The NPR Politics Podcast - Weekly Roundup: Thursday, December 13

Episode Date: December 14, 2018

Congress accomplished a lot of work on bipartisanship legislation this week. First they passed a bill to address sexual harassment in the House and Senate, and they moved closer to passing a bill dealing with criminal justice. Plus, after a confrontation with President Trump, Nancy Pelosi secured the votes she needs for the speakership and demonstrated she can take on Trump. This episode: This episode: Congressional correspondent Scott Detrow, political reporter Danielle Kurtzleben, Congressional reporter Kelsey Snell, White House reporter Ayesha Rascoe, and national political correspondent Mara Liasson. 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. Hey, Scott. So I cover Congress, you cover the White House. But before we both did that, we were both member station reporters. Where we covered politics. I started at KQED. I was at WOSU in Ohio, KPCC. And I also worked at KQED.

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Thanks, everyone. Enjoy the show. That's dedication. That is. That is a loyal follower. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast here with our weekly roundup. Busy week in Congress. Congress may have reached bipartisan consensus on criminal justice, and Nancy Pelosi has all but secured returning to the speakership. I'm Scott Detrow. I cover Congress. I'm Kelsey Snell. I also cover Congress. I'm Ayesha Roscoe. I cover the White House. And I'm Mara Liason, national political correspondent.

We do not get to say this that often with our Trump-centric political universe. But a lot of stuff happened in Congress this week, and there's a lot to work through. So, Kelsey, we're going to start with you and a big deal that came together in the last day or so. Obviously, sexual harassment has been a huge problem in Congress for more than a year now. Early on, as all these stories broke about all sorts of issues with different lawmakers and lawmakers resigned, there was agreement. We need to get something done. But then nothing happened and nothing happened and nothing happened. And now something has finally happened. Yeah, it was a whole lot of waiting and then a flurry of activity. Last night, they announced that they had an agreement. House and Senate negotiators had reached a deal

on a plan to update a 1995 law that basically everybody agreed was out of date. Under the old law, if there was a harassment claim made against them and there was a settlement for the person who made the allegation or a court decided in their favor, taxpayers paid for that. And it was only after a really long and arduous process that these kinds of settlements were even happening. So in the middle of the Me Too movement, a bunch of members of Congress got together and decided they were going to change things. But then for over a year after both the House and the Senate unanimously approved their bills, things just kind of sat there. And then today, the House and Senate quickly, just less than 24 hours after the new bill was announced, unanimously approved the new bill. So what's in it? What does it fix?

Well, that problem of having taxpayers pay for a settlement is gone. The new bill. So what's in it? What does it fix? Well, that problem of having taxpayers pay for a settlement is gone. The new bill would set it up so that members would be personally responsible for harassment and retaliation cases in a situation where the court finds in the favor of the accuser or if the member reaches a settlement. I have a question about this. I mean, clearly this changes life for congressional staffers, people who might come forward with these accusations. Does it help Congress's image with the public? Or was it just too late? Well, it may be a little late for this to happen. I think when I talk to lawmakers, they say that the most important thing for them was to get it done before new Congress comes in,

because this would create that whole new liability for members. And they want it to be very clear if you're a returning member or a brand new person, what your liabilities are. And they want to get this new training and harassment seminar process going so that staffers know what their recourse is. With all the attention of me to several House lawmakers either resigned or said they weren't going to run again. There was the stretch where a new story kept coming out. But to put this in perspective, how frequently was this happening without it getting much attention? Well, it's really actually hard to know because there hasn't been public reporting of this. And only since the big MeToo movement started did we actually get some reports on this. We only found out last year how many cases and settlements there had been.

We didn't actually get a full number. We just got a dollar figure. So since 1997, the Office of Compliance Processed Cases totaling at least $15 million for settlements about harassment or discrimination allegations. That's a lot. That's a very big number. But it's important to point out that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission estimates that about three quarters of all people who experience harassment never talk about it with a superior. So the information just wasn't really getting out there. And this bill would change that. This bill makes it so that there

has to be public disclosure of any settlement right when it happens and an annual report of activity. Mara, why is it that it always takes till the very end of a congressional session to get stuff done? I mean, everybody agreed that this current system was a joke, and yet it took till like weeks left. Yeah, you know, on this one, I really don't have a good answer because it wasn't like it was a political hot potato. It wasn't like there was some important part of one party's base constituency that was against this or for it. It just really, this one is a mystery. This was about Congress getting its own house in order. And it just took them a long time. I mean, really, as far as I know, it really did come down to differences about liability. And the

senators I was talking to kept saying that this has traditionally been more of a house problem than a Senate problem. And they point to the fact that kept saying that this has traditionally been more of a House problem than a Senate problem. And they point to the fact that since 1995, there haven't been any settlements from senators and that there have been a number of settlements and judgments against House members. So there was a little bit of dragging of feet on the Senate side because they didn't feel like this was necessarily an issue that they were creating. But senators are pretty powerful. They're just a hundred of them compared to, you know, House members where they're kind of like a dime a dozen. No offense to the House. I guess maybe they haven't had settlements, but it certainly is possible that something may have happened untoward that we don't know about.

Oh, yeah. And House staff certainly have said that in my conversations with them is they say that the settlements may not be there, but that doesn't mean that the wrongdoing doesn't happen. All right. So as that plays out, there's there's movement on another big bipartisan issue, and that's a bill dealing with criminal justice. Aisha, President Trump has talked a lot about this. Can you remind us who the key players are and what they're trying to do? because it is a little bit of an interesting mix of people here. It is. So in the Senate, you have Senator Grassley, Republican, and then you have Senator Dick Durbin, who is a Democrat there on the Judiciary Committee. And they have come together with a bipartisan group of senators to come up basically with this compromise. We talked about a bit about this before. It's the First Step Act. And so basically what it would do is it would reduce sentencing

for certain drug offenses and it would provide like programming and incentives for people who are already in prison to take to help them when they are done with incarceration. And so this group is working together and trying to get this passed through the Senate. And this was something pretty unusual. It was bipartisan. It was spearheaded by the White House. Yes. And since opioids, I can't think of another big bipartisan thing that Donald Trump has gotten passed. So this is a big win for him, at least so far. And I should say, so the main person in the White House that has been pushing this, and I think most activists will say the reason why this got pushed by President Trump is because Jared Kushner, this is an issue that is close to his heart. His father went to prison for tax evasion and some campaign funding stuff.

And because of that experience, Jared Kushner wanted to do something about criminal justice, prison, you know, issues. Is there a big picture summary of the types of sentences that are affected and how much they're reduced by? So the big thing is that you have this three strikes and you're out where you would get life after like three offenses. And so what this does is that it would bring it down from life to 25 years and the second strike is down lower. So that's a big difference. That's a big change. And then it also allows for people who were sentenced for crack cocaine. There was this big disparity between crack cocaine and powder cocaine. So they addressed that a few years ago, but it was for the future. And now if you were basically it's retroactive. So now people who were convicted of crack cocaine a long time

ago can apply if they meet certain criteria to try to get some relief on their sentence. The question, the big question that this raises in my mind, and maybe Kelsey can provide some insight here, is is this the beginning of things to come? In other words, this was bipartisan in some way, low-hanging fruit. This issue has been around for a long time. Everybody has known that there was a bipartisan consensus behind it. There are a couple other issues, drug pricing, maybe infrastructure, where you could imagine having similar bipartisan legislation. And I guess the question I have for Kelsey is, do you think that Congress's bipartisan compromise muscles have been so atrophied that they can't do this very often, or they can do it again? Well, we do talk a lot about how Congress has been split over the past couple of years.

And they get into these big knock down, drag out fights. But honestly, they've actually gotten a lot done. I know that that's probably not what people would expect to hear, but they got most of the spending bills passed and they did the big opioid package. And there has been a lot of agreement on some things. But I would say that you're right. There are basically only two other areas where we can expect that the White House agrees with Congress. It's less about getting Republicans and Democrats to agree sometimes up here. It's getting Republicans, Democrats, and President Trump to agree. And so you need that magical moment where the president actually

wants to work together. And it's hard for me to always know when that's going to happen. Right. And it's certainly not going to happen between now and the end of the year because they're totally at odds around the shutdown. I mean, even up here on the Hill, I will say that most of the Republicans I talk to do not see the sense in the position the president has taken on the shutdown. And every single time you talk to somebody, leadership or otherwise, about the spending bills, they say, if it were left up to us, we could get this done. All right. A lot of action on Capitol Hill this week. So much so we didn't get to all of it right there. We had an episode earlier this week. We did a long episode looking at this possible government shutdown that we could have next week centered around that meeting between Nancy Pelosi

and Chuck Schumer and President Trump at the White House. All right, Scott, I know you've got some reporting to do, so we're going to let you go, but please don't go too far because we have to bring you back for the end of the show when we do Can't Let It Go. All right, see you guys later. All right, and we'll be right back. Support for this podcast and the following message come from SimpliSafe Home Security.

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And we're back, and now we have Danielle Kurtzleben with us. Hey there, Danielle. Hello. And you're going to be joining us for a big conversation about Nancy Pelosi. Right, and it's been a big week for Nancy Pelosi. We had a podcast episode on Tuesday about her clash with Trump on live TV. Mike Pence was there. Chuck Schumer was there. I don't know if you guys saw this. Yeah, just a little bit of attention on those 17 minutes of interesting television. But then aside from that, she has shored up even more support for her run

for speaker of the House. So now we're going to take some time to walk through this week and what it means going forward for her. So let's start with that Trump meeting. Ayesha, what happened on Tuesday? So at this meeting, they brought the cameras in, which they typically do. And it's just a quick photo op. But here they kind of Trump and Nancy and Chuck or Chuck and Nancy they went at it. I also know that you know Nancy's in a situation where it's not easy for her to talk right now and I understand that and I fully understand that we're gonna have

a good discussion and we're gonna see what happens but we have to have border security. Mr. President please don't characterize the strength that I bring to this meeting as the leader of the House Democrats who just won a big victory. Elections have consequences, Mr. President. It was almost him jabbing back at her, though, right? Because it started out where he was making that big, long opening statement full of things that she definitely disagreed about. Right, because he was trying to say, I would have the votes for this border wall. Yes. Yes. Well, after that whole big opening statement, he turns to Pelosi and then Pelosi immediately starts talking about a Trump shutdown. And that's really what set him off. And that you should not have a Trump shutdown. You have them. And so as soon as she said Trump shut down, he was like,

what? What did what did you say? What? And not long after, he defaulted to his kind of primal position, which is to be as tough and tough sounding and brave as he can. And he said, yeah, I'll shut down the government for the border wall. Sure. You know, I'll take it on myself, which is, of course, exactly what Chuck and Nancy wanted him to say. But what really struck me about this whole encounter was that this was Trump's idea to bring in the cameras. Chuck and Nancy thought they were going up to have a private conversation with the president, maybe with a little pool spray at the beginning or the end. But Pelosi was able to use this live TV, which is usually the perfect venue for Trump to show that

he's in charge, making deals, whatever. And she really turned the tables. Not only did she give him a nickname right at the beginning, or at least she called the shutdown the Trump shutdown. So she gave the shutdown a nickname, which immediately got a rise out of him. But she also was able to hold her own. And when he tried to mansplain to her about how things work in the House, she came back to say, if you think you can pass it in the House, why don't you put it on the floor? And she said, and you can't because you don't have the vote. Well, she has the benefit of being correct there. Yes, yes.

Well, so now we are going to have her in charge for two years. I mean, has she shown that she can be Democrats foil to Trump and be an effective one for two whole years? Foil. I think that he wants her as a foil. I think she showed that she's a worthy adversary, not a foil. Yeah. She came off ladylike, but that's kind of one of the tactics she's employed throughout the entirety of her career. She will be in public a very put forward, a very reasonable face, a very calm face. And she talks all the time about how she wants to be the reasonable person, the person who who is coming to the table no matter what the negotiation is. But then she knows how to have a knife fight in private. You know, Donald Trump has made his political career, as short as it is,

on dominating people and humiliating them and getting the best of a fight. And I think she showed in that meeting that she can play on his turf and come out ahead. OK, so we've already talked about that earlier this week. Let's move on to what happened yesterday, where Nancy Pelosi secured enough votes to win the speakership by promising to hand over the power in four years. You know, a lot of people opposing her were asking her why she should be the leader when, you know, so many of the new members of Congress got into Congress by promising to their voters, hey, I'm not supporting Pelosi. So does this address those concerns? Is everybody coming away happy here? I'm not sure if everybody's coming away happy here. And it's entirely possible that the majority of no votes from Democrats against Pelosi will be new members. She did make this deal where

she would only be speaker for one more term. It would set it up so that anybody in leadership could only stay in a leadership job for three terms, and then they would have to move on. Can we just pause for a minute? She is 78. Yes. That seems like... Wait, the huge concession she made

was to step down when she's 82. That's a joke. This is not. That is the huge concession that she made. So it's not really for her. This is named at her necessarily. Oh, it is. It's named at her. It's named at her, but it shows how she outplayed them yet again. I mean, you know, we talk about all these people, old people who are running Washington. She is the oldest, but she is the wiliest. Well, and it's also really interesting that the caveat here is that the exception is that somebody could run for a fourth term in leadership if they can get more than two thirds of the vote from Democrats. And her aides will happily point out that she has won every single time she's won a leadership position with more than that.

So there's a bit of an escape hatch for her if she decides that, you know what, maybe I need just a little bit. Maybe I really need to stay until I'm 90 years old. Right. Now that she's kind of sewn this up by agreeing to these term limits, has she really addressed those concerns that she's not in touch with the younger people, that she's not, some of the new people coming in felt like she wasn't liberal enough. She's too cozy with corporations and all of that stuff. Like, has she put those concerns to bed? She talks about this all the time, that no matter what she does, she will be attacked for being the wrong kind of Democrat. She's fine with that,

is basically the way she explains things. And no, this doesn't fix that problem. But I actually think that the meeting that we were just talking about fixed some of her problems in a different way. It made people who were uneasy about what kind of leader she was going to be feel a little bit more secure that she was going to stand up to this president. She wasn't just going to pass legislation. She wasn't going to go soft on him. It was a really strong signal to a lot of people that Nancy Pelosi is here and she is in charge. Let's zoom out a little bit. We are just coming off of this year when women, especially Democratic women, have had this absolutely record-breaking year at the polls. And so, you know, Pelosi, the first woman speaker, locking this up again, really seems to be a sort of fitting

cap to that. But I'm wondering, especially for those of you who have been watching Congress for a while, is Pelosi being received differently now than she was when she first claimed the speakership? You know, we'd really have to go back and do a kind of careful study of the coverage of her ascending to the speakership the first time. She definitely was not on the cover of Time magazine, I can tell you that. She'll tell you that. Yeah, she will tell you that too. So, you know, I think that the historic nature of her first speakership probably was not given the weight that it deserved. But, yes, I think it's fitting and it's also significant that the counterpoint to Trump, the balance of power to the president now, is a female person. Right.

Trump is an overtly, heavily masculine guy. Yeah, macho-ness is his stock and trade, or at least pseudo-macho-ness or some kind of macho-ness. But she kind of took on this, and she said that she felt like she was a mother. She's trying to be the mom in the room. She was trying to be the mom in the room. Right, between Schumer and Trump. So there was also this kind of this dynamic of her kind of playing this up of she is in charge. But in almost I don't know, is it non-threatening to be the mother, to be the grandmother? Is that more non-threatening?

Possibly. I mean, it's certainly a familiar role. I mean, but but this does bring up sort of speaking of familiar. There's this there is this thing going on right now where, you know, especially young millennial women, there's a certain amount of worship of, you know, people like Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Elizabeth Warren. And I kind of saw this in the memification of Nancy Pelosi this week. She got that. With the sunglasses and so on. I mean, this strikes me as a relatively new new phenomenon of holy cow, I need to cross stitch RBG or something. No, or like, yeah, it's like this is this idea. And I wonder, is it, you know,

RBG, Nancy Pelosi, maybe Maxine Waters, like they're older women. So is it almost that is for society is more acceptable for them to they're not seen as being overly ambitious? Well, I also think that it's important to remember that Pelosi kind of wore a hero's cape for Democrats when she got the Affordable Care Act through. She was really credited for... She heaved it over the finish line. Yeah. And at that time, she was hugely popular among Democrats. And while we didn't have the internet to create memes, she was having a moment. She was viewed as this feminist icon. And I think that we forget that

sometimes because we've been so wrapped up in the minutia of this past election cycle. But this is not new for Pelosi. And, you know, just a couple of quick points. Number one, she's been demonized by Republicans in campaigns for many, many election cycles. That attack lost some of its power this time. And some of the discomfort with her among some Democrats have been that she's not a good face for the party because she's so easily demonized. OK, first of all, that lost some of its power. Second of all, the Democrats do have an age problem. Their leadership is too old. They've kind of missed a whole new generation of people.

But that should not be conflated with Nancy Pelosi. You know, and she is extremely competent and she's the right leader for the moment. But that's kind of separate from the Democrats' need for a new generation of leaders. So maybe this is a time where experience and having experience is being looked at as a huge plus because we've had a lot of novices. Oh, there's no doubt about that. I totally agree with that. All right. Well, with that, Mara, I know you've got to go, but thank you for joining us. Thanks for having me. We're going to take a quick break. And when we get back, you can't let it go.

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Let's keep that going. Yes. So for my Can't Let It Go this week, it is Nancy Pelosi, not Nancy Pelosi herself, but it's her coat. That coat that she was wearing when she left the meeting. Capital T, capital M. Yes. With the president and Senator Schumer. She was wearing this awesome, I call it red, but I don't know if it's a, it's kind of like a. Brick color.

It was like a brick color. It was basically, it's a Max, is it Max Mara or Max Mara? I am not, I'm not a label person. I believe it's Mara. I don't know. But anyway, it's a coat. And they've actually... They are, like, bringing it back because I think it was, like, from the 2013 season. Like, or it hasn't been around since then.

But there was so much demand for it because it was just, like, this power coat, really. It really popped. It was very sharp looking. Yeah. Yeah. And then I think it was the way she wore it and then she threw on the shades as she was leaving just to kind of give it that extra oomph. I think that really sealed the deal. I saw like a side by side of her in the shades and Peggy Olsen from Mad Men in that last scene.

I saw that circulating on Twitter. It's pretty good. Yeah. So it's like, I mean, and apparently Ian Griffiths, who is the creative director for Max Mara, told the New York Times, you develop an emotional relationship with a coat like nothing else in your wardrobe.

I can imagine why Ms. Pelosi chose to wear it for this important moment, and I'm honored. So he's saying that clearly this coat helped her. Can we just quickly fact check that more emotion to your coat than anything else? I am a coat person. I'm honored. So he's saying that clearly this coat helped her. Can we just quickly fact check that more emotion to your coat than anything else? I am a coat person. I love coats. I am known to have six winter coats. I have two now. That was a big update for me from the one coat I wore everywhere. Yeah, I have like one, but I would love to have more. I'm a winter coat obsessive. It's one of my very favorite things, winter coats and boots.

All right. So I'm going to go next and we are going to circle back to President Trump's ongoing search for a chief of staff, which, despite his protests otherwise, has not been going so well. There had been an early rumor that Trump was interested in the president of the New York Yankees, who said he was quite happy running the most successful franchise in sports and not interested. But there is another contender from the world of baseball as of this morning. And that is one time all star Jose Canseco, better known these days as one of the early steroid abusers in baseball and many other things. He knows how to testify before Congress. Sure does. Political experience.

Jose Canseco tweets this morning. hey, little buddy at Real Donald Trump. Little buddy? Wow. It goes from there. Hey, little buddy, Real Donald Trump, you need a bash brother for chief of staff. Got a secret reorg plan already. Also worried about you looking more like a Twinkie every day. I will buff you up with daily workouts.

DM me. Hashtag, yes, we Canseco daily workouts. DM me. Hashtag YesWeCanSeiko. Oh, my gosh. What is his plan, his workout plan? His workout plans have not been on the level in the past. They were. I guess they were. It depends how you define work.

And then what he did now to CanSeiko, was he one that dropped a dime on others or was he caught up? Because, you know, they don't, we don't like rats over here at the White House. That's the problem. This is why he can't do the job because he wrote the first tell-all book on Star Trek. He's got an entire book about it. It's called Juiced, in case you didn't get it. It's dishy.

So anyway, DM Jose Canseco. But again, he'll probably write a tell-all book. So the job's probably not for him. Danielle. All right. Jose Canseco, but again, he'll probably write a tell-all book, so the job's probably not for him. Danielle? All right. I'd like to start my click by asking you guys, what have you accomplished today? I got out of bed this morning. That's a good start.

Okay. That works. Yes. That's it. And, well, I fed a hungry one-year-old who was up from four to seven in the morning. I dealt with that. That is a hell of an accomplishment. I'll give you that.

I ask you because I have a tweet from an economist named Paul Romer. And the tweet runs down one of his recent days. Schedule for December 10th. Breakfast. Tell parents about surprise noontime event. 10 a.m. Rehearse for award ceremony. Noon.

Get married. 4.30 p.m. Receive medal from the king. 10 a.m. Rehearse for award ceremony. Noon. Get married. 4.30 p.m. Receive medal from the king. 7 p.m. Go to dinner with my new wife, our families, and 1,200 others. Because Paul Rober, you see, won the Nobel Prize for economics and got married in the same day. Wow. That's a lot of stuff to do in a single day. I like that he surprised his parents, too, as a part of it. Wait, about getting married? Or like, I don't know if you know I won the Nobel Prize. Because that would be like a passive-aggressive family thing. Like, I guess you didn't notice my Nobel Prize.

I don't know if you read the papers. Just bring it to dinner. I don't know if you read FT, Mom and Dad. No, but like, no, it was a surprise about the marriage. But yeah, he got married to... Wait, so they were not surprised about the Nobel Prize, but they were surprised about the marriage? Yes yeah, he got married to... Wait, so they were not surprised about the Nobel Prize, but they were surprised about the marriage?

Yes. They knew the Nobel Prize was coming, but they didn't know the wedding was going to happen that same day. Right, because they announced the Nobel well ahead of time. Okay, yeah. So, yeah, so Paul Romer,

there was an article in the New York Times then about this, which didn't include these juicy details he included in the tweet about surprising his parents. But yeah, it says that,

you know, on the same day that he got the Nobel, he married Caroline Weber. She is an author and she is a professor of French literature at Barnard College. So she's accomplished in her own right. But yes, same day they decided, you know, let's just let's just get all of the big, awesome accomplishments out of the way. And speaking of big, awesome accomplishments, she has this turquoise colored caftan on in the photo, which I also highly approve of. Wait, but so forever their anniversary will also be the anniversary of when he got a Nobel Prize? I guess he stole the thunder a little.

That's the thing. Do you want to share your wedding day with a Nobel Prize? I mean, and then people will be like, well, which one was the bigger part of the day? He's going to have to answer that question forever. Man, I didn't think this would be controversial. At any rate, Kelsey, your turn.

This week, Congress was actually supposed to be leaving after this week. And traditionally, towards the end of the session, after an election, that time is set aside for outgoing senators, people who have lost or who are retiring, to give their farewell speeches. Well, they're still doing that, even though they've got to stick around next week to deal with this whole, you know, shutdown spending bill thing. Well, Claire McCaskill of Missouri did hers today. And she started it out by saying she doesn't like farewell speeches, but she's doing it anyway because, well, a lot of traditions have already gone out the window in the Senate. And that is kind of an indication of how things went. She kind of got into a little bit of some fire, dealing some fire over at the Senate. I think the most interesting thing is when she said,

we have too many embarrassing uncles in the Senate. The Senate has been so enjoyable for me. But I must admit, it puts the fun in dysfunction. Very uplifting. Peter Morgan, an author, said no family is complete without an embarrassing uncle. We have too many embarrassing uncles in the United States Senate. And their names are? Lots of embarrassing stuff.

We've surpassed our embarrassing uncle quota. Yeah, so she's just spitting fire here on the Senate floor While everybody else is praising their staff And talking about how great trips to space were I like that though You know, if you're going to give a farewell speech Or you're leaving somewhere I think that you should be able to just be real about it

And just say, you know, I don't care You guys suck Live your true self Alright, so that is a wrap for today. We'll be back in your feeds, as we always are, when there's news to talk about. And we do have a fun announcement, though. We are hitting the road. We will be in Atlanta in early March.

It's the first of several live shows we're going to be doing next year called The Road to 2020. So if you want to come see us in Atlanta, it is March 8th. Tickets go on sale Friday at nprpresents.org. And stay tuned for other locations that we will announce pretty soon. Can't wait to see you there. I'm Scott Detrow. I cover Congress. I'm Ayesha Roscoe. I cover the White House. I'm Kelsey Snell. I also cover Congress. And I'm Danielle Kurtzleben, political reporter.

Thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.