Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) is openly considering a White House bid in 2028, and he has a blunt message for his party: Democrats are failing to tell voters what they stand for, and the party’s fixation on opposing President Trump is not enough.
“I do think the Democratic Party needs to do more than tell people what we’re against,” Van Hollen said in an interview at the Hill Nation Summit. “In my view we need to be fighting what I perceive as a completely lawless Trump administration but we also need to be telling people what we’ll do to shake up the status quo.”
Van Hollen, who has chaired both the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said the party’s message has been too defensive. He argued that the traditional left-right political spectrum is outdated and that the real divide is between a rigged system and working families.
“I don’t think the Democratic Party has done a good job of letting people know what we stand for,” he said. “I think the conventional views of Left versus Right have become outdated. I really believe in this moment if you look at our economy that it is rigged in favor of very powerful special interests.”
The Maryland senator said he has been invited to speak in Iowa and New Hampshire, two early presidential primary states, and is “very much in listening mode.” But he cautioned that excitement from party activists is not a reason to run. “The reason to run is that you want to change things for the better. That you love our country, which I do,” he said. “I am, as I said, kicking the tires because I do think this is a critical moment for our country.”
Learning from Trump’s Victories
Van Hollen said Democrats need to understand why Trump won in 2016 and 2024. “The reason Donald Trump got elected was people were fed up with the status quo,” he said. “He has broken the status quo, in my view, in all the worst ways. But we need to take that sentiment, which I share, and break up the status quo so working Americans have a fair shake in this country and they just don’t have it right now.”
He contrasted his approach with those in the party who want to return to the pre-Trump era. “There are some Democrats that think we should just go back to the pre-Trump status quo,” he said. “My view is that Trump’s election was a symptom of a deeper set of concerns within the American electorate and that Democrats better show people that they’re willing to shake things up.”
Van Hollen has backed progressive insurgents in key Senate primaries, including Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan and Lieutenant Gov. Peggy Flanagan in Minnesota. He argued that these candidates are more aligned with the shake-up message the party needs. The party’s internal divisions have drawn attention, with some Republicans claiming Democrats are in a death spiral as progressive candidates win primaries.
Fighting on Defense and Crypto
Van Hollen also took a leading role this week in urging Democrats to block the annual defense authorization bill, delivering a fiery floor speech Monday against provisions that would mandate a new U.S.-Israel technology initiative and require intelligence sharing with Israel. He called for a vote on an amendment to debate those two controversial provisions.
On cryptocurrency, Van Hollen voiced strong opposition to the Clarity Act, a regulatory framework that Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) may bring to the floor in July. “I hope it does not move forward in its current form. It has a number of big flaws from my perspective,” he said.
A member of the Senate Banking Committee, Van Hollen pointed to the lack of a conflict-of-interest ethics provision, noting that Trump disclosed roughly $1.4 billion in income from his family’s crypto ventures in 2025 and that nearly 1 million investors lost $3.81 billion on Trump’s meme coin. “We need a conflict-of-interest provision applying to the president and the members of Congress who are regulating the crypto market,” he said. He also argued the bill fails to close loopholes that could enable illicit finance by criminal networks, terrorist organizations, and rogue states. His concerns echo those raised by actor Ben McKenzie, who recently pressed Senate Democrats to reject the bill over ethics loopholes.
“What we don’t want to do is create a whole other market structure that would allow for regulatory arbitrage,” Van Hollen said. “We don’t want to create a set of standards that doesn’t already exist within the financial regulatory community that essentially incentives people to park their money in crypto at consumers’ expense.”
