The NPR Politics Podcast - Nikki Haley Resigns As U.N. Ambassador; Kavanaugh Debuts On The Supreme Court

Episode Date: October 9, 2018

Nikki Haley is resigning as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and will leave the Trump administration at the end of the year. Plus, the Supreme Court welcomes its newest justice as Brett Kavanaugh takes the bench for his first arguments since a contentious Senate voted narrowly to confirm him. This episode: White House correspondent Tamara Keith, national political correspondent Mara Liasson, White House reporter Ayesha Rascoe, and justice correspondent Carrie Johnson. Email the show at [e-mail]. Find and support your local public radio station at npr.org/stations.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hello NPR listeners, this is Sean Brennan about to lead one of the pace groups in the Chicago Marathon. This podcast was recorded at 1 14 p.m. On Tuesday, October 9th. Things may have changed by the time you hear this. Okay, here's the show. Hey there, it's the NPR politics podcast. U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley is resigning. She's done an incredible job. She's a fantastic person, very importantly, but she also is somebody that gets it. And Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh notched his first day on the high court. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. I'm Ayesha Roscoe. I also cover the White House.

And I'm Mara Liason, national political correspondent. Aisha, there is some sound behind you. Can you please tell us about your current location? I am at Andrews Air Force Base. I will be taking off with the president pretty soon to go to Iowa for a campaign rally. So that's where I'm at right now. That's why there's some ambience sound. Ambiance. Ambiance. Okay, let's go with this Nikki Haley news, which kind of came out of nowhere. Did anyone see this coming? I didn't. No, I didn't see it coming. I haven't talked to anybody who saw it coming.

Nikki Haley is the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., she is leaving. And Nikki Haley and President Trump sat together in the Oval Office, and she described her choice to submit her resignation now and leave by the end of the year. It's been eight years of intense time, and I'm a believer in term limits. I think you have to be selfless enough to know when you step aside and allow someone else to do the job. Mara, do you have any idea what's really going on here, if there is something more than what she says? Well, there's always something more, I think. And everyone I talked to today did not know the real reason, but there was tremendous amounts of speculation. First of all, this administration is chock full of people with

presidential ambitions, Mike Pompeo, Mike Pence, and certainly Nikki Haley. But she's been one of the most adept political players in the cabinet. And timing is everything in politics. And a lot of people are speculating about the timing. Seems pretty bad for the Trump administration to have yet another high-profile foreign policy person leave before the midterms. But I think Nikki Haley probably wanted to get out now. If the Republicans get shellacked in the midterms and then you leave afterwards, it kind of looks like a rat deserting the sinking ship. She has a real future ahead of her. She's been able to parlay the UN position to kind of herself as a very hawkish Republican, carry the administration line. And she maintained a good relationship with him, I'm told, before she went on TV. Every single time she would have a personal conversation with him. Even if she went on TV to separate herself from him or to take a harder line against Russia or various things that she did. Yes. And I think she comes out very, very unusually for this administration. She comes out with her political persona and her reputation enhanced, not diminished.

You know, talking about the way that she's handled this politically and how she's been skilled at handling this politically, there was that anonymous op-ed and some people were saying that it might have been her or somebody associated with her. The anonymous op-ed being the one in The New York Times where they it was basically like, yes, there is a there is a shallow state and a bunch of us are working against the president. Yeah. And it talked about foreign policy. And she wrote in a public op-ed saying I didn't write it. But she made clear that I do disagree with the president sometimes and I let him know. And it was kind of like a way of saying, kind of setting herself apart. And I was also struck that she didn't really praise President Trump too much in the op-ed. Like she didn't say, oh, I think he's very qualified. I think he's a great leader.

She didn't say any of that. She kind of just said, I'm willing to disagree with him. And she kind of sang her own praises. And it was a very kind of eyebrow raising op-ed was too self-aggrandizing. But she has walked the tightrope of not becoming a Trump sycophant, but still not becoming on the outs with him. And she's tried to burnish her persona as someone who's independent, but still presents and supports the administration line. I think she's pulled it off pretty well. I can't actually think of anyone else who got to have a side-by-side with the president where you both talk about how great the other one is and that you resign that way instead of finding out that you're resigning because there was a tweet that says you are. Well, she wasn't fired, and it was in both of their interests to do that. First of all, on the heels of a bruising gender fight around Kavanaugh, here's his most prominent female cabinet member.

That's good for him to be seen, you know, friendly with her. And for her, she wants to make sure that she went out with no bad feelings. She made a point today of saying, I'm not running in 2020. A lot of people have speculated that she might be a possible primary challenger to Trump. She certainly put that one to rest. And I will say this for all of you that are going to ask about 2020. No, I'm not running for 2020. I can promise you what I'll be doing is campaigning for this one. So I look forward to supporting the president in the next election. Ayesha, I want to go back to you and go back to sort of what her role was in this administration. You know, what will her legacy be as the U.S. ambassador to the U.N.?

Haley, she really had a very good reputation for this administration. That is often critical. People are often critical, especially of their foreign policy and who's in charge. But when she was at the U.N., diplomats, sometimes they found her to be a bit harsh. But I think that's because she was trying to put forward a very kind of strident message from the U.S. and from the Trump administration and kind of play that role. But they did find her to be effective and they found her to be, you know, highly skilled. And that's kind of not what you usually hear when you're talking about people working in

the Trump administration. You often hear complaints that, you know, they didn't really know what they were doing or they didn't have the experience or they're out of their depth. But that's not what you heard with Nikki Haley. So this is kind of a loss for the administration as well, that they had somebody that was respected and that was able to kind of convey their message in a way that was able to be received by other people and be respected by other people, not even though I'm sure a lot of foreign diplomats didn't always

agree. The UN is often a pretty unimportant job. But in this administration, who is removing the US from so many UN functions and bodies, it's even less. And people in the administration, including Donald Trump, including John Bolton, have talked about the United Nations with contempt. It's amazing how much she was able to do for herself in a job like this. Well, and one thought about why she is leaving now or announcing that she's leaving now and not leaving until January, aside from, hey, this has been a while and what she says, which is she's been in public life a long time. She believes there should be term limits ready to move on. One thought is that she had a fair bit of influence when Rex Tillerson was secretary of state and H.R. McMaster was the National Security Council chief because they didn't have great influence with President Trump. But now you have John Bolton, who's the national security adviser. Who used to be the U.N. ambassador.

Yes. And you have Mike Pompeo as secretary of state. And both of them have a lot more influence with the president than their predecessors. That's right. And this preserves her ability to be the secretary of state in the future if Mike Pompeo should ever step down before the end of Trump's term. And President Trump said that he would love to have her back if she if she ever wants to come back. I think once again, that her ability to keep in in Trump's good graces has has really stood out. Okay, we are going to leave it there. Aisha, you've got a plane to catch. Yes, I do. Air Force One. Yeah, just a little plane. That's right. Thank you for

being with us. Thanks for having me. And when we come back, NPR's Keri Johnson will join us to talk about Brett Kavanaugh's first important in today's economy. That's why Grow with Google is providing free online training and tools to help Americans learn the skills they need to succeed. Learn more about Grow with Google and get started by visiting google.com slash grow. I'm Maria Hinojosa, and this week on Latino USA, a conversation with Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who recently adapted her memoir for a young adult audience. That's This Week on Latino USA. Find us on NPR One or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back and we're joined now by NPR's Carrie Johnson.

Hey, Carrie. Hey, Tam. So you did something. You went on a field trip. I went on a field trip to the Supreme Court and I could actually see for the first time in my career because Nina Totenberg couldn't be there and I got to sit in her seat, which is like right up there. Oh, I could see all the action. This is a big day because there is a new justice on the bench, Brett Kavanaugh, who was confirmed by the narrowest of margins after a very big fight. So why don't you just walk us through your walk into the court? Yeah, I got to the court around nine o'clock, about an hour before the oral arguments were supposed to begin. And there were several dozen protesters outside. There were barricades up on the steps, so they couldn't get up on the steps. But on the street level, there were several dozen protesters and they were making a chant about sexual predators, which was not something you see

and hear every day at the court. Of course, I think they were referring to allegations of sexual assault against Brett Kavanaugh, which he has vociferously denied. And I thought, oh boy, what is going to happen inside the court today? But there were no actual disruptions once you got inside the building. It was all quiet on the front. So, oh boy, it was just another day on the court, I guess, ultimately inside. But what was it? What was Kavanaugh like? You know, Clarence Thomas, who had a bruising confirmation fight, basically didn't talk for years and years and years. What about Brett Kavanaugh? Did he talk? He talked a lot, Tam. For a while, I saw him stand up and sort of take in the room. Of course, his wife, Ashley, was there. His two daughters were there. Retired Justice Anthony Kennedy,

whose seat he took, was there. John Roberts's wife, Jane, was there. His two daughters were there. Retired Justice Anthony Kennedy, whose seat he took, was there. John Roberts, his wife, Jane, was there. It was kind of a big moment and he was taking it all in. He took his time, but he wound up asking more than 10 questions of both sides over the course of these two oral arguments that lasted two hours. And John Roberts, the chief justice, welcomed him with some very warm words, wishing him a long and happy career on the Supreme Court. In fact, Kavanaugh sits next to Justice Elena Kagan, who once hired him to teach at Harvard Law School. They had a really warm rapport. They were laughing in the beginning and talking and exchanging words that we couldn't hear. And then finally, after all the arguments were over, Kavanaugh shook Kagan's hand and left the bench. Kagan is one of the justices who was nominated by President Obama. So what do you think was going on there?

Well, some people are arguing that Kagan is trying to co-opt Brett Kavanaugh on his first day on the job and get him to become a more moderating influence on the court since Anthony Kennedy has now left. You can't even say that with a straight face. Well, maybe on some issues it might happen. It's hard to tell after day one. But she certainly did have the charm offensive going on strong. Wow. We're on the Politics Podcast.

We're all focused on November 6th or who's winning the next week or the next news cycle. These justices play a game of 20 and 30 years. She is thinking about this guy who may be sitting next to her for the next 20 years and how to move him gently in one direction. She may or may not succeed. But when justices do politicking, that's how they do it. Long game. And that's so interesting because in the past, there were so many justices who moved away from the politics of the president that supported them. Generally, it was conservative justices or justices appointed by Republican presidents who moved to the center or to the middle. That might be a thing of the past. And Brett Kavanaugh is someone who was hand-selected. He was part of a list of potential judges, justices who were handpicked by the Federalist Society to be conservative.

To be impervious to Elena Kagan's charms. That is the purpose of that list. No more suitors. That's how that list came about. No more suitors. They'd been burned too many times. The guy was chosen because he was considered to be reliably conservative. Souter was a Supreme Court justice picked by President...

George H.W. H.W. Okay, I didn't know if it was right. Ended up being a huge disappointment to conservatives. Actually, they considered it a betrayal. But we're now in the era where the Supreme Court is viewed just as partisan an institution as every other one. And it's not just because of the Kavanaugh hearings. It's long, you know, Bush v. Gore, 5-4, 5-4, 5-4, 5-4. I mean, you can only have an avalanche of 5-4 rulings when you think, gee, how come every single justice votes the way the president who appointed them would have wanted?

Sounds pretty partisan to me. I mean, that's how people view the court. It's not just because of the hearings we just went through. Well, and it's interesting because Kagan just recently was talking about, you know, maybe it's not so good for us when we all rule in a way that is utterly predictable. Easy to say when you're on the minority end. Well, easy to say when you're speaking in a panel discussion. Well, but also when you're in the minority, as the Democratic appointed justices are. As we've said before, the only thing that this institution has is public confidence because it doesn't have an army to go out and defend its actions or it can't pass laws.

The public has got to believe in what it says and follow what it says. And believe that it was fair. That's exactly right. And this very contentious confirmation process may have done some damage. We're going to have to find out. So the cases today, it sounds like they were remarkable only in that there was a new justice on the court. Career Criminal Act, which Congress passed to take dangerous people who may be wielding guns off the street. In other words, if you have a bunch of convictions for violent offenses in your past, you should ratchet up the penalties, depending on how many crimes you have in the past. And there were open questions today argued before the court, very technical ones, about certain kinds of burglaries and whether they should count as one of the strikes under this federal law and other things

of that nature. So these are not going to be the cases where we find out, you know, is Justice Kavanaugh reliably Republican? Is Justice Kavanaugh a reliable Republican voter, whatever you want to call it? Will there be cases this year where we will get a better sense of who he is? The court didn't accept any new cases today, but there are several issues that are percolating in the lower courts that could get up there. One has to do with immigration and President Obama's DACA program. Another is the issue of the Affordable Care Act, President Obama's signature health care law. Kavanaugh has ruled on that in lower courts, and we're going to have to see where he lands if that lands back at the high court. And finally, there's a whole category of cases that deals with the clash between LGBTQ people

and people whose religions in some ways disfavor providing services for same-sex marriage and the like. And all of those cases are things where Justice Anthony Kennedy, whom Kavanaugh replaced, was right in the center of things. And we're going to have to see where Kavanaugh ends up. All right, Carrie, Mara, I guess we'll just spend the next few decades figuring out who Brett Kavanaugh really is. But for now, that is a wrap for today. We will be back as soon as there's political news that you need to know about.

And every weekend, we release a newsletter that walks you through the biggest stories a wrap for today. We will be back as soon as there's political news that you need to know about. And every weekend we release a newsletter that walks you through the biggest stories from our team with an in-depth analysis of the stories of the week. You can subscribe to the NPR Politics Newsletter at npr.org slash politics newsletter. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. I'm Carrie Johnson, justice correspondent. And I'm Mara Liason, national political correspondent. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.