The NPR Politics Podcast - GOP grapples with misconduct allegations against two lawmakers

Episode Date: August 7, 2026

It was another busy week in the world of politics. We discuss a Senate committee's vote to hold Anthony Fauci in contempt of Congress, Todd Blanche's newly cleared path toward confirmation as attorney general, and how Republicans are handling misconduct allegations against two House members. This episode: senior political correspondent Tamara Keith, political reporter Elena Moore, Supreme Court and justice correspondent Carrie Johnson and White House correspondent Deepa Shivaram.This podcast was produced by Casey Morell and edited by Rachel Baye.Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi.Support public media with NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show’s perks include bonus episodes and sponsor-free listening. Learn more at plus.npr.org.See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

President Trump's pick to be Attorney General is one step closer to getting the job. But it came down to the wire. That's where we will start our roundup of this week's political news. It's the NPR Politics Podcast. We're taping this at 1232 p.m. Eastern Time on Friday, August 7th. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover politics. I'm Tva Shiveron. I cover the White House. And I'm Carrie Johnson. I cover the Justice Department in the Supreme Court. Todd Blanche, the current acting attorney general, has been lobbying senators for voters. this week. Democrats are opposed, and a couple of Republicans came out against the pick. Who did and why? Yeah, Susan Collins, a Republican from Maine, who's in a tough reelection battle, came out and said that she was

opposed to Blanche, in part because of the role he played in generating that nearly $1.8 billion slush fund designed for people who had been the victims of weaponization by the Biden Justice Department, maybe even January 6th rioters. She also cited Blanche's alleged promise to an anti-abortion group that he would do what he could to bar the mailing of abortion medication to women across the country. Another person who came out against Blanche earlier this morning is Lisa Murkowski, a Republican from Alaska. Murkowski basically said that she does not have confidence that Todd Blanche, the former

personal lawyer to President Trump, will check President. Trump's worst impulses. So with Collins and Murkowski out, the margins were incredibly slim for this nomination, especially because Senator Mitch McConnell is still out because of ongoing health concerns, which left it all to Senator Bill Cassidy, the outgoing senator from Louisiana. And after some back and forth this morning on the floor of the Senate, he announced that he would be supporting Blanche. This is not a referendum on President Trump. It is a decision. regarding Mr. Blanche in very specific circumstances. All considered, I will vote for Mr. Blanche.

I'll be criticized for this vote. What's New? Kerry, we should explain why. He says what's new. He's taken at least one other vote where he was the deciding vote to confirm RFK Jr. As Health and Human Services Secretary. And since then, Kennedy has taken a number of actions that Cassidy disagrees with strenuously and was assured would not happen. Terry, what are the very specific circumstances here that Cassidy is talking about? Senator Cassidy said he had been on the phone with Todd Blanche five or six times, including right before Cassidy went to the Senate floor to say he would, in fact, vote for Todd Blanche. And he said there had been other text exchanges as well. He also talked about being on the phone for a long time with the former attorney general during the first Trump administration, Bill Barr, who's argued that the Senate should confirm Todd Blanche because anybody else would be worse.

And that argument really seemed to be persuasive to Senator Cassidy. Senator Cassidy said he wasn't a fan of the slush fund. He wasn't a fan of this tax immunity deal. The Justice Department appears to have tried to broker for President Trump and two of his sons and the Trump company. But Cassidy said he did like Todd Blanche's work on violent crime and human trafficking and health care fraud. And he said that he thought that Blanche would be able to stand up to the president and give him honest. advice. Now, whether the president will actually take that advice is an open question for Bill Cassidy, but he landed on yes after a few hours of suspense. Deepa, I assume the White House is

very happy with this. We haven't really heard from him about this yet, although I'm sure we will in the coming hours and definitely in the coming days, because as you pointed out, this is something that a lot of people were waiting on to see how Senator Cassidy would weigh in on this. And I should point out also, you know, this is probably some kind of a celebratory moment for someone like the president who actively campaigned against Cassidy. He lost his primary election earlier this year. He won't be a senator after this term ends. And so just to dial the clock back a little bit, Bill Cassidy voted to impeach Trump in 2021.

That's obviously something that the president has sort of left in his brain and won't let go of. And so, you know, he's had a lot of tensions with this senator. It's kind of interesting, though, to see in the 11th hour, you could say, where Cassidy is pretty much out the door that he's still voting in the president's favor. That final vote on Blanche's confirmation isn't scheduled yet as we record this podcast. But, Carrie, what would having Blanche at the helm of the DOJ mean for what the department does and for what President Trump wants it to do? In some ways, this whole fight was symbolic. Todd Blanche could have remained as the acting attorney general, basically for the rest of President Trump's term in office. But this gives him a little more authority.

and basically strengthens his position in the cabinet and maybe to the DOJ workforce. That being said, Todd Blanche has already presided over the firings of many, many career prosecutors and agents. And also an operation that's been criticized for going after opponents, political opponents of President Trump with investigations and in some cases indictments. It hasn't been a particularly smooth sale for Todd Blanche's DOJ to date. And given who the president is, I doubt it will change. Yeah. And I mean, keep in mind, this president treats the Justice Department, wants the Justice Department to be his personal Justice Department. To this day, there's still a banner of President Trump hanging outside of the building. The lines of, you know, separation between these two

institutions has completely disappeared. I think it doesn't take a lot of guessing. to try and figure out, you know, how Trump will treat his new attorney general should he be confirmed and how he wants this DOJ to move forward. Yeah, remember Todd Blanchett, at his confirmation hearing, may have done a Freudian slip and said he's the president's lawyer. And he also said previously this year that he loves the president. So the idea that he would really stand up to something the president really wanted to do, you know, remains to be seen, but hard to see. All right. Well, let's turn to another intersection of Congress and the law this week. week. Dr. Anthony Fauci was held in contempt of Congress for invoking the Fifth Amendment during

testimony this week. Carrie, catch us up on this. Yeah, the Senate Government Affairs Committee voted along party lines to hold Dr. Fauci in contempt. He had taken the Fifth Amendment, something like a hundred or more times in this testimony. And Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky Republican, who leads to this committee, was extremely incensed because Fauci had gotten a pardon from President Joe Biden on his last day in office. The trick here is that that pardon involved past conduct. And so anything after that date in January 2025, Fauci might have exposure for. Fauci's lawyers say he hasn't done anything wrong, but he asserted his Fifth Amendment right because Senator Paul and other Republicans on the committee were trying to set a perjury trap for him. And I've spent this morning

interviewing legal experts, people who've worked on Capitol Hill, to ask whether that invocation of the Fifth Amendment by Dr. Fauci was kosher legally. Kimberly Hamm used to be a chief counsel for former speaker Kevin McCarthy, and she said that it was. Here's her reasoning. The problem here is that the pardon covers federal crimes or potential federal crimes. And there is an issue of state liability. and that was confirmed actually shortly after the hearing ended when one state AG and then a few other state AGs confirmed. In fact, they were investigating Dr. Fauci. So I think the possibility of state prosecution here is a strong argument that his lawyers can make for why he was entitled to invoke

the Fifth Amendment. And you just heard her say something about state attorneys general. Those are the states of Florida, Louisiana, and West Virginia. It's also possible. possible the Justice Department could be investigating Fauci for other matters such as obstruction of Congress. But because we haven't seen the details of that referral from Senator Paul to the DOJ, it's hard to say for sure. I feel like I need to do a record scratch here and just go back to why was Anthony Fauci, who is retired testifying before the Senate now in 2026? Senator Paul and many other Republicans remain deeply concerned about it, possible disconnect between what Dr. Fauci was saying in public and in private during the early days and the height of that coronavirus pandemic.

Fauci really became a symbol for MAGA and others who resisted vaccine mandates and believed that the closure of schools really damaged a generation of kids. I was just traveling with President Trump earlier this week in Las Vegas. And before he came on stage to give remarks, there were a number of Republican kids. candidates, including the governor, you know, Republicans running for Congress in that area who came up on stage. And no one mentioned Fauci by name, but there was sort of like a lot of punchlines about pleading the fifth and the crowd would laugh. And everyone kind of knew what they were talking about. And it was like a mockery of Anthony Fauci. And it's kind of become this larger symbol. And I should point out, it's been that way since the pandemic and since 2020, right? That, you know, this is a representation of the

government, you know, telling people how to live their lives. And you know, you have these mask mandates and they don't want us to have freedom and things like that. And it's very much in line with this narrative that Trump and a lot of other Republicans running for office this year are trying to take, which is, you know, especially for the president, things aren't looking so great for him right now, right? Like even amongst his own party, his polling numbers are really down. And the line that they're pivoting to is saying, well, you think things might be bad under Republicans, but, you know, if Democrats come back into office, you're going to have basically this transition into communism and you're going to have the government controlling everything and look at Anthony. Fauci, that's a perfect example of that. I do have to ask, what is the practical consequence of being held in contempt of Congress? Well, in some cases, the Justice Department would take a referral from somebody like Senator Paul and run with it. Remember that Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro, two very close allies to President Trump, actually went to prison for a short period of time for resisting the January 6th committee, investigating what happened on that day in the storming. of the Capitol. And we are seeing more and more of these referrals. It's not clear what the Trump

Justice Department is going to do with this one. But we do know that Dr. Fauci is not a favorite person of President Trump either. Carrie, while we have you here, I would love to get an update on the case that I can't let go of, which is the reflecting pool renovation in Washington. several people had been charged with crimes of vandalism. Where does that stand now? DOJ has now said it's going to walk away from all of those cases. And the most prominent one involves a former Olympic canoeist named David Hearn. He has said from the day of his arrest that he did nothing wrong.

And he is trying to get a judge to make clear that not only should this initial case against him go away, but to get a judge to say that the Justice Department cannot come back and change its mind and try to pursue him again. Of course, this all came out last week because the U.S. Attorney in D.C., Janine Piro, basically said this was the botched result of rushed renovations to the reflecting pool in time for America's 250th birthday celebration on July 4th and not random people in Washington, D.C., ripping up the liner of this pool. Of course, it outraged the president. He says she folded like an umbrella, and now she's in the doghouse with him. Yeah, not a good spot for Janine Piro. President Trump is not backing down, even though the Justice Department in filings specifically said it was a bad job by a contractor and a rushed job that the president pushed. He is saying, oh, no, this was definitely vandalism. And, you know, this comes after he, some 20 different times

leading up to this described in vivid detail how these terrible vandals used box cutters to cut a 300-foot gash, a 300-yard gash, like the number kept changing. But he was making a very vivid allegation that is simply not backed up by the facts. And there's one important point to make here. The president can say kind of whatever he wants based on his morals and ethics, but Janine Piro's prosecutors have to assert things, court and can be punished, can be seriously punished for presenting false information to judges. And so, I think that is the essential difference here. Yes, there is the court of public opinion and there is a court of law and you can't just make stuff up in a court of law. Or you could, but you could

lose your license to practice law. All right, Carrie, thank you so much for sharing your reporting. Thank you. And we're going to take a quick break and we'll have more in a moment. And we're back. And NPR political reporter Elena Moore is with us. Hello, Elena. Hey, Tam. Hey, Deepa. So let's talk a bit about allegations of misconduct against two Republican members of the U.S. House. Several high-profile Republicans are calling for Ohio Congressman Max Miller to drop out of his race for re-election. That includes his ex-father-in-law, U.S. Senator Bernie Marino. Marino broke his silence this week, backing his daughter in accusing Miller. of child abuse and domestic violence. Miller denies it and is staying in the race despite the pressure and says he welcomes a House Ethics Committee investigation. Meanwhile, North Carolina Congressman Chuck Edwards dropped his reelection bid after allegations of inappropriate behavior with female staff members,

detailed in a House Ethics Committee investigation this week. Elena, what is the latest here? Let's start with Edwards. The House Ethics Committee recommended that he be censured and, Censure is basically, it's like stopping short of expulsion. And so it's much more of a kind of a formality of like a public act of disapproval that the House or the Senate can give someone. So obviously that is mostly symbolic. And as for when that censure vote could happen, you know, the House is on recess. And so the earliest could be in September. I think what's really interesting about that situation is his seat. You know, he represents North Carolina's 11th district, which the Cook Political Report says is a lean Republican district.

It's a possible pickup opportunity for Democrats. So this is, you know, like a pretty big shakeup in the 11th hour. And as we know, as we've been talking about all year, Republicans have a very slim majority and any potential things that could shake races that weren't already maybe a concern or less of a concern than other really toss up spots. I mean, that's a problem. Yeah, I mean, I think the concern was that he was likely going to lose his race or he could lose his race because these allegations were hanging over him. I think that Republicans have a similar concern about Max Miller. Yeah. And, you know, North Carolina is going to pick a new nominee next week. So we'll see how that kind of shakes out. But yeah, Max Miller kind of a similar situation.

He represents Ohio's seventh congressional district. He has vowed to stay in the race very affirmatively, despite kind of growing calls to, step aside. And that race is kind of a similar situation where it's a likely Republican district, but in a year where Democrats might have some, might have momentum, Republicans are on the defense, again, they don't need more factors here of complicating this very, very slim path to keeping the majority. And Miller went to defend himself this week in a TV interview on CNN's The Lead with Jake Tapper. And his defense was familiar. have asked me, you know, what are you going to do? Are you going to drop out of this race? Are you going to

resign? You know, are you going to get out before the deadline? And my answer to you, Jake, is no. And I can tell you why. In 2016, when President Donald J. Trump faced the most extreme allegations in the world that hit him day after day after day. And people in the media very much like yourself and others said that he would have no shot at winning, that he should not be the president of the United States. But guess what? He stayed in and he was resilient. in. Deepa, Miller invoking President Trump here. How is the White House weighing in on the Edwards and Miller cases? I mean, just to go back to your earlier point of like how Edwards and Miller are handling this differently, the Wall Street Journal is out with an article literally hours ago saying that Max Miller is loaning a million dollars to his campaign as all of this is unfolding to like get through in his words to try and, you know, continue running in this race. Obviously, it's not just, you know, words here. Like he's just, you know, he's just. just putting tons of money behind his own campaign and sticking to it. And yeah, he's invoking

Donald Trump because, look, Donald Trump is an example of a successful candidate who had a ton of allegations against him and still went on to win back in 2016. As far as how Trump has weighed in, I mean, publicly he hasn't said much. He's called it a sad affair. You know, he said it's a family matter. He's not really directly commenting on it. But I will just say, you know, for a president who comments on pretty much everything under the sun. It's always kind of notable when he doesn't weigh in on something. It's worth noting that these allegations come after Democrats also had to address allegations of misconduct among two of their political candidates earlier this year. Graham Platner, who ran for Senate in Maine, and Eric Swalwell, who ran for governor of California.

But Democrats handled those issues differently. They both faced extreme and successful pressure to leave their races. Yeah. So these are two. cases. Eric Swalwell was a congressman from California. He was running for governor, and he was accused by multiple women of sexual misconduct and assault. And those are allegations he denies. In Maine, Graham Platner was the Democratic nominee for Senate there. And last month, a woman came forward and accused him of raping her several years ago. He also denies that allegation. But when these allegations did come out, we did see a pretty fierce rebuke from the Democratic Party. I think what makes specifically the Platner example so interesting is what appeared to be the red line. Obviously,

when allegation of rape came out, that was it for the Democrats. But this was a candidate who had been through several scandals over the roughly year or so that he had been running. And, you know, that included allegations about his behavior and his past. And those weren't red lines for Democrats at the time. And so I think it's really striking to see that this candidate was able to, you know, stay in the race for much longer than, say, a leader in the Democratic Party would have, potentially in Trump's first term, where we saw the Democratic Party really have much more of a formula in how they respond to allegations of misconduct or inappropriate. appropriate behavior by leaders. Yeah, I mean, I am just thinking back to like 2018, right? The first

election after Trump got elected in 2016, it was the first election after the Me Too movement really sparked. And, you know, I remember- The Women's March had happened. Like, it was a total different political vibe, right? A really different political vibe. And like, you think about the way Democrats reacted in a lot of variety of different ways. And I think this is similar to how the party sort of reacts compared to Republicans, right, who typically tend to more fall in line behind their candidates, no matter what. But Elena, I mean, I'm curious because in this current time, as Democrats are just trying not to lose, there is sort of this underneath conversation going on of like, you know, what does it take in order to win and where does that stand with, you know, the moral

spine? It's the kind of big, you know, conflicted question. that a lot of, I think, voters and the party organizers, lawmakers are trying to sort through. Democrats want to win. They've lost a lot and in the era of Trump. And I think some who are kind of part of this mindset of like, let's burn it down, fight fire with fire basically, of like, why are we playing by different rules? I think is essentially the perspective that a lot of like kind of fed up Democrats have. The trickiness here, though, is there is still many people in the party and obviously there are people in the Republican Party and Republican voters who also condemn actions of assault and misconduct. And, you know, we are in no way saying this is a lopsided view. But, you know, Democratic voters have been pretty outspoken that this idea of grace to a candidate that, you know, no one is perfect. That's important if the party wants to find authentic, compelling leaders that could maybe flip important seats or drum up enthusiasm. I think the line that the party is still. trying to figure out is when does that go too far? And is that still a different red line than

Republicans have? Yeah, I mean, I think that there used to be kind of clear rules about the types of things that would be deadly for a political career. Totally. And those rules are scrambled. And both parties, in varying degrees, are trying to figure out, okay, how far is too far? Right. Where do you draw the line? I think one place where they draw the line is risk of losing. Totally. Oh, my God. I mean, and that all gets back to like, this is a Trump effect. Like, it's like, can we win? What's the way to win? And obviously, Trump found a formula to that. But the parties are going to have to figure out their own because as we know, and the thing I'm going to be looking for going forward is, you know, in the past, we have seen that voters have not given, you know, scandal-ridden candidates as much grace as they give Trump. So can someone like Max Miller still win with these troubling allegations? I don't know. Even if he has. has the backing of the precedent. All right. We're going to take one more break, and then it's time for Can't Let It Go.

And we're back, and it's time for Can't Let It Go, the part of the show where we talk about the things from the week that we just cannot stop thinking about politics or otherwise. And I will go first. This is a very silly, can't let it go. And I have a prop, which only Elena can see. Oh, my God. Because Deepa is at the White House. But it is a tiny teal-colored. You got to do the ASMR, like, put your, yeah.

Is this a squishy dumpling? You knew immediately. Oh my God, I knew. You knew immediately. Wow. Oh my God. Oh, my God. She's unboxing it. She's unboxing it.

And you don't know what color is, right? No, I know because I bought it this weekend. I just found out. But Elena just found out, and it is glitter pink. Wow. Oh, that's a win. That's really rare. Here is the crazy thing.

I was like, I want one of these. So I went to my local toy store. And I was like, oh my gosh, I can't find the dumplings. they must not have them. And then I asked and they're like, oh no, they're behind the counter. We have a strict limit. Whoa. And then they were like, which one do you want? And I had no idea because I am not a child. I just wanted something for my desk that would make me happy.

A squishy toy. A squishy. And so I ended up with this one. However, now I want another one. I get it. I want more. And we should say, I mean, obviously Deepa and I realized what this was right away. but it's like this viral toy that's basically a little... Like Gen Alpha is into. Yeah, yeah. It's like literally for children. It's a stress ball that is shaped like a dumpling and it goes in a little steamer tray made of plastic. Yeah.

And it is glorious. And there's this trend online of people unboxing them hoping that they get like glittery ones, rainbow ones. And it is like, it's crazy. You're like, that's going to get old. But then you like watch these videos of them. like, oh my God. Honestly, it was the best thing that ever happened to me. Although I will say, so I got my first dumpling, alleged dumpling, I should say, last month when I was on a trip with my friends and a couple of us picked them up at the store. I had not heard about this, but my

friend who is more chronically online than I am educated me, thankfully, and we all did our dumpling reveals and I got a rainbow one, which I absolutely love. But then my friend told me that apparently when she was checking out at the store, these like teeny bopper girlies, walked by and they were like, oh, those are like knockoff ones. So we didn't even get the real ones. But honestly, I still love mine because it's real cute. Elena, what can't you let go of other than my squishy dumpling? Yeah, that's awesome. Really, really happy you brought props. Um, my can't let it go is a rant. Unfortunately, um, I have been blessed, cursed my whole life with dental issues, you know? I've had so many

teeth pulled. I had braces for like five years all throughout high school. Hold your applause. And because of that, I was like, I never want to go through this again. I'm going to like really wear my retainers. And so like I was really good about it. I had them for so long. I got them replaced as an adult. And I got like mouth guards. Sorry if you hate talking about that. But I've been so good. Like I'm like the best I know at this. I go to the dentist like two days. ago. They told me that I need to get my teeth straightened again. Apparently, they have moved, despite me constantly wearing all of the garb. And I'm really mad about it because I obviously want to take care of myself. But A, I'm not a child anymore, and I would have to pay for it. And B, so

expensive. And C, I shouldn't have to because I behaved. I would like to strongly endorse second opinions. I know. I'm learning about that. Because there's a lot of, I don't, I, nothing about your dentist or mine, because mine is wonderful. But there are scamy dentists out there who will sell you things that you don't need, including painful dental procedures. So just like legitimately, second opinion. But then here's the thing is my boyfriend also went to a different dentist recently. Exact same thing was told to him. But also he doesn't wear his retainers. Deepa, what can't you let go of?

I'm going to take a hard pivot on Can't Let It Go. And as you all know, I really love the animal content these days because we all need a little more joy in our lives. I have to give credit to our friend and colleague Ayesha Roscoe on this one because she did a story on this over the weekend where she interviewed this professor whose research funding has been cut by the federal government, as a lot of scientific research has been. And so faced with having to cut his graduate student researchers, he turned to OnlyFans in order to fundraise. He studies Marmits at the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory in Colorado. And Aisha interviewed him to get the story of how this happened. He and his wife were watching the new show Margo's Got Money Troubles. I don't know if you guys have watched it.

It's on my list. I haven't gotten to it yet. But this is basically the story of a girl who turns to OnlyFans when she is having money troubles. And so this professor is having some money troubles with his funding. And he and his grad students basically said, we should create only marms. And they created an account on OnlyFans. Originally got shut down because he doesn't look like a marmot. So, like, the picture didn't match, which I find hilarious.

But then they, like, reached out to OnlyFans and they were, like, trying to explain what they were doing. And OnlyFans was like, yeah, do it. Wow. They need a lot of money, like, closer to, like, $100,000. for, you know, to make up for the research grants that have been cut. Right now he's at like $4,000, but I'm really confident that we as a society can pull together for the marmits. I think we do need a disclaimer here that it is the marmits on only fans and not the professor or his students. Should NPR get an only fan?

I don't think we should rule it out. Like, apparently if the people are giving money to the causes that are important, like public radio should really consider this. Only headphones. I'll see myself out. Okay, that's all for today. Our executive producer is Mithani Maturi. Our producers are Casey Morrell and Brea Suggs. Our editor is Rachel Bay.

Special thanks to Dana Farrington. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover politics. I'm Tifa Shivaram. I cover the White House. And I'm Elena Moore. I also cover politics. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.