The NPR Politics Podcast - Trump Ordered Security Footage Deleted, DOJ Alleges In New Charges

Episode Date: July 28, 2023

Donald Trump and two aides face new obstruction counts based on allegations that they instructed an unnamed, fourth worker to delete surveillance video footage at Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence last summer "to prevent the footage from being provided to a federal grand jury."Trump also faces a new count of willful retention of National Defense Information related to his handling of classified documents, apparently in connection with a top-secret presentation Trump allegedly waved at aides at his Bedminster, N.J., resort.Also: the federal government is likely to shutdown in October.This episode: political correspondent Susan Davis, national justice correspondent Carrie Johnson, senior political editor and correspondent Domenico Montanaro, congressional correspondent Deirdre Walsh, and White House correspondent Asma Khalid.The podcast is produced by Elena Moore and Casey Morell. Our editor is Eric McDaniel. Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi. Unlock access to this and other bonus content by supporting The NPR Politics Podcast+. Sign up via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org. Connect:Email the show at [e-mail] the NPR Politics Podcast Facebook Group.Subscribe to the NPR Politics Newsletter.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hi, this is Lauren in Oklahoma City, headed out for my 5 a.m. morning run because it's already 83 degrees outside. This podcast was recorded at 1125 a.m. on Friday, July 28th. Things may have changed by the time you hear it, and hopefully our high will be under 100 degrees soon. All right, here's the show. Credit to you for still getting up that early and getting the run in. But it is hot. It is hot everywhere. I was in Texas. It wasn't below 104 for a lot of it. And now it's going to be 100 degrees in D.C.

It's a lot. No, thank you. Hey there. It's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Susan Davis. I cover politics. I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. And I'm Keri Johnson, national justice correspondent. And there are new charges against former President Trump connected to withholding classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate after he left office. Now, Trump, his aide, Walt Nauta, and an additional employee are also being charged in connection with a plan to delete security footage.

Carrie, catch us up to speed. Yeah, sure. So while a bunch of us were sitting in the federal courthouse in D.C. waiting for something to happen with respect to the January 6th grand jury, instead, the activity was happening in South Florida again. Donald Trump has now been charged with a total of 40 federal criminal offenses in South Florida in connection with the hoarding, alleged hoarding of documents at his Mar-a-Lago resort. And there are two elements to this superseding indictment, two new facets here. The first is that Trump has been charged

with another count of willful retention of information related to the national defense. This seems to be about a military presentation regarding Iran that Trump was allegedly waving around to aides at Bedminster, his New Jersey golf club that was mentioned in the earlier indictment. And the prosecution says they now have these papers. And the reason why this is important is because they also have an audio tape of someone at that meeting of Trump allegedly saying, you know, this is a secret. And I could have declassified it when I was president, but I didn't. And so it's still a secret. And it could be powerful evidence of his state of mind, really. And Carrie,

what is the other component to this? The other component is that there are new obstruction of justice charges here against former President Trump, his valet, Walt Nauta, and a third Mar-a-Lago employee, Carlos de Oliveira. The allegation here is that after the FBI and the Justice Department issued a subpoena for security footage of Mar-a-Lago, Trump, Nauta, and this third man, Carlos de Oliveira, cooked up a plot to try to delete the security footage to keep it out of the hands of the FBI. And there's some allegation about de Oliveira telling another Mar-a-Lago employee, the boss really wants this done. And this is hard stuff. This is hard stuff if it's true

for a jury to hear in a case that's so important about national security. And is it unusual in a case like this for having additional charges brought, especially in such a high-profile investigation? It's not super unusual. Prosecutors often will sift through their evidence and realize there's a bit more here. We did know already that some additional Mar-a-Lago employees were under government scrutiny. Now a third person has been charged. It's not clear to me why this delay. We do know the prosecutors had said in open court that they were having a hard time getting into Walt Nauta's phone. And perhaps that was really one of the reasons for these

additional charges now. Domenico, has there been any response from former President Trump? Well, you can imagine Trump's not happy. And he's, you know, again, blasting the Justice Department, blasting President Biden, blaming him for this and blasting the special counsel saying this is just another attempt to derail his presidential campaign. Of course, we're stuck in this situation where, you know, if he's running for president, he's saying don't prosecute him. But when he was president, the Justice Department didn't want to prosecute him because of their protocols. So clearly he's trying to use this as a shield, his run for president, to say you really shouldn't be prosecuting me and this is just all political.

Speaking of political, Domenico, he is still the frontrunner for the Republican nomination. And we have new polling out from the NPR PBS NewsHour Mayors Poll. Yeah, it's actually brand new. We just got this in. We just got out of the field. And it shows that Republicans are, you know, softening a little bit in their support for Trump overall, but he's still the big player. You know, when we asked about whether or not he's done anything wrong, or if he's done something illegal, or just something unethical, 51% of people overall said that he, they believe, has done

something illegal. Democrats have gone up six points in thinking that since June, not surprising there. But when you look on the Republican side, you know, back in June, 50% said that he had done nothing wrong. Now it's down to 41%. You know, that's starting to get toward the outside portion of the margin of error. So that's a little bit of significant movement there. And when we asked about whether or not they want Trump to be the nominee, last month, it was almost two thirds who said that 64 percent of Republicans said that they wanted Trump to be the nominee. I mean, he's down six points now to 58 percent. Now, could these numbers jump back up? Could they change based on how Trump spin some of this? Sure. But we may be

seeing a little bit of a pylon effect. You know, it is a fascinating dynamic because we continue to talk about the Republican primary and how he's still very strong among the base. But these are also an indication that if he were to be a general election nominee, you know, understatement, this is a tremendous amount of political baggage to be bringing into a national election. Huge amount of baggage. And and none of it's popular with independents. It's really the swing group there. And I think we're going to have to watch the fact that Trump hasn't been able to get over 46% in a general election. Right now, it looks like he is really moving toward being the nominee, given that Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor, his operation has seemed to kind of take a nosedive in some respects,

laying off a bunch of staffers and all of that. But, you know, when it comes to a general election, he's had a significantly difficult time, Trump, in getting above 46 percent. We're gonna have to watch those third parties and see with all this disaffection if people decide to go to someone else. Kerry, this is significant news in the classified documents case, but this was not the indictment news we were expecting this week. We still are expecting to hear, likely within days, news about the January 6th investigation. Yeah, that's right. Just yesterday, lawyers for former President Trump appeared at the special counsel Jack Smith's office, presumably to try to convince them not to move forward with

an indictment related to Trump's alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Trump called that a productive meeting. We do not have a readout from the special counsel. The grand jury here in DC was meeting yesterday. I watched some of them come in around 830 in the morning and leave around 5pm. I'm here at the courthouse again today, no sign of the January 6 grand jury, but they may be back next week. And I'll be here too, watching and waiting. Domenico, I personally am very interested to see what the impact of a possible January 6th indictment is, because I think the potential allegations in that case for a lot of voters are in a completely different realm from what's happening in New York about covering up hush

money payments to cover up an extramarital affair, even the classified documents, you know, there's a dispute over whether you could keep them or not. January 6 is about subverting an election. It's about, you know, trying to overturn an election fraudulently trying to overturn election. Voters might see that very differently than these other investigations. Yeah, you know, we've polled on this previously, because I was really interested to see if Trump being convicted would change anything with Republicans. And we really didn't see much change. You still had over 60 percent of Republicans saying that they wanted Trump to be the nominee if he was convicted of a crime. Now, this was a couple months ago when this was asked. if he is actually convicted of something by a jury of his peers, and there are still more

pending charges and maybe convicted of something else, do these numbers really start to change and shift? He does have a significant, you know, stronghold on a solid share of the Republican party. But, you know, right now, the biggest problem in the Republican primary for any alternatives is no one seems to be emerging. But, you know, I really tell people don't pay much attention when it comes to these horse race numbers in national polls, because these, you know, primaries are not decided nationally, they're decided in the early states. And we're starting to see a difference in the polling in places like Iowa and New Hampshire as compared to what we're seeing overall nationally, Trump's lead is much, much smaller in the early states.

All right, Carrie and Domenico, thank you both so much. Thanks, Sue. You're welcome. We're going to take a quick break. And when we get back, Asma Khalid, Deirdre Walsh and I are going to talk about a possible government shutdown. And we're back. And it seems that the House and Senate might not be able to agree to terms to fund the federal government by the September 30th deadline. And that is OK to an influential bloc of hardline House conservatives who are playing an outsized role in both the spending process and the fate of Kevin McCarthy's speakership.

Sue, what is going on here? It is complicated. And as Deirdre well knows, the funny thing on Capitol Hill is when you talk to people, it's not like, oh, if the government shuts down, it's like, well, when the government shuts down later this fall. There is increasingly this sense that the standoff over spending bills doesn't have an easy outcome. So let's start here. I think some people might be like, wait a minute, Speaker McCarthy and Joe Biden cut a budget deal back in late May and they had an agreement and it's law now. And that's true. They reached a deal in late May that would avoid debt default and punt the debt limit past the next presidential election. And as part of that deal, they struck a two-year spending agreement that set the terms for how much money the government could spend for fiscal years 2024 and 2025. The problem is just within days of that bill becoming law, Kevin McCarthy essentially walked away from it.

The right flank, we talk about them a lot, the Freedom Caucus, was furious about this deal. It passed the House with more Democratic support than Republican support. And they kind of put Kevin McCarthy on notice saying you can't keep doing this. And he said after the deal was cut that he was going to tell the Appropriations Committee, which passes the 12 annual spending bills, hey, that number was a ceiling, not a floor. So the House Republicans have been moving bills, very contentious bills through committee that are below the spending agreements that Joe Biden and Kevin McCarthy set. And so meanwhile, on the Senate side, they've been passing bills at exactly the numbers that Joe Biden and Kevin McCarthy agreed to. Not only that, they've agreed to spend more money, which is only going to make the House angry.

So you have, on the one hand, this spending, top line spending level that the House and Senate just don't agree to. The Senate's been moving in a big culture war issue on a lot of these spending bills because Republicans are putting things into these bills called riders that affect things from LGBTQ rights and access and earmarks to abortion access to things like racial and gender politics, trying to defund programs for things like diversity, equity and inclusion programs across the breadth of the federal government. So I want to pause here because I do think that there is, I don't know, maybe a bit of like a naive assumption that Joe Biden and Kevin McCarthy did shake hands and kind of had an agreement here. And this is what makes people cynical about government, right, in Washington, is that they had an agreement and now you're telling us that like everything fell apart. I don't understand. Is that just the normal way that things go here? No, this is hugely unusual. And that's why I think the Senate is very angry at the House for their process because they're like, look, we didn't like the terms of the budget deal either, but it's the law and we follow the law. I think it speaks to, and Deirdre knows very well, the bind that Speaker Kevin McCarthy is in time and time again, where the right flank of the party has played this outsized influence over the process

and the policy because they're threatening his job. They're saying, look, if you don't pass more conservative bills and do more conservative things, we have the power to force a vote on you as speaker and question your hold on the gavel. And one of the things, Deirdre, that I have found interesting about this is usually party leadership spends a lot of their political muscle protecting the middle, protecting the members in swing seats who are going to face tough elections. But time and time again, the speaker has been actually pivoting more to keep the base happy. And that could put a lot of his moderate swing district members in really tough positions come next year. It's totally true. I mean, we saw this dynamic on the defense bill last month. I mean, the speaker agreed after demands from the House Freedom Caucus, the far

right conservatives in the House, to have all kinds of votes on issues that, social issues, that aren't typically attached to a defense bill. And a lot of those amendments passed, which in the end, a bill that for 60 years is usually passed with a bipartisan majority, was pretty much a party line vote in the House. And every day, it sort of seems like we're seeing Kevin McCarthy kind of live day to day. He's got to negotiate just to get the votes to pass a procedural motion. I mean, typically, like Sue knows this, we don't really cover is the House going to be able to pass the rule to bring up a spending bill. Like those are typically like they pass automatically, and then we focus on the

substance of the spending bill. McCarthy has been negotiating for days just to get a rule through to bring up spending bills one by one. And there's 12, and they're only on the first one. And they need to pass all 12 and conference them with the Senate to avoid a shutdown by the end of September. And that's why, as Sue was saying, I think most people up on Capitol Hill just sort of assume a shutdown's happening. Members of the House Freedom Caucus are saying they're not afraid of a shutdown. Bob Good, who's a Republican from Virginia, said this week, like, look, a short-term shutdown wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing. And maybe that's what we have to do to bend the Senate and the White House towards our will. There is no

precedent for that ever happening in any of these shutdown politics. When you have divided government, you need legislation to pass with bipartisan buy-in. The idea that you can shut it all down and Joe Biden will be like, OK, I'll just support whatever the House Freedom Caucus says we need to do is not going to happen. And so how this plays out is likely going to require Democratic support. And what that level is that Kevin McCarthy can withstand to avoid a government shutdown or end the government shutdown and save his job, I don't think anybody has the answer to that question right now. A process question here, because it sounds like what you're saying, Sue, is that the very members whose decisions would lead to a government shutdown don't seem to want to blink and therefore a government shutdown will likely take place. You know, from a logistical process standpoint, could Congress pass some sort of continuing resolution just to keep the government open at current levels? Just punt this to a different day. Yes, absolutely.

And we see that happen time and time again. What's unclear is can you even get that through the House? You know, there is already members of the Freedom Caucus saying they don't want to support any stopgap measure. They kind of want to keep this intense pressure up to get an outcome. And Democrats are like, look, you passed all these bills without our support. You figure out how to pass your own. We're not here to save you, Kevin McCarthy. So even doing a stopgap might be really difficult for the House to get through. I mean, just like with the debate over impeachment, there's a split between House Republicans and Senate Republicans. As Sue

was saying, like they're passing these bipartisan spending bills on the Senate side. The Senate Republicans also see a chance for themselves regaining control of the Senate in 2024. A government shutdown steps all over their messages like this is what we could do if we have control of both chambers, we could govern. This is the last thing they want. So there's a real clash across the Capitol in terms of strategy on this. And also, Republicans have pushed for government shutdowns before. So we do have some precedent of how these things work out. There was a shutdown to try to end Obamacare.

That didn't happen. There was a shutdown to try to build the wall. That didn't happen. If anything, they again had to pass bipartisan measures coming out of those shutdowns. And shutdown politics are messy and no one ever really comes out looking good when the government shuts down. So it's'm here to tell you that late September through the end of the year is probably going to be a very ugly time on Capitol Hill, not just because of those spending issues. But again, within these bills, there's going to be debates about trans rights, abortion rights, racial and gender equity, stuff that really hits personal nerves for a lot of these members. So it could not only just be fiscally ugly, but it could be personally very ugly as well. All right, time for a quick break. And when we get back, it's time for Can't Let It Go. And we're back. And it is time now to end the show like we do every week with Can't Let It Go. That's the part of the show where we talk about the things from

the week that we just cannot stop thinking about, politics or otherwise. Sue, why don't you kick it off? You know, I have a politics can't let it go this week because I've been thinking a lot about Ron DeSantis. And part of what I can't let go of this week is there was a snarky little item in the New York Post tabloid, you may have heard of it, that talked about how DeSantis had to cancel two political fundraisers that were scheduled in the Hamptons because there wasn't enough interest to go and raise money for him. And to be clear, the Hamptons is like this bougie area of New York. If you can't find money in the Hamptons, you're probably not looking hard enough.

And part of what I think about this is interesting is that, like, DeSantis started this race with so much fire behind him. And he seems like he's at such a critical point in the campaign. And the thing that I think we'll find out in the coming weeks and months is like, is he Scott Walker? And by that, I mean Scott Walker, former governor of Wisconsin, who was seen as the star in the 2016 race and then fizzled out fast. I actually went back and looked it up and Walker was out of the race by September of the off year. So I'm like, I'm looking at the calendar thinking like if DeSantis can't build some momentum over the summer, like is he Scott Walker by the fall or is he John McCain in 2007? And by that, I mean, John McCain's campaign right around the summer of the off year,

almost completely collapsed. He had to let go a bunch of staff. He wasn't raising money, very similar to what is happening to the DeSantis campaign. And yet he somehow managed to like cobble it all back together that fall and come back to win the nomination. Now, of course, he lost to Barack Obama in that race. But the primary fight was like a comeback story for John McCain. I don't know what the answer is for Ron DeSantis yet. I don't know. I have a hard time thinking Ron DeSantis is John McCain. I mean, for starters, John McCain was that, you know, truth talker on the bus talking to the press all the time. Ron DeSantis is notorious for never talking to the media. He's changing it up, though, right?

He's doing the things that he's trying to change it up to try to regain it. Also, there was no Trump in that era. That is true. That is very true. But I feel like it just feels like a roll of the dice right now for Ron DeSantis. What do you think, Deirdre? Which way does it go? I mean, not being able to raise money from rich donors in the Hamptons is like adding insult to injury for Ron DeSantis. I mean, like Sue was saying, he's going

through this reset. He's shedding staff. This is just sort of like another bad news stories on top of a bunch of bad news stories. But I'm just going to say, I'm going to say never say never, because so much has changed in our politics. I think it's a major uphill battle for Ron DeSantis to come close to the John McCain comparison. Because I'm not sure New Hampshire where McCain sort of got his mojo back is the same kind of place for a Ron DeSantis campaign. But I don't know, maybe he does it in Iowa. Maybe he finds some rich money in Silicon Valley or somewhere else. But now that he's doing more of these interviews, we'll have a lot more chance to sort of see what he's made of and see if he can bounce back.

All right. What about you, Deirdre? The thing I can't let go of is I stayed up late to watch the U.S. women's soccer match against Netherlands last night. I just got sucked in. The U.S. women's team has been overwhelmingly favored in the Women's World Cup. But when I turned it on, they were down a goal. And I was like, oh, my God. Now I'm never going to sleep. And they tied it. And then it got even more interesting because I'm a fan and I've been watching them for a while. And I was like, wow, the Netherlands is just a great team.

They are really sort of dominating this game. But towards the end, it was amazing. Like the U.S. women's team had like, I don't know, like a dozen corner kicks. And it was just a really intense, closely fought, great game to watch. It made me a little nervous about how they're going to go on in the World Cup, but maybe it makes them a little bit more battle tough. It just makes me want to watch more. They're a really fun team to watch play, and they always have been. The World Cup with the women's team is like great sports watching. Asma, what about you? What can't you let go of? So I know that you all briefly discussed this last week, Barbie, but at that point

in time, I feel like collectively our team had not yet seen the movie. So I saw it over the weekend. You saw it? I saw it. No spoilers. We still can't do any spoilers. You haven't seen it yet. So the thing I thought, I have a lot of thoughts about Barbie, but there were two things

that really stood out to me. So one is that growing up, I really loved to play with Barbie. I do too. I felt like it was fun and it was just some toy doll to play with. And I'm kind of amazed at like the rehabilitation of Barbie. Right. Because nowadays, so you have a little girl. Like if I showed up at your house and had given your daughter Barbie as a present, like I wouldn't do that. Yeah.

People don't. You're like shamed if you gift Barbie. Like she had to become unpopular, not cool, kind of taboo. And I kind of like that she's had this resurgence and it's okay to do that now. The other aspect of the movie that I thought was really interesting is that, you know, growing up, there were lots of different kinds of Barbies. I had an Indian Barbie, sure, sorry. And there weren't a whole lot of dolls like that out as a kid. There were not a whole bunch of different kinds of dolls. But Barbie, she was in a lot of different shades during my childhood and continued to be in a lot of different shades. And, you know, there's just been a lot of hate towards Barbie in recent years.

And I feel like this movie has now given Barbie a new life. What do you think public radio Barbie would look like? She definitely would have a tote bag. She would have a mic and headphones. I feel unfortunate she would not be dressed very cool. I think she could be dressed cool, but there is no way she'd be wearing those heels. She would be wearing a sensible. She would be wearing sneakers.

Public radio Barbie. All right. Well, that is a wrap for today. Our executive producer is Muthoni Mathuri. Our editor is Eric McDaniel. Our producers are Elena Moore and Casey Murrell. Thanks to Krishnadev Kalamer, Lexi Schapiro and Andrew Sussman. Research and fact checking by our intern Lee Walden. I'm Asma Khalid. I cover the White House. I'm Susan Davis. I cover politics. And I'm Deirdre Walsh. I cover Congress.

And thank you all, as always, for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast. Hey, Barbie.