Call/Contact Your Senators And House Member Today, Demand They Fight To End These Terrible Tariffs, Help Little Cracks Become Big Cracks

4pm ET Today - Join Us For A Live Event On Trump's Undermining of Social Security With Jon "Bowzer" Bauman

Morning all. As we are about to dive into tough stuff, I don’t want to lose sight that the last few weeks have been good ones for Democrats, and bad ones for the Rs. I discuss all this at lenght in yesterday’s post and video, 2 Things Are True Today. The new Reuters/Ipsos poll released yesterday captures it well:

• Trump Week 1 - 47% approve, 41% disapprove (+6)

• Trump April 3 - 43% approve, 53% disapprove (-10)

This is a 16 point swing against him even before the terrible events of the last 36 hours. His undeniable madness and Russian-backed wrecking ball government are loosening his grip on the public, and Washington.

China retaliated this morning putting 34% tariffs on all imported American goods, a dramatic though expected escalation of Trump’s trade war. Asian markets are off again this morning, and our stock markets are steadying for what will be another very bad day.

To go deeper into how tariffs work, what Trump is doing, and what to expect next be sure to watch or listen to my new interview with noted economist, Dr. Rob Shapiro.

All of us have one job today - we must call/contact our Senators and House Member and demand they work to roll back these deeply destructive tariffs and rein in our madman leader.

As we discussed in yesterday’s post, Republicans are showing signs of an increased willingness to buck Trump as the economy craters, his numbers plummet, they lose elections and his madness becomes impossible to ignore. 9 Rs voted with Dems to block the House leg package this week. Senator Tim Kaine helped bring 4 Senate Rs along to vote with Dems on Wednesday night to override Trump’s Canada tariffs. Yesterday Republican Senator Grassley teamed up with Democratic Senator Maria Cantwell to introduce a bill that would establish a Congressional review of Trump’s tariffs. Here’s NBC News this morning:

WASHINGTON — The fallout from President Donald Trump's aggressive new tariffs has spurred Congress into action, with a growing number of Republicans joining Democrats to express interest in using their power to restrain him.

After the GOP-led Senate delivered a rare rebuke to Trump on Wednesday by voting to undo his tariffs on Canada, lawmakers in both chambers are weighing additional steps to rein him in. Senators are eyeing other mechanisms to rescind Trump’s existing tariffs while limiting his ability to impose new ones. And Democrats in the House are exploring ways to force a vote to revoke Canadian tariffs, putting out feelers to attract support from Republicans.

These efforts have a high bar for success as any resolution to undo Trump’s tariffs, or new law affecting his powers, would have to get around a presidential veto. But the level of support in Congress could affect the president’s political calculus around using taxes on imports to the U.S. as a centerpiece of his agenda.

Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, a Trump ally who is third in line to the presidency, introduced a bill with Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., on Thursday that would reassert Congress' authority and slap restrictions on the president's power to levy tariffs.

The legislation, called the Trade Review Act of 2025, would require the president to notify Congress of new tariffs within 48 hours of imposition, while providing his reasons and an analysis of the impacts on American consumers and businesses. Then Congress would have 60 days to approve it. If it does not, the tariffs would expire after that period.

“For too long, Congress has delegated its clear authority to regulate interstate and foreign commerce to the executive branch,” Grassley said in a statement. “Building on my previous efforts as Finance Committee Chairman, I’m joining Senator Cantwell to introduce the bipartisan Trade Review Act of 2025 to reassert Congress’ constitutional role and ensure Congress has a voice in trade policy.”

Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., praised Grassley for the bill because “he does believe that we’re a co-equal branch.” He said he’d vote for it, though it's unclear if the bill will be brought to the Senate floor.

“I like congressional review. ... In trade, it’s a good example,” Tillis said. “I’ll support Grassley if it gets a vote.”

As we’ve say here little cracks can become big cracks and this week we’ve begun to see much bigger cracks in Trump’s Congressional support. Note this new Tweet this morning from Trump enthusiast and Senior Fox Business Correspondent Charles Gasparino. It’s another big crack:

Why we need to be loud today, as loud as we can be, and put as much pressure on Ds to fight with everything they got and on the Rs to keep challenging Trump. Trump is breaking things that will be very hard, if not impossible to repair, and we need to leave it all out there on the playing field today!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We Gather Today Live at 4pm ET To Talk About Trump’s Ongoing Assault on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid - My good friend Jon “Bowzer” Bauman is joining us live today at 4pm ET/1pm PT to talk about the Administration’s escalating attack on Seniors. While Jon may be a well-known singer and entertainer, he is also the President of Social Security Works PAC and Vice-Chair of the DNC’s Seniors Council and a leading expert on Senior issues.

We’ve put together some tips on how to make sure you can access our live events here. Simply, if you turn on the “Live” features in your Substack Settings you will receive a notification at 4pm ET that you can click on and join our event. There isn’t yet a way to provide an advance link. We assume that will come soon…..see you at 4pm ET today!

Timely Hopium Conversations - In addition to my new video on the current political moment and my talk with Rob Shapiro yesterday, got a more things for you to dive into this weekend:

• Rep. Don Beyer on Fighting DOGE More Effectively

• David Rothkopf on Trump’s Dangerous Approach To The World

• David Leopold on Yes, People Are Disappearing in America

• Casey Michel on The Unprecedented Corruption Of The Trump Regime

• Dr. Michael Mann on The Right’s War on Science

• Jane Kleeb on The New Leadership Team’s Plans For The DNC/State Parties

• Hopium House 7 Discussions with Reps. Derek Tran and Janelle Bynum

Good Luck Tomorrow All - I know many of you are participating in the Hands Off events tomorrow. Thank you, and good luck!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

One bit of advice we got a few weeks back in the Hopium chat - do not put swears into your signs. Local TV news crews cannot put footage with swears on the air. Keep it clean and strong, reach more people!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now, let’s get to work people!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Recommended Hopium Actions and Campaigns - One note before we get going….Ben Wikler called me yesterday morning to express his thanks for all that we did to help Susan Crawford win. We raised a lot of money, together, and many of you worked it really hard for her. Great work everyone. This was a huge and consequential win!

We’ve launched some new actions and campaigns, and are for now retiring a few old ones…here we go!

1 - Demand Congress Take Back Their Tariff Authority From Trump - I will be developing this new action in the coming days but simply - call your Senators and House Member today and demand they override and role back these incredibly dangerous and destructive tariffs.

2 - Fight The Trump-Musk Attack On Our Government, Our Privacy And Our Constitutional Order - Encourage your Senators and Representatives to follow Senator Booker’s lead and let Facts be be submitted to a candid world in a joint Senate-House Letter to America; to hold their own hearings; to file criminal referrals for Musk and his malicious posse to DOJ/FBI and amicus briefs in the court cases regarding the usurpation of their Constitutional authorities or file suits of their own (House Dems began doing this several weeks ago). Encourage them to hold a daily morning press conference to more aggressively challenge Musk’s ransacking of the USG that is making America less prosperous, less healthy, less safe and far less respected in the world.

3 - Loudly Protest Trump’s Embrace of Russia and Abandonment of NATO and Europe - Let your electeds know you are outraged by traitorous Trump’s selling out of Zelenskyy, abandonment of Europe and embrace of Putin; and that we cannot accept this level of appeasement of someone who is a clear enemy of America and the West, and certainly not an ally. Demand that Trump not let his Saudi meeting w/Putin become our Munich; demand that he not become our Neville Chamberlain; demand that we rejoin our European and NATO allies in support of Zelenskyy and democracy here and everywhere. The country is not with Trump’s embrace of Putin and we must be very loud, very, very loud now. See my new essay on the need to support our allies and not surrender to Putin, and my new interview with Rep. Adam Smith, the Ranking Member of the House Armed Services Committee, one of the most important foreign policy voices in our party.

4 - Our Work In The States, The Spring Offensive - I am going to rework this section as so much has happened since we called on our community members to organize in the 17 most vulnerable Republican House seats. Rallies and protests have exploded across the country. The DNC/House Dems/State Parties have kicked off People’s Town Halls in all 50 states. I have come to believe that we should be leaning on our state and local electeds to pursue these organized “condemnations” of the Trump regime and their betrayal of America. Let’s start talking now about what we are going to do on July 4th, a day with all of a sudden much more importance.

Paid subscribers should self-report their actions today in our daily chat. So inspired by how hard so many of you are working. I want to make a special plea to all Hopium readers in states with Republican Senators - please make your calls, every day. Even 50 to 100 people calling every day in every red state can make a difference. We have hundreds of Hopium subscribers in every state in the country and it’s critical that we all do our part now.

Next, for those wanting to do more traditional political/campaign work we have four Hopium-backed efforts we're rallying behind:

Thank Senator Booker For Standing Up For America - Senator Booker is up for re-election next year and many of you asked if they could channel their support and appreciation for him through Hopium. So I’ve set up an ActBlue fundraising page for him with a goal of raising $100,000 by June 30th. We’ve already raised $13,000 - thank you all. Let’s be there for Senator Booker as he been there for us at this critical time.

Help Abigail Spanberger Win Virginia - Virginia will be one of the big battlegrounds of the November, 2025 elections and we have a great candidate for Governor, Abigail Spanberger. Watch my interview with Abigail, donate, volunteer, and learn more here. Given how many federal employees live in Virginia, this race is also now on the front lines of the Trump/Musk assault on the federal government.

We’ve raised more than $74,000 so far towards our June 30th goal of $250,000 - thank you all. Let’s keep working it for Abigail!

Support The Hopium House 7 - We’ve begun our work to help flip the House next year by supporting and shoring up the 7 newly-elected battleground House Dems we helped elect last year. Catch our interviews with Derek Tran and Janelle Bynum and give to all 7 through a single donation on our new ActBlue page. Learn more about this important effort here.

We’ve already raised over $54,000 towards our $250,000 June 30th goal - thank you all!

Get Anderson Clayton And The NC Dems Fight The GOP’s Attempt To Steal A Supreme Court Seat - Last week we began a campaign to raise $50,000 for Anderson Clayton and the NC Dems. These funds will help the NC Dems get off to a great start in 2025 and help cover the costs of their fight to prevent the Republicans from stealing a Supreme Court seat we won together in 2024. Watch my new interview with Chair Clayton from last week to get an update on the fight over the Supreme Court seat and her plans to win elections and counter Trump this year.

We’ve raised $30,000 so far towards our June 30th goal of $50,000 - thank you everyone!

Keep working hard all. So incredibly proud to be in this fight with all of you - Simon