The NPR Politics Podcast - Weekly Roundup: The House Expels Santos, and A Clash of Two Governors

Episode Date: December 1, 2023

Rep. George Santos became the sixth person ever expelled from the House of Representatives Friday. And while Santos has been a political thorn in Republicans' side since his election, not everyone was comfortable kicking him out. Plus, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis debated California Gov. Gavin Newsom in a debate on Fox News this week. It was a glimpse of the Democratic and Republican visions for the future in a post-Biden and Trump world. This episode: White House correspondent Tamara Keith, political correspondent Susan Davis, congressional reporter Eric McDaniel, and senior political editor and correspondent Domenico Montanaro.This episode was edited by Lexie Schapitl. It was produced by Lexie Schapitl and Jeongyoon Han. Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi.Unlock access to this and other bonus content by supporting The NPR Politics Podcast+. Sign up via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org. Connect:Email the show at [e-mail] the NPR Politics Podcast Facebook Group.Subscribe to the NPR Politics Newsletter.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hi, this is Melissa, and I just finished my near-daily three-mile run through the North Carolina Research Center, Village Park, and Bakers Creek Park here in my hometown of Kannapolis, North Carolina. This podcast was recorded at 12.13 p.m. on Friday, December 1st. Things may have changed by the time you hear this, but I'll still be recovering from today's run and prepping for my next one tomorrow. Okay, here's the show. I'm jealous. I feel like we have a lot of very physically active listeners. Well, it's because they're listening to us while they're running. Well, I'm happy to keep her company. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House.

I'm Susan Davis. I cover politics. I'm Eric McDaniel. I cover Congress. And today, the House of Representatives voted to do something it hasn't done in more than 20 years. It voted to expel serial fabulist George Santos. In light of the expulsion of the gentleman from New York, Mr. Santos, the of wire fraud, conspiracy, identity theft and other campaign finance violations. Santos is just the sixth member of the House ever to be expelled. Eric, you were there. What happened? Well, I mean, a two thirds majority of the House voted to kick him out. Basically, it was the overwhelming majority of Democrats, more than 100 Republicans, though not quite a majority of them. And it seemed to me this week that he was almost certainly gone. But I have to say things looked a little shaky this morning when all of the House GOP leadership all came out against expelling Santos.

Speaker Mike Johnson, a constitutional lawyer, said he was concerned about the precedent. Santos hasn't yet been convicted of any of those charges you mentioned. Then one of his other Republican colleagues, Max Miller of Ohio, sent a letter to all of his Republican colleagues saying that he and his mother were facing tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees because of inappropriate charges that Santos's campaign apparently made to their credit cards. So I don't know what it was that ultimately convinced enough Republicans to support it. But in the end, as soon as the vote opened, the writing was on the wall.

Santos was on the floor in an overcoat, shaking hands with his colleagues, apparently saying goodbye. Wait, he was literally like, it's cold outside and I'm on my way. It does seem like that, yeah. So earlier this fall, there was another expulsion vote and Santos survived that one. So what changed this time? Well, I have to say maybe no one wants to see Santos gone more than his fellow freshman Republican congressman from New York. There are folks like Anthony Desposito and Mike Lawler. They introduced the resolution that you're talking about saying that Santos needed to go because of all of the lying, because of these criminal charges.

But it was before the House Ethics Committee report. This is a group of bipartisan lawmakers who sort of looked into all of the allegations against Santos and put out a report just before Thanksgiving that ended up corroborating a lot of what federal prosecutors are alleging. One easy way to explain the kind of thing he's accused of is this ethics report detailed how he apparently said he made high dollar loans to his campaign that they didn't actually see any deposits for, but he did indeed withdraw money to pay himself back for those loans, essentially stealing from his campaign donors. So once this ethics report came out, a lot of Democrats who had opposed his ouster in that first ballot flipped. That includes former ethics chairs

Olofgren of California and Jamie Raskin of Maryland. These are sort of precedent minded folks who said, OK, it's probably time for this guy to get out of here. Also, there was some fun, sensational stuff like spending donor money on Botox, OnlyFans, luxury items. And and this Max Miller, I mean, like a fellow congressperson is saying that he was a victim. Yeah, he's been alluding to this before, but it was just this morning that he sent all the details out to his colleagues. OK, so, Sue, there is some tension, though, about this. And we've heard this word precedent a few times.

This is unprecedented in that he has not been convicted. You know, there is a mountain of evidence, but he has not been convicted. You know, there is a mountain of evidence, but he hasn't been convicted. No, and I think that it makes a lot of sense to me that the speaker ultimately voted against it. Look, there's the brass tacks part of it that now that he's gone, they have one less vote in the House. And when you already have a four seat majority, every vote counts. I do think that there's an element of just straight politics in that, especially because a special election in the state of New York could very likely result in a Democrat being elected to fill that seat. But look, precedent matters. And what the House did today is dramatically rewrite the precedent for what it takes to be expelled from the House of Representatives.

As you noted, Tam, he has not been convicted in a court of law, which is a basis for the only two expulsions since the Civil War, which I think in the context of this conversation is the precedents that matter the most. And there has been an argument that these decisions should either be decided by the voters or decided by the courts. And look, George Santos, obviously, there's a ton of allegations against this guy, many very credible. He hasn't had his day in court. He has denied it. You know, he is claiming innocence. And they didn't give a chance to let the voters of New York decide. So, you know, it's not surprising to me that they did this. It was very popular. It was very politically easy to do it. But this precedent to me says that there could come a time when it's

maybe not as politically popular as easy to throw out somebody because Santos has been such a sort of ridiculous character in all of this, that they might there might one day come to regret that this is the new standard for what it takes to kick someone out. You know, one person who agrees with you, Sue, is former Congressman George Santos. I was at a very cold press conference outside of the Capitol this morning where he was talking about this. And he essentially said this isn't Congress's job. It's just an unfortunate circumstance to sit

here and watch Congress waste the American people's time over and over again on something that is the power of the people, not the power of Congress, which is to remove and elect to elect and remove members of Congress. I want to get you to talk about a couple of thematic things that also come out of this. One is about the power of leadership. There have been lots of shady people in Congress who have been pushed out. So to me, there are two themes here. One is the lack of power of leadership at the moment, and also maybe the lack of shame. Yeah, I mean, look, lots of members of Congress have resigned over the years, lots of them. And look, like former speakers, Nancy Pelosi, Paul Ryan, John Boehner, they all had moments in their speakership where they had to call somebody into their office and say, like,

look, buddy, you got to go. You're bad for the party and you got to do the quote unquote right thing. And I think that era, particularly among Republicans, is over. And I think we've talked about this, too. Like we kind of live in a post-shame era. A lot of the stuff that Santos did, even if it's not criminal, is pretty shameful. And he just seemed pretty blind to all of that and total disregard for any kind of personal reputation or the fact that he could actually, in fact, be a political liability to fellow Republicans, particularly those New York Republicans who are facing potentially difficult reelection campaigns. Before we go to the break, I do want to talk about other things that Congress is, in theory,

working on or should be working on. In particular, it seems the most pressing question is whether Congress will be able to come together on a funding package for supplemental funding to support Israel and Ukraine to offset China and also the border. Where does that stand, Eric? That sounds like a lot of things. It is, and it's not looking good. I mean, specifically, they want to tighten rules for asylum for people who present themselves mostly at the southern border, making it harder for asylum seekers to stay in the country while their case is decided. Essentially, Republicans are digging in. They have enough to block the bill in the Senate and saying they want a large increase in detention facilities and those who are being denied quickly

return to their home countries. Senator Chris Murphy, one of the Democrats who's been involved in these talks with Republicans, is not very optimistic. He points to how hard it has been over the last 25, 30 years to get any immigration reform through the Senate at all. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is planning to hold a vote next week on essentially Biden's proposal for all of this, but that's not expected to pass and they still need more time to negotiate. Sounds like a podcast for next week. Eric, thank you so much for joining us to talk through all of this and for being out there in the cold to hear George Santos's words. Any time. Thanks, guys. And we're going to take a quick break. And when we get back, There was a debate on Fox News last night, but it wasn't between the Republican presidential candidates. For what is the first ever red state, blue state debate right here on the Fox News channel.

California Governor Gavin Newsom and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, DeSantis is running for president, faced off in a debate hosted by Sean Hannity. And it actually revealed a lot about their competing visions for America. Here to break it down for us is senior political editor and correspondent Domenico Montanaro. Hello, Domenico. I was up late watching this, so you didn't have to. But you were too. But I did too. I totally watched it.

I mean, like, you know, curiosity. So just to start off, one question that our listeners might have is why? Yeah, good question. Why is someone who is actually running for president debating somebody who is not currently running for president? Newsom gained a lot of attention because he did this multi-part interview with Sean Hannity. And it was very peppy. They kind of went back and forth. He really challenged Hannity. And Hannity really actually kind of likes Newsom. They have this weird cable bromance, as I saw the L.A. Times describe it as. And, you know, then they sort of went in search of somebody to debate Newsom to make better TV. Right. Why not? Like, let's continue this thing.

And he created a stage. There were lecterns. There was a red carpet. There were lights. There was a background. It looked like a presidential debate. And Hannity moderated. You know, the questions were, I would say, a little favorable to DeSantis' worldview. But I think Newsom knew that and that's why he's going on Fox News. Yeah. So what is your takeaway? Like, did people watching this learn something? Well, I don't think it changed anyone's minds. You know, I think that like if you went in liking Newsom or you went in liking DeSantis or you went in hating either of them, you would probably still do. Right. I mean, it really didn't change anybody's outlook. But a couple of things I took away from this.

Number one, I felt like it was a window into the future, like of 2028, potentially of when there's no Trump and no Biden anymore. And we're going to have this collision of governing ideologies. And you can't really get very different states than Florida and California and how they're being governed currently. I do think it was interesting just from a power dynamic. Like it makes sense to me why Newsom would want to do this and engage. He clearly has future political aspirations. He's clearly willing to go engage in Fox News and more conservative media. But for DeSantis to do this as he's running for president weeks away from the Iowa caucus, it just seemed like an unusual choice and not one that would come from a position of

strength in the primary. And it kind of opened the door for Newsom to just kind of whack him over and over again about how he should just kind of get out of the race and that he wasn't going to be the nominee. And I don't know why DeSantis would open himself up for that this this close to the Iowa caucus. Well, to the 2024 point, Gavin Newsom really undercut DeSantis at every turn and mentioned it right at the top of the debate. There are profound differences tonight and I look forward to engaging. But there's one thing in closing that we have in common is neither of us will be the nominee for our party in 2024.

And one way that DeSantis was coming at Newsom was really from a personality standpoint. And this is something we've heard repeatedly about people who are concerned about whether or not Gavin Newsom can, you know, fly the Democratic banner from Democrats. You know, he's lying to you about all these other facts and figures about all this other stuff. He's just throwing stuff out to see what sticks against the wall. This is a slick, slippery politician. Slick is something we hear repeatedly about Gavin Newsom with his pearly whites and his Pat Riley hair, you know.

Very nice Laker reference there. Thank you. And if you don't know who that is, Google it. You know, Newsom is also interesting to me. Like there's a media element to this, not just what they said in this debate, but where they said it. And Newsom, even beyond this debate last night, has been very willing to go on Fox, to engage with the audience.

And, you know, just a couple of years ago during the 2020 Democratic primary, there was a big divide between candidates over whether they should even engage with Fox. And even now, I think a lot of Democrats are hesitant or won't go on at all, especially because they think that Fox played a role in sort of undermining the 2020 election results and casting doubt that Joe Biden was the legitimately elected president. And so there's not a lot of willingness to cooperate. I think this is safe to say between conservative or liberal media, if you're from the other side, like DeSantis never goes on liberal media outlets, the way that Newsom is willing to engage with conservative media outlets. And I think that's going to be a fascinating dynamic to watch going forward. And I think that

there's an element that Newsom has talked about that, like, you got to go you got to go talk to the people that don't agree with you. Right. Like you got to reach across. And if especially as like we talk about polarization, like voters are pretty siloed within their media worlds, too. So if you're trying to break through into outside of your voter that would really be the one of the biggest ones if he decides to run in 2028. And that's the idea of being a California liberal, that he's out of step with the center conservative folks and actually try to take them on, you know, from a standpoint that you don't see a lot of Democrats doing in making the case for a more progressive country. Let's talk about 2028, because these are two candidates who are definitely on the short list of people that you would talk about as potential leaders of their party, you know, the bench, if you will. What does the Democratic bench look like? I think this is such a fascinating question,

because there is such an undercurrent of 2028 for Democrats, because everyone knows that, obviously, Joe Biden couldn't serve a third term, but like age is such a question. And there's so much, I think, quiet ambition within the Democratic Party right now. I mean, obviously, Newsom. I got to tell you, one of the names that I have heard a lot recently, especially after he just won reelection, is Governor Andy Beshear, a Democrat from Kentucky. I think the energy and interest on the Democratic side is really focused towards governors. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan. Don't count out Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, Key State, Wes Moore of Maryland. They do have

sort of a bench of pretty young, you know, certainly young relative to Trump and Biden, governors who are seen as sort of up and comers. And frankly, like, there's been a lot of ambition in the Senate to run for president. But that's kind of shifted a lot of that the ambition that was there. They've either left, obviously, Obama won, but people like Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, I think that their moment has passed. And the interest seems to be looking outside of the beltway into the states for who could be sort of the next the next new big Democratic candidate. Well, the old joke is that senators wake up in the morning, take a look in the mirror and see a president. Yeah. Right. So, you know, but the fact is Republicans had for a little bit been the party of governors who were really sort of stepping up to the plate, certainly the 2012 campaign. But this feels like back to the future for the Democratic Party, because you had governors who really were the ones who kind of rose to power. If you think about Jimmy Carter was governor of Georgia, Bill Clinton,

governor of Arkansas, also coming out of the South, by the way, playing into Sue's idea of Andy Beshear, not to be dismissed, because it means that those folks are able to win over, you know, people who may be a little right of center. However, has the Democratic Party changed to the point where that's not what they're looking for? And I think that's a big thing that's going to be tested in 2028. Yeah. And I think on the Republican side, it's it's almost a little bit hard to see past Trump there. There had been this incredible bench, you know, in 2015, everybody was like, oh, my gosh, there are so many up and coming Republicans. And many of those people are diminished by having encountered Trump in the primary.

And, you know, some of the other up and coming Republicans are pretty young. So that's that's another question hanging out there. The other big question is, what does Kamala Harris do? You know, she's the vice president. She would presumably be interested in running in 2028. But frankly, she doesn't have a ton of base enthusiasm within the Democratic Party. She's not someone that seems to get sort of that the activist wing particularly excited. But, you know, she's the first female vice president. If she was elected, she'd be the first woman to be president.

She'd be the first woman of color to be president. You know, does she want it? Will she run? And how does that affect other people's calculations? Because she would kind of be seen as an incumbent in the race. We also just want to take a quick moment to note the passing of former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. She was another first. She was the first woman to ever serve on the Supreme Court and was often the deciding vote in cases involving abortion, affirmative action, national security, and more. She was appointed by President Ronald Reagan, but ended up being part of the center of the court during her time there. She was 93 years old. We're going to take another quick break. And when we get back, it's time for Can't Let It Go.

And we're back. And it's time for Can't Let It Go, the part of the pod where we talk about the things that we cannot stop thinking about, politics or otherwise. Sue. So this week there was a little bit of a medical emergency on Capitol Hill. Every Thursday, senators meet behind closed doors and they have lunch together. But at this week's lunch, Senator Joni Ernst, she's a Republican from Iowa, started choking. And she was saved by Kentucky Republican Rand Paul, who went over and performed the Heimlich maneuver on her. She tweeted about it and she said, I was choking on the woke that Democrats are trying to force down our throats. I think she was choking on the steak she provided.

This is what, this is the part of this. She's from Iowa. Yeah. This is the part of this that I can't let it go because I think it brings a lot of her political life full circle. When Joni Ernst first ran for Congress, she ran like one of the most famous ads of not only of the cycle, but I think to this day in which she touted that she was a hog farmer and she castrated hogs and she would go to Washington and cut pork. And that's kind of what made her a star. And make them squeal. So the thing about these Thursday lunches is they rotate between senators. They host.

They bring the food. And she choked on Iowa pork. So she didn't choke on the woke. Domenico, what can't you let go of? Well, you know, it has to do with Sports Illustrated, which is this, you know, vaunted sports journalism institution, frankly, for someone like me who was a former sports writer and always looked up to the writers there. But this week, it came out from the website Futurism, that some of the articles that were published had AI generated bylines and headshots and fake writers. And this is just really shocking to me and is really kind of reverberated throughout the industry. Yeah. It's also just like fundamentally journalistically unethical to present content that the reader would believe was created by a human when it wasn't. Like you could argue that

maybe if you disclose that at the top of story, like, you know, like we're in a business of like transparency and this is how we do our sourcing and all this stuff. So I can see a world in which people are upfront about the fact that things are AI generated, which is terrifying, but I think we're hurtling into that world. But not being honest with your audience about it seems to be a huge part of what the problem is as well. They had AI generated headshots. Oh, wow. That's what SI actually says was the only thing that was AI. They say that the articles that were written weren't AI, but that the bios and the names were AI generated. I think there's going to be more looking into that.

Yeah. I don't like it. No, me neither. Tim, what about you? What can't you let go of? So, Sue, I can't let go of something that you actually shared in the Washington Desk Slack. It is an article written by a journalist at The New York Times named Sopan Deb, who used to be a Trump campaign embed in 2016 and is now living his best life. And I'm just going to read a little bit. It's an article about the cookies that Cookie Monster eats. But it is so beautifully written. He says, I realized something.

Me want cookies and me want answers. He says. They're chocolate chips, right? I mean, come on. Okay. So like here's the actual answer. It is quite interesting, in fact. Did they switch to oatmeal?

No, no, no, no. Quinoa? So they need these cookies to be able to like basically shatter as soon as they come into contact with Cookie Monster's mouth. But they also can't be oily or they would stain the puppet. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, not a puppet. It's not a puppet.

It's a real creature. Sorry. Yeah, right. I'm sorry. I'm sorry to the children. So here's the recipe. Pancake mix, puffed rice, grape nuts, and instant coffee with water in the mixture.

Good Lord. And then the chocolate chips are actually just like a hot glue gun in a dark color. And they just like put hot glue on top of the cookies. Part of what I loved about this story is it kind of pulls back the curtain on how the magic happens, but that these cookies are basically just made by one woman who's worked on the show most of her life. And she tends to just make them in her apartment and like bring them to work with her every day. And I kind of laugh because it's, you know, we're public media, PBS, Sesame Street. I know it's the ownership of it's different now, but you associate it with public media. Like we don't have big budgets. Like Cookie Monster's

cookies is just like somebody at home baking them and bringing them to work. And I just thought that was very endearing to me. With grape nuts and instant coffee. Why do we do this show at lunchtime? You know, and just for full transparency, we tape at lunchtime these things. And every time we do a Can't Let It Go that relates to food, I'm just hungry. For cookies, not for grape nuts. Let's go get cookie.

All right, let's leave it here for today. Our executive producer is Mathani Mathuri. Our editor this week was Lexi Schipittel. Our producer is Jung-Yoon Han. Thanks to Krishna Dev Kalamar. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. I'm Susan Davis.

I cover politics. And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.