A Democrat’s Guide to Challenging Trump on Iran, ICE, and Dollars (w/ Rep Ansari)

Assembly Required with Stacey Abrams

Society & Culture

4.6 • 1.8K Ratings

🗓️ 28 April 2026

⏱️ 64 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

What can international pro-democracy activists teach us about taking on authoritarianism here in the US? Stacey opens the show with reflections from the Salzburg Global Forum Democracy Resilience Conference featuring reformers from Bolivia, to Hungary, to Nepal. Then she’s joined by Representative Yassamin Ansari, a freshman from Arizona and the only Iranian-American in Congress. She tells Stacey about her opposition to Trump’s war with Iran, the horrific conditions she’s seen firsthand when visiting ICE detention centers, and how we demand a practical response to the competing harms coming out of Washington.

For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email transcripts@crooked.com and include the name of the podcast, episode title, and episode date.

Learn & Do More:

Be Curious: Check out the Substack “The Anti-Authoritarian Playbook” by Scot Nakagawa, President of the 22nd Century Initiative.
Solve Problems: Step Six in the “Ten Steps to Freedom and Power” is disruption. Visit Stacey’s Substack “Assembly Notes” to read her recent post about taking action.

Do Good: Visit the nonprofit FreedomforImmigrants.org to donate to their commissary fund – proceeds are directly deposited into commissary accounts at detention centers across the country.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Assembly Required with Stacey Abrams from Cricket Media.
0:11.2	I'm your host, Stacey Abrams.
0:13.7	Today, we will be joined by a member of Congress, Arizona Representative Yassanen Ansard. In the battle to restore our democracy,
0:24.3	calling on our elected leaders is a vital and necessary step, which we refer to a step
0:30.4	eight, and it's one that we'll discuss in our conversation. But as we saw in Hungary a week ago,
0:40.8	the elected officials are only one part of the strategy for saving our futures.
0:42.9	At the end of the day, it's the work of the people that matters most.
0:47.9	Since the beginning of assembly required, we've talked about how to build the nation we
0:52.9	deserve.
0:53.5	That's why I started.
0:55.1	And since the backsliding began in earnest on January 20, 2025,
1:00.1	most of us have been trying our best to defend ourselves.
1:04.3	How?
1:05.2	By staying informed, by talking with people we trust,
1:08.3	by organizing our neighbors,
1:10.8	because every action matters in the fight against authoritarianism.
1:14.6	The quiet truth is that some circumstances require more of us.
1:20.6	More courage, more direct action, more imagination.
1:24.6	When the regime is counting on our silence, we must deny it compliance. When they
1:32.0	demand that we mind our own business, that's when we must refuse to look away. And when it counts,
1:39.1	we must disrupt. You see, disruption is about refusing to let power go unchecked. Authoritarian regimes
1:48.2	around the world rely on disinformation, fear, or quiet acceptance. That's what they need in order
	...

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