On Friday Rep. Sean Casten (D-IL) joined WCPT's William Muck to discuss the far-reaching impact of Trump administration actions during the first seven weeks of President Donald Trump's second term in the White House.

"We're neck deep in a constitutional crisis," Casten told WCPT. "If we were to end the Trump administration tomorrow, it would probably take a decade to repair the damage," he said, citing potential leaks of intelligence to adversaries like Russia and China and the erosion of faith in the United States that our historic allies have already experienced.

Casten, who defeated incumbent Republican Peter Roskam in the 2018 midterms during the first Trump administration, said that he has spoken to House GOP colleagues who have privately revealed their opposition to certain Trump administration actions but told him they prefer to keep their heads down and not put their families at risk by voting against the president. "As a fellow member of Congress," Casten said, "I'm very sympathetic to that. At the same time, there is a sense of, if leadership is hard, maybe you're in the wrong line of work."

He added: "I think we have to elevate this conversation above partisanship as much as we can. We are in a moment where I think anybody in public office needs to be, for lack of a better word, Churchillian. We need to be making it very clear to the American people, this is the stakes of what's going on right now; this is the consequences of what happens if we don't fix it quickly. I make no promise that if we fight we will succeed. I need to be very clear-eyed about what the consequences and the potential costs of that fight are. But I can guarantee you that if we don't fight, we will lose this 250-year-old experiment."

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