The NPR Politics Podcast - Roundup: Insurrection Act; Campaign Spending

Episode Date: March 29, 2024

A bipartisan group of legal experts is sounding an alarm about presidential power this election season. They're pushing Congress to update a 150 year old law, and limit how the White House can deploy the military on American soil, in case a future president takes advantage of that sweeping power. Plus, three Democratic presidents take New York to raise money for November's election; Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. picks a running mate; and, Can't Let It Go. This podcast: White House correspondent Deepa Shivaram, national justice correspondent Carrie Johnson, political correspondent Ashley Lopez, and senior political editor and correspondent Domenico Montanaro.This podcast was produced by Jeongyoon Han & Kelli Wessinger, and edited by Casey Morell. 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

Support for this podcast and the following message come from Autograph Collection Hotels, with over 300 independent hotels around the world, each exactly like nothing else. Autograph Collection is part of the Marriott Bonvoy portfolio of hotel brands. Find the unforgettable at AutographCollection.com. Hi, this is Stacey from Portland, Oregon, where I'm very thankful for the new-ish Oregon Paid Leave program, which allows me to spend some extra time with my little one as he recovers from this very first virus that he caught on his very first day of daycare. This podcast was recorded at 1.02 p.m. on Friday, March 29th, 2024. Things may have changed, but I'm hoping

my little one is better so he can return to daycare really soon. Here's the show. Man, hang in there, mama. It is really hard to balance work and all that personal life stuff. So it's always good when you have a little flexibility. True. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Deepa Shivaram. I cover the White House. I'm Keri Johnson. I cover the Justice Department. And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. So we've made it to Friday and today on the show, the Insurrection Act and fears of how it could be used in a second Trump term. Keri, let's start from the beginning here. Give us some background. What is the Insurrection Act? This is a cluster of laws that dates all the way back to the 1790s.

And basically, they give the president the power to call on the military during some kind of emergency to curb unrest or rebellion here at home on American soil. And it's a pretty sweeping power. The law is so old that it predates the development of modern state and local police forces. And it includes lots of vague language like conspiracy and assemblage and invasion. And all of those things could be subject to abuse if a president wants to take the power that far. OK, so old law predating police forces is also a significant point here. It is really old, but it's been a long time since it's also been used. It's not a commonly used law. Not a commonly used law in part because there's a long tradition in this

country of not using military on American soil. But the last time the Insurrection Act was invoked was by President George H.W. Bush. This was back in 1992 when there were really violent riots in Los Angeles following the acquittal of police officers who beat up motorist Rodney King. And this went on for days. Schools and workplaces were closed. The post office was closed. And the military was called in to help keep the peace and restore order in L.A. But it hasn't been used since then, even though it's come up in a bunch of different contexts, like what happened in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina and the protests here in D.C. and elsewhere after the murder of George Floyd a few years ago. OK, so 1992 was the last time it was used. But why is it coming up again now?

Yeah, this is an old law, but it's kind of hovering over this presidential election in an interesting way. You know, The Washington Post reported a few months ago that Donald Trump and his campaign may be thinking about invoking the Insurrection Act if he returns to the White House to quell protests against him if he wins office again, or maybe to curb violent crime in American cities. And some Democrats have been asking the current president, Joe Biden, to use the Insurrection Act to federalize the National Guard in Texas at the southwest border because the Texas governor has been really resisting federal authority there. Okay, so a lot of potential situations where it's almost kind of been called to use. Domenico, as Kerry pointed out, the U.S. government doesn't often call in

military forces to use on U.S. soil. But Donald Trump, when he was president, you know, there was reporting that he considered using this act. What happened there? Yeah, the Joint Chiefs Chairman, General Mark Milley, found himself, he said, kind of on the other side of Trump and trying to curb his worst instincts, where Trump had suggested potentially, quote, cracking skulls during some Black Lives Matter protests or protests outside the White House. So when you have this kind of unrest and you have a president who is now kind of pointing to people as a strongman and a country might need a strongman in charge, as Trump has said,

it certainly raises eyebrows and makes people wonder, how will he try to use this act if he does try to use this act? Because it's something that he didn't use in his first term, flirted with the idea of it. And he's learning sort of what he can and can't do as president and how to sort of push the limits. There's somebody else who was flirting with this back in the Trump era, and that's Stuart Rhodes. Remember him? He was the head of the Oath Keepers group, the far right extremist group. And he was trying to push Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act before January 6th, 2021. This law is so outdated that it contains language about the militia. And so Rhodes said that his Oath Keepers could act as a militia on behalf of Trump. Trump never took him up on it, but it's been lingering out there ever since. And I should say that there are some valid uses of this law. Yeah, what is that? Yeah, historically, there have been very important uses of the law by President

Dwight Eisenhower and President John F. Kennedy in the civil rights era, when states were resisting integration of schools in other places in Arkansas, in Alabama, in Mississippi. But it's a very sweeping power. And people all over the political spectrum are concerned about how it could be misused. I mean, yeah, let's get into that a little bit, Carrie, because I mean, there's a very big difference between using the Insurrection Act to help integrate schools and using the Insurrection Act for a literal insurrection that happened on the Capitol on January 6th. What are politicians doing about this? Is Congress working on it?

What are some potential safeguards here? I talked with Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat from Connecticut. He's floating a proposal that would basically require consultation, require the White House to consult with state authorities before doing something like this, and that would put a time limit on this power. So he said, you know, give it about a week. And after about a week, if Congress does not approve this kind of action, the military would have to disperse and go back home. Interesting. I mean, it makes sense, right? Like Congress has to approve if the president wants to send U.S. troops abroad, but there doesn't seem to be that kind of a check here. Yeah. And there are people concerned about it, like Jack Goldsmith, a conservative law professor at Harvard, and Bob Bauer, who was the

White House counsel to former President Obama and represents the current president, Joe Biden, as well. The idea is that there are so few checks and balances here that Congress needs to get involved. Yeah. But Domenico, I mean, obviously a divided Congress here, right? Like there have been some ways that Congress has worked together in a bipartisan way after the January 6th insurrection. But how much of an appetite is there to maybe reform the Insurrection Act right now? wants, they're willing to kind of go the direction he wants. And what he wants is a stronger presidency. So I'd wager that most Republicans, if not, you know, the vast majority of them in the House in particular would defer to Trump and want to go with a way to make his presidency, if he were to win, a stronger one. Of course, there are those who warn that, of course, if a Democrat was in charge, that you'd be then handing power to a Democrat who's not somebody who Republicans obviously want to see have that power.

And all of this sort of reminds me of the, you know, debate around the authorizations for use of force in Iraq. And you've had senators for years, for decades saying that they wanted to reform this. A president technically is supposed to defer to Congress to declare war. But, you know, we haven't had a war declaration in decades from Congress, and presidents have exercised a much stronger use of force overseas. This is one of the most potent emergency powers a president has. People have been warning about it for a long time. We now have a lot of conversation about ways in which it could be used in the next presidential administration, no matter who wins the White House. Liza Goitin, an expert who studies this stuff at the Brennan Center for Justice, basically likens this to a loaded gun that's

sitting around on the table. And unless somebody takes the bullets out of that gun, it's sitting around ready for the next president to use if he or she wants to use it. All right, Carrie, thank you so much for bringing your reporting to the podcast. Happy to do it. We're going to take a quick break. And when we get back, looking back at this week on the campaign trail. And we're back. And NPR's Ashley Lopez is with us.

Hey, Ashley. Hey there. All right. So it's been a busy week on the campaign trail and money has been pouring into the Biden campaign. Last night in New York, the president's reelection campaign raised about $26 million. It was at a fundraiser featuring former presidents Clinton and Obama, and it was hosted by Stephen Colbert. Domenico, large chunk of money here for the campaign that we should point out kind of already has a lot of money. Yeah, no, no kidding. This is a huge event. I mean, you don't normally

have three presidents somewhere at the same time. Stephen Colbert made a joke on the stage saying that, you know, you have three presidents came to New York and not one of them is there for a trial. So, you know, haha, right. But yeah, it's a ton of money. Clearly, it shows that the elders of the Democratic Party are going to be really there for Biden, trying to prop him up as much as they possibly can, as we've seen his approval rating sort of struggle and his need to win over groups that he's lagging with, in particular Latinos, black voters, and young voters, especially younger voters of color. It is an interesting contrast as well to see the relative level of enthusiasm around an event like that that happened in New York yesterday. And it's

also a bit of a contrast, right, to the Trump campaign, which one, isn't raising as much money and two, you know, is using what it raises for all of Trump's legal fees. And that obviously hampers the ability to run a campaign with ads and events and things like that. Yeah, I mean, that's a big piece of this and why I mentioned the Colbert joke somewhat, because Trump has had to spend something like $100 million over the last three years to pay for these legal fees. And, you know, just the last couple of years, a lot of that money has been coming from groups that are supporting him, like Save America PAC, who Trump has been trying to fundraise with and for, but he's really been sort of slowing down with small dollar donors. We've seen, for example, that

Trump's campaign and the Republican National Committee as of the end of February, only had $45 million cash on hand, compared to the $155 million on hand, three times as much for the Democratic Party and the Biden campaign. And what the Biden campaign is using that for is ads. And they spent just since Super Tuesday was sort of the unofficial end of the primaries, Biden campaign's been spending about $10 million on the airwaves to try to really appeal to some of these groups, in particular, Black and Latino voters across the country in these swing states. The Trump campaign only spending about $2.4 million in total when you look at what he's spending plus MAGA Inc., which is a chief super PAC supporting

him, according to Ad Impact, which is a ad tracking firm that we've partnered with for this election cycle. Yeah. I mean, to be clear, like on the Biden side of things, like they know that they have the money, right? And they also know that Trump doesn't have the money. I mean, I was traveling with Biden last week and he was doing a bunch of fundraisers and he kept making this joke that everyone was laughing at in the room about how, you know, he met a man who was down on his luck and said he didn't really have a lot of money and needed some help. And Biden's line was, well, I'm sorry, Donald, I can't help you. And, you know, that's something that he's really leaning into. The campaign is really leaning into as well. But Ashley, I mean, on the Trump campaign side of things, I mean, how concerned are they that they

don't have the same level of resources? Like, is that something they're concerned about? Well, I mean, if he gets significantly outspent in some of these key battleground states, there's no world in which that won't be some kind of cause for concern, especially down the road. And while I don't think more money directly means like you're more likely to win or you have like a stronger candidacy or whatever, there is a reason campaigns spend a lot of money. It's because they're able to coax more of these ambivalent or sort of like, you know, harder to reach voters into supporting them, which could make or break a close election, especially since we're expecting these battleground states to be pretty close. I mean, there's a lot that's interesting about this. I do think that,

you know, Trump is in an interesting position. I don't know. I mean, maybe Domenico can give us some historical context here, but when is the last time someone was running for president, like for a full decade, you know, like these small donors or small value, I guess, small dollar donors have been contributing to him, a lot of them for, you know, three campaign cycles. I mean, I'm sure a lot of them are tapped out, whereas, you know, Biden hasn't had the sort of legal stuff in between those campaigns as well, sort of tapping into the same donor base. I guess I'm not surprised to see that this is sort of happening. It just seems to be happening at a really bad time for Trump. Like you could have a boatload of cash, but it doesn't necessarily mean you have the election cinched, right? I mean,

Hillary Clinton was in that boat in 2016. And, you know, literally, as you mentioned, the protesters, I mean, there's still a lot of people, a lot of demographics, a lot of Democratic voters who were really not pleased with President Biden right now. So still kind of some concerning aspects there. Yeah. And I think small donations typically are more of a signal of enthusiasm because it just means that your supporters are willing with whatever money they have left over to give you just like a little bit to keep your campaign going. It's more of like a point in time reference to like how a campaign is doing. But again, we're like we're still in the spring. So who knows what that means long term?

A long road ahead of us. And speaking of this long road, there is another presidential candidate who made some news this week, albeit one who right now probably has no chance to be president. And that's Robert F. Kennedy Jr. He named Nicole Shanahan as his running mate this week. Ashley, who is Nicole Shanahan? So Nicole Shanahan is this attorney in the tech world. She's relatively young, about 38 years old. So she has no experience in politics besides being a big donor to mostly Democrats, including President Biden. In her speech at this event where Kennedy announced that he picked her to be his VP. She talked about their shared interest in vaccine skepticism,

which is obviously the issue that made Kennedy a known name in the conspiracy world. And I think out of that list of names that they were floating for this, which included wrestler-turned-governor Jesse Ventura and football player Aaron Rodgers, this was probably the least eyebrow-raising pick for the VP. That's my guess. But I mean, one thing about Shanahan that's important is that she's from the tech world. She has a lot of money, and she was married to one of the Google founders, so she's been sort of hobnobbing with tech billionaires and people in that world for a long time. I mean, all that being said, though, I think the headline here is that Kennedy ended up picking someone to be his VP who is sympathetic to some of his more controversial views, and most importantly, is someone who is incredibly, incredibly wealthy

and has relationships with other eccentric rich people who might be inclined to support him too, obviously. This shows you why money is so important for a third party candidate in particular, because they don't have the infrastructure that the big parties have to be able to get on the ballots across the country. It's why we've heard RFK sort of flirting with the Libertarian Party to try to potentially get on their line to be able to get on some of these ballots, why he's started his own party called We the People in some places so that he can get on the ballot in other places. And they have a very sophisticated ballot access operation where they're trying to get on. They understand what this takes. And Shanahan is somebody who funded largely a huge portion of the money that went

toward the Super Bowl ad that got run controversially from a super PAC that was supporting RFK that sort of harkened back to the John Kennedy ads from the 1960s. I mean, and it's not just like ballot access stuff, like the amount of lawyer and legal fees that are going to go out in the next couple of months on behalf of the Kennedy campaign, and also aimed at the Kennedy campaign, is going to be staggering. Like, none of that stuff is cheap. And I know that the Kennedy campaign has been like gearing up, sort of hoarding ballot signatures, but also hoarding money for lawyers because, you know, even though they are a long shot, they could very easily impact the election. But no question, this is the Biden campaign's biggest fear is third parties because they

really believe Trump has a ceiling, that there's a majority that doesn't want Trump to be president. But if those votes get siphoned off to go to somebody other than Biden, then that's where the path opens up for Trump to win another term. Yeah, full circle moment coming back to the point we will continue to harp on, which is that this election will be decided by the margins. It is going to be so close. All right, we're going to take another break here. And when we're back, can't let it go. And we're back and it's time for Can't Let It Go, the part of the show where we talk about things that we cannot stop thinking about from this week, politics or otherwise. Ashley, do you want to kick it off?

Sure. So what I can't let go of this week is a little nerdy, but stick with me. It's New Jersey's election ballots, specifically this bananas design that is unique to the state and is referred to as the county line. So basically, New Jersey ballots are designed to benefit the favored candidates of local political leaders. The way the ballot is laid out is that the candidates officially endorsed by the leaders of the local Democratic or local Republican parties are listed in this like single column or row known as the line. It's this prominent position right next to the listing of the office that voters are weighing in on. It's kind of like the first place that voters look at. And everyone else is listed in the ballot equivalent of like Siberia away from this column. And I'll be honest, I'm not from New Jersey. So

when I saw what these ballots look like recently, it took me a couple minutes to figure out what was going on on this ballot. And, you know, folks in New Jersey have been raising concerns about this for a while. You know, people who have a specific interest in ballot design say that these primary ballots are designed in a way that violates very important rules of good ballot design. And it's been this way for a while until I should say today. Funny enough, as of earlier today, a federal judge has told the state to halt this practice. Of course, this is the result of a lawsuit filed by Congressman Andy Kim, who is running in that high stakes Democratic primary race for the U.S. Senate. So, I mean, a lot of the impetus of this was like a lawsuit. But, I mean, it is basically, at least for now, gotten rid of a practice that people outside of New Jersey have been scratching their heads at.

Yeah, and I think a lot of people were concerned about that in the Democratic grassroots because you had the governor's wife, Tammy Murphy, who dropped out last week, but was seen as the choice of the insiders. And I think it's really interesting that you have grassroots voters who are sort of rising up to say, you know, we don't want this kind of thing happening, you know, even in a state like New Jersey, where this thing's happened for a long time. My two takeaways on this, just off the bat, One, who designs ballots? Like, is that a job? That's awesome. Like, is there a graphic design class you can take on that? I'm very intrigued. Let us, we need to investigate further. I mean, it's a mix of things. A lot of it is decided by law, but also there are groups who like, they think about this all the time and they consult

with states and local governments to figure this out. It's like it's a real science, guys. That's very important. Really cool. My quick Googling here, the Center for Civic Design. Yeah, I've done a lot of stories with them. Designing usable ballots. What? I truly I had a friend whose college roommate was like a package design major. Like that was her literal major in college was like package design.

And now I feel like ballot design, that should be like something you can minor in. I don't know. That's awesome. Yeah. And then my other thought is like, New Jersey, what are you doing? Like, you can't fill your own gas. And also this is pretty nuts that that was the way their ballots were designed in the first place. Agreed. All right. Well, actually, how about you, Deepa? What can't you let go of this week? Okay, cool. My can't let it go this week is that my favorite author, Hanif Abdurraqib, came out with a new book this week called There's Always This Year. And it's basically about basketball and life and using basketball as like a metaphor for a lot of things in life and experiences that we have in life. And I went to his book talk yesterday and it was really cool.

I'd never seen him in person before. And I just really have so much respect for his work and his poetry and the way he writes. And I feel like as a journalist, like we write something and it appears online. We, you know, do this podcast and it gets published later in the day. Like it's very instant in the thought of like putting together a book. I mean, he said yesterday that the idea for the book like came to him in 2018. So for sitting around for like six years with these thoughts and ideas and to be able to hold on to them and like craft a whole narrative out of it is just so mind blowing to me. So mad respect to him. Mad respect to people who are writing cool books. That was something that I really enjoyed yesterday.

It was a joyful part of my week. Are you a baller, Deepa? No. So here's the thing. I mean, you might be a baller. I am a baller, but maybe not like a, you know, in that category. Yeah, it was funny. I went with my partner and like at one point, Hanif was talking about like the Fab Five. Oh, yeah. I've always been a big believer of basketball and mindfulness, just because it's almost like a spiritual kind of experience. It's very sort of church-like when you go into a gym that's empty, and there's a calm that you can have come over you.

Yeah. That was not my experience. I went to a basketball school, and for the years I was there, we were at UNC Chapel Hill, so it's Carolina. It's the best. Oh yeah, that's high stakes. And I was there for like, I guess two championships. But let me tell you,

those entire four years, everyone's anxiety levels were like at 11, especially during March. And I was like, this is like the most stressful thing. I don't know why I even feel like this is high stakes,

but there you go. And I'm so mad. Tar Heels lost by two to Alabama last night. It's just not, you should not be losing to a football school. I agree. It's just not good. I will say like, yeah, shout out to March Madness in general.

Like once again, not a big basketball person, but I will always fill out a bracket. And I've been winning, you guys. Like I've cracked some secret code. I don't know. But anyway, Domenico, what can you not let go of? So you are a baller. Yeah, I'll take it. I'll take it.

Yeah. What I can't let go of is backwards books on bookshelves. I don't understand. Yes. I saw this flyby on Twitter where Stephen Breyer, the former justice, he's promoting his book. And his backdrop was all books that you didn't see the bindings. You saw the whites of the pages turned around i was just like why and then i realized there was only one book that was facing forward

and that was his book the one that he was promoting incorrect aesthetic immediately which does not have a great title i have to say reading the constitution i mean yawn but like i'm sure he could come up with something more provocative than that, for goodness sake. But I just I don't know. I heard that this is also an aesthetic that's happening. I don't know enough about room raider design or any of this. Was this Stephen Breyer's home where this was where you saw this or was this like a staged, I don't know, interview set up situation? Does any of us know anymore?

I mean, Zoom backgrounds, I don't know, interview setup situation? Does any of us know anymore? I mean, the amount of Zoom backgrounds and I don't know. I mean, I'm intrigued by the fact that Breyer is a beige aesthetic girly. You know, maybe he has a lot of arches and a Pilates class afterwards. That's very interesting. For some reason, I don't think so. If he called his book Reading the Constitution, then beige aesthetic probably tracks. That is a beige aesthetic title, that's for sure. The Wonder Bread.

Wonder Bread. Oh, man. All right. That's all for this week. Our executive producer is Mazzoni Maturi. Our editor is Eric McDaniel. Our producers are Jung Yoon Han, Casey Murrell, and Kelly Wessinger. Special thanks to Christian Depp-Calamore and the best White House editor ever, Roberta

Rampton. I'm Deepa Shivaram. I cover the White House. I'm Ashley Lopez. I cover voting. And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.