What Communities Lose When America Abandons the 'Common Good'

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Mina Kim: Welcome to Forum. I’m Mina Kim. Connecticut senator Chris Murphy is regarded as a 2028 Democratic presidential contender. He’s been a vocal critic of the U.S. war in Iran as well as President Trump’s flagrant corruption and its role in undermining democracy. But Murphy says Trump is only a symptom, not the cause, of what ails America. In a new book, he lays out how he thinks we got here and what can be done to end our democratic and ethical unraveling. It’s called Crisis of the Common Good: The Fight for Meaning and Connection in a Broken America. Senator Murphy, welcome to Forum.

Chris Murphy: Thanks for having me.

Mina Kim: Before we get into your book, I want to ask you about the latest national news, including where things stand with the war in Iran. The vague outlines of a peace deal that the Trump administration has suggested is still on the table — despite recent hostilities — is that the Strait of Hormuz would reopen within a month while the U.S. withdraws its forces, and that addressing Iran’s nuclear program would be pushed off until later. Is this a deal you would support?

Chris Murphy: I want this war to end as quickly as possible. Every single day it goes on, America gets weaker, we are constantly humiliated, and Iran gets stronger. So I want the war to end, and I will support imperfect deals to make that happen. But let’s be clear about what they’re talking about: essentially returning to the status quo ante — to where things were before hostilities began. There’s also reporting that as part of this agreement, the United States would pay Iran money by releasing sanctions worth potentially billions of dollars. So after all of this devastation to the American economy and the world order, we’re going to pay Iran money so they reopen the strait — which is exactly where we were before the war began. The short answer is yes, I want the war to end and I’m rooting for it. But the outlines of this deal only make clearer what a terrible catastrophe this war has been.

Mina Kim: And it really isn’t a return to the status quo, as you’re laying out. The deal is far more than just imperfect. We now have an emboldened regime in Iran that’s willing to murder its own people, one that could reap billions of dollars in sanctions relief and knows it can weaponize the Strait of Hormuz at any time — with no guarantees that Iran will end its nuclear program or stop using its missiles against its neighbors or Israel. Are you okay with the war ending on these terms? And is there anything that can be done to dilute the potential harm?

Chris Murphy: The problem is that if this war continues, we don’t get any closer to our war aims — we get further away. Let’s take Donald Trump’s shifting rationales at face value. He says we started the war to eliminate Iran’s nuclear program, their drone program, their missile program, and their navy. We haven’t done any of that, and we won’t, because those are impossible military tasks. You cannot, through an air campaign alone, eliminate their nuclear capability, their drones, or their missiles. In fact, public reporting suggests they still have seventy percent of their drones and missiles. And while you can take out the big ships in their navy, what closes the Strait of Hormuz is not the big ships — it’s the suicide skiffs and small speedboats that drop mines. None of these goals were achievable through the military campaign they designed. As you said, this regime is now stronger than it was before the war. They murdered a doddering, eighty-year-old Ayatollah who was barely in control of the country, and now there are younger, more provocative, and more lethal leaders in his place. We’re going to come out of this with America looking feckless and Iran potentially having permanent control of the strait. That’s another reported element of this deal — that while the strait will be reopened, Iran and Oman will jointly control which traffic goes through and when. That was never the case before the war began.

Mina Kim: You’ve introduced War Powers resolutions since this war began, to reassert Congress’s authority when it comes to declaring war and using military force. Last week, a resolution advanced out of committee for the first time, with a vote from Republican senator Bill Cassidy — a fourth Republican. What do you make of that?

Chris Murphy: As soon as the war began and it became clear Republicans weren’t going to fulfill their constitutional responsibility to bring debate over the war before the Senate, senators Booker, Kaine, and I got together and said: let’s use our prerogatives. There’s a rule that allows us to force a vote on war at a fifty-vote margin, so we decided to do it every week — and we have. In recent weeks, more Republicans have begun to join us, just three or four or five. But as you mentioned, last week we finally crossed the fifty-vote threshold. Now, it’s a procedural vote, so we still have to get to the final resolution, and it would still have to be signed by the president.

Mina Kim: He would veto it, I’m sure.

Chris Murphy: He would veto it. So you’d ultimately need enough Republicans to override the veto, which sounds pretty unlikely. But it is a sign that as this war goes on and becomes more unpopular, fewer Republicans are willing to stand up and vote for it. We will continue doing this every single week, and maybe — just maybe — the pressure from Republicans will convince the president to end the war, move our troops out of harm’s way, and get about the business of addressing the spiral in costs, which may already be too late to fix. But it won’t be addressed until the war is over and the strait is open.

Mina Kim: Some of your Senate GOP colleagues have also shown some willingness to push back on the Trump administration’s $1.8 billion so-called anti-weaponization fund, which you have called unbelievably corrupt.

Chris Murphy: It’s hard to pick the most corrupt thing he has done, but this has to be near the top of the list because it is so brazen. Some of his other schemes involved using his influence to get paid through the back door — that’s what the cryptocurrency schemes are. We’ll never see those payments because they come from foreign dignitaries and CEOs, privately, through crypto exchanges into Trump’s pocket. This is the front door. This is the president just reaching his hand into the Treasury, stealing $1.8 billion and using it for whatever political purposes he deems fit, with no real controls on the account. And once he gets away with it at the IRS, why wouldn’t he do this with every other agency? What he did was sue himself — sue the federal government — and when the court said you can’t sue yourself, he settled out of court and just gave himself the money. I think this is the beginning, not the end, of this scheme. I don’t know yet whether Republicans are really willing to turn on him over it. We may talk about what happened in Texas, but increasingly Republicans are learning over and over that your political career is over if you cross him, and they’ve never been truly willing to stand up for their principles. That said, at the end of last week, the Senate sent everyone home because they didn’t want to vote on a Democratic amendment to stop the $1.8 billion trust fund. We’ll see what happens when we get back.

Mina Kim: That is really the question. From where you sit as a U.S. senator, what are you thinking and feeling about this GOP Senate pushback — such as it is? Do you see it continuing? Do you see them willing to go against this president? Last night in Texas demonstrated the president’s continued capacity to pick winners, with his endorsement proving decisive. But you also have someone like Texas senator John Cornyn, who has lost his reelection bid, and a handful of Republicans who are not up for reelection finding their voice.

Chris Murphy: I don’t want to valorize what happened at the end of last week. Republicans literally sent everyone home because they were scared to vote on an amendment that would make Trump’s $1.8 billion slush fund illegal. Their hope was likely that after a week and a half it would blow over, the news would move on, and their members would be more comfortable voting to back up the president. It is a very small handful of Republicans who ever vote against the president. For the time being, their party is just a cult of personality, and they will never substantively oppose him. Yes, there’s a deeper squabble between the Senate Republican caucus and the president today than there was before — but past is prologue. My guess is they will vote against any efforts to trim his corruption for the foreseeable future.

Mina Kim: Even the $1 billion for security and other services for the president’s ballroom?

Chris Murphy: They were intent on putting the ballroom funding in the bill, and it was more the parliamentarian who gave them trouble — questioning whether that could end up in the so-called reconciliation bill, the bill they can pass with fifty votes. No, I think this is a party that is fundamentally corrupt to its bones. You saw it in Texas last night: Donald Trump endorsed Ken Paxton, and Republican voters chose the most corrupt politician in the state as their nominee. I worry that corruption has become so normalized inside the Republican Party — including among the base — that it’s simply going to be the norm going forward.

Mina Kim: President Trump said in his cabinet meeting today that he’s willing to continue the war in Iran, quote, “I don’t care about the midterms” — apparently citing what happened in Texas. What do you think the impact of that is?

Chris Murphy: The president is being honest: he doesn’t care about people’s financial crisis. He said a few weeks ago that he never thinks about how Americans are doing financially. When he makes decisions like this on war and peace, he doesn’t care what the people want — he’s going to continue on this path. And listen, we don’t know the full story of why Trump has been so resistant to ending this war. His chief negotiators are Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff, who have enormous financial interests tied up in the Middle East, particularly with Saudi Arabia, which has been pushing the president to expand and deepen the war, not end it. I do think this is likely another corruption story, in which the president is putting the enrichment of himself and his family ahead of the financial well-being of everyone else. And that’s really the whole story of the last several years.

Mina Kim: We’re talking with Connecticut senator Chris Murphy about Iran, the Justice Department’s anti-weaponization fund, President Trump’s ballroom, and more. We’ll also talk with him about what he thinks is ailing America. His new book is Crisis of the Common Good. Stay with us.