Transcript:
Colin Seeberger: Hey everyone. Welcome back to “The Tent,” your place for politics, policy, and progress. I’m Colin Seeberger.
Muggs Leone: And I’m Muggs Leone, filling in for Daniella. Colin, I know we live in a literal swamp, but this endless parade of thunderstorms is a bit too much for me.
Seeberger: Yeah, the other night I was driving home from work, and I thought my daughter and I were going to have to start pailing water out of our car because it was coming down so hard.
Leone: So strong. My basement flooded the other day.
Leone: I came home at like 11 p.m., and there was just water everywhere. So that was fun. We got those big fans running. So I just need this to stop. I’d appreciate it.
Seeberger: That’s awful. I’m so sorry.
Leone: Thank you. But I heard you were able to stay nice and cozy this week in our studio while you did a lovely interview?
Seeberger: I did. I spoke with Emma Brown, executive director at the gun violence prevention group, Giffords. We talked about their important work, the rise in political violence in America, and how to stem the spread of gun violence, even as this administration seems to be trying to do everything it can to enable it. Here’s some of her thoughts.
Emma Brown: I think when we think about political violence, there is a temptation to blame it all on the rhetoric, right? Often what you will hear is people saying this is a product of the polarization of our times, it’s a product of the heat of our politics. And there is some truth to that.
I think the truth, also, is that we have a president who traffics in fear and hate and seeks to score political points off of the backs of the vulnerable. And he stokes these divisions because they serve him.
Leone: I look forward to listening. But first, we’ve got to get to some news.
Seeberger: We sure do, Muggs, because MAGA world is continuing to fall apart over the DOJ’s [U.S. Department of Justice] decision to withhold release of the Epstein files. This comes, of course, after Trump very clearly said on the campaign trail that he would make the files, all of them, public. I believe his exact words were, “Yeah, I would.”
And yet here we are with Attorney General Pam Bondi trying to gaslight the nation by saying she never had these documents, even though she was on national television just a few months ago saying that they were awaiting her review on her desk. As much as I would like to see what’s in those documents, the larger issue here is that, yet again, Trump seems to be going back on his word.
Either he and his crew of MAGA loyalists were lying about what’s in the Epstein files, or they’re hiding something from the American people right now to protect wealthy elites. Either way, it’s not looking good for Trump and his minions, who repeatedly claimed that there’s been some sort of government cover-up.
Leone: Exactly, Colin. I mean, I feel like the term “gaslight” gets used a lot by people online, but I really do feel like I’m going insane this week with them being like, “We never said we would do this.”
Leone: I’m like, there’s documented records. For years, Trump and members of his administration—like Kash Patel, who’s the head of the FBI, and Dan Bongino, who’s his deputy—have hyped up the supposed Epstein client list, even though people involved with the case continue to say that never existed. But now that Donald Trump is in control he’s saying that this is a waste of time and energy? Seems a little convenient. Seems a little suspicious, if you ask me.
Seeberger: Yeah, it’s definitely pretty fishy.
Leone: And unlike most of the time when Trump paints criticisms of his actions as a partisan witch hunt, this choice is bringing on a lot of hate from people from within his own coalition.
I mean, there was a Turning Point USA conference this week where attendees were bashing the president, with some even saying that he had become the, quote-unquote, “deep state” that he had promised to get rid of.
Seeberger: These are his closest allies.
Leone: Exactly. These are young, up-and-coming—
Leone: —base of a party. And they’re just not buying it, so why does he expect the rest of us to? Dan Bongino, like I said, who’s the deputy of the FBI, went AWOL for a few days as he was clashing with Pam Bondi and Kash Patel over this decision. Trump loyalists like Laura Loomer and Steve Bannon and Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) have publicly condemned this change of heart.
I mean, even Speaker Mike Johnson (R) in an interview this week with Benny Johnson said that, quote-unquote, “We should put everything out there and let the people decide.”
Leone: I’m agreeing with Mike Johnson, Colin. I’m a little concerned. But that’s exactly what Democrats on the hill have been saying, and they’ve been demanding. I mean, they’ve seized this moment, and they have been holding Trump accountable—and Attorney General Bondi—by working to demand the files be released using legislative action.
If there was ever a need for Congress to grow some balls and do some congressional oversight, now is the time to do it to put this matter to bed for once. Because both Democrats and Republicans would like to stop talking about Epstein, and Democrats are the ones fighting to make that happen.
Seeberger: I mean, if Trump’s not going to pony up the goods, then Congress, get in here.
Seeberger: Get the job done. And I’m glad to see that Democrats are really on the front foot of pushing to make that happen. We called it a few months ago, Muggs, that Epstein would come back to bite Trump in the rear. And yet, here we are.
We should be clear: This is absolutely something Democrats should lean into. Trump won because enough of his voters thought he would unrig the system, right? But now it’s very clear that he represents the broken system and is wielding his power as president to protect either himself or his powerful friends, right? His rich, powerful buddies.
This is all connected, of course, to his efforts to reward his wealthy allies in and outside of the government, giving them steep tax cuts as he did just a couple weeks ago when he signed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. And insider access, his pay-to-play politics and style of governing, really is on full display, showing just how corrupt his government is.
Leone: One hundred percent, Colin. I mean, and if Donald Trump has nothing to hide in these files, why not just release them? It’s all I’m saying.
Leone: Seems a little fishy if you ask me.
Seeberger: Sure does. Speaking of a few things that drive a wedge in Trump’s base, the Epstein files—we’re not stopping there.
This week, President Trump threatened his longtime pal Vladimir Putin with deep sanctions if peace with Ukraine isn’t reached some point in the next 50 days. These sanctions would largely target countries receiving energy exports from Russia. And of course, this also comes as Trump agrees to further supply Ukraine with arms. And while I’m personally skeptical Trump is going to stick to this 50-day timeline—
Leone: What do you mean, Colin? Trump’s not a stickler for his little deadlines?
Seeberger: He has never missed a deadline once in his life, right? It does seem like Trump might actually be coming to terms with the fact that his relationship with Vladimir Putin—it hasn’t panned out, and it’s been pretty one-sided.
Seeberger: Yeah. In an interview this week, Trump claimed Putin has fooled a lot of people: “He fooled Clinton, Bush, Obama, Biden. He didn’t fool me.” OK. Really, Donald? Come on. Trump came into office saying he would end this war on day one. He now is six months into the second term, and it seems a little far-fetched to think that he wasn’t fooled, right?
Sure seems like someone is having a little bit of buyer’s remorse and is feeling a little sensitive about looking weak and may be throwing a little bit of a temper tantrum, despite the fact that he is tantruming in the right direction.
Leone: So true, Colin. I mean, who knew that being president would harm your relationships so much?
I mean, Musk, Epstein, Vladmir Putin—Trump seems to be having a lot of difficulties with some of his old pals.
Seeberger: Mm-hmm. Sure does.
Leone: But while this change in posture is, I’ll say, welcome, given Trump—
Leone: Yeah, given that Trump was the one who led the fight last year to cut off aid to Ukraine, it still falls short of addressing the actual needs and the real threat posed to the country’s sovereignty.
Trump hasn’t voiced support for a new security assistance package in Congress that would give Ukraine the support it needs to really change the tide. And his silence probably comes from the fact that supporting that kind of aid would anger his base and go against his “America first” mantra.
Leone: I do think, Colin.
Leone: I really do. Especially because his vice president, JD Vance, wrote a New York Times op-ed last year being an avid opponent of aid to Ukraine.
Leone: I mean, in the op-ed, he was claiming that it’d be practically impossible for the U.S. to send the kind of aid that Ukraine would need to win and that the country should just give up and give its sovereign land back to Russia.
And while we didn’t have time to go into all the problems with that argument, that op-ed does go to show how a lot of Trump’s base feels about this conflict.
Seeberger: It’s part of the reason why he was chosen by Trump to be vice president.
Leone: Exactly, yeah, to be a hardliner in these kinds of situations.
And you know it’s bad for Republicans when you have people like Steve Bannon and Marjorie Taylor Greene criticizing your policy decisions over and over and over. And we’re only at month six of a four-year-long term.
So Trump really has found himself between a rock and a hard place. I mean, either he should stick with his supporters and do what they want him to do and let Putin walk all over him, or stand by his word that he ran on during the election and end the war, but risk infuriating the isolationist members of his party.
Seeberger: I mean, is Trump acting like a RINO [Republican in name only]? It sure seems like he might. It’s some good food for thought for our listeners. But TL;DR: It’s truly an embarrassing situation either way, just as you suggested. So we’ll see how he tries to spin his way out of this one, Muggs, and we’ll keep our listeners posted.
Leone: Indeed we will. But that’s all the time we have for today. If there’s anything 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 Emma Brown in just a beat.
Seeberger: Emma Brown is the executive director at Giffords, a gun violence prevention and advocacy group. Before that, she served as campaign manager for Sen. Mark Kelly’s (D-AZ) 2022 reelection campaign. Emma, thanks so much for joining us on “The Tent.”
Brown: Thanks so much for having me. Lot of fun.
Seeberger: So, you work at Giffords, an organization founded by and named after former Arizona Congresswoman Gabby Giffords (D), who herself became a gun violence prevention advocate after surviving an assassination attempt in 2011.
Can you talk about the state of the gun violence prevention movement as we mark just about 6 1/2 months or so into Donald Trump’s second term?
Brown: Yeah. Well I’m so glad that you’re starting there. Because when we think about this issue, we think about the last 10 years, for the most part, in working on gun violence prevention.
And there were organizations and groups, particularly at a local and a state level, organizing for a long time before Sandy Hook. But it was really not until Gabby was shot and then Sandy Hook happened that we started seeing significant national investment and support for this issue and real attention.
So when you think about the state of the gun violence prevention movement, we usually rewind back to when Gabby was shot. It was 2011, as you said. She was a congresswoman from Arizona, southern Arizona. I always remind people she was a Blue Dog. She is a red state Democrat. She and Sen. Kelly, both red state Democrats. And they’re—
Seeberger: A carrier herself, right?
Brown: They’re gun owners.
Brown: They’re gun owners. And they come from a tradition of hunting in moderation, as Arizona Democrats. And Gabby was shot. Sen. Kelly was at NASA. Ultimately, we had Sandy Hook happen shortly thereafter. And they will talk about going to Congress after Sandy Hook and walking the halls and trying to keep Democrats together on this pretty modest piece of legislation, the Manchin-Toomey bill, which was universal background checks, and a lot of folks will probably remember that. And we ended up coming up short by four votes, mostly because of Democrats that they had lost on it.
And there was this awful moment in the Rose Garden where Obama was standing there. Gabby was on his right, and then there were the Sandy Hook parents behind them. And he’ll talk about it as one of the worst days of his presidency because we lost 20 kindergartners in a classroom, and the nation did nothing about it.
Brown: Yeah, it shrugged. And I think that’s really the moment where the modern gun violence prevention movement was born. And then you fast forward 10 years, and you’re at 2022, and you have Uvalde.
And it is a similar situation in that a lot of kids die in a classroom suddenly. It’s horrifying. Except this time, you get the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, which is the first piece of federal legislation on this issue in 30 years. And you get every single Democrat in the United States Senate voting for that legislation, plus 15 Republicans. It’s co-negotiated by John Cornyn (R-TX), of all people—
Brown: —which would have been inconceivable five years prior. And we think a lot about those two snapshots in time: the moment after Sandy Hook and the moment after Uvalde. And you see this incredible arc of progress. What existed between those two moments was a decade of work done at the state level—for Giffords, particularly in red and purple states—building coalitions of people to support gun violence reform.
Again, hunters, red state Democrats, folks who span the ideological spectrum but understand that we shouldn’t live in a country where second graders have to go through active shooter drills and people lose their lives every day. This is now the leading cause of death for children in the United States.
So when we think about the status of this issue, it is an issue where we are making a tremendous amount of progress. The politics have changed, the policy has changed, and yet it is still at a crisis level. And there is a lot at stake right now with the Trump administration, which I’m sure we’ll talk about.
Seeberger: I mean, it’s interesting you bring up the politics here, right? And you brought up John Cornyn. And obviously we’ll wait to see how his primary plays out, but I think for a lot of folks, as we awaited action for so long, even as more and more mass shootings were happening, and the conversation was always, “Oh, well, Republicans can’t get out of line with where the gun lobby is or where their primary voters are.” And yet, frankly, what we have seen is almost some of these Republicans who voted for this bill frankly actually be able to use it to their own political advantage.
Seeberger: Right? And I think this is especially salient at a time when, at the beginning of this decade coming out of the pandemic, crime and public safety was much more of an urgent matter. So I think that whole conversation from 2022 almost pulled the veil back on the politics of this issue and really got us past the talking points of—
Brown: Thoughts and prayers.
Seeberger: Republicans should have political fears or thoughts and prayers, right? And actually, yeah, turning the page and showing how action is actually a political asset.
Brown: Doing something. Yes.
Seeberger: Not a political liability.
Seeberger: So I also want to ask you, over the course of the last nearly 15 years since Gabby was shot, we also know that political violence has become a bigger and bigger topic. A few weeks ago, Minnesota state Rep. Melissa Hortman (D) was assassinated in her home, and state Sen. John Hoffman (D-MN) was nearly killed.
I know you and Gabby worked with Melissa Hortman and Gov. [Tim] Walz (D-MN) to pass common sense gun safety reforms in Minnesota. Can you talk a little bit about that attack, as well as the rising political violence that we see in this country where guns are frequently used? And what’s going to be necessary to turn the tide on this, bring the temperature down?
Brown: Yeah, it’s a great question. So as you said, Giffords, certainly Gabby, worked very closely with Melissa Hortman when she was the speaker of the Minnesota House to pass multiple pieces of legislation that were very important in Minnesota—universal background checks, red flag laws.
And I think when you listen to the reactions to that shooting, what you heard over and over again is that she was an incredible public servant who had dedicated her life to her state. And it is a profound loss. And I think that was felt certainly across Minnesota, but also across this town, across Washington, across the country.
So it was a horrifying weekend, a significant loss for us. And I think when we think about political violence, there is a temptation to blame it all on the rhetoric, right? Often what you will hear is people saying, “This is a product of the polarization of our times. It’s a product of the heat of our politics.” And there is some truth to that.
I think the truth also is that we have a president who traffics in fear and hate and seeks to score political points off the backs of the vulnerable. And he stokes these divisions because they serve him. So when we think about the rhetoric, we think about who’s responsible for the rhetoric, that is, I think, the place you need to start.
But the other thing that I would say is it’s not rhetoric alone. And last summer, we saw an assassination attempt—actually, two assassination attempts on President Trump. And in that moment, too, there were people saying, “It’s the rhetoric, it’s the rhetoric, it’s the Democrats.”
And what we felt was really missing from that conversation was an acknowledgement of how these assassination attempts happened. So there was an incident where there was a person with an AK-47 sitting in the bushes outside of the golf course that President Trump was on. And it wasn’t rhetoric that was sitting in the bushes of that golf course. It was a man with an AK-47 who was trying to kill the president. And so what we have is violent extremism in this country that is made significantly more deadly by the easy access to weapons.
Political violence is sitting at this intersection of both extreme rhetoric and the fact that, in the case of the Minnesota shooter, there was somebody who was unraveling, was known to his community to be unraveling, and he was able to stockpile weapons, and he was able to drive around town with, in this case, two AK-47s in his car and a list of legislators who he hunted in the middle of the night.
And so when we think about what the solutions to this problem are, there are upstream solutions that we have to pay attention to, like the easy access to guns in this country for dangerous people and the rhetoric. And I fear that often when you hear about the solutions, we hear about hardening. We hear about trying to bulk up the physical and online security of legislators. And that’s important, but it’s ultimately a Band-Aid. We’ve got to fix the actual root causes of the political violence, and I think you’re seeing more and more people talking about that now, which is really important.
Seeberger: Well, speaking of solutions, we actually just marked the three-year anniversary of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, which we were talking about earlier.
Seeberger: And I’m curious to get your take on where we are in terms of that law’s implementation, what sort of impact it has had, as well as whether you see it as a stepping stone to further progress in the years ahead.
Brown: Yeah. Well you said this earlier, a lot of the Republicans who voted for that legislation have really talked about its impact and celebrated its impact.
Brown: Just earlier this year, we saw a Newsweek op-ed from Sens. [John] Cornyn (R-TX) and [Thom] Tillis (R-NC) and [Susan] Collins (R-ME) celebrating the billion dollars in mental health funding that the legislation—
Brown: —yes, that the legislation allocated that they had really fought for and celebrating this bipartisan achievement.
And of course, we now know that the Trump administration has suspended much of that funding and cut it off from schools. And I think you’d be hard pressed to find anybody in this country who would tell you that we are taking enough care of mental health of kids in schools. So that was the least controversial piece of that legislation. and it is something that the administration is attacking and we are really seeking to defend.
So when we think about big accomplishments from that legislation, cracking down on gun trafficking is one that folks often don’t think about, but that legislation achieved making gun trafficking a felony, which is really important. Raising the standards for gun buyers between the ages of 18 and 21. A lot of the shooters—a lot of the mass shooters, school shooters—that we see are young, typically young men. And just creating a little bit of a higher barrier for those really at-risk folks to be purchasing firearms is very important. So it did that.
It tightened the boyfriend loophole, which was a really important reform to keep guns out of the hands of domestic abusers. It also funded hundreds of millions of dollars of community violence intervention, which is one of one of our most effective tactics towards combating daily gun violence that’s disproportionately impacting Black and Latino communities. So both daily gun violence and mass shootings were addressed in this legislation.
And I’ll just say, it was a moderate, modest piece of legislation. It didn’t accomplish absolutely everything that we wanted. But it happened, right? And it happened for the first time in 30 years. It happened with tremendous bipartisan support, celebrated bipartisan support.
So it’s been very disappointing to see this administration—and you alluded to this earlier—this administration that talks about law and order, talks about fighting violent crime a lot, take apart some of the most basic tools that federal law enforcement and states and school districts have towards actually stopping crime and keeping people safe.
Seeberger: So you raised the provisions in the law related to the safety of students and safety in schools. The Trump administration and Education Secretary Linda McMahon are actively working to rip away some of that progress, right? There was an extremely tense exchange between Sen. [Chris] Murphy (D-CT) and Secretary McMahon at a recent Senate hearing. where he confronted her about this—
Seeberger: —which I’m sure you probably saw. Can you talk a little bit more specifically about, what are the resources that are going to schools that the administration is ripping away? And what sort of position is that leaving schools in for how they’re supposed to keep students safe?
Brown: Yeah. Well so it was a billion dollars in funding for mental health in schools that was allocated through the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act. And what we found particularly ironic about this is that mental health is an aspect of this problem. It is not the entirety of this problem. Certainly easy access to deadly weapons is a big part of it, but if you listen particularly to our friends on the right, it’s always: “It’s a mental health problem. It’s a mental health problem,” right?
Seeberger: Yes, I’ve heard this.
Brown: Yes. Speaker Johnson once referred to it, famously, as a “matter of the human heart.” So they really over-index on the mental health nature of this.
So there was $1 billion dollars appropriated in this legislation for mental health funding in schools. And it was $500 million to actually hire school psychologists, school counselors in school districts across the country. Then it was $500 million to help train more of them and work on the pipeline. And that funding was allocated, it was in use, and then all of a sudden, overnight school districts got this letter that just said, “Your funding has been terminated or suspended at the end of this year.” And they had hired counselors. They had put programs in place that were being utilized by students across the country—
Seeberger: Like right now.
Brown: —that all of a sudden were gone. And it was very abrupt. It was very badly executed. And just earlier this month, we saw a set of states sue the administration for the impact that those cuts have had on school districts across the country.
And last summer, gun violence was declared a public health crisis for the first time by the surgeon general. And we talked about this earlier: Gun violence is the leading cause of death for children in this country. But I think what people also don’t realize about it is the impact that it has on youth mental health. The impact of putting students through active shooter drills. The impact of sending students to school every day when they know full well that, more often than not, there is nothing that is protecting them from a person with an AR-15 walking through the front door of their middle school.
It’s a really significant mental health toll, on top of all of the pressures that exist in modern life for students of that age. And so removing this funding is deadly. And I think that the administration should listen to the voices of Republican senators who celebrated this funding earlier this year and really ask themselves, “When we see the next Uvalde, is this really something that we’re going to be able to stand behind?” And they need to put the funding back.
Seeberger: Well that, I think, should weigh heavy on their souls as they go to work every day. We talked about this a little bit, but the administration, they talk a big game about needing to keep the country safe. And at the same time, they’re dismantling evidence-backed safety programs. They are taking a hatchet to ATF, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms and Explosives—
Seeberger: —it is a mouthful, thank you very much—as well as community violence intervention programs, right?
What is driving the disconnect here? Is this just the gun lobby at work? Is this extremists in the administration who are just completely out of touch with the challenges that communities face? What do you think is going on here?
Brown: Yeah. I’m so glad you asked this question because it really stumps people. The Republicans are the party of “law and order,” famously. That’s what they talk about. And they’re the party that talks about fighting violent crime. And at the same time, they are dismantling federal law enforcement. They are cutting support for mental health in schools. They’re actually cutting police funding at a state, a local level, and a federal level.
Seeberger: You heard it here, folks.
Brown: Yeah. The Democrats are—
Seeberger: The Trump administration is defunding the police.
Brown: That’s right. Yes. The Republicans are seeking to defund the police at a state and a federal level, and that sounds crazy to a lot of people. They can’t understand how that would possibly be the case, particularly for a party that talks about itself as the “law and order” party, the anti-violent crime party.
Seeberger: Back the blue.
Brown: Back the blue, exactly. But in actuality, this is a party that has taken tens of millions of dollars from the gun lobby, from gun industry CEOs, over time.
And the only interest that gun companies have is selling more and more violent weapons more easily to more people. And so ultimately, this is a story about Republicans taking money from gun lobby donors and then agreeing to weaken laws that actually protect Americans from crime.
And then by that same token, because of DOGE [the Department of Government Efficiency], because of other cuts that they’re making federally, they’re both weakening the laws that’ll keep Americans safe, and they’re not equipping law enforcement with the tools and the resources that they need to actually fight violent crime.
So the House Republican budget represents a 25 percent reduction to the ATF. And the ATF is not a federal agency that folks know a lot about, but its sole mission, particularly on the firearm side, is fighting violent crime. And the Republicans have taken a hatchet to that funding, which represents the single largest divestment from federal law enforcement that we’ve ever seen.
Seeberger: That is outrageous.
Seeberger: And something we’ll be keeping tabs on as we get closer to the end of the fiscal year at the end of September.
I am curious to ask you about, we were kind of tongue-in-cheek playing on words of defunding the police and whatnot from Republicans, but how should folks who support taking more action to protect our country and its people from gun violence—how should they be thinking about talking about the changes that we need to be making on that front?
Are there compelling stakeholders that they should be working to partner with? Are there particular messages that you’re seeing are resonating with folks who may not be affiliated with the Democratic party but recognize some very fundamental challenges that we have in our society when you can’t go to a grocery store or a movie theater or a school and count on being able to go home?
Brown: Yeah, that’s absolutely right. So I think what we find on this issue and where we really specialize at Giffords—given who Gabby is, given who Sen. Kelly is, our founders—we specialize in something that we refer to as the unlikely ally.
The people who are really good messengers on this issue, really good messengers on gun violence, on crime, on public safety, but are often not asked by the Democratic Party to be in the tent and helping us advocate for this. So we think about gun owners, first and foremost. People who can say, “I have a tradition of hunting in my family, and I have a second grader, and there’s no tension between the Second Amendment and my ability to keep my kids safe.”
Think about gun owners. We think about veterans: People who have carried weapons of war in combat contexts and understand that there’s no place for those kinds of weapons in civilian hands. Really, there’s no reason that a civilian needs a machine gun, honestly.
Brown: We also think about law enforcement, people who have seen the impact of particularly extreme weapons in dangerous hands and also understand what it is for a civilian population to be outgunning the police and to have their resources stripped. So law enforcement are really important validators for Democrats right now and important validators for us.
And then of course, we look for the moderate Democrats and moderate Republicans, folks in the middle who don’t see eye to eye on everything but can agree on basic commonalities.
And it’s interesting, I think, when you look at the polling attached to this issue, it is a fiction that it’s a divisive issue. That is a thing of the past. We did house battleground research last summer where we found that 95 percent of Americans support universal background checks, including 92 percent of Trump voters.
Seeberger: That’s a lot. OK.
Brown: Ninety-two percent of Trump voters, right? That’s everybody. That is everybody.
Brown: Gabby will joke sometimes that the only thing more popular in America is ice cream, than universal background checks, right?
Brown: So when we think about the messengers, I would look for the unlikely ally for us. And I think that’s the case for the gun violence prevention world. I also think it’s the case for the Democrats right now, more broadly.
And then when we think about the messages, we need to draw a very sharp contrast between what Democrats in Congress have been able to accomplish in recent years—like making gun trafficking a felony, like funding community violence intervention programs, like ensuring that law enforcement have enough support to do their jobs at a state and a federal level—and then what we’re seeing from Republicans, which is gutting public safety laws, gutting funding for law enforcement, increasing crime.
We have a dynamic where most of the country believes that the Republicans are the law-and-order party. And it’s really, really critical that we are able to make the practical impact of this administration felt for people, and that we use the right messengers to do it.
Seeberger: Well, Emma, we like to end our interviews on a positive note—
Brown: I can pull it around.
Seeberger: OK. Bring us home. I’ve seen Gabby say that she is hopeful and optimistic about this movement and the fight ahead. Can you share a little bit about why you think that’s where her head and her heart are in this moment that’s obviously really concerning, I think, to a lot of people?
Brown: Yeah. People often will ask us, “What’s your biggest challenge?” And I think they expect us to say the gun lobby or the NRA [National Rifle Association]. And I really think our biggest challenge on this issue is cynicism, this idea that this is just what it is in America. We live in a country where kids get shot in school. We live in a country where you can walk into a grocery store and potentially lose your life.
And the reality is, it’s only been in the last 20 years that this has become a problem the way that it has. And it’s a hard problem, right? You open up the newspaper every day. You see it. It can feel like nothing is changing.
I think the reason that Gabby is as hopeful as she is, is because we travel the country. Gabby’s on the road 60 percent of the time. She’s all over the country, all the time. And she is seeing people in red states, in purple states, in blue states organizing and doing something about it.
And we passed a gun safety law in Tennessee this year. We passed a gun safety law in Alabama this year. We got our first major gun safety law through the legislature in Texas. We passed community violence intervention funding.
And hope is the most important resource that we have. Hope can move mountains. It can create possibilities where possibilities don’t exist right now. And paradoxically, I think the closer you get to this issue, the more hope you have because you see people all over the country unwilling to accept this reality and doing something about it.
Seeberger: That is exactly the reminder I needed in this moment. Emma Brown, thanks so much for joining us on “The Tent.”
Seeberger: All right, folks, that’s going to do it for us this week. Please go back and check out previous episode. Muggs, we got the Emmy nominations this week. Are you excited for the ceremonies?
Leone: I am. I always love an award show. I love seeing the outfits. It’s always the favorite thing that I look forward to. I couldn’t honestly care less who wins—although, I like seeing who’s nominated because it gives me an idea of what I’m missing out on.
Seeberger: Yeah, what you should be watching?
Leone: Because I’m so not caught up on what’s on TV. I did see that Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey were both nominated for “The Last Of Us,” so shout out because we love some nonbinary representation—and also any chance to pay attention to Pedro Pascal as well.
Seeberger: Yes. A loyal “Tent” fan.
Seeberger: Yes, you can find him sharing our content from his social media accounts. I was very excited to see that the stars of the season of “The White Lotus” got the due credit that they deserve.
I think there were five actresses on the best supporting actress in a television drama were nominated, and every single one of them deserve to end up winning. But of course, that will not happen. Go Parker Posey, you deserve it, we love you so much.
And for me, I’ve got to say a lot of the shows that were nominated this year are so heavy. And in this second Trump era, I just don’t need that right now. I need “The White Lotus.” I need things that are bringing levity and lightness and humor to my life. I need “Hacks.” I even need “Ted Lasso,” which our supervising producer, Kelly McCoy, who is a “Ted Lasso” superfan, knows I’m not the number one “Ted Lasso” fan. But you know what? In this moment we find ourselves in, I would pick up season three.
Leone: Yeah, it’s good to have a little brain candy as we call it. I do love seeing that the same five reality TV show hosts get nominated seemingly every single year.
Leone: Because it’s RuPaul and it’s Alan Cumming, and it’s “The Sharks.” I love that somethings never change.
Seeberger: Well, speaking of soccer, Muggs, I know that there was also something that you were watching this past week?
Leone: I’m not a huge sports person, but there was something that popped up this week in pop culture, and it did have to do with our dear president Donald Trump.
Leone: As of right now, the FIFA Gold Club World Cup trophy is in the White House. And the actual winners of that trophy have a replica.
Seeberger: What do you mean?
Leone: Because they just decided that Trump thought it looked nice and his friend at FIFA was like, “You could hold onto this for now.”
Leone: It was gold. It was pretty. It was by Tiffany Co. It was worth, like, several hundred thousand dollars. So, he is just holding onto it. But what really got me is there’s a video of him on stage when the team won.
And first of all, the team is all very confused as to why he’s there. Yeah. And they all —he starts clapping, Donald Trump does, and then the team bends down. They go to lift the cup, and they all start jumping and cheering. Like, this is a major accomplishment of their life. Trump’s just staying there clapping. And then, like Homer Simpson in the bushes, vanishes backwards into this crowd.
Leone: And it’s just so funny because you an see him. He’s the only one not in the uniform or the outfit. And so you just kind of see him in the back clapping, awkwardly standing, and then he lingers. And we’re all just like, why are you here? That was really funny.
Seeberger: That is incredible. I did see—somewhat tangential to this story—that I guess Trump was speculating or floating out there that he may sign some declaration or EO or something, executive order or something, to change soccer to football in America?
Seeberger: So, we’ll see how that goes down in MAGA America. I’m not sure many voters in MAGA America are referring to football matches, high school football matches. But hey, we’ll see.
Leone: Well, and I can’t imagine that the NFL is a very fond of the potential of having to rebrand.
Seeberger: I think that’s right. I think that’s right.
Seeberger: We certainly will. And with that, that is all the time we had this week. Please go back and check out previous episodes. Stay dry. The rain does not look like it is coming to an end anytime soon if you live in the D.C. metro area. So stay dry, 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 Daniella Gibbs Léger. Muggs Leone is our digital producer and guest host for this episode, Kelly McCoy is our supervising producer, and Mishka Espey is our booking producer. Jacob Jordan is our writer. Hai Phan, Olivia Mowry, and Toni Pandolfo are our video team.
Views expressed by guests 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.