The NPR Politics Podcast - North Korea, Georgia's 6th, Trump's Taxes

Episode Date: April 17, 2017

Vice President Pence visits the Korean peninsula, the special election in Georgia, and the President's tax returns. This episode: host/White House correspondent Tamara Keith, White House correspondent Scott Horsley, and political editor Domenico Montanaro. More coverage at nprpolitics.org. 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

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on the NPR One app, and on your local public radio station. Okay, here's the show. It's the NPR Politics Podcast, here to talk about North Korea and the Vice President's visit to the Korean Peninsula today. Plus, a little bit about Tuesday's special election in Georgia. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House for NPR. I'm Scott Horsley. I also cover the White House. And I'm Domenico Montanaro, political editor. Happy Easter egg roll day, Scott Horsley, here at the White House. When you say it like that, it sounds like I'm going to get Chinese food.

Scott, who is in the bunny costume this time? Wouldn't you like to know? It was not me, and it was not Sean Spicer who wore it during the Bush administration. Okay, we are going to talk about two stories today. First up, North Korea. Vice President Mike Pence was on his way to South Korea when North Korea launched a missile test that failed almost instantly over the weekend. Earlier today, Pence did something many American officials before him have done and visited the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea. And here's what he said. Just in the past two weeks, the world witnessed the strength and resolve of our new president in actions taken in Syria and Afghanistan. North Korea would do well

not to test his resolve or the strength of the armed forces of the United States in this region. All right. So that seems like a pretty clear message following on the cruise missile strike in Syria and that so-called mother of all bombs last week in Afghanistan. That's right. Remember when the bomb was dropped, the 11-ton bomb was dropped to kill ISIS militants on a remote section of Afghanistan. There were questions put to President Trump. Is this designed to send a message to North Korea? Vice President Pence is certainly saying that whether or not that was the intent, they'll certainly take that message. And this is the Trump administration, you know, not walking softly and carrying a big stick, but rather sort of kicking open the door

and saying, hey, check out this big stick I've got, everybody, you better pay attention. Peace through strength is sort of the, you know, was the axiom of the Reagan administration. You know, Donald Trump has had some domestic failures, particularly the health care bill that collapsed. And being able to pose a strong posture on the world stage is certainly something I think Donald Trump is comfortable with. It moves him to a place of power that he doesn't need all of these other people for. The challenge here is that you're sort of implicitly drawing a threat that would be very challenging to use. The Korean Peninsula is much more of a tinderbox than some of these other areas where we've used that weapon. It's one thing to drop an 11-ton bomb in a remote section of Afghanistan. It's another to do it where you've got 37,000 U.S. troops plus

a whole lot of South Koreans within easy artillery range of North Korea. While he was there, Vice President Mike Pence used a line that the Trump administration has used before. Over the past 18 months, North Korea has conducted two unlawful nuclear tests and an unprecedented number of ballistic missile tests, even conducting a failed missile launch as I traveled here for this visit. The era of strategic patience is over. What's not clear there, though, is what comes next. If strategic patience is not your option, what does the administration plan to do instead? And it sounds like what they're really going to do is more diplomacy, more economic and diplomatic pressure on North Korea, but perhaps now backed up with a more

credible threat of military force in the sense that Donald Trump has certainly suggested that he would be more willing to pull the trigger than some of his predecessors. At the same time, while this is a problem that has foiled four previous presidential administrations, it might have been not the big guns that came into play over this past weekend, but the little computer code. The administration isn't saying this, but there is certainly a lot of speculation. One reason that missile launch failed so quickly was that perhaps it was sabotaged by a U.S. cyber attack. That's something that former President Obama authorized, and we know that they've been working on that. Certainly, nobody's saying that that was the

case in this instance, but there's a lot of suspicion about that. The remarkable thing is, you know, Mike Pence, the vice president, visits the demilitarized zone, where these two militaries are aimed at each other, that the demilitarized zone still exists, that this has been such an intractable problem over such a long period of time. And the North Korean regime is continuing to develop weapons. And even, you know, a failed missile test is still an opportunity to practice, to gather data, to learn if there was some sort of a virus inserted in the missile, to learn that that happened. And short of any nascent nuclear capability, North Korea has 1.2 million very conventional soldiers.

This is a very big military located very close to a lot of American service members and our allies in South Korea and Japan. I was also struck by the photos showing Pence's daughter looking across the Demilitarized Zone with one of those like observation things that are set up there so people can go there and look across the border into North Korea. That just tells you how long standing this has been that you can set up one of those kind of observation towers like you would someplace looking at a tourist attraction in the United States where you'd pop a quarter in and look across. And in terms of North Korea's perspective on the current condition of saber-rattling, North Korea's deputy UN ambassador said that the U.S. was turning the Korean peninsula into, quote, the world's biggest hotspot and creating, quote, a dangerous situation in which a thermonuclear war may break out at any moment.

He also said that North Korea is, quote, ready to react to any mode of war desired by the U.S. So, like, where does this go from here? Well, again, right now the White House is talking about the military threat as something it's sort of keeping in its back pocket. It's definitely not off the table, but it's not their first go-to either. They're still talking about trying to put diplomatic and economic pressure on North Korea, which in that sense makes their policy seem a lot like the strategic patience of the administrations that have come before. The president has talked a lot about working with China and trying to enlist China's aid in bringing North Korea to heel. But as he's

acknowledged, that's not as easy as he thought. And we know that President Trump got a little bit of an education in this from Chinese President Xi Jinping. Over this past weekend, though, in fact, on Easter Sunday, Donald Trump woke up and tweeted, why would I call China a currency manipulator when they're working with us on the North Korean problem? We'll see what happens. A few minutes later, he tweeted, happy Easter, everyone. So the president now has come to find out what previous presidents have learned is that relations with countries like China are not one dimensional. You may have conflicts with them on economic issues, but need them on strategic issues. And that's something that this president's learning to wrestle with.

Domenico, can you explain to me what China can do, how they can bring pressure and what they are doing now? Well, China has the biggest leverage over North Korea because they're their biggest trading partner, you know, whether it's things like coal, which had gotten shut off earlier this year, or food or anything else. China is really North Korea's pipeline. And other presidents, as Scott had noted, you know, four past administrations have tried to put the pressure on China to have them work with the United States to put some pressure on North Korea. You know, back in March of 2012, there was a headline talking about Obama putting pressure on China to work with North Korea. Obviously, famously, the Bush administration tried those six party talks with China. And you know, when it comes to the idea that there could

be a conflict with North Korea, everyone was holding their breath over the weekend, because you had the United States ratcheting up its rhetoric as North Korea had, you know, the fact that they were going to test this missile that eventually did fail, but how the United States would have responded, obviously, was something a lot of people were holding their breath over. And China's foreign minister had said that it feels like the situation is ripe for war, which he said was dangerous. China does not have the political influence over North Korea that it once enjoyed. A lot of the politicians in North Korea who maybe had ties to China have either been exiled or executed by the young leader there. But China does still have some economic influence.

It's really the only market for trade for North Korea and the only source of hard currency for North Korea. Back in February, China announced that it was suspending deliveries of coal that it used to buy from North Korea for the rest of this year. And President Trump talked about that a little bit during his news conference with the NATO leader last week when he talked about these North Korean ships being turned back from Chinese ports. He might have left people with the impression that that was a result of his conversations with President Xi. But in fact, that was a decision China had made weeks before that in response to United Nations sanctions. But certainly one that President Trump welcomes. Absolutely.

Okay, we need to take a quick break. And then we will be right back to talk about the special election this week in Georgia and the president's taxes. We'd like to say a quick thank you and share a message from one of our sponsors, Upside.com, a new way to buy travel. Designed for business travelers, Upside saves money on travel and gives you a free gift card worth hundreds of dollars every time you buy a trip. Upside is able to do this by bundling your flights and hotel together for one low price. That saves you money so they can give you a free gift card. Upside's perfect for business travel. Save big on travel and get a big

gift card every time. For more information, visit Upside.com and use code POLITICS. Okay, we are back. Before we go, let's just spend a few minutes talking about Tuesday's special election in Georgia's 6th congressional district. Democratic candidate John Ossoff is up against a quartet of Republican candidates? Or is it like a whole marching band or like a jazz group? I think there are jazz groups that are quartets. But anyway, I do. There are more than that. But there are four main Republican candidates. And the issue here is that this is the kind of election where someone has to get to 50% in order to avoid a runoff. So there would be another election one-on-one on June 20th if no one gets to 50%.

So Ossoff right now has been polling somewhere in the low 40s, 43%, 44% in some polls. All the other Republicans are somewhere in the teens. So there isn't anyone expected to get as high as Ossoff. But when they're all combined together in this Republican-leaning district, the Republican would likely be favored heading into a June 20th runoff if that happens. So if he doesn't score a knockout blow in this jungle primary, then he goes up against just one Republican and he'd likely be the underdog in that race. Probably. Yeah. I mean, the thing is, this is a district that Tom Price, who is Donald Trump's

Health and Human Services Secretary, had vacated, and he won more than 60% in this district. Donald Trump won it by a little less than two points. So you have a lot of suburban Atlanta Republicans who are just concerned about Trump, about this administration. There's kind of lukewarm on what he's trying to do. And that's a story that we've seen play out throughout the country. And look, coming after this Kansas special election, where Democrats did far better than was expected without any resources. And you have someone like Ossoff here, you know, not really a candidate. Many people gave it a lot of chance to raising more than $8 million, which is unheard of in a, you know, special election for a congressional race. Democrats feel like they might have some momentum going into Tuesday where maybe they could pull something off.

So this race has, as you say, Dominic, it's like it's gotten a lot of attention and a lot of outside spending. Ossoff did not raise $8 million from people in that district. He raised $8 million from people all over America, Democrats, that are putting money into this. And Republican outside groups have trained a ton of fire on Ossoff to run attack ads against him. One of the ads that a Republican-allied super PAC has been running, we've played on this podcast before, but because it is related to Star Wars, I would like to hear it again. You see, Ossoff was just a college kid doing things like dressing up with his drinking buddies and pretending to be Han Solo.

I'm Han Solo, Captain of the Millennium Falcon. Well, look, I think that there's an underlying message with that. Sorry, Johnny, but the truth strikes back. He's a former documentary filmmaker and he's an ex-congressional staffer. So that's not usually the kind of A-level resume that a congressional committee is going to say, you know what? I want that guy to run in this race that we think we can win. He wound up raising, like you said, from all over the country because you've had a lot of people, Democrats, who've seen this as a potential place that they could do well. Now he's gotten all this momentum behind him. And he also has celebrities in his corner. Here is an ad which features an actor from, like, my second favorite movie. Hi, I'm Samuel L. Jackson. Snake's on a plane.

Remember what happened the last time people stayed home? We got stuck with Trump. We have to channel the great vengeance and furious anger we have for this administration into votes at the ballot box. I mean, great vengeance and furious anger is, of course, his line, one of his best lines from Pulp Fiction. Oh, is that what that's from? Yes. I don't think – well, whatever. The point is what Samuel L. Jackson doing in a special election ad like about Trump that has nothing – Trump is not on the ballot. I mean look, this is a place for Democrats to feel like they can take out their frustrations with Donald Trump when really it changes nothing, right? I mean, like if you, even if they were to win one seat mathematically, that doesn't take the house away. Like for example, when Scott Brown won the Senate race in Massachusetts when Senator,

right in 2010, when Senator Ted Kennedy died, that denied Democrats the 60th vote to try to get healthcare passed. Nothing like that is the consequence of this election. This is the first chance or second chance, I guess, after Kansas for Democrats to be able to, you know, show that they've got enough enthusiasm to try to organize and get people to the polls. Yeah. We'll talk about the results of that special election on Thursday. But before we go, one more thing. Tomorrow is tax day, which prompted a question to Press Secretary Sean Spicer at today's White House press briefing about whether President Trump will follow the tradition of all presidents since Nixon and release his tax returns to the public. Is the president going to release his 2016 tax returns, given that we can assume maybe that those are not themselves under audit? No, you can't. They are. I think it's

been covered before. It's the same thing that was discussed during the campaign trail. The president is under audit. It's a routine one that continues. And I think that the American public know clearly where he stands. This was something that he made very clear during the election cycle. And so the one time that it was done, I think the people understand how successful the president's been and how much he's paid in taxes. But we're under the same audit that existed. And so nothing has changed. Over the weekend, there were protests in cities around the country with thousands of people calling for the president to release his tax returns. And President Trump responded to those protests on Twitter saying, quote, I did what was almost an impossible thing to do for a Republican, easily won the Electoral College, exclamation point. Now tax returns are

brought up again? You know, I was really stunned by that tweet over the weekend when I saw that pop up, because really tax returns, it's amazing how transparently Trump is viewing this issue, that it's through a political lens, that people bringing them up must be doing it to bring up a partisan attack, when really there's been a 40-year tradition in this country of presidents or people running for president even releasing their tax returns. And White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer talks about how his returns are under audit. That certainly doesn't stop him from releasing his tax returns. It certainly doesn't stop him from releasing tax returns that weren't under audit, for example.

But, you know, this is an issue that's about transparency and trust with the American public. But just last week, they announced that they are not going to continue the tradition started in the Obama years of releasing the visitor logs to the White House. So we won't know who is coming in and meeting with the president and his top staffers. Now, Spicer said that that was fake transparency. It's certainly true that in the Obama years, they reserved the right to take some names off and not release everybody that was coming through. And that was a new thing that presidents prior to Obama hadn't done. So it was a short tradition, I guess. But this president basically campaigned on a platform of saying, I'm not going to release my tax returns. He got elected. Whatever leverage the public had to demand the tax returns, I think they kind of gave up last November.

And the Obama administration, we should remember, remember there were some off-site meetings that top aides of the president held so that they weren't subject to the visitor logs, something that maybe gets forgotten about. But it's odd to think that the answer would be to do away with the visitor logs because they're not a perfect system. But, you know, the Trump White House is saying, look, they're doing what's legal. They're saying that these visitor logs are not something that's been precedent, is not something that is written into law that they have to do this. He's filed financial disclosures, which are required, and that would be their defense. And I haven't seen any polling about visitor logs and whether the public cares about visitor logs, but there is a lot of polling about tax returns. And I'm looking at a Bloomberg

Morning Consult poll from earlier this month that finds that 53% of those polled said that they think that the President Donald Trump should be required to release his federal tax returns. That is a majority of Americans. However, when you get into how important it is to people that those returns be released, only 36% of people say it's very important. And I guess the thing that could become an issue is you add the tax returns to the visitor logs to some other changes that were made in the ethics requirements that the Trump administration is imposing on the employees in the administration. And you could get to a point, though I don't think we're there yet, but you could get to a point where the public says, actually, we want more transparency.

And that is it for us today. We'll be back on Thursday with our regular roundup. Also, that day the Italian prime minister is visiting the White House. It'll be a busy day for us, so the episode might be a bit later than usual that night. As always, support the podcast by supporting your local public radio station. Go to npr.org slash stations to find yours and donate, and please tell them we sent you. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House for NPR. I'm Scott Horsley. I also cover the White House.

And I'm Domenico Montanaro, political editor. And thanks for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.