The NPR Politics Podcast - Politics Roundup: Hunter Biden Trial, Congressional Races

Episode Date: June 7, 2024

The president's son is being tried on federal firearm charges for allegedly lying about his drug use when he bought a gun in 2018. And as presidential primary season concludes, we turn our attention to the congressional races likely to determine control of the House and Senate.This episode: political correspondent Susan Davis, justice correspondent Ryan Lucas, senior political editor and correspondent Domenico Montanaro, and congressional correspondent Claudia Grisales.The podcast is produced by Jeongyoon Han, Casey Morell and Kelli Wessinger. Our intern is Bria Suggs. Our editor is Eric McDaniel. 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 Elena from Des Moines, Iowa. I'm currently taking a break from listening to the NPR Politics podcast so I can submit this voice recording, all while I get ready for my high school graduation. The time is currently 12 57 p.m. on Friday, June 7th. Things may have changed by the time you hear this, but I will have high school behind me. I'll be looking forward to this fall where I go to Memphis for Rhodes College to study neuroscience. Okay, here's the show. Wow. Memphis is a good town. Good place to go to college. We have such smart listeners. We really do. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Susan Davis. I cover politics. I'm Ryan Lucas. I cover the Justice Department. And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent.

And President Biden's son Hunter is on trial in Wilmington, Delaware. He's charged with lying about his drug use when he filled out federal forms to buy a firearm back in 2018. Ryan, you're in Delaware. You're outside the courthouse right now. You've been covering the trial all week. So I'll just put it to you this way. What have been the key moments that you think are worth highlighting? There are key legal moments. And then there are kind of these very difficult emotional moments. And one of those just happened right before we came up for the lunch break today. Naomi Biden, Hunter Biden's daughter, was called to the stand to testify for the defense.

She was on the stand for about an hour, maybe a little less. And, you know, she said at one point she was nervous. You had family members, Biden family members in the front row, First Lady Jill Biden's in the front row, Joe Biden's sisters in the front row as well, Hunter Biden's wife. You could see them trying to kind of wipe away tears. So a difficult family moment as she's up there testifying about her relationship with her father and how difficult that was at times. In terms of the legal side of this, it's been interesting watching the government try to build this case. They've used text messages in which Hunter talks about his drug use, extensive drug use, his addiction to crack cocaine. They played long excerpts from his memoir that he himself narrates, talking about this downward spiral into drug use that he had over several years.

And then we heard from, you know, three women who had romantic relationships with him, including his ex-wife, Catherine Buell, a former girlfriend, Zoe Keston, and then his brother's widow, Hallie Biden, about how they witnessed his drug use. And we got kind of an inside look at the toll that this had on the family and how difficult it was for them. There was testimony about seeing him smoke crack cocaine, about seeing him buy crack cocaine. Girlfriend had talked about watching him cook crack cocaine on his own. And so we've seen the toll that this has taken on his family. There are some key facts here that Hunter Biden does not dispute. He does not dispute his history of addiction and that things happened when he was faced with addiction that he now

regrets. 100%. And his attorney, Abby Lowell, has said exactly that in court several times, saying there's no argument that Hunter struggled with addiction. What he has tried to do, what Abbey Lowell has tried to do, is take all the testimony that the government has given, documenting the drug use, and say, let's focus on the specific time period when Hunter bought and owned the gun. Because that's what those charges revolve around, is was he a drug user when he bought the gun? And then did he lie on the forms about it?

And so what he's done is he's taken all this government testimony and he's asked the three women that I mentioned whether they ever saw him use drugs over the specific period that he owned the gun. And each one said, no, they did not. So that's kind of what he's trying to base this defense on. But there's one problem with that. And that's something that the prosecution keeps on coming back to is there are two text messages that Hunter Biden sent in the day after and then two days after he bought her that I was sleeping on a car smoking crack at 4th and Rodney and those are two that the defense is trying to find a way to bat aside they've tried to say that you know nobody knows whether he was actually doing that Hallie Biden said sometimes Hunter would lie about what he was doing it's just a totally messy thing obviously has political implications because this is the first family

we're talking about. A week or so after, we were seeing a former first family dragged into court because the principal, former President Donald Trump, was convicted on a business falsification felony charge in New York. So, you know, it's a weird time in politics because it's not a thing that you normally see for families of those who are running for president. I do think the politics of this are interesting, strictly through the political lens for Joe Biden, because so much of the story of his son's addiction and his fatherhood and all of that has been very public. And this has been litigated in some ways in the 2020 election as well. And the president has often seemed like

a sympathetic figure to Americans because the things about drug use and addiction and families is quite frankly, not uncommon in this country. Probably Joe Biden's best moment in the 2020 campaign was the debate where Donald Trump tried to corner him and say, your son is a cocaine addict. And he was like, there's lots of other Americans who've dealt with these kinds of issues with their family, with their kids. And I'm proud of my son for having gone through that and from coming out the other side of it. You know, I think the real key here is whether or not Republicans can do what they've been trying to do and have been unsuccessful in doing in somehow tying Hunter's troubles to Joe Biden, which they've not been

able to do at all, but continue to sort of use Hunter Biden as a way to try to undermine Joe. Sure. I mean, Domenico, there's also the politics here of, and you referenced the Trump verdict last week, you know, Donald Trump and his allies have blamed Joe Biden for that guilty verdict, suggesting that it's somehow the result of, you know, democratic politics, and he's been a puppet master in the justice system. But yet his own son is on trial in the very same justice system, which would seem to undermine the notion that somehow Joe Biden has any control over what the court system is doing in this country. Yeah, and this is a federal case, which the president would have more control over than a state case like Donald Trump was convicted on in New York.

Ryan, what's the timeline here? Do you have a sense of how much more testimony the jury needs to hear when there might be a verdict? Well, Hunter's attorney said he planned to call two or three witnesses. We've already heard from two. We'll see what happens in the afternoon. Lowell said that he expects by Monday at the latest will be done with defense testimony. The government would then have a chance to put on a short rebuttal. And then this case will be sent to the jury. All right. We're going to leave it there for today. Ryan, I know you have to get back in the courthouse. So thanks so much. Thank you. All right. Let's take a quick break. And when we get back, we'll talk about the latest from the campaign trail.

And we're back. And Claudia Grisales joins us now. Hello, friend. Hey there. And the 2024 presidential primary season, such as it was, is almost over. Guam and the U.S. Virgin Islands are holding their contest this weekend. But Domenico, let's take a step back here. I mean, this primary season, it almost felt like it happened, but it didn't because it felt pretty much ordained from the start. Yeah, look, I think that this was almost preordained, despite the fact that many voters didn't actually think it was going to happen. Having a Biden Trump rematch, I think some people are still sort of like not paying attention to politics.

You know, they've stepped away from it a little bit because they don't like their choices and they haven't quite come around to the reality of what this is. I mean, maybe it'll happen after the conventions. Maybe it'll happen at the conventions. Maybe it'll happen just as people are going into the ballot boxes. But, you know, everything's trending closer to a lower turnout election than 2020 because of all of that. Also, just because the fact that there is not universal mail-in voting everywhere. So, you know, I think the primary season, we all kind of knew was front loaded that by March or so, mid-March, we would know who the nominee on the Republican side would be.

And that's exactly what happened. Donald Trump, with these indictments, has been able to really consolidate the Republican base, announced his election effort a week after the 2022 midterm election. So this has been going on for almost two years at this point. Yeah. It's like if you feel like 2024 seems long, it actually is long. It's long by historical standards of when the nominees are determined. Yeah. It's been long for when we've known who will be campaigning to be the presidential nominees. And it's a long general election because of how front loaded the calendar was that we now literally just by days will have the longest general election or having the longest general election in history. Claudia, presidential primaries may be over or almost over.

But, hey, congressional primaries. Summer tends to be a very critical time for determining a lot of the key races that are going to decide control of Congress. You've just been out on the road. You were in Nevada, a key state to not just the presidential but also control of Congress. What was your takeaway from your reporting there? So Vegas was really interesting in terms of hearing the palpable anger from voters when we were there. We traveled about 30 miles across the Las Vegas metroplex from Henderson to far northwest Las Vegas. And there was a constant theme just in terms of the random folks we would talk to at

a farmer's market at an early polling site. And one of the big themes was the anger towards President Biden. A lot of folks who are going to vote for Trump, who may not vote at all, are blaming a lot of the issues that they're dealing with on Biden. I heard a lot from younger voters who have not been able to find their own housing. They're back at home. Yeah, they're back home in their 20s, living with their parents. And also this real despair and fear that they may never be able to buy a house. They're also worried about rising costs when it comes to gas, groceries, and they're confused by it, as well as immigration. That is a hot topic there, too. I also heard about conspiracy theories and concerns that

COVID was a cover-up. That was just one of many I heard, and it's clear it's part of the confusion that a lot of voters are experiencing, and they really believe this. And Vegas was one of those places that was so hard hit during the pandemic. This was their tourism industry that was shut down, and they're still building, rebuilding, and trying to get past that. And this kind of aligns with what polling is telling us in Nevada, Domenico, that Trump has been leading in a lot of polls there. And Nevada is historically always a state that's decided by really tight margins. And down the ballot in Nevada next week on June 11th, they're going to have their congressional primaries. The Republican Sam Brown is expected to win the nomination there to take on Democratic incumbent Jackie Rosen.

Our most recent NPR PBS NewsHour Marist polling, when it's asked that congressional ballot question, the broad, which party would you like to control Congress? It does illuminate that all of this stuff is really tight right now. It is very tight. I mean, 45-45 was in our poll, whether or not you preferred a Democratic-controlled Congress or a Republican-controlled Congress. That may seem like a tie, and it is by all standards, but except for whether or not it actually means you will control Congress because Republicans control so many more seats and the way that they're drawn that Democrats need actually a much larger margin in their favor to be able to control Congress. So in some ways, the 45-45 does put Democrats even more on their back foot than the tie would appear to show. Are there any races coming up that you're watching that might tell us something about either the primaries or the parties or which way things are going? Yeah, one pattern, you raised this

early in the election season when we talk about revenge politics that seems to be playing a big role in elections this year. We just saw Tony Gonzalez in one of Texas's largest districts, one of the largest in the country, eke out a win pretty much by about 400 votes against a challenger that was being supported by one of his colleagues in his own party, Matt Gates of Florida, who is facing his own opponent as well. And so it's interesting in terms of that theme. One other person in that group, there's many, but to point out, is Nancy Mace of South Carolina, who was one of the eight who voted to oust House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. Now on his own revenge tour. Exactly. And he has his fingerprints on a lot of these races. And so it's going to be interesting

to see if she can pull this out. She's really on the defense, for example, in terms of trying to fend off this challenge. She's done very well in the past in terms of facing these tough races. She's been on the opposite side of former President Donald Trump, and she has prevailed. And now she has his endorsement. What a world. And so it's going to be interesting to see the next steps for her. She's able to win this race as well. I'm also watching later this month in New York, the primary there. I've done reporting on this in the Democratic primaries, the sort of split between the progressive wing and the more centrist wing of the party over Israel,

Gaza politics. And Jamal Bowman, one of the male members of the squad who has taken a lot of votes against Israel in Congress, he has a very real primary challenge from George Latimer, sort of an old school New York party boss. The polling's really tight there. And so far in this election season, no congressional incumbent has lost in a primary. Jamal Bowman is one that's coming up

that I think a lot of Democrats are watching to see which way that race could go and what those sort of Israel politics are telling us about the Democratic Party. Yeah, New York in particular is a place where this kind of thing can resonate. So, you know, I'm not sure, you know, how that race is going to really play out, but we've seen there be some push from the other side of this because there's been so much conversation around the protests on college campuses, in the pro-Palestinian protests, that some of the concern from the Biden administration

and the Biden campaign on pushing too far to show that they're aligning with the progressive wing is that when you look at polling, you look at surveys, they see that there's support for continuing to aid Israel when you look at voters in the middle and older voters. And that really puts Biden's campaign in a difficult position. And some of these candidates are going to be pushed now to see whether or not there's any salience on the side that's a little more pro-Israel. All right, let's take another break. And when we get back, 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 podcast where we talk about the things we just can't stop thinking about, politics or otherwise. I'm going to start off because there is something that has taken hold of the Washington desk of NPR and we need to talk about it. And it's a little app called Stompers.

Stompers? Stompers. It's basically an app that allows you to connect with your friends and then compete for the steps that you take throughout the course of the day. I'm so glad I don't know about this. I'm going to erase this from my mind afterwards. It's been an illuminating couple of days because I think we're really learning a lot about each other, you know, in terms of who's active, who's maybe a little bit of a cheater, who you're willing to take on. Part of the app allows you to, like, throw banana peels at people or hit them with a baseball bat to knock them back. You know, some of our more creative colleagues are finding ways to work around the system.

What are they doing? I'm not going to call out names, Eric McDaniel, but they will do tricky things like put their phone on airplane mode so you don't exactly know how many steps they're taking. And then they turn it back on to like vaunt to the front of the pack. Wow. But I would say it's bringing like a new level of added stress to my work life. But I will say my step count, my daily step count is going up. Eric is very smart and very savvy. He creates like algorithms

and all kinds of yeah he's probably ai that's doing his steps like he's check gpt he's watching i love that dominica what about you what can't you let go of the olympics and air conditioning paris is trying to be so green about these olympics that they have all these sustainability things that they're trying to do which is la laudable. But one of the things that sort of raised a red flag for me is no air conditioning in the dorms where the athletes are staying. They have this like cooling system in the buildings where they're running like cold water in pipes underneath the rooms. And they swear there's no way that the rooms will get warmer than 79 degrees. Let me tell you something. That's hot.

That's hot to sleep. There's a reason they picked 79 because it's not 80, right? It is not comfortable. Exactly. No, can't do it. Connie, what about you? What can't you let go of? My I can't let it go is kid related.

And that's my youngest kid. She graduated from high school. And so yeah, empty nesting. Watch out. But this is a kid that had a lot of moments where she tortured her parents, was up to a lot of shenanigans through her childhood. We didn't know if we would see this day. Not only did we see it, but she spoke. She was the closer. This was one of her goals in high school to speak at her graduation. So that was amazing. But it was a nerve-wracking day.

I should note for you parents with the younger kids, it's not like all sunshine, rainbows, and all of that stuff. I woke up that morning, and I told my husband, I was like, I'd like to stage a protest in front of the arena and say, you cannot graduate. We are stopping time. Is it true what every parent will say to you cannot graduate. We are stopping time. Is it true what every parent will say to you is that, like, the time just goes by so fast? Yeah. Do you feel like you blinked your eyes and you had babies and now you have graduates? It's not fair. I keep looking at the old pictures where they're so cute.

And then I see other little kids and I have all this parent envy. I'm like, and hey, you did your part. They graduated. Great job, mom. We got her there. We got her. It ain't over. I mean, you know. you did your part. They graduated. Great job, Mom. We got her there. We got her. It ain't over. I mean, you know.

Let's leave it there for today. Our executive producer is Mathoni Mottori. Our editor is Eric McDaniel. Our producers are Jung Yoon Han, Casey Morrell, and Kelly Wessinger. Our intern is Bria Suggs. Special thanks to Kelsey Snell and Lexi Shapiro. I'm Susan Davis. I cover politics.

I'm Claudia Grisales. I cover Congress. And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. And thanks for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.