The NPR Politics Podcast - Weekly Roundup: Thursday, April 4

Episode Date: April 4, 2019

This episode: President Trump is backing down from his threat to shut down the U.S. Southern border .Trump had issued the warning in a bid to curtail surging border crossings by asylum-seekers from Central America. And congressional Democrats attempt to get Trump's tax returns. White House correspondent Tamara Keith, national political correspondent Mara Liasson, justice reporter Ryan Lucas, political reporter Tim Mak and chief economics correspondent Scott Horsley. 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, Tam, guess what? What, Scott? Big news. We're doing another live podcast on the road. We're going to be in Philadelphia. In fact, we are going to be there on April 26th to record a live podcast on stage all about the 2020 election. We just did this in Atlanta. It was great. But here is the catch. We need your help to make sure it's the best podcast possible. And the way to do that is to head over to NPR Presents.org and grab a ticket to be in the audience. That's Friday, April 26th in Philadelphia. We'll see you there. Hi, this is Prateek and I'm from Columbia, Missouri.

I got my citizenship last year in November. And today I'm going to cast my vote for the first time in the U.S. for the local mayor and school board elections, which I'm very excited about. This podcast was recorded at 12, 12 p.m. on Thursday, April 4th. Things may have changed by the time you hear this, and I would have voted for the first time in the U.S. Okay, here's the show. Congratulations.

That is awesome and more awesome that you are voting in local elections, which matter more to our personal lives than a lot of other elections. That was a great timestamp. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. I'm Mara Liason, national political correspondent. And I'm Tim Mack, political reporter. And we are welcoming back a familiar voice, Scott Horsley. Hey, Scott. Howdy. Great to be back.

I mean, most people didn't know that you left. But last time you were on the pod, we referred you as White House correspondent. And now you are? I am NPR's economics reporter. No, you're economics correspondent. He's staying humble. Scott is always too humble. My real title is chief economics correspondent, which is a little more grandiose than it sounds because I'm the only economics correspondent. I am a chief with no followers. Well, it is good to have you back and you are here because we need your help. Today in this pod, we are going to talk about a bunch of things. We're going to talk about President Trump's threats to close the border, Democrats stepping up their investigations into

the president and a potential security breach at the president's Mar-a-Lago resort. And we are going to start with the border. President Trump has been threatening all week to close the border with the U.S. and Mexico. They don't stop them. We're closing the border. They'll close it. We'll keep it closed for a long time. I'm not playing games. So, Scott, what is happening at the border that makes the president think that he needs to close it? Of course, we should also say that he has threatened this several times before. That's right. And this is his response to a wave of migrants, many of them children and families coming from Central America and seeking asylum when they reach the United States. And just last month, we saw, I think, the highest number of border apprehensions in a decade, about 100,000. So now this is a time of year when border crossings do typically peak

because it's a kind of nice time to be traveling. It's not too cold. It's not too hot. But we are certainly on pace to see a relatively large number of crossers for recent history, although we're still well below the totals that we were seeing, say, around the year 2000 when illegal immigration was at its height. So does this require immediate action as dramatic as what the president is suggesting? Can you give us a little bit more context on what the numbers are and whether we're actually seeing a crisis? The overall numbers are still well below what we were seeing a generation ago, but this is a qualitatively different flow of migrants because we are talking in many cases about children and families and in many cases

coming from Central America, whereas around 2000 it was mostly single men coming from Mexico. And the law requires the government to deal differently with young people who cross the border and to deal differently with people who come from Central America than people who come from Mexico. It's much easier to deport a single man from Mexico than it is to deport a 12-year-old who comes up from Guatemala or Honduras. So the president has insisted that he doesn't want to simply release these migrants into the U.S. interior to wait out the process while their asylum claims are being heard. And so in many cases, they are being detained in facilities. And with these numbers, those facilities have gotten very crowded, and it's taken a lot of people and materiel to handle that. as opposed to somebody sneaking across the border who can be deported immediately back. These are people who have some kind of legal protection by international law.

They get a hearing. U.S. law and international law. And now the Trump administration argues that in many cases these migrants are gaming the system or exploiting that system, that the reason they're coming as families, for example, is because they know that the law requires the U.S. to treat families differently than would treat single men. They know the right words to say to pass the first asylum screening process and then be admitted to the U.S. In some cases, that may be true, that there is some gaming of the system or taking advantage of the way the laws are written. One of the things the

administration wants is for Congress to go in and rewrite those laws so they could deport people more quickly. It seems very unlikely that Congress is going to be in position to make those changes. Mara, can we talk politics for a second here? Why would the president be talking about shutting the border down? The border and immigration was the president's most important issue in 2016. His critics say that he's inciting racial panic, that he wants his base to be afraid of what he's called an invasion of immigrants. And he thinks that's one of the most motivating issues for his base. This week, I had a chance to ask Larry Kudlow, who's the president's top economic advisor about this. As you know, his economic advisors are very worried about the economic impact. Some of them have called it catastrophic. This is Republicans in the White House and on Capitol Hill, if he does close the border down. And the way he explained it was, he said, it's an exclamation point. It shows his

seriousness. This is such an important issue. There's a principle here. In other words, just he made the analogy to the government shutdown, something that Larry Kudlow didn't like. But this is the way the president shows what he cares about most and what he thinks his base cares about most. And the president does have a history of making very loaded threats, oftentimes not following through on them, but following through just often enough that no one can really be sure he won't go through it. And the government shutdown is a good example. He could threaten to shut down the government. Nobody thought that was a good idea.

It proved not to be a good idea, but in the end, he actually did it. Nobody thinks shutting down the U.S. border with Mexico is a good idea, but in the end, he actually did it. Nobody thinks shutting down the U.S. border with Mexico is a good idea, but nobody can rule out the possibility that Trump may just decide to go through with this. And interestingly enough, the Mexican government, Lopez Obrador, has said he doesn't believe that Donald Trump will actually do this. Well, and it's not clear that Donald Trump even believes that Donald Trump will do this. As the week went on, the president has gotten a little bit squishier about whether he would actually follow through. I'm ready to close it if I have to close it. Mexico, as you know, as of yesterday, has been starting to apprehend

a lot of people at their southern border. Now, that sounds like the president's starting to sort of declare victory. I've achieved what I wanted for an exit ramp. I've achieved what I wanted through my threat. And in fact, there's no evidence that Mexico has done anything differently than what they've been doing all along. Our own John Burnett's been on the border reporting. There's no change in Mexico's behavior. But the president, by saying that Mexico's done what I wanted, it seems to be looking for a way he can declare victory and not have to close the border. Right. And unlike the government shutdown, which did have a small economic impact, shutting down the border, according to the president's own advisors, would have a big economic impact. Scott, you have been doing some reporting on that. In

your new role as chief economics correspondent for NPR. It would be a bombshell on the U.S. economy and in particular, certain industries. The automotive industry is one that is very highly integrated. As one analyst told me, it's not just that we trade cars and parts back and forth across the border. They are literally assembling cars in Mexico, the U.S. and Canada. And they need all three of those countries participating just to complete a finished automobile. About more than a third of all the parts that we import for automobiles in this country come from Mexico. So I've been told that if you literally did close the border with Mexico, you would have some auto plants shutting down within hours,

and you would have really the whole North American industry grind to a halt within a week. But more importantly, avocados. Avocados would also take a hit, but not just avocados. I mean, tomatoes, eggplants. I think that it doesn't really hit home when you talk about parts to automobiles. But if you take away people's avocados, that's really where Americans are going to feel the pain, right? I disagree. It only affects people in blue states who like avocado toast. No!

You don't have to use avocados on toast. You can use them in salads. I'm struggling to find a third thing. Guacamole. But there were reports this week that hypothesized, hey, if we close down the border, we're going to run out of our avocado supply in a matter of months. Is that right? Oh, weeks. Weeks. Weeks. Weeks. And you know what? Regardless of what actually happens, whether the border is shut down or not, in one way, Trump has won. And that is that he has made this what people are talking about. And one of Trump's metrics for success is to dominate the media narrative, to keep people

focused on the border, whether or not he shuts it. That's not the definition of success. Now, sometimes dominating the media narrative is not the same as winning the argument. But at least he's got this issue front and center as if it is the most important problem facing the country. All right. We are going to leave that conversation here for now. Scott, we have to say goodbye to you again. I'll be back. Yes, you'll be back. All right. We are going to take a quick break. And when we come back, security concerns at the president's Mar-a-Lago resort and a slew of new news related to House investigations into the president. Support for this NPR podcast and the following message come from BetterHelp.

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Parks and Recreation, Greta Lee and Leslie Hedlund from the Netflix series Russian Doll, and many more. Listen this Friday. And we're back. And we are joined now by none other than Ryan Lucas, NPR justice correspondent. Hey, Ryan. Hi there. So there have been a lot of developments this week. So many, it's hard to keep track of them all, related to House Democratic investigations of the president and his administration. There have been a bunch of subpoenas authorized. And also this. Yesterday, the House Ways and Means Committee sent a request to the IRS for six years of President Trump's tax returns. And this is a big deal because unlike all the other modern American presidents, President

Trump has not shared his tax returns as he was running for president or even as president. Tim, what's up with this? Well, you know, this is a big thing because the president has run on being such a successful business person. It's been the backbone of his campaign, the backbone of his qualifications to be president. And a lot of Democrats have long suspected maybe he's not as successful as he has portrayed himself to be. And the answer for a lot of Democrats to that question would be in his tax returns. So the House Ways and Means Committee, through an obscure part of the law, can request certain tax returns for individuals,

and they're doing it in this case. Well, it's any individual, isn't it? I believe you can use this for any individual. It's been sparsely used because usually Congress is not interested in delving into the personal tax returns of a single American citizen. And what's interesting about this is that this is a multi-pronged approach from House Democrats. interested in this. The House Oversight Committee has said that they've been talking to an accounting firm with access to some of Trump's tax returns, and that they are considering issuing subpoenas for 10 years of Trump's tax records. And I believe that the committee has said that the company is willing to do so, so long as they've been subpoenaed. They kind of want subpoena coverage in order to provide these. They're willing to provide these documents, but they want legal cover in the form of a subpoena. Right, that they were forced to do so. Okay, I got a question though,

guys. Just because they're curious, they want to see if the president's as rich as he says he is, they have to have a better reason for that. There have been a lot of suggestions in the press through investigative reporting about whether the Trump organization broke any laws when it comes to taxes or insurance claims or loans. And what is Trump's response to this, Ben, so far? He's tweeted about it. You know, he's always said, oh, I can't release my returns because they're under audit. And yesterday, he said, I'm always under audit. I think that the House Ways and Means Committee could easily figure out

whether he's under audit or not by asking the IRS. And then the president would have to decide if he wants to make a legal fight about this, he could order the IRS not to turn them over, and then it goes to court. And on the question of audits, I think that Michael Cohen was actually asked about that during his testimony on the Hill. And he said that he was never given any indication from the president himself that he was indeed under audit. It was basically stonewall, stonewall, stonewall. The question for me is, is this even an answer which prevents him from providing those tax returns? Does being under audit mean you can't provide tax returns? No, there's no bar against that. As a matter of fact, every United States president has his tax return audited.

Like once you're president, it's an automatic thing. Yes, that's correct. So I have a kind of 30,000-foot question for you guys. I was gone for two weeks. I was on vacation. Congratulations. and this kind of continued Democratic press in the House, there has been a lot of pushback from the White House about how this is essentially Democrats going after a president whom they hate. This is driven by hatred and not actual investigative needs. How is this push for tax returns going to play politically? And does this help or hinder the president?

I think that it's incumbent on the House of Representatives to say why they want them, how it fits into an investigation about the president. They have to explain that. Otherwise, the president can say you're just on a fishing expedition. But opposition congresses investigate presidents of the opposite party. That's what happens. And for the Democrats, they always are going to have this challenge of balancing pushing legislation, even if it can't get passed by the Senate or signed by the president, pushing legislation that helps them lay down a marker for 2020, explains their message, what they want to do, and investigation. So they've got legislating and investigating, and they have to make sure that they do both in correct measure. Otherwise, the public could conclude that all they're doing is going after Trump.

OK, let's turn to Mar-a-Lago. This is the president's resort in Florida. He likes to call it the Winter White House, though it's becoming quite clear that the security procedures there aren't anything like they are at the real White House. And Ryan, this week we learned that a Chinese national was arrested there. That's right. This is a very curious incident. There are a lot of kind of holes in information at this point in time. But what we do know is from what was filed in a criminal complaint, the woman's name is Yujing Zhang. She's in her early 30s. What she managed to do was illegally get onto the grounds of the club. She, at the first checkpoint, told the Secret Service that she managed to do was illegally get onto the grounds of the club.

She, at the first checkpoint, told the Secret Service that she wanted to go use the pool. She was allowed in. She had a different story once she was inside. She said that she was there to attend a United Nations Chinese American Friendship Association event. She was detained, questioned by the Secret Service. In the course of all of this, it turns out that she was carrying four cell phones, a laptop computer, an external hard drive, a thumb drive that contained malware, as well as two Chinese passports. I bring all that stuff when I go to the pool. She didn't have a swimsuit with her, actually. Why would you need two passports to go to the pool or even to go to Mar-a-Lago? Or even to go to Mar-a-Lago? There are a lot of questions that come out of this.

It's not entirely clear who this woman is, what this is all about, whether this is something sinister, whether it's something silly. It does raise concerns about possible espionage. However, obviously, China is a major espionage concern for the United States. They are very aggressive in going after U.S. government secrets, U.S. trade secrets. And Mar-a-Lago is, this is a rich target. This is not like Camp David. This is not a hermetically sealed U.S. government facility. This is a private club. And so for the Secret Service to try to protect this and seal this off and keep the president physically safe is not impossible. It's not all that hard to do, I was told by a former Secret Service agent. What's very difficult in a place like Mar-a-Lago is keeping it clean from a counterintelligence perspective. Right. And this goes into all the questions that have

been raised about Donald Trump's security procedures or lack of them. Talks on a cell phone that some people have said is unsecure. Likes to mingle with the public at Mar-a-Lago. So a lot of questions about how safe and private his conversations really are to people like the Chinese who want to hear what he's saying. And remember, this is not the first time that there has been an incident that raises security concerns at Mar-a-Lago. There was the incident back in 2017 when he was having dinner on the terrace at the club with the Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. And there was a North Korean missile launch. And suddenly they turned their dinner table on the terrace into like an

open situation room. And they're talking about how to respond. And guests were taking pictures of them and posting them on Instagram. That incident, as well as the incident that happened over the weekend with this Chinese woman, points to counterintelligence concerns for people in the Secret Service, people in the intelligence community. This is not an ideal environment in which to have to try to protect government secrets. All right. Changing gears. In an earlier podcast this week, we talked about a former Nevada Assemblywoman, Lucy Flores, who said that former Vice President Joe Biden had acted

inappropriately at a campaign event in 2014, kissed her on the back of the head. Biden gave a statement after that first allegation. Since then, a few other women have come forward to say that Biden made them feel uncomfortable at times as well. And then Biden responded by putting out a video. Social norms have begun to change. They've shifted. And the boundaries of protecting personal space have been reset. And I get it. I get it. I hear what they're saying. I understand it.

And I'll be much more mindful. That's my responsibility. My responsibility. And I'll meet it. Mara, does this actually change anything for him? Vice President Biden was aware, and so were his advisors, that this stuff would come out. It's all on tape. He's done it in public.

He's a very tactile politician. The women who have complained about this say it made them feel uncomfortable, but that none of them said it was sexual in nature. And the interesting thing about this whole episode is that it went on and on and on without hearing from the former vice president until that video. His staff put out statements, but this is the first time we've heard him talk about it. I think it got some positive reviews.

People said, good, that statement is the way to talk about it. He talked about his own responsibility for respecting people's space. And the big question is, how much do Democrats care about this? And I think it depends on which Democrat you ask. When you talk about Democrats as the zero tolerance party for Me Too incidents, what do they have zero tolerance for? A kiss on the head. It's easy to say you have zero tolerance for sexual harassment or sexual assault. But all of the other things, you might want to call them microaggressions, Democrats have to figure this out. And that's what's going to be really interesting when and if Joe Biden gets in, whether this is a big deal or not. Well, and he's definitely acting like somebody who's going to get in. Why do you put out that video? Yes, of course. Everybody thinks he will, but until he does, we get to say when and if. All right, we're going to take a quick break, and when we come back,

can't let it go. Support for NPR and the following message come from the American Beverage Association. America's beverage companies are working together to support families as they reduce the sugar in their diets. Coke, Dr. Pepper, and Pepsi are providing more great tasting options with less sugar or no sugar at all. Smaller portion sizes, clear calorie labels, and reminders to think balance. More choices, smaller portions, less sugar. Learn more about how they're working together at balanceus.org. Now that ISIS has lost all its territory, what happens to the people ISIS left behind? She chose to take herself out there. She should stay in Syria and rot.

And what about their children? How It Ends, a new series on Embedded. And we're back and we're going to end the show like we do every week with Can't Let It Go, where we all talk about one thing we just can't stop thinking about, politics or otherwise. And I am going to go first. So President Trump is expected to name Herman Cain to the Federal Reserve. Herman Cain, does that name ring a bell for anybody? Sure.

999. Godfather's Pizza. Does indeed. 999. So he was a presidential candidate in 2012. I was assigned to cover his 999 tax plan, which he explains this way. Throwing out the current tax code because it is a mess and then passing legislation with a 9% business flat tax, a 9% personal income flat tax and a 9% sales tax.

So that is the 999 tax plan. So I was all ready to dig in on the 999 tax plan when all of a sudden all of these allegations of sexual harassment came out against him. And so instead, I ended up chasing him around the Capitol trying to ask him about sexual harassment. So shortly thereafter, he went from front runner in the Republican field to pulling out of the race, no longer running for president. And he ended his campaign with this. When I believe these words came from the Pokemon movie, the media pointed that out. I'm not sure who the original author is. So don't go write an article about the poem.

But it says a lot about where I am, where I am with my wife and my family, and where we are as a nation. Life can be a challenge. Life can seem impossible. It's never easy when there's so much on the line. So, you know, I think that this could be adjusted to be a poem about the Fed funds rate. The big question for me is whether we're going to be aiming for 9% inflation.

Right. I have a question about the poem itself. It actually is from Pokemon? So my understanding is that there is a Donna Summer song that was on the Pokemon movie soundtrack and that is where it came from. But Herman Cain kept saying

a wise man once said or a famous poet once wrote. And it turns out the famous poet was the Pokemon movie and Donna Summer. It's not like they couldn't have Googled that and figured that out back in 2012. It was a long time ago. It was many moons ago. It was many moons ago, but I believe we did indeed have Google back then. All right, Mara, what can't you let go of? What I can't let go of is the current it candidate in the Democratic field, Pete Buttigieg, otherwise known as Mayor Pete. He is the 37-year-old wunderkind mayor of South

Bend, Indiana, who is getting tremendous amounts of buzz in the Democratic primary and raising a lot of money. And in my inbox this week was a article he wrote in 2003, which for him is not that long ago, when he was a student at Harvard where he had a very thoughtful analysis of a new album by Dave Matthews. But it got me thinking, what can't this guy do? He is a Norwegian-speaking jazz pianist, Arabic interpreter, gay, married, Rhodes Scholar veteran. He's 37 years old. Did I say that before? And he's running for president.

And the great thing, what I can't let go is the great thing about being the current It candidate is he isn't going to be subjected to the same kind of scrutiny that other candidates are. People can just revel in all the wonderful things about him. The thing that jumps out to me the most is that he was at Harvard in college in 2003. I mean, I was attending college in and around that time. He's incredibly young for someone who is not only a candidate for president, but running his own town and is rising in the polls. Wait, wait, wait. Did he say that Dave Matthews was good or bad? Because that could really affect his presidential campaign. No, it was a thoughtful exegesis about the current, the new 2003 album of Dave Matthews and how it compared to previous ones and how it fits into the post 9-11 political climate. Ryan, why can't you let go? So I'm going to shift gears a bit into the world of sports.

So also going to give a bit of a shout out to my roots. So I grew up in Wisconsin. I can't call myself a lifelong Bucs fan because the Bucs were horrible for most of my life, to be quite frank. But the Bucs are finally back. They are legitimate. With four games left in the NBA season, they have a two-and-a-half game lead atop the Eastern Conference. This is something that I very much enjoy to see. I never thought that I would necessarily see this happen, that the Bucs could win the conference. Winning an NBA crown is something else entirely.

We'll see what happens. But this has been a fun year as a temporary Bucs fan or a resurrected Bucs fan. And I can't actually say that I've watched a game this year, but I do check the standings. But you're still very excited. I'm still very excited about this. Tim, what can't you let go of? I'm going to shift gears a little bit, too. I mean, my plague this week is about Nipsey Hussle.

He's a rapper who was killed this week. But I don't want to focus on the downside of that. I want to focus on his legacy and what he leaves behind. I mean, this is a fascinating character. Nipsey Hussle is a deeply motivational rapper who came from a life of poverty and escaped a life of gang violence. He had been associated with the Crips in his early years to become a very successful rapper who was intensely interested in investing back into his own community. He was really interested in diversity in Silicon Valley and in tech. He was really interested in getting some sort of pipeline between the inner city and Silicon

Valley. He even started a community center just so that youth in Crenshaw, California, could get interested in technology and in science. And it really raises bigger questions about the kind of character we expect, not only from our our politicians but also from the people we put on when we listen to music and when we watch movies and things like that as well. Yeah, and the tragedy is he was supposedly about to meet with the police to work with them on solving gang violence when he was killed. Right. The day after he was killed, he was supposed to have a meeting with the LAPD about how do we get kids out of gang violence. We'll be back as soon as there's news you need to know about. In the meantime, head to NPR.org slash politics newsletter to subscribe to a roundup of our best online stories and analysis. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. I'm Mara Elias, a national political correspondent.

I'm Tim Mack, political reporter. And I'm Ryan Lucas. I cover the Justice Department. And thanks for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast. So I suppose this means that you had heard of him before he was killed? Yes, and he's a very popular... And did he name himself after Nipsey Russell? I don't... Who is a comedian. I don't...

Long past, I think, but I'm assuming that's why he took that name. I'm going to have to get back to you. I'm going to have to get back to you. Because, yeah, Nipsey Russell, I mean, we can Google him. Let's cut this embarrassing question because I don't know the answer to that question. I'm going to look that up. You've never heard of Nipsey Russell? I don't know who Nipsey Russell is.

Nor do I. Nipsey Hussle. Nipsey Russell, Nipsey Hussle, American comedian. Let's see. Nipsey Russell is. Nor do I. Nipsey Hussle. Nipsey Russell, Nipsey Hussle, American comedian. Let's see. Nipsey Russell. You got a picture? Yeah, his stage name, a play on the name of comic Nipsey Russell, originated as a nickname.

Thank you, Mara, for being so old. And so right. Erudite was the word we were looking for. Nipsey Russell, born 1918. Mara, you're not that old.