Transcript:
Daniella Gibbs Léger: Hey everyone, welcome back to “The Tent,” your place for politics, policy, and progress. I’m Daniella Gibbs Léger.
Colin Seeberger: And I’m Colin Seeberger. Daniella, I don’t know about you, but I am glued to the Olympics, and that includes all the memes—
Gibbs Léger: Yes.
Seeberger: —that we’re getting from the shooters.
Gibbs Léger: Oh my God, so amazing.
Seeberger: The content is gold.
Gibbs Léger: No pun intended, the content is literally gold. And TikTok is just—my “For You” page is just all Olympic memes. It’s fantastic.
Seeberger: It was made for this moment.
Gibbs Léger: It really, truly was.
Seeberger: Well, we’ll talk about the Olympics a little bit more in a bit, but in the meantime, I heard that you had a great conversation this week.
Gibbs Léger: I did. I talked to our CAP Action colleague Mike Podhorzer about Vice President Harris, JD Vance, and the extreme MAGA proposals for a second Trump term that are housed in Project 2025.
Seeberger: Well, that sounds like it is quite timely this month. I can’t believe it is August, but we are just weeks away from the Democratic National Convention. But first, we have to get to some news.
Gibbs Léger: We do, Colin. And can you believe it? I have some good Supreme Court news for once.
Seeberger: You do what?
Gibbs Léger: I know!
Seeberger: To be honest, no. No, I can’t.
Gibbs Léger: Fair enough. I understand. But look, President Biden is just as concerned as we are about the rampant extremism and corruption that we’ve been seeing from the Supreme Court, which is why this week he introduced a series of proposals to restore accountability. They include 18-year term limits for Supreme Court justices, a binding code of ethics, and a constitutional amendment to limit presidential immunity.
Congress should act quickly on all three of these pieces. Implementing an 18-year term limit for justices is a monumental step—
Seeberger: It sure is.
Gibbs Léger: —to bring our democracy into the 21st century. Lifetime appointments result in decadeslong terms that increase the politicization of the court. The result is a Supreme Court that is largely out of touch with the American people. Case in point: the court’s devastating 2022 Dobbs decision, which effectively overturned Roe v. Wade. Term limits would increase opportunities for each president to appoint justices, tying the composition of the Court more closely to the will of American voters.
And these policies will also finally address the rampant ethics scandals that we’ve been seeing from this MAGA Supreme Court. Confidence in the court is at an all-time low right now, and for a very, very good reason.
Seeberger: Absolutely. I mean, the court has really just been plagued by reports of Justice [Clarence] Thomas and Justice [Samuel] Alito accepting lavish gifts from conservative billionaires who happen to have cases before the court in several instances, and also continuing to stand by their wives, who have been engaged in direct support of the insurrectionist and far-right activists who sought to overturn the 2020 election—which really calls into question their own integrity and whether they can really remain impartial.
Gibbs Léger: They can’t.
Seeberger: They can’t. It’s obvious: It’s beyond time for the Supreme Court to be subject to a binding and enforceable code of ethics, just like other federal judges and members of Congress. And since Chief Justice [John] Roberts won’t do that work to ensure that his colleagues and himself are held to some basic standards, it’s time for Congress to take action. So President Biden was right on the money.
And on presidential immunity, let me be clear: America’s founders—who literally fought a war over independence against the British monarchy to create their own democracy—they would have been horrified at the thought that a president would be entitled to having king-like authority, as blessed recently by the Supreme Court it seems.
But with a stroke of a pen, the Supreme Court, they gutted that. They said that a president can do pretty much anything—whatever they want, criminal or not criminal—so long as it is an official act. That will go down in history as one of the high court’s most dangerous, most un-American, illiberal decisions they have ever put forward.
So it’s all the more remarkable that President Biden, a sitting president with these new powers, is proposing these reforms that would actually confine those powers. But that’s exactly what he’s doing with these Supreme Court proposals. I can’t imagine us talking about Donald Trump doing something like that, right?
Gibbs Léger: Absolutely not.
Seeberger: Congress really needs to take action on this because we don’t want to find out where this thing could go. This is something that we want to prevent on the front end.
These radical justices are facing a reckoning of their own making. And it’s them who put their thumb on the scale for Donald Trump and MAGA extremism, making clear that they’ll continue to be a rubber stamp. So President Biden’s proposals—yeah, they would restore some basic guardrails on our democracy so that they’re finally held accountable.
Gibbs Léger: Now that’s a great idea.
Seeberger: It sure is.
Gibbs Léger: But speaking of MAGA extremism, Colin, did you see that Paul Dans, director of The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, is stepping down?
Seeberger: I did. I did.
Gibbs Léger: Yeah, apparently the Trump campaign didn’t like being associated with Project 2025 because—surprise, surprise—Americans don’t vibe with its dystopian vision.
Now, the Trump campaign wants to “Etch-A-Sketch” Project 2025 out of existence— you know, a little thing that you shake up, like that—but the American people are not stupid. This playbook was created for Donald Trump and his MAGA allies. More than 140 Trump associates have spent years developing this policy explicitly for the purpose of exercising control over the American people if MAGA regains power.
Kevin Roberts, the president of The Heritage Foundation—the same guy who said that a second revolution was underway and that it would be bloodless quote-unquote “if the left allows it to be”—yeah, that guy is overseeing the project. Kevin was caught on new unearthed audio saying that Trump is purposefully lying by claiming he doesn’t know who was behind Project 2025. According to him, Trump is making a quote “political, tactical decision.”
Too long, didn’t read: Project 2025 isn’t going anywhere, folks, all right? So, let’s be clear: Hiding this 920-page blueprint from the American people doesn’t make it less real. In fact, it should make the public more concerned about what else Trump and his allies are hiding.
Seeberger: That’s exactly right.
Gibbs Léger: JD Vance recently said Project 2025 had “some good ideas.” And he even wrote the foreword for the book authored by Roberts, the Heritage Foundation president who is now in charge of Project 2025.
So the more Trump and the MAGA people try to bury this and pretend it never happened, the more I want to talk about it. I firmly believe they still want to implement most of the proposals in this playbook, which is why we need to keep bringing up all of the deepest, darkest ones to light.
Seeberger: Totally, Daniella. I mean, they can try to put lipstick on a pig as much as they want to, but you know what? It still stinks. It’s still a pig.
So speaking of those far-right proposals, several of the folks who have authored Project 2025 are on the record and have endorsed multiple plans that would actually pull the rug out from Americans who want to retire with dignity. I’m talking specifically about a plan to increase the Social Security retirement age from 67 to 69.
A new analysis from our colleagues at the Center for American Progress actually found that this plan would cut benefits for about 3 in 4 Americans, including all new retirees who would see their benefits cut by anywhere from 12.5 percent to 14.3 percent by the time the plan is fully phased in, based on when you decide to start drawing down your Social Security benefits. Under this plan, the median-wage retiree would lose between roughly about $45,000 to almost $100,000 over the course of a decade in terms of lost benefits.
This is a plan that comes directly from the Republican Study Committee, which we know has the support and membership of about 80 percent of the House Republican conference. And their plan sacrifices retirement security of tens of millions of Americans, all because Republicans refuse to increase taxes on the wealthy to help shore up Social Security’s finances. It’s just the latest proof on how they really care more about the ultrawealthy than they do everyday, hardworking Americans.
So keep in mind that while the Trump campaign may be trying to play political chess—just as Kevin Roberts himself admitted—by trying to distance themselves from Project 2025 and the plans that the authors have publicly supported, they’re only doing it because they’ve seen the writing on the wall: Americans are like, “That 900-page thing? I want nothing to do with it. That is wacko.”
Gibbs Léger: Right.
Seeberger: Right? Who wants their grandparents losing thousands of dollars a year in hard-earned Social Security benefits? Who wants retirees to have the rug pulled out from under them so it’s harder to make ends meet? And it’s just one example of how these dangerous and extreme far-right policy proposals would really pull the rug out under America’s middle class.
Americans, they worked hard to earn their Social Security retirement benefits. They don’t want a higher retirement age. And like you said, Daniella, they aren’t stupid. They can see through it.
Gibbs Léger: No, they absolutely are not, Colin. And I look forward to continuing to hold MAGA extremists accountable for the radical ideas that they have endorsed in Project 2025—whatever distance they may try to claim from it. It’s going to be a season of saying a lot of, “Uh, this you?”
Seeberger: It sure is, Daniella, because the truth is their ideas are pretty weird.
Gibbs Léger: Pretty weird, Colin, pretty weird.
Seeberger: Yeah.
Seeberger: Well, that’s all the time we have for this week. If there’s anything you’d like us to cover on the pod, hit us up on Twitter @TheTentPod. That’s @TheTentPod.
Gibbs Léger: And stick around for my interview with Mike Podhorzer in just a beat.
[Musical transition]
Gibbs Léger: Michael Podhorzer is a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress Action Fund. He also writes a newsletter called “Weekend Reading” on politics, economics, and democracy. He previously served as a longtime political director of the AFL-CIO. He’s a chair of the Analyst Institute, the [Independent Strategic] Research Collaborative, and the Defend Democracy Project.
Mike, thank you so much for joining us on “The Tent.”
Michael Podhorzer: Yeah, thank you. It’s great to be here.
Gibbs Léger: So the presidential race has changed a little bit in the last two weeks. How has President Biden’s withdrawal and Vice President Harris’ campaign launch affected the state of the race? And can we trust polls this far out at all? And how do Democrats keep up what really feels like some genuine momentum?
Podhorzer: Sure, yeah, and I guess I should be grateful that I’m doing this podcast now and not six weeks ago.
Gibbs Léger: Yes.
Podhorzer: When we would have a different vibe going right now.
Gibbs Léger: The vibes would be very different.
Podhorzer: So this is great. Obviously the race has changed significantly. And I want to begin with: What can we trust the polls for? And for folks who are familiar with my writing, I last year was saying that America suffers from what I call “mad poll disease,” which is essentially looking at every single poll and catastrophizing.
Gibbs Léger: Yes.
Podhorzer: And it’s not only not good for your mental health, it’s just wrong—if what you’re looking for is some sense of who’s going to win in November, because the polling can’t tell us that. What we know since 2016 is that the Electoral College is going to come down to six states, and we know which ones they are, and we know that it’s going to be within a point or two in each one of them, right?
And so polls have margins of error which are bigger than that. It’s like you are trying to use a magnifying glass to look at atomic particles, and you’re not actually able to do that. So what I like to say is that these races are within the margin of effort. And that’s the other, sort of more insidious problem with paying too much attention to the horse race—is that if you think polls or forecasting models can tell you who’s going to win in November, then implicitly you’re saying what we do doesn’t matter.
Gibbs Léger: That’s a really good point.
Podhorzer: It is actually pretty disempowering because implicitly you’re saying there is a knowable outcome that doesn’t involve knowing how much effort you’re going to put into it.
And so it really doesn’t make sense because we don’t have to use it to figure out what states we should be in or all of those things. We already know that; we’re running the same election for the fourth time. We kind of know this. That’s not to say that broad things in polling aren’t helpful, that it hasn’t been instructive to see what kinds of voters were lukewarm about Biden. That’s important, actionable information, but that’s in a different bucket than the head-to-head, which is not really telling us anything.
Gibbs Léger: Yeah. So the sentiment polling is much more—
Podhorzer: I’m really trying to understand what’s underneath it in big terms, but the polls just are not capable of the precision that lets you know that. But it’s in some ways even much worse than that because if you think about all of the polling for the last, say, 15 or 20 years on abortion and Roe, that polling kept telling our politics that it was only a voting issue on their side, right?
Gibbs Léger: Right.
Podhorzer: And turns out that’s not true. And it’s because when you ask someone the question, “So and so wants to overturn Roe,” if that respondent doesn’t believe anyone would be crazy enough to overturn Roe, then no matter how much they try to imagine how they would feel after it, they can’t actually do it. And not only that: They can’t imagine how they’ll feel when all their friends go ballistic over it.
And so that’s why taking all this polling literally around all these things is more misdirection than direction. Because—and this is to come back to what’s changed in the election—what has been important and what I’ve been arguing, beginning after Trump won and the first few elections, is that there is a substantial majority in this country that doesn’t want Trump to be president, has never wanted him to be president, and does not want the actual MAGA agenda.
And when elections are about that, they lose. If you—and I don’t know if you do trigger warnings, but if you think back to how you felt in November 2016, and you remember how when Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and Michigan flipped and all the savvy people who were telling us all the things said, “Oh, Democrats are screwed because these are all states with lots of white, noncollege voters, and they’re Trump’s base, and what’s going to happen?”
Since then, there have been 27 statewide elections in the five states, and they’ve lost 23 of them. On that horrible 2016 evening, four of the governors in the five states were Republicans. Now [Gov. Brian] Kemp (R-GA) is the only one left. At that point, I think it was four Democratic senators. Now it’s nine.
Basically, they have lost almost every race. The only races they’ve come through were Kemp twice—once barely with Stacey [Abrams] and this time with a sort of luck out because he didn’t find the 11,000 votes for Trump.
Gibbs Léger: Right.
Podhorzer: And the horrible, racist, $80-million, dark-money campaign against Mandela Barnes in Wisconsin that he almost won.
Gibbs Léger: Right.
Podhorzer: So if the election is about Trump and the MAGA agenda, then that majority is going to show up again, and he’s going to lose. Now with Biden, the problem was that his age could legitimately [be] seen by people as being disqualifying as well—which is different from, “Oh, I don’t agree with Kamala about this policy.” You don’t have to be bad faith to be worried about four more years of Joe Biden at that point. That takes that off the table. This is now not going to be an election about Joe Biden’s age as the sort of counterpoint to Donald Trump’s insanity and abortion bans and things like that.
So the polling so far, since Harris got in, has exceeded expectations generally for how quickly it’s moved, but that’s not really the most important indicator. The most important indicator is whether the stage is being set for October, where people will understand again that he really will do the abortion ban, that he really will take away preexisting conditions, and so forth. We now have a clearer feel for that clarity in October.
Gibbs Léger: Got it. I want to talk about something that we’re all thinking now, is the number of people who are vying to be Vice President Harris’ vice presidential nominee. They all stand in very stark contrast to Trump’s pick, one JD Vance. He is flopping spectacularly on the campaign trail, and I do love to see it.
So can you tell us: Why do you think he is struggling? What does that mean for the race? And I’m also genuinely curious for your thoughts on the Democrats calling MAGA Republicans “weird.” It seems to be getting under their skin in a way that I haven’t seen anything else do.
Podhorzer: Right. Well, I think that everything is getting under their skin now, that they obviously truly believed that they were running against Joe Biden. And in typical, Trump comic nature, his reaction was to say he was going to sue the Democrats for all the money he spent advertising against Biden because it was kind of like bait and switch, so he shouldn’t have to pay for that now.
But more seriously, I think this changes the race in so many ways that they were counting on that they’re still reeling from it. And I think Vance—it shouldn’t have been that much of a surprise that he would be a flop because he would not have won the Ohio Senate primary but for a big push from Trump, and then he ran well behind the rest of the Ohio Republicans in his election year.
Now America’s just discovering how self-disqualifying he is. And I don’t think they thought that, either. But I do think that it was an understandable pick on their side in a way that has eluded the coverage of it. Because right now, I think it’s like, “What was he thinking?”
But I think that a big part of how he got the nod is the set of Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, all the Silicon Valley crypto billionaires, of which Vance is really in that camp. He’s their person in the room. And here, he is their guarantee that if Trump dies, or whatever happens—the next-up for the president, that it’s someone who’s solidly going to be looking after their interests.
And given how much—you probably have talked about it on another podcast, but remember when Trump at a fundraiser told the oil companies, “Give me a billion dollars, and I’ll do your agenda?” Well this is that kind of transactional thing, right? Musk is saying he’s going to do millions of dollars—that’s what this is about. And you saw that the deepfake that Musk got a hundred million views on Twitter for, sort of mocking Harris. They are in it to win it, and that’s where Vance comes in.
Gibbs Léger: Yeah, it’s like, they did vet him, they didn’t vet him—
Podhorzer: Yeah.
Gibbs Léger: —it’s pretty remarkable.
Podhorzer: But remember, too, that when you say that, there’s no one who is being considered who hasn’t said some really bad stuff in their career.
Gibbs Léger: That is true.
Podhorzer: Right?
Gibbs Léger: That is very true.
Podhorzer: It’s not like John Sununu (R-NH) was on the short list, right? Or Larry Hogan (R-MD), right?
Gibbs Léger: Right, right. Accurate. The word “vetting” means something very different in the Trump world.
Podhorzer: Yeah. It’s like, did they ever say anything sympathetic to women?
Gibbs Léger: Right, exactly.
Podhorzer: Like, that could be a nonstarter.
Gibbs Léger: That’s disqualifying.
Podhorzer: Yeah.
Gibbs Léger: So we learned this week that the Trump campaign is really trying to distance itself from Project 2025 because it is frightened by the public’s reaction to this authoritarian playbook. Now, while they’re distancing themselves from the project itself, they’re still charging full speed ahead with many of its terrible policies.
Can you talk a little bit about how deeply unpopular these proposals actually are, and what they tell us about what MAGA Republicans would actually do with a second Trump term?
Podhorzer: Sure. It is a really important question because I think there’s a way in which we could misplay it. Project 2025 is horrific, and if anything like it were even attempted comprehensively, it would represent the biggest departure from what we’ve all thought America was for our whole lives, right?
Gibbs Léger: Right.
Podhorzer: So because of a lot of great work CAP’s done and many others, that’s gotten out to the public. And so it now really is a terrible brand. But I don’t think that our best reaction is to simply just keep saying, “But over here you said this about Heritage,” or arguing about whether or not he’s committed to Project 2025, because it’s really, for most voters, about the named actual elements in Project 2025, rather than this “Death Star” kind of thing.
So it really just means that the media should not pay attention to the squabble over whether he actually is endorsing it, and instead continue to press him on, “Would you veto a national abortion ban? Would you veto, repeal, and replace ACA?” These are the things that are coming up. Because that’s also what will motivate voters.
Gibbs Léger: Yeah, that’s a really good point. It’s like, “Well, do you want to get rid of Head Start or not?”
Podhorzer: Right. Right.
Gibbs Léger: Actually ask the question.
Podhorzer: Right. Trying to do “gotcha” on his relationship to The Heritage Foundation is our weakest play. And the other point that you bring up that is really important is that many more people should know what bad things Republicans would want to do than believe they will actually do them. And that credibility gap is what we have to address. These are the set of people who say, “Well, we made it through Trump one, and nothing as bad as you’re saying now happened,” or the guardrails of democracy, all those kinds of things.
That’s what we have to knock down, to make it clear that there’s a lot to work with here, right?
Gibbs Léger: Yes.
Podhorzer: But to be clear, they’re really going to do it. And the best ways of showing that that’s the case is that on many of the elements, they’ve already been enacted in half of America—
Gibbs Léger: Right.
Podhorzer: —in every place where there are Republican trifectas. And because most people in the national media don’t live there, they’re pretty oblivious to that in any sort of real sense. And then the second part of why they certainly have a clear runway is there are six justices who are clearly for making sure this agenda gets implemented, as opposed to resisting it.
Gibbs Léger: When I talk to my friends about it, that very question, “Well, there’s no way they’d do all of this,” and “we didn’t die during the first Trump presidency”—
Podhorzer: Right.
Gibbs Léger: —it’s like: Look at it as if the first presidency was a robber casing the joint. And a second presidency is the joint is empty, y’all went on vacation, and now they’re going to come in and steal everything because they know where everything is.
Podhorzer: Yeah, I think that’s really important, but I think you can add to that. One thing is obviously on day one of Trump one, there were no judges who had been appointed by Trump, right?
Gibbs Léger: Right.
Podhorzer: There are now more than 200. And you don’t have to go much further than Aileen Cannon or [Matthew] Kacsmaryk to see why the judicial system is not going to push back the way it did on the Muslim ban or on some of the other things the way they did in Trump one.
And the second thing—and I can’t believe I’m about to say this—but you even then had people like Paul Ryan, right?
Gibbs Léger: Yeah.
Podhorzer: And McCain, right? And although people really have amnesia for this, we were one pissed off John McCain away from the repeal of the ACA.
Gibbs Léger: That’s right.
Podhorzer: Right?
Gibbs Léger: Yeah.
Podhorzer: And they don’t have that problem anymore. So yeah, every state where they get a trifecta, you get six-week abortion, you get stand your ground, you get open carry. It’s like a whole package of things that they do whenever they get power.
And so if they come back and have power, I’m not exactly sure that your interlocutor’s thinking is going to hold them back.
Gibbs Léger: That’s a really good point. So you’ve spent many years in the labor movement, and I wanted to ask you about unions and their role in this race. Vice President Harris has helped lead one of the most pro-union administrations in history.
So I’m interested in your thoughts on the impact that this might have in the fall. And, like, WTF with the president of the Teamsters showing up at the RNC a few weeks ago. Do you think Republicans really have a shot with union voters?
Podhorzer: I guess one baseline point for people who are not in the nitty-gritty of union voting: If you’re in a union, then you’re in a union because the place you work has a union. It’s not like being in MoveOn or the ACLU [American Civil Liberties Union], where you’re self-selecting in. So it’s always been the case that maybe a third or so of union members have voted for Republicans because that’s who they are. But that’s about 10 points less than people who have the same demographics and people who have the same kind of jobs that are not in the union.
So union voters are much more Democratic, but they’re going to be Republicans because you’re not joining because you’re a progressive, right? I think that for almost all unions that were understandably at best lukewarm about Hillary, that’s changed a great deal.
And some of the most conservative sectors, like the building trades, have really changed dramatically because of all the infrastructure spending and just how much better they see things being. And I think given the number of union members, especially in Michigan and Pennsylvania, it should be decisive.
Gibbs Léger: So, as we approach November—this election is now less than 100 days away—it’s important for any campaign, obviously, to prioritize the issues that matter to voters most—and the ones on which candidates have strong records. So what do you think those issues are for Democrats in 2024? It sounds like obviously unions and the things that they have done to support union workers would be one of them.
Podhorzer: So I think that thinking about this question in terms of issues is not the best way.
Gibbs Léger: OK.
Podhorzer: Because if you divide the potential electorate into people who always vote and people who sometimes vote, among the people who always vote, there’s been almost no partisan shifting since 2016. These are people who pay a pretty fair amount of attention to politics. They’re more partisan than the rest of the electorate. And the issues in the campaign are not really the point, right?
The contingent part of the electorate is more complicated because for most of them, it is more about either what they think the stakes for themselves are in the election or what people around them are doing. Because by definition, if they’re contingent voters, they’re paying less attention. And one of the things, in terms of thinking about that, is it’s not like doing door-knocking for GOTV [get out the vote], it’s how much is everyone talking about politics.
So if you remember in January, I don’t think that the most important NFL question was people thinking about the 49ers or the Chiefs, and yet more people watched this year’s Super Bowl than any other Super Bowl in history. It wasn’t because of diehard Chiefs fans or something; it was because Taylor Swift showed up. And so lots of people who didn’t watch a single NFL game over the course of the whole year were showing up.
And to a certain extent, that’s what our elections have become since Trump, which are people who really weren’t voting before are saying, “Well all my friends are upset about this and are talking about it and all that,” which is why it turned out so much higher now.
Gibbs Léger: I love any time that we can end on a Taylor Swift analogy. So Mike, I want to thank you so much for all the work that you do, and thank you for joining us on “The Tent.”
Podhorzer: Oh yeah, thank you. It’s been great to be here.
[Musical transition]
Gibbs Léger: Well, folks, that’s it for us today. As always, please go back and check out previous episodes. A reminder that we are still collecting your submissions for “Song of the Summer.”
Seeberger: May I suggest “Femininomenon”—
Gibbs Léger: Uh, yes.
Seeberger: —now that we have a woman on the ticket for the Democratic party?
Gibbs Léger: Yes, you may indeed suggest that. That should definitely make it.
Seeberger: Thank you.
Gibbs Léger: But we want to get you all a playlist in case you happen to be traveling, I don’t know, on an airplane somewhere at the end of the month, towards like the Midwest and Chicago. So, the Olympics, Colin.
Seeberger: Yes.
Gibbs Léger: I love the Olympics.
Seeberger: I mean, what is there not to love?
Gibbs Léger: I get so into it that—I mean, I didn’t watch “The Bachelorette” this week because it’s all Olympics. And I’m generally a patriotic person, but like, now I’m superpatriotic.
Seeberger: Yeah.
Gibbs Léger: Although, my child was like, “I thought you were rooting for France?” I was like, “That’s in certain situations.”
Can we talk about the opening ceremony?
Seeberger: I mean, where do we begin?
Gibbs Léger: I don’t know.
Seeberger: I feel so bad for Paris because—I’m sure as our listeners remember who tuned in—it was a torrential downpour.
Gibbs Léger: Yes.
Seeberger: But I also thought it was so fun. I thought it was so Parisian, very French, so camp.
Gibbs Léger: Yes.
Seeberger: The Marie Antoinette hard rock ballad. The Celine Dion performance was just epic. She was incredible.
Gibbs Léger: I was weeping.
Seeberger: Yeah. I will say, the one thing that was kind of weird for me was Rafael Nadal was holding the Olympic torch right before the cauldron—or, not the cauldron, the hot air balloon—
Gibbs Léger: Right.
Seeberger: —which I’m also not really sure how I feel about. But I was kind of like, “Wait, I’m surprised that they didn’t keep it in the French family.”
Gibbs Léger: No, well they wanted to, I think, recognize some great Olympians—
Seeberger: Yes.
Gibbs Léger: —and Raphael is definitely towards the end of his career, so I thought it was a nice touch. But yeah, the opening ceremony, it was a lot. It was over the top. It was very, very French. And I mean that in all the best ways possible.
Seeberger: Yes.
Gibbs Léger: And the people who are freaking out about, I mean, a Greek myth. I can’t deal with people not understanding the history behind the Olympics, where it comes from, Greek mythology, all of that, so.
Seeberger: Or like, you know, the right-wing MAGA folks who are losing their minds because of people dressed in drag throughout the opening ceremonies. I’m like—
Gibbs Léger: Yeah.
Seeberger: Just take a seat.
Gibbs Léger: Just hush. Just be quiet. OK. So, gymnastics.
Seeberger: Yes.
Gibbs Léger: Amazing.
Seeberger: I mean, I don’t even know where to begin. Because the men’s team securing a bronze medal—I mean, it was such a huge moment, right? And Paul Juda and Frederick Richard were unbelievable in their consistency. They were just so clean. But like, I mean, we got to say: Stephen.
Gibbs Léger: Steve.
Seeberger: Stephen.
Gibbs Léger: Oh my goodness.
Seeberger: Mr. Pommel Horse.
Gibbs Léger: Everybody loves Stephen.
Seeberger: Stole our hearts.
Gibbs Léger: He really did. The Mr. “Steal Your Girl” with his glasses and Clark Kent, as people were calling him.
Seeberger: Yes.
Gibbs Léger: I love it. So if you aren’t following the Olympics, Steve has one discipline, and it’s the pommel horse. And he’s incredible.
Seeberger: So good.
Gibbs Léger: Like, amazing. And just stuck everything, stuck the landing. I think it was the first team medal in a long time.
Seeberger: Since ‘08.
Gibbs Léger: Yeah.
Seeberger: And yeah, it was since ‘08, I believe? And then I think it was their second in, like, 20 Olympics or something like that?
Gibbs Léger: Yeah. This team is remarkable. And what’s even more remarkable is that they’re young.
Seeberger: Yeah.
Gibbs Léger: They’re so young. So like, the potential for them to grow and be even more amazing is there, and it’s great.
Seeberger: I mean, I feel like we’re going to be talking about Freddie for many, many years to come. I think he’s got some real power and potential that he’s only going to build on coming out of this success that he saw in Paris.
But we also have to talk about the women’s team.
Gibbs Léger: Yes.
Seeberger: I mean, after Tokyo and Simone Biles’ whole journey, I was glued to my couch, locked in, had to catch how did it go. And, boy, she did not disappoint.
Gibbs Léger: Not at all. They were all so wonderful. And like, Suni Lee—
Seeberger: I mean, Suni.
Gibbs Léger: —she went through a pretty debilitating kidney disorder, to the point where she didn’t think she was going to be able to compete again.
Seeberger: Yeah.
Gibbs Léger: And, oh, she was on fire.
Seeberger: So good.
Gibbs Léger: So great.
Seeberger: I mean, even stepped into—so Jade Carey was dealing with some sort of sickness over the course of the past two days, and Suni stepped in and did the floor routine like she was not expected to. And yeah, she got the job done, man. She was just so good. I am super excited to see what happens with the individual all-arounds and the event finals.
Gibbs Léger: That’s going to be really intense.
Seeberger: I mean, the vault alone, I’m like—
Gibbs Léger: Oh my gosh.
Seeberger: Oh my gosh. Yeah, it is going to be some fierce, fierce competition.
Gibbs Léger: Yes.
Seeberger: But speaking of fierce competition, we also have to talk about the swimming.
Gibbs Léger: Yay! Oh my goodness. I love swimming. I myself am not a swimmer, but I like to pretend that if I was—whatever, I still wouldn’t be as good as these people. It was the stories behind some of these athletes from America, it’s like, they always, like, want to tug at your heartstrings—
Seeberger: Sure.
Gibbs Léger: —but it’s just remarkable how much work and effort and discipline—and especially in swimming when you have to do it so early in the morning.
Seeberger: So early in the morning.
Gibbs Léger: So early in the morning.
Seeberger: I grew up as the swimmer.
Gibbs Léger: Oh, so you know.
Seeberger: So early in the morning, multiple times a day, every single day. Yeah, it’s a lot.
Gibbs Léger: It is a lot. What was your favorite race thus far?
Seeberger: Gosh. I think my favorite was the men’s 100-meter breaststroke. So I hate breaststroke. That was the one stroke that I was always terrible at. I do the IM, and I do—
Gibbs Léger: It doesn’t look easy.
Seeberger: No. I’d be half a pool length ahead of people after the fly and back. And then, like, turn to the freestyle as the fourth stroke, and I have everybody having already caught up to me, but—so the 100 breast was unbelievable.
I think it was the top four or five finishers all finished within six one-hundredths of a second of one another. Adam Peaty, who is the former gold medalist from both Tokyo as well as Rio, he actually turned out to have COVID, he announced the day after the final. But he has basically won every 100-meter breaststroke at a world-level competition for literally almost a decade, and—
Gibbs Léger: Oh wow.
Seeberger: —he lost. He tied with Nic Fink for second. And yeah, I mean that just totally threw me off guard. I was like, “Oh, of course Adam Peaty is going to win.” So yeah, I mean, it was a ton of fun, ton of fun to see. The relays have been incredible. And then also it was really fun to see Caeleb Dressel was there, and he recently had a kid about six months ago.
Gibbs Léger: So cute.
Seeberger: And like, his wife cheering at the stands.
Also, I can’t get over everybody in the crowd, too—both at gymnastics and at swimming. Snoop Dogg’s there. I saw Tom Cruise.
Gibbs Léger: Oh my goodness.
Seeberger: Everybody’s just having the best time. And that’s just one more reason to love the Olympics.
Seeberger: What about you?
Gibbs Léger: Seriously.
Seeberger: What was your favorite race?
Gibbs Léger: Honestly, my favorite thing was Snoop Dogg getting in the pool with Michael Phelps.
Seeberger: Yes!
Gibbs Léger: I’m like, this content—just inject it into my veins. It was so good. And also, I was like, “Oh, Snoop kind of has a swimmer’s body. He wasn’t joking.”
Seeberger: All right.
Gibbs Léger: He’s not Michael Phelps, and he acknowledges that.
Seeberger: Few are.
Gibbs Léger: He said he has good lung capacity, but I was like, “Actually Snoop, I don’t think you do.”
Seeberger: I’m going to call his bluff on that one.
Gibbs Léger: But it was so funny. And like, I love seeing him and Colin Jost—
Seeberger: Colin Jost!
Gibbs Léger: —from Tahiti.
Seeberger: I mean, I can’t really tell: Is this real? Is this actually happening? Or is this just somebody on the Olympics production team got high and was like, “Let’s do this”? Yeah, totally fun to see the cutaways to him from Tahiti and looks like the surfing is just so dope.
Gibbs Léger: Yeah. There have been some really awesome pictures coming out of that, including one surfer who was vertical with a surfboard doing the number ones. I’m like, “Wow, what a photo.”
Seeberger: Yeah.
Gibbs Léger: The last thing I’ll say is Katie Ledecky, like—
Seeberger: Come on.
Gibbs Léger: She’s so good that when they show her swimming, there’s no one else in the frame.
Seeberger: Yeah. Yeah.
Gibbs Léger: Just remarkable.
Seeberger: Well, we are recording this on Wednesday. By the time you’re listening to this, listeners, we will hopefully have one more gold medal for Team USA, because Katie Ledecky is racing this evening—
Gibbs Léger: That’s right.
Seeberger: —in the 1500-meter freestyle, and she is far and away the favorite. So I’m hoping she brings it home.
Gibbs Léger: Yes. And a D.C.-area native.
Seeberger: That she is.
Gibbs Léger: Yep. All right, folks. Well, you enjoy all your Olympic viewing, as we will too. Take care of yourselves, and we’ll see you next week.
“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, 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. You can find us on YouTube, Apple, Spotify, Google Play, or wherever you get your podcasts.