Transcript:
Colin Seeberger: Hey everyone, welcome back to “The Tent,” your place for politics, policy, and progress. I’m Colin Seeberger.
Erin Phillips: And I’m lead producer Erin Phillips, filling in for Daniella Gibbs Léger. Colin, can you believe the Olympics are finally over? I’m kind of sad about it.
Seeberger: I can’t, Erin. I feel like it’s been a few days, and yet it seems like it was months ago. But it was certainly a really exciting Olympics, I think. We saw more people tuning in to this Olympics than we have since 2012. And Team USA brought home a big W and the most medals—tied for the most gold medals against China. So we will certainly take a W when we can get one.
Phillips: Yeah, we sure did bring home a lot of golds, silvers, bronzes—
Seeberger: We like them all.
Phillips: —yeah, we like them all. Well we will reflect on some of our favorite moments from the end of the Olympics a little later. But first, I heard you had an exciting conversation this week.
Seeberger: I did. I spoke with California Congressman Eric Swalwell (D) about the upcoming election, the Democratic Party’s vision for the future, and MAGA extremism evidenced in Project 2025.
Phillips: Sounds really timely, especially with the DNC [Democratic National Convention] next week, so I can’t wait to hear it. But first, we have to get to some news.
Seeberger: We do, and we’ve got a particularly big headline out of Arizona this week.
Phillips: That’s right. Arizona just became the latest state to add an abortion measure to the November ballot. So voters there will get to decide whether to amend their state’s constitution to protect abortion rights, an issue of particular importance in a place where the Supreme Court recently tried to restore a cruel abortion ban from 1864—before Arizona was even a state, mind you.
Abortion could also play a big role in other Arizona races: Kari Lake is perfectly demonstrating this new MAGA extremist strategy of flip-flopping and sowing confusion about her own stances on the topic. She previously called the 1864 ban a “great law,” quote-unquote, and said abortion pills should be illegal, but now that she’s running for Senate in a swing state, she’s totally backtracked and tried to suggest she never supported the ban in the first place.
Seeberger: Gee, imagine that.
Phillips: Yeah, it’s magical. So she’s doing this because she knows how politically dangerous it is to try to rip people’s reproductive rights away. The coalition that secured the Arizona ballot measure, for example, gathered more than 575,000 signatures from across the state. That’s more than 200,000 supporters more than what was needed to get the measure on the ballot.
And they’re not alone. Voters in Colorado, Florida, Maryland, Nevada, New York, and South Dakota will all vote on similar ballot measures, and, just this week, Missouri gathered enough signatures to do the same, meaning they’ll likely be added to that list before November. In many cases, voters are taking these steps to put abortion on the ballot in response to MAGA extremist attempts to rip away their rights.
In Florida, for example, MAGA king [Gov.] Ron DeSantis (R) banned abortion starting at just six weeks before most people even realize they’re pregnant, Colin. The response? Florida voters will decide whether they want to protect abortion rights in a ballot initiative this fall.
Seeberger: That’s right. And in a recent press conference from last week, Donald Trump himself actually refused to say how he would vote on that Florida ballot measure—remember he is registered in the state of Florida.
He said in those remarks that he thought abortion, quote, “has become much less of an issue,” close quote. To put it bluntly, as the voters in Kentucky or the voters in Ohio or the voters all over the country have been making very, very clear, I think he’s dead wrong.
A recent poll found that 6 in 10 Americans think their state should allow a person to get a legal abortion for any reason, and that number is higher than it was before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. Another recent poll showed more Americans than ever before prioritizing this issue at the voting booth, refusing to vote for a candidate who they disagree with on abortion. When combined with the record turnout numbers we saw in the 2022 midterms, particularly from women and young voters, these are blinking red warning signs for Republicans this fall.
And we’ve got to be crystal clear here. Let’s make no mistake: Donald Trump and MAGA Republicans are the people who did that. They made that possible. Trump tries to distance himself from his unpopular abortion stances, but he also regularly brags about being the architect of the plot to overturn Roe v. Wade. You can’t have your cake and pretend like you never ate it, Donald.
He supported a national abortion ban when he was president and even said that he’d support restrictions on birth control. The radical Project 2025 playbook—which he has very deep ties to—proposes, among other things, to effectively ban medication abortion in two ways: It instructs the FDA [Food and Drug Administration] to reconsider its determination that mifepristone, one of the two medication abortion drugs, are both safe and effective. And two, it discusses reviving a Reconstruction-era law called the Comstock Act to prevent the mailing of medication abortion—effectively making medication abortion inaccessible nationwide, including in states that protect abortion rights. So the momentum we’re seeing on abortion ballot measures all across the country is just the latest evidence that voters—they can see right through MAGA extremists who are trying to rip away their rights.
Phillips: Yeah, they’re really waking up to a lot of these efforts. But speaking of MAGA plans and 2024, we also need to talk about some election denialism this week. If you thought 2020 was bad, it was just a warmup for the sprawling efforts the Trump campaign is undertaking to question the legitimacy of the 2024 election—efforts we’re starting to hear more and more about. And this is, mind you, before a single vote has even been cast in this election.
Seeberger: Oh, yes, that part.
Phillips: Yeah. So what they’re questioning, I don’t know. Trump has already repeatedly dodged questions about whether he’ll accept the results of the election if he loses. That’s not promising, considering what we saw play out in 2020, which, let’s not forget, was one of the most secure elections in history, according to Trump’s own officials.
The Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee (RNC) are working to train and deploy lawyers and poll watchers to monitor election sites and challenge results. They’re aiming to acquire and train 100,000 volunteers before Election Day. The RNC already has 13 state directors in charge of quote-unquote “election integrity operations,” including in swing states like Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. And Republican state lawmakers in several critical states, including Pennsylvania, have opposed efforts to expedite ballot counting after the election, which will leave more time for election deniers to flood the airwaves with conspiracies and disinformation.
They’re also already filing challenges to try to crack down on voting rights. In Pennsylvania, for example, they successfully got a court to rule that mail-in ballots cannot be counted if they’re not properly dated. I wonder why they’re so fixated on Pennsylvania, Colin?
Seeberger: Oh, gee, it really boggles the mind. You’re right on, Erin. They’re really gearing up to attack the legitimate results of the election any way that they can. Georgia is a real prime example here. Trump famously lost the state by 11,780 votes, which he asked Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) to quote “find for him,” close quote. Apparently he’s not letting that happen again.
Three Trump loyalists who were just appointed to the state election board by MAGA lawmakers in the statehouse are turning the democratic process in Georgia upside-down. They passed a rule last week that allows county boards to open inquiries before they certify election results, a process that was previously just a formality but has now been politicized in a way that could cause enormous delays.
They also implemented new restrictions around absentee ballots and drop boxes and lifted many of the restrictions for poll observers. MAGA extremists claim to be doing this in the name of transparency, but the hypocrisy is really too obvious to ignore. These are the same radicals who lay out in their Project 2025 playbook a plan to gut the primary agency tasked with defending U.S. elections from foreign interference. They don’t want free and fair elections; what they want is power. It’s why they’re ramping these efforts up before the votes even come in.
And they tried to do this stuff in 2020. Just look at former Colorado Clerk Tina Peters, who was found guilty this week of giving her MAGA friends access to the Mesa County election system in 2020. That’s the kind of behavior you can expect for the radicals shouting, “stop the steal.” And it’s all the more concerning from a candidate who does things like tell evangelicals they’ll never “have to vote again” if he’s elected.
Phillips: Yeah, it’s really chilling, Colin. I thought 2020 was bad, but I’m afraid 2024 could be a lot worse if we’re not careful.
Seeberger: Yep, we definitely have to keep an eye on the beat. No doubt, no doubt. 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, Instagram, or Threads @TheTentPod. That’s @TheTentPod. And stick around for my interview with Congressman Eric Swalwell in just a beat.
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Seeberger: Eric Swalwell is a member of Congress representing California’s 14th District. He serves on the House Judiciary and Homeland Security committees. Before being elected to Congress, he served as a city council member in his hometown of Dublin, California, and before that was a prosecutor in the Alameda County district attorney’s office.
Congressman Swalwell, thanks so much for joining us on “The Tent.”
Rep. Eric Swalwell: Yeah, of course. My pleasure. Thanks for all you guys are doing.
Seeberger: Absolutely. So there’s been a real shift in the 2024 race over the course of the past few weeks with Vice President Harris and now her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D), joining the presidential race. Can you talk a bit about these candidates and why Democratic voters really are so excited about their candidacy?
Rep. Swalwell: Well Kamala Harris and Tim Walz represent the future and also represent the finishing of a job that President Biden began—and particularly in his first two years when we had the House and the Senate.
And now we see within reach, we can win the House, we can win the Senate, we can win the White House. And there’s so many great achievements for the American people that a president, Kamala Harris, can deliver: on a child care tax credit, on paid family leave for all, on continuing to invest in technologies that stop climate chaos, on protecting our kids in their schools from gun violence, and reversing all the destruction that was done when Roe was overturned.
So we see that it is achievable, and we know who can achieve it, and that’s energizing. And so folks are fired up, and they’re responding in the best way in the final 80-ish days of this campaign.
Seeberger: Yeah. You mentioned that future-forward vision. I feel like the clouds are starting to clear a little bit, and I think so much of the anxiety that the American people have been feeling for so many years—especially coming out of the pandemic, right?—may be starting to clear out a bit, and folks are really responding to this message of hope, of optimism. Are there specific things that you think are particularly resonating with people in this moment? I’d be curious to hear your thoughts on that.
Rep. Swalwell: It’s actually as simple as Kamala Harris is a serious person, but she doesn’t take herself too seriously, and she’s bringing joy and fun to the campaign. And it’s really exciting for me, as somebody who came of age in politics through President Obama’s 2004 convention speech, and then his election to the Senate, and then his run for president—that inspired me, as somebody in their early 20s, to want to be a part of making our community better. And now you have a candidate who is doing just that, Kamala Harris. And she’s really, I think, touching and inspiring young people to believe that the future can be better and that we all have agency to do something to make it better.
Seeberger: Yeah, and that we can all be part of this great American experiment. A daughter who grew up in the middle class to a single mom or grew up in rural Nebraska, right, can ascend all the way, potentially, to the White House. It is definitely really inspiring.
One of the issues that Vice President Harris and you agree on as a major priority is taking on the gun lobby and putting the safety of our kids ahead of their profits. In fact, it actually was a real animating reason for why you said that you ran for president in 2019 in a Democratic primary alongside Kamala Harris.
Can you talk a little bit about some of the successes we’ve made in that space in recent years? And what are you hearing from the vice president in terms of where we need to go next?
Rep. Swalwell: On gun violence in America, simply, we don’t have to live this way, and a President Harris will make sure that we don’t. She recognizes as a former prosecutor—and by the way, she and I both got our start at the Alameda County district attorney’s office in Oakland—she recognizes that today, the most dangerous people have access to the most dangerous weapons. And so that puts all of us at risk—and primarily our kids, who are in this mass shooter generation where they’re traumatized either by doing a mass shooter drill over and over, or having a lockdown because there’s a shooting near their school, or actually suffering through a shooting—which is now the leading cause of death for children in America, is gun violence.
There’s a blueprint in what President Biden did in a bipartisan way with the Safer Communities Act, which increased the age for buying an assault rifle, which put in place more funding for mental health resources in our communities. But the path and the journey is not going to be complete until we have background checks, until we have an assault weapons ban. And I see in a President Harris administration somebody that’s going to put our kids and their safety first.
I also see in the pick of Tim Walz that Kamala Harris recognizes: In America, you can take your kids hunting, you can shoot for sport, and you can protect yourself and your home. But we don’t have to allow the most dangerous people to have the most dangerous weapons, and that’s what she’s going to bring as president.
Seeberger: That’s spot on. On the flip side of this future-forward vision that we’re talking about with Vice President Harris and Gov. Walz are laying out, we’ve got this group of MAGA extremists who are planning this really dystopian countervision. I’m talking about this Project 2025 playbook I’m sure you’re familiar with, which informs much of the Trump agenda. You’ve been vocal—as has Vice President Harris on the campaign trail recently—about what this camp’s quest really is all about, and it’s taking over the government to control Americans lives.
Can you talk about what they’re planning? And what does it mean for Americans’ well-being and their personal freedoms?
Rep. Swalwell: We should be clear that this is Trump’s Project 2025, and he can disavow it and try and run from it, but these are his people, and many of them are his ideas, and the vehicles are his doing through the Supreme Court justices that he’s appointed who are working out of his palm.
And so some of the most destructive would be gutting the Department of Education. And he was bragging about this in his interview with Elon Musk, and it’s just bewildering that he would not want our children to learn. Like doesn’t Donald Trump think our children should be smarter than he is? But no, he wants to take a wrecking ball to the Department of Education.
And then, of course, there’s the bans—the bans on marrying the person you love; the ban on getting out of a marriage that is violent because they want forced marriage and to get rid of no-fault divorces; the bans on abortion; the bans on abortion pills; the bans on IVF; the bans on our books. This is a ban gang who really is invading our personal liberties.
And recently at an intern departure lunch, one of our interns asked me, “Do I really believe Donald Trump would enact Project 2025, or is this just something that Democrats are saying because it’s so bad?” I thought it was a great question. And I told him: Even if you give him the benefit of the doubt that he is disavowing Project 2025 because he doesn’t believe in it and put aside everything I just said, the problem is Donald Trump doesn’t really believe in much of anything. And Donald Trump, as we saw in the last two years of his cabinet, will have the least-qualified, worst individuals working for him.
So maybe Donald Trump is not signing up for all of Project 2025, but when you have somebody who frankly just doesn’t give a s— about government and is going to put sycophants and loyalists in—and many of these true believers do believe in all parts of Project 2025—it doesn’t matter whether he believes it or not, because it will be the law of the land and affect all of our freedoms and liberties.
Seeberger: We certainly know that Donald Trump cares about power. And at the center of Project 2025 is this plan to essentially gut our system of checks and balances all to consolidate power in a president. And I think that Donald Trump has shown us time and again what an executive with too much power that is unchecked by either people in his own cabinet, like you said, or even—I mean, the guy is out there talking about illegally using impoundment power to basically bypass Congress. I mean, he is making very, very clear that there’s no kind of governing norm that we’ve followed in this country for decades that he’s willing to not stampede over, right?
Rep. Swalwell: I would just say, I see it—to just simplify it—it will be a “me, mean, meme” presidency. It’ll be all about Donald Trump, and in his execution of that, the policies will be very cruel toward others. And in the way that the world looks at it, it’ll be memed, and the United States will be laughed at. A me, mean, meme presidency: That’s what we can look forward to if he gets a second term.
Seeberger: Well, that is the perfect introduction to my last question, which is, you seem to be having a lot of fun with a lot of the online discourse recently about how weird some of these MAGA extremists like JD Vance and others really are. Why do you think that this “weird” label is sticking, and how can humor and memes actually help expose the radicalism in a way that’s engaging and helps spread the word, especially among young people?
Rep. Swalwell: For too long, Democrats have approached persuasion and messaging as winning a Harvard Law School moot court competition.
We were too cerebral. And that’s frankly, I think, why we’re effective at governing—is because we’re quite cerebral, and we think the consequences and the stakes and the execution through, and that’s why the economy has always done better under Democrats. But we’ve been lousy at telling people what we’re going to do or what we have done to kind of define ourselves.
And I think you’ve seen this liberation recently where we’re not trying to win the Harvard Law School moot court competition, we’re just trying to win the gut check at the local bar and calling these folks what they are, which is—it is weird. They should mind their own damn business. And to just say that plainly is so effective.
I have a couple rules myself for messaging. One of them is, “tell me a story or bore me.” So if we’re not connecting to people through storytelling, and we’re just talking about policies and a 45-point plan, that’s not connecting with anybody. People want to know the story, your story and how it connects to their story.
Another rule that I have is, “surprise or it dies.” It’s OK to bring a little bit of surprise in your messaging and storytelling because in this social media culture, we absorb and forget so very, very quickly.
And then finally, at the end of the day, my third rule is, “we’re electing people, not policies. And so we have to lead with who is the person.” And I think when you see Kamala Harris dancing and laughing and having fun, but also being quite assertive about what she’s going to do for the country, how she’s going to prosecute the case against Trump and then be the bridge to the future, you see leadership in that.
And the same thing with Tim Walz. When we’re able to lead with, “This guy is a duck-hunting, military veteran, football coach from the Midwest who just gets what’s important to you,” that is quite effective. And we’ve just never been that great at it. And so it is kind of exciting to see us finally pulling that off.
Seeberger: Well it’s going to be an exciting week next week as more Americans are going to get to hear that story, and of course I’m talking about the Democratic National Convention taking place in Chicago next week. So I’m sure millions will be tuning in, hopefully not falling asleep like they may have been during Donald Trump’s.
Rep. Swalwell: Well Donald Trump was falling asleep during Donald Trump’s.
Seeberger: That he was. Well Congressman Swalwell, thank you so much for joining us on “The Tent.” It was great to chat.
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Seeberger: All right, folks. Thanks so much for joining us. Please go back and check out previous episodes. Erin, we mentioned it earlier, the Olympics are officially over. And I got to say, the baton has been passed to Los Angeles who’s going to be hosting in 2028 the Summer Games. I got to say, I’m a little nervous that the day after that happened, there was a big earthquake in Los Angeles. I’m not sure what that portends.
Phillips: Yeah.
Seeberger: But there was just total dominance by the USA at this year’s games. I mean, some just unbelievable performances. Top of mind for me: The women’s and men’s basketball teams both took home the gold. The men’s team ended up defeating France on their home turf. It was just a really, really fun game. I saw, I think it was almost 20 million people actually tuned in to watch the game. And it was really exciting to see all of the energy that we’ve been seeing in the WNBA league really power the women’s team to global dominance and taking on the gold. So it was really fun to watch. I don’t know about you, but the track and field stuff was amazing this year.
Phillips: Yeah. I mean, there was just American greatness all around. I was feeling very patriotic—
Seeberger: Yeah.
Phillips: —toward the end of these Olympics. All of the stuff you mentioned. In climbing, we had a silver medalist on the women’s side. All of the track and field stuff was really good. In skateboarding, the men’s street skateboarding final, we had two out of the three people on the podium were from the USA. So we were just killing it.
Seeberger: All right. OK, OK. You know, I can’t say that I followed it too, too closely, but I was just totally in awe of the dominance of Ryan Crouser, who is now a three-time gold medalist in shotput. He took home the gold in Rio, in Tokyo, and now in Paris. And the guy is just a total beast. He’s killing it.
Phillips: Yeah, I did watch that final. It was really fun to watch. I had never watched shotput before.
Seeberger: Yeah, and his elbow was injured, too!
Phillips: Oh my gosh, I can’t even believe it. And also it was raining, and the circle that they throw the shotput out of was really wet.
Seeberger: Yeah.
Phillips: And everybody was slipping around and falling, and he was just calm and collected. And I mean, he was telling the judges to cancel the—he was like, “postpone it or cancel it.” You could see him talking to the judges like very furiously, but he just dominated.
Seeberger: He’s got this. He’s got this.
Phillips: Did you watch any of the breaking, Colin?
Seeberger: I saw clips of the breaking. I can’t say that I tuned in live, but I think the clips of the breaking were pretty hard to miss if you were online this week.
Phillips: Yeah, unfortunately, I don’t think it was the best of the breaking that got highlighted in the clips. It was one Australian breaker known as “Raygun”—
Seeberger: Yes.
Phillips: —who apparently has a Ph.D. in breaking.
Seeberger: Is a professor.
Phillips: Yeah. But I think that’s in the on-paper study of breaking, as opposed to doing it in practice.
Seeberger: I think that’s right.
Phillips: That would make more sense to me. Yeah.
Seeberger: Yeah, I think you’re onto something.
Also really cool—the U.S. women’s foil fencing team brought home our first medal ever, including no less than a gold. So that was really cool.
Phillips: Very exciting. Well I know that the Olympics are coming to a close and we’re sad about that, but the Paralympics are coming up in just a couple weeks. And I heard that NBC actually expanded coverage, so there is more to watch this year on that front. So I’m actually going to tune into that because I want to keep the Olympic spirit going and what better way than to watch some incredible Paralympic athletes?
Seeberger: Yes, I look forward to tuning in as well. And the Olympics are so great because it’s something that everybody in the country can really rally behind—well except for maybe some of our “weird” friends, quote-unquote. But yeah, for most of us folks, having an opportunity to recognize and honor all of the hard work of our athletes is just a really fun time to come together as a country.
Phillips: Yeah, so we have, what, two weeks before the Paralympics to catch up on all our other TV shows?
Seeberger: I think that’s right.
Phillips: And then dive back in.
Seeberger: So stay tuned, listeners. Daniella and I will have much to discuss about “The Bachelorette” coming up. So she will be back soon. She and I are both heading to the Democratic National Convention next week in Chicago. So stay tuned for our updates from there and future “Bachelorette” breaking news items in the weeks to come. And hope you all take care of yourself and have a great week.
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“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 on “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.