Transcript:
Daniella Gibbs Léger: Hey everyone, welcome back to “The Tent,” your place for politics, policy, and progress. I’m Daniella Gibbs Léger.
Colin Seeberger: And I’m Colin Seeberger. Daniella, can you believe that it’s almost August? I feel like summer is flying by.
Gibbs Léger: It really is. I’m getting bombarded by the back-to-school things, and I’m like, “No, no. No, no. I still have a month. Please leave me alone.”
Seeberger: That is certainly true, but school is not yet back in session. That said, I hear our listeners could learn something this week from our new guest.
Gibbs Léger: That’s absolutely right. I chatted with Jodi Enda, Washington bureau chief and senior correspondent for The Fuller Project, about abortion. We talked about Vice President Harris’ record as a champion for reproductive rights and how MAGA extremists are trying to distance themselves from their own anti-abortion policies.
Seeberger: Hmm, who ever could have seen this coming? Well I can’t wait to hear her thoughts. But first, we’ve got to get to some news. Some things have happened lately.
Gibbs Léger: Yeah, perhaps a little bit of action over the weekend?
Seeberger: I feel like this is a recurring pattern these days.
Gibbs Léger: It really, really is. So speaking of Vice President Harris, she won the support of enough delegates to clinch the Democratic nomination for president.
Seeberger: She has, and a lot’s changed in one week since we recorded our last episode. President Biden withdrew from his reelection campaign on Sunday and endorsed Vice President Harris, and she jumped in with both feet.
She raised a historic $100 million in just the first 41 hours as a candidate. Perhaps even more meaningful, the campaign announced that they had about 60,000 volunteers—
Gibbs Léger: Wow.
Seeberger: —yeah, reach out and say that they want to get engaged—they want to knock doors, they want to make phone calls, they want to text their friends—following her announcement. So it’s certainly a sign that the campaign is seeing a lot of enthusiasm and interest.
The news has truly been bonkers the last few weeks, but we should be clear that a few things that happened in the past couple of days: First, President Biden is just a really good man and a true patriot.
Gibbs Léger: Yeah.
Seeberger: He will go down in history as one of our most consequential, one of our most great presidents. America is stronger because President Biden has led it for the last three and a half years. He inherited a country consumed by multiple crises, the division and discord following the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. He inherited an economy that was left in ruins because of the COVID-19 pandemic and the previous administration’s handling of it.
And out of all that, he built a stronger economy than we’ve seen in decades, that’s more inclusive, that is seeing workers’ wages rise at faster rates than they have in years. He passed landmark legislation to fight climate change—I will say the biggest, most significant effort to fight climate change in world history.
He rebuilt our infrastructure, no longer it being a joke that we should be fixing our roads and bridges, but actually got it done. And he did that all while confronting threats to democracy both at home and abroad.
So, in withdrawing from his campaign, we should really just say that President Biden took a real selfless act that reflects who he is as a political leader: somebody who puts the best interests of the country before his own self-interest. And he’s done that, again, throughout his life in public service.
And the stakes really couldn’t be any higher right now: Donald Trump and his MAGA vice presidential pick, JD Vance, have been handed a guidebook to autocracy by the Heritage Foundation. This extreme Project 2025 agenda Trump and Vance are trying to distance themselves from makes clear that they don’t want to run the country, they want to rule it. They want to tell you what you can and cannot do with your lives. And they’ve got allies in every part of the government who are going to be turning a blind eye to their plans to try to consolidate power if they were to take office next year.
And why are they doing this? It’s because his MAGA backers, they want to ban abortion nationwide. They also want to ban birth control and IVF [in vitro fertilization] in every state. They want to end Medicare as we know it. They have plans to cut Social Security. They want to raise taxes and costs on the middle class by enacting an across-the-board tariff plan and Project 2025’s extreme tax policy that would shift the burden from the wealthy onto the backs of the middle class. It would actually end up increasing taxes on the middle class by up to $8,300 a year. They’ll give massive tax cuts, like I said, to the rich and corporations, and they’ll tear down our democracy, standing by as Donald Trump dismantles our system of checks and balances.
So we know what they have planned. And that’s why more of our focus needs to shift away from what, so far, so much of the conversation has centered on—on things like personal characteristics and age—and much more on the real battle that we’re seeing play out between democracy and autocracy. It’s now incumbent upon our elected leaders, but also the press and the American people, to really consider the stark differences in the future of where we take our country.
Gibbs Léger: Hear, hear, Colin. And I am confident that Vice President Harris, as a likely nominee, can really highlight some of those differences. Look, after all, she didn’t just fall out of a coconut tree. She exists in the context of all in which she’s lived and has come before her.
Seeberger: That is exactly right. Yes, she does.
Gibbs Léger: And listen, that context is impressive. She’s been one of the most consequential vice presidents in my lifetime. She’s been in the Oval Office working with President Biden to pass the most significant legislation to grow the middle class we’ve seen since LBJ. And we’ve really watched her grow into this role.
She’s been leading the administration’s response to protecting reproductive rights, which you’ll hear me talk more about with Jodi later. She’s also been supporting small businesses and has been a fierce advocate for women in this country. Since she’s declared her candidacy just a few days ago, we’ve seen a surge of enthusiasm, and it’s clear that she’s sparked a new energy in the Democratic Party that could be critical to her success in the fall.
The threat that MAGA extremism poses to the American democratic experiment is bigger than one president or party, and Democrats are unified in their desire to ensure that Donald Trump doesn’t get four more years in the White House. Unlike the cult of MAGA that just chose Donald Trump as their pick for the presidency, Democrats are actually serious about ensuring they have the best candidate to go against him and his horrific MAGA policy agenda this fall.
So, now’s the time for the vice president and those who support her to really highlight the stark contrast between the policy positions put forth by these campaigns and these candidates.
Seeberger: Totally, Daniella. I have to say, I saw earlier this week current Minnesota Governor Tim Walz on Fox News, right? And they were freaking out about all of the excitement and energy and enthusiasm that we’re seeing in support of Kamala Harris, right? And they were freaking out because at the same time, they’re like, “Oh my God. Republicans put a man that’s been convicted of 34 felony counts, is promising to gut checks and balances and do all this crazy stuff on their ticket.” And Tim Walz, God love him, was just like, “That’s their candidate. That’s who they chose.”
Gibbs Léger: Yeah.
Seeberger: And so, your concern about enthusiasm for Kamala Harris really stands in sharp contrast with that sick feeling that I’m sure a lot of Republicans have right now that this is who they’ve chosen to get into bed with.
But speaking of Kamala Harris, I hear that Beyoncé actually approved the vice president using her song “Freedom” for her campaign.
Gibbs Léger: Yeah, I was watching the first event that she did at the headquarters, and when she came out to that song, I literally gagged. Like, that is one of the greatest collabos of all time.
Seeberger: Now, I want to talk about one other thing that’s been grabbing headlines. MAGA Republicans, like I was just saying, they have their backs against the wall. And they are trying to cook up some policy ideas that may actually appeal to the middle-class and working-class people in this country.
And so we’ve started to see some trial balloons that they’ve been floating out there to see what may galvanize people. One of them sounds like a good plan. It would be to eliminate tax on tipped earnings.
Gibbs Léger: Yeah, I have heard that. And I have to tell you, Colin, at first glance, it sounded pretty good to me.
Seeberger: It sure does. That’s exactly why, though, we need to break it down a little bit for our listeners. So Donald Trump has voiced support for this plan, and we’ve actually seen a bill offered up in Congress by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX)—Ted “Cancun” Cruz.
Gibbs Léger: I was like, “He wasn’t in Cancun?” OK.
Seeberger: No, no. [He] recently proposed the No Tax on Tips Act. Proposals like this may sound like pro-worker tax reform, but really they’re just more of the 2017 tax law’s same empty promises and giveaways for the wealthy. Extending the tax cuts from 2017, put in place, would provide a $500 average tax cut for households in the bottom 60 percent of Americans and a whopping $280,000 annual tax cut to people in the top tenth of the 1 percent. That’s a real clear difference, right?
And we’re seeing those disparities here again in new proposals like Sen. Cruz’s. His proposed legislation would leave out more than 95 percent of low- and moderate-income workers who are not receiving tips as part of their work. And the tax cuts it would provide would be, at best, small or completely nonexistent in many cases.
For example, because of how Donald Trump’s tax bill in 2017 limited the ability for low-income people to claim the full child tax credit, a single parent under Ted Cruz’s proposal with one child who makes $19,000 in tips and $5,000 in wages would receive no tax cut at all under the No Tax on Tips Act.
Gibbs Léger: When you put it in context, it doesn’t sound so promising anymore.
Seeberger: Right?
Gibbs Léger: Yeah. You’ve got to scratch the surface of these things. It’s also worth noting that the No Tax on Tips Act contains basically no guardrails to prevent high-income professionals like hedge fund managers from shifting their compensation to a tax-free tipping model—
Seeberger: Oh.
Gibbs Léger: —which is insane. That’s crazy.
Seeberger: Yeah.
Gibbs Léger: Yeah. Resulting in tax breaks that are far larger for the wealthy and big corporations than lower-income workers. For instance, a married couple making $1 million in wages could get a tax cut of $180,000 by shifting half of those wages to tax-free tips.
Now, in comparison, expanding the tax credits from the American Rescue Plan for working families would be a much stronger approach, particularly the earned income tax credit and child tax credit. The Biden-Harris administration and congressional Democrats like Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) have both recommended this approach.
So don’t be fooled by the framing of these policies as a way to help working people by eliminating taxes on tips. These quote-unquote “solutions” leave many working people behind and run the risk of becoming more of a tax break for the wealthy.
Seeberger: Yeah, I’m sure that was just a bug as the bill was being designed and not a core feature. OK, maybe not. Empty MAGA promises indeed.
Well folks, that’s all the time we have this week. If there’s anything you’d like us to cover on the pod, hit us up on Twitter @TheTentPod. That’s @TheTentPod.
Gibbs Léger: And stick around for my interview with Jodi Enda in just a beat.
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Gibbs Léger: Jodi Enda is the Washington bureau chief and senior correspondent for The Fuller Project. Before that, she served as editor-in-chief of ThinkProgress and spearheaded CNN’s 2016 election book, Unprecedented: The Election That Changed Everything. She’s covered a number of beats for outlets across the country and is a former president of the Journalism & Women Symposium.
Jodi, thank you so much for joining us on “The Tent.”
Jodi Enda: It’s great to be here. Thank you.
Gibbs Léger: So, I want to ask you about what everyone is talking about right now, and that would be Vice President Harris, who looks like the frontrunner of the Democratic ticket. Can you talk about her track record on reproductive rights and some of the things she’s done in support of abortion access, like her nationwide tour in the wake of the Dobbs decision?
Enda: Sure. Vice President Harris is one of the most outspoken leaders on abortion rights that we’ve had close to the White House in some time. She is the first one to visit a Planned Parenthood clinic. She has been the point person for the Biden administration on abortion rights and has been talking it up on the campaign trail, even when we thought that President Biden was going to continue with his campaign. And she was the person in the White House who really worked on policy on that.
Gibbs Léger: So last weekend was the Republican National Convention (RNC), and we saw MAGA Republicans continue this ongoing trend of downplaying abortion politics and not really talking about it, intentionally trying to muddy the waters about their stances on reproductive rights. And they’ve scrubbed many of their most extreme positions on abortion from their website. And they seem to be intentionally sowing confusion about the subject.
In your view, why are they doing this? And what challenges does it present for journalists who are covering these candidates and their views on these issues?
Enda: Well, as a journalist, I can say that we know where the public stands on abortion rights. About two-thirds of Americans support abortion rights in some form, including Republicans—especially Republican women—who generally also support some form of abortion rights, it might not be every aspect. But the Republicans know that the public is not on their side. The majority of the public is not on their side on this issue. It’s their biggest weakness. And in fact, they’ve been saying all along that President Biden and now Vice President Harris’ biggest strength is abortion rights.
So it makes sense that that’s not the issue that Republicans want to talk about, right? It also makes sense that it’s the issue that Democrats do want to talk about. We know that since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, that every state that has considered an abortion referendum has approved of abortion rights, has supported abortion rights. Seven states have backed initiatives or referenda. And also, the 2022 elections really were affected by an outpouring of support for abortion rights and anger over what the Supreme Court did.
So I think you’ll be hearing Vice President Harris talk a lot about abortion rights, and you will not be hearing it as much from Republicans between now and November.
Gibbs Léger: I want to talk about the radical policy playbook, Project 2025, which was front and center at the RNC. Now, Donald Trump’s vice presidential nominee JD Vance has said before that the plan has some quote “good ideas.” When it comes to abortion, what are those ideas? I know that Vance is a fan of resurrecting the Comstock Act, for example. Can you explain to our listeners: What is that and what would it do?
Enda: Sure. The Comstock Act was a law that was passed in 1873.
Gibbs Léger: That’s a long time ago.
Enda: It was quite a long time ago.
Gibbs Léger: OK.
Enda: Women did not have the right to vote then, you might recall. And the law essentially focused on a couple of things: It prevented mailing lewd and lascivious kinds of literature, paraphernalia, that kind of thing, and it also said that nothing having to do with abortion could be mailed. So now, since Roe was overturned, anti-abortion advocates have suggested reinvoking the Comstock Act, mainly to prevent medication abortion pills from being sent through the mail.
Almost two-thirds of abortions in the United States are done through medication abortion, so that would have a huge impact. The Biden administration has said, “No, that’s not going to be a thing that we do.” But Project 2025—which, as you said, is kind of an outline for what a Republican president might do, a conservative president—does call for resurrecting that old law.
Gibbs Léger: Truly remarkable times that we live in right now. We also just came out of a tumultuous Supreme Court term that had major ramifications for reproductive rights. So, how will the rulings that were handed down this past term impact abortion rights?
Enda: Well, in some ways, the Supreme Court skirted their decisions on this. They maybe kicked the can down the road a little bit.
Gibbs Léger: Yeah, can you explain that?
Enda: Yeah. There were two cases before the Supreme Court. One had to do with mifepristone, the abortion pill. The plaintiffs argued that the FDA [Food and Drug Administration] was wrong to approve of mifepristone 20-some years ago. The Supreme Court said that those plaintiffs did not have standing. So that case went away.
Now, it could come back, and that’s what I mean when I say they kicked the can down the road. And a lot of people expect that it will come back. But for now, it’s given a reprieve to abortion rights advocates and to people who want to use medication abortion.
The other case they really didn’t do anything on, and that had to do with an Idaho law on emergency care, which—Idaho bans abortions. And abortion rights advocates want to make sure that if people have an emergency, they could get an emergency abortion to save their lives or health. And the Supreme Court just didn’t do anything on that case, on a technicality. So again, that’s another issue that could come back up.
Gibbs Léger: Right, so it sounds like we were just lucky that the plaintiffs were not good?
Enda: Well, it may just be a temporary reprieve for abortion rights advocates, so I would say we’ll see on that.
Gibbs Léger: In your work with The Fuller Project, you analyze the international impacts of the U.S. policy. So can you talk a little bit about that, and what the impacts of the American anti-abortion movement means for other countries?
Enda: I sure can. So, whenever we have a Republican president, starting with Ronald Reagan, they invoke something called the Mexico City policy.
The Mexico City policy prevents organizations that accept U.S. financial assistance in various forms—and I’ll get into that in a minute—from performing, counseling, or talking about abortion. There is another act that is in place all the time called the Helms Amendment that prevents organizations from using U.S. money to perform abortion.
But the Mexico City policy layered on top of that prevents them from even using their own money—or money that maybe other countries have contributed—to perform abortions and, again, to counsel, to refer people to maybe other places that might perform abortions, that kind of thing.
There have been many, many studies over the decades since the Helms Amendment came into being—that was in 1973, shortly after Roe v. Wade came down—and the Mexico City policy, which Reagan first invoked in 1984, that show that these policies combine to prevent women from getting safe abortions. When they can’t get safe abortions, many of them end up dying from botched abortions. I mean, we’re talking the old back-alley abortions that American women used to resort to before Roe v. Wade. So in many countries that take U.S. family planning assistance, that’s been a problem.
When President Trump was in office, he expanded the Mexico City policy exponentially from applying to family planning aid to applying to all health care aid.
Gibbs Léger: Wow.
Enda: And what that meant was that billions of dollars of U.S. health care aid came under the microscope. And it not only affected family planning money, but it affected PEPFAR [the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief], which was President George W. Bush’s anti-AIDS policy that had helped 25 million people all over the world.
And, as a result of both of those things, the National Academy of Sciences said that 108,000 additional women died during that period of time and that 360,000 additional people contracted HIV as a result of Trump’s policy.
So getting back to Project 2025 for a moment: that recommends expanding Trump’s policy to all foreign assistance. So it would not just be health care aid, it would be all foreign assistance—which not only would probably affect more women and it could cost them their lives, it would put an enormous burden on small organizations in countries that don’t have a lot of money to go through all kinds of red tape.
And when this happened under Trump, a lot of those organizations shut down. So clinics in small villages closed, and people—including pregnant women—ended up having to walk miles and miles to find another clinic to get basic health care.
Gibbs Léger: Wow. I mean, that is—it’s outrageous. It’s enraging. And when you think about something like PEPFAR, which one might argue is like the best thing that George W. Bush ever did, the fact that that got tied up in what Donald Trump did and they want to expand on that—that is truly terrifying.
We like to try to end these interviews on a positive note, so I’m going to try to do that right now. Reproductive rights, it has motivated record turnout in recent elections, which is a good thing. Do you think it will continue to be an animating issue for voters, especially if one side’s trying not to talk about it?
Enda: I suspect it will. I think it’s a little bit early, since Vice President Harris just emerged as the probable nominee of the Democratic Party, but I don’t see any reason why abortion would not play a major role in the upcoming election. It has motivated men and women since 2022, and I suspect that—especially since there are a number of initiatives on state ballots—that it will continue to drive voters to the polls.
Gibbs Léger: Well, Jodi, I want to thank you so much for joining us on “The Tent,” and thank you for the great work that you do shining a light on the impact of U.S. policies on people around the globe.
Enda: Well, thank you. And I hope your listeners will look up our stories on FullerProject.org because we’ve been covering these issues for a long time.
Gibbs Léger: Absolutely. Thank you.
Enda: Thank you.
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Gibbs Léger: Well, that’s going to do it for us this week. As always, please go back and check out our previous episodes. Colin, do you know what I’m very excited for?
Seeberger: I have no idea, Daniella. What?
Gibbs Léger: The Olympics!
Seeberger: So excited.
Gibbs Léger: I love it.
Seeberger: Well I saw actually earlier this week that it was announced that Salt Lake City was actually selected to host the 2034 Olympics. So—
Gibbs Léger: Really?
Seeberger: —that is very exciting Olympics news, but I know that we’re mostly focused on what’s going to kick off on Friday—
Gibbs Léger: Exactly.
Seeberger: —which is the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics.
Gibbs Léger: I am really excited. I love the opening ceremony. I like seeing the outfits that all the different countries wear and comparing and contrasting who looks best.
And I’m really excited that Coco Gauff was named a flag carrier for the United States with LeBron James, and I believe she’s the youngest person to hold that honor.
Seeberger: Wow, that’s amazing. I mean, let’s just say we got some balling Black women who are running the USA right now, between Kamala Harris, Coco Gauff, Simone Biles. Let’s go. Ready to—
Gibbs Léger: Yes.
Seeberger: —ready to kill it this next week.
Gibbs Léger: So what are your favorite Olympic sports?
Seeberger: Well I grew up as a swimmer, so for me, the Summer Olympics was like the holy grail, obsessed with it. I literally had VHS tapes of all the swimming events from the Olympics that I would literally watch until they would not work anymore. So, totally obsessed with the Olympics and the swimming.
Also, I mean, how can you not love the gymnastics? What they do is unbelievable.
Gibbs Léger: It’s unreal. Unreal.
Seeberger: Yeah.
Gibbs Léger: Yeah. I think for me, I did track and field growing up, and so I love all track and field activities. But like, the gymnastics is great.
I love diving. I am not a diver. I have never dove. But I feel like I am a good judge of who’s good and who’s not because you look at the splash when they get—I’ve been watching so long, I feel like I can be a commentator on diving.
Seeberger: OK.
Gibbs Léger: I think it’s so hard, especially synchronized diving. It’s such a difficult sport, and I just love it. And I only get to watch it every four years.
Seeberger: Truly. I don’t know how they contort their bodies in all those crazy positions and do so perfectly timed with their partners—it is amazing. I have to say, I always find myself—I’ve never played—but I’ve always found myself totally glued to the beach volleyball competition in the Olympics, right?
Gibbs Léger: Oh yeah.
Seeberger: And I don’t know whether you saw: Somebody posted on Twitter last week an image of the beach volleyball court. They have erected it right in front of the Eiffel Tower in Paris.
Gibbs Léger: Yeah.
Seeberger: It is so cool.
Gibbs Léger: It’s so stunning. I mean, you’re not going to find a better venue for beach volleyball.
Seeberger: That you are not.
Gibbs Léger: Yeah, it is gorgeous. I also love volleyball, too. Growing up, I had a crush on—what was his name? Was it Karch Kiraly? Wow. I’m digging into the deepest parts of my brain to try to remember. But anyhoo, nobody wanted to know that. So yes, I’m excited about the Olympics, but we also have to talk about “The Bachelorette,” Colin.
Seeberger: We do. This season, Daniella, it’s something special. These guys—poor Jenn.
Gibbs Léger: Yes, she deserved better!
Seeberger: So much better.
Gibbs Léger: These guys are not it. And I don’t know, again, if it’s like we’re coming off the high of Joey and like nobody can compare to him.
Seeberger: Yes, that’s exactly what’s happening.
Gibbs Léger: OK. Alright. Then that’s what it is: Joey has ruined “The Bachelor” forever. But yeah, when they get together, they’re so petty and catty, and it makes me think that none of them are there for the right reasons.
Seeberger: I think that’s right. I mean, one-on-one they seem to be relatively OK with her, but when they get all together, it’s so catty, it’s so—just trying to hog the spotlight and petty, I feel like.
I will say, though, that this week’s episode, I thought the one-on-one date with Spencer was actually really endearing. They went on a helicopter ride, right? And he was helping her into the helicopter, he was helping her get her seat buckled, everything. It was precious.
Gibbs Léger: It was cute.
Seeberger: Yeah.
Gibbs Léger: It was very cute, I do agree. And is Marcus the one who’s the former Navy?
Seeberger: I think that’s right.
Gibbs Léger: Yeah. He seems to be really sweet—
Seeberger: Yeah.
Gibbs Léger: —and a genuine guy, and I think they have a good connection. She better watch out for Sam N., that is all I’m going to say.
Seeberger: Sam N., Devin—we got your numbers.
Gibbs Léger: Yeah, no.
Seeberger: Not buying it.
Gibbs Léger: We will see what happens. But these guys, ugh, I hope they get their stuff together in the next coming weeks, for her sake.
Seeberger: Amen.
Gibbs Léger: Yes. On that note—on that very, very important note—that’s it for us today. Be sure to take care of yourselves, and we will talk to you next week.
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“The Tent” is a podcast from the Center for American Progress Action Fund. It’s hosted by me, Daniella Gibbs Léger, and co-hosted by Colin Seeberger. Erin Phillips is our lead producer, Kelly McCoy is our supervising producer, Mishka Espey is our booking producer, and Muggs Leone is our digital producer. Hai Phan, Matthew Gossage, Olivia Mowry, and Toni Pandolfo are our video team. You can find us on YouTube, Apple, Spotify, Google Play, or wherever you get your podcasts.