The NPR Politics Podcast - Weekly Roundup: Friday, October 25

Episode Date: October 25, 2019

The justice department opens a criminal investigation into the basis of the Russia investigation. Plus, Mark Zuckerberg appears on Capitol Hill, and the House Ethics Committee investigates freshman representative Katie Hill. This episode: Congressional correspondent Susan Davis, political correspondent Asma Khalid, justice correspondent Ryan Lucas, political reporter Tim Mak, and senior editor & correspondent Domenico Montanaro. 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. Hello, this is Karen Rivera, and I am recording from Phnom Penh, Cambodia, where I have just set my alarm to wake up early enough to watch the Washington Nationals beat the Astros in the World Series. This podcast was recorded at 1.04 p.m. on Friday, October 25th.

Things may have changed when you listen to this podcast. For example, I will no longer be waiting, but instead celebrating the Nationals' victory. Have a great day, enjoy the podcast, and thank you very much. That is dedication. I didn't know the Nationals had such loyal fans. Well, she was right about the last game, so let's hope she's right about the next one. Go sports! Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Susan Davis. I cover Congress. I'm Tim Mack. I also cover Congress.

I'm Ryan Lucas. I cover the Justice Department. And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. So late last night, we found out that the Justice Department's review of the origins of the Russia probe has now become a criminal investigation. Ryan, what's going on? Well, that's a very good question. There are not a lot of details on this. We do not know when this change took place. We don't know what prompted it. We don't know what potential criminal wrongdoing investigators are looking into. Those are all very important questions. But the fact that this is now a criminal investigation, what that means

is that the team that is looking into the origins of the Russia investigation can impanel a grand jury. They can issue subpoenas to compel people to come in and testify and also to turn over documents. So those are important powers. And also, they could potentially bring criminal charges. So, Ryan, what were they originally looking at? So they were looking at the origins of the Russia investigation and to essentially determine whether U.S. intelligence agencies, including the FBI, the CIA, did anything wrong, abused their powers in the early stages of the Russia investigation and looking at ties between the Trump campaign and Russia. So this is not the first investigation to try and examine the origins

of the Russia investigation. The inspector general at the Justice Department, right, has looked into this. The Senate Intelligence Committee has been looking for more than a year now into allegations of potential surveillance abuses of the Trump campaign during the election, looking into several other matters tied to the election as well. Republicans have put a lot of stock in that investigation. They are certainly waiting for that to come out. And then you have the Senate Intelligence Committee, which has interviewed more than 200 people who were involved in drawing up the intelligence community's assessment of Russian interference in 2016. They have talked to basically everyone who was involved in doing that. And they came to the conclusion that the intelligence community's assessment was correct.

They agreed with it. And importantly, they also didn't find anything that they flagged as raising concerns about how that investigation and what they were looking at was conducted. You know, the timing of this has raised a lot of eyebrows, too, right? We are deep into now an impeachment inquiry and very likely an impeachment process that goes from the House over to the Senate. And so it almost seems like counter-programming to a lot of the things that will be coming out in the coming weeks and months as Democrats try to make the case that the president has done something wrong with regards to the Ukrainian government. And this is validating for the president to now be able to say, I am right to be concerned about it. There's a criminal investigation going on.

Yep. It gives him fodder. You know, it's really been an obsession of his, this impeachment inquiry. He's going to continue to talk about it. And he's been looking for something, anything to kind of hang his hat on. And here you go. There is no, it's worth noting, there is no public evidence that there was wrongdoing at any point in the origins of the investigation into President Trump or Russia or any of those matters, if there was some wrongdoing, the public is not aware of it. It's been a consistent suspicion, stated suspicion of the president, that there were players in the government out to get him and that he has wanted to find out who those players were and that it was part of some broader conspiracy.

Right. And I have spent a lot of time talking to members of the Senate Intelligence Committee who have looked at all of the evidence that has been gathered by U.S. intelligence agencies. They've looked at how that evidence was handled. They have interviewed the people involved. And nobody, Republican, Democrat, has said to me, yes, I have significant concerns that authorities were abused, powers were abused, that U.S. intelligence agencies abused their power in any way, shape or form towards the Trump campaign. There is no timeline on investigations, but I would note that in politics, investigations on Capitol Hill or otherwise often carry on through an election cycle. And we don't know

how long this investigation will go on. But it does stand to reason that this is now going to be a factor in the already highly politicized environment of the 2020 campaign, the Russia question, and the impeachment investigation. Right. And for Trump, he just needs something to be able to say, you know, here's something for the base to rally around to so that they can use it as fuel for 2020. And be able to say this is still part of the witch hunt, the hoax that came out of the Russia Mueller probe, and that they're fighting back now. All right, we have to leave it there. Ryan, I know you have to go. Thanks so much. Thank you. All right, we're going to take a

quick break. And when we get back, we're going to talk about Mark Zuckerberg's appearance on Capitol Hill this week. Support for this podcast and the following message come from Aspen Snowmass, dedicated to meaningful action on climate change. For over 20 years, Aspen Snowmass has implemented large-scale solutions, from generating clean power to wielding it. They installed the first solar array in the ski industry, the first LEED-certified building, and currently operate the only coal mine methane-to-energy plant in the country. Learn more first LEED-certified building, and currently operate the only coal mine methane-to-energy plant in the country. Learn more about what Aspen Snowmass is doing to combat climate change at giveaflake.com. Do you know how early you need to be to register

to vote? How about the number to call if something's going wrong at your polling station? Or what about the best time of day to cast a ballot? NPR's Life Kit wants to get you ready for Election Day. New episodes every Tuesday and a ballot. NPR's Life Kit wants to get you ready for Election Day. New episodes every Tuesday and Thursday. Listen and subscribe to Life Kit All Guides. All right, we're back and we're going to talk about Facebook. But before we do that, we should note that Facebook is one of NPR's sponsors and we are one of the news outlets in their news tab. And joined now by Asma Khalid. Hey, Asma.

Hey, Sue. So we're going to talk about the congressional hearing. But before we get to that, I just want to focus on Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Asma, he has made a lot of headlines in the 2020 presidential race already. That's right. And part of that is because he's been in a pretty public spat with Elizabeth Warren, who's been running for president. She's one of the leading contenders at this point. Months back, she announced a plan to essentially break up big

tech companies like Facebook. And obviously that doesn't sit well with him. She's also been pretty critical of the idea that Facebook doesn't have fact checking in its ads that it has online. And to make this point recently, she actually put up a fake Facebook ad that said that Mark Zuckerberg supported Donald Trump for president to try to prove this point. So this issue of fact checking political ads was very much the issue at hand on Capitol Hill this week, right, Tim? That's right. Here's, for example, some tape from Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez grilling Mark Zuckerberg. Do you see a potential problem here with a complete lack of fact-checking on political advertisements? Well, Congresswoman, I think lying is bad.

And I think if you were to run an ad that had a lie, that would be bad. That's different from it being, in our position, the right thing to do to prevent your constituents or people in an election from seeing that you had lied. So you won't take down lies or you will take down lies? I think it's just a pretty simple yes or no. I'm not talking about spin. I'm talking about actual disinformation. Yes, in a democracy, I believe that people should be able to see for themselves what politicians that they may or may not vote for. So you won't take them down for themselves. So you won't take you may flag that it's wrong, but you won't take it down. Congresswoman, it's it depends on the context that it shows up.

How'd that go over, Tim? Well, not well. I mean, he was there supposedly to talk about Libra, which is this cryptocurrency that Facebook is hoping to launch. But, you know, members of Congress have a lot of reasons to be upset with Facebook and to question Mark Zuckerberg on a number of issues, most of which center around this idea that Facebook has gotten too powerful. I mean, they are grilling Mark Zuckerberg about whether politicians are permitted to lie in ads, whether Facebook as a platform is vulnerable to foreign interference and disinformation, and whether it's doing enough to stop discrimination in its advertising. All of these issues are coming at Mark Zuckerberg. They're still trying to launch this cryptocurrency, by the way. They're trying to do all sorts of initiatives, but they're really finding this big challenge in all the different questions that members of Congress and their constituents have about whether Facebook is a societal net benefit and

good. Domenico, it's so interesting because Facebook in politics started out as a bit of a golden child. The candidates and everybody wanted to play on the platform. And now it's a brand that it seems to be getting it on all sides. Asma is talking about Elizabeth Warren, but I also know a lot of conservatives are questioning Facebook and algorithms and whether they feel like they're biased towards conservatives. It doesn't seem like Facebook has a lot of friends in politics right now. Yeah, it's funny, because Facebook actually was someplace that conservatives were actually able to kind of gather and mobilize. Back in 2010 during the Tea Party, for example, people weren't even paying attention to a lot of the groups that were popping up on Facebook that were really conservative groups that were able to mobilize

and get people to go to a lot of these rallies that they were having. But Zuckerberg here, the more he's out in public, the more difficult it's been. I mean, he even said himself, quote, I get that I'm not the ideal messenger here. I mean, that is very difficult when you have somebody who's the point person who actually is taking it from all sides and doesn't appear to really have the facility to kind of be able to parry back with them in a way that makes a lot of sense for his business. Here's the thing. Companies don't regulate themselves. Congress has to decide if it wants to try to regulate an industry. So is all the tough talk on Capitol Hill, is it just that? Is it just tough talk? Is there actually going to be any action to try to do things like regulate these tech companies? The proposals that Congress has put forward won't fundamentally change the calculus of Facebook and its role in our society, right? So the proposals largely

revolve around things like, oh, if someone buys an ad, we need to know who purchased that ad, transparency in advertising. But no serious proposals, no proposals which are likely to pass Congress get to the fundamental question of Facebook's power and how it could be reformed, changed, controlled in some way. And when you look at the Democratic candidates running for president, really the one who's been kind of the most vocal critic, I would say, has been Elizabeth Warren. And that's why we see her in this public spat with Mark Zuckerberg. In fact, there was leaked audio by The Verge where Mark Zuckerberg was talking about Senator Warren and kind of slamming the idea of her being president. Like Elizabeth Warren, who thinks that the right answer is to break up the companies. You know, if she gets elected president, then I would I would bet that we will have a legal challenge and I would bet that we will win the legal challenge. So basically, does that still suck for us? Yeah. I mean, I don't have to have a major lawsuit against our own government. I mean, that's not like the position that

you want to be in when you're, you know, I mean, it's like we care about our country and want to work with our government to do good things. But look, at the end of the day, if someone's going to try to threaten something that existential, you go to the mat and you fight. I mean, there's a reason why they're in this public spat. There's a reason why he would be concerned if she were to become the president of the United States. And before we take a break, I want to talk about one more thing that happened on the Hill this week and probably something that would have gotten more attention if not for all the other scandals in our lives that we're covering. Democratic California Congresswoman Katie Hill is now under an ethics investigation because she is accused in what is admittedly a very rancorous divorce proceeding from her husband of having an extramarital affair with a member of her congressional staff. The House Ethics Committee announced on Wednesday that they would be investigating this. But the reason why it's so interesting to me is the only reason it's being

investigated is because just last year, the House of Representatives changed the rules of the House to prohibit lawmakers from having sexual relationships with anyone on their congressional staff in response to the Me Too movement. And it is kind of fascinating that the first lawmaker to trigger this new era of conduct rules is a female freshman lawmaker. And so, Sue, what's been the response so far from Congresswoman Hill about these allegations and what is she acknowledged and denied? She has said the allegation against her about the aid is completely untrue. She has talked openly that she is going through a divorce proceeding. I think it's fair to say divorces can get nasty and personal. There has been a lot of negative coverage of her in

conservative media to which she says she thinks this is part of a political smear campaign. It may well be. Ethics is going to clearly talk to her in this aid. But it's also, you know, she's an elected member of the Democratic Party leadership. She's definitely someone who is seen as a rising star in the party. And it's also the kind of thing that Democrats don't really need right now, right? They're trying to bring forth an impeachment proceeding against the president. They're trying to look like the adult responsible party. Generally speaking, when you start to have scandals in your own party, it kind of undermines your standing that, hey, we're the good guys. So what are other Democrats saying? Because I recall she won a pretty competitive seat. I mean, it is a competitive seat there in California. will again be in 2020, one of the top tier races for control of the House, complicated by the fact that California expedited all of their filing deadlines because they moved up their presidential primary, and that kind of moved up filing deadlines down the board.

Their filing deadline is December 6th. That's like six weeks from now. Isn't she also getting a little bit of backup too from kind of an odd source? I saw Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz, who's a Republican, said that this ethics investigation was completely ridiculous and that people shouldn't be looking into personal lives. What's that all about? Yes, he may remember Matt Gaetz as Skiff Gaetz. He's the Florida Republican who led Republicans into storming the classified briefing room this week.

You know, I think she does have some allies among lawmakers here. This was a rules change that actually made some people uncomfortable that you would kind of govern this kind of conduct. But if you remember, and we covered, I think, almost all of them on this podcast, nine members of Congress were forced out of office over their behavior in that Me Too movement. I mean, it really was a problem on Capitol Hill. And these rules changes were meant to change the way the place operates. Clearly, the rules are working because when people do this behavior, they're now subject to ethics investigations. But it is creating some kind of uncomfortable conversations about what are the kind of things that we should be judging members of Congress on. And I will say, in just sort of gender politics, we look at these things a little bit differently when it's a female engaging in this kind of behavior with a young staffer versus a male lawmaker. So it is a very interesting cultural debate on the Hill. And it could be a very interesting potential political problem for Democrats if they really want to hold on to the seat. Yeah. All right. Let's take another break. And when we get back, we'll talk about the things we just can't let go this week.

Hey, it's Guy Raz here, host of NPR's How I Built This. And on our latest episode, the story of how two public radio guys figured they could turn podcasts into profit and how they grew that hunch into Gimlet, a media company that sold for more than $200 million. Listen right now. And we're back. And it's time to end the show like we always do with Can't Let It Go, the part of the show where we talk about the thing from the week that we just can't stop thinking about, politics or otherwise. Domenico, what can't you let go this week?

What I can't let go of is Elijah Cummings' death and his funeral, which was taking place today, and people remembering his life. And there was a point that Bill Clinton made that sort of struck me about our current politics that didn't have anything to do with Trump, really, but had more to do with the idea that Cummings had friends who were Republicans. Lots of them. He tried to treat everybody the way he wanted to be treated, the way he thought America should be treated. You know, you can't run a free society

if you have to hate everybody you disagree with. And we saw earlier in the week, even Mark Meadows, the chairman of the Freedom Caucus or former chairman of the Freedom Caucus, was crying about his death. That is not something I think most people would think is what would happen for somebody who was the head of the oversight committee, one of the committees that was, you know, really trying to hold the Trump administration's feet to the fire. And the point that Bill Clinton was making was, we can't all cancel each other out. That, you know, what are you going to do, you know, if you can't talk to Republicans and you're a Democrat, if you're a Republican, you can't talk to Democrats. How are you going to have a society? He said, how are you going to have

a marriage? How are you going to have a business partner? You guys are going to fight. You got to figure out how to talk to each other. Well, go out there and find a friend. Find a friend this weekend who doesn't think exactly like you. You don't even have to talk about politics. You don't have to. You can just talk about anything. Maybe don't talk about politics, actually. There you have it. Asma, what can't you let go this week? So, you may recall that some time ago, I mentioned that

Pete Buttigieg, who is running for the presidency of the United States, was offered fashion advice by a fashion designer, Tom Ford. Oh, yeah. I would take fashion advice from Tom Ford. So would I. So apparently, Pete Buttigieg did not. Tom Ford had advised him that his suits were kind of a little too baggy and tried to, like, you know, basically say that he could help. Anyhow, Pete Buttigieg did not. Tom Ford had advised him that his suits were kind of a little too baggy and tried to like, you know, basically say that he could help. Anyhow, Pete Buttigieg didn't bite. But what I thought was kind of interesting is Pete Buttigieg recently

dined with Anna Wintour and Michael Kors. The Vogue editor. Yes. And another designer. And another designer. And this time, apparently he had a totally different verdict on his suit. Buttigieg definitely seems like a guy who does like the Jossie Bank three suits for $2.50 at the airport. Oh, wow. I feel like I mean that as a compliment. As an individual, our listeners cannot tell this, but as the individual in the studio wearing a gray hoodie, jeans and running shoes, I'm not going to be weighing in on anyone else's fashion. On any sartorial choices? I mean, NPR reporters in general, you know, we don't have to be on TV all the time,

so we're not exactly looking perfect. But politics is different than fashion, though, because there is this thing in politics, especially among men, that there's, like, a source of pride to look shabby, right? Like, you don't care about your clothes. This is the Zuckerberg look. Well, that's different. That's like a uniform, right right? Like take out the thought process of what you wear.

But especially with men where it's like, oh, I wore my I wore my shoes through to the soles or I wear cheap suits because I don't care about flashy things. Like men are more can more easily like pride themselves on lack of fashion as a virtue. That's a good post hoc rationalization of laziness. That's true. Tim, you can do billionaire don't care, but none of us are. Is that what that Zuckerberg look is? I just coined that. Billionaire don't care.

Tim, what can't you let go this week? Okay, I'm up last night at 11.58 p.m. On purpose? I'm pretty psyched. It turns to 11.59 p.m., On purpose? I'm pretty psyched. It turns to 11.59 p.m., getting more excited, and it hits midnight, right? Which is when we have been promised

this new Kanye West album. For weeks, though, we've been promised it. And it did not come. So I'm up here infuriated at 12.04 a.m., at 12.08 a.m. I'm sending memes about this betrayal. Did you not sleep last night, Tim? Tim, I think this just means you need to get some sleep.

I'm really tired. So there's no Kanye album? Well, no. Actually, in the preparations for doing that pod today, it has come up. Okay. I hear you guys in here talking about Kanye. Oh, thank you. Special guest star.

Is this like Republicans storming the skiff? I just stormed the studio. There's been a lot of storming this week. I am Ayesha Roscoe, White House reporter. Kanye West expert. Kanye West opponent.

You've had precisely 12 minutes to listen to various snippets of this album, and you're ready to render a judgment. I listen to snippets of this album. I also say this as someone who listens to gospel music on a regular basis. This Kanye album is a gospel album. And his album is a pale imitation of current gospel music, modern gospel music. First of all, R&B and all of that stuff builds off of gospel music. And then contemporary gospel music builds off of what's happening out there, secular music.

I mean, you could go back to Bebe and CeCe Winans. You could go to Kirk Franklin. And you have trap gospel. You have had rappers for years, decades, doing gospel. Nothing new. Use this gospel for protection. It's a hard road to heaven. We call on your blessings.

And the Father, we put our faith. Tough question, Aisha. Do you not like it because you don't like Kanye? I think it is influenced by that. But I also think that this is fine. It's not like, oh, this is horrible. But it's like, I hear more of the, you just turn on a regular gospel station and you hear stuff that is more moving. I think it's fine is like some of the most savage criticism you could give Kanye West,

who lives in the extreme. To tell him something is fine. It's fine. That's why I thought that Aisha's understated criticism was so scathing. Yes. Well, I may have to call NPR security to get me from the studio. I was just here for that. I just came in for that.

I got other work to do. Y'all keep on working. Yes. And I am Aisha Roscoe. I cover the White House. I oppose Kanye West, and I love Beyonce. Thank you. You don't get a sign out.

You don't get a sign out. You get to walk out. I think Aisha just proved she gets whatever she wants. She gets whatever she wants. Yeah. Thank you, Aisha. Sue, you got to sign out. You don't get to sign out. You get to walk out. I think Aisha just proved she gets whatever she wants. She gets whatever she wants. Yeah. Thank you, Aisha. Sue, you got to follow that. Well, it's going to be a tough act to follow, but mine also involves some music, which we

should just start with the music. Uh-oh. Oh, I know where this is going. Is this Ukrainian? Baby Shark, I should note, for our fact checkers, second time has been a factor in a Can't Let It Go in an NPR Politics podcast. But for this time, it's very different because the reason I can't let it go is I did not realize how much this song had become the anthem of the Washington Nationals baseball team. Oh, you all know about this? Yeah, I've heard a little bit about this. Yes. So this is is now like the spirit song of the Washington Nationals, which are currently in the World Series against the Houston Astros. And this is a song that sort of became a slow burn in their

fandom over one of their outfielders, Geraldo Parra. So when he joined the team back in May, he was kind of in a slump. And in July, he changed up his walk-up song. So he changed it to Baby Shark as a nod to his kids. His kids love the song. It was kind of a hokey thing he did. When he changed his walk-up song, things started to turn around.

He got some hits at the game. The Nats started feeling good. So he decided to keep it as his song. And as the season went on and the team got better and better and closer to the playoffs, everyone has embraced it. The players on the team have embraced it to the point that when they get singles, doubles, or triples, they either do the baby shark hand motion, which is like a small finger point, or they do the clap motion for mommy shark

which is for a double or they do the big wide arm clap i feel like sue is quite an expert in baby shark lingo oh i did i learned all about this this week right but then also it's become uh now when people go up to bat the whole stadiums will get up and sing baby shark uh as they've been into the world series this week the national symphony orchestra performed baby shark at the Kennedy Center here in Washington D.C. Baby Shark Halloween costumes have been a run in the

Washington D.C. area because a lot of people want to dress their kids as baby sharks for it's very timely but also the thing I think is very funny about it, having come from a sports family, being married to a sports fanatic usually sports superstitions are kind of like, or male and sort of gross, like they get men go play off beards like the Red Sox did, or they wear the same socks. And this is like macho sports all like rallying around this,

this earworm of this kid's theme song that has totally rallied Nat's nation. I think there's some sports logic to this too. I mean, you get in your head, especially in baseball, if you're missing a ball. I mean, we're talking about millimeters here, you know, where someone may be, you know, hitting a pop-up instead of a line drive. And maybe that, you know,

the earworm of Baby Shark playing in his head, just let him focus on the swing rather than thinking about, you know, how he might miss it. All right, that's a wrap for today. And let's end the week by thanking the team that puts the show together. Our executive producer is Shirley Henry. Our editors are Mathoni Mottori and Eric McDaniel.

Our producer is Barton Girdwood. Our production assistant is Chloe Weiner. Thanks to Lexi Schapittle, Dana Farrington, Brandon Carter and Elena Burnett. I'm Susan Davis. I cover Congress. I'm Tim Mack. I also cover Congress. I'm Asma Khalid. I cover the presidential campaign. And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent.

And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.