Sophia Bush opens up on midterms, her new book — and why she won’t say Trump’s name

Don’t count Sophia Bush among the performers who plan on stepping back from making their voices heard in the political world.

“What would I do? Silence myself? Take away one of my most important rights to be more palatable or more hirable to people I don’t know? That’s not something that I’m interested in,” Bush said in a recent interview with ITK , when asked if it was a tough choice to decide whether to get involved in politics back in 2008 when she campaigned for then-Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.).

“If anything, I think that my ability to have had these experiences, to be out on the campaign trail, to see myself in all of my neighbors — whether they’re in small town Texas or northern Vermont or the center of Los Angeles — is something that makes me a better advocate, but it also makes me a better actor,” the 44-year-old “Work in Progress” podcast host said.

“I connect with people in a very real way and feel like I can tell their stories no matter where they’re from. And the only way I can do that is actually by showing up somewhere to advocate and then listening to them, listening to their stories, listening to their experiences, understanding what their pain points are, what they need from this country that they’re not getting and that they clearly deserve,” she said.

The former “One Tree Hill” and “Chicago P.D.” star opened up about life in both the entertainment and political spotlight in a wide-ranging conversation about her new book, “And I Will Tell You Mine.”

“You have stories you’re finally ready to tell, and I think for me, after years of advocating for other people and for community, it felt really special to turn that patient attention inward and actually decide to share some things about my own personal individual life,” Bush said of her first foray into literature.

The book details her upbringing in Los Angeles and how she begrudgingly fell in love with acting while a student at the University of Southern California, switching from its journalism school to its theater program. Much like acting, she writes in the book, activism “truly felt like a calling.”

One chapter in “And I Will Tell You Mine: Notes from a Life in Progress,” titled “The Last Dance Party,” describes Bush’s mad dash to get to a final, star-studded bash during President Obama’s second term in the White House in 2017.

Bush said she had missed an email about a “sort of last hurrah” at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., before receiving a call from one of her friends in the Obama administration about the farewell fete that night.

“I wound up rerouting my flight and getting to D.C. and landing in sweatpants and having to figure out how to scramble a White House appropriate outfit,” Bush recalled. The entertainer made a frantic stop at a Saks Off 5th outlet store: “They’d have something, and it would be on sale. Win-win,” she wrote.

While the chapter focuses on what Bush called “one of the most beautiful, memorable evenings,” it also strikes a critical tone about President Trump.

“Despite running the most qualified person for president to date, misogyny had prevailed at the end of 2016,” Bush said of Trump’s win in the White House race against Hillary Clinton. Without mentioning the president by name, Bush said Trump had “won on bluster and wildly crass tendencies.”

“I think someone who chooses to exemplify and bolster the very worst of human tendency doesn’t really deserve to have their name spoken,” Bush said.

“It’s the same reason that I think it’s incredibly important to speak the names of school children that are lost in school shootings, and not the name of the school shooter. When you are wreaking terror on a community, I don’t think you deserve to be a star,” she said.

Saying Trump “has made things so much worse for women in the last 10 years,” Bush told ITK, “I know we’re fed up, and I know plenty of men are fed up, too. And it’s about time that we take the nation back and choose to elect leaders that might not own people in a tweet but get the job done.”

“It’s absolutely abhorrent what’s happening in our country, in our economy, and in our culture right now because of that man’s leadership, so no, I’m not particularly interested in saying his name. But I’ll be one of the voices that continues to call out his bad actions until he’s out of office proudly, because I love my country.”

Asked about the 2028 White House race, Bush said she’s laser focused on the midterm elections, expressing optimism about Democratic candidates’ chances across the country.

“I think the midterms are really an opportunity for us to leave it all on the field and hopefully claw back some of the democracy that our great republic is meant to operate with and signify in the world.”

“I think if we’re just going on the numbers, on American sentiment and on the reality that’s hit so many people, we should see greater than a blue wave — we should see a blue landslide,” Bush said.

While some performers have questioned whether they want to continue speaking out about politics — following former Vice President Kamala Harris’s 2024 presidential election loss, “The Hunger Games” actor Jennifer Lawrence wondered aloud in an interview with The New York Times whether she was adding “fuel to a fire that’s ripping the country apart” by sharing her opinion — Bush indicated that she has no intention of silencing herself.

“I think it’s wild to tell any citizen that they should just stick to their job rather than love their country,” she said.

“Every single person who lives in this country has as much a right to stand up for it as anyone else,” Bush said, adding that she didn’t want to compare herself to or judge other people in the industry for their personal choices and her peers’ “very valid feelings around those things.”

“For me, I don’t think celebrity activism matters. I don’t even like the word celebrity,” Bush continued.

“But what I do think is that when someone you know cares enough about something to have a conversation with you, it can move the needle. And I care about this stuff.”

“I don’t show up to advocate because it might be good for my job,” Bush said.

“If anything, being a quiet mystery who nobody can identify with an opinion might be better for my job as an actor — but it’s just not the way I choose to live life.”