The NPR Politics Podcast - "Awake Not Woke": How Republicans Are Defining Their Party in 2022

Episode Date: February 28, 2022

At last week's Conservative Political Action Conference, influential Republicans focused on the notion that important American cultural values are under attack. And prominent 2024 presidential hopefuls, who could face former president Donald Trump in a primary race, attempted to distinguish themselves from Trump in a way that would not alienate his supporters.This episode: White House correspondent Scott Detrow, demographics and culture correspondent Danielle Kurtzleben, and senior political editor and correspondent Domenico Montanaro.Connect:Email the show at [e-mail] the NPR Politics Podcast Facebook Group.Subscribe to the NPR Politics Newsletter.Find and support your local public radio station.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

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Okay, so Domenico, I was off last week, but you were on the Friday podcast. I guess we said otherwise, and now we have been corrected by some smart listeners. So thank you for that. You know, it's always the can't let it goes that get us in trouble because that's where we're doing the least amount of reporting and we're just thinking about stuff we can't let go of. Fact check true. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Scott Detrow. I cover the White House.

I'm Danielle Kurtzleben. I cover demographics and culture. And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. So over the weekend, CPAC, the annual Conservative Political Action Conference, did its thing in Orlando. It was a four-day extravaganza of Republican presidential hopefuls, past and present and future. And Danielle, you kept close tabs on it. And before we get into it, let's just explain something. This conference is really worth taking a close look at, mostly because it tells us a lot about the state of the Republican Party at the beginning of a year where it might retake power in Washington. So, Danielle, you watched all the speeches. You saw all the CPAC stuff.

What were the big themes that stood out to you? Well, the theme of the conference was organized around the perception that wokeness is defining the Democratic Party. So there was a lot of talk about being canceled, the threat of being canceled. A lot of speakers got up and said, you know, they tried to cancel me and they will try to cancel you. So persecution was a huge part of it. You know, whether it's President Trump being kicked off of Twitter, whether it's any other politician having had a tweet or a Facebook post or whatever flagged as misinformation, there was a lot of talk about that. Also, probably not

surprising, schools came up a lot, whether it's how schools teach about race, American history, or about schools being closed, school COVID policies. Those came up a lot. There was, in fact, a panel on running for office, and there was a lot of talk about, hey, here's how you can run for the school board. And a lot of this was tied to wokeness once again. One panel about running for office was called, I think I'm going to get this right, are you ready to be called a racist? So again, a lot of it was about how you should expect to be persecuted and you should be ready for it and ready to fight back. It sounds like the new political correct, right? Like politically correct, like PC culture was sort of the thing in 2015 that Trump ran against in many respects. And it's sort of

the same, you know, like, you know, arm of the of the same body politic, you know? Oh, absolutely. I mean, this is the sort of the same body politic, you know? Oh, absolutely. I mean, this is sort of the next name for it. Domenico, I want to ask you something because I have fond memories of hanging out at CPACs in past years with you back when I was in Maryland. And, you know, one of the things we've talked about is that for a long time, this was kind of this, like, fringe circus act-y part

that didn't really have much like direct ties to what was actually happening in Washington. And that has changed so much. Is it fair to say now that like the heart and soul of the Republican Party is represented at events like CPAC? You know, it's hard to tell. I mean, CPAC has gone through a lot of different iterations through the years. So this is the latest iteration. I think that it is proof that the culture wars have taken over in the Republican Party and that Donald Trump is clearly the head of the Republican Party. You know, he won the straw poll yet again, which is the, you know, a poll, not unscientific poll of the attendees who are in the audience about who they want to run for president in 2024.

And we've seen this through the years. It's not necessarily, you know, predictive of anything except for the people who are in that room and where the energy is. But he did win that. And he, look, he made his speech and he gave his strongest indication yet that he is at least seriously thinking about running in 2024. He always hints at this kind of thing, but this was the strongest hint yet. But they're going to find out the hard way starting on November 8th. And then again, even more so on November 2024, they will find out like never before. And Danielle, that leads me to the last big question I had for you. The party's in this weird moment when you think ahead to the next presidential race.

You know, a lot of Republicans expect Trump's going to run again. A lot of other Republicans are thinking about running for president, and you saw a long parade of them give speeches over the weekend. How much of what you saw was Republicans trying to line up in that Trump vein in case he doesn't run? And how much of what you saw was people trying to put a little bit of strategic distance between themselves and Trump if they find themselves running against him in a primary? You know, it seems to be that there was a sort of careful line walked by a fair number of people who spoke at the conference, at least people whose names have been mentioned in the realm of potential 2024 candidates. You did have people like South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem, who did explicitly praise President Trump. But then you had Ron

DeSantis, who going into CPAC had a, what one Republican described to me as a sort of cold war with Trump. He and Trump had been taking not-so-veiled swings at each other, and Ron DeSantis had refused to say he wouldn't run in 2024. And he's considered the frontrunner besides Trump for 2024. He did not mention Trump in his speech. Similarly, Josh Hawley really didn't say much about Trump. Now, I will say I'm talking about their speeches themselves. Outside of the speeches, Josh Hawley, for example, was asked about how fellow Republicans, including Trump, had recently been praising Vladimir Putin. And Hawley responded, that's a mistake. Putin is our enemy. So, I mean, there were opportunities for people to create that daylight and occasionally some did take it. But really, it is still true. I talked to former Florida Representative Carlos Curbelo, a more moderate Republican, ahead of CPAC, and he told me, you know, look, CPAC is still the Trump show.

And he also said, I will not be watching it because he at one point was honored by CPAC. But this is just a sign of what Domenico was saying is how far it has gone is that, nope, it is the Trump show now. Trump got the prime speaking slot. He's still the center of attention. And for now, his politics really do dictate everything. All right, we're going to take a quick break. And when we come back at this moment, when there is an intense war playing out in Ukraine, we're going to talk about the the strange, interesting split right now in the Republican Party about how America should think about Russia and Ukraine. All right, we're back.

And as we are taping, there are Russian bombings of Ukrainian cities and a whole new level of sanctions has gone into place, really economically isolating Russia in a way that hasn't been seen before. We will talk about that in future podcasts, I'm sure. But right now, let's talk about this really interesting moment in the Republican Party. For so long, the Republican Party has traditionally been pretty hawkish towards Russia, pro-NATO, pro-the European alliance, pro- rewind a little bit. Obviously, Donald Trump was very warm towards Vladimir Putin, was almost admiring in so many different ways, you know, that Helsinki summit being the prime example of that. In the past week, remind us what Trump has said about Putin as Putin has unleashed this unprovoked war against Russia's neighbor. Well, it's been really stunning here because the former president, American president, has been, you know, essentially praising Putin as smart and savvy,

he said on a conservative radio show, while then saying at his CPAC speech that the leaders in the United States and NATO are dumb. The problem is not that Putin is smart, which of course he's smart, but the real problem is that our leaders are dumb. You've even seen conservatives, Republicans in Congress mostly dial back their rhetoric from previously having been hotly critical of President Biden. And that's going to happen again, of course. But in the middle of all of this that's going on, you have a president who seems to frankly be rooting for Putin to do well, because it would help him politically. I mean, Danielle, we've heard different strains coming from conservative politicians.

On one end, who cares about Ukraine? Why should America care about Ukraine? To Joe Biden is weak and not doing nearly enough and everything in between and a mix of both. What were you hearing over the weekend about Ukraine and about what America should be doing at this moment? Well, at least on the conference stages, away from reporters who, of course, asked a lot of Ukraine questions. On the stages, politicians didn't really talk about Ukraine that much. In general, there was a sort of coherent message about Ukraine, which was, we stand with the people of Ukraine, we pray for them, we are rooting for them, that sort of thing. That came from when people did bring it up, it was generally that. Another point to make about the fact that Ukraine and Russia didn't

come up a lot at CPAC, this is a conference where they're throwing out red meat for people, which means that talking about trans athletes, which means that talking about COVID rules in schools, that's just going to get you a bigger applause line than talking about foreign policy. I think that's incredibly fair to say. And so when Ukraine came up, it was often to pivot to something else. For example, let's talk about Ukraine and then America's energy independence. Let's talk about Ukraine and then how Biden is weak. Let's talk about Ukraine and their borders, and then let's pivot to our border with Mexico. So that was often how it came up. You know, for as unprecedented as Trump is and the way he speaks about foreign policy, there's something a bit of a reactionary quality to the way he talks about this from the early mid 20th century America first policies, which he didn't invent that phrase that existed pre-World War II, while World War II was about to happen. You had lots of Americans saying that the

United States should not get in. The United States was essentially forced in by Pearl Harbor. So, you know, what he's doing is this reactionary policy. And what it's done has essentially sawed off what had been one of the strongest legs of the Republican three-legged stool, which was a hawkish national security dating back to Reagan. So you have this populism versus hawkishness that is really coming into conflict. And I think as Danielle's laying out, talking about what's happening at this conference, there are two things that really unite the Republican Party now, and that's tax cuts and the culture wars. Right. And I would just add one thing, which is I was talking to a conservative-leaning foreign policy analyst around CPAC last week, and I asked her about Trump being an outlier in the Republican Party or not. And she said, you know, look,

in the Republican Party, as in the Democratic Party, it is possible to have both isolationists and people who want to be more active on the global stage. But she said that she would put Trump in his own little wing of not being driven by ideology, but driven by self-interest. And he will latch on to the line of logic that will help him most on any given day. All right. That is it for today. Just a heads up, we will be back in your feeds later than usual tomorrow. That's because it's President Biden's first State of the Union. So we'll all be covering it and putting a podcast together late at night to tell you everything you need to know about it. I'm Scott Detrow. I cover the White House.

I'm Danielle Kurtzleben. I cover demographics and culture. And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. Thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.