The NPR Politics Podcast - Trump's Indictment Could Lock Up Primary, But Lock Out Presidency

Episode Date: June 16, 2023

A new NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll shows that after Donald Trump's historic indictment, 83 percent of Republicans think he should stay in the race — suggesting he could cruise to a decisive primary win in the crowded Republican field. But it's what comes next that should worry him: most folks outside of his base of Republican base are concerned about his behavior.And the Supreme Court leaves the Indian Child Welfare Act intact.This episode: political correspondent Susan Davis, White House correspondent Franco Ordoñez, senior political editor and correspondent Domenico Montanaro, and legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg.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 Melissa from Kannapolis, North Carolina. I just finished watering my begonias, zinnias, hydrangeas, gardenias, budlias, and roses. This podcast was recorded at 11.50 a.m. on Friday, June 16th. Things may have changed by the time you hear this, but I will still be admiring the beauty and color of my summer flower beds. Okay, here's the show. I relate to this. My hydrangea bush looks amazing right now, and it brings me a lot of joy. I spent a lot of years in North Carolina before I came up to D.C., and the gardens are beautiful. I am sure that all of those flowers are for Dad this weekend. Oh, absolutely.

Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Susan Davis. I cover politics. I'm Frank Ordonez. I cover the White House. And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. And it's really hard to win the White House. And part of that reason is how America elects its presidents. First, a candidate has to win a nomination by securing enough of the party support, usually driven by the most partisan base voter on the left and right. And then they have to turn around and win a general election, which is usually decided by a small fraction of swing voters who reside somewhere in the middle. And the latest NPR PBS NewsHour Mayor's Poll highlights just how complicated that path could be if former President Trump, the current frontrunner in the Republican primary, ultimately wins the nomination.

But first, Domenico, let's talk about the indictment and the reaction to it. In some ways, it's actually been very good for Donald Trump. Yeah, in a lot of ways. And, you know, when you look at the body language of the campaign and when you talk to Republican strategists, this is what they said would happen. They thought that Trump would strengthen his grip on the base. And I think a lot of people were scratching their heads saying, really, that's going to happen? Well, it has. And when you look at the latest NPR PBS NewsHour Marist poll that's just out today, Trump is actually up 10 points with Republicans and Republican-leaning independents when it comes to their favorability

ratings of him. Three quarters of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents now say that they have a favorable opinion of Trump. And two-thirds of them say that they would support him to be the president of the United States. Franco, it's interesting because after the arraignment on Tuesday, Trump was sort of triumphant, right? He made an appearance at the restaurant Versailles in Miami. His campaign pointed out that they've raised millions of dollars since he was indicted. Still acting like a frontrunner here. Yeah, I mean, he's never one to kind of sway from a challenge. I mean, he's like always, he's going on the attack. And I think that's what you saw here. I mean, it's not that, you know, the campaign doesn't see this as a challenge and they're not complaining about it. They certainly are. But they do think that they can turn this into an opportunity. And I do think you saw that on the day of the court appearance

with him going to Versailles, with him, you know, actually speaking with a, you know, Spanish language broadcaster the day before. You know, he's really, it was really like a campaign event for him, you know, making all these stops, hugging supporters, you know, meeting with some local pastors and, you know, being prayed over, making sure that all the cameras were there. It was, you know, like with a lot of things with Trump, it was something. And look, that all explains the primary dynamic, why he's still the frontrunner. But the same poll, Domenico, illuminates why a general election could be such a problem for him, especially with independents. Yeah, it's a little bit of smoke and mirrors what Trump is trying to do here, you know, trying to show this air of inevitability that he's going to

be the nominee. He's running an ad now showing him against Biden, no longer even focused on Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who had been his chief rival. And the reason I say it's a little bit of smoke and mirrors, though, is because he's got some major, major independent problems, problems with independents. A majority of independents, almost six in ten, think that Trump should drop out of the race entirely. And since March, they've jumped nine points in believing that he's done something illegal. Now half of independents, 50 percent, say that he's done something illegal. And overall, three-quarters of people think that he's done something illegal. And overall, three quarters of people

think Trump has either done something illegal or something unethical, but not illegal. And that makes it a really, really difficult place to run from in a general election, because we're really seeing this American divergence, really, of seeing Republicans get stronger with Trump, and independents and swing voters thinking he's increasingly toxic. I mean, it's also why you see some also loud public voices in the Republican Party saying he can't win a general election. Governor Sununu in New Hampshire has been like saying this in every interview he gives. Former Speaker Paul Ryan said he thinks he will lose all the swing states, including Wisconsin. I talked to a former Republican congressman, Rodney Davis, this week,

who said, you know, he came from suburban Chicago area and he was like, Trump just can't win the suburbs. Suburban voters just don't want to vote for him again. So it's interesting because you do actually have a lot of voices in the party saying, look, he can't win, he can't win. And yet it doesn't really affect his numbers. Yeah. And a lot of those voices, though, are people who don't want to win one of the three primaries that I see going on right now. One, you know, trying to actually win the nomination to trying to become Trump's vice presidential nominee if Trump does win the nomination. And also, we may not want to talk about this, but 2028 is a very real thing because Trump and Biden both would have only four more years left. So 2028 is

going to be wide open. And if you're a very self-confident person, which, you know, we all know politicians, they sure lack in self-confidence, don't they? And they're going to, they run and they think, look, I can increase my brand. Like Newt Gingrich said, if you're not in the race, no one's talking about you. So these guys are going to run, they're going to try to increase their brand, whether they win or not, whether they become Trump's VP or not, they can say, hey, look, I might be a pretty good option for you come 2028. I'm curious what y'all think about sort of the electorate next year. If independents are really going to turn their nose at Trump, that obviously presents a huge problem. But can he grow the vote anywhere else? I'm thinking white working class voters, obviously he juiced turnout among them. Could he juice it even more? Are there other parts of the electorate that could

maybe vote for Trump that we should be paying attention to? I think his biggest hope is disaffection with both Trump and Biden. And we have seen, obviously, Biden's numbers have been lagging. There have been concerns even among Democrats about whether he's the strongest candidate. There are obviously concerns about his mental fitness and whether or not he's too old to be president. We've polled on that, and there's big majorities who believe that as well. And what we've seen is these soft Biden supporters, the people who say that they'll vote for Biden, don't really like him very much. The people who say that they'll vote for Biden, don't really like him very much.

The people who say they don't like Biden and they don't like Trump are overwhelmingly going toward Biden. And I bring this up because we really have to watch the third party vote because if it looks like 2016, Trump has a path to win. If it looks like 2020, it's probably not going to happen for him. I'll just add there's also kind of like the Latino voters that he's been making a play for and that Republicans have been making a play for as well. Now, I don't think it's going to get Trump over the finish line, but he's been making some advances. While, of course, Biden won overall the majority of Latinos, but Trump made some progress there.

And you saw that him courting that base in South Florida. And even after he left South Florida and went back to Bedminster, he was likening the indictment against him as the United States, how the United States is turning into Cuba and Venezuela. You know, that is another play for Latino voters, particularly in South Florida. And Republicans also, I'll just add, you know, they made some ground on Latinos in the midterms as well. So this is an area where they can, you know, expand a little bit. Well, speaking of Latinos in Southern Florida, another entry into the Republican presidential field this week, Miami Mayor Francis Suarez filed to run for president, another candidate in the race, Domenico. Just one more candidate.

It's really fascinating because Suarez is mayor of a city that – mayor's position there is kind of a part-time job and not a very strong position. No mayor has ever gone from being a mayor to the White House directly. Pete Buttigieg gave a shot at that, and certainly Suarez comes from a bigger city. He brings a lot to the table considering that he is Latino and can make that case and make that argument, this aspirational message. He's got some baggage too, though, I have to say. investigations into Suarez's money that he's taken in jobs outside of the mayor's office from a developer who then also got a fast track permit. And the Miami Herald reported on that, and he's been sort of having to hit back about what that investigation means. And I think that's something that he's going to have to contend with. All right, we need to take a quick break. Franco,

don't go too far. We're going to have you back for Can't Let It Go. We'll be back in a second. And we're back with the one and only Nina Totenberg. Hey, Nina. Hi there. So another unexpected decision by the Supreme Court this week, they upheld key provisions of the Indian Child Welfare Act. Before we get into what the court did, what was the law? What did it do? a hundred years or more, it was essentially the official policy, perhaps not stated, but the official policy of the Bureau of Indian Affairs to essentially de-Indianize Native American children. And they did that in the 50s and 60s and the 70s by taking children, sometimes forcibly, from their homes, putting them in institutions, orphanages, boarding schools, and non-native homes where they were adopted or foster cared. And they did that with one-third of the Indian children. And Congress said, this has got to stop. They enacted this law,

which set up a set of preferences for Indian children and how they would be adopted or fostered, and that the preferences were that they would go to their extended family. And then secondly, if there was no family to their tribe. And thirdly, if there was no tribal person who would take them, then another tribe. The whole setup was at issue in this case. And the court decided part of this and left the rest undecided. And the part that they decided was pretty important. By a 7-2 vote, they said this Congress acted within its powers to have this kind of a law. But they didn't decide the other part, which was the challenge to the preference regime, which maintains that it's a racial preference. And the tribes say it's not

a racial preference. We're a separate entity. We're sovereigns. And the court has repeatedly held that they are sovereigns. And it's a preference for sovereignty for these sovereign children. Can we back it up a little bit, Nina? You noted it was a 7-2 decision. Justice Amy Coney Barrett said essentially in her argument that the law is fine just as it is. Can you articulate that a little bit more explicitly and what the majority position was? You know, this was an attempt to get rid of the Indian Child Welfare Act entirely. And seven members of the court held clearly that this law, as it was structured, was within the power of Congress to do, and that there are two centuries of law to rely on, going back to 1790, indicating that Congress has the power to set up this kind of a regime with the tribes. And so the court

was simply not going to overthrow that. Well, Nina, I'm kind of wondering with this case, what the practical impact actually is of this case going forward now? And what was some of the dissent on the other side that didn't want that to happen? Well, let's deal first with the dissent. Justice Thomas wrote his own dissent. Justice Alito wrote his own dissent. Thomas said, look, I don't agree that this is something that the Constitution authorizes. And then Alito said, these children are sometimes being placed with Indian families, and it's not in their best interests, and that we're doing that, this law does that. And this is pretty much what he says, in order to help the tribes increase their membership. The tribes would say, on the contrary,

that the way the Bureau of Indian Affairs operated for almost 200 years was to try to make us go out of existence. And this is to help us preserve our existence. That was the dissent and what would be, I think, the rebuttal to the dissent. Nina, there is a couple interesting things about this case to me in the court in that the issue of adoption is a closely held issue for a couple of the justices. It is because Chief Justice Roberts has two children who were adopted. And I didn't know that. And Amy Coney Barrett, two of her seven children are adopted. And she, of course, was the author of the opinion. So this is not something that's foreign to them. Also, this case, something else I learned about the court, that it's an area,

Native tribal rights is an area of particular interest and focus for Justice Gorsuch. It is. He comes from Colorado, which is in a part of the country where there are lots of Native Americans. And I don't actually know why, but he has become sort of the voice of Native Americans on the court. He feels very passionate about it. And he's an incredibly knowledgeable authority on the history of Native Americans and the settlers who came and took from them. And it's in every opinion, whether it's majority or dissent, that he writes. And I have to say, I learned stuff from him, from those opinions. And there's still a lot of cases left to be decided by the court.

What are the major ones we're watching, Nina? There are a lot of them. There's affirmative action. There's a case that pits gay rights against religious and First Amendment speech. We have student loans and whether the Biden program can stand. We have the independent state legislature, the theory that could give legislatures enormous power, almost unchallenged power over election rules, got your adrenaline going because you don't know what's coming down. And you sit there and then you have a day like today where none of those cases came down. And you sort of look at each other and go, what are we doing sitting here? And they have 18 cases left. And you know that there are only about two weeks left in the term. And it's like looking at a train coming down at the track at you. Barreling down at you.

Barreling down at you. And you are going to die. You know, can I just say the court is a little dramatic for me. Like it's the modern world. You could at least tell us what days the decisions are coming out. I think they like the drama a little bit. Well, it's a good thing we have three of you, Nina. Thank you.

All right, Nina Tonberg, of you, Nina. Thank you. All right, Nina Totenberg, thank you as always. Thank you. Let's take a quick break. And when we get back, it's time for Can't Let It Go. And we're back and Franco Ardoñez is back. Welcome back, Franco. It's great to be back. And it's time to end the show like we do every week with Can't Let It Go, part of the show where we talk about the things from the week that we just can't stop talking about, politics or otherwise. Franco, I'm going to start with you. What can't you let go of this week? Well, the thing that I can't let go is all this excitement about Lionel Messi. I like watching soccer. I'm not, you know, maybe not as much of a diehard fan as some on our team. I'm kind of looking over here at our producer, Casey. You might be wearing a soccer jersey right now.

Probably. But, you know, I do like to follow the top leagues. And I'm very, very excited about Messi coming to MLS and what it could do for American soccer. I mean, ticket prices are already soaring across the league. But what interestingly for me especially is the impact or what could be the impact in Miami. Our colleague Tim Padgett at WLRN in Miami had this wild story questioning whether Miami fans, especially Latinos, would now embrace the team enter Miami. Because to date, they have not. You know, the local fans, the local Latino fans in Miami, you know, they're so close to their home team, so they're more interested in following those teams back in Latin America

and the Caribbean. And as he put it, he says Major League Soccer in South Florida is basically a, quote, gringo wannabe effort. He likened it to McDonald's trying to make buñuelos, which are these delicious fried dough treats that can be found across Latin America. You know, so I'm just really fascinating to see if Messi can change that. Can he like penetrate that thing? Because, you know, here in D.C., the Latinos are big supporters of D.C. United. Yeah.

The same in L.A. You know, so I'm very curious about what happens in Miami. And, you know, it's Messi, so I expect it will. Here's the thing. Messi's great, obviously, but MLS has to stop being the New York Mets of soccer. And I mean this as York Mets of soccer. And I mean, I mean, I mean this and as a Mets fan, and I say this because like all the has-beens wind up going to MLS or go to the, you know, the people at the twilight of their career. Okay. Let's put it that way. David Beckham,

you know, all these players, you know, yes, they bring this excitement. They also get a lot of money. Now I know, you know, Messi could have signed with the Saudi Arabian League and chose not to, and he's going to be a huge star, obviously, in Miami. It's a great base to be from. But, you know, MLS just, again, needs to get over that hump, figure out how to attract players when they're in their prime. I would argue that attracting Messi and paying him much less than he could have made in Saudi Arabia is a good way of trying to get over that hump. Usually, I want us all to be in studio, but today I'm kind of glad we're not because I feel like it's getting a little heated there for a minute.

He's a Mets fan, though, so I think that's, you know, I feel, you know, he's kind of been showing some vulnerability there. Let's hope Messi, you know, does because MLS is boring. Moving on. I'm going to talk about the thing I can't let go of this week, which is fortunately has nothing to do with soccer, at least not yet. The thing I can't let go is definitely politics related this week. And I think this is going to be a reoccurring can't let it go for me throughout the campaign cycle. So just get used to hearing me vent about it.

But it's the use of AI. I'm scared, guys. The latest thing. I think with reason. There was some fighting in the past week between the DeSantis campaign and the Trump campaign because the DeSantis campaign put out, you know, sort of a campaign video, but they used AI images that made it look like former President Trump and Dr. Anthony Fauci were very cozy, hugging and kissing. And like he was a fan of Fauci, which is obviously a very divisive point within the Republican primary. And I just think we're going to see this acceleration of these uses of distorted images and ads and in campaigns. And I'm scared

about it because I can't always tell. I mean, some of those images, you could tell they looked a little doctored. They were a little comical, but it's real easy to make things look real now. And I don't like it. Yeah. I think we have to all hit the brakes when something comes out immediately. And we've dealt with this in the past with like doctored YouTube videos, for example, in different campaigns. And I think that this is just going to get worse and worse because AI is going to get smarter and smarter and be a little bit less, you know, robotic, quote unquote, and more human. And, you know, that's obviously scary. I have to say, one of the things I first thought of was being a former English teacher. I used to catch plagiarism so easily because you just knew it wasn't in a kid's voice.

I could Google certain phrases and I found exactly where the things would come from. Kids think they're smart, but they're not that smart. And when it comes to AI though, it's a lot smarter than a freshman in high school. And I think that that's going to become really problematic and difficult to deal with. Domenico, what can't you let go of this week? I can't let go of Flamin' Hot Cheetos. Not because I like them, to be honest with you. Maybe I'm the downer this week. I don't really like Flamin' Hot Cheetos. I get, I'm not going to yuck on other people's yum. If you like it, you like it. That's cool. But the White House brought Eva Longoria to the White House for a

screening with 600 people of the backstory of Flamin' Hot Cheetos, which I thought was kind of interesting. She's become the next sort of iteration on CNN of the traveling food vlogger kind of. She's been doing all this great stuff, uh, going around Mexico. Um, and just every time I watch, I, uh, come up with a new recipe cause I'm like, that looked awesome. Um, but she was at the white house in a completely like orange dress. So I guess like Cheeto inspired, you could say. Um, and you know, she, but the, the thing that was interesting, it highlights the story of a former janitor at Frito-Lay, Richard Montanez, who had claimed to have invented the Flamin' Hot Cheeto as he became an executive in the company. Now, he became an executive in the company, but the LA Times actually did an investigation on this and found that he actually didn't invent the Flamin' Hot Cheeto most likely, but still a really good story.

I just never took Biden for a Flamin' Hot Cheeto guy. I don't know. It doesn't seem like a Flamin' Hot Cheeto guy. I agree with you. I agree. I love the idea of Flamin' Hot Cheeto gate, though. It's very low stakes. It's a very low stakes brag, so I'm going to let them have it.

I don't need a fact check on that one. It is a spicy lie for sure. That is a wrap for us today. But before we go, I just want to say to both of you, happy Father's Day this weekend. Aw, thank you. Aw, thank you, Sue. It is a spicy lie for sure. That is a wrap for us today. But before we go, I just want to say to both of you, happy Father's Day this weekend. Oh, thank you, Sue. Our executive producer is Mathoni Mottori. Our editor is Eric McDaniel.

Our producers are Elena Moore and Casey Morrell. Research and fact-checking by our intern, Lee Walden. Thanks to Krishna of Calamore, Megan Latta-Gupta, and Lexi Shapiro. I'm Susan Davis. I cover politics. I'm Frank Ordonez. I cover the White House. And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. And thanks for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.