The NPR Politics Podcast - Weekly Roundup: Friday, October 4

Episode Date: October 4, 2019

Senior U.S. diplomats debated the propriety of a White House strategy aimed at pressuring Ukraine for political investigations in exchange for assistance and engagement with President Trump, new documents show. Plus, new fundraising numbers show Senator Elizabeth Warren on the rise. This episode: political correspondent Scott Detrow, justice correspondent Ryan Lucas, editor correspondent Domenico Montanaro, political reporter Danielle Kurtzleben, and political reporter Tim Mak. 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. Guten Tag, this is Taylor. I'm in Stuttgart, Germany, preparing to watch Simone Biles' McHistory at the 2019 World Artistic Gymnastic Championships. This podcast was recorded at 1.16 Eastern on Friday, October 4th. Things may have changed by the time you hear this, and Team USA will have definitely taken home gold. Okay, here's the show.

Go USA. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Scott Detrow. I cover the campaign. I'm Ryan Lucas. I cover the Justice Department. Go USA. Kurt Volker, who resigned a week ago, testified before House Intelligence for nine hours. And importantly, for what we're going to talk about next, he brought a lot of text messages, which became public late last night. And they give us a clear glimpse at what was happening inside the Trump administration before and after that key call between President Trump and the president of Ukraine. So, Ryan, Kurt Volker, remind us the role that he played in all of this. So, as you said, he's the former U.S. special representative to Ukraine, so kind of the point person for the administration on Ukraine.

He is a longtime diplomat. He served as U.S. ambassador to NATO during the Bush years. A respected diplomat who is now caught up in this whole Ukraine imbroglio that the Trump administration now finds itself in. And late in the night after he left, after nine hours of testimony, House Democrats sent out a press release containing several pages worth of text messages that really give us a fuller picture of what was happening in the Trump administration before that key phone call, after that key phone call, into September, just weeks or so before this all became public. Worth pointing out, though, these are messages released by House Democrats. We don't know how many more there are. We don't know what the full

picture is. This is what the Democrats leading the investigation have decided to make public right now. Domenico, these look like a big deal. This is a big deal. And, you know, I think for a lot of people, they may not have seen these texts because they came out last night. And I think we should probably read some of them. Ryan, you highlighted several of the key texts here. Overall, it's about nine pages worth of text. We're just going to walk through a few of them.

Just to set the stage of who's sending these texts, some of them are from Volcker. They also involve the U.S. ambassador to the European Union. That is Gordon Sundland. He wasker. They also involve the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, that is Gordon Sondland. He was a big Trump donor during the campaign and as a reward, so to speak, ended up being the U.S. ambassador to the European Union. And another key interlocutor in this is an advisor to the Ukrainian president, that's Andrei Yermak. His name may sound familiar, and that's because he is an individual who has met with the president's personal lawyer,

Rudy Giuliani, to talk about these investigations that the president and Giuliani himself have been pushing Ukraine to open. OK, so, Ryan, you flagged a bunch of these for us to walk through here. We're going to start with a text on the morning of July 25th. Now, this is before that key phone call that we've spent so much time talking about between Trump and Zelensky. Who's on this text chain? This is a text from Volker that he is sending to this Ukrainian advisor, Andrei Yermak. Domenico, you were playing the role of Kurt Volker. So actually, I think we need some sound effects. On the 25th, 8.36 a.m., just hours before this Trump call, Volker says, Good lunch. Thanks. Heard from White House, assuming President Z, and he's

talking about President Zelensky there, the president of Ukraine, assuming President Z convinces Trump he will investigate slash, quote, get to the bottom of what happened, end quote, in 2016. We will nail down date for visit to Washington. Good luck. See you tomorrow. Kurt. First, I'm going to note he's a text signer, at least in this setting. Ryan, seems like there's See you tomorrow. that Trump and Giuliani have been pushing that the Ukrainians conspired with the Clinton campaign to try to bring down Trump. And what it seems to be suggested here is that assuming that that happens, the promise would then be that Ukrainian president would get a White House visit. So essentially, there's a thing that they want done and a thing that they will give in return for that thing being done. And also just more broadly that the pressure to investigate was not something that happened on the fly in the phone call. This is something that was talked about beforehand.

And something that, as we can see from the text messages predating this one, that they are building up to this. This is something that had been in the works for some time. And several more texts in this document. But the next one we're going to focus on is August 9th. And according to the document, this is after Rudy Giuliani met with an aide to President Zelensky. Ambassador Volker asked to speak with Mr. Giuliani about the Ukrainian statement. So Kurt Volker, Domenico, you're Kurt Volker again. Yep, got it. Ryan, you can be Gordon Sondland and I will be Rudy Giuliani.

And so this is a group text. Kurt Volker here says, Hi, Mr. Mayor, had a good chat with your Mac last night. He was pleased with your phone call, mentioned Zee making a statement, assuming again, that's Zelensky, the president of Ukraine. Can we all get on the phone to make sure I advise Zee correctly as to what he should be saying? Want to make sure we get this done right. Thanks. Gordon Sondland then says he is the, of course, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union. Sondland says, good idea, Kurt. I am on Pacific time. And Rudy Giuliani, yes, you can call now going to fundraiser at 1230. So this is interesting because we've heard a bit about this statement that Sondland and Volker were working on and apparently consulting with

Giuliani on to try to get the Ukrainians to commit in writing and then to say it publicly that they would carry out these investigations of some sort. Now, it's unclear at this point in time whether it's simply about investigations to curtail corruption in Ukraine. But what we learn later from this is that there are very specific asks in terms of investigations that the Americans are looking for. And again, a sustained effort here to try to get them to do something. Yeah. I mean, this shows is orchestrated. I mean, the phone call is orchestrated. This is not just a thing that President Trump, you know, willy nilly just kind of threw out there. There was actually spate work having been done on making sure that when these two principals talk to each other, they were on the same page. So, Ryan, we've got a bunch of

these conversations stretching out over the course of more than a month from that point forward. Do we learn at any point what the Ukrainian reaction to all of this is? We do. There are responses in here from the advisor to the Ukrainian president. And what this advisor, Andrei Yermak, says is essentially, you know, yeah, we can talk about making this declaration about doing particular investigations, but it makes more sense, he says, you know, if we nail down the date of President Zelensky's visit to Washington before we make this declaration. So there is this sense of we want to get our date. We want to get what we want on the record. And then, sure,

we'll talk about. And he says, actually, in one text, he says, we will talk about other things, including the Burisma. And Burisma, of course, is the Ukrainian gas company that Biden's son, Hunter, had a seat on the board of. And what Yermak says at one point is that once we have a date for this visit, that the Ukrainians will call a press conference, they'll talk about a new look for the U.S.-Ukraine relationship and include, among other things, an investigation into Burisma and election meddling in the United States, which are two investigations that President Trump and his team have been pushing for. We've talked here about one of the conditions, a meeting between Trump and Zelensky. The broader condition that hangs over all of this is that multimillion dollar aid package to Ukraine that was approved by Congress, but then held up. And a key question is, was it held up because of the pressure to get Ukraine to investigate the Bidens? We have two different quick exchanges here between American officials having to do with those concerns. Let's walk through both of them. Right. First, September 1st, my birthday, we have Ambassador Taylor and Gordon Sondland.

And I'll set the scene here. So Bill Taylor was previously the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine from 2006 to 2009. He is there serving as essentially the number one, the top diplomat in the U.S. embassy in Kiev on a temporary basis now. So you're Bill Taylor, Domenico, you're Sondland. Okay. What Bill Taylor says in this text is, are we now saying that security assistance and White House meeting are conditioned on investigations? Just less than 30 minutes later, Sondland replies, call me.

All right. And then one other exchange between the two of them, a little more than a week later, September 9th. Same roles. And this also deals with withholding military assistance to Ukraine. And what Taylor says, as I said on the phone, I think it's crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign. Now, Sondland replies, Bill, I believe you're incorrect about President Trump's intentions. The president has been crystal clear. No quid pro quos of any kind. The president is trying to evaluate whether Ukraine is truly going to adopt the transparency and reforms that President Zelensky promised during the campaign.

I suggest we stop the back and forth by text. If you still have concerns, I recommend you give Lisa Kenna or S a call to discuss them directly. Thanks. Now, we should note this text was five hours later. And remember, the last time Taylor brought this up, and we mentioned this a little earlier, he said, call me. So, you know, I think that there is some speculation going on. You know, you have former ambassadors. I think about Mike McFaul, for example, who was the ambassador to Russia under President Obama, who said to him, this does not look like someone saying this is our policy. No quid pro quo. It looks like to him, somebody saying, I don't want these texts leaked. Let's get on the same page here and stop talking about something that could look like a quid pro quo. And lo and behold, those texts are now key evidence in an impeachment inquiry. And

here we are talking about them publicly. A couple of points to make. Now, it's been my understanding that Volcker had wanted to try to counter the sort of negative news feed that was getting into the White House via Rudy Giuliani. And one could make the argument, and he may make this argument, that this was an effort to try to counter that. But the point that a former ambassador who knows Volker well made on Morning Edition today was that this kind of looks like the case of the frog in the pot of water that gets hotter and hotter and hotter. And you're trying to do the right thing, but it gets to a point where you're in over your head. To put this in some context of what was going on here at the exact same time,

there were Republicans and Democrats who were writing letters to the Trump administration saying, hey, release this funding for Ukraine that's already been authorized by Congress. I mean, this was two days before, for example, Rob Portman, Senator from Ohio, sent a letter saying that and days after when bipartisan group of senators had said to do this. So clearly that water was getting a little bit hotter because you had senators and members of Congress from both sides saying, hey, what's going on with this funding here? There's another point I think that may come up in the days and weeks ahead, which is that, yeah, I mean, you can use a White House visit as leverage on an ally or a foreign government to try to get them to do things that you want as an administration.

Within U.S. interests. But it's, exactly, it's in U.S. national security interests to get something done. For example, we want you to take take get you into peace talks with somebody. That would be something that you could use this leverage for using it to to get a foreign government to investigate a political rival is something else entirely. So Volker testified for nine hours earlier this week. He's the first person to testify behind closed doors to the House Intelligence Committee. This is how much information we got out of that first witness. There is another person testifying today. And Tim Mack has the highly coveted assignment of

standing outside that secure room in the hallway in Congress until the testimony is over. It is an incredibly secure room. So I don't know how much Tim is able to hear right now, which makes me think he might have time for us to give him a call. Hello? Hi, Tim. Hey, how are you guys? We're good. How are you? I'm doing great. I'm here staking out the Intelligence Community Inspector General,

who's talking to the House Intelligence Committee right now. So I have a lot of questions about that testimony and its importance in the broader investigation but i feel like i really need to start with the question of like what do you do when you're standing in the hall for nine hours staking this out i think you just become fast friends with a lot of the other reporters who are here uh you stay hydrated i think that's always very important regardless of whether or not you're staking out anything. That's true. You make that point a lot in the newsroom, and I appreciate it. There's a lot of waiting for folks to come in and out and try to understand what lawmakers might be learning inside. So the inspector general from intelligence is testifying today.

And this, of course, is the person who reviewed that initial whistleblower complaint. What are lawmakers trying to learn today? Well, so what he did when he reviewed that complaint is that he found it an urgent matter, and he found the complaint credible. And so lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are trying to understand, well, who did you talk to to ensure that you viewed it as credible? And why did you view it as an urgent matter? And what did they tell you to lead you to those conclusions? Now, Tim, we just spent a lot of time going through the texts that emerged from Volcker's testimony. Is there any sense at this point whether something of that magnitude

could come out of today's testimony? We don't have that yet. And, you know, there wasn't a direct indication during that deposition that happened yesterday that these texts would immediately be released. We're kind of sitting here waiting, trying to get and report out exactly what's happening in the room, but we don't know whether there'll be revelations as enormous and as weighty as what we saw with those Volcker texts. All right, well, Tim, good luck. Let us know if you need us to bring you a book or anything.

And if... Just some gallon jugs of water would be great. Do you get Netflix down there? No, there's terrible, there's terrible, terrible reception. All right. Well, if any key new information

comes out of that testimony, we will obviously talk about it on the NPR Politics Podcast. Thank you, Tim. Thanks a lot. All right, Ryan, thanks for joining us. Thank you. I feel like we'll talk again soon.

Something tells me you're probably right, Scott. We're going to take a quick break, though. When we get back, we will talk about that other story happening, the 2020 presidential election. Specifically, we're going to talk about all those plans that all of the candidates keep churning out. We'll take a quick break. Be right back. Support for this podcast and the following message come from Aspen Snowmass,

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Hey, Danielle. Hello. You know, Danielle, you and I mostly focus on the campaign. It's been a couple of weeks where not as many people are focusing on the campaign. I know. It's weird. But we've still had a lot of news. We had done a show earlier this week about the fundraising numbers that we got in the initial days after the last fundraising period ended at the end of September.

But last night and this morning, we got numbers for two high profile candidates, Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren. What do we hear? Right. Well, so we found out that Elizabeth Warren raised twenty four point six million dollars in the third quarter and Joe Biden raised $15 million. Now, to put that into perspective, that puts Elizabeth Warren just a hair behind Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders. He has raised the most of any of the candidates thus far with $25.3 million in the third quarter. So Joe Biden is about $10 million behind Warren and Sanders. He's right behind Pete Buttigieg at $19.1 million. And this pretty much tracks with what they've raised overall. You have Sanders, he's right behind Pete Buttigieg at $19.1 million. And this pretty much tracks with what they've raised overall.

You have Sanders, Warren, Buttigieg, and Biden being the top four for overall fundraising. What's fascinating to me is I'm kind of wondering, what are they doing with all this money? I mean, they are hiring lots of staff in early states, but almost nobody's really putting on television ads. Well, that's starting to change. Biden has run a few. Bernie Sanders is starting his first big wave of TV buys. Warren, I guess you really still haven't seen yet, but she is more than anybody hiring just a ton of staff in early states.

Now, fundraising matters for a lot of reasons. It shows the strength of a candidate. It shows the base of their support, how broad it is. And it shows who can compete. But, Danielle, the thing that jumps out to me is Elizabeth Warren famously does not do big fundraisers. Joe Biden does a ton of big fundraisers. He's all over the country in wealthy pockets doing fundraisers. He has press come with him and then they send out pool reports of what he said at the fundraiser. But he spends a lot of time doing that. So it's pretty remarkable that Warren would raise almost 10 million dollars more than him. He has press come with him and then they send out pool reports of what he said at the fundraiser. But he spends a lot of time doing that.

So it's pretty remarkable that Warren would raise almost $10 million more than him. And this kind of also does double duty for her then, right? Because then she can tout, hey, I don't do the big fundraisers. Look how much I raised. The other big thing about these big fundraisers, you know, high dollar fundraisers, however many dollars a plate, however many dollars a ticket, what have you, is they really are often a really good return on investment. What really does take a lot of effort is getting that money in via email, is buying the email list, which can be crazy expensive, and then sending out an email, but hopefully not sending out too many emails that you scare people off and then getting people to respond to you. And so that does make it all the more remarkable that people do

this well with grassroots fundraising. You know, look, it's good news for Elizabeth Warren. I mean, the fact that she's hitting her stride, she's kind of starting to peak a little bit right at the right time. We're four months before the first voting in Iowa. She's starting to lead now in Iowa polls. Joe Biden is still maintaining a national polling advantage. He's still leading in South Carolina. He's within striking distance in Iowa and New Hampshire. But it's bad news for Biden if he's going to continuously be below Sanders and Warren, not just for momentum, but also for the media narrative, which also can lead to people not giving you more money or feeling like you might have problems within your candidacy.

And then maybe people start looking elsewhere. And Bernie Sanders, just to mention him as well, the fact that he ended up raising the most money, that's just yet another sign that Bernie Sanders and his campaign are going to have the resources they need to have a long, sustained run. And we did learn yesterday that he will definitely be back on the campaign trail in time for the debate that's coming up. And he expects to be out of the hospital in Las Vegas in a couple of days and he continues to recover. Also, Andrew Yang raised $10 million this last quarter. That's twice as much as he raised the entire campaign up until this quarter. Yeah, it's millions more than Cory Booker raised, for example.

So which means Andrew Yang, once again, has money to burn for at least a little while now. He's not going to be going anywhere either. So let's shift gears a little. This week, Danielle, was just like every other week in our lives and that you and I probably got 37 different emails from various campaigns saying, hey, hi, we have a new plan coming out tomorrow. Would you like to receive an embargoed copy? Yes, and then we go, yes, of course.

I mean, when have we ever said no to that? So what stood out to you guys? I mean, what got into your inbox that you felt like, oh, whoa, okay, this is an interesting plan? Well, I think to me, it's more than anything else at a certain point. It is just the constant barrage of new plans from every candidate, from every single topic you can think of. It's like, here's a 30-page paper of exactly what we're going to do. Right. And this week, I thought, did stand out because this was one of the,

maybe not the biggest week for plans, but there certainly were a lot. We had Bernie Sanders putting out his tax on companies with really high CEO salaries compared to their worker salaries. We had Elizabeth Warren with a lobbying plan. Warren and Klobuchar with plans about how to boost labor and unions. Cory Booker fighting child poverty. Joe Biden and guns. Governor Steve Bullock with a plan about limiting politicians fundraising. So just all sorts of stuff came out this week. Domenico, obviously, a lot of voters out there really want to learn as much as they can about all the candidates before they make their decision. But one of the big things we always talk about is that oftentimes campaigns, presidential campaigns especially, come down

to a clear message or a clear idea. What role do all of these plans serve candidates who are trying to jostle for attention in a very limited field right now? Well, look, the fact is, I mean, these candidates have to have policies. You have to say what you want to do in an ideal world for if you were president. But the fact is, a president only really gets two to three things that they can pick off, especially in a first term. Tops. only really gets two to three things that they can pick off, especially in a first term. I mean, right. I mean, the way Congress works is it's very linear and you've got to make a strategic push from the White House to get that big first thing through. Then you've lost some political capital and you've got to try to make a push for that second thing to get through.

And that's pretty much it for especially a first term for a president. So the question I always want to ask these candidates is, okay, great, you've got all this stuff. I get where you want to take the country, but what two or three things do you want to focus on most? What's in your first hundred days? What are you going to do? What are the first pieces of legislation

you want to put on Congress's desk? All right, we're going to take a quick break and end the podcast like we do these days, every Friday with Can't Let It Go go support for this podcast and the following message come from gelmar maker of clr for some of life's mucky moments there's clr from soap scum to bicycle rust clr gets rid of household grime using natural ingredients not harsh chemicals it even carries the EPA's Safer Choice Seal. Use it to dissolve calcium, lime, and rust all around your house. Go to clrbrands.com today to learn more about how to keep your piece of the planet muck-free. CLR, making the world a little cleaner. Support also comes from the Showtime

documentary series, The Circus. Join John Heilman, Alex Wagner, and Mark McKinnon as they give you an inside take on the wildest political show on earth. Don't miss new episodes of The Circus, Sundays, only on Showtime. Go to Showtime.com and enter the code NPR to receive a free one-month trial of Showtime. This is for new subscribers only, and the offer expires 10-13-2019. There are places in the United States where voting districts are made up mostly of prisoners who can't vote. Forgive me for not being able to articulate this the way I want to, but it's almost like your body being used. On NPR's Code Switch, the connection between the U.S. Census, politics, and prisons. And we are back, and it is time to end the show like we do every week with Can't Let It Go, which we now do on Fridays.

It's the part of the show where we talk about the things from the week that we cannot stop thinking about politics or otherwise. Danielle, you are up first. My Can't Let It Go is one that I really have not been able to let go of for days. It happened, I believe, last Sunday at a UFCW forum that is a union. It was a presidential candidates forum in Detroit, Michigan, where Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar was talking to voters and had a, you know, moderator asking her questions. And I honestly don't know how the subject turned to golf, but it did. And the moderator asked her about golf and she revealed a really touching, beautiful anecdote about playing golf. I did one time try to play golf and I kind of misfired. I have played mini golf a lot with

my family, but I misfired on the first try and the ball hit a duck in the head and it appeared to appear to perish oh yeah so anyway so i don't think it is a good idea for the bird population of america if i would play golf all right she killed a duck the look on domenico's face oh former uh presidential candidate bill de blasio once killed a groundhog but like killing a duck's pretty bad he did yeah he killed staten island chuck what what he dropped staten island chuck staten island chuck died a couple days Ozzio once killed a groundhog, but killing a duck's pretty bad. He did? Yeah, he killed Staten Island Chuck. What? What? He dropped Staten Island Chuck.

Staten Island Chuck died a couple days later. It's not definitive, but it's clear. What? This is nuts. Yeah, that's why it's not precedent. But back to this. Also, I just learned that Staten Island Chuck is a thing. He's no Punxsutawney Phil.

That's true. Not Brooklyn Chuck. He's in charge of the Senate. Oh. Or for Democrats. All right, all right, For Democrats. All right. All right. All right. All right.

But like, I, I don't know how to feel. And as you can hear from that clip, neither does the audience. Yeah. She's so matter of fact about it. I know.

It's like a duck serial killer. Murdered a duck. I can't really, like, I want to be clear for our animal loving listeners out there. I'm not laughing at the death of a duck. I just, I don't know. Like, is this supposed to be clear for our animal loving listeners out there. I'm not laughing at the death of a duck. I just, I don't know. Like, is this supposed to be a relatable story?

Because playing golf is difficult, I guess. I don't know. I don't know. But I have thought about this so often. So this is a true can't let it go. It was foul, you might say. Oh. High five.

Okay, go. Is it my turn? Yes. Sorry, sorry. I'm going to stay with the animal theme. And I'm going to talk about hashtag Fat Bear Week. Oh, Kelsey loves Fat Bear Week. So Fat Bear Week has to do with bears apparently eat a bunch of food before they go into hibernation for the winter. And the National Park Service, as a way of engaging the audience, does this thing on Twitter.

Them and a lot of the other national parks that have their social media outlets, they do hashtag Fat Bear Week. Yeah. And they do it almost like Hot or Not, where they'll have, like, you vote on which fat bear you like best. Kelsey Snell, last year during Fat Bear Week had like a favorite and she was lobbying people to vote for it. And I paid close attention, but I missed it this year. Don't objectify the bears. I mean, you know, there was one tweet.

There's a bear just sitting like, you know, like a person you know, kind of scratching their thigh and just pretty big, pretty big bear you know, at Katmai. I don't know if I'm saying that right. Katmai National Park.

And it's an early leading contender for the quote for the hashtag fat bear award. She's definitely ready for winter. A fat bear is a happy bear. Hashtag fat bear week. So the award is not for the fattest bear, right? It's for like the cutest or the... I think it's for the fattest. Just the most lovable.

I guess. But this is a situation where body type is very important for the bear's survival, right? This is true, yes. We're not objectifying. I know. I was making a super funny body consciousness joke. You know, another person tweeted, Holy ursus poop, guys.

It's fat bear week. I just watched two chunky bears wrestle and I almost started crying from happiness. Wait, was that chunky or chonky? Chonky. Yeah. Chonky. I don't know what's going on. I didn't know this existed. I'm very

happy. This is going to be my new Twitter thing. KQED Science tweeted, Today's matchup between 775 Lefty and 32 Chunk is going to be close. And we know a lot of you have Holly taking the whole tournament. She's up again on Saturday. Hashtag Fat Bear Week. Let's just do an NPR office bracket thing for this. Do you think they, like, tell the bear who won, like, hey, you won Fat Bear Week?

Or, like, bring them, like, peanut butter or something? I think we never hear from that person again. No, the bear's full. Like, hey, you won Fat Bear Week. Or bring them peanut butter or something. I think we never hear from that person again. No, the bear's full. Oh, there you go. Can't eat no more. Up high. All right, I'll go last. Mine is very on brand and basic, and I can keep it short.

Clearly, it's October. I'm excited about the playoffs. The Washington Nationals had the greatest win in the history of their franchise, which, granted, is not that long and filled 100% up till this point with playoff failures. But a great comeback earlier this week, Juan Soto winning the game in the bottom of the eighth inning, driving in three runs. And for me, very great moment of his dad ran up to him

and gave him a huge kiss on the cheek on the field afterwards. My Mets are in hibernation. Like fat bear weeks? Yeah, but it was not. They did not get fat on the way. The Mets are the hibernation. Like fat bear weeks? Yeah, but it was not. They did not get fat on the way. The Mets are the fat bear of the year. They're skinny heading into hibernation. That's never a good sign. Oh, no.

All right, that is a wrap for today. And it's Friday. And we did it, guys. We finished our very first week of being an official daily podcast. So let's end the week by thanking the team that puts the show together. Our executive producer is Shirley Henry. Our editors are Mathani Mitteri and Eric McDaniel. Our producer is Barton Girdwood. Our production assistant is Chloe Weiner. Thanks to Alexi Schapito, Dana Farrington, Brandon Carter, and Elena Burnett. I'm Scott Detrow. I cover the

campaign. I'm Danielle Kurtzleben. I cover politics. And I'm Domenico Monsonaro, senior political editor and correspondent. Thanks to everyone who helps this show run every day. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast. You need the whoop? I can change my settings. That's not the one. Scott, Scott, text me. Should we just do a bunch of different ones? No, did you get the whoop? Can we just have this be like the pod?