The NPR Politics Podcast - Health Scares And Funding Fights Cloud Congress' Return

Episode Date: August 31, 2023

Mitch McConnell, the Senate Minority Leader, again froze suddenly during a press conference. The 81 year-old's medical incidents have raised concerns about his future in Washington.And funding the war in Ukraine, funding the government, responding to natural disasters, and investigating President Biden are all inter-related dilemmas as Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy walks the high rope that is guiding his caucus through the fall legislative session.This episode: White House correspondent Tamara Keith, congressional correspondent Deirdre Walsh, and senior political editor and correspondent Domenico Montanaro.The podcast is produced by Elena Moore and Casey Morell. Our editor is Eric McDaniel. Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi. Unlock access to this and other bonus content by supporting The NPR Politics Podcast+. Sign up via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org. Connect:Email the show at [e-mail] the NPR Politics Podcast Facebook Group.Subscribe to the NPR Politics Newsletter.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hi, I'm Grant. I'm here with my best friend of nearly two decades, Hannah, who flew all the way across the country just for my doctoral defense. The current time is 1036 a.m. on Thursday, August 31st. Things may have changed by the time you hear this podcast, but my friend's a doctor. Congrats! Enjoy the show. Hey, doctor. In what? I'm so curious. Does it matter? Yes. I'm sure it matters to him. It's an impressive accomplishment. Ph. Finished. That's awesome. Hey there. It's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. I'm Deirdre Walsh. I cover Congress.

And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. Congress returns soon from their August recess, and there is a lot on the agenda, from funding the government and disaster relief to House Republican investigations into President Biden and possibly even launching an impeachment inquiry. But we want to start with something that happened yesterday. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell was holding a press conference in Kentucky when he just froze. Deirdre, this is not the first time that this has happened to him recently. Can you tell us what happened? Right. I mean, I was at the Capitol the first time this happened back in July. And yesterday, same sort of situation. McConnell

was at a press conference, just like the press conference at the Capitol in July. He was in Covington, Kentucky, and he was answering questions. And actually, the question he got was, are you going to run for re-election? And he froze. He just paused. He stopped speaking. He looked sort of blank. An aide came up to him, his state director, and asked him, like, you know, did you hear the question? Do you want to answer the question? And he's continued to just sort of grip the podium and stand there for about 30 seconds. The aide asked if, you know, you need to step away. And he ultimately did end up taking some questions. He did not answer the question about whether he's going to run for reelection in 2026. You know, McConnell's 81. The fact that this is the second time he's had this

kind of episode, which they haven't really explained what's going on, is, you know, a real sort of health scare facing the top Senate Republican. He did fall in March and suffer a concussion and he was out for a couple of weeks. He was fall in March and suffer a concussion, and he was out for a couple weeks. He was hospitalized, and then he recovered at home. He has walked with a limp. McConnell had polio as a child. You know, he has noticeably sort of slowed down a little bit since he's been back in the Capitol recently. And after the episode in July, he did take a bunch of questions and got support from fellow Senate Republicans. But the fact that this happened again, just really raises a lot of questions

about what's going on with his health. I mean, it was a pretty scary incident. And, you know, we've covered a lot talking about the age of a lot of members of Congress, a president. And, you know, Mitch McConnell is the Republican leader, has been the Republican leader for quite some time in the Senate. And he would be the person who would shepherd the agenda if Republicans were able to take back the Senate in 2024. And it just was a very scary moment. There have been a couple of them now, and I'm sure we're going to have to hear more from his office on what's actually happening with his health. He's friends with the president, or so the president says, and has been a key figure in a lot of the deals that have happened in divided government, which is the situation that exists right now. I should note that his office did say something yesterday. A spokesperson said that McConnell momentarily was lightheaded and paused. And an aide told me that he was going to consult a physician. I asked again sort of what has been the diagnosis or what, how's he doing since he consulted the physician? And I haven't heard back yet.

Yeah. So now on to the work that they need to get to. There is a request from the White House for funding for disaster aid and also the war in Ukraine. The disaster funding has typically been pretty straightforward. And of course, there was just a hurricane. I mean, it's working its way off the coast of the U.S. now. It just hit Florida yesterday. What do you think is going to happen with this request? I mean, I think it's all tied up in sort of the fact that Congress needs to do something to pass some type of government funding bill before the end of September to avoid a shutdown. As is the case, Congress has not been doing its job when it comes to funding the government. They are supposed to pass a series of 12 funding bills for all the federal agencies between the House and Senate and negotiate those bills and get them to the president to avoid a shutdown. That process has

completely fallen apart. We're sort of left with very little time when Congress gets back in September before this deadline. So both House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, and now the White House today, all publicly saying they're going to need some kind of stopgap bill to fund the government. Potentially, it might be something through early December. And Tam, I really think the disaster funding piece of this, like you mentioned, could be a way for them to try to join together and potentially get a bipartisan deal to avoid a shutdown. There's a lot of incentive from members of both parties who represent states or districts that have been affected by terrible wildfires, disasters in Hawaii, obviously the hurricane you

mentioned, to get something through. It's a very tricky political situation because House Republicans, despite a deal that was cut in May on the debt ceiling on what the overall spending levels would be, sort of went off on their own and started working on bills that are considerably lower than that deal. So they're sort of on a collision course with the Senate, which has been passing bills that meet the spending levels in that deal. So one way or another, they're going to have to pass some sort of short-term bill. And I think there's a lot of consternation about whether that's possible given the short timeframe and the tricky politics for House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. It's amazing because we keep stumbling from continuing resolution to continuing resolution, CRs as they call them, short-term funding measures to keep the government open. Those programs are like nutritional assistance to low-income families, for example, where if you were to ask people on some of these things specifically, do you support these things? Most people would say yes. But when it comes to is the government too big, most people would also say yes.

So it's this sort of messaging issue and an ideology on one side. On the right, that's essentially pushing the country to the brink every six to nine months or so. They're also pushing for a lot of sort of unrelated policy amendments to be added to these government funding bills to deal with, you know, policies in the military and other places that a lot of members are saying, like, look, that's not going to go anywhere in the Senate. Like, why are we doing this? And it's putting a lot of moderate House Republicans in an uncomfortable position to have to be forced to vote on things that ultimately aren't going anywhere. And I think

sort of looming over all of this is sort of the push also from the right to move ahead with an impeachment probe of President Biden following the recent indictments of former President Trump this summer. All right. We are going to talk all about that after a quick break. Hey there, Tamara Keith here, senior White House correspondent, and a quick plug for our latest bonus episode. It's a new trivia game for Politics Podcast Plus listeners, where we test your knowledge of the latest political news. Is it a special counsel? Or no? Oh, yes. Yes. Stick to your guns, Anne. Okay, have confidence. Check out that episode and find out how you could have a chance to play if you're an NPR Politics Podcast Plus supporter.

And we're back. And before we get to impeachment talk, I want to go back to another funding question. We talked about disaster funding, but also President Biden is seeking a big chunk of money to continue U.S. assistance to Ukraine. Is that a sticking point, Deirdre? It's a big sticking point. I mean, there is this group, again, mostly on the far right in the House and some in the Senate that don't want any additional money to be approved to go to Ukraine. This supplemental request, which includes disaster aid, also includes, I think, $24 billion for Ukraine. I think a lot of the numbers in this supplemental could change because since they sent it up to the Hill, as you noted, there's been sort of multiple natural disasters. And there's been developments question mark about how much money could ultimately be approved and how they're going to earlier this month that got some attention, because 55% of people in the CNN poll showed that they did not want to authorize new funding to Ukraine, including 55% of independents who said no and 71% of Republicans who said no. And that's the big block that's really against us. About 62% of Democrats

said that they do think the U.S. should continue funding the war in Ukraine, you know, in aid to Ukraine. You know, it's really interesting because that's dropped double digits in whether the U.S. should do more to help. There's a loud, small group on the right that's very vocal about this. But I think the bulk of most leadership Republicans on the Hill do support additional aid for Ukraine. I mean, notably, McConnell, who we talked about, is probably one of the most important Republican allies for the White House in this fight, because he's continued to go to the floor and make the point that it's important for the U.S. to continue to support Ukraine. And let's turn now to the possibility of an impeachment inquiry into President Biden because of business dealings that his son had when Biden was vice president. His son, Hunter Biden, is not part of the administration, was not part of the administration back then. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy was on Fox News Channel this past Sunday speaking with Maria Bartiromo and said that it's time to move in that direction. If you look at all the information we've been able to gather so far, it is a natural

step forward that you would have to go to an impeachment inquiry. There's been this push to impeach Biden for a long time, but House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has tried to sort of move it slowly forward without actually like formally launching a probe. Now he's saying, OK, now it's a natural step forward. There isn't any new evidence. There is no evidence that House Republicans have produced that there's any link between Hunter Biden's business dealings and any financial benefit to then Vice President Joe Biden or current President Joe Biden. So I don't think there's nothing that's really materialized out of these committees. But there is this pressure from conservatives who want the vote because they want to defend President Trump. And they're also sort of feel like it's retaliation for the two impeachment votes that Democrats had when they controlled the House. So, you know, I think that this is McCarthy trying to deal with that mood on the right, at the same time trying to move them along to agree to some

kind of CR to avoid a shutdown. We'll see if it works. It's only a natural step forward because of what we know to be Kevin McCarthy having a difficult time wrangling in the right wing of his party with only this slim four seat majority. And they certainly are clamoring for this fight. And for him to get anything done, he's going to have to throw a lot of bones to these folks to get them on board, even if that means something like impeachment. And let's not forget about Trump, because Trump wants this badly. He's been quite vocal about it. And McCarthy is under a lot of pressure because he has not shown at times enough fealty to Trump, who is, again, the prohibitive frontrunner in the Republican primary.

And former President Trump continues to enjoy a lot of support among House Republicans. But there are this group of vulnerable House Republicans, and they are the ones who represent districts that Biden won. And so they are representing a lot of different types of voters, including Republicans, Democrats, independents, that are not necessarily all big fans of former President Trump. And a lot of those moderates, people like Nebraska Republican Don Bacon, have been saying publicly, you know, for weeks, you know, or even for months when, you know, Trump's allies on the Hill push for impeachment. Hey, look, like it's fair to start an investigation, but we don't have the evidence. And until we have the evidence, we shouldn't move to vote to impeach.

OK, before we go, let's end on possibly a more positive note. Is Congress doing anything that is not related to fighting with each other and failing to do the basic functions of government? There are some bipartisan pockets. There is a bipartisan House committee focused on China. They have various proposals that they've been working on. They've been doing a lot of work over the summer and traveling around the country doing someember, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has announced this big forum on Capitol Hill, including, you know, industry folks like Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, and then other sort of stakeholders from the education world, industry, private sector, and government sector to talk about what Congress should be doing next. And so I think, you know, it's a tough issue, and it's unclear to me what the actual legislation would be. But I do think it's really notable that Congress is, at least in this space, seriously working ahead on that. All right, that is our podcast for today. I'm Tamara Keith,

I cover the White House. I'm Deirdre Walsh, I cover Congress. And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.