The NPR Politics Podcast - Weekly Roundup: Friday, March 1

Episode Date: March 1, 2019

Rep. Elijah Cummings said he would intensify his efforts to investigate the Trump administration after The New York Times reported that the president overruled aides on Jared Kushner's clearance. Plus, 2020 candidates grapple with how to deal with questions about reparations. This episode: White House correspondent Tamara Keith, political reporter Asma Khalid, Congressional correspondent Susan Davis, and political reporter Daniell Kurtzleben. 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

Hey there, we've got some big news. The NPR politics team is going to be hitting the road. We will be in Atlanta, Georgia on March 8th, making a podcast live on stage. And we'd love to see you there. So head to nprpresents.org to grab a ticket and see you soon. Hello, this is Joseph. I'm getting together with my whole family in beautiful Santa Rosa, California to celebrate my grandmother's 100th birthday. Her name is Ruth. Hello, NPR. I appreciate everything that you do. This podcast was recorded at 1142 a.m. on Friday, the 1st of March. That was so sweet. Things may have changed by the time you hear this.

Now, Grandma, you want to tell them to get on with the show? Let's get on with that show. You're always so good at it. I'm like crying. That is awesome. It's like it's my own grandma telling me. That was the voice I needed after this week. Yes.

Thank you, Grandma Ruth. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. Security clearances are back in the news. Michael Cohen testified before Congress. What happens next? And as more 2020 hopefuls enter the race, candidates are wrestling with a big question. What about reparations?

I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. I'm Asma Khalid, political reporter. I'm Susan Davis. I cover Congress. And I'm Danielle Kurtzleben, political reporter. Let us start with the big news that has been consuming Washington at least since approximately last night, which is that there were two big stories from first The New York Times and then The Washington Post about security clearances and the president's son-in-law, Jared Kushner. Danielle, fill us in. Okay. So the reporting from The New York Times says that Trump ordered John Kelly, you remember John Kelly, former chief of staff, to give Jared Kushner top secret security clearance. So what happened then was that Kelly was,

as the Times puts it, troubled. And so he wrote a memo. He wrote an internal memo saying he was ordered to give Jared Kushner that clearance. So basically like going on the record saying, right, I didn't do this myself. This came from the president. Right. Not only that, but Don McGahn, White House counsel, also wrote a memo saying that he had his own misgivings about all of this. OK, so two really important involved guys in this saying, I don't like this. I just want to state for the record in my notes that, yeah, this happened. OK. Now, the additional sort of complexities to this are this. One is that Trump has said in the past that he had no role in Jared Kushner, his son-in-law, getting the security clearance. On top of that, what the Times is reporting suggests is that as far as the president's legal authority here, the process that was followed here does seem like it was unusual. Not necessarily breaking laws, but unusual. What they said is that, yeah, the president has the authority to give a clearance, of course. Absolutely. That is one of his authorities.

Right. But in most cases, the Times reports, the White House has this personnel security office and they make a determination. Now, if the personnel security office is divided, which in this case they apparently were, usually the White House counsel, Don McGahn in this case, makes the decision. As the Times puts it, in highly unusual cases, the president weighs in and grants one himself. So what this suggests is that this just was a highly unusual case. Well, it's a highly unusual to have your son-in-law working in the White House and in charge of really sensitive, important things, including like negotiating Middle East peace, which he's been working on. But I think we should be clear, too. I don't think that the concern was purely based on like familial relationships, right? It's this idea that Jared Kushner has these business ties to foreign investors and that those could be potentially exploited. Isn't that right?

Exactly. Yeah. And we should also be clear, the reporting does not say itself what exactly John Kelly or Don McGahn said in these memos, but that we do know that officials, yes, have raised these really big flags saying, yeah, Jared Kushner has these ties to foreign governments. We don't like it. And we also know that Jared Kushner in the beginning of this administration had a lot of problem with disclosures that in the forms that he had to file with Congress and through the national security clearance process did not fully disclose contacts with foreign governments. And that was one of the things that had tripped them up, including contacts with the Russian government. And that was one thing that was a red flag early in this administration. So where does it go from here? House Oversight Chairman Elijah Cummings had already been investigating the national security clearance process. When Democrats took over the majority in January, he had sent letters to the

White House requesting witnesses come and talk to the committee and documents regarding how they handle national security clearances. So that had already been underway. So the revelation of this report only throws a little gasoline onto that fire. And the chairman did release a letter updated today, essentially saying that the White House has, over the course of the past five weeks, they've been negotiating in private, but the White House has not been forthcoming. They have not offered any witnesses and they have not provided any of the documents. And he has given them an updated date of March 4th, that is this coming Monday, to say, start turning over stuff to our committee or we're going to

escalate. And escalate means subpoena that would force people to come and talk to the committee. This is what happens when elections happen. Like, you know, when you say elections have consequences, the consequence is this is something that Elijah Cummings has cared about for a year. And now he has the power to do something about it potentially. Or or we could have the beginning of what could be a great many fights between this White House and the Democrats in the House who are looking to do oversight. You know, Jared Kushner is in the Middle East this week meeting with foreign governments. I mean, he is actively working for the United States government overseas. And, you know, that's that's worthy of congressional oversight.

So what Elijah Cummings and the oversight Democrats want to know here isn't necessarily, OK, how did how did this security clearance happen? It's more they want to find out what what Jared Kushner's specific ties are, what the specific fears are about him. That's what they're hoping would come forward here. I think that there is a question of who raised the red flags. There's already been whistleblowers about national security clearances that have come forward to the committee that the committee has talked about.

They want to know what are the process by which they vetted these national security clearances. They may not be able to be told exactly what the red flags were, but the process of who knew what and when and why were they overruled. And those are questions that they're going to want to be answered. Again, a lot of times these questions aren't always asked in public. It's important to remember that committees are allowed to meet with people in private. A lot of times if you want to speak to a highly sensitive person like Jared Kushner, who I think the president might not love being called before the public to testify, he could agree to meet willingly in private with committee staff and talk to them about that, especially when things involve national security and security clearances. Some of this isn't going to be fully aired in the public arena. And that gets us to Michael Cohen, which a lot was aired publicly in the public arena this week in an oversight committee hearing with the president's former

personal attorney and fixer, who says he is no longer the president's fixer. Clearly, he is no longer the president's fixer. That hearing was, you know, a lot of hours of must-see TV. What comes next? Well, Cohen left a lot of breadcrumbs for Congress to pick up on. He is also coming back to Congress. So he met publicly on Wednesday before the House Oversight Committee, but he also met privately on Tuesday and Thursday with the Senate and House Intelligence Committee. The House Intelligence Committee said he was so good the first time he's going to be coming back next week for another closed panel hearing. This will not again be open to the public. What Cohen did and what a lot of lawmakers on that committee used was Q&A to kind of draw out

questions of him of who else they should be talking to and some very interesting names. And I think if you thought the Cohen hearing got a lot of attention, imagine if these names come before the committee. He did talk a lot about the president's kids. He talked about Don Jr. and Ivanka and their role in both the campaign and the family financial business. And he also talked about a man named Allen Weisselberg, who is the CFO of the Trump organization, who is someone that he alleges was also intimately aware of the payment schemes to Stormy Daniels. So we've talked to Elijah Cummings and said, what do you think about this? And he said, he didn't say explicitly, but he basically said if they were named in that committee hearing, we're probably going to want to talk to them. Yeah. So more to come on that. And we are going

to take a quick break. And when we come back, the moment from that Cohen hearing that stood out and people are still talking about today that had absolutely nothing to do with Michael Cohen. Support for this podcast and the following message come from SimpliSafe Home Security, who believes fear has no place in a place like home. That's why they made a completely wireless home security system that can be self-installed in under an hour with no long-term contracts. SimpliSafe's sensors are built to protect every point of access to your home. More than 3 million people have already protected their home with SimpliSafe. Get free shipping and a 60-day money-back guarantee at simplisafe.com slash NPR politics.

When's the last time you had a really good workout? Not of your biceps, but of your brain. I'm Shankar Vedantam, host of Hidden Brain. Listen every week and flex your mind. And we're back. And we promised to talk about a moment from the Michael Cohen hearing that we could put it in the category of America and Congress is really not good at talking about race. Like, there's a lot of work to do there still. So let's start at the beginning, which is Congressman Mark Meadows, who is a close ally of President Trump. He, during his questioning of Cohen, Cohen had accused the president of being racist. Right. And of saying some really inflammatory things about African nations, nations run by black people, all of it's really quite upsetting. And so Mark Meadows set out to say, Michael Cohen, you're wrong. President Trump isn't a racist. Mr. Cohen, do you know Lynn Patton?

I'm right here. Oh, yes, sir. Do you know Lynn Patton? Yes, I do. I asked Lynn to come today in her personal capacity to actually shed some light. Lynn Patton is an African-American woman who worked for the Trump Organization and now works for the Department of Housing and Urban Development. You made some very demeaning comments about the president that Ms. Patton doesn't agree with.

In fact, it has to do with your claim of racism. She says that as a daughter of a man born in Birmingham, Alabama, that there is no way that she would work for an individual who was racist. And so she's just standing there. She just kind of hovered there for a while. But she's not even speaking on her own behalf. I mean, this entire exchange was so bizarre. It was like he was explaining why she was there and how she feels. So she was just standing there, but she couldn't really say anything because she wasn't called as a witness. So she

could not speak at a congressional hearing. I mean, it was the, I can't be racist. I have black friends excuse, right? I mean, that was what he was trying to use in a political sitting. And then to have him over her shoulder as he was doing this came up later in the hearing. Yes, it did. Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, the freshman Democrat from Michigan, just decided to talk about it. Just to make a note, Mr. Chairman, just because someone has a person of color, a black person working for them does not mean they aren't racist and it is insensitive that some would even say it's the fact that someone would actually use a prop a black woman in this

chamber in this committee is alone racist in itself donald trump is setting mr chairman i ask that her words be taken down president i reclaim my time mr is setting the president. Mr. Chairman, I ask that her words be taken down. President, I reclaim my time. Mr. Chairman, Mr. Chairman. So Meadows immediately bristles at the idea that he's being called a racist, which to me was just so interesting because it again brings up this like question we've been hearing again and again. I feel like we've been hearing and talking about this so much ever since the 2016 campaign, which is like, you know, the idea that people are so uncomfortable with being labeled a racist or by something being racist versus the actual act itself. And it's sort of been an ongoing conversation, I would say. We've been hearing amongst Democrats and Republicans that's kind of been exploding ever since the 2016 election. And speaking of what Sue was saying, I can't be a racist.

I have black friends. And Mark Meadows used a version of that defense for himself, saying, listen, I have nieces and nephews of color, I believe is a phrase he used. Yes, family members. Mr. Chairman, there's nothing more personal to me than my relationship. My nieces and nephews are people of color. Not many people know that. You know that, Mr. Chairman. And to indicate that I asked someone who is a personal friend of the Trump family, who has worked for him, who knows this particular individual, that she's coming in to be a prop, it's racist to suggest that I ask

her to come in here for that reason. But let's be clear, that's not a particularly unusual explanation. I mean, I was in West Virginia during the summer, last summer, doing a whole bunch of interviews with various supporters of Donald Trump to get a better sense of what they were thinking. And so I'm talking to this guy in southern West Virginia, kind of coal country, and we're talking all about Donald Trump. And out of absolutely nowhere that had nothing to do with the context of our interview, he pulls up a video on his cell phone to show me his black grandson playing basketball. And I was just so confused. I was like, we were not even talking about your black grandson. Where did this come up? Talking about Donald Trump, like it is a classic way that

people want to, I think, make other folks, particularly folks of color, feel comfortable to say like, hey, this is a safe space. I can't be racist because look at my son or my grandson or my niece and my nephew. I mean, look, I don't want to get into Mark Meadows head, but it's not a particularly like novel explanation. Well, this also could have really escalated. And the thing that happened to de-escalate it is the chairman, Elijah Cummings, sort of steps in to mediate this situation. And let's just say Elijah Cummings is black. And a very prominent member of the Congress, a very respected member of the Congress, and as he often regard to race, it's me. Son of former sharecroppers that were basically slaves.

So I get it. I listened very carefully to Ms. Tlaib, and I think, and I'm not going to put words in her mouth, but I think she said that she was not calling you a racist. And I thought that we could clarify that. It almost became this thing where Mark Meadows got very emotional and upset. And then it became the job of Elijah Cummings and Rashida Tlaib to make him feel better. Right. Yeah. And you can see Elijah Cummings really trying, doing this very clear back and forth mediation thing. Like,

Mark Meadows, I'm paraphrasing here, you are one of my best friends on this committee. I respect you, et cetera, et cetera. Ms. Tlaib, were you calling him a racist or were you saying that his action was racist? And then there's a certain amount of like splitting hairs that happens. He sort of ends up smoothing it over in a not perfect way, but a way that allows things to move on. And we should note that the day after this hearing, Mark Meadows on the House floor did approach Rashida to leave on the floor. They had a very gracious exchange, according to Mr. Meadows. They gave each other a quick hug on the floor. And he did say that he does believe that people who have very diametrically opposed views of the world can still be civil to each other in Congress. But what this exposes to me is kind of

the fissures, you could say, that are erupting around race in our political system. And you cannot, I would argue, like it will be impossible to talk about the 2020 election without actually To put it mildly. existing conditions in society. I don't think he necessarily created them. But what we're seeing now, especially with some of these new freshman reps in Congress, is like a willingness to kind of to fight back, I would say, on some of these racial issues that maybe we didn't always see from some of the elder statesmen within the Democratic Party. And on the right, you know, I was listening to Rush Limbaugh yesterday and, you know, he didn't want to talk about North Korea. He wanted to talk about Rashida Tlaib and how she was the real racist. But here's the thing about that, right? Like, it does expose one very, to me, like, you cannot debate this truth that the Republican Party has a problem with minorities. So Rush Limbaugh, you know, saying Rashida Tlaib is the real racist is just like, you know, given the shovel and keep digging that whole Republican Party like you.

You do not have a brand right now that the super majority of blacks and Latinos look at this party and view it as having racist sentiments. So race is clearly going to be something that continues to flare up in the 2020 cycle and beyond. One thing that Democratic candidates have started talking about or have been asked about recently is something called reparations. Danielle, can you describe what that is? have been hurt by discriminatory policy, discriminatory official practices of the United States in the past deserve some sort of compensation, but not just compensation. This is critical. Proponents of reparations also say it's also about acknowledging the wrong done, figuring out what is necessary to compensate the wrong done, and having some sort of a reconciliation process to be able to move forward. So often when we say reparations today in the U.S., we are talking about slavery. We are talking about African

Americans. We are talking, but not just about slavery, Jim Crow laws, redlining, housing discrimination, that sort of thing. My question about this is, I don't understand why this is coming up now. Usually when we're having a policy debate, it's because of some event or something in the news that forces candidates to respond. Like, where did the reparations conversation that's percolating spark? So from my understanding, and I do want to give credit, I think where credit is due, a lot of this stemmed actually from an article that Astead, he's a reporter at the New York Times, first published actually on this issue. And he noticed a comment that Kamala Harris made in an interview she did with The Breakfast Club, where she talked, essentially, she suggested that

government reparations for African Americans would be, she would be open to this idea, specifically as it related to the legacy of slavery. And then he kind of took that forward and started asking other campaigns. I mean, I would make the argument that, you know, in the world of campaign reporting, it's not particularly diverse. And Ested noticed something that a lot of other people heard in that interview and didn't necessarily jump on. So reparations has been a conversation at least percolating to some degree for quite a while in the United States. It comes up every so often. But, for example, representatives have brought forth a bill to study reparations and to at least start the process. They've been doing that for over a decade. And I don't know if the bill has ever actually reached the House floor,

but that continually happens. What's interesting about the reparations debate is it even happened from what I can tell before candidates themselves explicitly brought it up. Last year, late last year, Cory Booker put forth this policy that the shorthand is baby bonds. The idea is you give $1,000 to every baby born in the United States, and then based on how much money their family makes, you give them either a lot of money every year in that account or a little bit of money in that account. Now, what a couple of outlets took from this, the New Yorker and Slate among them, was they ran with this and they said, this is as close as we're going to come to reparations. And I don't know if that's what started the conversation, but those but especially the New Yorker article definitely got people talking more about this.

Isn't there also something of a grassroots movement that is trying to put this on the agenda and get candidates to talk about it and get people talking about it. It is a policy that we should point out. I mean, it has never been mainstream in the Democrat Party. We don't have Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton having been supporters of this. And I would say that this cycle, though, we're hearing a lot of things from Democrats that we did not hear even four years ago, that there's kind of a unanimous consensus. Barack Obama was never talking about reparations. This is entirely true, but except there's something important.

It's still not mainstream. But it's also really reflective to me of a Democratic Party in a presidential field that really has run to the left, as we've talked about Medicare for All and free college. Reparations is an idea that I think not that long ago, four years ago in the 2016 campaign, if Hillary Clinton had been talking about reparations, it would have been seen as this really radical idea. And now it is like, at least even saying the word, right? Just even talking about reparations is now become something that all of the leading contenders for the nomination or many of the leading contenders for the nomination are very willfully and

encouragingly saying, yes, I support it. Or, but this is the thing, they're either saying, for example, Booker, Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren, they have said, I support it. But then there's this. And Julian Castro as well. Right. Julian Castro as well. But then Bernie Sanders, for example, has not said he supports it, but he has ended up doing a similar sort of spin to Booker and Harris, for example, saying, you know, my policies would ameliorate inequality in America. And the act of ameliorating inequality de facto would help disadvantaged minorities like blacks and Latinos much more than they would help white people. Therefore, you would have some sort of lessening of the racial wealth gap. So I just think that the big takeaway from the reparations conversation to me is that if you're a Democratic contender this cycle, it's really impossible to not talk about issues of racial justice and race conscious legislation. And we're seeing that across the board from

candidates, even when they're in Iowa and New Hampshire, they're talking about like income inequality and specifically how it affects African-Americans more than it affects others. And that to me tonally feels kind of different than what we might have heard for eight years ago. There's just a real conscious effort to talk about some of these issues. All right, we are going to take a quick break. And when we come back, can't let it go. Ladies and gentlemen, it is Jobs Friday. Find out how the labor market changed this past month at the Indicator podcast from Planet Money on NPR One or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. And it is time to end the show the way we do every week with Can't Let It Go, where we talk about the things we just can't stop thinking about, politics or otherwise.

Sue, what can't you let go of? The thing I can't let go of this week is the hallway pizza guy. Oh, my God. I know what you're talking about, but there's no way anybody else knows what you're talking about. No, I think a lot of people know what I'm talking about because it happened during the Michael Cohen hearing, which was the subject of a lot of television attention. In case you did not pay attention to any of this this week, during the Michael Cohen hearing, there was a break. And during the break, as all the TV people do, they go to their TV correspondents. And on the CBS coverage, correspondent Edo keeps on air and over his shoulder, you see this young guy kind of like enthusiastically walk up behind him and like rip open a pizza box and start like shoving pizza in his face. And you can see it happen. You can't hear it. But clearly somebody off camera says to him like, dude, you're in the shot. And he like looks up from his pizza and looks like dead eyed into the camera has this like moment of terror and then like

runs off of the thing so somebody captured this moment you know because the internet is amazing and tweeted it out and it's just like the gif of him like looking up and realizing the tv seeing him and running off of course he became a gif he went viral on twitter um and pizza was the brand of pizza that he was eating. I was wondering about that. N Pizza? N Pizza, like Emper Samuelsson. I don't know if it's a national chain or a DC chain,

but there's one in the Rayburn building where the hearing was taking place. So N Pizza immediately makes this image, their social, their Twitter profile, their background. Oh my God. They start tweeting about it. Someone set up a GoFundMe to get this kid more pizza. He was finally identified. He did a Reddit ask me anything. Oh, my God. Turns out he was just

a college kid. He wasn't everyone thought he was an intern because he's really young. He came early to get into the hearing because he just wanted to be there for it. And a friend of his had gone and gotten him pizza so he could eat some food during the break. And he was just trying to eat pizza really fast so he could go back in and not lose his seat. And he said he's just trying to find a summer internship. Well, I'm pretty sure he could get one at and pizza. Well, someone asked him if it bothered him that and pizza was using him for like, you know, to go marketing. And he was like, no, he was like, they gave me some pizza gift certificates. And he's like, I really just want an internship. So if a guy applies at your office on the Hill for an internship, you should give it to him.

Asma, why can't you let go of? So every year, the JFK Library here in Boston has this award that they give out called the Profile in Courage. And the winner, if you go back to the year 2000, really, really is kind of fascinating in a funny way to me, was Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana. Pete Buttigieg at the time was a high school student from South Bend, Indiana, and he is now running for president. He has crossed the threshold. He has passed 35 and he can now run for president. But Pete's winning essay topic, do you know who he wrote about? Guess who he wrote about for his profile in Courage?

Bernie Sanders. He wrote this essay and he writes in here. I just want to read you a line. He says, Sanders' courage is evident in the first word he uses to describe himself, socialist. And then he goes on to talk about in this country where communism is still such a dirty word, he just finds Sanders' willingness to describe himself as a socialist to be so courageous. And he goes on and on and talks about how much, you know, Sanders has really kind of inspired him, inspired a lot of young people.

And people feel like young people don't want to get involved in public service, but that's not true. So now here you have it. Pete Buttigieg, who's now running for office, basically talking a lot about how he's a millennial and how the old people don't seem to have necessarily cared to have fixed government the correct way, is running against his apparent hero from childhood. Depending on what kind of voter you are, this is either a really great find or this is, you know, ammo to be used against in the primary. I'm sure Bernie will just say thank you. Well, yes, of course.

Danielle, what can't you let go of? So this is a weekly show, so this feels a little old, but it happened in the last seven days. This is from the Oscars. Oh, my. Specifically, I know- That was a week. That was within the past week.

Yeah, Sunday. It doesn't make sense to me either. But specifically what I really haven't been able to let go of, like I have been watching it pretty much daily to cheer myself up. Olivia Colman's Best Actress acceptance speech. I don't know if you guys saw. Oh, yeah. I actually did not see this.

I didn't see all the Oscars. Explain. Explain, please. You are missing everything you need to see this. So Olivia Colman backstory. She won Best Actress for the favorite. By the way, everybody, do yourself a favor. Go see this movie.

It's really good. Aside from that, she wins and she gets up there and she gives this delightfully scattered and loopy but really endearing speech that has maybe like two full sentences in the whole thing. Oh, it's genuinely quite stressful. Oh, this is hilarious. It's genuinely quite stressful. This is hilarious. Can't ask. So from here, she just weaves in and out of a whole bunch of things.

She references her kids and says, my kids who are watching, but maybe you're not. So I don't know. My kids are at home and watching. Look. Well, if you're not, then we're kind of well done. But I sort of hope you are. This is not going to happen again. I used to be a maid.

I loved that job. And then my husband, he's going to cry. And they cut to him and he kind of shakes his head. But also the thing that I was working on a piece this week with my editor, Arnie Seipel, and we were trying to come up with a kicker for it. And we couldn't. We were struggling to sort of end the piece. And then I suggested, you know, in the future when one cannot end a piece, you should just end it the way Olivia Olivia Coleman ended the speech, which is to kind of stammer and go, oh, thank you so much, Lady Gaga. Is that what she really did? Yes. She kind of ends and then she sort of apparently sees Lady Gaga out of the corner of her eye and her speech ends with her just saying Lady Gaga and then walking away so from now on I'm gonna end my pieces not with Danielle Kurtzleben in PR news but no you have to just end it Lady Gaga Daniel Kurtzleben in PR news

I'm not gonna let this go for a while I loved it and I'm gonna say, this is the most perfect segue ever to my can't let it go. Lady Gaga. Lady Gaga. For real. So the thing is, um, I, uh, did not watch the Oscars and yet this week I can't stop reading about the Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper performance,

which I have not yet seen, uh, because it's been a busy week. So I was just thinking we could watch it together. Ooh. Tell me something good. Are you happy in this modern world? Or do you need more?

Is there something else you're searching for? I thought it was awkward. I know it's supposed to be like smoldering chemistry, but it made me feel like physically uncomfortable watching it in real time. I am a thousand percent with you. Like it was just forced. I don't know. I didn't come away from this thinking like, look at the love between us two. They're dating. I came away from this being like this. Oh, wait, hold on. Hold on. I don't know. I didn't come away from this thinking, like, look at the love between those two.

They're dating. I came away from this being like this. Oh, wait. Hold on. Hold on. Here's the part. Here's the part. Here we go.

Here we go. Oh, they're like, their little heads are up next to each other. And their eyes are closed. Well, all of this is about the course of the filming of this and the promotion and the award season. Like, there's always been this rumor that these two are dating or maybe dating or have chemistry. Or is it real? Like, is it beyond?

Does it come beyond the screen? And then this happened. Everything blew up and it was like, oh, my God, their faces were touching. And they were like, they were so in love. They're on stage. She also called off her engagement a week before the Oscars. Right. Oh, I missed that. Yeah. Oh, I missed that part.

Yeah, no, there was a lot. So, turns out, that boomlet lasted like 48 hours, because then she went on Jimmy Kimmel and was like, yeah, about that love thing. Yes, people saw love, and guess what? That's what we wanted you to see. Yes. You know, I mean, this is a love

song, Shallow. The movie, A Star is Born, it's a love story. We worked so hard. We worked all week on that performance. It's okay. They don't need to be in love. They were acting. They're just proving what excellent actors they are. Look, I have no reason to disbelieve Lady Gaga. I will take her at her word. But I will also note, this is always what celebrities say when they're secretly falling in love. Exactly. So stay tuned. This was Angelina and Brad and Mr. and Mrs. Smith. They were like, no, we just want great chemistry on screen.

We all know how that ended. Well, kind of messy, actually. All right. That is a wrap for today. We will be back as soon as there's news that you need to know about. Until then, a reminder, we are headed to Atlanta next Friday, March 8th, to record a podcast live on stage. Head to NPR Presents dot org to grab a ticket. Can't wait to see you there. I'm looking forward to it. And I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. I'm Asma Khalid, political reporter. I'm Susan Davis. I cover Congress. And I'm Danielle Kurtzleben, political reporter. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.