The NPR Politics Podcast - Roundup: Dems Ask, Is Biden's Time Up? DOJ Post-SCOTUS Fears

Episode Date: July 5, 2024

With Congress returning to Washington next week and more lawmakers raising the possibility that President Biden should step down from the ticket, the president's ABC interview and weekend events will be closely watched by Democrats looking for a clear path forward.And after the Supreme Court ruled that presidents cannot be prosecuted for the work that makes up the core responsibilities of the office, some Department of Justice staff are worried that presidents could order them to do unethical or illegal things.This episode: senior White House correspondent Tamara Keith, congressional correspondent Deirdre Walsh, senior political editor and correspondent Domenico Montanaro, and national justice correspondent Carrie Johnson.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 Abigail from Binghamton, New York. I just turned in the keys from my previous apartment, and now I'm sitting in the home that my husband and I just closed on last week. This podcast was recorded at 12.04pm on Friday, July 5th. Things may have changed by the time you hear this. Here's the show. Ah, this is so great. Congratulations. Big day.

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. On Wednesday, we talked about the state of play for the candidates after the debate and the growing questions about whether President Biden can stay in the race. He says he's in it to win it and won't be pushed aside. Today, the angst among Democrats in Congress, many of whom aren't convinced. Deirdre, you have been reporting from the Hill. How are congressional Democrats feeling about Biden right now?

I mean, you mentioned angst. I think that's a fitting term. Others are, I think, really deflated, depressed. Some Democrats I talked to are even angry about how the White House has handled this. The day after the debate, I talked to a lot of House Democrats who I think were willing to give the president a little bit of a grace period. You know, they sort of echoed the talking points that the campaign had put her out there in terms of it being a bad night. But a lot of those Democrats went a step further and said, we want to see him out directly engaging with voters in unscripted places. And then it took six days for the president to call his key allies on the Hill, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries,

former Speaker Pelosi, Jim Clyburn. I think in the days since Democrats have sort of drifted into two camps. I think a lot of Democrats think they're in a lose-lose situation. A lot of them think if Biden stays on the ballot as the nominee, they're destined to lose and could lose the House, which, you know, going into this election, a lot of Democrats were feeling really good about retaking the House. And then other Democrats are saying, you know, calm down, give the president a little bit more time. It's too risky to remove him from the ballot. And there's no unity really among Democrats I talked to about who the nominee should be if they move forward to replace Biden. There's obviously been a lot of talk among Democrats I talked to about Vice President Harris being kind of the likely person, but there is still

a lot of confusion and division among Democrats about whether that would work for them. And President Biden certainly seems to be keeping Kamala Harris very close, appearing in different events, having lunch together, hoisting her arm in the air at the Independence Day event at the White House, almost like she'd won a title match or something like that. So he's clearly indicating who he would want to step in if he were to, he were to step aside. And, you know, there are arguments in favor of her and arguments against. I mean, in one respect, he is struggling with younger people, progressives, non-white voters, the very kinds of people that Harris

has thought to perhaps have a bit more juice with than Biden does. On the other hand, she doesn't poll that much better than Biden, if better at all, with the country at large. And Trump seems to be salivating at the idea of going after her, whether she's vice president or at the top of the ticket. Deirdre, the question I have is, there's a lot of angst, but then what? Where does it go from there? Because obviously, President Biden is in the driver's seat. At the moment, he is firm that he's not getting out. Is somebody going to push him? overt public move. I mean, they immediately went on the Sunday shows after the debate and defended him and saying they were all in. But if you notice their messaging, they have shifted. I mean, Pelosi opened the door to more Democrats raising questions when she went on television and did an interview on MSNBC saying it was a legitimate question to ask whether this was an episode or condition. I do think there is really a lot of questions and

confusion among congressional Democrats about what the process would even be to replace Biden. But when Domenico mentioned polls, I think the other thing that I'm hearing from Democrats is, you know, even weeks or months before the debate that went off the rails, Democrats, incumbent Senate Democrats and incumbent House Democrats in swing districts and swing states were outperforming President Biden in these polls in swing states. That, I think, sort of kept them from fully freaking out after the debate. But I think if you see more of those polls shift with that gap narrowing and Democrats not being able to outperform President Biden, there will be a very different conversation when those polls come out. And I think also next week when members are back in town face-to-face talking to each other,

as opposed to just being on these text change and emails, the conversation will change. I think that you're right, that probably the real way that they're going to measure whether or not they're okay with whatever Biden's situation is and how he conducts himself publicly is going to be how he tests in those polls in, I'd say, the next week or so now. Yeah, I interviewed Nakima Williams yesterday. She's a Democratic congresswoman from Georgia. She's also the state party chair. So it is her job to get Democrats elected and win Georgia in November. Members of Congress want to make sure that we are putting the best person forward. Right now, the top of our ticket is President Biden. And I think once we're able to get out of this being the

main story, then members of Congress are going to reflect where their voters are. And that is who is going to deliver for the American people, because that's what we want. I mean, right now is doing a lot of work in that answer, Tam. And I think that there are a couple of big milestones coming up that will probably determine how this goes. Starting today, the president has a rally in Madison, Wisconsin. It is a part of the state and a key state that he won by a lot. And he's going to be appearing with top Democrats from the state. Then he is sitting down for an interview with George Stephanopoulos of ABC. That interview is going to air in full tonight at 8 p.m. A lot of people are watching that interview as almost like a de facto cognitive test,

as something much more than just an interview. Right. And it's going to be high stakes. It's probably the most high stakes of a one-on-one interview that I've seen, I think, probably since Sarah Palin was interviewed by Charlie Gibson on ABC. Of course, Biden's in a very different situation, years of experience, but his real issue is how he presents himself. And until that debate, he had done fairly well in public when the stakes were raised. The State of the Union addresses some interviews. Most of his interviews have been, you know, performatively, I guess, just okay. And that's, I think, what people were okay with, generally. We'll see if there's any kind of difference, you know, in this interview, versus what he's done before. I mean, the bar is just so much higher, right? And I think that a lot

of members of Congress are gonna be watching this interview. But for the ones who've gotten out publicly or even privately to their colleagues are saying that he needs to get out. I'm not sure this interview is going to stem that tide or that call. Well, Deirdre, thank you so much for joining us now and for tracking everything they have to say next week. Good to be with you. Let's take a break. And when we're back, how the Department of Justice is reacting to Monday's presidential immunity ruling. And we're back. And with us now is NPR's Carrie Johnson. Hey, Carrie. Hey, Tam. Carrie, you are reporting that staff at the Justice Department are worried about how presidents might be able to control and direct the agency, which, at least in recent history, has had a

strong level of independence. You know, what's so interesting about the Supreme Court ruling on Monday that granted former President Trump really sweeping immunity is that the Justice Department has not publicly responded at all. And that's because I think they're trying to evaluate what is left of the case, the special counsel case against the former president as it relates to January 6th. But what I've been hearing from veterans of the department, people in and outside who have worked in Democratic and Republican administrations, what I've been hearing is some measure of concern. the Supreme Court conservative supermajority, these six justices, appear to have said that among the president's core powers for which he would have absolute immunity are contacts with the Justice Department, including talking about launching investigations, ending investigations, how investigations should go. And that really runs in the face of 50 years since Watergate,

some norms inside the Justice Department, guardrails really that were built up to make sure that presidents and people at senior levels of the White House did not direct the Justice Department to go after the president's enemies. And now that seems permissible, at least for the president to do. Well, and so what the Supreme Court's ruling said is essentially that presidents have immunity from prosecution for official acts. And then they had a pretty broad definition of what could be considered an official duty of the president. That's right. So things related to

the Justice Department, things related to the pardon power, things related to diplomacy, all of those things seem completely off the table, meaning courts couldn't even look at that stuff and Congress may not be able to regulate. That's an open question. But all of those things are really important in the context of this presidential election, obviously, because we have a candidate who's threatened retribution and revenge fantasies against some of his enemies, including people in the Biden White House, people who used to work at the FBI, and members of the House January 6th Committee who investigated former President Trump. Yeah, I mean, this is no idle threat, right? I mean,

the fact is the Washtenaw Group crew, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, analyzed over 13,000 of Trump's truth social posts from January 1st, 2023 until April of this year. And they found that Trump had at least 25 posts saying that he was going to use the powers of the federal government to target President Biden during a second Trump administration, threatening with FBI raids, investigations, indictments, even jail time, they write. So, you know, this is a pretty significant thing. And it's not just against Biden, but against the FBI, others in the DOJ, the DOJ itself, senators, judges, members of Biden's family, other non-governmental organizations and agencies. This is the kind of thing, because Trump is not on X or formerly Twitter anymore,

we're not seeing a lot of these things, but he's doing this routinely, days on end, and sometimes in public at events where he's speaking for an hour and a half, two hours. And there's just so many things that he says that sometimes these things don't stand out. You know, I talked to Philip LaCavara, who was a Watergate prosecutor and also served in the Justice Department. Here's how he read the Supreme Court decision this week. somebody prosecuted. He's entitled to direct that that person be prosecuted regardless of traditional law enforcement priorities and standards. And I think that's a terrible signal to be sending. And now it's been ordained as constitutional law. You know, I talked also with some Republican veterans of previous Justice Departments.

They agreed that the president should have a lot of power, even over the Justice Department. But what they told me was, just because you can do something under the Constitution doesn't mean that you should or that it's a good idea. And if we were to get in this kind of cycle, they fear it will bring down the morale of the Justice Department, the institution of the Justice Department, and be really dangerous for the country too. But let's talk about norms, because we spent a huge portion of the Trump term saying, well, there are a lot of things that aren't laws, but they are norms. And gosh, he is busting all those norms. I can't imagine that if he becomes president again, he's going to put up guardrails for himself. No. And so that means that it's up to people inside these agencies to disobey orders from the president.

And that's going to put them in a really terrible position. While they themselves may not have immunity from prosecution, the president will. And they're going to have to decide not just people in the Justice Department, but also potentially people in the Pentagon, military officials. There was even a friend of the court brief filed in this case by former four-star generals and admirals, basically saying that it's going to destroy the morale of the military and put people in a terrible position. Do you obey the word from the president, or do you obey the law as you understand it? I mean, listen, when it comes to former President Trump, Norm is someone who should be relegated to a bar in Boston, right? I mean, he does not care about any of those norms, the quaint sort of things that have happened

in the past, including whether or not he should stay in office for just four more years, because that's what the 22nd Amendment says. He says, hey, you know, if FDR was able to do it more than twice, then why not me? He's joked. Of course, Republicans really pushed for the 22nd Amendment to be put in place because of FDR serving more than two terms and violating the norm that had been, you know, adhered to by every president previously. So I wouldn't expect Trump to go along with any norms, any sort of ethical things that past presidents have done. In terms of ways to push back if a president is telling you to do something that you believe is illegal, I guess the option is to quit or to quit en masse, which happened during the Nixon administration. And there was also that threat at the end of the Trump years. Remember,

senior DOJ officials who were upset about the president trying to lean on the Justice Department to send letters about sham voter fraud investigations to states in attempts to replace the acting attorney general with a guy who had very little appropriate experience, they threatened to quit and Trump backed down. It's not at all clear next time around if we're going to have people in office who are going to threaten to resign or if a future president will even care about that. You know, I talked with some lawyers about this. Even though the president would have immunity, it's not clear that people who would carry out these orders would. However, the president's pardon power is pretty absolute, the Supreme Court majority told us this week, and the president could just promise to pardon some people who carried out some of the things he wanted to do. Okay, that is a lot to think about. We are going to take one more break,

and when we get back, it's time for Can't Let It Go and a holiday tradition. And we're back, and it's time for Can't Let It Go, the part of the pod where we talk about the things that we cannot stop thinking about, politics or otherwise. Domenico, you go first. Well, my ears have really been perking up as I've listened to NPR's coverage of elections around the world. of different places, whether it's the governor of Tokyo, where all these kind of weird advertisements are being put up, or it's elections elsewhere, like in the UK, where now the UK has a new prime minister, Keir Starmer, Sir Keir Starmer, actually. I think it's interesting because Labour is who he represents, which is more of a left-wing party, basically getting rid of conservative rule in the UK, which has been there for more than a decade. But the thing that really strikes me as someone who

covers politics is that this really wasn't about ideology. This is really about the economy. And the old axiom here, it's the economy, stupid. Starmer has really tried to sort of take the Labor Party to a more centrist position and really talk about economic growth as the reason why labor should be put in charge. And I think it's going to be really interesting to watch how that plays out and what kinds of things they try to put in place to try to grow the economy there. The most interesting thing I read about Keir Starmer is that for a time he was thought to be the inspiration for the Mark Darcy character in Bridget Jones' Diary, but in fact, he is not the inspiration. But it would be fun to think so, right? It would be a really interesting fact about him. Carrie, what can't you let go of? Well, I'm turning to the culinary world. This week is the 100th anniversary of the Caesar salad. And I don't know if you are a fan. There are major fans and people who just cannot stand Caesar salads. I love them. I love

them. I would eat them every day if I could, even with anchovies. And it's remarkable to think that for 100 years, people have been enjoying this dish, which is especially nice in the summer when we've been having such terrible weather. So tonight when I get home, I'm going to have a Caesar salad for dinner. I like them too. A little, you know, either grilled chicken on it or grilled salmon sometimes. Pretty good. Love a good Caesar salad. Though I'm surprised it's only been around a hundred years. I mean, Caesar came a lot longer before that. Well, apparently it was invented by people in Mexico who were Italian immigrants, which is the best kind of food there is.

Best kind of invention. All right. Well, it is time for my Can't Let It Go, which is the great NPR Politics podcast tradition of commemorating Independence Day with Independence Day the movie. For a long time, NPR marked the holiday by reading the Declaration of Independence, and we responded in kind by reading a speech from the classic 1996 film Independence Day. It's an alien movie. The president in the film is Bill Pullman, and in this really incredible, best presidential speech ever, he motivates a group of pilots to get ready to fight the aliens

attacking the world with this speech. Good morning. In less than an hour, aircraft from here will join others from around the world, and you will be launching the largest aerial battle in the history of mankind. Mankind. That word should have new meaning for all of us today. We can't be consumed by our petty differences anymore. We will be united in our common interests. Perhaps it's fate that today is the 4th of July and you will once again be fighting for our freedom. Not from tyranny or oppression or persecution, but from annihilation.

We are fighting for our right to live. To exist. And should we win the day, the 4th of July will no longer be known as an American holiday, but as the day the world declared in one voice. We will not go quietly into the night. We will not vanish without a fight. We're going to live on. We're going to survive. Today, we celebrate our Independence Day. And then the aliens blow all of us. No, they don't. And I have chills, guys. I have chills. This speech is...

I've never been able to say the word annihilation on the radio before. That's a new one. Well, hopefully you never have to say it again. That's right. Our executive producer is Mathani Mathuri. Our editor is Eric McDaniel. Our producers are Jung Yoon Han, Casey Morrell, and Kelly Wessinger. Our intern is Rhea Suggs. Special thanks to Dana Farrington and Krishnadev Kalimer. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. I'm Carrie Johnson. I cover the Justice Department. And I'm

Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.