The NPR Politics Podcast - Weekly Roundup: Thursday, December 27

Episode Date: December 27, 2018

**CORRECTION: Due to an editing error, an earlier version of this episode stated that, upon arrival in Iraq, President Trump received a standing ovation from military leaders. The president received a standing ovation from a large group of service members.** Amidst a partial government shutdown President Trump made a surprise trip to visit troops in Iraq. Meanwhile back in Washington Democrats and the White House are unable to come to an agreement over the president's demand for $5 billion for a border wall. This episode: political reporter Asma Khalid, Congressional reporter Kelsey Snell, national security editor Phil Ewing, White House correspondent Tamara Keith, and Congressional correspondent Susan Davis. 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. And before that, I was at WITF in Pennsylvania, both places. I was covering the statehouse. Okay, so all year we've talked a lot on the podcast about state politics. And sometimes we would bring on reporters from local stations onto the podcast. But even when we didn't, the very first thing that we at NPR do every time there's something interesting going on at the local level is check out what the local member station is reporting on it. And because of the way that the whole public radio network is set up, NPR is in communities across the country at the local level, in the city hall, in the state capitol.

Which is pretty cool if you think about it. It is. So all of that is to say that if you were to go out and support your local public radio station, which we really want you to do, then you're also, by extension, supporting the NPR Politics Podcast and everything that we do. But even aside from that, it's such a great thing to support because you are supporting

fact-based public service journalism that keeps you informed about the community that you live in. And you can do that, support the podcast and support your local station, all in one place. And that is donate.npr.org slash politics. Donate.npr.org slash politics. Donate.npr.org slash politics. We can't achieve what we do. We can't achieve this mission without you. And now, here's the show. I'm Brent, and I just moved to the Washington, D.C. area

to work for the United States Patent and Trademark Office. And despite the shutdown, I'm headed to work today. This episode was recorded at 11.15 a.m. on Thursday, December 27th. Things might have changed by the time you hear this. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. President Trump made a surprise trip to visit U.S. troops in Iraq, and the government is still shut down with no sign of a deal. I'm Asma Khalid, political reporter.

I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. I'm Susan Davis. I cover Congress. And I'm Phil Ewing, national security editor. So President Trump had never visited U.S. troops in Iraq or Afghanistan. And this was not exactly expected. So I'm just curious from the get-go, did any of you all know that he was going to Iraq? There had been rumors in Washington leading up to this trip that this over the holiday season, the president might decide to go visit troops in combat. And because he has gone a very long time, he has not visited any troops since he has been elected.

Very unusual for presidents not to go visit troops in battlefields, especially over the holidays. The president opted not to do that last year. And there was a question of it becoming a little bit awkward, especially as he is making a series of pretty big dramatic military decisions in recent weeks. Well, and I think he helped spread those rumors because he kept like over Thanksgiving, he did all of these calls with with various people overseas. And and he'd be like, well, maybe I'll come visit you someday. He was dropping hints that were like, like gigantic hints. And Tam, you clearly knew something was happening, I guess, in the immediate day, at least before the trip, because you traveled with the president. You were part of the pool.

So explain to us how that all transpired. So I got a call on Sunday. Can you come to the White House right now? So I was like in my running pants and not really dressed to go to the White House. And I was like, should I change clothes? No, you don't need to change clothes. Just get over here. I went to the White House, went into Sarah Sanders office. She was like, she's the press secretary, leave your purse and your phone outside of my office. Like, OK, this is serious. She said that we were going to Iraq and she said that we could tell two people, one editor and our spouse. And that was it.

And so you guys met up then? on Christmas night is when the press gathered. They screened all of our stuff, had the dogs check it, and then had us put all of our electronics in a box that they took away. So our laptops, our phones, all of it, gone. And then the president snuck out of the White House, we're told, got into a quiet motorcade, came over, loaded on the plane, and then the plane basically took off starting from the hangar. So when you get there, what's just the vibe and the reception that the president gets upon arrival? Well, it was completely dark still. You know, like they had glow sticks down to guide our the walking paths.

The president was rushed into an SUV, not his regular beast. It was just a regular SUV rushed into the SUV and, you know, whisked off to the first event, which was the briefing with military leaders. And then he went to a dining hall, and there were a bunch of soldiers and sailors and airmen there. When he walked in, there was sort of a slow start, and then there was a standing ovation. So I want to shift gears just a bit and get back to the central question of why the president went right now. And Phil, I want to bring you in also to this conversation, because you've talked and covered a lot of national security issues. And as Sue mentioned, you know, this comes right after the president. So I think you talked about this,

right? This came right after the president had already talked about pulling troops out of Syria and Afghanistan, and then he makes this trip. So connect the dots for us here. Right. The president wanted to accomplish at least two things. First, he wanted to respond to this criticism or this questioning that Sue talked about earlier about how he doesn't go overseas to visit American troops that are deployed to Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, or elsewhere, these conflicts that have continued for so long. And second, he had just made these very big foreign policy and national security announcements about withdrawing the American military presence completely from Syria and roughly half the troops from Afghanistan. And this was such a big deal inside of Washington

that the defense secretary, Jim Mattis, quit his job because he disagreed so strongly with the president. You know, he was really unapologetic about his Syria decision, kind of mocking the generals for, you know, they kept coming back to me every six months and saying, well, we think you should stay longer. We think you should stay longer. And and finally, I just said, nope. He gave he gave an incredible speech. His his the speech he gave was really historic. The president basically said the generals were telling me what they wanted to do. And I said, no, you can't't do that I'm overruling you I said go get them we need six months go get them

then they said give us another six months I said go get them then they said go can we have one more like period of six months I said nope nope I said I gave you a lot of six months, and now we're doing it a different way. We're doing it a different way. It's kind of an amazing thing for the president to say. Commentators and Democrats often criticize the president because they say he doesn't believe what the intelligence community tells him or believe what the Pentagon says. That's not the case. To be clear, he understands what they're telling him.

He just doesn't want to do it. He disagrees, and we're going to make a break with Syria. This speech kind of blew my mind in that it was essentially the commander in chief going into a combat zone to address American troops and essentially give a pretty damning criticism of U.S. foreign policy over the past 15 years. I mean, it was totally trashing U.S. foreign policy, trashing American entanglements in in foreign wars. I mean, it was it was I've never heard anything like this from a president. And we have a clip of him actually describing us as a country is being the suckers of the world. America shouldn't be doing the fighting for every nation on Earth, not being reimbursed in many cases at all.

If they want us to do the fighting, they also have to pay a price. And sometimes that's also a monetary price. So we're not the suckers of the world. We're no longer the suckers, folks. And people aren't looking at us as suckers. It does feel like the decisions of James Mattis and Brett McGurk to leave this administration over these foreign policy decisions, the pushback we've even seen among Republicans on Capitol Hill, people like Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who are not normally critics of the president, also voicing discomfort with his foreign policy decisions. It feels like we are at the beginning of a new chapter of the Trump presidency on foreign policy and that he is really his own counsel.

It is happening without the support or the backing of his party or his military advisors. It's a historic break for American national security policy. It's a watershed moment because since September 11, 2001, the premise for national security in the United States has been taking charge in ungoverned spaces like Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan, and trying to build security there so they don't become chaotic areas of state failure where terrorism or extremist or insurgent forces can take root and theoretically, ultimately threaten the United States in the way that Al Qaeda did. I think that he thinks that everybody else is wrong and that eventually they'll just see it his way and that he'll be right.

Also, you know, the president may have a point in some regard in that I'm not sure there's a lot of people out there making the case that Iraq and Afghanistan have been huge foreign policy successes out there. That's right. You know, like these are these are decisions that have been defined by many people, including in the Republican Party, as disastrous. And what happened in Iraq and Afghanistan, there is no pathway out. There is no one has articulated the future of these countries or our relationships with them.

And I do think that the president does touch on a frustration among the rank and file. I think when he visits troops in the field, there's a lot of troops who feel that who have been deployed and deployed and deployed that define the mission. And what's so interesting is Trump is now redefining the mission. It's just not in a way that I think a lot of people are comfortable with. So, Tam, there's one thing I want to ask you about, which is in some ways this trip seemed very Trumpian in its overall character, which was his target audience was to rally the base, rally the troops. I mean, he flew into Iraq, and my understanding is he didn't meet with any Iraqi officials. And part of the U.S. troops base being there, the fact that

there are these troops there is through the agreement, through an agreement with Iraq. And so I'm curious, I mean, overall, when we talk about a foreign policy message, it seems like it was purely, like he does in many cases, just sort of rally his base, which is what we saw, right? I mean, it seems like many of the troops there were extraordinarily supportive of what he was saying. Is that fair to say? At least some of them. I mean, there were some people there who had their red MAGA hats ready for him to autograph. The people who disagreed with him, if they were there, you know, they weren't they weren't making noise. They're they're good soldiers. And they're their commander in chief was visiting. One other thing that struck out to me about this speech and

not on the foreign policy front, but and I know we are so far past bashing norms and changing the way Washington operates. But another thing the president seemed to use this speech to do, which is something that politicians try not to do when they're not in their own country, is attack his political opponents back here in the U.S., namely Democrats over the wall. Yeah, it was this remarkable moment. Typically, a president keeps domestic politics on the American shores and and doesn't use American troops as a backdrop for a political fight. But that is pretty much what the president did. This trip's coming as the government still shut down. Right. Right. And and the president actually brought up the wall in his speech to the troops at Al-Assad Air Base. We will honor your service by doing everything in our power to defend our homeland

and to stop terrorists from entering America's shores. And that includes strengthening of our borders. I don't know if you folks are aware of what's happening. We want to have strong borders in the United States. The Democrats don't want to let us have strong borders. Only for one reason. You know why? Because I want it. All right. Well, we'll talk more about that government shutdown after the

break. We're going to leave this conversation here for now. And Phil, we're going to let you go. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you. All right. We'll be right back. Support for this podcast and the following message come from Grow with Google. Digital skills are becoming more and more important in today's economy. That's from Grow with Google. Digital skills are becoming more and more important in today's economy. That's why Grow with Google is providing free online training and tools to help Americans learn the skills they need to succeed. Learn more about Grow with Google and get started by visiting google.com slash grow. Support also comes from Megatrends, a new podcast from Oppenheimer Funds. There are big investment opportunities beyond our borders from Megatrends, a new podcast from Oppenheimer Funds. There are big

investment opportunities beyond our borders. Megatrends explores and explains those opportunities. The show is hosted by author and hedge fund specialist Manit Ahuja. Tune in to hear her talk to the experts about thinking globally when it comes to investing. Subscribe to Megatrends now on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. Hey there, we're going to get back to the show in a second, but I wanted to give you another reminder that if you like what you hear, you can support this podcast by supporting your local public radio station. Just go to donate.npr.org slash politics to support fact-based journalism. Okay, back to the show. And we're back and we've got Kelsey Snell here with us now.

Hey, Kelsey. Hey there. So let's start with the latest in the government shutdown. Last Friday at midnight, the government shut down, and today it is still shut down. So, Kelsey, are we any closer to a deal at this point? It really doesn't seem like it. It doesn't seem like there's been much progress at all beyond leaders in the House and the Senate saying they're waiting to hear from President Trump about what it is he'd be willing to accept to reopen the government. But that is

exactly where we were on Friday last week, exactly where we were on Wednesday last week. We've been at this same exact place for a really long time now. Let's have a quick reminder first, actually, on what the main sticking point is between the White House and, let's say, Democrats specifically in Congress. What can they not agree on? They can't agree on whether or not there should be any money at all for building a physical bear. A bear? Let's build a bear. We don't even run a bears. What if we just have bears along the border? Oh my God, that would be so much more fun. We could just build a bear. With lasers on their heads. So there's a disagreement about whether or not there should be any money in this spending bill to build a wall on the border with Mexico. Trump says he needs about $5 billion.

Democrats originally said they'd be open to about $1.6 billion in border security and maybe some money that could flexibly be used to work on fencing along the border. But now they seem to be absolutely nowhere in agreement about what should happen. And Democrats are digging in. Tam, you were just with the president and presumably this question came up. Yeah, it came up. It definitely came up. One of my colleagues in the press pool asked the president a bunch of different ways. What would you be willing to accept? Sort of specific questions about dollar amounts or whether it's for a wall.

And despite the specificity of the questions, there was no specificity in the answers, except for the president to say that he wants a wall. He needs the money for the wall. He needs border security. This is where I start to feel like a therapist, where I'm like, are we even talking about a wall anymore? Because this is worth reminding when we talk about this. We are not having a policy argument about border security and what it will take to secure the border. We are in a political food fight between a president who sees immigration as the core identity issue of his White House and a Democratic Party that just won a wave election. I don't care what anybody else calls

it. I'm going to call it a wave that gave them 40 seats in control of the House, delivered by voters who overwhelmingly oppose the wall by 60, 70, 80 percent margins. Right. And we're and they're staring down each other and somebody's got to have and someone's going to have to blink. And I think Kelsey's exactly right. The Democrats feel emboldened right now for a couple of reasons. On Christmas Eve, when the stock market took a dive and the president was tweeting erratically and Democratic leaders Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer used this as a moment to say, look how erratic this president is. He's not someone we can negotiate with. We need to know what he's going to sign. So they're trying to paint the president as the irrational player in

here, which they have a point because the president had already said he would agree to sign a stopgap funding resolution and then changed his mind. So tell us what you will sign is kind of their last standing point. And also that Democrats are about to take over the House and they don't feel like in the politics of who's got to give and take in a negotiation. They just believe that they have a stronger hand here. Now, if nobody blinks, the shutdown could keep going for a while. But so let's talk about that then, because if Democrats are going to take over the House, which they are going to very soon, presumably they'll put together a different set of negotiation, right? They'll have a different, and do we have any sense of what they're willing to agree on? And if they're not willing to budge?

I mean, I don't know that they're necessarily going to put together a different negotiation. They're just going to pass what they said they were going to pass two or three weeks ago. They're going to go back to the opening bargaining point for Democrats, which was they worked out spending bills with Republicans in the Senate. These bills are available, ready to pass, and the House is probably just going to pass them. And I think it gives Democrats an opportunity on their first day in the majority to have one of their first acts of business be to reopen the government and or a vote to reopen the government and look more like a responsible governing party and then put the

burden back on the Senate and on the president to say, what's your next move? I just don't think the sense I've gotten from talking to staffers and most of these conversations have been over the holidays is that they just haven't been able to move the ball at all. This needs to be happening at the principal level. The president and leaders really need to engage. And there's kind of a mutual disinterest right now. While we were in Iraq, President Trump weighed in on the negotiations or whatever you want to call it and and basically was like, you know, Chuck, Chuck Schumer, he would make a deal. But Nancy, she's the problem. She doesn't want to make a deal with me because she's worried about her vote for speaker.

She's not worried about her vote for speaker. She's worried about all of the Democrats who just got elected and who she has promised them that they will not be funding a wall. And she she's pretty sure she's being elected speaker on January 3rd. And a really interesting dynamic here is how much Republican leaders have kind of washed their hands of this. That Mitch McConnell in the Senate, outgoing Speaker Paul Ryan, their kind of last way in on this was it's up to Donald Trump to cut a deal with Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer. And McConnell has essentially said, when the president tells me what he will sign, I'll put it on the floor. But that it's very much like this isn't my fight.

You guys figure it out. And that is just kind of an interesting. It's the weirdest shutdown I've ever. It's an interesting dynamic, like the party, the Republicans in the Senate, at least, or even in the House, like they have the president's back because they don't want to be on the other side of him. But it does speak to the fact that he's a really unreliable negotiator. And they're like, just tell us what you'll sign and we'll pass that. Sometimes he talks about we need this wall funding. We desperately need this wall funding. Sometimes he says, hey, you know what? There's already so much wall that's already been built in all the most important places. I don't like to talk about it much, but we've built so much wall.

And this $5 billion that they're fighting over would affect about 215 miles along the U.S. border, which is a very small chunk of the border. And most of that has existing wall on it. A lot of this funds is to go repair physical structures that already exist. So this $5 billion is about 100 miles of new physical barrier, depending on how you define that. But don't you think also it's become a larger philosophical argument? I mean, if you look at it, you know, you're right. It's not a substantive long stretch of the border. But this fight is coming after a time period where the

president and his administration separated families, mothers from their children at the border, where we've seen now more than one death of a young child in the custody of ICE. I mean, this is a broader philosophical argument. And you hear this all the time from Democratic base voters, that these are the moral things that really bother them. And I heard this, you know, ahead of the 2018 election. I think that's why we're seeing a number of Democrats just not budge on this, not because of the actual dollar amount of the border that we're talking about. And I think Nancy Pelosi has said as much that she has called the president's border strategies immoral, and that this is about something bigger than just wall funding. And I think you make a really good point, Asma, about this is all happening at the same time where two children who have been in Border

Patrol custody died trying to cross the border. That is a separate argument. That is a separate fight. But in terms of like the politics and the mood and the climate, I think that that further feeds Democrats' insistence that this is not a president who they should be negotiating with on his immigration policies, that they should fight him at every turn. And I don't think that Nancy Pelosi is managing a Democratic caucus right now that is saying to their leadership, we should cut a deal on this. I think they're saying we should fight it to the bitter end. I've not spoken to a single Democrat who has been at all interested in negotiating on this, including Democrats who come from some of the redder parts of this country.

The only way Democrats want to negotiate on this, which is like we keep going back to the original part of all this, is comprehensive immigration reform. The Democrats are willing to have, and this is the Congress has proven capable of having, a bigger, more comprehensive argument about how you secure the border and how you create a pathway to citizenship or legal status for the undocumented people here. If the president wants to have that conversation, there's negotiations to have there. But if it's just going to be about this symbolic wall fight, if there's an obvious path out, I can't see it. All right. Well, we're going to take a quick break. And when we get back, can't let it go. Support for this podcast and the following message come from SimpliSafe Home Security.

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And we're back and it is time to end the show like we always do every week with what we cannot let go. That's where we talk about the one thing, politics or otherwise, that we just cannot stop thinking about. Since it likely, I would say, could be our very last podcast until the new year, we're going to take some time to talk about the one thing from the whole year that we could not stop thinking about. Kelsey, you want to go first? Sure. The thing I refuse to let go of is, ooh, yeah, is I need some pop culture comfort food. And I am taking that pretty literally this year.

This year has been the year of cooking shows on Netflix, and I am not letting it go. I am going to spend most of the next couple of days watching Nailed It and figuring out how much of this I could actually bake. Could I make a cake pop with a face on it? Could I? Could I? Or move over to Great British Bake Off and figure out could I actually braid a loaf of bread? The answer is no. But I am not letting go of literal pop culture comfort food.

Have you made anything based on a Netflix show? Oh, yeah. I did. I made a cake with berries and a whipped cream topping. It turned out pretty well. I am not a baker, but I was inspired. You're a pretty good baker. It's not my... You're like, I'd rather watch TV. I'd rather sit there and watch somebody else cook and be like, I can imagine what that might taste like.

Those serves are so uplifting, too. Even when people fail, it's uplifting somehow. Oh, gosh. And the Great British Bake Off, they're so polite and they win nothing at all. It's wonderful. So British. Tam, you want to go next? Yeah, I think this is appropriate. So what I cannot let go of is the royal wedding.

Oh. And they're having a baby. Yes, and they're having a baby. And it's wonderful. And I think this is every Christmas. I'm not actually a royal watcher, but I think every Christmas the royals come out and greet the people and the public. Yeah. And and so this Christmas there were a couple of little girls waiting and they wanted to meet Meghan Markle. And the BBC was there to interview them. And it is just like the cutest little thing. And they, oh, I love Meghan. She has tremendous dresses.

She does. She does have tremendous dresses. Asma, what can't you let go of? All right. So I thought I was supposed to come up with something political. So I'm sorry to bring this whole conversation down. But the one thing I cannot let go of is, you know, every year we watch, especially in an election year, a lot of ads, political ads. And the thing I cannot let go of from this year is probably the most bizarre ad I saw all campaign season. There was an ad by Ron DeSantis, who is now the governor elect in Florida, who when I first saw this ad, I actually thought it was like an SNL parody.

I was like, this cannot be real. Everyone knows my husband, Ron DeSantis, is endorsed by President Trump, but he's also an amazing dad. Ron loves playing with the kids. Build the wall. He reads stories. Then Mr. Trump said, you're fired. I love that part. He's teaching Madison to talk.

Make America great again. People say Ron's all Trump, but he is so much more. Big League. So good. I just thought you should know. Ron DeSantis for Governor. I got to see this ad. I hadn't.

Oh, yeah. Wait, wait. You haven't seen this? You were on maternity leave. It is probably the craziest ad of the entire election cycle. You're like Rip Van Winkle in the podcast. I'm like, yo, what happened in the midterm? After this, I'm going to make Sue real depressed.

I have some tweets to show you. All right. Sue, you want to wrap it up for us? I will wrap it up for you and I will bring it back to the holiday season a little bit. As Tam said, I had a baby this year and I was that was the that was a real thing. I couldn't let go this year. But the the can't let it go actually happened this week. And I think because it's the holiday season, it's a good note to end on in that.

I think all of us have spent time with our families and extended families recently. And yesterday, my brother, Jerry, called me in the morning and I was here at NPR and I answer the phone and I'm like, hey, what's up? And he's like, hey, I'm going to be a little late today. I've been I just got out of a hostage negotiation that started at 10 o'clock last night. What? And to which I said, you will come up with anything not to have to come. My brother is a police detective and he did end up making it to family lunch. And he told us this story. And I just thought it was so funny is that he was in a hostage negotiation that started on Christmas night and it ran about nine hours. And he was the hostage negotiator on the phone. And it ultimately ended peacefully and no one was hurt the final demand that was asked of

my brother was he said he would come out if he would sing to him Nat King Cole's White Christmas to which my brother very gamely and the other SWAT team negotiators start quick furiously googling the lyrics on their phone and he said he took out his phone and with all his heart and soul gave his best rendition of Nat King Cole's White Christmas. Did he recreate it for you? He got about, we made him, yeah, but he got, he said there's about six verses in the song. He said he got through the fifth verse and the guy on the phone said, okay, I'll come out. And he came out and he surrendered and he was taken into custody. And my brother went over to say, you know, I was the officer on the line with you. And he looked at him and said, man, you really suck at singing.

That is amazing. So it is not necessarily the holiday story you thought you would get. But I thought it was a holiday story of its own. And I can't let it go because that is the kind of thing that happens in my family around the Christmas time. That is, we will be telling that story at all future Christmases. And as I always say, he is like forever one-upped us in the excuses game of while you were late to something was had to wrap up a hostage negotiation or something. All right.

Well, that is a wrap for today. We'll be back as soon as there is more political news that you need to know about. Until then, be sure to subscribe to our newsletter for a roundup of our best online stories and analysis. Just head to npr.org slash politics newsletter. I'm Asma Khalid, political reporter. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. I'm Susan Davis. I cover Congress. And I'm Kelsey Snell. I also cover Congress.

And Happy New Year. Thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast. © BF-WATCH TV 2021