”
George Conway: Thanks for having me.
Seeberger: So I got to get your take on the story of the week, George. National Security Adviser Michael Waltz accidentally included The Atlantic editor Jeff Goldberg in a Signal chat about sensitive national security secrets. I think a lot of Americans are still reeling over the disclosures in this piece, as well as some of the things that Jeff was able to publicize that were said inside the Signal chat itself.
I’m no lawyer, but it seems to average joes like me that a lot of laws may have been broken here. I’m curious for your thoughts on this whole incident, and what type of accountability should we be seeing for folks like Mike Waltz and Secretary Pete Hegseth?
Conway: Well I have never practiced national security law, so I can’t opine on the legalities of it, but there’s certainly a high degree of negligence here. Although fortunately, they decided to include someone, Jeff Goldberg, who’s a lot more trustworthy than they are on their chat.
Look, I mean, at a minimum the accountability would be in any normal administration, one or more of the people who are responsible for the chat would lose their jobs and should be. I mean, and this is what happens when you have some people—I mean, I just can’t imagine that a number of those people on that call would, in the ordinary course, get security clearances were it not for the fact that Donald Trump is president—a man who himself could never ever, ever, ever, ever get a security clearance were he an employee of the United States government in any normal environment.
And so we just have people who can’t be trusted—both as a matter of, in some cases, loyalty to the country, and in other cases just sheer competence or intelligence. I mean, that’s just where we are. We should be preparing ourselves for more incidents like this that are just jaw-dropping. And the danger of this—obviously there is this danger to our troops that this could have theoretically been disclosed if somebody’s phone had been hacked. This fellow [Steve] Witkoff was actually in Moscow at the time. I don’t know whether he had this phone with him at the time. And also Tulsi Gabbard was abroad.
In addition to the threat to the nation’s security, I mean, the problem we have is every time they do something that’s just completely off the wall that we have never seen anybody do before, it becomes just one more thing that we get used to.
Conway: And we’ve just achieved, in so many respects, this kind of malignant normality—is what psychologists call it—where the things that you would never accept—both morally and practically, in this case—it’s become a regular thing. And it’s just another step in the degradation of American government.
And it’s appalling, frankly, but it is something surprising in some respects, but not in others. These are the people, three months ago we were looking at how just crazy some of these appointees were—Pete Hegseth, Tulsi Gabbard. None of these people should be remotely, remotely in a position of authority over the United States’ national security, and yet here they are.
Seeberger: Here we are. Well it’s not just our national security; it’s also the integrity of our judiciary as well. We have seen in recent weeks Trump is clashing with people like Judge James Boasberg, who blocked his use of the Alien Enemies Act to deport migrants—at least one of whom, news reports suggest, was actually in the country legally.
In response, Trump has called for the impeachment of Judge Boasberg, which even compelled Chief Justice John Roberts—a really conservative member of the Supreme Court’s right-wing majority, of all people—to weigh in and call his comments inappropriate.
Talk a little bit about the war that Donald Trump seems to be waging on our courts. And are you concerned about how the judicial system is going to weather this second Trump term?
Conway: Yeah, I’m deeply concerned about how our overall constitutional system is going to weather this second Trump term. I actually have a great deal of confidence in the judges. I think there are judges of all sorts of different perspectives, with a few exceptions.
I think Chief Justice Roberts believes strongly in the rule of law. You may not agree with some of the decisions that he has made over the course of his tenure. I agree with probably more of them than you do, but I don’t necessarily agree with all of them. But that’s the nature of the beast. He believes strongly in the rule of law. And these attacks on judges, he realizes that this is an absolute threat to the judicial system to attack judges for their decisions.
Chief Justice Roberts has expressed concern about that before, including about what something that [Sen.] Chuck Schumer (D-NY) once said about judges. And he needs to speak out, as he did, and I think we all need to speak out. Because this is, to go back to your question about what Trump is doing here, he is engaging in nothing less than a full-frontal assault on the rule of law.
And one of the things that is characteristic of this kind of personality, which we have seen in tyrants before, is that they seek revenge. And Donald Trump seeks revenge against not only just individuals, the individuals like Marc Elias and Andrew Weissmann and all the people he’s named in these executive orders—he seeks vengeance against the entire judicial system, the entire legal system, because it tried to hold him to account.
And because he does not want to be held accountable to the judicial system, he seeks essentially to undermine and destroy it. And the way he has been doing that is, first of all, by violating as many laws and constitutional provisions as he can possibly violate in a very short period of time. Whether it be spending bills, the appointments clause of the Constitution, the citizenship clause of the 14th Amendment, all sorts of laws, the civil service rules—he’s violating everything, trying to overturn everything. He’s aligned with people who have had a vision of dismantling the federal government—extreme, and I wouldn’t even call it conservative, just completely radical people who because they cannot achieve an electoral majority to do that, they now seek to do it extra-legally.
And Trump has aligned himself with that not because he has any particular ideological views. He doesn’t. He only cares about himself, and he cares, in this case, about revenge. And he seeks revenge against the entire system. At the end of the day, the fact that he’s doing this and the fact that he’s triggering so many lawsuits that he will lose in the courts—and I think the courts will hold a lot of this illegal, including the Supreme Court.
I think at the end of the day, we’re going to get to the point where he will openly defy court orders. We’re basically there now, but they’re kind of slowing things down and they’re making noises about possibly courts are behaving unconstitutionally and they’re reserving the right to basically wholesale ignore court orders. And they’re going to get a lot of them. They’ve already gotten a lot of them, and it’s only been two months.
And that’s the thing that most concerns me, is that what happens when they finally just say, “OK, we don’t care what the Supreme Court said. The Supreme Court’s wrong.”
Conway: And I have no doubt they’re going to do that.
Seeberger: Well, if it brings you any peace of mind, I did see a poll out last week on this very topic that actually found that over 80 percent of Americans said that they believed that Donald Trump should follow federal court orders. We’ll see, if that moment ends up coming, how the American people respond.
But to get to that point about revenge that you were bringing up, one of the things that we have seen recently from this administration is that they’ve taken aim at individual lawyers and law firms that prosecuted cases against the government or against Donald Trump during the 2024 election.
Seeberger: We’ve already seen one firm—Paul, Weiss—cave to pressures from the administration and agree to an alarming set of demands.
I fundamentally disagree with the approach that we saw from Paul, Weiss. And I know you’ve talked a little bit about this online, but how should law firms handle this kind of unprecedented pressure from the president and the White House moving forward? What do you think it shows about the state of our legal system and democracy in this country more broadly?
Conway: I think lawyers have a moral duty, maybe not technically an ethical duty, but a moral duty to support the rule of law and the Constitution and the freedoms that we enjoy and the system that has allowed them to be as wealthy as they have become.
Lawyers need to put principles above their pocketbooks at this point. They need to stick together. And it is an absolute outrage—I think that Paul, Weiss’s capitulation is an absolute outrage. And I understand what their fear was. I mean, I went and I attended the TRO [temporary restraining order] hearing involving Perkins Coie. This was before the Paul, Weiss order was issued.
And I realized something, listening to the hearing and thinking about it: The judge gave them a TRO [temporary restraining order] against the government, but they could get a permanent injunction and still have the problem that clients might not retain them because they know that the Trump administration, and particularly Donald Trump, does not like them for completely irrational reasons since the people that Donald Trump has a beef with at Perkins Coie have been gone for a number of years. But let’s set that aside. And so the reason why Paul, Weiss capitulated was they took account of that very fact.
Conway: They said, “We can win a litigation, but how are we going to do business with the government with Donald Trump labeling us as persona non grata?” And that was the decision that they made. It was a business decision.
And I respect business decisions. We live in a free market economy where people do act in their own economic interests. But this is something more than that, that cuts up against their economic interest. They have duties as citizens and duties as lawyers to stand up to this.
And all lawyers have a duty to unite, a moral duty to unite, and to support people who are being victimized by this illegal, unlawful, depraved attack on lawyers who have been simply trying to hold Donald Trump to account, the criminal that he is.
Seeberger: Now, George, to end this interview, I usually like to end things on a positive note when we can.
Conway: Hard to do these days.
Seeberger: It is hard to do. But I’m curious to get your take on what the next few years really might look like. We’ve seen groups like the ACLU [American Civil Liberties Union] and Democratic attorneys general have actually taken the administration to court to file suit against them and block some of the worst, most illegal actions that we’ve seen from this administration.
How optimistic are you that this approach may actually prove successful? And do you think it is going to be able to hold the line against some of these most post-constitutional actions that we’re seeing from the administration?
Conway: Well I hope so. And I am by nature an optimist, and I strongly admire what the lawyers, many of my friends, are doing to litigate against this administration and to defend the rule of law—even laws I don’t particularly like and might vote against if I were to have the opportunity in Congress. They need to be enforced. We are a nation of laws, and the president cannot wipe out laws with an executive order.
And so groups like the ACLU, like my friend Norm Eisen that I have been litigating for, all these people I have absolute incredible respect for. Williams & Connolly defending Perkins Coie—I mean, this is absolutely vital and necessary to show that the government, that the Trump administration, this regime, is acting illegally.
That being said, I am concerned, as I mentioned just a few minutes ago, that he will disobey court orders, that Trump will disobey court orders. And at that point, the courts can’t enforce these orders. At that point, it becomes up to us to protest loudly if these orders are not obeyed.
And that is where that statistic, that poll that you cited of 80 percent, comes in. A good chunk of that 80 percent will have to get out into the streets and express themselves, and express themselves loudly. It’s not enough to answer the phone and tell a pollster, “Oh yes, Donald Trump should obey court orders.” There has to be more than that. And the litigation is extremely important. It is setting the stage. The litigation is important to show who has the moral high ground.
Conway: But at the end of the day, the moral high ground has to be taken by people who want to defend their Constitution and their democracy and the rule of law, and that’s each and every one of us.
Seeberger: Well if we end up finding ourselves at that moment, you can be sure, listeners, that we will be covering it here on “The Tent.” George Conway, thank you so much for joining us on “The Tent.”
Conway: Again, thank you for having me.
Seeberger: That’s all the time we have for today. Please go back and check out previous episodes. Erin, it is March Madness.
Phillips: Yeah, my favorite sports time of year.
Seeberger: Oh yes, so much. Well, Erin, our listeners may not remember, but a few years ago you actually won the Center for American Progress Action Fund’s March Madness bracket competition.
Seeberger: Yeah. Let our listeners in: How did you end up eking out the win?
Phillips: So I knew nothing about basketball when I entered the bracket. I was persuaded to do this. I did kind of have this theory that March Madness, the odds of winning, it’s kind of like the stock market. You really can’t game it. You really can’t just predict the outcome based on basketball knowledge. And I proved that right by going in, making a bracket based on vibes, and winning the whole deal. I picked the [University of Connecticut] Huskies because I’m from New England. The Huskies are from New England, and they’re a cute dog. So that was my rationale.
Now, last year I did not do as well. Last year I didn’t do as well, I think, because I thought too much about basketball. I was in my head. I was like, “Now I know a little bit. Now I remember what teams won last year.” I kind of have an idea of like what teams are good. I was thinking too much about basketball.
So this year, to beat that, I set myself a timer and tried to do it as fast as possible, purely based on vibes.
Phillips: And we’ll see what happens.
Seeberger: We’ll see what happens. Well I have been keeping tabs on what our Final Four could really look like. We’re of course in the Sweet 16 round now in the men’s bracket. And I have really enjoyed what a writer on Yahoo, Jeff Eisenberg, wrote up earlier this week talking about what some of the craziest different Final Four combinations could be, including the “Brainiac Final Four”—Michigan, Florida, Duke, and Perdue—or, the “Party School Final Four”—Alabama, Ole Miss, Florida, and Tennessee.
I have to say, I personally am really excited to see the mascot fight to the death Final Four between Auburn, Florida, Alabama, and Houston. I think a lot of people like Jeff may have put way too much time into thinking through who might win between a death match between [the University of Alabama’s] Elephants and [Duke University’s] Blue Devils, but it doesn’t seem like that may be in the cards.
Phillips: Yeah. Well I personally like that Final Four because it’s very close to my own Final Four, so maybe that’s the one I’ll be rooting for.
Seeberger: It involves Duke. It’s a no for me, man.
Phillips: Have you been following the women’s at all?
Seeberger: I have. And was really—joined a lot of people in just feeling so sad about JuJu Watkins tearing her ACL and having to depart.
Phillips: Yeah, that’s a really tough injury. I have had friends who’ve torn their ACLs just running races and sports.
Phillips: And it’s like, especially if you’re a pro athlete, that is heartbreaking. So wishing her a speedy recovery.
Seeberger: Yes. Having had two knee surgeries myself over the years, I feel awful for anyone and everyone who has had to endure that kind of injury. It’s painstaking. And then also, for it to happen after you’ve put in so much hard work and got into such a high-level competition, it’s just sad to see. So hoping she’s doing better soon.
Phillips: Yeah. Well we’ll continue to watch, and we’ll see who comes out on top in our CAP Action Fund brackets this year.
Seeberger: Yes. We’ll definitely make sure to keep our listeners posted. And with that, that’s all the time we have for this week. Please go back and check out previous episodes, and we’ll talk to you next week.
Seeberger: “The Tent” is a podcast from the Center for American Progress Action Fund. It’s hosted by me, Colin Seeberger, and co-hosted by Daniella Gibbs Léger. 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 perspectives. You can find us on YouTube, Apple, Spotify, Google Play, or wherever you get your podcasts.