The NPR Politics Podcast - Scaramucci Out/Listener Mail

Episode Date: July 31, 2017

Just two weeks after being named White House communications director, Anthony Scaramucci is leaving his position. Plus, some listener questions. This episode: host/congressional reporter Scott Detrow, congressional reporter Geoff Bennett, and political reporter Danielle Kurtzleben. More coverage at nprpolitics.org. Email the show at [e-mail]. Find and support your local public radio station at npr.org/stations. And check out https://nprontheroad.tumblr.com/ for photos from the Register's Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hey there, Paula Poundstone here. When you're done listening to this podcast, check out my new show, Live from the Poundstone Institute. I mean, you could try listening to this show and my show at the same time, but that might drive you insane. Find Live from the Poundstone Institute on Apple Podcasts or the NPR One app. This is John Chai. I'm at Come and Go in Norwalk, Iowa, and I'm just about to get home from Ragbri. This podcast was recorded at about 5 o'clock on Monday, July 31st. Things may have changed by the time you've heard it. Keep up with all of NPR's political coverage at NPR.org, the NPR One app, or your local public radio station. Okay, here's the show. He lasted just 10 days on the job, but his tenure was, we'll call it memorable.

We're also going to field some listener questions. I'm Scott Detrow. I cover Congress for NPR. I'm Jeff Bennett. I also cover Congress. I'm Danielle Kurtzleben, political reporter. Well, like John, Danielle and I were at RAGBRAI last week riding our bicycles across Iowa. Yes, we were. And you two were missed. For sure. Did we miss anything?

During that week that was chock full of news. Yeah. It was intense. I just put Twitter back on my phone with a twinge of sadness. Here it is again. And you guys have to explain what RAGBRAI is because I didn't know what that even was until about, oh, say, three weeks ago. Right. So RAGBRAI stands for Registers, as in Des Moines Registers, Registers Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa.

This was the 45th one. It was started back in the day by, I believe, a few Des Moines register columnists. And yeah, it's a week of hopping from town to town and riding your bike at your chosen level of intensity or non-intensity. Some people in this podcast chosen level of intensity was a lot faster than others. As you point to Danielle. I'm not sure what you're talking about. But, you know, you coast up to a beer tent, you have a beverage, you get a pork chop, like a handheld pork chop in a napkin.

You gnaw on it a while, you get back on your bike, and you just keep going. So, Jeff, basically what we're saying is as you filed 30,000 stories last week, we were eating pork chops. Yes. As well you should. Yeah. Yeah. A well-deserved week off in Iowa. week, we were eating pork chops. Yes. As well you should. Yeah. Yeah. A well-deserved week off in Iowa.

Oh, man, it was great. So as I was at the airport on Friday to go to Iowa, I saw on the TV that President Trump had hired Anthony Scaramucci to serve as communications director. Today, on my first day back at work, we learned Scaramucci already out the door. Here's how Press Secretary Sarah Sanders framed the decision. I think Anthony wants General Kelly to be able to operate fully with a clean slate, build his own team, while at the same time, the president felt his comments were inappropriate. So, Jeff, a short but very memorable run. A short but very memorable run. You remember that that first briefing he gave, what was that, two weeks ago, a week ago?

It was less than a week. Or it was a week and a half ago. Yes, that's right. Where the conventional wisdom was that Scaramucci was the smooth operator. He was deferential in some ways to members of the press. He was not at all combative, given the comparison to Sean Spicer's first press. Was that smooth? It did kind of get painted as kind of sycophantic, right?

You know, it's like, I love Donald Trump, everybody loves Donald Trump, etc., etc., etc. That's right. This is the quote that really stuck in my head from that. But here's what I tell you about the president. He's the most competitive person I've ever met. OK, I've seen this guy throw a dead spiral through a tire. I've seen him at Madison Square Garden with a top coat on. He's standing in the key and he's hitting foul shots and swishing them. He sinks three foot

punts. I don't see this guy as a guy that's ever under siege. This is a very, very... But yes, either way. But from there, Scaramucci then showed up on CNN, the memorable CNN morning interview where he all but accused Ryan Sprebus of being the source of White House leaks to the media. He referred to himself in the third person. He talked about himself the way the president does. He kept using this phrase, I'm a businessman, I'm not a politician. And then he gave that interview to Ryan Lizzo of The New Yorker. Which I was struggling to even figure out. I don't know how you guys handled

this last week, but I didn't know how to reference it properly and give it its full credit, but also talk about it in a family-friendly podcast. It's hard to do in radio, man. So yeah, the profanity-laced tirade against Steve Bannon and Reince Priebus. The president was interesting about this. Initially, the president did and said nothing

to suggest that he disagreed with the substance or the tone of what Scaramucci said. Right. And this morning, this happened before I reinstalled Twitter. So I had to go back and double check the tweet. Probably not. But, you know, just this morning, Donald Trump tweeted that there is, quote, no White House chaos. Lo and behold, more chaos today. So Scaramucci lives his life as a White House chaos. Lo and behold, more chaos today. So Scaramucci lives his life as a White House communications director like a candle in the wind, 10 days on the job, explosive interview. He's out. Why does this matter in the grand scheme of things? Well, first of all, I think Scaramucci flew too close to the sun. We know about President Trump is that he does not like advisors who steal the spotlight. The other thing here that,

you mentioned this in the introduction, is that the timing here is key. Yeah. His resignation or his firing, however one paints it, came the same day of the swearing in of General John Kelly, the new chief of staff, who we'll talk about more later. Our understanding is that Kelly made this decision or came to this decision over the weekend. And then there was this parting of ways between Scaramucci and the White House. And I mean, you know, this is one heck of a symbolic way for Kelly to start out, right? I mean, it is a quick, sharp, decisive thing to do to come in and say, all right, here is the squeaky wheel. I'm not just going to give it grease. I'm going to remove it. I am going to come in and write this ship. And this is what

everybody has been saying, you know, for the bajillionth time, every pundit is wondering, all right, can Trump act presidential? Can this can in and be the source of discipline, could be the person who kind of whips everybody into shape. Who knows if Trump will let him, though? And let's just take a step back here and talk about John Kelly. Danielle, you mentioned that he's a retired Marine general. Jeff, he also served for about six months, I guess, as Homeland Security Secretary. Yeah, that's right. And it's funny, he's well known on the Hill, thanks in large part to the last decade, decade and a half of war. And so members of the House and Senate who are involved in appropriations hearings and meetings and all sorts of conversations about that have gotten to know him. They've gotten to like him. He's a well-respected figure.

I think Democrats, by and large, thought he would be a more moderating force on President Trump, particularly as it relates to his work at the Department of Homeland Security. But that has not been the case. John Kelly shares a lot in terms of ideology with the president. The other thing that's key about Scaramucci's departure from the White House is that, remember, Scaramucci would boast about how he reported directly to President Trump. Right. Yeah. Well, now we know, based on what Sarah Huckabee Sanders said at today's briefing, that everyone in the White House, everyone in that chain of command will now report to General Kelly to include, by the Access Hollywood tape saying you should really consider dropping out of the race. The second was that he was never really a chief of staff in the way that successful chief of staff operate and that they manage the staff. They manage the flow into the president.

It was this freewheeling thing. I think the best example was when the New York Times did one of its interviews, the amount of people who were like dozens of people rolled through the Oval Office at different points during the interview. So I think getting rid of Scaramucci, who had this kind of inside edge to the president over the week and a half that he had the job, I think is an indication that Kelly is at least trying to put that order in the play. But I think, you know, I feel like when there's a big change like this, there's all these stories like, will this be a reset? Can the president turn things around? Can the White House get things changed? I feel like I'm skeptical of that because of that chain of command.

Because no matter who is playing what role, no matter who's in the staff, no matter who's in the cabinet, it all flows back to the commander in chief, to the president. And it's still the same president. For sure. Yeah. cabinet, it all flows back to the commander in chief, to the president, and it's still the same president. And I mean, also, I feel like I have, I spend a lot of time arguing with other reporters about this, or at least I have, about the importance of Trump's Twitter feed. But this is another area where I think his Twitter feed is very important to think about, which is, this is an area where Trump is unfiltered in a way that no one else is and unpredictable in a way that no one else is. I mean, I can't be exactly sure what's going on in the West Wing, but I would bet you good money that a lot of those tweets are not cleared by anybody in there. So my point being that with Trump being the CEO hub of the spoked wheel here,

he also speaks for himself. It's not just Sarah Huckabee Sanders going out there. In fact, she often goes out there to play cleanup for the stuff that he puts out there on his own. So maybe that's the way to get an initial gut feeling of whether or not Kelly is making progress. What does the morning Twitter feed look like? Not just for the next few days, but the next few weeks. Very good point. Today, he was attacking members of Congress, suggesting he might take away their health care. Well, gosh, yeah. And I mean, with what is going on in health care in Congress, which I know we're going to get to, I mean, the potential for bipartisanship on this, the potential for some sort of bending on the part of Republicans, you can see how that could

inspire some some angry tweets coming up. Speaking of that topic. Yes. Let's go to the questions. You call a segue in radio. You are welcome. Smooth. All right. We are going to do that right after this short break. Support for politics and the following message come from Sun Basket. Sun Basket makes healthy cooking easy. They send pre-measured ingredients that are organic and non-GMO along with easy to follow directions directly to your door. So you can skip the grocery store and still prepare meals in just 30 minutes. Choose from paleo, gluten-free, lean and clean, and vegetarian options. Sun Basket has meals to fit every busy lifestyle.

Listeners get 50% off their first order at sunbasket.com slash politics. Hey, y'all. Sam Sanders here. My new podcast is called It's Been a Minute. That's another way of saying, let's catch up. Every Friday, I'll sit down with two guests, smart talkers from inside and outside NPR to catch up on the week of news and culture, everything.

If you can't stop watching the news, but you're also exhausted by doing that, this show is for you. Don't miss out. Find It's Been a Minute now on the NPR One app or wherever you get your podcast. Thanks. Okay, we're back. And Stacey in Salt Lake was wondering about, Danielle, what you were just talking about, health care and what the president could do. So here's our first question. Dearest politics team, President Trump says we should let Obamacare implode.

What happens to myself and my fellow Americans if such an implosion happens? What does this mean for our health care? This is a Danielle question, I think, because I witnessed people asking you this on RAGBRAI. Yes, you did. And then I biked away very quickly because I didn't want to hear about the news. That must have been a ton of fun. So there are a couple of ifs here. First of all, Stacey, if you are on your employer's plan and the Obamacare exchanges implode, whatever that means in any given circumstance, if you're on an employer plan, not much changes

for you. I mean, you just go on living your life because you are in a separate pool from all those people on the exchanges. Furthermore, there's an if around, quote unquote, letting the exchanges implode. It certainly doesn't look like the exchanges are imploding right now. For example, you will have states that sound as if they are going to have counties with zero insurers. Iowa, for example, was one recently that now does have insurers lined up for 2018. Ohio, we were all talking about today. Ohio looked to have, I believe it was 20 counties that wouldn't have insurers as of next year. Now they have found insurers for 19 of those counties. So it doesn't

look like left to its own devices, Obamacare would necessarily implode. And this is where we add the, you know, asterisk of, of course, it would be nice in a lot of these exchanges to have more insurers, but it certainly doesn't look like, broadly speaking, it's imploding. Okay. Now let's move that all aside. If it does implode, things could be very bad for those millions of people on the exchanges. And there are a couple of ways it could, and the Trump administration still could make that happen. One of those is the cost-sharing subsidies that the Trump administration decides on a monthly basis to keep paying. These subsidies help particularly low-income Americans pay for the cost of health care. The payments go to insurance companies and it helps these

lower-income Americans get their care. The Trump administration this week is supposed to decide whether it wants to keep paying those payments. And if they decided not to, that could either mean that insurers pull out of markets or that premiums go way up. Now, they've been threatening to do this for a while now. And haven't some insurers said that that's actually one of the variables that have them wary at the moment? That is most definitely true. I mean, even talking about destabilizing the exchanges destabilizes the exchanges. I mean, and so if there were more certainty, it would probably stand to reason that things would settle down in terms of premiums, for example, and in terms of

insurers staying in the exchanges across the exchanges. But bottom line, it seems like what you're saying is that the like every other day Obamacare is failing, Obamacare is exploding, Obamacare is a death spiral comments from the president of the United States probably are kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy in a tiny way, if not the determining factor. I'd say more than tiny. I mean, it's certainly not everything, but it's it is a measurable way. I was speaking to a former insurance CEO last week who said, you know, who is a critic of Obamacare, but who is saying, oh, absolutely. This is definitely a sizable factor in premiums going up. Jeff, President Obama, I mean, one of the reasons why he was always doing goofy videos here and there on BuzzFeed and going on Between Two Ferns and stuff like that is because

he was trying to push Obamacare, trying to get people to sign up during open enrollment periods. And trying to get younger people to sign up for open enrollment, because that is what basically supports the entire thing, having younger and healthier people in the system paying premiums, which supports older and less healthier people. But we know from some reporting that the Department of Health and Human Services has been using money allocated to drive signups to do the exact opposite of that, using that money to do videos that shows that there are victims, as the White House puts it, of Obamacare and that repeal and replace is a good, overall, it's a good thing because the system is falling apart, which leads to a smaller pool, which leads to more expensive

premiums, et cetera. Right. The one thing that struck me the Monday morning after the Senate health care bill failed is we were on the House side talking to members and members who were really invested in this health care fight in a partisan way, talking about Republicans, they, to a number, all said that something has to be done, if nothing else, to prop up the exchanges in rural areas and to find some way to bring about some sort of repair bill, some sort of repair effort. Well, we are segueing all over the place because Brett in Ohio asked a similar question, wanting to know, now that attempts by Republicans to repeal Obamacare failed, will they work with Democrats to fix it? Now, I had done a couple of stories on this in

the last few weeks, and there is an increasing call from Democrats to take that targeted approach. They're really interested in, you know, stabilizing the exchanges. A lot of talk about something called reinsurance, which provides insurance to the insurance companies, basically. Right. It reimburses, it's money for insurance companies to sort of assure them that if they have super high cost patients, that they won't lose a whole ton of money on them. Alaska just passed something like this.

So there's been talk like that from some Democrats, some Republicans, too, and particularly some of the members who used to serve as governors, who, of course, have had a lot of experience running Medicaid in their states. But Jeff, my basic thought on this is that that talk might continue, it might grow louder, but it doesn't really matter at all until someone like Mitch McConnell says, yes, let's make this happen. That's right. And the other thing that our colleague Sue Davis points out, the indefatigable Sue Davis, who's been covering this health care fight on the Hill for weeks and weeks and months,

she made the point today that Republicans have not really conceded defeat, even though Mitch McConnell says it's time to move on, that Republicans writ large have not conceded defeat. And until that point comes, the talk about a bipartisan effort, it's just too early for that. Even though, you know, there is this coalition of roughly what 40 House Republicans and Democrats called the Problem Solvers Caucus. I just love that. It strikes me as so backhanded, like the rest of

you are problem creators. We're the solvers. Anyway, they have a they have a bipartisan bill that would prop up the exchanges. But again, we're not at that point yet. Right. But and that bipartisan bill, by the way, going back to the cost sharing subsidies, one of the big ideas they have is for them to appropriate the money for that. That has been the big bone of contention on those subsidies. They were not originally appropriated by Congress. The Obama administration was paying them. That's what led to the whole fight over them in the first place. One interesting point from Democrats that stuck with me when I did that story on this the other week was something that Chris Murphy, the Connecticut Democrat, said. He thought that President Trump's ongoing disengagement

from the nuts and bolts of the deals could work in Democrats' favor because if they get enough Republican interest in doing a bipartisan bill, a targeted thing, he was arguing President Trump just wants to sign something and say, I signed a law on Obamacare. So maybe he'd be OK with a Democratic compromise bill. I'm kind of skeptical of that because President Trump wants to sign an Obamacare repeal, which is not a we stabilize the markets. But, you know, I do see the argument. Right. Well, and the big complicating factor here, of course, is that should there be some sort of a plan or something that happens, for example, ending those subsidies or whatever else might happen that causes the exchanges to implode, well, then who gets saddled with that blame? Quite likely the guy in the White House who also happens to be a Republican, as well as the people running Capitol Hill right now. Which would make

sense. Yes, absolutely. So, I mean, you want to repeal this, but your appeal effort had very much better not make life worse for a lot of Americans. All right. Often the other news is drowned out by Russia, but it seems like over the last week, Russia has been drowned out by all the other news. Yeah, man. So let's do a Russia question. Let's fix that. Jeff, are you up for this? I am, my friend. All right. Well, here's a question from Robert. He says, we all received the news that the Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley would require Donald Trump Jr. and Paul Manafort to explain their meeting with Russian operators at Trump Tower

last year. Yet, I have heard that it took place in private. Allowing these individuals to speak in public seems like a good political opportunity for the Democrats. So why are Democrats allowing this to happen? Thank you, Robert. A couple of things. Democrats aren't in power. So that's the first thing. So yeah. But here's the thing. The primary goal of that committee, the Judiciary Committee, was not necessarily to have Paul Manafort and Donald Trump Jr. to testify in public. Their primary goal was to bring them to the negotiating table to establish the terms by which they would sit for an interview and then turn over any documents they had, specifically about that now infamous Trump Tower meeting in June 2016. Manafort had already testified to staffers on the Senate Intelligence Committee, and he had turned over the contemporaneous notes he took during that June 2016 Trump Tower meeting.

And so that was what they really wanted to get a piece of, because Paul Manafort has emerged as the central character in this larger Russia question. Whereas, you know, Jared Kushner paints a picture of himself as being this political novice who was having thousands of interactions with foreign officials, of which he had about, he says, four interactions with Russian officials. Paul Manafort cannot paint himself as a novice. He has a very long, well-documented career, lobbying and consulting career. Around the world. Around the world, particularly with Russia, that people want to know a lot about.

And more broadly, though, there is a difference between public testimony and private testimony on this stuff. I mean, we have learned as the public a lot of key details from this public testimony. But real talk, a lot of it is performative and a lot of it is a chance for lawmakers to kind of berate witnesses or get on their high horse and make some points. And there's been a lot of times, especially when it's officials testifying who they say, I can't talk about that in public because it's classified. Let's talk about that in private. So they go down these secure rooms and you might be able to get more for your actual investigation there. Forgive me. I have a 101 question here, which is what exactly determines whether my testimony before this committee is public or private? Is it that I tell you, hey,

I'm probably going to say some classified stuff? Is it that you're a Republican and you're in charge and you want it to be private? How does that work? It's a little bit of both. A lot of that is negotiated between the attorneys for whomever is set to testify. And so it's the negotiation. It's, we'll come and sit before your committee if it's private. Or if not, if they're not going to show up, he could say he's going to plead the fifth, which opens an entirely different can of worms. And we've gotten a lot of feedback on this front, both on Twitter and in questions, saying, why can't Congress just make people do this?

They do have subpoena power, but generally they like to play nice first. Gotcha. That is a wrap for us this week. We'll be back in your feed on Thursday. In between then, you can always catch us on Up First every morning. And of course, you can hear our radio reporting on the NPR One app

and on your local public radio station. A few more plugs, you can keep up with us on our NPR Politics Facebook page. And if you like the podcast, please do leave us a review on iTunes. It really does help even when you've been podcasting for a while like we have. And it helps other folks find the podcast. Last quick thing, we were talking about our bike ride across Iowa. Danielle and I and Scott Horsley met a lot of listeners. A lot of podcast listeners had great conversations. It was really great to meet all of you. Thanks for coming up and introducing yourselves. Most definitely. All right. That's the show. I'm Scott Detrow. I cover Congress. I'm Jeff Bennett. I also cover Congress. I'm Danielle Kurtzleben, political reporter.

Thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.