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, can we talk about how much pollen is flying around right now? I feel like I get in my car, and I just see this blanket film of yellow on top.
Gibbs Léger: It’s so disgusting. My allergies are so bad. If you see me crying in this episode, I’m not crying. It is just my allergies.
Seeberger: Yeah, I am hoping that our viewers are not like, “Why are his eyes squinted shut almost?” And hopefully we will be on the other side of this soon.
Seeberger: But speaking of trees and nature, I heard you had a very timely conversation with a special guest this week.
Gibbs Léger: I did. I talked with former Gov. Jay Inslee (D) of Washington state about Earth Day and why we celebrate our beautiful planet. We also discussed how folks can push back against the Trump administration’s attempts to make fighting climate change more difficult.
Seeberger: It sounds like a really great and timely conversation. But first, we’ve got to get to some news. And while it may have felt like the month from hell for all of us working in Washington, D.C., down in Arlington it sounds like things are genuinely getting increasingly out of control at the Pentagon—which is not great for our national security, Daniella.
Gibbs Léger: It seems problematic, Colin. For those of you who are lucky enough to not know what we’re talking about, it’s been a doozy of a week for the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth.
Last week, we saw his top aides fired one after another, and over the weekend it culminated with an op-ed published in Politico by his top spokesperson John Ullyot, who recently resigned from the Pentagon. In it, he describes what sounds like a pretty horrific couple of weeks—
Gibbs Léger: —working for Hegseth. Ullyot wrote that Pentagon leadership is nearing collapse after a paranoid Hegseth launched a, quote, “purge” to squelch negative stories about him. That whole sentence is so problematic.
Ullyot also hinted that there would be more bombshell news stories coming this week to break about the secretary of defense. So I guess we shouldn’t have been surprised when we learned shortly thereafter about a second Signal chat Pete Hegseth used to share—
Gibbs Léger: —another one, Colin—to share top secret military strike plans against the Houthis a couple weeks ago. Now, this second chain didn’t include The Atlantic’s Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg, but it did include Pete’s wife, his brother, and his personal attorney.
Gibbs Léger: We also learned that just days prior, his top aides warned him not to share sensitive operational details in the group chat, but he went ahead and did it anyway.
And it doesn’t end there, Colin—yes, but wait, there’s more. We also found out from The Wall Street Journal that Hegseth’s wife—a former Fox News producer who does not work for the Defense Department—has been tagging along in meetings where he and his military counterparts discuss sensitive information. Outrageous doesn’t even begin to describe this story, Colin.
Seeberger: It truly does not, Daniella. I mean, I’m just thinking here, what ally would think, “Oh, hey, this is a country that I want to team up on for military exercises and things like that”? They can’t even trust that the information that they’re sharing mutually is going to be protected, right?
Seeberger: Hegseth has sought to downplay these stories by suggesting they’re coming from disgruntled staffers, which is wild given the fact that they’re actually coming from the people he handpicked to serve in his leadership team. These people are loyal, MAGA foot soldiers.
Honestly, all of this was, though, so foreseeable, too. These complaints about Pete Hegseth’s fitness were easy to spot a mile away, right? He was never qualified to lead our national defense. Yet Republican senators, like Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina (R) or Joni Ernst (R) of Iowa, clearly prioritized their loyalty to Trump over their loyalty to our country and our security.
They confirmed Hegseth, despite the fact that they repeatedly had voiced reservations about his fitness for serving. And let’s be clear, this scandal goes far beyond Pete Hegseth. Donald Trump’s whole national security team is a security nightmare.
Seeberger: From Trump to Hegseth to [Director of National Intelligence] Tulsi Gabbard, they’re playing fast and loose with intelligence and putting our troops in harm’s way. There’s really no justification for this callous disregard for the lives of our troops, for the lives of our intelligence officers. Hegseth, [former National Security Adviser Mike] Waltz, Gabbard, and any official included in these Signal chats, they need to be held accountable.
I also want to caution our listeners that they shouldn’t buy into this spin that we’re hearing from some Republicans that the military strike on the Houthis was just a massive victory and “mission accomplished, right,” so we should just forget about the flagrant disregard for our state secrets.
The bombing campaign in Yemen still hasn’t stopped the Houthis from continuing to fire at Americans in international shipping in the Red Sea and on Israel. They threatened even more escalation, actually, over the weekend. As of this recording, Congressman Don Bacon (R) of Nebraska is actually the only—only—elected Republican in Congress to call for Pete Hegseth’s resignation. How on earth that’s possible is just beyond me.
As Rep. Jim Himes (D) of Connecticut said a few weeks back, we’re lucky that the communications that took place on Signal weren’t intercepted and used against Americans in foiling their strike plans. There was a very real chance that American service members could have lost their lives that day.
And still, somehow, Republicans in Congress are doing nothing to reign in a seemingly out-of-control secretary of defense. And honestly, Daniella, shame on them.
Gibbs Léger: I couldn’t agree more, Colin. Now, I wish we had something better to turn to, but—I know—there’s even more bonkers stuff coming from MAGA Republicans that we need to fact-check.
So Congress will be back in session next week, and the House is going to be begin markups for their awful reconciliation package that would gut the services that Americans rely on, all so they can give a $1 trillion—that’s with a T—tax giveaway to their wealthiest donors.
Now, Republicans have voted to set in motion the largest cuts to Medicaid and SNAP [the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program] in our history. Our colleagues at the Center of American Progress, they crunched the numbers and found that the two ways Republicans have proposed achieving these cuts would both be devastating.
So if they try to impose certain work requirements to access Medicaid services, 15,400 Americans could die.
Gibbs Léger: Full stop. And if they shrink what the government pays states for Medicaid expansion services, and states are then forced to discontinue those services, it could cost over double the number of lives, and nearly 34,200 people could die as well.
So not only would either of these policies cause a fiscal and administrative nightmare for states, they would also literally kill people. Like, I have no words, Colin.
Seeberger: Yeah, I mean, it’s so clear that Republicans just don’t give a damn about Americans and their basic needs, right? We’re talking about health care here, people.
Seeberger: Right? I also have to take a moment to dispel some of the lies that you’re going to hear from them in the weeks ahead as they look for any excuse for taking an axe to people’s health care. Because turns out, that’s not popular—
Seeberger: —including among MAGA Republicans, according to some recent polls that we’ve seen. Because they’re going to try to convince you that these cuts are somehow about reforming the Medicaid program or making it stronger. Don’t buy it.
Yes, like all health care programs, Medicaid does have fraud. But it actually has far less fraud than other health care programs because it is both the responsibility of the federal government as well as state governments to root it out. I mean, this is actually a system that is pretty well designed to go after bad actors. That is, of course, if that’s what you actually care to do.
What we’ve seen from the Trump administration is actually the exact opposite. President Trump fired 17 inspector generals, including the inspector general of the Health and Human Services Department. DOGE [the Department of Government Efficiency] also laid off staffers at the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services that are tasked with rooting out fraud.
And so we need to be clear about what’s happening: Republicans are putting a bull’s-eye on the backs of people who rely on Medicaid, instead of actually going after what the Government Accountability Office, MACPAC [the Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission], and others have said is actually what’s driving the fraud that exists in Medicaid—and that is namely providers and managed care organizations who may be over billing or something like that.
So it’s pretty clear what their intent actually is here, right? It’s to cut Medicaid funding and force states to kick people off of their programs. I also just want to note that the Kaiser Family Foundation found that while improper Medicaid payments actually exploded under Donald Trump’s first term—
Gibbs Léger: Hmm, fancy that.
Seeberger: Yeah, right? In 2024, under President Biden, improper payments actually fell to their lowest levels since the start of COVID-19. So this notion that you have to kick a bunch of people off their health care in order to ensure the integrity of the Medicaid program is just baloney.
Gibbs Léger: Yeah, it really is, Colin. Every morning since January 20, I’ve been looking like Gayle King ringing that bell before she gets yeeted into space. And it just doesn’t seem like that’s going to end anytime soon.
Seeberger: It really doesn’t, Daniella. It really doesn’t. Well, 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, Instagram, Bluesky and Threads @TheTentPod. That’s @TheTentPod.
Gibbs Léger: And stick around for my interview with Gov. Jay Inslee in just a beat.
Gibbs Léger: Jay Inslee served as governor of the State of Washington from 2013 until January of this year. Prior to that, Gov. Inslee served as a member of Congress from 1992 until 2012. Prior to that, he served in the Washington state House of Representatives, and he’s a proud fifth generation Washingtonian.
Gov. Inslee, thank you so much for joining us on “The Tent.”
Gov. Jay Inslee: Thank you. We want everybody in “The Tent.” We’re a big tent group.
Gibbs Léger: That’s exactly right. And we’re really happy to have you on the podcast this week. Earth Day was on Tuesday, and it’s a good time for us to talk about climate change and the need to protect this planet for future generations.
The New York Times recently called you the “greenest governor,” and I know this issue deeply matters to you. Why is that? And give our listeners a status update on where we are in the fight against climate change.
Inslee: Well first off, thanks for talking about this issue. This is something so close to my heart, and I always start the conversation—this is about my grandchildren. I’ve got six grandkids. I got to see them over the weekend. They love the outdoors. They love natural life. They love the trees. They love the whales. They love the little crabs that we look at on the beach.
And so what motivates me on this is basically I really have a strong passion that they should have the same type of life that I’ve enjoyed with this planet. It’s a small planet, but there are those who love her, and we’re several of them.
And it’s clear—there’s a couple things that are obviously, scientifically clear. One, we’re wrapping the planet in a blanket of carbon dioxide and methane, and that is heating the planet dramatically. Two, there’s a scientific consensus. There’s no debate about this issue. And three, we’re having obviously the effects of this right now.
I always, to some degree—maybe I shouldn’t talk about our grandkids, because it’s not my grandkids’ problem, it’s our problem. It’s fires burning down the forest and burning down two whole towns in my state while I was governor. It’s the fires in Southern California. It’s the flooding in the Midwest. It’s the sea level rise in Florida. It’s the tornadoes. It’s the melting of the ice.
We’re experiencing this now. It’s not just future generations. And it’s interesting, I actually read an article. Today’s news was that our gray whale population has declined about 40 percent because the ice has melted in the arctic. And that changes the whole food chain, so they’re starving to death.
I look outside my window. We used to have these abundant kelp forests. They’ve disappeared. All of the kelp has disappeared around the little island I live in by Seattle. So it’s a combination of the love for my grandkids, and a recognition of what we’re going through.
So we need to defeat this enemy. And fortunately, we can. Good news: We can defeat this. We got the power to do it. We’ve got the technology to do it. We’re doing it in my state. We’ve had the most profound progress fighting climate change of any state in the country. So there’s good news here, too.
Gibbs Léger: Well that is good to know because the Trump administration has been fighting tooth and nail to rip away the historic investments the past administration made to invest in the green technologies of the future.
So can you talk a little bit about why this will harm American competitiveness in the global economy? Coming from a Republican party that has gone on and on about being a good steward of the economy, it doesn’t make any sense to me.
Inslee: Right. I’ll get to the Republican party in a moment, but let me just share just some good news with you for a second. Because in these days where this week, on Earth Day week, we’ve heard that the Trump administration intends to do even more damage, I want to start just on a positive note in this discussion, which is that our states can and are moving forward, to some degree, undaunted by Donald Trump’s opposition to anything that’s green and growing. And that is because our states can move forward and cannot be stopped in much of the work we can do.
I’ll give you an example. So we’ve passed a clean cap-and-invest bill in our state, which he can’t stop. Our voters affirmed it by 62 to 38 last year. It creates billions of dollars of money to help people get heat pumps and electric charging stations. We have a low-carbon fuel standard. We have building efficiency standards.
He cannot stop us. I want to start in the good news, which is our states can continue to lead the effort. Now, I say this because we cannot be passive. If you get into disparity, you become passive. We’ve got to be active. So the good news: Our states can move.
The second good news is our economic growth is just spectacular in the clean energy economy. We have four or five times more people in clean energy working than in coal. We have, in my state, six companies that are world leading in battery technology and fusion energy and green fertilizer. Huge economic growth going on right now. So there’s two pieces of good news.
The bad news, as you’ve indicated, is that the party of Teddy Roosevelt is now the party of Donald Trump. And I’ve never understood it. He must have been scared by a wind turbine when he was five years old, so he goes around saying they cause cancer. Right now we know they cause jobs, so we are growing them. He’s trying to retard their growth.
And it’s interesting because he says he wants to bring manufacturing jobs back to the United States. Well, why the heck is he trying to kill all these manufacturing jobs in the wind turbine industry, in the solar industry, in the advanced battery industry, in the green hydrogen industry?
Why is he trying to kill all these jobs, which he’s trying to do by zeroing out with his rapacious, and I believe illegal, grab right now of billions of dollars that are otherwise going to these manufacturing jobs? It’s just nuts. So we’re fighting him. The courts are standing with us, by and large. We’ve beat him about 70 percent of the time to continue this transition to a clean economy and building these great-paying jobs.
Gibbs Léger: So you touched on this a little bit, but I want to dig a little more deeply into the role of states in pushing back against this administration. We’ve seen state attorneys general challenging a number of actions from this White House, like its attempt to rewrite birthright citizenship out of the Constitution by executive order, or filing lawsuits challenging Trump’s tariffs.
Do you think that the states have been effective checks thus far? And do you think we’ll continue to see these type of actions across the next few years?
Inslee: Well we have been effective in part because we have a great attorney general—Nick Brown, used to be my counsel—who sued Trump, I don’t know, maybe two dozen times by now. And he’s already won quite a number of injunctions and temporary restraining orders, including birthright citizenship and the like.
We will continue to win, I believe, even with—Trump handpicked the Supreme Court. But I believe the Supreme Court is likely to continue to rule against him, as they already have to some degree, because these things are patently illegal. The Congress passed a law. It’s the law, essentially, that we continue to build these clean energy jobs. And his efforts to kill them—because he just wants to have us continue to shell out billions of dollars to his buddies in the fossil fuel industry—is illegal.
And so we will continue to ask the courts to intervene, and I believe that they will in substantial amounts, the most recent one being this decision to—he’s trying to hold back several billion dollars that otherwise would go into these clean energy job creation programs right now that is the law, have been appropriated, signed by presidents, the law of the United States.
So there’s two things we ought to be doing. One, growing green jobs, which we’re doing, which he’s trying to stop. And number two, “Hey, can’t you just follow the law? Is that asking too much of a president?” I want to quote our attorney general, Nick Brown. His comment was, “Just follow the damn law, will you?” And I think that’s a fair thing to ask of any American president.
But there’s another group that’s important here, and that’s people. Look, people speaking up right now is really important. People out on the streets, people in these protests all across the United States, peacefully and legally protesting in a way to get their voices heard—that’s important. It’s important because at some point, we would like some Republican senators and congresspeople to stand up and be counted. Quit quivering in your boots, show a little bit of intestinal fortitude, and say that you want jobs to be created in our country. And we need them to do that eventually. And the more people speak up, the more they’re likely to do that. So I hope people continue to exercise their First Amendment rights.
Gibbs Léger: That’s right. This week, we are mourning the passing of Pope Francis. He will be remembered for so many reasons, but among his chief legacies as Pope was using his position to push the church and leaders around the world to step up and fight against climate change, which we know poses an existential threat to our planet and the most vulnerable.
So talk to our listeners about why Pope Francis’ leadership on climate was so important. And how can the Vatican’s next leader build on his legacy?
Inslee: Well I think everyone knows this pope had a strong connection to the creator’s—maybe not his finest work, but some pretty good work, which is creating this paradise we live in. We know it’s relatively unique. I did read that maybe they discovered some potential signs of life 120 light-years away, but in the immediate neighborhood, we’re pretty unique. And he understands that. And he understands that the power of divinity is something that we can embed in what we do here in our short term on earth.
And he was very effective, I think, in raising people’s ambitions and commitment. And what was particularly important in his leadership is he connected a scientific principle, physics and chemistry of climate change, to a human value system that is embedded in our hearts. And he connected it to his divine purpose. That was very powerful. And he spoke to so many different audiences, and it was quite effective.
And we hope that his successor will continue in that tradition because it’s connecting us to a higher purpose. I always think the most motivating thing for people are when they feel a higher purpose, even beyond themselves, and there’s nothing that’s more connecting to a higher purpose than the fight against climate change. So we are hopeful that that tradition will continue.
We speak about it frequently in economic terms, as we just did. These are good jobs. These industrial groups are building manufacturing jobs. But ultimately what’s more important is that we are doing something for our children and our grandchildren. And that’s even a more driving force, in my view. So he did some really great, great work while he was here. We look forward to that continuation with the next leader, we hope.
Gibbs Léger: So we like to end our interviews on a positive note where we can, and I have to say there’s been a lot of positivity already in this interview. On the podcast, we’ve been talking with leading experts on authoritarianism—something that I really wish wasn’t necessary—but they’ve told us that joy is a fundamental ingredient in preserving democracy.
And so I’m curious about where you find hope and joy in these trying times. This Earth Day, give our listeners some inspiration about saving the planet, as you say, for our kids and grandkids.
Inslee: Well I think joy is important in any endeavor. It’s kind of joy with an asterisk. It’s a different kind of joy, if I may. It is hard to say you’re joyful when you have an autocrat trying to act illegally in so many realms, as this particular president. But I’ll just share how I feel about it.
I actually think that we live in a really great time to be alive. I don’t know how many human generations there have been, but I think this generation is a great one to be in because these are great days. Troublesome as they are, these are great days. And I say that because when I was a brand new governor—when you become a brand new governor, sometimes it can be a stressful job. You’ve never been governor. You’ve got a lot of things coming at you. I would come home sometimes and talk to Trudy about it. And she got me a little coin dish that I kept my coins in on our dresser. And it was a little coin dish, and it was a quote from Winston Churchill. And that quote was, “These are great days.”
And it’s a quote from him when he was walking through London, when London was under the blitz, and he was walking through the charred remnants of one of the buildings in London. And somebody said, “How do you get through the day? These are such terrible days.” And he said, “No, no. These are great days, because they’re days of consequence, and they’re days of a community and consensus working together.”
And I think that defines what we are right now. These are days of consequence. There’s really no more consequential time of human history than right now. Because if we succeed, future generations are going to have a shot. And if we don’t, they won’t. There’s really no more greater day or greater time than now.
And we are allied with people who care like we do. We’re allied with people who’s hearts are the same as ours—all across the United States and the world, for that matter. And we are a unified group. So I look at this as a great day to be alive, to be working on this.
I’ll be talking all week on Earth Day this week on a number of platforms, rousing people to this cause and letting people know that we can make progress. We are making progress. Donald Trump will pass, and we’ve just got to keep hope alive and preserve as many things as we can, particularly in these states where we can make progress in these states. And so get out there, talk to your governor, talk to your state legislator, be on the sidewalk—peacefully—and good things will happen.
Gibbs Léger: Well, governor, that is a great way to end our interview. I want to thank you for all of the work and leadership that you have shown in your state and across the country. And thank you for joining us on “The Tent.”
Inslee: Thanks to everybody out there fighting the good fight. It’s good to have allies.
Inslee: Thank you. Good luck.
Gibbs Léger: Well, that’s going to do it for us folks. Be sure to go back and check out previous episodes. Before we go, Colin, I got to talk about Doechii, who we love on this podcast, and her new video for “Anxiety.” It’s so good.
Gibbs Léger: It’s so clever. She is such a theater girl. I love her.
Seeberger: It’s so camp. I mean, the dancing is incredible.
Gibbs Léger: It’s so good.
Gibbs Léger: Did you catch the “Thriller”?
Seeberger: I mean, the song is amazing. The song is amazing, but yes.
Seeberger: Everything from the “Thriller” callback to the scene changes.
Seeberger: From one to the next, to the next, to the next.
Gibbs Léger: The continuous loop.
Gibbs Léger: Yep. “The Shining.”
Gibbs Léger: The original video for the song that she’s sampling.
Gibbs Léger: Just so clever.
Seeberger: What’s really drawn me to Doechii is that she’s such a breath of fresh air, right? I feel like we get the same old thing recycled from artists one year to the next, but she really is bringing it in a way I have not seen in quite some time. And she’s just a ton of fun to listen to and watch.
Gibbs Léger: She is. And she sings, she raps—like, she does it all.
Seeberger: And is beautiful.
Gibbs Léger: And she is gorgeous. And her sartorial choices are amazing.
Gibbs Léger: She looks great in everything she wears. And I also think, though, that “Anxiety” is so popular right now because so many of us have anxiety.
Seeberger: Gee, why, Daniella? Why would “Anxiety” be popping off the charts?
Gibbs Léger: Gee, I don’t know. Maybe it’s because everybody is so stressed out. So I want to talk about how we relieve that stress, and for me it’s television, often.
Seeberger: Oh, you’ve got a good friend in me.
Gibbs Léger: Yes. So right now, one of my favorite shows is back on, and I’ll hear no slander about anything on HGTV. But they have the show “Rock the Block,” and they have four houses that are basically shells.
Gibbs Léger: And four sets of interior designers along with construction people, these teams, they have five weeks to build out this house, and they do it room by- oom. And then a real estate agent comes, and whoever’s house has appraised the most from the original value wins.
Gibbs Léger: And it is so great. It feeds my competition desires. I love looking at beautiful things. Also I like to pretend that I have a good eye for stuff. So it’s wonderful. That’s my show.
Seeberger: Well we bought a house last year and have been slowly but surely trying to dress it up and do all the things.
Gibbs Léger: You should watch this show.
Seeberger: So maybe I will have to tune in. Maybe I will have to tune in. But I’ll have to find time in my schedule because I have been watching my own guilty pleasure TV.
Seeberger: So I’m actually kind of embarrassed by this one because I’m having to wait until the return of season two of the “Secret Lives of Mormon Wives,” which is good junk food if you need it.
Seeberger: But recently I started watching—this is so trashy—but on Netflix, there is a show called “Million Dollar Secret.” And I love “The Traitors.” I don’t know if you watch “The Traitors,” but—
Gibbs Léger: No, I know I need to.
Seeberger: You do. You do. But it feels like a mix of “The Traitors” meets kind of like a “Survivor” situation—
Seeberger: —where the money basically passes around day to day or week to week, I don’t know what kind of timeline they’re actually filming this on. But there’s different competitions to try to get clues as to who actually has the money and can they get it, can they kick the millionaire out. Or if they don’t kick the millionaire, does the millionaire keep the money or do they hand it off to somebody else to try to relieve themselves from any sort of scrutiny? And so you want to be the last one standing at the end who has the million dollars.
And so I just finished it this week, and it was so much fun. I’m sorry. It’s silly, but you know what?
Gibbs Léger: Never apologize for your hot takes on television. On food, you should apologize for some of them, but we won’t get into that. But yes, it is OK.
Seeberger: Daniella, OK, we’ve got to tell folks. Apparently on the day of this recording, on Wednesday, it is National English Muffin Day.
Seeberger: And I’m sorry, I think English muffin are nasty.
Gibbs Léger: He’s so wrong.
Gibbs Léger: Right, listeners?
Gibbs Léger: He’s so wrong.
Gibbs Léger: English muffins are delicious.
Seeberger: If I wanted to have some carbs, I would look for basically anything else. If you have to toast something and smother it in butter—
Seeberger: —cream cheese—
Seeberger: —whatever, in order for it to taste good?
Seeberger: Listeners, do know—
Seeberger: —that it’s not worth the calories, and you can find something so much better.
Gibbs Léger: This is so not true. And listeners, I need you to know that Colin was on an island of his own in this opinion in our morning meeting. So I’m curious: Listeners, aren’t English muffins delicious?
Gibbs Léger: All right. More to come on that. Anyway, that’s going to be it for us this week. If you have allergies, my thoughts and prayers are with you because we are struggling here, too. So take care of yourselves and we’ll talk to you next week.
Gibbs Léger: “The Tent” is a podcast from the Center for American Progress Action Fund. It’s hosted by me, Daniella Gibbs Léger, and co-hosted by Colin Seeberger. Kelly McCoy is our supervising producer, Mishka Espey is our booking producer, and Muggs Leone is our digital producer. Jacob Jordan is our writer. Hai Phan, Olivia Mowry, and Toni Pandolfo are our video team.
Views expressed by guests of “The Tent” are their own, and interviews are not endorsements of a guest’s perspectives. You can find us on YouTube, Apple, Spotify, Google Play, or wherever you get your podcasts.