The NPR Politics Podcast - Trump And The Ukraine Call — What Happened And What's Next?

Episode Date: September 23, 2019

In a fight to frame the political conflict, President Trump alleges former Vice President Joe Biden and his son are "corrupt." Opponents point to the president's own phone call. This episode: political correspondent Scott Detrow, justice correspondent Ryan Lucas, and national political correspondent Mara Liasson. Email the show at [e-mail]. Find and support your local public radio station at npr.org/stations.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hi, this is Topher calling from my hometown of Boulder, Colorado, where I'm on my way to hear the NPR Politics podcast recorded live at the historic Boulder Theater, where once as a kid, I played Huckleberry Finn in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. This podcast was recorded at 237 Eastern on Monday, September 23rd. Things may have changed by the time you hear this. All right, here's the show. Mara, how was the show? It was awesome.

Do you think it was better than The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn? Not for Topher. Probably not. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Scott Detrow. I cover the campaign. I'm Ryan Lucas. I cover the Justice Department.

And I'm Mara Liason, National Political Correspondent. So in terms of big Trump scandals, it's preshie Russia, zavstveta Ukraine. Anywhere close, Ryan? Ouch. No? Wow. Translate, please. That was goodbye Russia in Russian, hello Ukraine allegedly in Ukrainian. I think I butchered them both.

Wow. So we are saying goodbye to Russia and hello to Ukraine because like a hurricane or storm pattern over the weekend, this major story has developed about conversations between President Trump and the president of Ukraine, where President Trump allegedly exerted pressure, made recommendations, just happened to bring up casually in a conversation, however you want to put it. He wanted Ukraine to look into actions that Joe Biden might have taken in a way that would allegedly help President Trump's campaign. A lot of moving parts. It's kind of confusing. Ryan, what happened here? a bit of time, that Joe Biden as vice president improperly used his office to push the Ukrainian government to dump a top prosecutor who was investigating a company in which Joe's son,

Hunter Biden, had a stake. Now, is there any truth to that allegation? There is no evidence to back up these claims at this point. It is true that Joe Biden was the point person for the Obama administration on Ukraine and that he did indeed push the Ukrainian government to get rid of this prosecutor. But the U.S. was not alone in that. There were Western governments across the board who were pushing for this prosecutor to go because he was not taking the sort of line that Western democracies thought was needed to be taken on the question of corruption. But the main question here is not about what Vice President Biden was doing, but rather the fact that President Trump is on the phone with the influence of the office of the presidency and all of the assistance that the U.S. can give a vulnerable country like Ukraine saying, hey, could you do this thing that would probably help my presidential campaign out? That's what you say is the main issue. But the fact that Ryan just had to go through the

allegations for which there is no evidence against Biden. This is what the president issue. But the fact that Ryan just had to go through the allegations, for which there is no evidence, against Biden, this is what the president wants. This is what he has done every single time he's been asked about it in the last couple of days, is to talk about Joe Biden and this, so far, completely unfounded theory that Joe Biden and corruption in the Ukraine are somehow connected and revolve around Hunter. There is no evidence for this. Welcome to the Trump world. Marc Thiessen Mara, we have talked so much in this podcast, including right before all of this started to happen. We had a long discussion about it last

week about Democratic House leadership being very hesitant to move forward with impeachment. This development seems to have changed their thinking a little bit. Why is that? A little bit. The reason this is different and the reason why you have more Democrats calling for impeachment since the story broke is because more Democrats think this is a clear abuse of power. The president of the United States alleged to be using his office to pressure a foreign government to help him in his reelection campaign, not to further the national security interests of the United States. And there's another dynamic that we're going to get to in more detail in a little bit,

that this came forward through a formal whistleblower complaint, and the White House is not turning that over to Congress. This is not a leak. This was somebody, this whistleblower, who felt concerned and worried enough about the content of this call that they went through the proper legal channels, filed a whistleblower report, and the law says if the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community determines that the report is urgent and credible, it goes to Congress. Now, they're going to argue about whether if it involves the president, it can be withheld from Congress, but that's where we're at. Now, there is one thing that we have to be clear about, and that is we don't know specifically

that the whistleblower complaint does indeed relate to Ukraine. Those are reports so far. The tricky thing here is that very few people have seen that whistleblower complaint. Congress does not have its hands on it yet. That's what this whole standoff between the administration and Congress revolves around. So just to be clear, we don't have 100% confirmation that it involves Ukraine, but we do know that the president talked to the Ukrainian president and that there are questions about that conversation. So there's a lot swirling around at the moment, and this is one of those stories where our podcast timestamp comes in handy

because I'm sure some sort of detail will emerge over the next few hours. Let me get this right. We know that there is a whistleblower complaint. Correct. We think that it possibly involves a conversation or several conversations with Trump and the president of Ukraine. Correct. And this is the part that I think is kind of remarkable. President Trump, in a whole range of comments made over the last few days as he traveled to Texas and then New York,

is basically saying, yeah, I did talk to the president of Ukraine and I talked to him about corruption. Conversation I had was largely congratulatory, was largely corruption, all of the corruption taking place, was largely the fact that we don't want our people like Vice President Biden and his son creating to the corruption already in the Ukraine. He, as usual, one of his MOs is to do everything in public. He's not hiding anything. He's seeming to say so. At one point, he said, it doesn't matter what I discussed. Whatever I talked about was fine. It's almost by definition, if the president does it, it can't be illegal or wrong. Well, this presidency has shown that it does have a very expansive view of executive power.

Most White Houses do, but this one has certainly pushed the limits on that. And he's even said Article 2 of the Constitution allows me to do whatever I want. Ryan, the one other dynamic that's floating out here and we don't quite know how it in just yet, is this big military aid package from the U.S. to Ukraine. Could you explain what we know and why it could matter? Well, the big question with the aid package is the fact that it was on the table. It's something that the Ukrainians need from the U.S. They rely on U.S. support. Ukraine, of course, is still locked in a sort of ongoing conflict with Russian-backed separatists in the eastern part of Ukraine. They have relied a lot on U.S. military support, of course, is still locked in a sort of ongoing conflict with Russian-backed separatists in the eastern part of Ukraine. They have relied a lot on U.S. military support, financial support.

This is important for the government in Kiev. The fact that the president is potentially, according to these reports, essentially using this as leverage on the Ukrainians as the allegations go to get them to open an investigation into Joe Biden and his son, that is where we get into possible illegal conduct. But certainly with a lot of people, legal experts that I talked to, and I think Democrats would certainly say this, and maybe some Republicans off record would say that this is improper conduct as well. Yeah. Right. And don't forget, Ukraine is desperate for U.S. help. It needs U.S. military aid. It really wanted an Oval Office meeting between their new president and Donald Trump so they could show that they had the backing of the U.S. This is an anti-Russian government. Donald Trump generally does not like to do things that Vladimir Putin doesn't like. The tricky part in questions about foreign aid is that the Constitution gives the president broad powers when it comes to foreign policy to do as he sees fit. That is something that there is really no great disagreement about.

But what you can't do, legal experts tend to say, is you cannot do self-dealing. You can't even do self-dealing in matters of foreign policy. That is a problem. And that's what this whole scenario raises the question of. So that's one of the many outstanding big questions we have. So, Scott, you covered the campaign. What has Team Biden have to say about this? The statement they put out, the official statement,

is President Trump's willingness to abuse his power and abase our country, saying that there is truly no bottom to President Trump's willingness to abuse his power. The Biden campaign has been very aggressive about saying that there was nothing improper about the key Vice President Biden action in question of urging Ukraine to get rid of this prosecutor, pointing out this is something that the World Bank, several other national, international actors were saying wanted to see happen. Of course, there are a whole bunch of questions unrelated to this about Hunter Biden's various business dealings, the campaign. Biden himself early on in the campaign acknowledged

that that was something he was bracing for political opponents to go after. But in this case, they're saying the person that is improper here is the president making this request, putting this pressure on Ukraine. All right. So we're going to take a quick break. And when we come back, we're going to talk about how this is playing in Congress. And that whistleblower report is a big part of that conversation. We're going to take a quick break. Support for NPR and the following message come from Rothy's.

Rothy's are the everyday flats for life on the go. Stylish, versatile, fully machine washable. And they go with everything from yoga pants to dresses and skirts. Best of all, there's zero break-in period thanks to their woven design seamlessly crafted from recycled water bottles. Plus, Rothy's always come with free shipping and free returns and exchanges. Find out why BuzzFeed called them their forever shoes at rothys.com slash weekly. An incident in Nashville that shocked the Latino community. A computer designed to control the entire Chilean economy. A Martian invasion in Ecuador. Radio Ambulante is back with a brand new season. NPR Spanish language podcast will take you around Latin America to show you the

fascinating, strange, and compelling stories of the region. Subscribe and listen every Tuesday. Okay, we are back, and we have had like 30,000 conversations about House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's hesitance to move forward on impeachment. Over the weekend, she sent a letter to other House Democrats, and it said at the end, if the administration persists in blocking this whistleblower from disclosing to Congress a serious possible breach of constitutional duties by the president, they will be entering a grave new chapter of lawlessness, which will take us into a whole new stage of investigation. She didn't say the word impeachment, but she certainly pointed in that direction. I think this is serious. And her bar for impeachment has always been, does it have bipartisan support in the

public? Therefore, it could get Republican support in Congress. That has never been present. We don't see it present now. There have been a few small, mild comments by Republicans saying this is troubling or what did Mitt Romney saying? If it's true, it would be troubling in the extreme. But so far, it's just Democrats. And what Nancy Pelosi is worried about is if you impeach the president, which is the equivalent of indicting him in the House, then you go on to the trial in the Senate, he will be acquitted. And that will be a huge triumph for the president, could cause a backlash against Democrats and cost them the White House in 2020. I think what we've seen time and again in situations like this is Republicans

try to keep their head down. And I think that that's what we're seeing now is you have the occasional voice here and there, but we are not seeing them come out across the board. It will be interesting to see now that the week has started what they have to say when they're asked about this on the Hill. And the other interesting thing to watch is are Democrats going to make this fight about the transcript of the call? Because on that, the White House has very strong grounds to say presidential communications with other foreign leaders should be confidential. Or are they going to focus on the whistleblower report where they have at least some legal backing to have the right to see it as part of their oversight authority? And we should say at this moment, we do not know how broad or narrow the whistleblower complaint is. It could be about that call. It could be about more other things. One of the many questions we

don't know. So Mara, Elizabeth Warren tweeted something this weekend and I saw it and I thought, ooh, that's a good thing to ask Mara about in the podcast because you have been someone who's thought a lot about norms over the last couple of years and how they've changed and how they're being tested and pushed. So this is what Warren said. After the Mueller report, Congress had a duty to begin impeachment. By failing to act, Congress is complicit in Trump's latest attempt to solicit foreign interference to aid him in elections, in U.S. elections. Do your constitutional duty and impeach the president. What do you make of that argument that Trump saw the Mueller report come and go, thought, I'm not going to face any political consequences, and may have continued to, you know, get on the phone with a foreign leader.

Well, Elizabeth Warren is running for president. She's appealing to the activist liberal base of the party who very much wants Congress to impeach the president. She's not worrying about a general election right now or keeping the House. But in terms of norms, you know, not everything that is improper and an abuse of power is illegal. Impeachment is a political judgment that's going to be made by elected representatives. If they believe that he has abused power, committed a high crime and misdemeanor, they'll decide to impeach him. But the fact that it's a political judgment means they have to think about whether it has public support, what happens when it goes to the Senate. You know, every Democrat who calls for impeachment comes from a specific political place. Elizabeth Warren running for president. A lot of the Democrats in Congress who are calling for impeachment come from safe Democratic districts. The president has done an astounding job of walking a very fine line,

walking at the margins of what legal experts I was talking to with today said between improper and unethical and illegal. And he's walked that line. And that has had, in the view of the legal experts that I spoke with, a very corrosive impact on the norms of how the U.S. functions, respect for U.S. law. That is their view. I think that that's the view of a lot of Democrats. And it will be interesting to see, as I said earlier, how Republicans on the Hill, when asked about this specific, particularly if the details do come out, how are they going to view this behavior? Look, the thing about norms is they're not, just by definition, they're not laws. They're not codified. They depend on individuals' restraint

and respect for the other branches of government. And when that disappears, when norms are eroded, either our entire constitutional system with its checks and balances is weakened, or sometimes what happens, and we saw this after Watergate, when power changes hands, norms are codified. They start passing as a reform. They pass laws that says it's a law. Now you have to release your tax returns or it's a law. You know, presidents can be indicted. Right. I mean, to me, one of the most striking things was that you go back to all of the conversation about the Mueller report and whether it would lead to impeachment, right? That first part of the report lays out all of this effort by foreign actors, by Russian actors to influence the election,

but boiled down, it came down to, well, there was no high-level conversation between Trump and Putin or anything like that. So then what happens? A high-level conversation between Trump and the head of another government saying, hey, can you do something that could help me in the election? Like to me, it was like, wow, you just pushed it one step further. History repeats itself as far as the specifics of what was said on the call, I think, are going to be very important, though. And we don't know what specifically was said. It is important that we make that clear. We don't know at this point. Okay. So as confidently as we can say, which is probably not that confidently in the grand scheme of things, do we have a sense when we could get answers to some of these key questions or when next steps could be taken? There are two interesting meetings this week.

Trump is scheduled to meet with the Ukrainian president on Wednesday. At the United Nations? At the United Nations. And then on Thursday, the director of national intelligence, who's in the role in an acting capacity, is due to testify before the House Intelligence Committee, which is pushing him to hand over this whistleblower complaint. He is going to have to answer in public as much as he can as to why he's holding on to it. That is going to be a very interesting hearing. And when that happens, we will cover it in this podcast. And when President Trump makes news at the United Nations, we will cover it in this podcast. And when President Trump makes news at the United Nations, we will cover it in this podcast. I have a feeling we're going to have

a lot of episodes this week. That is all for today, though. I'm Scott Detrow. I cover the campaign. I'm Ryan Lucas. I cover the Justice Department. And I'm Mara Liason, national political correspondent. Thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.