The NPR Politics Podcast - Weekly Roundup: Thursday, February 23

Episode Date: February 24, 2017

This episode: host/editor/correspondent Ron Elving, political reporter Danielle Kurtzleben, national political correspondent Mara Liasson, and political editor Domenico Montanaro, with justice correspondent Carrie Johnson and political reporter Jessica Taylor. More coverage at nprpolitics.org. 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

Hi, this is Bec from Caracas, Venezuela. This podcast was recorded at 3.38 p.m. Thursday. Things may change by the time you hear it. Keep up with all of NPR's political coverage at npr.org, on the NPR One app, and on your local public radio station. Okay, here's the show. It's the NPR Politics Podcast. Here to recap some, some of this week's political news. We'll talk about the CPAC conference here in the Washington area, the testy town halls for Congress members, and the Trump administration's new action on transgender rights. I'm Ron Elving, editor-correspondent.

I'm Danielle Kurtzleben, political reporter. I'm Carrie Johnson, justice correspondent. I'm Mara Liason, national political correspondent. Scott and Tam are both on assignment, which means that I have temporarily reassumed the host chair. Is this a coup? Is this a bloodless coup? This is, well, I wish it had been bloodless, but... What did you do to Scott and Tam, you monster? It's never entirely bloodless, is it? So we're going to talk in a moment about the Conservative Political Action Conference, that's CPAC, and it's happening this week.

President Trump is speaking there on Friday, and he may have already spoken by the time you download and hear this. But first, let's talk about the new Trump administration action, rescinding protections for transgender students that allowed them to use bathrooms corresponding with their own gender identity. And the reason we have our special guest, Justice Correspondent Kerry Johnson, is because she has been covering this story. Give us a little bit of a sense. I mean, this reverses an order from President Obama back in May of last year. Tell us where things stand. Yeah. In one of the, in its view, highlights of the Justice Department and Obama White House years, in May 2016, they issued joint guidance with the Education Department insisting that students should be allowed to go to bathrooms based on the gender with which

they identify, not necessarily the gender on their birth certificate. And that was lauded as a major move by LGBT rights advocates. This week, the Jeff Sessions Justice Department and the Betsy DeVos Education Department rescinded that guidance, more or less told the courts that we're not going to be relying on anymore, and we're yanking it. We think it didn't get enough study, it didn't get enough proper public comment, and in its view, it's the states and state school boards that have the responsibility for education policy, not the federal government. So strictly in terms of where things stood because of the courts, does anything change immediately because of this order? Well, as Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, has pointed out repeatedly from the podium this week, the initial Obama guidance was actually

enjoined by a conservative judge in Texas, so it never fully took effect. That said, many school boards and many schools had already adopted more LGBT-friendly policies for students in bathrooms and locker rooms. They are free to continue with that approach. But folks are suggesting, folks in the LGBT community, the ACLU and others, are suggesting that this rescission of guidance by DOJ and the Education Department means they may be leery about actually enforcing anti-discrimination laws on the books. Does this affect the case of the 17-year-old Gavin Grimm in Virginia? That was slated to go to the Supreme Court this year. Now, he's a transgender boy who sued his local school board two years ago after they refused to let him use the boys' bathroom. So Gavin Grimm's case is

supposed to be heard by the Supreme Court in March. March 28th is the oral argument. The court was prepared to hear two questions, whether judges should defer to the interpretation of Title IX of a 1972 civil rights law in education that the Obama Justice Department and Obama Ed Department had issued last year. And a second question, whether this law, this Title IX law, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex, actually applies to gender identity, sexual orientation as well. And Danielle? I'm just curious how far outside of the bathroom this new guidance extends. I guess I'm wondering about when I hear Title IX, I think of sports. I mean, does this mean if I am a transgender boy that they won't let me play on the boys' basketball team? This applies to sports teams and, most importantly, in some ways, locker rooms. So the locker room policy is akin to the bathroom policy.

It applies in both of those contexts. Now, the ongoing question for a lot of other LGBT folks not in schools is whether this whole idea of defining discrimination by sex includes gender identity, not just in school but in the workplace and all sorts of other places. That's going to be a focus of major litigation for some time to come. Carrie, do you see any consistency in the states' rights stance of the Trump administration? They did say today they're going to be more vigorously enforcing marijuana laws, federal anti-pot laws. Why isn't that something for the states?

I may be dating myself here, but there was a song that's called Things That Make You Go, Hmm. And I can't wrap my head around that, okay? Because several states now have legalized marijuana, small amounts for recreational purposes. We know that Attorney General Jeff Sessions is an anti-drug crusader and has expressed a sentiment that marijuana users are bad people. So to the extent the federal government starts prosecuting those folks in states where marijuana is legal, that's going to be a pretty big conflict on the federalism issue. Now, you mentioned earlier that the Justice Department, Jeff Sessions, were involved in this

and also the Education Department under their new secretary, Betsy DeVos. But those two cabinet members did not necessarily see eye to eye on this, according to a report that was in The New York Times. Yeah, there's been some reporting about Betsy DeVos being concerned about bullying. In fact, a statement she put out in rescinding the guidance suggested that the Education Department would still protect vulnerable students, including vulnerable LGBT students, from bullying. That said, Betsy DeVos had a couple options here. She could have decided after she was allegedly overruled to make a public protest. And today at the CPAC conference, which you're going to talk about in a little while, she more or less said that the federal government should not be developing a

one-size-fits-all policy for the states. That sounds pretty much on board with where this administration landed, I must say. Well, I was wondering, since this has been described as a states' rights issue, do you think that the Trump Justice Department will be devolving more civil rights issues to the states? Well, that's a really good question, Mara, in part because if you talk to longtime civil rights advocates, including some veterans of the Justice Department, they'll tell you the federal government has always had a fundamental role in protecting civil rights advocates, including some veterans of the Justice Department, they'll tell you the federal government has always had a fundamental role in protecting civil rights, integrating schools in the American South, easing the path to the ballot box for African-Americans all over the nation. Also, you know, it's pretty remarkable.

Some LGBT advocates were telling me this week that if Gavin Grimm went to school in North Carolina and Gavin Grimm now has an amended birth certificate that reflects he's a male, not a female, under North Carolina law, he could use the boys' restroom in school. But because he lives in Virginia, and Virginia has a different policy, he can't use the boys' restroom in his school. And thus, deciding one's civil rights based on where one lives is kind of a problem on a state-by-state basis, they claim. And Carrie, before we let you go, we were expecting this week to see a new version of the president's executive order on immigration and refugee policy, the travel ban from several weeks ago at the end of January. This week, the White House said maybe next week.

Yeah. Hurry up and wait, Ron. Hurry up and wait appears to be one of the litigation patterns we're seeing in this administration. DOJ told the federal court in D.C. this week something was coming, but it had no sense of timing from the White House. Our correspondent Scott Horsley says he thinks it will come after President Trump mounts an address to both chambers of Congress on Tuesday. So not before Tuesday of next week, maybe even later, who knows? The president's big first address to Congress is coming up on Tuesday.

So, okay, Carrie, we know we have to share you with other folks. So we're going to let you make your way back to the newsroom. Thanks for being with us. Thanks. Bye-bye. Bye, Carrie. Let's stick with the immigration issue now,

though, for a moment. In other administration news this week, the Homeland Security Department released a series of memos just on Monday that gave law enforcement a great deal of leeway as far as defining when someone needed to be arrested and deported. And, Danielle, you've got a rundown for us. Right. Yeah. So what these memos did was really just clarify what the administration proposed earlier on this last month. So one thing that it does is it expands people who are, quote unquote, priorities for removal. So under President Obama, people who had committed serious crimes, for example, were prioritized for deportation. Now, during the Trump administration, it's anybody who has committed any crime. Aside from that, it also clarified that DACA is still in place. This was one big question. These are the dreamers. Right. Yes. This is one big question when the executive order was first signed. You know,

this was a program that signed under Obama that protected people brought to the country as children, allowed them to get temporary work permits. This made it explicit, yes, DACA is still in place. It also expanded the kinds of people that will get, quote, expedited review. That is, you get kicked out of the country without going before a judge is the long and short of it. So this really lays out that this is going to be a big expansion. And let's remember that under President Obama, there were already a lot of deportations. And there were as many deportations as Congress appropriated money for, which I think is about $450,000 a year. And that's about what Obama did. There's been some, speaking of deportations, I mean, there's been some semantics playing around this week because there's this question of will there be, quote unquote, mass deportations? Now, DHS Secretary John Kelly today said, no, there won't be mass deportations. Sean Spicer said this in a press

briefing recently as well. And so the question is, okay, if there aren't mass deportations, what exactly is going to happen? And part of this question also arises from that remark that the president made when he was talking with a group of business executives and he talked about the securing of the border that was already underway being, quote, a military operation. Right. Today, Sean Spicer said he meant military in the sense of precision. He didn't mean it actually was going to be the military. And John Kelly, the head of the Homeland Security Department, former general, immediately said, no, no, no, no, this is not being done by the military, and there will not be mass deportations, and it will not be done by the military.

But nonetheless, a certain atmosphere is being cast. Well, this is really important because it's not just what somebody says, it's what people hear. And the immigrant community is hearing mass deportations. And I think there's tremendous fear already. You've got headlines in USA Today, millions could be deported. So I think that mass deportations is really in the eye of the beholder. And as soon as you get coverage of mothers being taken away from their families or any other sympathetic immigrants being deported, I think this story is going to change. On the other hand, there are many different audiences for what is being said. No doubt. And Donald Trump's base says this is why I voted for him. He ran on this and he's making good on his promise. And I think we can hear from some of that base because among the

places our reporters are deployed today is at CPAC, at the Conservative Political Action Conference. And one of them, of course, is our very own podcast mate, Domenico Montanaro. Domenico. Hey there, Ron. How are things going at CPAC? And do people seem to be talking about any of these immigration orders? Things are just lovely. I'm sitting here in this sort of cross between a biodome and a retractable roof for a sports facility, if anybody's ever been to any of the Gaylord hotels. That's where we are.

That's often held here in National Harbor, Maryland. But the immigration orders have not really come up. It's interesting, having covered CPAC for the last several years of the past decade, really, this is the first one I've been to where the energy kind of feels sucked out of the room. You know, I guess winning does that. You know, this is the first one in a decade that they're holding where Republicans have the presidency and control of both the House and the Senate. You know, you had some people with, you know, socialism sucks t-shirts on in

the sort of logo vein of Bernie Sanders. And you still had someone from one of the conservative groups talking about Hillary Clinton's emails and that they were still going to be trying to get all of the rest of them out. So, Domenico, you mentioned how the energy feels sucked out of the room. And I, in response to that, I just want to ask a CPAC 101 question, which is, what exactly is the purpose here? Is it to be a pep rally? Is it to put out policy ideas? What do conservatives get out of this every year? So, you know, CPAC, it's sort of in the name, you know, the CPAC is put on by the American Conservative Union. And the name of the conference is the Conservative Political Action Conference. And it usually draws a lot of young activists, you know, kids in college who want to figure out how to get involved with politics. You know, you have a lot of young, young kids,

you know, networking, talking to each other, trying to figure out how to get involved. You know, you have some older folks here as well. So it's sort of this mix between these young student activists and older folks who, I guess, can take time off during the week and come out to something like this and who are much more traditional about conservative values and all that. But clearly, this is a Trump room, which is amazing for the first time. This really hasn't been a very Trump-friendly crowd. Previously, Trump had been booed here. He didn't even show up last year. Ted Cruz was the person who won the straw poll here. You know, Domenico, I was just going to ask you, I mean, it's the only conservative game in town

at the moment. So it is kind of a metaphor for the state of the conservative movement. And it strikes me that conservatives are much more animated by making fun of or attacking the left and all its excesses than they are talking about what conservatism is for. Well, I think that that is what has animated some of the activism. But I don't know that it's totally true that that's what conservatism is to some of these folks. You know, they clearly have strongly held beliefs, but it is one of the things that unifies conservatives. Right, but are those beliefs all Trumpian beliefs? Are they all suddenly anti-free traitors and don't care so much about conflicts of interest and big deficits and crony capitalism? I think they care about winning, and they care about getting a majority of their agenda through. And I think that that's what you're seeing right now.

They're pleased with the appointment of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, and they're pretty much pleased with everything Donald Trump, the direction that he's moving. You remember, immigration is one of those glue issues for conservatives. And that clearly binds the ties here of the conservative action group. Domenico, hold that thought for just a moment. We're going to come back to you in just a couple of minutes. We're going to take our first break here. And you are listening to the NPR Politics Podcast. With Rocket Mortgage, you'll get a transparent online process that gives you the confidence you need to make an informed decision. Skip the bank, skip the waiting, and go completely online at quickenloans.com slash NPR politics. Equal housing lender, licensed in all 50 states.

NMLSConsumerAccess.org, number 3030. Support for this podcast and the following message come from sun basket sun basket makes it easy to cook nutritionist approved meals in your own kitchen with organic non-gmo ingredients sourced from farms and fishermen and sent directly to your door choose from paleo gluten- vegetarian, and even breakfast options. With pre-measured ingredients and easy-to-follow directions, you can prepare each meal in just 30 minutes. NPR listeners get their first three meals free at sunbasket.com slash politics. And we are back.

We are still talking to Domenico, who is reporting from the Conservative Political Action Conference. Donald Trump will be speaking there on Friday. But today, Thursday, everyone's been talking about Donald Trump, including the two people who are there to convince us all that they love each other. His chief of staff, Reince Priebus, and his senior advisor, Steve Bannon, they even appeared in tandem. We share an office suite together. We're basically together from 6.30 in the morning until about 11 o'clock at night. I have a little thing called the war room. He has a fireplace with, you know, nice sofas. So, Domenico, your thoughts? Well, you know, it was fascinating.

I mean, you know, being there in the crowd, you don't often see Reince Priebus and Steve Bannon together. You know, Bannon is the chief strategist and sort of the ideological inspiration for Trump in the White House. And that came through clearly in this discussion. You know, he's clearly the one with the worldview that's inspiring Trump. You know, he's talking about American sovereignty and America first, and that those are important things that are also very different than what a lot of people at CPAC used to talk and think about, to be perfectly blunt about it.

Reince Priebus seemed more the tactician. And you had Bannon praising his tactical abilities and his ability to make things run on time. And that difference was alluded to by Priebus. You know, I think we have a cut of what of Priebus talking about how Trump has united the divided conservative party. What this election showed and what President Trump showed, and let's not kid ourselves. I mean, I can talk about data and ground game and Steve can talk about big ideas, but the truth of the matter is Donald Trump, President Trump brought together

the party and the conservative movement. And I've got to tell you, if the party and the conservative movement are together, similar to Steve and I, it can't be stopped. And President Trump was the one guy. Well, I mean, the irony here in that whole statement is that, you know, you really did hear, like, yes, they're on stage together. But the two of them, you heard a clear divide in the way they even talk about conservatism. You had Reince Priebus, you know, for example, talking about the media in the way the conservatives have often talked about the media, saying that we were wrong about Donald Trump and so on. And then you had Steve Bannon, who he always has a grand or even grandiose, you might say, phrase for a lot of things. He called it the corporatist globalist media. They're corporatist globalist media that are adamantly opposed, adamantly opposed to an economic nationalist

agenda like Donald Trump has. President Trump really laid this out, as Ryan said, many years ago at CPAC. It sounds a lot more threatening, you know, and likewise, he doesn't talk about national security. It's national security and sovereignty. It's not tariffs. It's economic nationalism. Right, and it's not deregulation, which is a somewhat dull term that we are all more or less used to. It's deconstruction of the administrative state. And if you...

Just wait till you see how much administrative state you need to operate all those tariffs. Don't kid yourself. Let's not kid ourselves. This is a very statist agenda. This is huge. Infrastructure. A trillion a very statist agenda. This is huge statism. A trillion dollars worth of infrastructure. And if you're going to have bilateral trading relationships, he said that a pivotal moment in world history was when Trump struck the TPP. That got us out of a trade deal and let our sovereignty come back to ourselves.

The people, the mainstream media don't get this, but we're already working in consultation with The Hill. People are starting to think through a whole raft of amazing and innovative bilateral relationships, bilateral trading relationships with people that will reposition America in the world as a fair trading nation and start to bring jobs, high value added manufacturing jobs back to the United States of America.

And he never talked about robots, high value added manufacturing jobs back to the United States of America. And he never talked about robots, which are responsible for much more of the manufacturing job losses than trade. But this is a coherent worldview. There's no doubt about it. And one of its key aspects, in addition to its grandness and grandiosity, and is romantic. And don't you want to be a revolutionary on the vanguards fighting the administrative state? Mara, bringing up robots is a lot more provocative than saying automation, right? Yes, right. Right. But he said every day it's going to be a fight and the media won't give up. And as economic conditions get better, as more jobs get better, they're going to continue to fight. If you think they're going to give you your country back without a fight, you are sadly mistaken. Every day, every day, it is going to be a fight.

And that is what I'm proudest about Donald Trump. All the opportunities he had to waver off. Steve Bannon pivoting off of that. I mean, he just knows how to speak to emotion. He knows how to arouse those emotions. He very clearly is trying to get away from clinical language. He said, we are not an economy. We are a nation with an economy. We are a, quote, nation with a culture and a reason for being. And what is that culture? And that's one of the biggest ideas of the Trump presidency. But we are a nation with a culture and a reason for being. And I think that's what unites us. And I think that that is what's going to unite this movement going forward. President Trump tomorrow.

We do want to move on to talking to another one of our several reporters who are covering CPAC today. But before we do that, just real quickly, Domenico, is there any sense there at the actual convention of the disruptive elements? Richard Spencer was not allowed into the event today, and another character from the alt-right was originally going to be a featured speaker, and he was disinvited. Tell us a little bit about that. No, I thought that was fascinating today.

I mean, there is a clear attempt here by CPAC organizers to draw a bright line between CPAC and the alt-right. There was even a speech today by the executive director from the American Conservative Union deriding the alt-right, saying the alt-right is not right. He said it can't be normalized. So they do not want Richard Spencer types and white nationalists and the Milo Yiannopoulos anymore involved with this conservative movement. But it should be pointed out that they did invite Yiannopoulos and he was only disinvited when they found this video that surfaced of him appearing to be OK with pedophilia. And he would have had his voice here at this conference. You know, Richard Spencer, who's the white nationalist, showed up here in the hotel lobby,

started to gaggle with reporters, had bought a daily pass, a spokesman for CPAC tells me, and as soon as they caught wind of it, they had security usher him out and called his views repugnant and vile and said that he was not welcome here. Domenico, now hang tight because we're going to shift topics for a moment and we're going to talk to one of our other colleagues. Another big story this week that everyone's been following, hard to miss, is the ire that a lot of members of Congress have faced when they went home and they held a town hall in their home district and they encountered scenes like this. This one's in Utah in a town hall hosted by Republican Jason Chaffetz.

Let me tell you something you're really not going to like. You want to hear this. Hold on. You're really not going to like this. The president under the law is exempt from the conflict of interest laws. He's exempt. So people didn't, as he predicted, like hearing that. Let's talk a little bit about why people are so mad at Jason Chaffetz in particular, and perhaps with Republicans from the House of Representatives or Congress generally. Domenico, you're there with a colleague of ours, Jessica Taylor.

Could you just for us execute that particularly high-tech maneuver we have called passing the phone? He has passed it. I am here. Jess, you've been covering some of these town halls this week, and tell us a little bit about what you saw. So I went up this past weekend to western New York to Congressman Tom Reed's district. He represents a very rural sort of stretch of western New York there, and the very first town hall that he was holding on Saturday, this was the first of four. When I got there, it was already so crowded, they had to move it out of the senior center to a parking lot where there was still snow on the ground and it was melting. And, I mean, these people, they were angry. Are you telling me the protesters melted the snow, Jess?

Yes, their anger melted the snow or global warming probably. But it was warming up that day but they were very upset about health care so many signs i saw alluded to trump's alleged connections to russia and some of his advisors connections to russia um but i mean health care was sort of the top thing on everyone's minds you know people they were very worried a lot it was a lot of senior citizens that were there they were very worried about what was going to happen to their Medicare. And I think this is the problem the Republicans are running into. Not only do they not have a plan, but now six years later, you have people that have come to depend on this. And so when

they're faced with losing this very critical part of their health care, the question is sort of what happens next. So Jess, I'm curious, did you get a sense of the people at this town hall you went to? Was it mostly Democrats and liberals? Were there some Republicans that showed up? And, you know, to the extent that they were Democrats, like, is there a sense of how much they might, if at all, sway Representative Reid's opinions? Yeah, most of the people I talked to were Democrats or some were independents. They were certainly no fans of Trump from the beginning. They definitely did not sway his opinion.

He remains sort of very stringent and, you know, I still believe in this. You know, we need to roll back costs. But, you know, I give him credit for he was holding four of these across the district. He took it in stride. He was smiling. He was saying, you know, this is what democracy is about. Chaffetz last week in Utah, he did not seem to handle it as well, accusing that these people were paid protesters. Donald Trump, of course, called them so-called angry protesters at these

things. Yes, his tweet in full to give him his say is the so-called angry crowds in home districts of some Republicans are actually, in numerous cases, planned out by liberal activists. Sad. Well, a lot of these people had been organized by progressive groups there. There's been one group that's popped up called Indivisible. This was a group of Democratic staffers who, after Clinton lost, they decided to sit down, sort of write a manual for lessons they learned from 2009, when, of course, it was Democrats who were sort of in the reverse position, facing very angry town halls over the possible implementation of Obamacare.

And so they wrote out this manual. It was actually a Google Doc, and it just sort of spread online. Then you have, like, individual groups that are popping up. They're using this. But, I mean, this is the same way that the Tea Party started. They were organizing people to come to these events. They started local chapters and things, too. So, you know, to say that this is people, if they were organized by liberal people, you know, that's exactly what has happened before. This is how these things start. But, you know, what was so interesting is that for Trump to say

this is organized by liberal activists, yes, it is. He didn't say this is paid protesters. That's what he had said previously. And that's really different. But Spicer did refer to paid protesters. Yes, he did also. And Jess, have you uncovered any evidence or have you talked to anyone who has seen any evidence that these people are in some sense or another paid? In other words, astroturf,, fake. AstroTurf not only has a sense of being ginned up, but also literally paid to do it. No, I mean, these people were, like I said, they were in their 50s, 60s, 70s there, most of them, very few younger people. They were definitely from the districts. I would talk to them. They knew the district, you know, and a lot of them carried signs saying, here's my zip code. I am not paid. And another thing I would point out is this is happening in February of President Trump's term and just over a month into the new Congress.

These other town halls that we saw eight years ago, they were happening in August. And that's the big thing we're watching for. That's what's been so interesting about these town meetings. Are they going to fizzle like Occupy Wall Street or stick around like the Tea Party and become this real, strong, organic enthusiasm that the out party generally has more

than the in party? Yes. And will this last all the way through 2018? Right. In fact, some of that energy that Domenico said we weren't seeing in CPAC,

perhaps we're seeing in the town halls. In the town halls. So, Jessica, thank you so much for hanging out with us. Always fun. And enjoy CPAC. Get back in there. Thank y'all. Have a good one. All right. Thank you, Jess. The rest of us are going to take one more break. And when we come back, we're going to talk about all of this. We're going to bring Domenico back

in. And we're also going to talk about the race for the Democratic National Committee chairmanship. Not something that most people usually pay much attention to, but something that in the wake of this election and the disaster that befell the Hillary Clinton campaign, a lot of people are talking about. We'll also do our Can't Let It Goes. And we'll all share one thing we cannot stop thinking about this week, whether it's politics or not. Stay with us. Plus, you pay by month and never get tricked into a long-term contract. SimpliSafe has no installation costs and no hidden fees, so you can protect your home and family the smart way. Right now, listeners of this podcast can get 10% off any home security system, only if you go to SimpliSafeNPR.com.

Before we get back to the show, don't forget to use NPR One for all your podcast and public radio listening. And one show we recommend if you're looking for something new is NPR's All Songs Considered. In any given year, there are more than 100,000 albums released. And All Songs Considered with hosts Bob Boylan and Robin Hilton are there to help. Each week they find the best of the best songs for you to fall in love with. Subscribe to All Songs Considered now at npr.org slash podcasts. Okay, back to the show. We are back and Domenico is back with us. Are you there with us, Domenico? I am. Hey there, Ron.

We did answer some of your listener mail in an earlier episode this week. So check that out if you haven't already. And as always, continue to write us with all your questions and comments at NPR politics, all one word at NPR dot O-R-G, NPR.org. NPR.org. Let's talk about the race for the chair of the Democratic National Committee. First, let's talk about what does that chair do? Mara, you've watched a lot of this over the years. What does the chairmanship represent? Well, let's talk about what the chairmanship isn't. The chairmanship is not the head of the Democratic Party. He's the chairman of the Democratic National Committee. That's different. Now, because they're the out party and they are seemingly bereft of. They work on mechanics, they work on data, and they help recruit in addition to the other campaign committees,

but mostly they are a nuts and bolts party building job. That's right. But of course, they can also become rather prominent in some cases. Reince Priebus was the chairman of the Republican Party in the wilderness. Yes, but you cannot ever say that Reince Priebus was the chairman of the Republican Party in the wilderness. Yes, but you cannot ever say that Reince Priebus was the leader of the Republican Party. No, but— He wasn't even the only public face. But he also did help to hold things together in the midst of a highly fractured presidential campaign. Now, that's what their job is, to hold things together, not necessarily to be the symbol of the party. Absolutely.

Well, in some cases, they get famous for not-so-awesome reasons, like Debbie Wasserman Schultz being an example of this this last summer. And, you know, I am the newest of the four of us to covering politics. I've never covered a DNC chair race before, so I'm curious. She must be so excited. I'm just jumping out of my skin, as you can tell. So the question I have is how much does Debbie Wasserman Schultz's, I guess I would say, legacy weigh upon this race? Is there a need to kind of shrug that off?

I think that... Who? Yeah, Debbie Wasserman Schultz. First of all, it's really different when you have a president of your own party. It almost doesn't matter as much if you screw up. I don't think that... I don't think any of the candidates running now are being fingered as a potential Debbie Wasserman Schultz type. No.

Let's talk a little bit about who those candidates are. The head of the pack, more or less, there's quite a large group running, and we just lost one today when one of the candidates decided to drop out and endorse one of the frontrunners. That would be former Labor Secretary Tom Perez, seen by some as the establishment favorite associated with the Obama cabinet he was a member of, and also thereby by extension with the Hillary Clinton forces of the party. And the other front runner is House of Representatives member Keith Ellison. He's a congressperson from the Minneapolis area in Minnesota. Mara, what do we make of the speculation that we've heard in many different places that in a sense, as Perez is a stand-in for the establishment of the Obama administration,

the Hillary Clinton folks, that Ellison has become a kind of surrogate for the forces of Bernie Sanders in the party who feel that it's time to have a more populist candidate? I think that's overblown because the metaphor is misplaced. In other words, this isn't a fight over the policy direction of the Democratic Party. This is a fight over whether Democrats can get their voters out every two years instead of every four years and build an infrastructure that's going to win state legislator races and all the races that Democrats under President Obama have woefully neglected. You know, all of this actually reminds me of 2009 all over again in an inverse, because I covered the Michael Steele election, and it was Michael Steele running for RNC chairman

while Republicans were in the wilderness. He became a frontrunner along with Kate and Dawson, the former South Carolina party chairman. But the party decided Steele would be the person who could win because the last thing they wanted to do at that point was align itself with a white Southerner as the face of the party when they didn't have an actual leader out there. So, well, yes. How quaint.

Yes, it's funny how the past does sound like it's dated, doesn't it? They thought they needed a minority face of the party, which, of course, as it turns out, Donald Trump proved to them they didn't. All right. I want to wrap this up because we've got a couple other points we need to get to. So let's just say that the party is going to be having its final vote in Atlanta this weekend on Saturday. So by the time you download this, there may have already been a resolution and there may be a new DNC chair in place by the time you hear this. Let's turn quickly to Donald Trump's big address Tuesday night, his first address to a joint session of Congress. Now, this is what a new president gives to Congress sometime around about this point in the year, late February,

early March, instead of what we usually expect this time of year, which is an official State of the Union address. It will look and sound much like a State of the Union address, but technically it's not because a State of the Union address is not given by somebody who's only been in office for a few weeks. It's supposed to be a report by someone who's been president for at least a year. That having been said, what do we expect to hear? The two things that I'm going to be looking for, one, I mean, the big one is tone, right? I mean, he gave that big, many called it dark, inaugural address where he talked about American carnage. The question is, you know, whether he continues something more on that end of the spectrum or whether it's a little bit brighter and shinier.

The other thing, and I only say this half in jest, is will he mention his electoral college victory? Because he mentions it so often and he just keeps talking about those numbers. The question is whether he ever lets that go. Probably not. You know, we are hearing from the White House that this is supposed to be a more optimistic, sunny, Reagan-esque address in terms of its tone. And that's because so many Republicans were unsettled by the dystopian, apocalyptic tone of his inaugural address. But what's so interesting about it is we have heard previews like this before of Donald Trump's speeches, and they haven't reflected what he actually said. Remember, it was going to be all about unity. And it really wasn't.

And so I would say we just have to wait and see. But a lot has happened between that inaugural address and now that has a lot of missteps, unforced errors, chaotic management out of the White House that has unsettled Republicans in Congress. And if Donald Trump wants to use this address, and he is in Congress, he'll be in the well of the House talking to them, this might be a good time to show that he is in command. A real, I would say, alternative not just to the dark inaugural address, but to the 77-minute press conference. That's right. The news conference is also a fresher memory even than inauguration. And that didn't make Republicans on Capitol Hill happy either.

Domenico, what are your thoughts? You know, these are usually prescriptive speeches. You usually hear them talk about their legislative priorities. So I presume we'll hear about tax reform and health care, where we wind up going with the immigration ban or the wall between the United States and Mexico. But Sean Spicer was asked the other day if he had any kind of outline,

the White House press secretary, on what to expect. And he said, well, two things for you. And I started to take notes and he said, he's going to talk about where we've been and where we're going. So where we're going and where we've been is not exactly, you know, prescriptive. But what that does tell me is at least part of this speech will be looking beyond Congress to the American public, and it could be something a little bit bigger. That is correct. And, of course, we will all be paying attention to the behavior of the members of Congress. The Senate will also be there. The Cabinet will be there. The Supreme Court, or at least many members of it, will be there. For a president's first address of this kind, the attendance tends to be very good, and the behavior is sometimes not so good, because we can expect all of the Republicans to be pretty enthusiastic, if not wildly enthusiastic, and we can expect the Democrats to, well,

if not sit on their hands, at least be much less inclined to leap to their feet. Once again, we will be doing an episode of our podcast that night after the speech is over, recapping the president. And you can hear it first thing in your feed Wednesday morning. Not only that, we'll be annotating the speech online. So follow along with us. We'll be fact-checking and providing context. It's always a party.

The annotation is what we do. It is. Okay. Time to end the show, as we always do, with Can't Let It Go. And that's the time when we all share one Barack Obama's press secretary when confronted with angry town halls. And they have both dismissed them as astroturf, paid protesters, something ginned up, not that important or representative. Is it your contention, is it the White House contention, that the anger that some members of Congress are experiencing at town hall meetings, especially over health care reform, is manufactured? I think some of it is, yeah. You might recognize those voices. Robert Gibbs,

who was the press secretary for President Obama in 2009, and of course, Jake Tapper, then a correspondent for ABC News, asking a question from the front row of the press conference briefing room. In fact, I think you've had groups today, conservatives for patients' rights, that have bragged about organizing and manufacturing that anger. And here we are eight years later in the same room, the same front row, an ABC correspondent again, John Carl, asking much the same question and getting this from Sean Spicer. The president referred to so-called angry crowds at these town halls. Is he suggesting this is manufactured anger, that this is not real anger and real concern? Thanks. I think there's a hybrid there. I think some people are clearly upset, but there is a bit of professional protester manufactured base in there.

Thank you for that, Mara. I will go next. And the thing that I can't get over is how the transformation of Trump has affected even CPAC, which was an organization that seemed very consistent back to the Ronald Reagan years and had had a very, very much libertarian orientation in recent years. From 2010 to 2015, six times they met, and five of those six times they chose a person named Paul, Ron Paul first, and then his son Rand Paul as their choice for president. And during that period of time, it was really moving in that sort of a direction. Then since then, we have reached the point where Donald Trump, who last year did not even come because he was afraid of protests against his

candidacy, is now the in-triumph president who is coming to speak to this same group, or at least it has the same name. And also we have Rand Paul choosing not to attend at all. Ron, I think you're totally right on that. I mean, it's fascinating just sitting here and watching folks be completely fine with that. After all the activism and the pro-Paul stuff, you do wonder if maybe those folks just didn't come. You know, like you said, it's CPAC in the same name, but this is clearly, clearly Donald Trump's party. And Domenico, what's your click this week? Well, you know, I'm going to take us out of politics for a second because I looked up at my DVR and saw that Billions is back on Showtime. And I love the show because it just

reverses everything you think about everybody. You know, you've got the blue collar billionaire kind of fighting against the blue blood U.S. attorney. So it's a fascinating, I think it's fascinating show that kind of touched on a lot of the same kind of political things from this campaign. And, you know, it's good to just sit back and have a nice bourbon and watch. How much is Showtime paying you, Domenico? And, like, can I get in on it? Not enough. If they are listening, I would take whatever they'd like to offer.

And I'm sure NPR would be fine with that. Instead of a paid protest. All right. But now it is time for the music of the spheres. Danielle, the celestial news? Trappist one, everybody. I am kind of obsessed with this. So for anybody who hasn't been paying attention to this, although it's hard to miss this week,

seven planets were discovered around a relatively nearby star 40 light years away, which is pretty close in these terms. It's practically a hop, skip, and a jump. Exactly. So you have seven Earth-ish sized planets. Apparently they all could have water. Three of them are in what NASA calls the habitable zone. So I find this fascinating. Although to suck all of the fun out of this and make it political for a few seconds, in all of these movies about space travel,

like Arrival and Contact, there's always some sort of a scene where it becomes about politics and the scientists all roll their eyes. But when you think about it, if communications take 40 years to get to one of these planets, that means that could span a lot of presidential administrations and a lot of prime ministerships and a lot of whatever's around the world, meaning the whole globe for a long time is going to have to get its messaging together to figure out what to say to the aliens first. So the people on one of these seven planets are just now finding out about Jimmy Carter getting the Democratic nomination. And they're just agog, you know? I imagine they are. I just have one thing to say about all this. Want to get away?

No. I love covering politics. What are you talking about? And that is a wrap for this week. We will be back in your feed soon. If there's big news tomorrow, possibly out of the president's speech at CPAC. Otherwise, we will be back with an episode next Wednesday morning after the president's address to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday night. And if you like these podcasts, please support them by supporting your local public radio station. Go to npr.org slash stations to find your station and give to them and tell them we sent you, won't you? Thanks to those of you who have done that in the past. Feel free to do it again. And sign up for our newsletter for an email roundup of our political reporting.

Subscribe at npr.org slash politics newsletter. Having completed my hosting duties, I'm Ron Elving, editor-correspondent. I'm Danielle Kurtzleben, political reporter. I'm Mara Eliason, national political correspondent. And I'm Domenico Montanaro, political editor. And thanks for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.