Colin Seeberger: Hey everyone. Welcome back to “The Tent,” your place for politics, policy, and progress. I’m Colin Seeberger.
Daniella Gibbs Léger: And I’m Daniella Gibbs Léger. Colin, when will the fake springs end?
Seeberger: Oh my gosh. It’s such a head fake. I woke up this morning, and there was a frost advisory on my phone.
Gibbs Léger: I know, I know. My poor little tire that—yes, I know I need to get fixed—every time it gets really cold, it loses more air. It’s like, come on.
Seeberger: I mean, it’s going to be 95 degrees and 100 percent humidity in no time, so I guess I shouldn’t complain too, too much.
Gibbs Léger: OK, this is fair. We probably should just enjoy it because I will be complaining when it gets that hot out.
Gibbs Léger: So listen, before we get into this week’s pod, I want to make sure that we send our thoughts to Gov. Josh Shapiro (D-PA), his family, and the people of Pennsylvania.
Gibbs Léger: Early Sunday morning, an intruder broke into the governor’s residence and set fire to a portion of his home. Thankfully, state troopers woke up the governor and his family, and they were all able to evacuate safely.
Political violence has no place in America, and all of us at CAP Action [the Center for American Progress Action Fund] are relieved that the Shapiros are safe.
Seeberger: One hundred percent, Daniella. I mean, there’s no excuse for this kind of violence. And the fact that it took place over Passover weekend I think is just really unconscionable. And it’s just a terrifying and heartbreaking reality of what people engaged in public policy and politics are facing in our current environment. And so it’s just really sad to see.
But on a different note, I hear that you had a really great chat. Give us a glimmer of hope for the future of our country.
Gibbs Léger: That’s right. I spoke with journalist Jennifer Rubin about the future of news media and Republicans’ backward economic plans. We also got her thoughts on how Democrats can seize the moment and meet the American people where they are.
Seeberger: It sounds like a great conversation. But before we get to all of that, we’ve got to get to some news.
Seeberger: Now, I want to touch on the tariff chaos because over the last week, President Donald Trump has been treating the global economy like it’s his sandbox. And he keeps throwing temper tantrums. I honestly don’t know how to describe his behavior other than childish.
After Trump began to follow through on his tariffs, the stock market tanked and bond yields started to skyrocket, which—bond yields directly influence consumers’ borrowing costs. This really comes at a direct, double whammy hit to the American people’s pocketbooks.
Seeberger: And he is making it clear day after day after day. So we shouldn’t buy the spin coming out of the White House. Our colleagues at the Center for American Progress, they actually crunched the numbers and found that Trump’s tariffs are going to cost the typical American family over $4,600 a year.
These tariffs are even more expensive than the Liberation Day reciprocal tariffs that he announced in the Rose Garden just a few weeks ago. And he’s sent this country into an all-out trade war with countries all over the globe. Meaning, Americans are going to start paying a lot more for a whole range of products.
Here’s what this means for you: Household goods like furniture, appliances, and clothing are all going to be more expensive. Cars are going to see their prices skyrocket. Grocery costs are going to go up, as will the price of products for children like car seats and cribs and toys.
And that tariff carve out for electronics you may have read about over the weekend? Well, a few hours after it was announced, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said, oh, it’s just a temporary exemption.
Small businesses are going to suffer; 42 percent of them have already reported increased costs, and many have already experienced shipping delays because of gummed up supply chains.
Businesses, including in my home state of Texas, have reported a 30 percent drop in customer traffic, and several have already been forced to jack up their prices. One business owner in Georgia said his business is hanging on by a thread. Another said, quote, “We cannot survive this.” So all of this taken together, it seems pretty bad, Daniella.
Gibbs Léger: You know, it sure does, Colin. And to make matters worse, China slapped an export embargo on certain rare earth minerals and magnets that are key to making everything from cars to drones, to robots and missiles. These are important things, and here’s why that is B-A-D bad.
Gibbs Léger: Say a car manufacturer in Detroit runs out of these minerals or special magnets they need to make certain types of electronic motors. They can no longer make those cars. United States Air Force fighter jets need these special type of magnets to start their engines and provide the plane’s emergency power.
Ballistic missiles favored by the Army need these minerals. So do the Marines for some of their new battery powered drones. When I say that Donald Trump has put our natural security at risk, it is an understatement of the century.
And that’s just a start. There has long been a concern about China’s near-total control of the world’s antibiotic supply. Not trying to freak anybody out, but China is also one of the United States’ largest creditors. China hasn’t said yet whether they’re going to escalate further, but I think it’s important for our listeners to understand the dire ramifications of Trump’s trade war.
If Trump was serious about bringing American manufacturing back to the United States, he would invest in these industries and provide incentives to companies to relocate to the United States, like we have seen thanks to the CHIPS and Science Act and Inflation Reduction Act by the previous administration. Instead, he is hell-bent on rolling back those incentives.
So what’s this all really for? So Donald Trump can try to bully other countries and look strong? He’s making America weak and pushing our allies into the arms of our adversaries, and it’s beyond outrageous that there doesn’t seem to be an actual end game here.
Seeberger: Totally. I mean, yeah, you’re exactly right. Trump is posturing like a strong man on tariffs. I mean, I’m just at a total loss of words here.
Gibbs Léger: I mean, that is the way things are, aren’t they?
Seeberger: It, tragically, seems to be. Well, that’s all the time we have for this week. If there’s anything you’d like us to cover on the pod, hit us up on Twitter, Instagram, Bluesky, and Threads @TheTentPod. That’s @TheTentPod.
Gibbs Léger: And stick around for my interview with Jennifer Rubin in just a beat.
Gibbs Léger: Jennifer Rubin is a longtime journalist and co-founder of The Contrarian, a new independent publication dedicated to defending democracy. She previously spent 14 years as an opinion columnist at The Washington Post. Prior to her career in journalism, she practiced labor law for two decades.
Jennifer Rubin, thank you so much for joining us on “The Tent.”
Jennifer Rubin: It is my pleasure.
Gibbs Léger: So you left The Washington Post in January and co-founded The Contrarian with Norm Eisen shortly after. Can you talk about why you left The Post, and what The Contrarian aims to accomplish?
Rubin: The reasons for my leaving The Post are actually the same reasons why others have left mainstream media, and that is they’ve ceased to be independent, aggressive guardians of the truth.
There have been too many instances at The Post and elsewhere where, faced with a confrontation of some type or an anticipated confrontation of some type with the administration, they chose to bend the knee. When you give $1 million, as Jeff Bezos did, to the Presidential Inaugural Fund or, as ABC did, you settle an utterly frivolous lawsuit for $15 million, you are no longer acting as an independent, aggressive member of the free press. You are facilitating and enabling an authoritarian regime.
And once it became evident that The Washington Post was no longer living up to its own credo, then it was time for me to leave. And sadly, many others before and after have left. And the benefit of independent media, as we say in our slogan, is “owned by nobody.” And that is, there’s no corporate interest that’s aligned with us that we have to be concerned about. There is no ulterior motive in what we’re doing. We get to say what we want, when we want it.
We have been very explicit in what our purpose and our perspective is, which is pro-democracy, anti-authoritarianism, pro-rule of law, anti-isolationism, anti-protectionism, anti-lawlessness. And these days, that gives us some pretty clear direction.
In years past, those sorts of guidelines wouldn’t have been guidelines at all because everybody would have agreed with them. But unfortunately now we have one political party that has descended into an authoritarian cult of personality. And another party, albeit flawed, is a normal, center-left party.
So what we try to do is illuminate the authoritarian threats and also to cover as closely as we can the pro-democracy movement. Unfortunately, sometimes that does not get the coverage it should be in corporate media. And we were one of the first, for example, to start covering the daily, weekly protests at Tesla dealerships and other locations. We make it a special point to give blanket coverage to the Wisconsin Supreme Court race, now the North Carolina Supreme Court race. We are deep into a deep dive on the disappearing of immigrants.
So when we get a bee in our bonnet, we go deep, and we also try to live Norm Eisen’s motto, which is, “you can’t fight authoritarianism by democracy and politics and law alone.” We bring culture and sports and cooking and even pets because we all need a break.
And more importantly, there are lots of people out there who may not be political junkies, and perhaps they’ll read one of our other pieces and then stay around for a little bit of democracy.
Gibbs Léger: Exactly. Lure them in with the cute cats and then turn them into warriors for democracy. We’ve seen a select number of institutions, like Harvard and Princeton, push back against this administration’s attempts to make profound changes to education at these colleges. But prior to that, many other universities, law firms, and, like you said, even some news organizations have gone out of their way to capitulate to this administration.
So how do you think institutions are handling this precarious moment for democracy, and do you think we’re maybe at a turning point with the steps that colleges like Harvard have taken?
Rubin: I would certainly hope so. The lesson to be learned here, as Columbia is learning, is that even if you make a deal with this administration, they come back for more. There’s no appeasing them. There’s no satisfying them. So, as Churchill said, if you give up your honor to get peace, you’ll wind up with neither.
And that’s what they’ve done. They’ve sold their soul to the devil, and they’re still negotiating and still under pressure at the risk of losing their funding. So I would hope that, if nothing else, convinces these institutions, that you might as well preserve your good name and your character because you’re not going to escape the wrath of this administration, this president, anyway.
I think we are going to see whether the weight of public opinion and professional opinion—whether that’s within media circles, legal circles, academic circles—has begun to tilt. I certainly hope so. My co-founder Norm Eisen made the point the other day that if you count up the number of law firms that have said “no” to the Trump administration—and in some cases have sued—and the number of firms representing those firms, the number is bigger than those who have capitulated.
So it’s not to my liking that anyone would have capitulated, but I would hope that whatever pushback they get and whatever loss of esteem in the eyes of their peers they receive would be incentive to stand up for principles of democracy. And we’ve seen college and university law schools respond in that way. We have seen some media outlets respond that way. And we’ve seen some law firms respond that way.
But it is interesting that we’ve seen the most consistent resistance from ordinary people, and that really does not surprise me. All sociopolitical movements start as a ground-up operation, whether it was the labor movement, the women’s movement, Civil Rights movement, environmental movement. People in elite institutions and politicians tend to be the last to get on board because they feel they have so much at stake in the status quo.
So perhaps with outpourings of public protest and holding up a harsh light to those who capitulate, they’ll get the idea that it’s better to be on the side of democracy and freedom.
Gibbs Léger: Mm-hmm. So switching gears a little bit, last week, Donald Trump toyed with the global economy like a child with Play-Doh, and House Republicans voted to approve a tax framework that would cut Medicaid to fund tax breaks for the wealthy.
So how did we get here? How do folks who are outraged by all of this put pressure on Republicans to find the courage to say enough is enough?
Rubin: It is interesting. Twelve Republicans piped up very quietly that they wouldn’t go along with these egregious cuts in Medicaid. Now, them saying that and them voting that way we understand are two different things, but that suggests to me that they are beginning to feel a little bit of the heat.
They can read the polls like anybody else. Trump’s handling of the economy is sinking like a stone. His overall approval is sinking. The tariffs are not popular. People don’t want Medicaid cut. They don’t want the [U.S.] Department of Education eliminated. These are not popular moves. And for those people who have to stand for reelection, unlike Donald Trump, who see a future for themselves in politics, there’s going to be a point in which they decide that perhaps they better get off the train before it crashes entirely.
So I think if the disappearing was the absolute worst moral and legal affront, I think the tariffs have to be—together with the proposed budget—the stupidest move that Trump has made. Frankly, the economy was doing very well. All he needed to do was sit back, wait a couple months, and then take credit for the whole thing.
But of course, he has been obsessed with this idea of tariffs. He still doesn’t understand how they work. We just got a warning today from the Fed that they are almost certain to increase inflation and pose a major threat to the economy. There’s no indication, however, that he is going to do an about-face.
So I think the economic situation will get worse. And for those benighted souls who thought they were voting because of the price of eggs or because Trump was going to work some miracle on the economy, this will be a rude awakening in that they not only don’t have a democracy, but they don’t have a livelihood and an economy that works for them and their families.
Gibbs Léger: That’s exactly right. I believe that the government is supposed to help people, but Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s DOGE [Department of Government Efficiency] is stripping our government for parts. They’re firing veterans and slashing lifesaving services. They’re ending cancer research and defunding the CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention]. I could go on and on. Now people are obviously hungry for change, but eliminating critical services gets us nowhere.
So I am curious on your thoughts. How do you think Democrats should approach rebuilding these institutions if and when they get power back? Because obviously just defending institutions has not been a winning solution or proposal for them.
Rubin: I think what they have to do is return to the adage that we need no more government than is necessary and all the government that is necessary. No one on the Democratic side of the aisle thinks every dollar spent, every employee hired is absolutely essential.
But as you say, the fundamental missions of these agencies are important. They work for Americans. They protect our national security. They help to function in the world. They are a lifeline for people who live on the verge of hunger or the verge of poverty. They have extended a safety net, whether it’s health care or housing or anything else.
And as we’ve seen, these cuts do not make government better. In many instances, they have to hire back the people they just fired because they can’t possibly do without them. It’s not improving government and improving people’s lives to chop the CDC. It’s not improving people’s lives to end USAID [the U.S. Agency for International Development], which buys billions of dollars in crops from American farmers.
So I think when and if—and I do think when —Democrats get back into power, they’re going to have to go back to a simple principle, which is government should work for the average person. Government should make life better. And that the rich do just fine. There’s no sense that they need to be punished or scolded, but they do need to contribute to a functioning society—not only from a point of fiscal sobriety, but from a point of fundamental fairness.
We have to make sure that government is helping give opportunity for the greatest number of people and that it’s producing prosperity, it’s producing a society that is better off with it than without it. And I don’t think that’s such a big ask.
And I think we sometimes get very tangled up in legalese, in procedure, in other issues. But fundamentally, the Democratic Party has always been the party of the little guy. And it’s about giving opportunity, and it’s about making government work for the average person. And I think if they return to those principles, then they will be OK.
And that means that we have to have a tax system that’s reasonably progressive. That means we have to have a trading system in which we can buy the goods and services that we want at a reasonable price and that we can sell to overseas markets. It means that we have to protect fundamental freedoms and fundamental rights.
And I think the Democrats are actually on the right side of virtually all of these issues with the American people. They don’t always do a great job expressing it. And the gap sometimes between what people perceive and what Democrats actually stand for is too great at times. But I think with a proper messenger—and a messenger is important—they can come back, and they can restore some sanity to government and make people’s lives better once again.
Gibbs Léger: That’s great. So last question. We recently interviewed Ruth Ben-Ghiat, one of the world’s most renowned experts on fascism and authoritarianism. She said joy is a fundamental ingredient to pushing back against authoritarians who seek to distract and scare people as a way of keeping them divided.
So with that in mind, what gives you hope in these trying times? We do like to try to end our interviews on a positive note when we can.
Rubin: It’s interesting, I was interviewing a historian myself—a different historian—and we did talk about optimism. Several things give me great hope. First of all, the American people do not like being bullied and pushed around. They don’t like unfairness. They don’t like chaos. And we saw on April 5, and I think we’ll see in the coming weeks and months, more expressions of outrage from people.
And I do think that while we did not like the outcome of the election, that when you dig down, America is a fundamentally decent and good country. And we have to listen to those instincts and not be ambushed, not be distracted, not be bedazzled by a semicharismatic figure that tells us that all our problems will be solved if we just get rid of a certain group of people or if we simply exact revenge against his enemies. So I have faith in the American people.
I have a lot of faith in a younger generation. I think for the average person who is 20 to 30, they’ve not seen a lot of functional government in their lifetime, but their values are where they should be. They care about the environment. They care about opportunity. They do not see the world through a lens of gender and racial bias. And they are the most well-read, most technologically savvy generation in history. So young people give me a lot of hope.
And finally, I do have faith in the courts. I think we have proper skepticism about the way the Supreme Court operates and certainly how a segment of that court operates. But when the chips are down, the lower courts have really held the line, and I think that’s a tribute to the sense and the degree to which the rule of law is really inculcated into our legal system and into the fabric of our society.
So I think Trump is doing, has done, will continue to do a huge amount of damage, and it will be a long process of rebuilding, of coming up with plugs for some of these loopholes that he has exploited, for putting some belts and suspenders on our legal rights. But in the end, I still do think we are going to make it.
And if I had some doubts, I think April 5 really did restore a degree of hope. About 5 million people got out and protested in some fashion or other—and not just in big cities, but in little towns, in rural places. And I think once stirred, the American people can be formidable. I certainly hope they will be this time.
Gibbs Léger: Well, that is an excellent note to end this interview on. Jennifer Rubin, congratulations on your new venture, and thank you so much for joining us on “The Tent.”
Rubin: It’s been my pleasure.
Gibbs Léger: Well, that’s going to do it for us folks. As always, please go back and check out previous episodes. Before we go, Colin, we have to talk about adventures in space that happened this week.
Seeberger: Oh, the big news of the week?
Gibbs Léger: That a bunch of rich people flung themselves into space for 11 minutes and paid lots and lots of money to do so.
Seeberger: A whole 11 minutes.
Gibbs Léger: You know, I love space. I love space exploration. Like, let’s not cut NASA funding, please. Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Space tourism, on another hand? I don’t know, there’s just something about it that doesn’t feel right to me.
Seeberger: Yeah, I mean, I feel like there’s a whole lot better uses of what has to be hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars to do one of these flights. And for what? An 11-minute trip up in space?
I saw it certainly was used not just as a fun recreational extracurricular, but also Katy Perry was up there announcing her new set list for her upcoming album, and I hear serenaded the other women in the shuttle with “What a Wonderful World.”
Gibbs Léger: Yes. I’m sure it was lovely.
Seeberger: Yeah. I’d want to get back down to Earth as quickly as possible if I was on that shuttle.
Gibbs Léger: Honestly, and I feel bad for—there were two scientists who were on that shuttle.
Seeberger: Yeah, that was cool.
Gibbs Léger: Yeah. That’s awesome for them. But everybody else, like, please stop. And, Gayle. Gayle, girl.
Seeberger: Our girl, Gayle.
Gibbs Léger: She was going through it.
Seeberger: She looked not quite thrilled to be there.
Seeberger: To say the least. I mean, that image that was plastered all over my social media accounts of her ringing the bell—I was like, “Gayle, is that you?” Or is that me waking up for another day of this work under the Trump administration?
Gibbs Léger: I mean, I’m just saying, if you paid all that money to voluntarily leave the Earth’s atmosphere, why are you sad? Why are you scared? And Oprah crying—I just can’t. I can’t. There’s so much that is wrong with the world, but there’s also so much that could be done with that money. It just seems so damn excessive.
Seeberger: Yes. Gratuitous, to say the least.
Gibbs Léger: Yes, indeed.
Seeberger: Well, speaking of gratuitous, there were some—people have some thoughts about Katy Perry. And Wendy’s—I’m not sure if you saw—after she had returned to Earth, were out there dragging Katy Perry on social media saying, “Can we send her back into space?”
And she responded—you know what, kudos to Katy Perry—she responded by posting on Tuesday evening of this week, a picture of her with a burger from In-N-Out, like, “it tastes better @Wendy’s.”
Gibbs Léger: OK, you know what? I’ll give her a little bit of credit for that.
Seeberger: Clap back. Clap back.
Gibbs Léger: I will. Although I will say that whoever runs Wendy’s social media accounts—
Gibbs Léger: They are so good.
Gibbs Léger: I need something to give me some joy in life, and I do love that.
Gibbs Léger: But before we go, folks, I wanted to give a special shout out to our one and only lead producer Erin Phillips. Sad to say, it is her final week with us on the podcast and here at CAP Action.
I just want to say, Erin, that it has been so wonderful to work with you. Your energy and your enthusiasm for this medium and really just stepping up our game on the podcast has just been so incredible. And it’s been incredible to watch you grow. And we’re really going to miss you.
Seeberger: We sure will. And our listeners should know that Erin was a key player in helping us expand our reach onto other platforms like YouTube, so you can watch our shows visually, thanks to her and our video team. We’ve got some big shoes to fill with Erin’s departure, but really grateful for everything she’s done for us at “The Tent” and CAP Action writ large. And she’s going be dearly missed.
Gibbs Léger: She will be, but she can always send in her hot takes about cheese.
Gibbs Léger: Anytime! We’ll be happy to have a conversation about it.
Seeberger: Well I know who to approach for my March Madness bracket, next year, for advice.
Seeberger: So Erin, we’re putting you on notice now. OK?
Gibbs Léger: All right, folks. That’s all the time that we have for this week. 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.