The NPR Politics Podcast - Weekly Roundup: Thursday, February 15

Episode Date: February 16, 2018

A familiar scene, and familiar words from lawmakers, after 17 people were killed Wednesday at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. A week after White House aide Rob Porter resigned over domestic abuse allegations, President Trump said publicly for the first time that he is "totally opposed to domestic violence." And with Congress still struggling to reach a deal on DACA and immigration, how would either outcome — bill or no bill — motivate voters? This episode, host/White House correspondent Tamara Keith, political reporter Asma Khalid, editor correspondent Ron Elving 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 there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast at 1.55 p.m. on Thursday. Things may have changed by the time you hear this. We are here with our weekly roundup of political news. Today, President Trump addressed the country after 17 people were killed yesterday in yet another school shooting, this one in South Florida. To every parent, teacher and child who is hurting so badly, we are here for you, whatever you need, whatever we can do to ease your pain. Also, a full week after White House aide Rob Porter resigned over domestic abuse allegations, Trump said publicly for the first time that he is totally opposed to domestic violence.

And with Congress still struggling to reach a deal on DACA and immigration, how would either outcome, bill or no bill, motivate voters? I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House for NPR. I'm Ron Elving, editor correspondent. I'm Mara Liason, national political correspondent. And I'm Asma Khalid, political reporter. Woo! Asma's back. Hey, yes I am. I know when I left last time it seemed like I was never going to come back.

You kind of gave us that impression. I know. Well, we're so happy you're back. And I'm sorry that you have to be back to start kind of where we've left off so many other times. I know. I feel like we've all done this podcast before where we come into the studio after a really terrible mass shooting somewhere in America. And we sit around and we try to talk about it and we try to make sense of it. Just in the last four months, we have had three really significant mass shootings in America. There was the concert

massacre in Las Vegas, the awful church shooting in Texas. And then yesterday, it was Parkland, Florida. 17 people were killed at Marjory Douglas Stoneman High School just before the end of the school day. It was normal class day in the last period. And with five minutes left in class, the fire alarm went off. Morning Edition this morning had the voices of three students who were there, and I want to hear them. They are Brandon Minoff and twin sisters Madison and Mackenzie Carew. So we all went out, and apparently that's when the shooter started shooting. One of the teachers grabbed me and put me in the office with like 50 other kids.

I saw every single teacher hiding behind a chair. There was gunshots, so we started evacuating. We made our way outside. They made us run out off of campus as fast as we could. I just headed to the Parkland Library and I called my mom on their phone and I told her to come get me. These things are just really hard to hear and I think also really important to hear these voices. This morning, President Trump delivered a message from the White House to the nation. It is not enough to simply take actions that make us feel like we are making a difference. We must actually make that difference. Which leads to the obvious question,

how? The president did not specify what he meant by taking actions that might make us feel better, but one could speculate that that might be the kind of action he has opposed in the past, which would be some form of control over the kind of weapons that are being used in these mass shootings. But Ron, I mean, what does that really look like and how is that even possible? I mean, this is my first pod back right after a year. And I was just telling you all that I feel like it's deja vu. I remember being on the campaign and the Orlando shooting happened. And there was all this discussion at that point under then President Obama. I feel like it's deja vu. I remember being on the campaign and the Orlando shooting happened.

And there was all this discussion at that point under then President Obama. Right. And it feels like I mean, it feels so similar, obviously, different setting, different scene. Same state. And the politics has not changed. You do have one party that is dominated by people who think it's time to go back to something like the ban that we had on certain kinds of weapons. Starting in the early 90s, it lasted for 10 years. It was allowed to sunset. That would be the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party. And then the Republican Party was in the majority when the 10 years had passed. So the law sunsetted and expired. It has never been restored. And all other attempts to in any way limit any kind of weapons, including these bump stocks that are not even guns,

but something that makes it possible to make a more ordinary weapon function like an automatic weapon. Even those kinds of efforts have been essentially ignored by the majorities in Congress. So this morning on CNN, they were interviewing a lot of people and there was one young man, he's a student at the school, who at one point basically just turns to the camera and has a message seemingly for the grownups. His name is David Hogg. What we really need is action because we can say, yes, we're going to do all these things, thoughts and prayers. What we need more than that is action. Please.

We're children. You guys are the adults. You need to take some action and play a role. Work together. Come over your action and play a role. Work together, come over your politics and get something done. So look, I know that it's absolutely conventional wisdom, which I subscribe to, that nothing is going to be done in Congress. As long as the National Rifle Association, which is the most powerful and effective lobby in the United States at the moment, has its iron grip on the Republican Party, no gun laws are going to be passed on a national basis. I do think that these school shootings set back the NRA agenda to loosen

gun laws. They were pushing for something, a federal law called constitutional carry, which would mean that even if your state has restrictions on the open carry of firearms, if somebody came from another state that allows it, they will be allowed to cross state lines, you know, federalism be damned and carry a gun anywhere. That I don't think will happen. But I do think you are hearing something. Instead of merely saying now is not the time, laws can't make any difference, people kill people, guns don't kill people, you're hearing at least lip service being paid to the notion that this student just expressed that Congress should do something. You had Steve Mnuchin, the Treasury Secretary, and Betsy DeVos, the Education Secretary,

both say today that Congress should look into gun violence. Marco Rubio, I think because he's a senator from Florida and really couldn't avoid going onto the floor, getting up and saying, well, you could pass a law. It might not stop all of these. But he at least acknowledged that you could pass a law. And because of what happened yesterday and because it's happened so often, people from across the political spectrum are arguing there's got to be something we can do. You have to be able to do something. And I agree with that sentiment. I understand it. And I would add, though, that if we do something, it should be something that works.

And the struggle up to this point has been that most of the proposals that have been offered would not have prevented not just yesterday's tragedy, but any of those in recent history. And I'm going to say now what I'm going to really emphasize at the end, just because these proposals would not have prevented these does not mean that we therefore just raise our hands and say, therefore, there's nothing that we can do. I think this issue, I think that things are set in stone in Washington, D.C. I don't think that they are as completely one-sided in places that have had these shootings in this election year. So this is the second mass shooting national news terrible wrenching event in florida in the period of like a year

and a half year and a half i guess you're talking about pulse i'm talking about pulse so i guess it's been yeah okay in a year and a half florida's governor rick scott is in the center of this he is likely running for senate i don't think he's officially running yet, but he is almost certainly running for Senate. And there was some nuance in what he was saying. He brought up mental health, as Republicans do at a moment such as this, and as certainly President Trump did this morning. But he also said we've got to try to keep guns out of the hands or keep people with mental health problems from touching a gun or getting a gun. Also, we want to make sure this never happens again.

The next week in Tallahassee, I'm going to sit down with state leaders. We're going to have a real conversation about two things. How do we make sure when a parent is ready to send their child to school that in Florida that parent knows that child is going to be safe? Number two, how do we make sure that individuals with mental illness do not touch a gun? And this is the point at which there is a small policy point that we should discuss, which is that early in the Trump administration, President Trump signed a piece of legislation, it's called the Congressional Review Act, to roll back an Obama-era regulation that would have... Now, it isn't... Ron, you're actually going to help me explain what it did.

The Obama administration had allowed, through regulation, the sharing of information between the Social Security administration regarding people who were on disability for mental health reasons, if they could no longer take care of themselves or their finances. And that information under this Obama regulation could be shared with the background check database to see whether or not those people should qualify for gun ownership. It would have affected about 75,000 people, we're told, and President Trump signed the legislation, gladly signed the legislation that rolled back that regulation. And we should point out that the ACLU and the NRA were on the same side on this. They felt it was

an invasion of privacy. And even if you had information that you were collecting social security disability for some mental deterioration in your file and it went to the background check process, it doesn't mean that they could constitutionally disallow you to have a gun because you have to be adjudicated mentally ill or incompetent in order for that to happen. And in this case, it certainly wouldn't have affected him. A kid who put up some incendiary YouTube videos, who talked in a weird way at school. I mean, is that going to reach some kind of disability? Right. Yeah. And presumably a lot of mental health cases are private situations that never actually rise to the level of collecting disability. It was a very small gesture in the direction of trying to limit the access to guns that is so much a part of American life.

Somebody with a handgun would not have been, I don't think, been able to kill 17 people. With access to guns in general. Yes, but I think that the assault weapons ban is the thing that would have had the most concrete effect on keeping the casualty rate down in most of these shootings. And let's just say I can't think of a single Republican lawmaker, and they control both the statehouse in Florida and the House and the Senate here in Washington, D.C. I can't think of a single Republican lawmaker who is calling for a return of the assault weapons ban. But what's so interesting to me is even Jeff Sessions today saying, you know,

this is horrible, something know, this is horrible. Something dangerous and unhealthy is happening. We're watching these images of children streaming out of their schools. It cannot be denied that something dangerous and unhealthy is happening in our country. And we are once again watching the images of children terrified, streaming out of their school, hands over their heads. So we've got to confront the problem. There's no doubt about it. We have to confront the problem. There's no doubt about it.

When he says confront the problem, what does he mean? Well, we don't know. person on the Republican side who still has the courage of their convictions and is not mealy-mouthed about it is Ted Cruz, because he says, we don't want to take away the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens. That's not the right answer. In other words, that is an honest expression of where they are. Everybody else, and that's why I think the politics of this might be shifting in some small way. Why do they even have to pay lip service? Partly because we're in a political election year. I mean, I know that sounds crude, Politics of this might be shifting in some small way. Why do they even have to pay lip service? Well, Jeff Sessions doesn't. Partly because we're in a political election year.

I mean, I know that sounds crude, but like if we were not facing midterms in November, would we be even seeing this lip service? But honestly, that suggests that the Republicans might pay a price for having this position. Which they can't believe. Why don't they just say, we're in charge. We won. This issue is ours. The intensity is on our side. And just leave it at that. They're not doing

that. There's a reason because suburban Republican women are some of the voters who are having second thoughts about Republicans. And this plays to sort of your heart and emotion here. Well, and Jeff Sessions, of course, doesn't have to run for reelection. He doesn't have to raise any money and he doesn't have to have the blessing of the NRA to be the attorney general of the United States. Asma, you have over time looked at sort of what motivates voters. And certainly in 2016, Hillary Clinton went all in on saying we're going to try to do gun control. And Donald Trump went all in on she's trying to take your guns away. And I'm a Second Amendment guy. Where is that intensity? I mean, I don't know where it is at this point, right? Leading up, as Mara says, the voting demographic of midterms is very different than our national electorate.

And it is a demographic where we are going to see suburban women in particular be sort of a key demographic. And I know as I say that out loud, it sounds so crude to be talking about the politics of this all in this moment. But I also think it reflects on why we're hearing politicians say different things in this particular moment. All right. On that note, we are going to take a quick break. And when we come back, immigration and also the Rob Porter scandal, which seems to be not really going away for the White House. for you. Access all the amazing services of the post office right from your home or office and skip the trip. For a four-week free trial plus postage in a digital scale, go to stamps.com, click on the microphone at the top of the homepage and type in politics. Get the story of how Chicago made a president in the new WBEZ podcast, Making Obama, with interviews from the former president, his mentors, advisors and rivals who were there from the beginning. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. It's available now.

All right. We are back. And on the policy front, this is or was supposed to be a big week in Congress on DACA. That's the program for dreamers and immigration. But with lawmakers set to leave town tonight for a week, the chance of them passing an immigration bill before they go seems like there's really no chance. A bipartisan group of senators has come up with a bill, but the White House doesn't support it and today threatened to veto it. Mara, I was up on the Hill today for a couple of hours and the sense of urgency just simply wasn't there. And even sort of the bipartisan group of senators who got up and said they had a deal, they just didn't have a lot of optimism that it was going anywhere fast. You were just on a call with a bunch of White House aides. What's really interesting, first of all, one of the reasons that the urgency is not white hot

right now is that the March 5th deadline that the president laid down, he gave Congress until March 5th to legalize the DACA program. If they couldn't do that to his satisfaction, he was going to lift the protections on DACA recipients from deportation that Obama had given them. He was going to kill the program. He was going to kill the protections on DACA recipients from deportation that Obama had given them. He was going to kill the program. He was going to kill the program so that all of them would be technically subject to deportation. Of course, they might not be prioritized. But the point is they lose their work permits and they would be subject to being arrested and removed. And also losing your work permit is not an insignificant thing. Yes, it's a huge thing. Now, March 5th, many members of Congress and the White House feel might not be the real

deadline anymore because it's in court. And the White House has appealed to the Supreme Court to agree with them that this law is unconstitutional. And it's highly unlikely the Supreme Court will rule by March 5th. Now, the president doesn't need the Supreme Court ruling to allow him to end DACA. DACA was an executive order by Obama. An executive action. I'm sorry, what an executive action can give, an executive action by the next president can take it away, which is what's happening here.

But what was so interesting to me is that after that incredible 55-minute on-camera meeting on immigration with the president and a bunch of members of Congress where he famously said, I'm going to sign whatever you give me. You guys work it out. Just say it over. They have gone to the absolute other extreme of threatening to veto a bipartisan bill that would solve the DACA problem, give a path to citizenship for these people brought here, in many cases, illegally by their parents, and give the president some of the things that he insists upon, which are funding for a wall. He wants restrictions on family reunification. He calls it chain migration. He wants an end to the diversity lottery. Now, the thing that struck me about this call was how aggressive they were,

the White House officials, against the senators who are part of this bipartisan group. It was a remarkable assault. Not only have they threatened to veto this bill, but they asked reporters on this call to go to every one of the sponsors' offices and ask them if they were willing to drop their sponsorship of this legislation. They said these senators who have sponsored this are grievously misinformed. They said this is a catastrophically drafted amendment. What's their big criticism? The biggest criticism is what it does to legal immigration. And that's what's so interesting. This started out as a debate about illegal immigration. What do we do with these people who were brought here illegally? Now it's morphed into something much more. The goal of the Trump restrictionists who want to

change the demographic makeup of America to the extent that they can, one of the things they disagreed with and what really objected to in this piece of legislation, bipartisan legislation, was, quote, the total size of the legalized population could reach 10 million people. So this is really about legal immigration. And that is a whole different debate. The last time Congress actually passed restrictions on family reunification, that means when you are a green card holder or a citizen, you get to bring your spouse and your children and your parents. The last time Congress agreed to that, to switch to something called merit-based, part of that deal, Gang of Eight bill, was to

offer a path to citizenship for 11 million people who are here illegally. That's not what the White House is asking to do. They're kind of grafting their legal immigration restrictions onto a very narrower problem of the DACA recipients. What is fascinating to me is that if you looked at this bipartisan bill, it does have a path to legalization for 1.8 million people and deals with the DACA problem, which the president says he wants dealt with. It gives money for the wall. $25 billion over 10 years. Which is what he asked for.

Which is what he asked for. But he wanted it a little sooner, but still. He wanted it sooner and he wanted it more guaranteed to happen in the short term so he doesn't lose control of part of Congress or get voted out of office. He wants this wall to happen as fast as possible. But what is fascinating is, more or less, he is getting what he ran on. He is getting the wall that he ran on. He didn't run on completely restructuring the legal immigration system in America. And yet now the thing that he ran on isn't enough.

What's interesting to me is the president actually could have had a huge victory. The Democrats were waving the white flag on the wall. Which is remarkable. He would have gotten the bragging rights. I solved DACA where Obama couldn't. But instead, he has held out for a maximalist position on legal immigration. And that means that he might end up with nothing. And then he has a decision to make. And we did ask the White House officials on this call, OK, let's say nothing happens, which most people expect will be the outcome. March 5th comes around.

Are you going to start deporting him? Well, you've got two courts that have already said you can't. What did he say, Mara? Right. Well, we have to wait for the Supreme Court to rule. But he said they won't be a top priority. But then again, all laws should be enforced. So we already know what's happening with deportations. Sure, criminals are supposed to be the number one priority. But if you have an interaction with the criminal justice system or any official in America, you are subject to deportation as many, many non-criminal immigrants are being deported today. Or if you show up at a hospital or if you're just living your life, you could be deported today. Just for a moment, think of this from the standpoint of Donald Trump and his supporters and a lot of these groups that are out there pressuring the to be right away because an offer of $25 billion over

10 years, as we all know from covering Congress, well, we'll see what happens and we'll see when that money actually happens. And if you lose control of the House in November, no piece of that wall will ever be built. But the thing that's so interesting is those groups were holding out for the wall. It looks like the Democrats are willing to give him that. And the original kind of political analysis was, OK, the base anti-immigration groups will swallow amnesty, path to citizenship for the Dreamers, even 1.9 million of them, if they get the wall. But it turns out not anymore. They want something much, much more sweeping to do with legal immigration.

But I've been doing some reporting actually on looking at voters and how the immigration bill, or let's say lack of an immigration bill, would actually affect both Democratic and Republican voters. And one of the biggest takeaways that I've noticed is that in many ways, you know, as much as the president talked publicly about the wall, for a lot of his base voters, it was not just exclusively about the wall. You know, Whit Ayers, he's a GOP pollster, he kind of summarized what this was about in pretty clear terms. Let's take a listen. Immigration for Republican voters is symptomatic of a lot of other problems facing the country. For opponents of immigration, the issue taps into fears of economic pressures that have so damaged the blue-collar middle class, as well as fears

that we're losing our culture, that a country that's spoken English since its founding is becoming bilingual. People I talked to said you should not underestimate the power of the cultural factors in the 2016 election. One political scientist I talked to said that he spoke with voters in 2012 and he knew how they voted and he knew how they felt about immigration. And then they revisited those exact same voters in 2016. And what he said that there were about a quarter to a third of white Obama voters who had felt very conservative about immigration. And you saw how they voted and they were able to match that up with how they voted in immigration. And you saw how they voted, and they were able to match that up with how they voted in 2016. And they saw a movement.

And so he said, for his analysis, one of the clearest indicators of a shift in voting behavior was how people felt, how voters felt about immigration, about race, and about Muslims in particular. There's no doubt that the president has chosen a base strategy. He believes that ginning up the base, keeping them energized and excited and feeding them as much red meat as possible, including these kind of pretty maximalist immigration positions, is the way to win in this year's election. I don't, I truly don't know if that's the way it's going to work out, because when a community of legal immigrants feels threatened, they have voting power too.

So this is an interesting thing. He has never failed, even when he makes a little foray into a kind of bipartisan compromise zone, he always comes back, always gets snapped back into a maximalist base pleasing position. I actually kind of wonder the offer of a path to citizenship for 1.8 million DACA recipients. Was this and that is a hard thing for the president to offer to his base. He got beaten up on Breitbart and all over on the far right. Seen as amnesty. Seen as amnesty. But it was also he was they were putting it out there as this great, generous thing. But then they linked it to all these other things that they knew Democrats wouldn't like. Was there an effort here to really upset Democrats, turn off Democrats?

Because now they're going to say Democratic lawmakers turned down this really generous thing. Well, they're going to say that, but that's not what was happening. They were getting tremendous pressure from, certainly the House Republican Conference didn't like what they just had to vote for in the funding bill. Too much government spending. And they've put Paul Ryan on notice. Don't make us do this on immigration. So they're going to pass something that the president is really going to like in the House. And I don't know what, if anything, is going to come out of the Senate. But to me, it looks more and more like we're going to be left with no immigration bill.

And President Trump is going to have to decide whether or not to deport the Dreamers. And that is potentially dangerous for him. And that could actually motivate Democrats. What I was hearing is that, you know, Latino voters, they were expected to turn out in mass in these record numbers in 2016. Their share of the voting population did not increase in 2016, you know, despite what everyone had predicted. And I was speaking with a political scientist at UC Berkeley. His name is Chris Sabedamia. And he told me that, you know, the idea that insults motivate voters, he's like, that is a sort of loose link. It might motivate you to say that, oh, I don't like him, but it doesn't necessarily turn you out at the polls.

He said the bigger distinction is that actual policy, and we've seen this, he says, in history, could actually increase the voter turnout. Well,'ve seen historically is Latinos will mobilize and unite against something. We saw this in California. We've seen it in other states as well. When there's anti-immigrant legislation looming, Latinos tend to come out at higher rates. And what Trump can fall back on or will fall back on if he is forced into a situation where technically he removes the DACA program and he then can prioritize or not prioritize the actual deportations. So they are fairly limited. And plus, he can also say, well, gee, if the Democrats cared so much, you know, why weren't the Democrats

willing to play ball with me? And you already have a fair number of people who are angry at the Democrats for not having stuck to their guns when they had the chance to shut the government down. We know the answer, but there are people who are angry the Democrats didn't keep the government shut down for the sake of the Dr. Dreamers. But you also have the Dreamer community who is absolutely against a deal that would drastically cut legal immigration in return for their own legalization. That's right. That is their stated position. And I'm not questioning that it is their position. I'm just saying that in terms of something that's really rubber meeting the road, that's going to have to be deportations or it's going to have to be the passage of a truly anti-immigrant law, which I don't see happening because the Democrats can stop it in the Senate.

And for what it's worth, the president has insisted that there will not be mass deportations of DREAMers. It's one of those things where you just have to sort of wait and see, I guess. We would expect it would be like the deportations we see now. No, there are not mass deportations. But every week there is a story about a law abiding teacher, sometimes community college professor who's lived here for 40 years. Business owner. Who get caught up and get deported. There certainly will be examples of dreamers and DACA recipients. But I am curious what the long-term consequences would be, because I can't tell you the amount of white millennial voters I talked to last election cycle

who had friends who fit this description. Long-term. Yeah. Long-term. Sometime in the next decade, sometime in the 20s, then you're on to something. But for November of 2018, we're still looking for the evidence. And it's still a midterm year. And midterms are different rules.

We don't know. We just, we don't know. The rules only work till they stop working. All right. One more thing to talk about before we get to can't let it go. So there's this scandal that rocked the White House last week. And it turns out it is still rocking the White House as we speak. The resignation of a top aide named Rob Porter after his two ex-wives said publicly that he had abused them.

Now, he continues to deny it, but this has consumed the White House and has raised serious questions about how the Trump administration handles security clearances. As in, there are a whole lot of people and we don't have an exact number, but it is a very big number of people in the executive office of the president who are still operating on interim security clearances. Is it larger than 100? I've seen that reported. That was a couple of news organizations got a list of people who had interim clearances as of November. Now that that number has probably shifted since then. But yes, it's a big number. I mean, we're not talking about seven or eight or 12 or 15. It's dozens. Scores, apparently. Including Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law, who does a lot of sensitive work. And Ivanka Trump. Scores, apparently. answers to that question. So now this committee that is run by Republicans, including Trey Gowdy, the South Carolina Republican former prosecutor who did the Benghazi investigation,

they're going to look into it. And then there is the other political thing, which is the president of the United States made it an entire week until he said this. I am totally opposed to domestic violence of any kind. Everyone knows that. And it almost wouldn't even have to be said. But he still felt he needed to go out and say it. And he said it three times. Well, after for a week not saying it, having spokespeople come out and say,

no, of course the president opposes domestic violence. But up until that point, the only statement he had made had been in praise of the former employee who had been accused. And saying that people were having their lives destroyed by mere accusations and strongly implying that possibly Rob Porter was the real victim here. But he let him go anyway. He let him go because at that point, you know, the White House was looking a lot like it did when the Brits went through during the War of 1812. You mean like in flames? On fire. And he has a really serious problem with his chief of staff, John Kelly, who is the man who was supposed to be the great bringer of calm,

and yet has now found himself caught up in the chaos, largely because of the Rob Porter case and the uncertainty about what he knew and why he was telling a different story. And so all of that has really gotten to be such a big deal. The president really had to come out and say, I oppose domestic violence. But is the question, does he oppose domestic violence? No one supports domestic violence. The real question is, how seriously do you take accusations of domestic violence or sexual abuse or sexual harassment? How seriously does the president take that? I don't mean to sort of be the total contrarian to everything here, but I've been doing some pre-interviews with some folks in eastern Ohio, because I'll be heading there soon. And these are Democrats who are upset that their area of Ohio went for Trump in the last election.

And they felt really frustrated that the conversation has been so focused on stuff around Rob Porter because they insist that every sort of ounce of attention paid there is an ounce of attention diverted from things that they feel have not been learned from the 2016 election. And so as important as it all feels, you know, I guess I'm just curious how it actually resonates with folks. I totally 100000% agree with you. The conversation that we have in Washington about Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Rob Porter, Porter, Porter, this is not what people care about. And every Democrat I've talked to says the same thing. Democrats who are running for office should be talking about the economy. Trump hasn't brought your factory back, whatever. They should not be talking about this. But actually, they're not. It's just if you're consumed with the inside the Beltway conversation, that's what you're hearing. But I don't think, at least not people I've talked to,

I don't think Democrats think the way they're going to win in the fall is by talking about Rob Porter. No, I guess he just said that it seems like it so consumes the attention. And so if you're out in eastern Ohio, an area where you lost a lot of your voters to Donald Trump, it's hard to win them back if the national conversation, he says, you know, for Democrats is so focused on that stuff. The only question I have about Rob Porter at this point is, does that story, does the issue of security clearances get washed over by the really terrible news about the shooting? For the moment, it probably does. But in the days ahead, there are going to have to be better answers

with respect to the scores of people who are apparently within the executive office of the president without proper clearances more than a year after the presidency began. And those people are going to have to either get permanent clearances or they're going to have to change their roles. That's a big deal. And that's what Trey Gowdy is really interested in. He doesn't care that much about Rob Porter, but he really cares about these security clearances. And that could keep the story going for some while. And he has given the White House, Gowdy has given the White House a two week deadline to come back with answers to a bunch of questions, including exactly who knew what and when and what are the procedures and have you been following them? And did you follow them in the case of Rob Porter? There's a two-week deadline.

And here's the difference between Gowdy and the Oversight Committee and the rest of us. I've been asking those questions for a week and a half, and there have been no answers. The Oversight Committee has subpoena power, and they can use it. And the other amazing thing is that it's happening at all, that a Republican-led committee is actually investigating the White House. Up until now, all we've seen are Republican committee chairmen protecting the president against investigations by the Justice Department or the Special Counsel. This is extraordinary. Trey Gowdy has decided not to run again. He is a former prosecutor. He has a lot of credibility in these investigations. He got his conservative bona fides stamped during the Benghazi investigation,

which he ran. And if he gets his teeth into something, he'll pursue it. And this is pretty unusual for a Republican to be investigating a Republican White House. We haven't seen this yet in the Trump administration. Okay, we are going to take one more quick break. And when we come back, can't let it go. What does it take to start something from nothing? And what does it take to actually build it? I'm Guy Raz. Every week on How I Built This, I speak with founders behind some of the most inspiring companies in the world. Find it on NPR One or wherever you get your podcasts. We are back and it's time to end the show as we always do with Can't Let It Go.

When we all share one thing we cannot stop thinking about this week, politics or otherwise. Asma, you've been away from Can't Let It Go for like a whole year and a little more. It's been like building up in my mind every week. You know, I sit through and be like, what can I not let go this week? But I just share it with myself. So now share it with us. So just real quick, I guess what I can't let go, obviously, on a basic front is you all. Aww.

Okay, but can I have another Can't Let It Go? Yes, yes, yes. So my other Can't Let It Go actually dates back, I want to say to Monday, though this week is blending together. Is that when the Obama portraits came out? Monday? Oh my God, it was this week? Tuesday? What day was it?

Monday they came out. Obama among many ferns. All right. So earlier this week, the Obama portraits came out. And what I have not been able to let go is honestly, Kendi Wiley's artwork. He is amazing. I would say some years ago, one of my sister's works in arts, and she introduced me to him. And, you know, we would go to these sort of like swanky New York City galleries.

I'd tag along with her. And his artwork, to me, was just mesmerizing. Because I don't know if you all are too familiar with it. He did the Obama portrait. He did the President Obama portrait. Yeah. Oh, sorry. Yes. The President Obama. And he, you know, has this history of portraying black and brown folks in these really heroic poses that are kind of like a play on the old masters. They're classical poses on a white horse or on a throne.

Totally. And so he'll take like sometimes these really cool pop culture figures. So he's painted like LL Cool J or Michael Jackson. And he has like Michael Jackson on a horse. And anyhow, long story short, I have just been mesmerized with his artwork predating Obama. In fact, if I'm totally candid, I felt like the Obama one was like one of his okay pieces. It's just, to me, he's so political by nature of what he's doing.

He's really taking, you know, the idea of who gets to wield power and kind of spinning it on its head. And so anyhow, if y'all haven't seen any of his artwork out, you know, it's sort of scattered in different museums,

highly encourage you to do so. And if you look really carefully at that portrait into those bushes back there, you can see Sean Spicer. And Homer Simpson. Okay, totally not true. Do not believe what Ron is saying there. But anyhow, check it out. The LL Cool J one is one of my all-time favorites. And also the artist who painted Michelle Obama. Also, she is making political statements both with Michelle Obama's portrait and with her work that, you know, the very choice

of the portrait artists was a statement. It was. I mean, you had this president who was talking about in 2004, you know, there's no blue America, no red America, who ran in this sort of totally unracialized country, who on his way out the door made a very conscious decision to choose what you could say is a really like black statement on his way out the door. I mean, this was a sense of really owning black identity. And I thought that was really interesting and powerful, given how he came to power. Yeah. Ron. Yeah. Ron. Indeed.

This has been a very serious podcast, and parts of it have been difficult to even get your mind around. I'd like to have a really, really light Clegg this week. I'd like to say that if you haven't seen it, Jimmy Kimmel's evenings of little inserts regarding the Olympics. He starts out by saying, well, you're not seeing the Olympics on our channel because, well, we didn't pay for the rights to broadcast it. But we do have our own little versions of it. And one of them, not all of them, but one of them has a wonderful little girl on a small bit of ice with Olympic-style commentary about what she's doing on the ice. It's absolutely worth it.

Go look it up. Jimmy Kimmel, Little Girl on the Ice. Okay, so I'm going to go next because I know that we want to end with Mara's Can't Let It Go. When covering the White House, weird things sometimes happen. And earlier this, no, it was last Friday. I can't keep track of the days. I was trying to ask more questions about Rob Porter, and I was up in an area of the West Wing looking for folks. And there was the Energy Secretary, Rick Perry. And he was just kind of like hanging out. And he was talking to somebody, and he mentioned something about, like like that one time I played with ZZ Top. And I was like, excuse me, sir. Did you just say that you played with ZZ Top?

And he was like, yeah. So it's a very long story. He told that it took like 10 minutes for him to tell this story. It's a Texas connection. Yes. It's a Texas band. It is a Texas band. It is a band

that probably peaked in the very late 1970s, early 1980s. Oh, they've been very big on the nostalgia circuit. I have seen them on the nostalgia circuit, saw them at Wolf Trap

not long ago. And basically, he was governor of Texas. He played on one song, Sharp Dressed Man, in an encore one time. He said he practiced for two weeks. He said he was very afraid of getting booed.

And he also said, you know, I know that you think politics and entertainment are different, but they're not. And Rick Perry knows that better than anybody. We in politics are all entertainers. Shades of when Kinky Friedman, the musician, ran for governor of Texas with the motto, How hard can it be? Mara, why can't you let go?

Speaking of entertainment, this is a can't let it go apropos of absolutely nothing in the news, except that Wednesday was Valentine's Day. And I was getting ready to go to work and the doorbell rang and I opened the doorbell and standing out on the steps was a good friend of John's. John is your husband. John is my husband. And three other guys dressed, as I told them, as if they were accepting the Nobel Peace Prize. They were wearing their tuxedos with the white vests, and they proceeded to deliver a singing valentine. Now, some people might say that is hokey and old-fashioned. I thought it was totally awesome.

They have beautiful voices, and it was a really nice Valentine's Day in an otherwise awful, crummy week. Yes, and that beats my cashmere scarf. Your eyes so true Let me call you sweetheart I'm in love with

you with you with you I think we could do a little rendition of this, couldn't we? You could. You could sing. Let me call No, that's my wrong key. And that's a wrap for us this week.

A programming note here. Monday is a holiday, so we will not be back in your feeds. Unless there is breaking news, we will see you next Thursday. Keep up with our coverage on NPR.org, NPR Politics on Facebook, and of course, on your local public radio station. You can always catch up with one of us on Up First every weekday morning. And Asma, next Friday, you and I are going to be in beautiful Cleveland, Ohio. I know, all those Ohioans we were talking about and to you earlier. Please come out. Yeah, tickets are available at nprpresents.org.

There are very reasonable prices and we would love to see you all. And you can tell us everything we got wrong about Ohioans or got right about Ohioans. Totally. Look forward to seeing you. Thank you all so much. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House for NPR. I'm Asma Khalid, political reporter.

I'm Ron Elving, editor correspondent. I'm Mara Liason, national political correspondent. And thanks for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.