The NPR Politics Podcast - Congress Is Back And As Messy As Ever

Episode Date: April 8, 2024

Congress is headed back to Washington. With funding deadlines in the review mirror, they are turning their attention to foreign military aid. But Republicans and Democrats are voicing concerns about Ukraine and Israel, respectively, and there's a looming threat against Speaker Johnson. Oh, and there's some impeachments to talk about.This episode: voting correspondent Ashley Lopez, congressional correspondent Claudia Grisales, and congressional correspondent Deirdre Walsh.Our producers are Jeongyoon Han, Casey Morell & Kelli Wessinger. Our editor is Eric McDaniel. Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi. Listen to every episode of the NPR Politics Podcast sponsor-free, unlock access to bonus episodes with more from the NPR Politics team, and support public media when you sign up for The NPR Politics Podcast+ at plus.npr.org/politics.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Support for this podcast and the following message come from Autograph Collection Hotels, with over 300 independent hotels around the world, each exactly like nothing else. Autograph Collection is part of the Marriott Bonvoy portfolio of hotel brands. Find the unforgettable at AutographCollection.com. Hi, this is Mary Beth from Oakland, California. I've got my safety glasses on for the solar eclipse viewing, which also happens to be on my husband's birthday. Happy birthday, Peter.

This podcast was recorded at 12.33 p.m. Eastern Time on Monday, April 8, 2024. Things may have changed by the time you hear it. And now for the show. Peter will always remember this birthday. I know. I have my glasses too, because I am one of the lucky few in the path of totality. Cool. Although I have to wait for the clouds to clear. Let's all keep our fingers crossed. Yes. I'm sorry to say I'm not going to participate. I'm an eclipse hater, but I may join in 20 years. So enjoy. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Ashley Lopez. I cover voting. I'm Claudia Grisales. I cover Congress.

And I'm Deirdre Walsh. I also cover Congress. Just a big guess on what we're going to be covering today. Congress. The last time we checked in was about two weeks ago. And during that break, Congress has been on recess. But there's still been some big developments, more headwinds on aid to Israel and Ukraine, the impeachment processes of both President Biden and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, and this sword of Damocles that seems to always be looming over Speaker Mike Johnson. Claudia, let's start with the aid, though. For a long time, it looked like Ukraine aid would be the bigger challenge,

right? And let's just remind folks that aid to Ukraine and Israel were all part of this one big proposal which failed to pass. But now there's new objections over sending aid to Israel. First of all, what's going on and what has changed since we last talked about all this? Right. A lot has changed. Before the Senate left, Congress had finally resolved its budget spending plans for the current fiscal year. A lot of things were put on hold from February, including this foreign aid. The Senate had passed a $95 billion package. There was a lot of energy behind it in terms of providing this military assistance to Ukraine and Israel. And as you mentioned, the dynamics for Ukraine have shifted in comparison with Israel. What we're looking at with Israel now is more Democrats

raising concerns about aid to the country in the midst of this very violent war with Hamas, with many saying that Gaza is getting caught in this fight. And recently we saw protests this past weekend in Israel, as well as the death of seven workers with the World Central Kitchen, the DC-based program led by Chef Jose Andres. And so Democrats are going to be looking at more concerns here, such as whether this aid should be conditions based. I think the other big development that happened in the last week was a real shift among some very close allies of President Biden, including Delaware Senator Chris Coons, who's sort of his sort of unofficial foreign policy lead in the Senate, publicly coming out and saying it's about time to think about conditioning aid to Israel. Well, let's talk about the Senate, publicly coming out and saying it's about time to think about conditioning

aid to Israel. Well, let's talk about the conditions, though. What exactly are Democrats asking for? Well, there's a lot of concern here in terms of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's role in this war. For example, those protests were another reminder of the concerns that he has taken a very aggressive stance here. And I've had Democrats mentioned to me quietly before we saw kind of this turn of events with the death of these aid workers and other concerns, is that Netanyahu in some ways was being seen as

a warmonger, that he had a war cabinet. Are we just going to freely fund this without asking questions? So by it being conditions based, this is going to entail a much deeper conversation among members in terms of tracking what kind of aid they would send over and what that would demand if they did. And so this is a very complicated conversation. And of course, it involves President Biden, who's had his own tensions with the prime minister as well. There's definitely a push from some of these progressive Democrats to restrict the next tranche of aid. Some progressives just want to target it on humanitarian aid. As we look at the sort of devastating situation in Gaza, where there's just millions of civilians starving, as the aid isn't getting

in quick enough. There are some Democrats that are questioning whether it's the right time for Congress to greenlight additional weapons sales. And offensive weapons should be something that are more restricted until Netanyahu, a lot of these progressives say, shows that he can increase the amount of humanitarian aid into Gaza or just agree to a ceasefire. I mean, that's essentially what a lot of these progressives are demanding before any more offensive weapons are approved to send to Israel. Yeah. Well, let's focus a little bit on Ukraine. I mean, Speaker Johnson was always expected to lose Republican votes on Ukraine aid, maybe as much as half of his party in the House. Where does that stand now? Has that changed at all? The issue of aid to Ukraine has divided House Republicans. And as that war is now two years in, an increasing number of House Republicans oppose approving any more money for the war in Ukraine.

And a lot of that has to do with the presumptive Republican nominee, Donald Trump's position. A lot of them are taking cues from him. Mike Johnson, before he was speaker, was not a fan of approving additional aid to Ukraine. But he has shifted in recent months to saying more publicly that it's important to stand by our ally, that it's important to stop Russia's march. And he's publicly saying he wants to vote on this issue now that recess is over. I think the thing that's still TBD is what kind of package does he put together? As Claudia mentioned, the Senate approved a large aid package for Ukraine that included close to $60 billion. Trump floated this idea of

pushing it out as a loan instead of straight assistance. Johnson has now glommed onto that idea. He is also trying to talk about putting other conditions with the aid or other things that would go along with it. One example is trying to claw back Russian assets that were frozen at the start of the war and have those go to Ukraine. I mean, a lot of those assets are tied up in foreign countries, not in the U.S., so it's sort of unclear how the U.S. would have any access to any significant amount of money that has been frozen in assets. The speaker's also talking about putting a pause on a Biden administration rule on liquefied natural gas, which is something that his home state of Louisiana is a huge producer of. So that's sort of a parochial issue,

but maybe something that Johnson can get in return for pushing ahead with Ukraine. And hanging over all of this is this threat that you mentioned early on about removing the speaker if he does move forward on an issue of Ukraine. So this is a big moment for the speaker in terms of his leadership, his political future, and, you know, a huge priority for the Biden administration to continue supporting Ukraine. Yeah, well, let's talk about the situation that Mike Johnson is in, because it is really interesting. I mean, for one, it's a bad look for the Speaker of the House to not be supporting an ally of the United States. But also, you know, what he's facing in his own caucus is a real problem for him. Claudia, what do you make of the situation that Mike Johnson is in?

Yeah, he is in yet another difficult moment in his very young speakership. He's barely going to be hitting the six-month mark this month. And before the House left for this extended recess, Georgia Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene started the initial procedural steps to have Johnson ousted. This is a so-called motion to vacate. We don't know if she's going to follow through when the House gets back this week. We know she expressed frustrations about the speaker. Another frustration she's expressed is aid to Ukraine. She doesn't want to see that on the House floor. And we should remind listeners that the speakership has been weakened with the Republican conference rules this past

year, because any one member can trigger this ouster. So yes, his job is going to be tentative in terms of addressing aid. He did shoot down that original Senate proposal, as Deirdre was pointing to, and was looking at his own route. We see other Republicans try to come up with plans for Ukraine aid, Michael McCaul, the Republican from Texas who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee, as well as other members such as Don Bacon, a moderate Republican from Nebraska, trying to come up with alternatives. So Republicans are going in a lot of different directions, and Johnson's having to navigate this while having this cloud over his head. We should also note, if everybody shows up in the House of Representatives, House Speaker Mike Johnson essentially has a two-vote majority. So if

Marjorie Taylor Greene moves forward, she says there are other people who are supporting her effort to get rid of Johnson, but no one else has publicly said they would vote for it. Democrats have a big decision to make. A lot of them want the Ukraine aid package to go through. A good number of House Democrats have said publicly in the last couple of weeks that if Johnson does move forward with the aid package, they would team up to table any motion to oust him. That's not something all Democrats agree with. But I think there are a lot of moderate Democrats who are very supportive of trying to come together and have a bipartisan coalition to get this thing done. But you know, there are some Democrats who are very supportive of trying to come together and have a bipartisan

coalition to get this thing done. But, you know, there are some Democrats who say, you know, we shouldn't be helping the Republicans. It's their problem. All right. Well, let's take a quick break. More when we get back. And we're back. I wanted to talk about two impeachment inquiries, both of which are in different ways, seemingly on their last legs. The first is Alejandro Mallorca, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, who, among other things, oversees customs and border protection. House Republicans impeached him a while ago over his handling of the U.S. southern border. And now they've finally sent that over to the Senate. What can you guys tell me about what's next? Why don't we start with you, Deidre?

Once the House approves an impeachment resolution, it goes to the Senate. Once the they passed it narrowly in February, because we were in the middle of yet another debate about funding the government with possible government shutdowns staring us down. So they finally got through those several weeks, I guess, months of spending negotiations. And now on Wednesday, 11 House impeachment managers tapped by House Speaker Mike Johnson will officially kick off the trial by walking over and reading the impeachment resolution, the two charges that they approved. One is willfully ignoring the law, and the second is breach of the public trust. That's the only thing that will happen on Wednesday in terms of delivering the articles. On Thursday, all 100 senators get sworn in as jurors for the start of the trial. What we do expect, though, is that Senate Democrats will quickly offer some sort of motion to table or dismiss the charges. And they only need a simple majority for that.

So we don't expect this to be a long trial. You never know, right? We have to wait to see how people vote. There have been some Senate Republicans who have said they don't see any merit in an impeachment trial of Alejandro Mayorkas. President Biden is the person who's created the administration's immigration policy. The issue is with him. Even if you change whoever runs the department, the policy is still going to be the same. Mitt Romney told reporters back in February

he was inclined to vote to dismiss. But immigration is a big political issue. It's a central issue in the 2024 campaign. So there may be some Senate Republicans who say, you know, this might help our case if we put a spotlight on an issue that has been a rough one for Democrats. Yeah, if you look at the Mayorkas case for House Republicans, this is Speaker Mike Johnson making good on a promise to his members as new speaker to move forward with this. And Republicans even before they took over the lower chamber, they talked about impeachment quite a bit. And Mayorkas in some ways seemed like the low hanging fruit, if you will. And they passed it with multiple tries by just one vote.

And so this is as far as it's probably going to get. And perhaps as Deirdre was mentioning, it could be a very, very quick deal in the Senate and done. Yeah. Meanwhile, you know, let's let's talk about the Republicans Biden impeachment investigation, which appears to have all but run out of steam. That's about like how this ends, how that particular impeachment maybe goes from here. Yeah, I think that impeachment investigation, as someone who's been watching it from afar, I was outside the room when the president's son was testifying before the House Judiciary and Oversight Committees. And I noticed the Republicans left that pretty deflated and not making a lot of comment. It seems to me, my prediction is that was a time of death for President Biden's impeachment probe. Because they just didn't get Republicans

just didn't get kind of the juice they needed to keep this going. Now, if you talk to House Republicans publicly, including Speaker Johnson, they're not going to say that. They're going to keep buying time right now. But it's really unlikely at this stage that they have the support they need, especially among moderate Republicans who have questioned this impeachment process of the president all along and said it's been difficult to follow. I've heard from some Republicans who've told me it has been difficult to follow, that they're not going to be interested in following the next steps there. I mean, they haven't come up with any evidence of the president violating any law or any inappropriate behavior. And I think, like Claudia said, there just aren't

the votes in the House to impeach President Biden. I do think we will see some pressure on the leaders of this investigation to do something to show they did some kind of oversight. interviews on conservative media outlets talking about criminal referrals to the Justice Department to sort of punt the issue to the Justice Department in the hopes that the presumptive Republican nominee, President Trump, is elected in 2024, a Trump Justice Department could prosecute Biden for some kind of issue. But as we've seen, there isn't anything there. And this is really a political promise and red meat to the Republican base that wants to see Biden impeached. All right. Well, let's leave it there for today. And before we go, a huge thank you to everyone who supports the show by donating to your local NPR station or by signing up for NPR Politics Plus.

Especially this election year, your support really matters. And if you haven't signed up for NPR Politics Plus, now's your chance. You get things like sponsor-free listening and bonus episodes. Our latest bonus episode is about the major changes coming to how the U.S. Census and federal forms ask about race and ethnicity. To sign up for Plus, just go to plus.npr.org slash politics. I'm Ashley Lopez. I cover voting. I'm Claudia Grizales. I cover Congress. And I'mnpr.org slash politics. I'm Ashley Lopez. I cover voting.

I'm Claudia Grisales. I cover Congress. And I'm Deirdre Walsh. I also cover Congress. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.