The NPR Politics Podcast - Trump Drops Plan To Host G-7 Summit At His Miami Resort Following GOP Pushback

Episode Date: October 21, 2019

President Trump announced that he's dropping his plan to host next year's G-7 meeting of the leaders of the world's biggest economies at his Miami-area golf club. This episode: political correspondent Scott Detrow, White House reporter Ayehsa Rascoe, 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

Quick note before we get started, we are doing a live taping of our show in Washington, D.C. So if you want to hear what we think about the latest political news, or if you've just ever wondered what it's like to see a podcast tape live, join us at the Warner Theatre on November 8th. Information and tickets at nprpresents.org. Hope to see you there. Hiya fellow nerds, my name is Jay and I'm standing outside my local polling station in Ottawa, where I've just cast my first ever vote in a Canadian election. Between the leadership race to the north of the border and the impeachment proceedings to the south, it's been a heck of a time to be a dual citizen politics geek,

but I know NPR has got my back with new daily episodes of the NPR Politics Podcast. The episode you're listening to now was recorded at... It is Monday, October 21st at 2.37 Eastern. But obviously, any number of things could have changed by the time you listen to it. I'm going to go home

and refresh my podcast feeds repeatedly until all the votes are counted, but in the meantime, here's the show. Are we doing a podcast on the Canadian election? Why not?

Let's just go global. As far as I know, though, Canada does not have the sausages like Australia. I don't know if there are any cool Canadian cheese curds or poutine or something. If there are any Canadian election traditions we don't know about, please let us know. Hey there, it's the NPR politics podcast. I'm Scott Detrow. I cover the campaign. I'm Aisha Roscoe. I cover the White House. And I'm Mara Liason, national political correspondent. So over the weekend, President Trump changed his mind

about a pretty big thing. He announced Saturday night that he is dropping this plan to host the next G7 at his Miami area golf club. Ayesha, President Trump, Acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, who announced this decision, they were pretty adamant about this, pretty unapologetic about driving all of this business to Trump's own club. What happened? Well, they just got a lot of pushback and they knew that they would get it. That's what Mulvaney had said, that he knew that there would be a lot of pushback, but they were fine with that. But apparently it was too much because then President Trump tweeted late on Saturday night, quote, I announced that I would be willing to do it at no profit or if legally permissible at zero cost to the USA.

Based on media and Democrat crazed and irrational hostility, we will no longer consider Trump National Doral Miami as the host site for the G7 in 2020. There were a lot of issues with this, obviously, even though they were saying that there weren't going to be any profits or that it would be done at cost. What does that mean? There was no way for us to know what it meant and how are we supposed to know that you're not going to profit off of it. They weren't really committing to like releasing all their documents about it. And you're promoting your own. But even so, we have a history of what he charges the taxpayers every time he goes to one of his properties. And Mara, you have talked a lot over the years about how Trump's actions are never quite as

intense as his threats. I take that back. But I mean, still, this seemed pretty notable that he had to backtrack so quickly. They were so adamant about this, saying like, this is the best place in America to host this summit. Look, Trump backtracks a lot. But to say that his actions are never quite as intense as his threats, I can't really say that after Syria, which I know we'll get to later. But he backtracked because uncharacteristically for him, he seems to have decided that he's just fighting on too many fronts and he's fighting with his own party on too many fronts. So it wasn't the media and the crazed Democrats as he put it. It was the Republicans. No, no, it was the Republicans. There was a meeting at Camp David with moderate Republicans and Mick Mulvaney, and it was getting harder and harder for Republicans to defend him. The

Constitution states very clearly that beyond the salary that the president gets, he should take no other remuneration from the states. And then there is another clause that he should take no money from foreign governments. This is a clause he referred to during today's cabinet meeting. It's phony, but's presidency, this idea that he did not divest from his company. He claims that he is no longer involved with his company. But in this case, he was saying that somehow he would make sure that he would not profit and that they would do it at cost. Well, how are these decisions getting made if he's not actually talking to his sons about the way the business is run? He said he would have nothing to do with his businesses, yet he constantly talks about his properties. He constantly visits his properties with taxpayer-funded personnel in tow. So given that, though, like you said, this is a constant thing on a lower level.

Why do you think this particular decision is something that caused Republican allies to say, we're not going to go defend that? And, you know, I've been talking to a lot of ethics experts like in the past two weeks or so and partly about like President Trump's children's involvement in his businesses. But the reason why is because the president has been making a case against Joe Biden, saying that Joe Biden was enriching himself when he was vice president, or that his son, his family was through Hunter Biden's business in Ukraine and China. And so to have the president, and Mulvaney was asked this directly, how can you criticize the Bidens and accuse them of self-dealing when the president is bringing money to his own business? What the Trump seem to be saying, President Trump and his sons, is that they were rich before and so they're not getting rich now. What at the end, they argue that they're losing money. We don't know whether that's the case or not.

But what the experts have told me is even if they are actually losing money net, it doesn't matter. Like if you are president and you're making any money based off of your political office that you wouldn't make otherwise, that's an issue. So we're going to talk after the break about how this lines up with a lot of the other scandals brewing. But first, the G7 is a pretty big deal. It's an important world meeting. Do we have any sense where it's going to be now? He mentioned Camp David, which is ironic because Mick Mulvaney at that press conference specifically cited Camp David,

which is where the last G7 in the U.S. was held, as being a miserable place to hold the G7 and just said that it was horrible. But that is the place that now the president mentioned that they're considering holding the summit. At minimum, that's more ironic than a black fly in your chardonnay. So you're fine no matter what. That's the bar for public ironic things. All right. We're going to take a quick break. And when we come back, we're going to talk about how this lines up with impeachment,

plus all of the criticism that the president continues to take on Syria. Support for NPR and the following message come from Rothy's. Rothy's are the stylish, comfortable, and sustainable flats seamlessly crafted from repurposed plastic bottles, available in a range of colors, patterns, and styles, like flats, loafers, and sneakers, fully machine washable, and no break-in period. Discover why BuzzFeed called them their forever shoes. Rothy's always offers free shipping and free returns and exchanges. Go to rothys.com slash weekly to find out more.

Maddie Safaya here, host of a new daily science podcast from NPR called Shortwave. This week, the first all-female spacewalk. We got to talk to both of those astronauts in space. We have you loud and clear, NPR. Listen for that and subscribe to Shortwave from NPR. All right, we are back. And if you've been listening to our new daily podcast, it will be pretty obvious to you that none of this is happening in a vacuum, right? You have Republicans who are upset with Trump about this Doral decision for suddenly abandoning Kurdish allies in Syria. And on impeachment, probably discomfort and arm's length avoidance is the best way to describe the Republican congressional attitude.

But like, how much wiggle room does the president have with these potential jurors in an impeachment trial right now? And how much does something he does on one topic bleed into that area? That's the $60 million question. I mean, I think at this point, it's unthinkable that 20 Republican senators would decide that the president, assuming he was impeached by the House, should be convicted and removed by the Senate. That's an extremely high bar. You don't have any Republican coming out and actually advocating for impeachment or removal. But when the president is fighting with his own party on so many fronts, whether it's the abandonment of the Kurds in Syria, whether he should use his own club for the G7, and then having to defend the White House chief of staff admitting, yes, there was a quid pro quo, it just

gets harder and harder. Right now, it seems like these different issues are distinct. In other words, Republicans feel free to criticize him on foreign policy. That's not an issue that animates the Republican base that much where they're going to stick with him on impeachment. But you have to wonder at what point, you know, if the economy should soften, if something else should happen, how much does the frustration in one area bleed over into another? Or if the White House keeps undercutting the way that Republicans are defending the president, right? And that gets into what Mulvaney was saying. Ayesha, he has continued to try and change the story of what he said.

Walk back, you know, just to say that he didn't say what he said. Let's listen to the latest version of this. It was on Fox News Sunday this weekend. So I recognize that folks, that I didn't speak clearly, maybe on Thursday, folks misinterpreted what I said. But the facts are absolutely clear and they are there for everyone to see. Aisha, you were in the second row. You went back and forth with him. Did you feel at the time that he was speaking clearly? He was speaking very clearly. It was just surprising what he was saying. And it seemed surprising to the White was just surprising what he was saying. And it seemed surprising to the White House as well what he was saying. But he was very clear. He said there were

three reasons why that money was held up for Ukraine. Now, wasn't he holding three fingers in the air? He said there are three reasons and he held up three fingers. And now he if you look at all his statements over the weekend, he says there are two reasons. So so one of the reasons got lost in the mix. That reason being something that really upset Republicans. There is not a quid pro quo. You were asked by Jonathan Karl is that you've described a quid pro quo and you said that happens all the time. And again, reporters will use their language all the time. So my language never said quid

pro quo. But let's get. Yeah, he was trying to draw a line between a quid pro quo. In other words, they were holding up the aid for certain things. And his argument was in the past, aid has been held up to many foreign countries, unless they did something that usually was in the United States interests, not in the personal political interests of the President of the United States. So he was trying to make that distinction. The problem is that the president himself has made quid pro quo this very important issue. And he has insisted over and over again that he never did that. Even though the Democrats haven't said that that's some important criteria, they think just the fact that he asked a foreign

country for dirt on his political rival is bad enough. So, I mean, both of you have covered the president for a long time now. Mara, you were saying that Trump needs to be in make friends mode going forward. Do either of you see any indication that the president will ever shift into that mode or shift into a disciplined messaging mode? No, no, no, not discipline. No, that's not in his nature. Disciplined messaging. No, no, no, not discipline. No, that's not in his nature. Discipline messaging, no. Yeah, that's not in his nature. But I do want to caution our audience about something. I think

there is a trap that we can fall into in Washington, which I would call the waiting for the dam to break trap. Like, what will be the tipping point when Republicans suddenly abandon him? I mean, really? Why? Republicans are not going to abandon him as long as 85 to 90% of the Republican base approves of him, which they do. I do think it is significant when he is fighting with his party on so many fronts. That means that he doesn't have a lot of room for error if, for instance, the economy should soften or something else should happen that we haven't heard about yet. But I don't think that we are in a period where we're just waiting for Republicans to bolt. That is not what's happening here. He has, I believe, solid control over the Republican Party base.

And the only Republicans that have truly broken with him are ones that are not running for reelection. And, yes, he has come in for pretty tough criticism from people like Mitt Romney or Mitch McConnell about his policy. Or Pierre. Yes, yes. Pierre Delecto. Delecto. Though that being said, we have no idea what twists and turns are coming over the next few weeks or months. But bottom line, it seems like the people to pay attention to are the ones up for reelection next year. Yes, absolutely. All right. Well, that is it for today. We will be back in your feeds tomorrow afternoon.

In the meantime, you can always check us out on your local public radio station. I'm Scott Detrow. I cover the campaign. I'm Ayesha Roscoe. I cover the White House. And I'm Mara Liason, national political correspondent. Thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.