Daniel G. Newman has been one of the more important drivers of the money-in-politics reform debate in the 15 years since he created MapLight — a sprawling database that quantifies the connections between politicians, the businesses and industries that finance their campaigns, the policies they support, and the votes they cast. He remains in charge but branched out his summer by publishing a graphic novel that seeks to explain the full range of fix-the-system challenges: "Unrig: How to Fix Our Broken Democracy" (McMillan). It's his fourth book; the others were about speech recognition, the initial focus of his career. His answers have been edited for clarity and length.
What's the tweet-length description of your organization?
We expose money's influence on politics and fight online political deception.
Describe your very first civic engagement.
For years, Brown, the college I attended, had been raising funds from each graduating class to support financial aid for low-income students. In my senior year, some student "leaders" sought to direct those funds to other purposes that didn't support equity. I recruited allies and generated lots of campus press to counter this change — and the funds continued to go to financial aid.
What was your biggest professional triumph?
When I started MapLight in 2005, the corrosive influence of money in politics was not on most people's radar as one of the most critical issues facing our country. Now that our news stories and data have been seen, heard or read by millions, we've helped make money's influence on our democracy a top political issue nationally.
And your most disappointing setback?
I spent two years organizing to pass a 2004 ballot measure for public funding of elections in my home town of Berkeley, Calif. But the measure didn't pass. I was dejected, feeling like a failure for more than a year. I tormented myself. If only I'd reached out to more people. Or made one or two fewer mistakes.
I started MapLight to expose money's influence and help other reform activists be successful. Over the next decade, the Supreme Court ushered in even more money in politics, generating more energy than ever to change our broken system — including momentum for another local effort in Berkeley. My desire for change was just as strong, but I was held back by my past feelings of despair. What if I attempted another campaign and it lost? I realized I needed to separate my success as a person from the success of the campaign. That new humility, in the face of the uncertainty of politics, allowed me to try again. And in 2016, we won!
How does your identity influence the way you go about your work?
Early in my career I taught high school math and physics. I continue to see myself as an educator. I'm good at explaining complex concepts and ideas in understandable ways — which helps in my work of explaining our democracy's problems and engaging people in the reform movement. My new book does exactly this — in 250 pages of comics!
What's the best advice you've ever been given?
Hire only people who are outstanding across all aspects. The cost and pain of hiring the wrong person is so great, leave positions unfilled until you find someone excellent. I got this advice a few years after starting MapLight, and that's what propelled the organization to take off.
Create a new flavor for Ben & Jerry's.
"Collective Action" — the more people eating it, the better it tastes.
What is your favorite TV show or movie about politics?
"The Candidate," the 1972 dark comedy starring Robert Redford as he seeks a Senate seat in California.
What's the last thing you do on your phone at night?
I'm big on boundaries between work and home, and between online and offline, so I aim for "airplane mode" a few hours before bedtime.
What is your deepest, darkest secret?
This may come as a surprise, given my profession, but I don't love reading books about democracy. Too often they are dry and pessimistic. I wanted to write a book that I would be excited to read myself. "Unrig" is that book.
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a“ Steel Across America” event ahead of the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11th attacks on the Ellipse near the White House on Sept. 8, 2026 in Washington, D.C. President Trump welcomed 9/ 11 first responders to the Tunnel to Towers Foundation’ s“ Steel Across America” event featuring a 16,900- pound, 21- foot steel beam recovered.
For Trump, even 9/11 is an opportunity
There was a reason organizers of the 9/11 ceremony in Manhattan told President Trump he could not speak at this year’s memorial service.
A good one, it turns out.
Because in a speech he gave on Tuesday in Washington, he did exactly what they were presumably worried about — he made it about himself.
According to The New York Times, Trump had wanted a speaking role at the service, but the National Sept. 11 Memorial and Museum, which oversees the site, said no, as they’ve maintained for the past decade-plus that the venue and event should be nonpartisan.
Trump has long used awful tragedies to either puff himself up, trash political opponents, or sell lies to the American people.
He blamed a deadly plane crash at Washington National Airport last year on diversity, equity and inclusion policies. He blamed Puerto Ricans for the devastation they endured after Hurricane Maria in 2017. He reportedly considered withholding disaster relief after the California wildfires based on the way affected regions voted. In an interview on Fox News meant to commemorate the 75th anniversary of D-Day in Normandy, he used the occasion to slam former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi…with graves of the dead behind him.
And now, as we approach the 25th anniversary of what many New Yorkers consider the darkest day in modern history, Trump has done it again.
He told a rambling, nonsensical story — one he’s told before — about going to Ground Zero just after terrorists flew two commercial jets into the twin towers. In the story, which no one has been able to verify, despite multiple attempts, he says firefighters had to carry him out of One Liberty Plaza, also known as the U.S. Steel Building, because they thought it was about to collapse.
As CNN fact checker Daniel Dale notes, there’s no evidence Trump went into this building, especially at a time when NYPD and NYFD had locked down the area. There’s no evidence that building was collapsing — in fact, it was deemed structurally sound and reopened within two months of the attacks. There’s no evidence he was carried out of it by firefighters.
But the lie isn’t even the worst part. Pretend it was all true — why would the leader of our country, and a New Yorker, decide to make that tragic day about himself?
Because that’s who Donald Trump is. He’s a malignant narcissist.
He’s also, incidentally, a terrible and ineffectual president, who’s made ill-fated decisions that he has to keep defending, and there’s nothing he won’t do to make himself look and feel better.
Within the first two minutes of his speech, he was cravenly using 9/11 to justify and promote his dumb war in Iran — two events separated by 25 years and 6,000 miles.
“And I will tell you, we’re right now fighting because we have a certain nation that wanted a nuclear weapon, they were very close to getting it, and now they have no chance at getting it. They will never have a nuclear weapon. Iran will not have a nuclear weapon. And they’ve been punished greatly. As you know, we’ve really taken it to them.”
As a New Yorker who lived through 9/11, still one of the worst days of my life, I’m utterly sickened by Trump’s crass, political, and self-promotional framing of that awful day.
And I’m relieved he won’t be given a platform to do it again on Friday’s anniversary in lower Manhattan.
Because for Trump, everything is his for the taking, and absolutely nothing is sacred.
S.E. Cupp is the host of "S.E. Cupp Unfiltered" on CNN.