Mike Sozan: One of the most important rights that people have, that we have as citizens, is the right to dissent and to criticize the government. So this really just seems like an ongoing attempt, ratcheting up in recent days, where Trump and the administration are trying to eliminate anyone or anything that gets in their way.
Colin Seeberger: Hey, everyone. Welcome back to “The Tent,” your place for politics, policy, and progress. I’m your host, Colin Seeberger. That was Mike Sozan, senior fellow for Democracy here at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.
It’s been a tumultuous few weeks in America. At a memorial service this past weekend for Charlie Kirk, far-right leaders spoke about the need to use his tragic death to go after their political opponents in this country. The Trump administration has used their power in Washington to go after media companies, members of Congress, state leaders, and a slew of organizations they perceive as their enemies.
So I wanted to have Mike on to break down these concerning trends for American democracy, the danger these attacks present to the American public, and how Democrats should fight back against these authoritarian power grabs. And as a former senior Senate staffer, I had to get his thoughts on a possible government shutdown that could start next week.
And stick around after the interview for a moment of joy because as the summer comes to a close, so, too, does “The Summer I Turned Pretty.”
Mike Sozan is a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress Action Fund, where he focuses on democracy and government reform. He previously served as chief of staff to Colorado Sen. Mark Udall (D) and as an attorney in the Department of Justice.
Mike Sozan, welcome back to the pod.
Sozan: Colin, I’m happy to be here with you.
Seeberger: So Mike, over the weekend, thousands of people gathered in Arizona for Charlie Kirk’s memorial service. And while there were several really heartfelt moments, some speakers seemed more intent on stoking hateful political rhetoric and division in this country. Most notably, President Trump openly highlighted his disdain for his political opponent saying, quote, “I hate my opponent, and I don’t want the best for them.”
We’re clearly seeing this administration use the death of Charlie Kirk—a free speech advocate, no less—to target the speech that they dislike. Aside from the hypocrisy of it all, can you talk a little bit about just how dangerous this is for our democracy?
Sozan: Yes, absolutely. And let me first start by saying, of course, the assassination of Charlie Kirk was a deplorable event. Every right-minded person should say that it’s utterly unacceptable for political violence like that or political violence of any sort in a strong democracy. And so I want to start by saying that.
And yes, it was really unfortunate to hear President Trump use divisive language in a setting like that. Of course, we’re used to him saying divisive things, but wow, I really thought maybe, just maybe, in that moment he would at least not say something like, “I hate my opponent.”
And it was interesting how he drew a contrast to Charlie Kirk’s widow, who said she forgives the person who killed her husband. So this shows me that the president and the administration continue to ratchet up their abuse of power, their abuse of the rule of law, and really their retribution campaign against people they perceive to be opponents.
We see Trump and the administration trying to stifle dissenting viewpoints throughout civil society and the media—whether it’s members of Congress or the full range of stakeholders—often through government power. And one of the most important rights that people have, that we have as citizens, is the right to dissent and to criticize the government. So this really just seems like an ongoing attempt, ratcheting up in recent days, where Trump and the administration are trying to eliminate anyone or anything that gets in their way, that gets in the way of their version of reality.
Seeberger: Well, part of that gross abuse of government power includes President Trump and Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chair Brendan Carr, who have been going after media organizations whose reporting they don’t like, including last week, I’m sure you saw, the threat that Brendan Carr leveled against Disney, trying to pressure them into taking Jimmy Kimmel off of the air and saying, “We can do this the easy way, or we can do this the hard way.”
As of this recording, Kimmel is actually set to go back on air. Disney reversed its decision, perhaps because its stock started to take a hit as people were voting with their feet and canceling their Disney+ subscriptions. But I don’t ever remember in my lifetime the chair of the FCC using the language of mafia bosses to go after the speech of major broadcasting networks. This is really a calling card for authoritarians, if you ask me.
So I’m curious to get your thoughts on both that threat, as well as what you make of Disney’s decision to put Kimmel back on air.
Sozan: Yep. I agree with the points you just made. And interestingly, when I was a young attorney, I worked at the Federal Communications Commission for a year right after the Department of Justice.
Sozan: So I had a bird’s eye view into that agency. And that’s a really important agency. It really, when it functions well, is supposed to be helping to uphold the First Amendment and really empowering broadcasters to do their job and to be able to say whatever they want to on their broadcasts.
And so one thing that, unfortunately, Chairman Carr has done as a very close ally of President Trump is to really weaponize the FCC in ways that it has never been weaponized, especially in recent decades. And I, like you, really thought when the chairman said, “We can do this the hard way, or we can do it the easy way,” it reminded me of what a mobster might say. To me, it sounded very much like an implicit threat to Disney–ABC.
And it’s not surprising that within hours of that, ABC had decided to suspend Jimmy Kimmel. But that was an exceedingly dangerous move for, again, not only the FCC chairman to do that, and not only for Trump to be echoing these sorts of things, but also for yet another media company to give in to what is a baseless sort of threat. It was really sad to see that.
But one of the big upsides of this whole sad saga with Jimmy Kimmel is that the people struck back. Everyday Americans let it be known how dissatisfied and angry they were that Jimmy Kimmel was taken off the air. And I think people implicitly understood that ABC did it not for just a business decision or for the ratings that Jimmy Kimmel was getting, but because this supposedly independent agency, which is no longer independent, was threatening the broadcast licenses of ABC.
And it was really inspiring to see how people quickly mobilized and how nonprofit organizations and others helped people to peacefully mobilize, peacefully protest, and let it be known to Disney–ABC that there were going to be consequences for this. For example, people were canceling their subscriptions, etc.
And so this has been a rare bright spot in these recent weeks of all these terrible challenges to our democracy where people really did get together, mobilize, make their voices heard, and actually forced a retreat from one of these media companies. And this also was a bit of a rebuke to FCC Chairman Carr.
Seeberger: I mean, for me it really stands out as—I think a lot of people have been asking, “Well, OK, what can opponents of the Trump administration do?” And with Democrats locked out of power in Washington, let’s be honest, the tools are pretty limited.
We’ve seen some success through litigation. There may be an opportunity in Congress next week to really lock in and fight for the American people’s health care. These opportunities are fleeting, but really I think this also, for me, underscored a reminder that another way to—in this very unfortunate time we find ourselves in this country, the power of people to be able to push back on the excess is an important reminder of one of the tools that are in the toolbox right now.
I am curious, another place that we have seen this administration really lashing out at media outlets has been against media outlets that have been uncovering corruption or malfeasance. We saw the president lash out at The Wall Street Journal a few weeks ago after the revelations that were coming forward related to the Jeffrey Epstein case.
We saw this weekend, MSNBC published a new report that revealed some allegations that Trump’s border czar Tom Homan accepted $50,000 in bribes in exchange for promising to give border security companies government contracts. These allegations were being investigated by the FBI under the Biden administration, and now that investigation seems to have suspiciously ended under the Trump administration.
Can you speak a little bit about the allegations relating to Tom Homan, and more broadly on this trend that we’re seeing of Trump interfering, weaponizing our system of justice for his own administration’s political objectives?
Sozan: Yes. And you said it well: He’s really weaponizing the justice system. And he has weaponized the Department of Justice for what seems to be his own political and personal agenda.
I mean, we knew from the moment he came in, he tore down that quasi-independent wall that has stood for several decades between the president and his Justice Department. And it’s true that the Justice Department is one of the departments that’s within the executive branch, purportedly under a president’s control, but especially since Richard Nixon, there’s been this norm where, by and large, the Justice Department operated fairly independently of a president and on behalf of the American people, not at the political whims of a president.
Well that’s completely out the window now. And we also see that Pam Bondi, the attorney general, has disbanded units within the Department of Justice, like the Political Corruption Unit. That might have been the unit that would’ve been looking into the Tom Homan allegations. It’s shocking that the border czar Tom Homan was allegedly caught on tape accepting $50,000 in cash in a paper bag.
Sozan: In a Cava bag, no less. I mean, not even a Sweetgreen bag. And so it’s stunning. You see that the administration has just completely denied that that even happened. It’ll be interesting to see if and when that tape is ever released for us to see. I’ll let you know. Just make it public, much like people are saying about the Epstein files. Make them public. I mean, the administration appears to be hiding a lot here, but it’s not surprising because by now we, we see how Trump is trying to weaponize the justice system.
And another thing that I feel was really alarming within the past few days was Trump forced out of his position the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, who Trump had wanted to investigate Letitia James, the attorney general of New York, a long-time nemesis of Trump. And it appears that there wasn’t enough evidence to go forward with a case.
And the U.S. attorney hadn’t brought a case. And it looks like Trump got very tired of waiting and forced the ouster of that attorney and now already announced the hiring of somebody who’s just a complete Trump ally who’s working in the White House and was overseeing the whole movement to get the Smithsonian to whitewash U.S. history.
And this is an attorney who’s never been a prosecutor, never worked in this area of the law. And she’s now been put in charge of the Eastern District of Virginia, of the U.S. Attorney’s Office there. And it would seem that the signal is that Trump is almost commanding her to bring a case against Letitia James.
This is something far outside the norm, Colin. This is not supposed to be done, ever, in our democracy. And the president is really now doing it out in the open. He’s really unabashed about these things now.
Seeberger: Mike, it’s deeply alarming, but just to tackle a different issue, this weekend there was reporting that the Trump administration is moving to suspend reporting of food insecurity data revealing the extent of hunger ravaging too many Americans in this country. This, of course, follows some recent changes that we’ve seen from the administration firing the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics after a jobs report showed a real falling off of the economy over the summer.
And I’m curious, given the fact that we’re seeing this increasing censoring of information that’s available to the public and potential manipulation of government data, can you talk about, one, why do you think they’re doing that? And two, also, how does that impact people’s daily lives?
Sozan: Yeah. Well it seems like the administration is trying to eliminate anything, anyone that gets in the way of Trump’s favored view of reality, whatever that might be on a given day. And this includes very, very dangerously getting rid of government experts or others who are supposed to provide objective facts and who have done it year after year.
Many of these government experts have worked for decades within agencies. They’re true experts, and they don’t serve one party or another. For the most part, these are people who are supposed to be reporting objective facts. And that’s important for everyday Americans and everyday businesses who need to rely on objective facts to make decisions about their own spending, about their own households, about businesses that they might run.
It’s one of the reasons why so many other companies from around the world invest in the U.S. Because we were seen as trustworthy. We were seen as providing government statistics or data that people could rely on. And that’s being turned on its head now as we’ve seen a number of firings across agencies—and you’ve just named some of them—where these experts were just dismissed because it seems like Donald Trump and others, his senior allies, were upset because it was not rosy data. It was not painting the picture that Trump wants to paint, which is that the economy is soaring again. Prices are being lowered. People have more health care. All those things that we just know objectively are not true.
Seeberger: And they’re not true because of Donald Trump’s own policies. Whether it’s the tariffs, whether it is the Big Beautiful Bill, so to speak, that’s increasing health care costs—all of these things are frankly a direct reflection of the president’s own policy.
Sozan: This is another page out of the authoritarian playbook. We’ve seen other authoritarians do this, where they have to alter the reality in order to make sure that enough people can stay on board with their agenda. These sort of leaders feel that if people know the real truth, then these leaders aren’t going to get reelected.
Seeberger: Well speaking of getting reelected, from where I sit, authoritarianism is not popular. I don’t think many Americans are like, “That’s what I want in my government.” And it’s for, I think, that very reason combined with a sluggish economy, what seems to be increasingly sluggish economy, the historic cuts to people’s health care, so on and so forth, that we’ve seen the president’s poll numbers really tank—his approval on the economy and inflation and prices. Those approval ratings are at all-time lows.
And it is against that backdrop that we have seen this president take unprecedented steps to pressure Republican-controlled states to pursue what’s called mid-decade redistricting or mid-decade gerrymandering of their own congressional maps in order for the president to win over some more Republican seats in hopes that Republicans can continue to hold the House majority coming out of next year’s midterm elections.
So I’m curious, can you talk a little bit about what’s the latest that’s happening on this front and whether you think that Democrats are adequately and sufficiently fighting back in this moment? What’s your case?
Sozan: Trump is trying to rig the rules so that his party can stay in power in the midterm elections. He wants to keep his rubber-stamp House and Senate. As you said, he is increasingly unpopular. In a lot of polls that I’ve seen, he’s at around 40 percent approval rating, which is pretty low.
Seeberger: That’s generous in some cases, Mike.
Sozan: Right. Some cases it’s in the 30s. And so he’s trying to cheat the system so that his party can stay in power in the elections of November of next year, and also beyond. He’s setting a lot of groundwork here. So yes, he has basically commanded red states to redraw their maps in the middle of the decade, which is hardly ever done. And it’s never been done at the command of a president who is saying right out in the open, “I’m doing this so my party can stay in power.”
This is really against what it means to have free and fair elections. Politicians should not be picking their voters, voters should be picking their politicians. And this goes hand in hand with a lot of the other election rules he’s trying to change. He’s trying to get rid of mail ballots. He’s trying to change the way the votes are counted with voting machines. He’s installed an election denier as the head of elections within the Department of Homeland Security. I mean, he’s trying to tinker with elections in multiple ways so that he can try to hold on to power.
And so you already see, unfortunately, red states starting to redraw their maps. Texas was the first to move. Missouri just decided to also gerrymander its map. But we also see Democratic states now saying that they’re going to act to neutralize this raw power grab, that they’re going to stand up for everyday people. So, of course, in California, they’re moving forward. They already passed some legislation, but it’s going to be put to a vote of the people in a few months.
The people of California can directly decide whether to temporarily put aside their nonpartisan redistricting commission and approve new maps that could result in up to five new Democratic seats there. There could be other states, like Maryland or Illinois, blue states that might act, that I think are preparing in some ways to act, as states like Missouri or Indiana or Kansas, Nebraska, Ohio, Florida—I could go on and on.
Seeberger: That’s a lot of states, Mike.
Sozan: There’s a lot of red states that might act, Colin, and it’s very worrisome. It’s really, really dangerous for democracy. I do think that the Democrats understand the stakes here and are trying to hit back. I don’t know how many Democratic states ultimately will be able to act, but right now I think that Democratic leaders, especially in the House, but also really strong governors like Gov. Newsom (D) of California understand the stakes here for the American people.
Seeberger: This is about leveling the playing field, making sure that Americans can hold their elected officials accountable. To that end, I wanted to talk with you—you are a former senior Senate staffer. You were a chief of staff for a former U.S. senator.
Right now, the government is set to run out of funding after September 30. I’m sure you’ve been watching closely that Republicans in Congress and the president have continually rejected now, for close to two months, outreach from Democratic leaders in Congress calling on them to engage in bipartisan negotiations because they’ve made clear that their members can’t support spending bills that continue the Republican health care crisis that’s increasing costs, putting millions and millions of Americans at risk of losing their health care coverage, is already shuttering hospitals and clinics across rural America. There was some reporting out last week from northeast Georgia. We saw a few days prior in Western Virginia. Not to mention the fact that the administration has been freezing funding for biomedical research to find cures to cancer or Alzheimer’s disease.
So Democratic leaders really seem to be putting a stake in the ground that we can’t go along with this anymore. Donald Trump, Republicans in Congress are saying, “We’re not going to negotiate. We’re going to hold the government hostage unless we’re able to get our extreme health care cuts into effect,” is what is coming across to me.
I’m curious to get your take on, do you think that Democrats are picking the right fight or choosing the right strategy here? And what do you make of some reporting that we saw this week—Donald Trump deciding that, “OK, maybe I’ll have a chat with Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries and see if we can come to a deal.” And as our listeners I’m sure by now know, Trump once again TACOed—he chickened out and is not going to proceed with those conversations later this week. So what do you make of all this?
Sozan: Yeah. Well when I worked in the Senate, I worked at a time where there were a few government shutdowns. And I’ve seen it up close and personal, and I’ve seen how hard it is and how unfortunate it is for everyday Americans.
And what I come back to, though, is Republicans right now control the presidency. They control the House. They control the Senate. They will own a government shutdown. This is on them. It’s not on Democrats. So I think that’s got to be one of the top lines for me.
As you said, Trump has now recklessly backtracked on meeting with Sen. Schumer (D-NY) and Leader Jeffries (D-NY). And he’s now saying that he will only meet with them if they in advance agreed to all of his demands. I mean, that’s not a negotiation. We all know that.
And I think it’s powerful that Democrats, they appear to have more of a spine this time around. And they’re making clear they don’t want a shutdown, but what they want is a funding bill that protects everyday Americans, especially when it comes to health care costs, which are under real threat of rising in a couple months. It could be a real crisis if Republicans refuse to address this threat of rising health care costs. This is a top concern for voters right now when you ask them what they care about. So I think Republicans know that they’re on the wrong side of a lot of these issues, but especially the health care issue.
But they don’t want to negotiate in good faith over this. And I think they’re scared to negotiate on this, especially in any way that could be public, because they know they don’t have any good answers when Democrats bring these things up, right?
Sozan: And so it puts them in a bind. And I think they’re just trying to escape that bind and just try to lay down the law and run roughshod over Democrats as they’ve done with some success before. And I think that the Republican leaders in Congress and Trump are really going to try to test how far they can push the Democrats on this one.
But I think Democrats have very little incentive to go along and get along here. I mean, last time when Democrats agreed to a continuing resolution, Republicans still came along and took all sorts of actions to rescind appropriated monies, to gut government functions, to pass the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which did all sorts of terrible things to government functions that really have been hurting everyday Americans.
So I think a lot of Democrats are asking: Why would Democrats go down this same path this time again?
Seeberger: Yeah, if we can get a government funding deal, and yet the president can continue to ignore spending laws which result in Head Start centers closing, or communities who’ve been ravaged by natural disasters unable to get recovery funds, or some of those biomedical research centers that I was talking about earlier having to suspend their work and the labs closing—all because the president doesn’t want to follow budget rules.
I think people are asking themselves, “Is a deal even a deal?” So I think that Democrats have really chosen the right fight here. I saw a poll out earlier today which showed that a majority of Americans want Democrats to pick this fight and draw a line in the sand on behalf of the American people and their health care. So it’s definitely something we’re going to be watching closely here at “The Tent.”
Lastly, we like to end these episodes on a positive note when we can. And that’s why I’m excited to talk to you about a new proposal from one of our CAP Action colleagues, Tom Moore, who really has been investigating, how do we solve, I think, what, for a lot of Americans, is this feeling that our democracy, our political system, just isn’t working anymore.
And I think for a lot of people, they look at the proliferation of dark money in politics, of excessive, unlimited corporate spending on elections. And Tom had this really great idea of using the authority that states have to define what corporations are and what powers they hold—how that could potentially affect some of the limits that are imposed on corporations in terms of their political spending.
Can you talk a little bit more about this idea and what impact you think it would have on the political system?
Sozan: Absolutely. I’m really enthused about this idea. My hat is totally off to our colleague Tom Moore, who’s one of the foremost experts in the country on campaign finance and elections. He used to be one of the top staffers at the Federal Election Commission before he came over to CAP, and we’re really lucky to have him because he’s a big thinker. And he came up with this idea that no one has really been a proponent of before. And it’s a major breakthrough way to end big corporate and dark money that really permeate our elections and really drives the mistrust amongst so many Americans, for our campaign, the way we finance campaigns—really, for our democracy.
And you’re right, this goes to the heart of that notorious Citizens United case, which most of your listeners are very familiar with—one of the worst cases ever decided by the Supreme Court, which really helped to unleash billions of dollars in corporate spending, which is often dark money spending in elections.
And so what Tom came up with was he said, “Well, let’s wait a second.” Corporations are creatures of state law. States are the ones who give corporations their powers and their ability to act as businesses. And so because states can define the rights of corporations, under the current law, even under Supreme Court precedent, states have the power to amend those laws so the corporations no longer have the ability, the right to spend in elections.
Basically, states could say, “You can do almost everything you’re doing right now, corporations. But we’re definitely going to take away this right for you to spend your unlimited dollars to wash through our elections and to influence our elections in ways that you, the corporations, want to, which are often at odds with what everyday Americans want.”
So this is a really cool theory, a new roadmap, that could provide a real breakthrough. And in great news, Montana is already moving forward with this new idea. They’re going to be putting it on a ballot initiative in the coming months. At least, they’re aiming to do that right now. They’re getting everything in place in Montana. And so Montana might be the first state out the out of the gate to do it.
Any of the other states could pick this up and run with it as well. That’s the beauty of this. It’s controlled by states. We don’t have to wait for the gridlocked federal government, for Congress, to have to work on this.
This isn’t something that Donald Trump could try to block at a state level. And according to Tom’s analysis, this breakthrough theory would survive even this very extreme right-wing Supreme Court. Even though the Supreme Court likes to twist itself in pretzels sometimes, they would have to twist themselves into a super-pretzel in to order to nullify this sort of idea.
So it’s one of the reasons why I really like working at CAP Action. I know the same for you as well. Because we come up with bold new theories to try to really make sure that the system works on behalf of everyday people. And I think Tom’s idea here holds a lot of promise, and ultimately, if it goes through, I think would go a long way towards helping to restore trust and the hope that we can build a stronger democracy.
Seeberger: Well that’s how we’re going to get out of these dark times, is with big, bold, ambitious ideas. So Mike Sozan, grateful for your time today. Thanks so much for tuning us on the pod.
Seeberger: All right, folks. That’s going to do it for us this week. Please go back and check out previous episodes. Muggs Leone, our digital producer, is here with me to break down last week’s series finale.
Muggs Leone: Well, really, I’m just here to entertain you as you break it down.
Leone: Because I unfortunately did not view. But I’m ready for the latest on what happened in “The Summer I Turned Pretty.”
Seeberger: Muggs, well, I’m not sure if your algorithm on Instagram looks anything like mine, but mine is just cluttered with memes and fun clips from the finale episode.
Seeberger: Which was just so perfect. For our listeners who watch, you know that everything ended right. Belly—
Seeberger: —not only ended up with Conrad, she went chasing after him—
Seeberger: —on the train in Paris. To me, it was giving Ross and Rachel from “Friends.”
Seeberger: Belly got on the train. Rachel got off the plane. See what I did there? But it was so much fun. Some of the gags from the last half of this season made another recurrence. Like Jeremiah dogging his dad for bringing champagne to an event with him. And he was like, “You brought champagne from my wedding.”
Of course, our listeners who know, Jeremiah and Belly’s wedding did not work out. So we have been seeing these bottles of champagne getting handed out at holidays and events left and right.
Leone: It’s got to go somewhere.
Seeberger: Yeah. Hey, you know what? Never let a bottle of champagne go to waste.
Seeberger: What have you been watching?
Leone: I’m so happy for you. I’m glad you got your very pleasing finale. I have not been watching much at the moment. But I’m very excited because as of the day this episode airs, it’ll be the start of “Survivor” season 49.
Leone: Which I will say, obviously not as excited as I am for season 50 because there’ll be lots of fun things they’ll do. But I am excited for 49. From what I’ve seen of the casting, I think it’s the yellow tribe, I forget their names. Sorry. I’m liking the vibes. There’s someone who on there who looks like an off-brand Jonathan Groff.
Leone: For all of my theater fans out there.
Leone: And there’s also a D.C. political comms person on this season.
Seeberger: Of course there is.
Leone: So excited to see how they do. And yeah, that’s what I’m looking forward to as we go from your “pretty” summer into a “Survivor” fall.
Seeberger: I will have to check it out. I did see this recent “Survivor” winner, Harmony—
Leone: Of course. Queen. Icon.
Seeberger: “Australia v. The World: Survivor.” She’s amazing. She’s, I think, the best player that’s ever played. But that’s just my own two thoughts.
Leone: Those are your opinions. And people in the comments can debate you on that.
Seeberger: That they can, and they’ll be wrong. So with that, folks, I hope you’re taking care of yourselves. I hope that you are tuning out, as you can, taking some time to find your own peace because things have been a doozy lately. I know I’ve been trying to do that. Self-care is very important. It is how we are going to get through these difficult times. 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. Muggs Leone is our digital producer. Kelly McCoy is our supervising producer. Mishka Espey is our booking producer. Hai Phan, 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.