The NPR Politics Podcast - Roundup: Trump visits the Middle East

Episode Date: May 16, 2025

President Trump took his first major trip abroad this week, visiting the Middle East and signing business deals. We talk about what happened. Then, the Department of Justice is pursuing charges against non-citizens alleged to have voted illegally in the 2024 election. It comes as President Trump tries to change national policies concerning voter identification. This podcast: political correspondent Sarah McCammon, White House correspondent Franco Ordoñez, voting correspondent Miles Parks, and senior political editor & correspondent Domenico Montanaro.The podcast is produced by Bria Suggs 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

When Malcolm Gladwell presented NPR's Throughline podcast with a Peabody Award, he praised it for its historical and moral clarity. On Throughline, we take you back in time to the origins of what's in the news like presidential power, aging, and evangelicalism. Time travel with us every week on the Throughline podcast from NPR. Hey NPR, this is Morgan from South Lake Tahoe, California. And I am waiting to watch the sun rise over Lake Tahoe, having hiked by nothing but the light of a full flower moon.

This podcast was recorded at. 11.34 a.m. Eastern time on Friday, May 16th, 2025. Things may have changed by the time you hear it, but the sun will have risen, the moon will have set, and I will certainly be in need of a nap. Okay, here's the show and the sun. Tajo's so gorgeous. Spent out there a couple of times on reporting trips,

actually. Full-flower moon. I think that's a nice way to describe a moon. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Sarah McCammond, I cover politics. I'm Franco Ardoñez, I cover the White House. And I'm Domenico Montaner, senior political editor and correspondent. And it's time for the weekly roundup. And let's start with you, Franco.

You've been traveling with the president on his trip through the Middle East. You are speaking to us from Abu Dhabi. And there was some big news in the US relationship with Syria on this trip. So I want to start with that. Tell us what happened. Yeah, I mean, it really some big news in the US relationship with Syria on this trip. So I want to start with that. Tell us what happened. Yeah, I mean, it really was big news. I mean, Trump dropped this news about Syria and lifting sanctions against Syria at a Saudi business forum on his first day on this four day trip through the Middle East.

This announcement got a very large sustained applause among the audience. I mean, these are sanctions on Syria that have been in place since 1979. And on top of that, Trump went and met with the Syrian president, President Ahmed al-Sharah, the next morning. And that, Sarah, is a really big deal because it is a huge shift in US policy toward al-Sharah because it was until recently that he was, is a really big deal because it is a huge shift in US policy toward Al-Sharah because it was until recently that he was actually leading a group that the US labeled a terrorist organization, a group linked to al-Qaeda. Also on top of that, I mean, even you could tell that the White House was a little bit

reluctant about giving too much information about that. They first told us that this meeting would not happen. Then they said it was going to be a brief hello. So I can tell you that I was very surprised when we got a very long readout that kind of had a detailed plan of what, you know, the US and Syria are hoping to accomplish as they move forward.

It was not just a brief hello. It was obviously a very clear, long conversation. And Trump spoke about it to us on Air Force One later that afternoon and you know basically praised Al-Sharah. He called him attractive. He said he was a tough guy and he said he was someone who he thought had a shot of turning Syria around though he said it would take a while. And he called him pretty amazing, said he led a charge. You know it really does does lend to the idea, and I think this entire trip in many ways lends to the idea of Trump's view of leadership in the world.

You know, there wasn't this talk of democracy or human rights. In fact, he deliberately put that to the back burner, said that Western cultures shouldn't be lecturing the Middle East on governing and how to live and that the US wasn't going to be doing that anymore under him. But, you know, the fact that he's doing this with this new leader of Syria and he's, you know, going to all of these kind of glamorous places, you know, in the Middle East, you know, without addressing any of how they rule with iron fists or talking about democracy at all. Trump has always had a sort of soft spot for these kind of dictators and autocrats. So this fits into Trump's sort of long standing approach to leaders around the world, especially

authoritarian leaders. But how does this fit into his Middle East policy? I mean, he's talked a lot about the Middle East. He promised to end the war between Israel and Hamas. That hasn't happened. He didn't even visit Israel during this trip. What is he trying to achieve here? I mean, the big thing that they wanted to achieve was business deals.

Bring back something domestically, to talk to Americans about investments in the United States, arms deals, health deals, energy deals, critical minerals deals, but also a lot of the reason that the focus is on deals and business deals is because so many of the other issues that are going on in this region are so fraught that it's hard to have any good news out of them. I mean the biggest issue of them all is the war in Gaza. Israel is continuing to escalate its attacks and has promised to even escalate even further and launch a

major offensive after Trump leaves. But this is not something that Trump wants to talk about because he doesn't have so much of a solution. The solution that he did end up talking about is a freedom area, which would be essentially displacing Palestinians and developing the land. And I can tell you that his hosts who have been lavishing him with ceremonies and, you know, really giving him the royal treatment, vigorously oppose any such plan. I mean, Saudi Arabia, who Trump really wants to kind of normalize relations with Israel, has been very clear that they are not going to do anything like that until there's a ceasefire, until the Palestinians have an independent state or a plan for it at least. And we know that the Israelis that are led currently by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

and his right-wing government have no interest whatsoever in a two-state solution. And that's something that the United States has been pushing for for decades, but it really wasn't something that Trump decided to get into very heavily here on this trip. And he's certainly been thwarted by Netanyahu when it comes to trying to end its bombing in Gaza, where Trump felt he had a path to ceasefire that the Israelis just have not gone along with. Okay, I wanna talk about another war that Trump promised to end. Russia, Ukraine, and the US were supposed to get together

this week to have peace talks. What happened there? Yeah, those talks are happening in Turkey, but not at the level that the two sides wanted or any of the sides wanted, including the US. I mean, Russian President Vladimir Putin just did not show up to the talks in Turkey and Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, who did, said it was proof that Putin was not taking it seriously.

Trump talked about it a little bit today and he said he knew that Putin would not show up if he wasn't there and Trump did tease this week a couple times that he may make a surprise trip to Turkey. He even said that if he would have gone today but that he needed to get back to the US to meet his new grandchild, his daughter Tiffany just had a baby. But making news Trump did say that he it was time to meet with Putin and he said he was going to meet with Putin as soon as they can get a time on the schedule. You know, I'll ask you something, Domenico, that we've talked about before, but does this

at some point become a political problem for Trump? He said he'd get in the war quickly. It hasn't happened. Does he need to make some progress here? Well, I mean, you know, look, he set the bar very high for himself. He said that he'd get a deal done in 24 hours during the campaign multiple times. He said that he could do it before he was even sworn in. Obviously, that hasn't happened.

He said that he was being facetious. Clearly he's got to deliver at some point on these major foreign policy crises. There's a lot of foreign policy experts who think that Putin is just trying to delay Russia's president as he continues to try to make advancements into Ukraine. And Trump said he's not frustrated, but clearly there has to be some degree of frustration. He's got his own secretary of state, Marco Rubio, at these talks, a pretty high level person within the United States. Russia sent what was the equivalent of many saw as the C team, the junior level staffers to try to negotiate.

And there doesn't really seem to be an end in sight to that war. And Trump's going to have to make a decision at some point. How much does he believe in his own power of the personal to be able to sway Vladimir Putin in whatever meeting that is going to likely happen that Trump says has to happen for this war to be ended? Or does he simply say at some point, you know, Putin's overplayed his hand and doesn't trust him anymore? We'd be remiss if we didn't also mention the offer from Qatar to give the president a new plane to use as Air Force One.

You were there in Qatar this week. Any developments on that story? Yeah, I mean, you know, on his way out, I mean, President Trump said it would basically be stupid to turn down such a generous offer. I mean, as he was leaving, he basically dismissed the ethical and legal concerns about it. And there are a lot of ethical and legal concerns to justify this he actually

Posted on social media that the plane would be donated to the department of defense and not him Yet the plan is for this to go to his presidential library after he leaves office It's not like it would stick around I mean, this is such a sticky issue. Even some Republican lawmakers are expressing national security concerns, but Trump is clearly pushing forward. I mean, he complained throughout this trip, including this morning, that the plane was 40 years old, that it was not, you know, fit for an American president. He also said today that I knew one is company, but he didn't wait. I wasn't specific whether it was the cutter plane or, you know that a new one is company but he didn't well you know isn't specific whether it was the cutter plane or you know a new official Air Force one but I

will note that there have been extensive delays about getting a new official one it's supposedly on order though right it is on order and they're working but Boeing kept having delays and talk about something that Trump is frustrated with he is very frustrated with those delays. Domenico, there seems to be a rare bipartisan agreement on this, and it's overwhelmingly negative. How do you see this playing out? There's objections to this left, right and MAGA. You know, I mean, and but for very different reasons from all three of those sort of wings. We did hear from some Republicans in Congress who have talked about the real ethical and potential security concerns that they have of a plane being gifted to the United

States. Okay, Franco, well, thanks for making time for us on your big trip. Safe travels back home. Thanks for having me. Great to be here. Time for a break. We'll have more in just a moment. Great conversation makes for a great party. But how do you ask the questions that really make the room come alive? Well, here at LifeKit, we've got you. What is a path you almost took but didn't?

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every weekday. And we're back. And NPR's Miles Parks is here now. Hey, Miles. Hi, Sarah. Miles, you have some new reporting on how the Department of Justice is pursuing criminal charges against non-citizens who are alleged to have voted in federal elections. Miles, first of all, tell us about who's being charged and what they're accused of doing. Over the last couple months, it was clear that DOJ was turning to focus on this more.

And then at the end of April, we started to see a result of some of that kind of extra investigative power, right? We saw four different people be charged for illegal voting as non-citizens in the span of one week, which made us, me and then I co-reported the story with Jude Joffe Block, we just wanted to ask the question, the big question to me was, which made us, me and then I co-reported the story with Jude Joffe Block, we just wanted to ask the question, the big question to me was, do these arrests, do these people fit

into the narrative that Donald Trump as well as Elon Musk and lots of other people on the right have been promising over the last year that specifically the Democrats and the Biden administration were shipping people in undocumented to vote for them in elections? And the short answer is no, that when you actually dig into the public records, the court filings around these cases, each one of them is a little different, but this does not match the story that Donald Trump has been promising. What do we know about them?

So each one, like I said, is a little different. One of them, I will note, seems to be a very ardent Trump supporter, actually. I was looking through a lot of his old court filings, and in one case, he's quoted as saying, may God bless my favorite president, Donald J. Trump, the greatest man of our times. So that does not exactly sound like a Democratic voter to me. In another case, one we focused on a lot in the story, a mom and a daughter who are alleged

to have voted illegally in Florida in 2024. They are legal permanent residents They are green card holders, but they told federal investigators that they did not know that also didn't mean they could cast ballots And so when I talked to a researcher I talked to a guy named Benji cover at the University of Idaho who's looked into Specifically non-citizen voting cases and that is really actually really really common that oftentimes when you actually dig into the cases of non-citizen voting cases. And that is really, actually really, really common that oftentimes when you actually dig into the cases of non-citizen voting, it isn't people who are doing it with malice. A lot of times it's people who just misunderstand the rules

and are here legally, but don't realize that they actually also can't vote. We saw this was the case in Florida also when Ron DeSantis, the governor there, had tried to crack down on people voting illegally, whether they were in the country illegally or if they were felons, for example, who didn't have the right to vote yet or still. And a lot of those folks did say they didn't realize that they weren't allowed to vote

and that it was a mistake. But the right really wants to be able to elevate these kinds of anecdotes, as we've seen over the years for lots of different things. When the data don't match up with the narrative, they'll take an anecdote and make it something bigger than it is. Well, that's something Professor Cover

mentioned to me as well, Domenico. He was basically like, if you just stop and think about it for two seconds, these are people who are risking deportation, in a lot of cases, family separation, potentially prison time to go cast one ballot. And that just doesn't logically make sense in most cases. You know, Miles, there's another interesting wrinkle here.

And it appears that Doge was involved in, I guess, investigating some of these cases. What do we know about how these came to light? We are trying to get more answers on that because in three of the charges that were filed, press releases from the Department of Justice, as well as a tweet sent out by the head of Department of Homeland Security, all credited Doge with being involved in some way

in investigating these cases. And we also know in Donald Trump's executive order at the end of March related to voting, he instructed DHS to work with Doge to try to find illegal voting. We did not get any answers from the federal government, but we did do a little dive into things that Elon Musk and his associates have said about Doge's efforts. It seems like from a rally they did in Wisconsin a few weeks ago that Doge may have been comparing some social security records to state voter rolls to try to see if they could find people who

had indicated to the federal government in other instances that they were non-citizens having voted in some of these states but that is really unclear. The other thing that's that's really unclear is how many people Doge seems to have found. In one quote a Doge associate was quoted as saying that they had found more than 1,000 non-citizens on rolls. But then in another instance where Elon Musk and some of his Doge team talked to reporters, they said they referred close to 60 people for prosecution for illegal voting.

So we are going to be watching this really closely to see if more cases come out where they say that they've kind of matched data to find illegal voting. You know, Domenico, one thing I'm wondering about with this, this has been such an important part of Trump's narrative, this claim of illegal voting. And they say that they're pursuing all of these cases, but really just a handful so far have been produced.

I mean, does this advance that narrative, or does it sort of count against their claim that this is a huge problem? This depends on what your, um, you know, uh, previously held belief is. If you believe that there's rampant, uh, you know, voter fraud, then this certainly plays right into your belief structure. If you're somebody who knows this to not be the case, uh, then you look at the data and say, this is just, you is just one small thing in a broader universe

that would have made no difference in past elections. I don't think that this is gonna change anybody's minds one way or the other. I think that it's just another example of the Trump administration wanting to be able to enact their agenda, push their narrative, and be able to use these anecdotes to be able to enact their agenda, push their narrative, and be able to use these anecdotes to be able to spice up what otherwise are studies after studies that show that this idea that there's

this fraudulent voting happening in large scale numbers that could have changed any elections just isn't happening. This is also being talked about at the state level, Miles. Many states are looking at changing their voter registration and voter ID processes. What's being proposed right now? Yeah, I mean, it's being proposed at every level of government right now. The Republicans are really focused on this issue

and seem to be really galvanized by it. The House of Representatives passed the SAVE Act a few weeks ago, which would require people show documentary proof of citizenship. And I do think it's important to note what that actually means. We're talking about a birth certificate, a passport, some sort of proof that you are a U.S. citizen when you register to vote. And research has been done on this, that that would be really hard for millions, tens of

millions of people to produce quickly. So the Senate is set to potentially take up the SAVE Act at some point soon. And then at the state level, like you mentioned, Sarah, there are 20 states currently considering some form of that legislation for their elections. And so I do think it's important to distinguish this debate because I think some on the right try to make the argument that either voter advocates or Democrats are saying this is not a problem at all. It doesn't exist. And I think it's a little bit more nuanced than that. I was talking to Michigan secretary of state, Jocelyn Benson, who is a Democrat,

who's also running for governor in the state. And she said there just are not many cases of non-citizens voting illegally in her state. They didn't audit. They found that only 16 out of the more than 5 million votes cast seem to have been cast by non-citizens So she once approaches to this problem to be really targeted What she says is that states the federal government everyone needs to be doing more on the back end to make sure non-citizens are not Able to register and cast votes the burden shouldn't be put on voters To show that documented proof of citizenship because that's inevitably going to lead to people just not voting. Here's what she told me.

We want to have no evidence of people who aren't eligible voting in our elections. But this is a serious issue and it has to be addressed with a scalpel, not a sledgehammer. That really stuck out to me, just that idea of the scalpel, not a sledgehammer. When you consider producing documents like that to go register to vote for college students, married women who have changed their names, older voters who may have had some issue finding records. There's a lot of people who that could potentially impact that, you know, we will just have to see where this goes. I mean, this has obviously been an effective talking point during the campaign for Trump and Republicans. But Domenico, I mean politically, where do you see this going?

Do you see laws actually changing, particularly at the national level? Well certainly at the state level and we saw the Trump administration put out an executive order saying that they want strict voter ID laws across various states now to be put in place and And we have seen that push certainly. And I understand why politically they're doing that because it's a popular idea. Most people kind of understand the idea broadly speaking of saying, well, if you need a driver's license to get on a plane, then you should be able to have some sort of form of ID to be able to vote.

But as Miles points out, there are a number of people who for one reason or another don't have these kinds of documents and this kinds of ID, but they are citizens, they live here. And what the left would say is that this is such a small problem in the numbers as it's been studied, that you can audit it, you can prosecute these folks, and maybe that would be more of a deterrent. Okay, it's time for a quick break. When we come back, can't let it go. You're listening to the NPR Network.

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the things from the week that we just can't stop thinking about politics or otherwise. As often as possible, I try not to think about politics in this portion of the show. That said, there was something from the world of politics this week that I can't let go of. And that was because it was kind of deeply relatable. We all know how hard it is to

reach bipartisan agreement on much of anything in Congress, but at least three House members inadvertently reminded us that we are all human by appearing to fall asleep this week during very long committee meetings. Did you guys see this? I missed this. Yeah, I didn't see it either.

Okay, so according to multiple news reports, Democrats Debbie Dingell of Michigan and Jan Schakowsky of Illinois were spotted struggling to stay awake during a House Energy and Commerce Committee meeting that went on for more than 20 hours this week. And then during a House Ways and Means Committee hearing on Wednesday that went late into the night, Republican Blake Moore of Utah had to be woken up to vote.

And we have a clip of that moment. Mrs. Fishbach. Mrs. Fishbach, no. Mr. Moore. And you see the camera panning to him and he's all slumped over with his eyes closed. And then a colleague kind of taps him on the shoulder and he sort of jolts awake and grins sheepishly.

Mr. Moore. And you can hear everyone starts laughing. But I mean, we've all been there, right? Like in class or whatever. Mr. Moore, no. Are we sure he wasn't having a dream, you know, when he voted no? I mean, you know, sometimes you wake up in the middle of the night and you're like, no, no, no, no. You never know what was going on there. I do actually feel like I didn't know all of this context, but I do remember now that

you're saying this, Sarah. I feel like I'm constantly monitoring lots of feeds of different things. And I do feel like I saw a quote come through from a lawmaker talking about drinking a lot of energy drinks this week. And I didn't fully engage with what was going on or why that was occurring. But this now makes sense that this was happening and that lawmakers were pounding a lot of energy drinks. I can't judge because I think I've talked many times

on this podcast about my golden semester as a Senate page in the 1990s. And we would fall asleep on the Senate floor sometimes because the inner workings of the government are not always glamorous or exciting and sometimes they take a very long time. Yeah, you're sitting there a while, can get kind of hot, it's kind of a monotone, you know. Oh yeah, this is a little white noisy, yeah. Totally. Domenico, what can't you let go? Something a little spicier than falling asleep in Congress,

but it has to do with Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and the DailyMail.com reporting on a 35 page pitch from the producer of Duck Dynasty to DHS to have a reality show for immigrants who do not have permanent status in the country to basically fight it out, quote, for the honor of fast tracking their way to U.S. citizenship. This is a thing that I might not even mention or take that seriously if it were not for the fact that the Department of Homeland Security acknowledged this pitch and the spokesperson

called it a good idea, acknowledging that it was real, that it happened, and that the secretary is actually thinking about potentially doing this or signing on to it, at least thinking about it. Yeah, you can't help but think of like Hunger Games or Squid Games. Those are fiction, guys. It's just too soon. Yeah, it just feels very cringy. Like these are real people's lives.

You know, but it really kind of encapsulates the fact that so much of what's gone on in Trump's, you know, first months has been with the idea of, you know, reality TV. You know, Trump was a reality TV host. And certainly no one has been more willing to kind of go along with that, it seems, than than Secretary Noem. You know, she was at the prison in El Salvador, where she appeared in front of prisoners there on video. So she's very attuned to what things seem to be on camera. It does actually kind of feel like a thing, not to go back to your Hunger Games reference

Sarah, but it does kind of seem like a thing that could backfire just in terms of like once people actually get to know the people, I think they would have, that's always the thing right? That it's like a lot of this rhetoric dehumanizes people who are in the country undocumented and I feel like that was like a theme of the Hunger Games is like once the public got to know these characters they didn't actually want them to go like do all this bad stuff to each other. Yeah, I mean and to Domenico's point Trump has always been an entertainer that's how he got his start in many ways. So maybe it shouldn't surprise us that

Hollywood and you know network executives would try to find an opportunity for a reality show here but but to borrow another TV reference, this one feels like it's jumped the shark a little bit, to say the least. And yes, we're talking about human beings. Well, maybe Miles can lift the mood a little bit. I do. Mine is happier, for sure. We can end this Friday on a good note. It is spring here in Washington, DC. And the thing I can't let go of is when I was off for a couple months in the beginning of the year for the rest of my parental leave, and I got for the first time in my life started gardening,

basically while the baby was napping. I just was like, I was telling my friends, I was like going out and digging a hole for mental health. And so I would just like go outside and dig, pull everything out of my front yard and started planting stuff for the first time and this week we are getting our first blooms. The main thing I planted was a hydrangea bush in our front yard and I've got like they're not flowers yet but like the beginnings of flowers and even that is enough that like I'm like obsessing every time I go

outside now I'm like going with my iPhone flashlight and looking really closely and just looking at them. I really enjoyed this. I was like a way to spend time when I'm at home and not looking at a screen. Yeah, I used to totally not be into any of that, but I feel like the older I get, the more I appreciate just the therapeutic value of digging in the dirt, planning something, watching it grow.

Sometimes it's good to just go back to nature and remember that it keeps doing its thing no matter what else is happening. I would also just shout out to anyone who's like, hasn't jumped in, just plant stuff, water it, see what happens, you know? Okay, that's all for today. Our executive producer is Mathony Muturi. Casey Morrell edits the podcast. Our producer is Bria Suggs. Special thanks to Roberta Rampton. I'm Sarah McCammon. I cover politics. I'm Miles Parks. I cover voting. And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent.

And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.