The NPR Politics Podcast - Friday Roundup: More Hearings And Trump's First Two Weeks In Office

Episode Date: January 31, 2025

Kash Patel, Trump's pick to lead the FBI, and Tulsi Gabbard, his nominee for intelligence chief, had their hearings on Capitol Hill. Will they be confirmed?Then, a look back at President Trump's first two weeks in office. This episode: White House correspondent Deepa Shivaram, justice correspondent Carrie Johnson, political correspondent Susan Davis, and senior political editor and correspondent Domenico Montanaro.The podcast is produced by Bria Suggs & Kelli Wessinger, and edited by Casey Morell. 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

Hi, this is Austin Storm from Norman, Oklahoma. I'm currently hand placing 42,000 rhinestones onto an evening gown for my step down as National Snow Queen 2024. As I make my way to Hickory, North Carolina and prepare to place the crown on the head of our next snow queen, I'll be listening to NPR Politics podcast the whole time. This podcast was recorded at 1135 am on Friday, January 31 2025. Things may have changed by the time you hear this. But I'll probably still be hand placing all of these rhinestones to make sure that I shine like the snow queen I am. All right, here's the show.

the show. Forty two thousand? That is an iconic time stamp. Also, is he driving to North Carolina with this gown? Because that is maybe every episode of the Politics Podcast that has ever been created that he's listening to. I also think a dress that has forty two thousand rhinestones on it has got to weigh ten pounds. That just feels like a heavy, heavy garment. That's a checked bag if you're flying. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast.

I'm Deepa Sivaram. I cover the White House. I'm Susan Davis. I cover politics. And I'm Carey Johnson. I cover the Justice Department. So there were several controversial cabinet hearings this week on Capitol Hill. And today on the show, we're going to chat about two of those. Kash Patel for FBI and Tulsi Gabbard for Director of National Intelligence. And Carey, I'm going to chat about two of those, Kash Patel for FBI and Tulsi Gabbard for director of national intelligence. And, Keri, I'm going to kick it off with you. Let's start with Kash Patel. This hearing happened yesterday. Start at the beginning, though. What is his background? He spent about 16 years in government service as a public defender, a prosecutor, national security aide. He worked on Capitol Hill for a former Republican congressman, Devin Nunes. But he may be best known for

peddling conspiracy theories and making extreme remarks about wanting to dismantle certain elements of federal law enforcement, including the FBI, where he's been nominated to run the joint. To lead. Okay. So not exactly a background in law enforcement. Like he is not someone who has that experience himself. Well, he has worked as a public defender and as. Like, he is not someone who has that experience himself. Well, he has worked as a public defender and as a prosecutor, but most of the previous eight FBI directors have had really, really big management experience running the Justice

Department, running huge units of the DOJ. And Patel doesn't have that kind of management experience at all. Remember that former Attorney General Bill Barr at the end of the Trump administration said that Patel would get a big job at the FBI over his dead body. Kari, one of the reasons I think Patel is often described as a controversial figure is because he is someone nominated to run an agency that he has been hugely critical of. So I'm curious what he told senators yesterday on the record about what exactly he wants to do with the agency now that he may well have the power to do it.

Yeah, he says he wants to fight terrorism from Iran, counter-espionage efforts from China that he wants to prevent any attacks on the homeland and also to kind of stop the flow of illegal drugs and fentanyl. He talked a lot about the overdose crisis in the US. Basically, he says he wants to give good cops the leeway to do their jobs. And that's all normal in mainstream. The challenge is that Cash Patel has a record on podcasts and books and writings of talking about his efforts to go after people who investigated Donald Trump when Trump was out of the White House

and when he was in the White House the last time around. And during this hearing yesterday, Patel had run away from all of those remarks. It's so interesting, because I feel like there is this split screen, right, of like what these nominees have said before they sit in the hearing room and then what they're willing to say

to get confirmed to serve. The president and Sue, you know, we talked about a little bit this with RFK on Wednesday with his confirmation hearing. I'm curious, though, for this, with Cash Patel, you know, what was the vibe like among senators who were questioning him? I mean, I certainly think that this is going to be a party line vote in the Senate for his confirmation. He is just someone who is seen as a very polarizing political figure. And I think he was very sort of, he was that in his hearing. He was kind of pugnacious in a fighter. I think he had one kind

of tense exchange with Amy Klobuchar, Democrat from Minnesota, in which she said something to the effect of like, I wish I had more hours to talk to you. And he said, you have two minutes, Senator. And she just went, wow, like this is not someone who is going before the Senate with a wow, like this is not someone who is going before the Senate with a charm offensive, right? But I also think and maybe I'm very curious for Carrie's thoughts too on this, but the sense I got from Republican senators on this committee is that they support him, that they're going to vote for him. And even in the beginning, votes to watch people like Tom Tillis, a Republican from North Carolina, who's up for reelection in 2026, seen as more of a moderate centrist Republican, he seemed to embrace him. And that sort of tells me if the Tom Tillis's of the world are okay with Cash Patel, then

most of the rest of the senators probably are too. Yeah, he got a warm embrace from Tillis and many other Republican senators who basically said when you're in that office running the FBI, don't blow up the place, try to lift up the people who work there. Patel actually said yesterday that he believes the large majority of FBI agents are courageous and apolitical figures. But in the past, he's talked about wanting to basically blow up the FBI headquarters and reinstitute it as a museum for the deep state. You know, there's already some evidence that some senior officials, career officials at the FBI are being asked to leave their jobs.

Patel denied any knowledge of that kind of planning yesterday, but he also didn't state explicitly that he would not prosecute people like James Comey and Chris Ray, his predecessors at the FBI, or people like Merrick Garland, the outgoing attorney general. So he left a lot of room for himself to maneuver if he wins confirmation. Yeah. So definitely like at this point expecting him to get confirmed based on everything you've seen. Yeah. I mean, the thing you have to understand about Patel in this orbit of nominees is he is just, I think, a unique figure. He is almost a mythological figure. He is credited as sort of exposing

the quote Russia hoax in the words of the president. He has been a fighter for Donald Trump from the beginning. I mean, he just has a lot of conservative grassroots support. And what you're hearing politically from within the party is like, look, if any of you vote against this guy, we're coming for you. So I don't think the Tom Tillis's of the world, especially those senators up for reelection in two years, have a lot of political room to vote against someone who is, look, ultimately qualified to do the job. He has a resume that fits the role and incredibly politically popular with the base. I don't see what a no vote gets any Republican senator in this moment. I defer to Sue on the politics, but I just have to say that with regard to the so-called

Russia hoax, special counsel Robert Mueller found that Russia did try to effect the election in the balance of Donald Trump and that many people pleaded guilty to crimes in connection with that election interference effort and other associated activities in that era. And while Donald Trump continues to reject the findings of Bob Mueller and his team, the DOJ watchdog found that investigation was largely legitimate. And I don't think we should be coy about Patel here in any way. Donald Trump has said he wants a loyalist at the FBI and Cash Patel has made very clear he's going to be a loyalist at the FBI. I don't think any credulous person can say that he's going to be a fully independent operator, but what exactly that means, I don't

think we precisely know yet. All right. I want to switch gears and talk about Tulsi Gabbard, who seems to be a shakier candidate than Cash Patel. She has a trickier path ahead, but I would not say that it's a foregone conclusion that she doesn't get confirmed. I just think it's more complex for a couple of reasons. The first, I'd say is that in contrast to someone like Patel, who has a lot of credibility within the party, Tulsi Gabbard was a Democrat until not too long ago. She's a former Democratic Congresswoman. She ran for president in the Democratic primary in 2020. She ultimately, slowly then quickly became disillusioned with her party. She became an independent. Now

she I believe she's a registered Republican and she endorsed Trump in the 2024 presidential election. But her lifetime legacy of political connections doesn't run as deep within the Republican Party. And Trump, of course, loves the converted. He is welcomed her into the tent. But I don't think she carries with her that same kind of grassroots support. I'd also say in contrast to someone like Kennedy, who we spoke about on the podcast this week, Kennedy also has a sort of cross-party cultural appeal. He's got a little bit of or a lot of bit of celebrity name ID. And he's also got a ton of money behind him.

His former running mate, Nicole Shanahan, who's a billionaire, is out there threatening to primary anybody who votes against him to fund campaigns against his opponents. So I don't think Gabbard either has that deep-pocketed donor power coming from the top down or the grassroots confirm her power coming from the bottom up. The thing I don't have a sense of is how hard the president wants to fight for her to be his nominee. I think Donald Trump would go to the mat for Cash Patel. I don't get the sense that that it's certainly not the same vibe on Capitol Hill that the Trump universe is gonna fight as hard for her. But look, she absolutely has support. She was introduced by Richard Burr, a former chairman of that committee and a former senator from North Carolina saying she was capable of doing the job. Tom Cotton, a Republican member of the committee, said he poured over her

background checks and that she's, quote, clean as a whistle. So there is clearly an element of the party that is ready and willing to support her. And this is one area of the government in which the president in particular thinks is in need of disruption. You know, what really struck me yesterday was how many senators, both Republicans and Democrats, asked Gabbard about Edward Snowden. Yeah. Somebody who spent many months, if not years, on the DOJ investigation of Edward Snowden, who by the way now lives in Russia as far as we understand. Gabbard was unwilling to say that he was a traitor to the United States.

And she was given multiple opportunities by Republicans on the committee who I think were trying to get her to the right answer. And she danced around it. One of the Republicans on the committee, James Langford, said later he was surprised by that, although Langford is also publicly committed to supporting her nomination. So what does that get you? She was also asked a lot about her 2017 visit as a congresswoman to visit then Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, kind of as an independent

operator, did it without the consent of the US government. That's always been a weird blip in her resume. And also in the past, she's been a critic of surveillance programs, and specifically what we refer to as Section 702, which is what people in the intelligence community will tell you is one of their most powerful tools to conduct surveillance overseas. Critics say it opens the back door to allow people to surveil US citizens, which questions the constitutionality of it. She's been very sympathetic to those arguments in the past. She has since said, since getting this nomination, that she is a stronger supporter of those laws.

And again, she doesn't have where I said, like Patel has the background experience to do the job. She has no significant experience within the intelligence network. She's never had a precise job within the intelligence community, although she has served in the military and obviously served in Congress. So she's a little bit more of a shrug. Like a squirmy pig, like a little bit, yeah. Yeah, it's just harder to say. And I think like one of the senators to watch is someone like Todd Young, a Republican from Indiana. He's a former Marine Intelligence Officer.

He's on the Intelligence Committee. I can't read too much into their questioning, but he's not someone that I would bank as a yes vote just yet, and he's the kind of Republican you really need to be on board for her to be confirmed. Kari, thanks so much for joining us. Oh, happy to be here. All right, we're going to take a quick break and we'll be back in a moment.

And we're back and we're now joined by Domenico Montanaro. Hey, Domenico. Hey. Okay, so President Trump took office just under two weeks ago and Domenico, I just wanted to point out, like, you came to the studio yesterday when we taped the pod with, like, pages of essentially a timeline of what has happened in the last, you know, week and a half plus. How many pages was that? Printed out, it was like 10-point font, single-spaced was four pages, and that's just 11 days worth of stuff. It might be a little longer now, to be honest with you, given the press conference yesterday.

So yeah, it's a lot. It's one of the techniques I have in life with things I can't control that I have to somewhat pay attention to. I document. You journal. You journal. Well, I don't know. It's not really my feelings.

It's sort of a dispassionate recounting of the events. Well, OK, let's start there then. Four pages, I don't want you to have to read the whole thing front to back, but like. Yeah, it's not gonna happen. Top of mind, yeah, we need like 90 hours for that podcast. But like, wrapping up this week, I mean, what are some of the top line things that you think

have really, really stood out to you? The ones that are maybe say in bold print. I mean, obviously what stood out to me, you know, was that press conference yesterday from President Trump talking about the site of the crash. And most people, and we said this yesterday, you go out there and say, here's what we know, not what I think I know, because I don't want to speculate, don't want to get too far ahead

of things, don't want to give people the wrong impression. Trump said he had lots of strong opinions and he was going to state them. And he did. So, you know, we can get into some of that and is how long he's going to blame diversity. But that's what he's tried to do. You know, the OMB memo, obviously, was the thing that started us off this week. And really kind of the confusion around that really led to what was the first misstep in the Trump communications strategy and policymaking. Because going bold is not always the best step in trying to run a government efficiently, especially when the government does do so many things.

Many of these things are things that Trump promised in his campaign. Like these are not out of the blue, right? No, I think that's right. And to Domenico's point that he's had to start writing down everything that's happened, I really think people need to keep in mind that this is the strategy. This is the point. I think Trump coming into office the second time, better prepared, better staffed, and with a clear-eyed agenda of what he wants to do, none of this is by accident. And I think when you talk to people on the Hill and people close to the campaign, like this is the strategy. They want 2025 to be like a full velocity year to do as much as you

possibly can, knowing that there could be potentially be a check on his power in the 2026 midterms. And there's a sense that you got to leave it all on the field this year. I wonder, maybe from you guys perspective, like what are some of the things that you think have happened just in the last week, week and a half that haven't really gotten much attention but are very significant? Yeah, I think that there are little things I think too that kind of symbolize how Trump is running the federal government. For example, things like taking the pictures off the walls at USAID when the workers go in and would normally look at pictures of villages and people farming. The idea that they were telling federal workers that if they want to resign, they should respond

in an email with a subject line that says resign, and then they'll get paid through September 30th, or at least they could telework till September 30th, whether they actually do or not. Taking a photo of Mark Esper, for example, the former defense secretary off the wall at the Defense Department. This is really sort of them going in like bulls in China's shop, especially to remake the federal government and say, you know, this is the Trump administration. These are the policies we want to implement. And if you're not on board, get off the train. Yeah, look, I think one of the biggest things from the week from my viewpoint in terms of

potential impact was that initial memo from the week from my viewpoint in terms of potential impact was that initial memo from the Office of Management and Budget saying, hey, we're going to do this freeze of all grant and loan programs across the federal government. And then the White House press secretary said they rescinded the memo, but not the action. I don't exactly know how that's possible. And then having a federal judge basically accused the White House of trying to get around a federal freeze order on it. I mean, that is the kind of just chaos that I think is just going to be definitive of this administration. I think that also there is a part of this that recognizes that a lot of what Trump is going to do is going to be challenged in the courts. And I think that's by design, that they do actually want to take a lot of actions that they know will be fought out in

the courts. Because look, you'll probably lose some, but you might win some too. And that is how you can sort of over time expand executive power. And I think that is part of the broader goal of the Trump administration is to centralize more power within the Oval Office. Right. That framing is so interesting too of like the memo might be rescinded, but like the agenda kind of still stands because to me, I read that as like we win no matter what, right? It doesn't matter if the courts challenges, it doesn't matter if like we are still winning, winning, winning. And that mentality, I wonder like if that is kind of what carries over to the folks who support President Trump, who voted for him, who see this as a success really no matter what happens.

Yeah, totally. And I think that that gets to the point of what Trump's number one priority is, which is culture and reshaping the culture of the country, despite the fact that he's saying that the left was trying to socially engineer the country. Well, he's trying to socially engineer the country and being able to take out some of the things that he finds to be objective and to really push immigration and mass deportations. I mean, look at what we haven't talked about here is him ramping up mass deportations and getting people out of the country and really smartly, frankly, from a political relations standpoint, having televised targeted raids of people who are the most egregious criminals

in the country to be able to say, who would be against somebody who did something so horrible? Who would be against that only the left? Well, it's not gonna be that clean cut for the entirety of the four years of Trump. And he said he wants the largest mass deportation in the history of the United States. And I think that one story that he continues to tell is really kind of showing his hand and the game

when he has said now twice in the past, you know, 11 days since he was sworn in, that, you know, he thinks that immigration was always the number one issue on the campaign trail. It's the number one issue for him. I made it my number one issue. They all said inflation was the number one issue. I said, I disagree.

I think people coming into our country from prisons and from mental institutions is a bigger issue for the people that I know. And I made it my number one. I talked about inflation too, but you know, how many times can you say that an apple is doubled in cost? And I think that that shows he knows that as a president, you don't have that much control over things like prices, despite the rhetoric of the campaign.

And the fact that those all of those crossover voters who voted for him was about this nostalgia for a Trump economy. Right. And while all of that is happening and all of these policies that he's implementing, executive orders that he's implementing are unfolding, you know, he's appearing in the White House press room this week and creating an entirely new news cycle, which is the plane crash that happened at the Potomac River in D.C. this week. That might have been a result of DEI hiring practices of, you know, putting people in the government who are from diverse backgrounds. To be clear, though, I should say, authorities are still investigating how that crash happened and Trump made those

claims without citing any kind of evidence. But to your point earlier, this is kind of a through line that I think you can expect and we can expect that Trump keeps using for the next four years. SONIA DARA-MARGOLIS Look, I think the Republican Party right now is riding a high out of this election in which across the board, they believe the rejection of DEI, which I think is just sort of shorthand for cultural politics of the left, helped them win this election. And I think that the president blaming a plane crash on DEI without evidence, Trump has long been willing to sort of press on these cultural nerves to suggest

that racial or gender politics played a role when there's no evidence that it did. I do think that there is a cultural pendulum swing back against a lot of that cultural progressivism that has occurred in the past few years. But I also think it comes with an inherent risk. Like if you push down too hard on this stuff, a lot of the country also rejects that. Because look, like frankly, if you look at polling, most Americans actually say they do support some element of racial equity and racial equity programs. They're not as opposed broadly nationally as they are within the Republican Party and the Trump administration. And pushing too hard on this stuff often has a revulsion, especially from independent and swing voters in this country.

Yeah, very curious to see how that unfolds. All right, we're going to take one more break and we will be back with Can't Let It Go. And we're back and it's time for everyone's favorite Friday segment, Can't Let It Go. That's the part of the show where we talk about the things from the week we can't stop thinking about, politics or otherwise. I'm going to start us off. My Can't Let It Go is something that my friend actually told me about earlier this week. But my thing that I can't let go of is that Naomi Germa, who was a player for the San Diego Wave, just broke a record for the biggest deal and payment that a women's soccer player has ever gotten.

Ooh. $1.1 million. That's it? Yeah, I know, right? She's transferring to the Chelsea women, which is really exciting. And you look at the $1.1 million, you're like, that's really a low number as far as athletes go. Unfortunately, we are still at a point where that is a really, really big deal for women's soccer. So we are both like mourning that, but also really celebrating

that. She has a really cool story and sad to see her go across the pond, but it is just kind of a really big deal for women's soccer overall. That is both wonderful and kind of horrifying when you think about it. Like Tom Brady lights his fires with million dollar bills. I just think the disparity in sports, which is for many reasons, I'm not saying it's not, but to hear highest figure ever, 1.1 million for female soccer is like, whoa. Emma Cieslik No, the first person to like hit a million dollars and like the hope obviously is that it just keeps going up from here.

But yeah, for sure, we are still at a point where we look at that and we're like, whoa, really? Like we're happy, but also kind of like that weird slanted smiley face emoji. I'd like to see that million dollar bill, Sue. Do they have Brady's face on it? Which hairstyle? You know, but I do think what's interesting about this is, from a sports perspective, her going from a US professional league team to the premier league, literally is what it's called, being able to do that, that's not something you usually see where the price is ramped up to

bring in somebody. Normally, it'd be somebody like at the twilight of their career like Lionel Messi, who will come over and then the Miami team is paying him a lot of money as a sort of showcase person to bring fans in. So the fact that this is now happening in the other direction, I think is a sign that the American soccer leagues are actually starting to do fairly well, both women's and men's. Yeah, for sure. I mean, I feel like everyone played soccer as a kid, but I do feel like the watching of professional soccer, particularly women's soccer, has just blown up in ways that are very fun.

Can I tell you, I have increasingly enjoyed watching soccer games, and I like it because the games are shorter. You can do more in a day if you're going to watch a soccer game where like baseball can be ours, football can be ours. Like soccer is just like if you're going to watch a soccer game where like baseball can be ours, football can be ours. Like soccer is just like if you just need a little sport, but you don't want it to take up your whole night, soccer is the way to go. A little sprinkle of athleticism, yes. I agree with that. Sue, what can you not let go of this week? I also have a sports related plague. So look at us. As you both should know by now, the Philadelphia Eagles are going to the Super Bowl.

The Eagles. The Eagles. Go, Burtz. But what I can't let go of is a couple weeks ago, the mayor of Philadelphia, Mayor Parker, had a really big faux pas right before a big Eagles game. Well, listen, we've got to do this. Let me hear you all say E-M-G-S-E-S, Eagles! What? She, of course, obviously glaringly misspelled Eagles doing the chant. Yeah, I don't know what she was spelling there. Before the Eagles went on to beat the Rams and then they went on to beat the commanders and now they're going to the Super Bowl. But what has been a faux pas has kind of been embraced by the city of Philadelphia, especially because they went on to win the next two games.

So what I can't let go is that, like my brother sent me a sweatshirt that says Eagles, but it's spelled E-L-G-S-E-S. Amazing. And I was talking to a friend this morning, joking where I'm like, look, if they win the Super Bowl, that's how we spell it now. I was gonna say, I was like,

the dictionary needs to change, obviously. Philadelphia will make that happen. And I think it kind of worked out for her because look, like politicians growing up sports stuff can go real wrong, but I make that happen. And I think it kind of worked out for her because look, like politicians screwing up sports stuff can go real wrong. But I think that like it's become kind of a lovable joke in a weird way that has worked to her advantage. So ELG SES.

Sue has been very nice to me about my Mets fandom and the fact that I'm a New York fan. And we all know that New York fans and Philly fans are sort of oil and water so I'll just because you've been so nice to me I will just let go what my thoughts would probably have been otherwise. I appreciate that. Dominic, what about you? I cannot let go of drug-addicted rats. What? Yeah I love that isn't that great? I don't even know how to respond to that. The since the start of the Trump administration there have been a lot of things that have happened as we recounted and talked about.

But one thing ran under the radar, and this was in Houston, where officials said that there are rats that are ruining evidence and their evidence lockers. For example, the mayor of Houston said, we got 400,000 pounds of marijuana in stores that the rats are the only ones enjoying. So much evidence is kept and stored that is no longer needed and that has no impact on the resolution of that charge, that conviction, or even that innocence. They said they're edible, they're tasty, they're all kinds of things. You can't store large quantities of drugs without expecting some of these things to

happen. It's a kind of amazing thing. Oh my God. Rats always come out on top. They've been around for millions of years. Like, I mean- They're like, they're riding the subway in New York, getting pizza. Pizza, yeah. And especially as the, you know, the Houston officials also said, they're drug addicted rats, they're tough to deal with.

That doesn't sound fun. Don't envy those people. Maybe I envy the rats though. That's an interesting concept. Live in their best lives. One way to get through the day. Yeah. All right. That's it for today's episode.

Our executive producer is Mathony Maturi. Our editor is Casey Morrell. Our producers are Bria Suggs and Kelly Wessinger. Special thanks to Christian Dev Kalamer. I'm Deepa Shivaram. I cover the White House. I'm Susan Davis. I cover politics.

And I'm Domenico Montaner, senior political editor and correspondent. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.