The NPR Politics Podcast - Apparent 'Pipe Bombs' Mailed To Clinton, Obama And CNN

Episode Date: October 24, 2018

At least six suspicious packages containing what the FBI called potentially destructive devices have been sent since Monday to several leading Democratic Party figures and to CNN in New York, triggering a massive investigation. How will the president respond, and will the moment influence his rhetoric? This episode: White House correspondent Scott Detrow, White House reporter Ayesha Rascoe, and justice correspondent Ryan Lucas. Email the show at [e-mail]. Find and support your local public radio station at npr.org/stations.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hi, this is Anna calling from Masawa Air Base in Japan, where I just cast my absentee ballot for Hawaii State Senate. This podcast was recorded at 4.53 Eastern on Wednesday, October 24th. Things may have changed by the time you hear this. Here's the show. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. Yesterday and today, Secret Service agents intercepted apparent pipe bomb sent to both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. And this morning, CNN's headquarters in New York were evacuated when another device was found there. The president has regularly gone after the news network and those Democrats on the campaign trail, but today he called for unity. I just want to tell you that in these times we have to unify. We have to

come together and send one very clear, strong, unmistakable message that acts or threats of political violence of any kind have no place in the United States of America. We'll talk about what we know. I'm Scott Detrow. I cover Congress. I'm Ayesha Roscoe. I cover the White House. And I'm Ryan Lucas. I cover the Justice Department. And that timestamp is pretty important because this is a story where the details have changed a lot, will continue to change a lot.

So we are talking right now about what we've been able to confirm just before five o'clock. And Ryan, you are the person to do that. Take us through what our understanding of this is as of right now. So as of right now, and as you said, a lot can change very quickly in this. There have been a lot of moving parts over the course of the day. But the FBI says that five packages were sent in total, suspicious packages that contained potential explosive devices, to George Soros, the billionaire investor and big Democratic supporter, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, former President Barack Obama.

The suspicious package that was sent to CNN was addressed to Obama's former CIA Director John Brennan, who has been a very harsh critic of President Trump, and then former Attorney General Eric Holder. Those are the five suspicious packages that the FBI says were mailed in manila envelopes with bubble wrap on the inside, six forever stamps on them as well, and a return address to Democratic Congresswoman of Florida, Debbie Wasserman Schultz. And all of those characteristics were found in all of those packages you just mentioned. That's right. So, Aisha, how are the various people these packages, these explosives were mailed to, how are they responding? Well, we haven't heard a lot of response yet, but Hillary Clinton did respond. Here's what she had to say. It is a troubling time, isn't it? It's a time of deep divisions, and we have to do everything we can to bring our country together.

And Debbie Wasserman Schultz. If you haven't heard that name in a while, she's a Florida congresswoman who was the head of the DNC at the time when the DNC was hacked. Emails were released showing that she had favored Hillary Clinton in a lot of DNC decisions at the height of the 2016 primaries. Very controversial figure a couple of years ago. Yes. So she has put out a statement and basically she says we will not be intimidated by this attempted act of violence. And she calls it an appalling attack on our democracy. And earlier in the day, there had been some reports of other packages. There was there was one that was found near a building in San Diego hosting the San Diego Union Tribune and offices of California Senator Kamala Harris.

That turned out to be a false alarm, just a package that that somebody spotted when they were already looking for something in this heightened moment. But there's also been a suspicious package that Capitol Security flagged that was sent to Maxine Waters, the California Democrat who President Trump regularly criticizes. Should we not put that in the same category as these other packages? Well, right now, the FBI is not putting that in the same category as the other packages. Maxine Waters, her office has said in a statement that the Capitol Police intercepted a package, a suspicious package that was sent to her. But yes, as of right now, as we are speaking, the FBI has not included that in its list of suspicious packages being treated as kind of one matter. So this is obviously a high profile investigation where things are moving pretty quickly in the federal level. What do we know about what they're going to be looking at and how quickly this could take? Well, as far as timeline on this, obviously, they want to move

as quickly as they can. But, you know, we can't say that it will take a week, it'll take a month, we just don't know. It depends on how long it takes them to find clues and actually track down somebody that they want. In the case of the anthrax packages that were sent after 9-11, that investigation took a very long time. Now, in this instance, what we know at this point in time is that it's very much the early stages. The package that was sent to Soros was on Monday. This is Wednesday when we have the other packages showing up. The devices are being sent to the FBI lab in Quantico for analysis. In the case of the apparent pipe bomb that was sent to CNN, there was also a suspicious white powder in that package. That will be analyzed as well. Once they have all those

things in one place and can take a look at them, then I think we'll start to see more of the investigation. Were these packages, they were all sent through the mail? Is that how they were found? It's not entirely clear at this point. They were all packages that had postage on them. The image that was sent along by the FBI, it's not clear whether they were stamped, whether there's an actual postmark on those stamps. So some of the details on this, again, this is stuff that's really just coming out very early. The full kind of breadth of details that we would like to have, we just don't have at this point. So we're going to talk about political rhetoric and what this means politically in a little bit. But there's an obvious through line to the people and organizations that these

packages have been sent to. CNN, President Obama, Hillary Clinton, John Brennan, all people are George Soros. All people are organizations that President Trump regularly criticizes at campaign rallies on Twitter. That being said, do we have any idea at all what a motive could be at this point from this person? We do not have any idea of a motive at this point. There's no suspect that's been identified, at least as far as law enforcement officials are saying at this point. Without that, yes, you can look at the people who were sent these items and say the common factor here is that they are either perceived as being on the left or they are indeed

on the left. But no, we do not know at this point in time what the motivation was, whether it was political, whether it was not political. We can't say. And I'll say one more time because it's worth flagging at the moment. We have no idea what the motive is. Right. Ayesha, we heard a little bit at the top from President Trump. How has the White House responded to this today? They have condemned these attacks. President Trump, in language that he sometimes does after these type of kind of serious events happens, he says that the country should come together. These type of attacks are unacceptable and that basically the federal government will spare no expense in finding out who is behind these attacks and bringing them to justice. The FBI director, Christopher Wray, has said that the investigation is the top priority for the FBI

at this point in time and that they have dedicated the full strength and kind of the resources that they have to bring to bear on this. All right, we're going to take a quick break. And when we come back, we will put this in the context of the current political climate. Be right back. Dr. Larry Nassar abused his patients for decades. I do remember telling the nurse, what if everyone thinks I'm lying? Believed, a new podcast from Michigan Radio and NPR, looks at how a team of women put one of the worst serial sexual abusers behind bars. And we're back. So as we mentioned, today, right off the bat, President Trump pretty measured condemning these attempted bombings.

It's a very bipartisan statement. I can tell you from both sides, we both agree on that. This egregious conduct is abhorrent to everything we hold dear and sacred as Americans. My administration will provide additional updates as they become available. And I just want to thank everybody for their understanding. We're extremely angry, upset, unhappy about what we witnessed this morning, and we will get to the bottom of it. But here's the thing. And again, we don't know who sent these, and we don't know what the motive is. But all of the people and organizations who got these packages are things that President Trump regularly rails against in very personal, very visceral terms. I mean, you go to his campaign rallies.

He sometimes calls the media the enemy of the people. CNN sucks is a regular chant from Trump supporters. He goes after John Brennan, Eric Holder, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama all the time. And again, in much more personal terms than politicians typically do. So first, it's worth pointing out that even in the lack of a motive, there's a lot of people out there saying President Trump bears a lot of responsibility for the very heightened, tense political times right now. I think one thing that stood out to me is that he didn't name Hillary Clinton. He didn't name President Obama. He talks about them a lot. But in this instance, for whatever reason, he didn't actually name them and basically making the argument that they are going to allow people to be hurt and almost like that they're dangerous, they're unhinged.

He has said they're unhinged. So this is the type of language that he's using on a regular basis. And so when he talks about bringing the country together, I think that that's what makes people raise questions about it. And as we talk right now, he is traveling to Wisconsin for yet another campaign rally. He has decided in the closing weeks of this campaign that the way the Republicans are going to win is for him to animate his face in very us versus them language, railing on, as you mentioned, Democrats in crime and immigration. So how does he do that in this

environment? And what does he say if he doesn't do that? He has dealt with kind of, well, violence against political figures. There was the shooting of House Majority Whip Steve Scalise, who was shot and a bunch of Republicans were injured. By someone we should point out in this context who appeared to be targeting Republicans. There were reports he asked, are those Republicans playing on that baseball field? Yes. And so after that, President Trump did come out and kind of use similar language. We have to come together as a country and things like that. But he quickly went back to his normal rhetoric. And wasn't he also just the other week kind of praising the body slamming of a journalist at a campaign rally, right?

Yes. And he so and he prays. And that lawmaker pleaded guilty to body slamming a reporter who just asked him a question. President Trump has shown over and over again that while he'll do this kind of unifying language directly after the event, he kind of goes back to his normal divisive rhetoric. That's what he falls back on. That's what seems to come naturally. There's the political side of the rhetoric. And then there's kind of what I see from the DOJ side and the law enforcement side. And that is there have been a number of cases in the past year. You mentioned the congressional shooting, but there have been a number in the past year and really in the past couple of weeks in which it appears as though the political tension that we see in the country is perhaps driving people to action. There's a case

of a New York man who was charged for threatening two Republican senators over their support for Brett Kavanaugh and his nomination to the Supreme Court. In April, there was another California man who pleaded guilty to threatening to kill Maxine Waters, who we've mentioned today. And then in terms of the press, there was a man who pleaded guilty, a man who's been indicted for threatening the Boston Globe. And at one point in one of, I believe they were threatening phone calls that he made, essentially called journalists the enemy of the people, which is certainly rhetoric that we've heard from someone else. And in a trend that President Trump and other Republicans have been quick to talk about,

there have been several instances of Republican lawmakers in Washington, D.C., in public places, being confronted by protesters, getting in their face, yelling at them. Protesting is not the same as threatening violence, but it certainly creates a targeting atmosphere. So it's just a very heightened atmosphere altogether. And and this is just one more thing on top of that. Yeah, I think we don't know the motivation. We don't know. But it is happening at a point where people are on edge, where people are very upset and where people are lashing out at each other. And there is a concern that there will be violence. And these were attempted violent attacks. And you said it, and it's worth repeating again, we do not know at this point what the motive was

for these packages to be sent. But it is certainly being viewed by a lot of people through a political lens. And given that we've established at this point that the facts are few, and we have said the facts that we know, maybe this is a good point to end this podcast for today. We will definitely have an update as soon as we know more about this. We'll be back in your feed tomorrow with our regular weekly roundup. And in between now and then, you can get all the news you want at NPR.org and on NPR One. I'm Scott Detrow. I cover Congress. I'm Ayesha Roscoe. I cover the White House. I'm Ryan Lucas. I cover the Justice Department. Thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.