The NPR Politics Podcast - Weekly Roundup: Thursday, February 8

Episode Date: February 9, 2018

Senate leaders reached a two-year, bipartisan budget deal, but with just hours left before government funding runs out again, it's still unclear if it will get the votes to pass. Because the deal does not address DACA, Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi took to the House floor on Wednesday for a record 8 hours in protest. And a top White House aide has resigned, after two of his ex-wives accused him of physical abuse, raising questions about what the administration knew and when. This episode, host/White House correspondent Tamara Keith, congressional reporter Kelsey Snell, political reporter Danielle Kurtzleben and political editor Domenico Montanaro. 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 Ryan calling from the Kaibab Plateau on my winter motorcycle trip from New York to Seattle, Washington. This podcast was recorded at 1.40 p.m. on Thursday, the 8th of February. Things may have changed by the time you hear this. Keep up with all of NPR's political coverage on NPR.org, the NPR One app, or your local public radio station. Okay, here's the show. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast, here with our weekly roundup of political news.

Senators have reached a two-year bipartisan budget deal that will increase both military and domestic spending, and it looks to be on a path to the president's desk. Though, you know, drama could always break out along the way. Nancy Pelosi, the minority leader, took to the House floor yesterday for a record eight hours. And a top White House aide has resigned after two of his ex-wives accused him of domestic abuse, raising questions about what the administration knew and when. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House for NPR. I'm Kelsey Snell. I cover Congress. I'm Danielle Kurtzleben, political reporter. And I'm Domenico Montanaro, political editor.

All right, guys. In the Senate, just weeks after a bitter impasse that resulted in a government shutdown, there is now a deal to end the budget battles for two whole years. As Sue Davis said on Tuesday, Congress moves at two speeds, glacial and lightning. And right now we are in a lightning moment. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer announced the deal on Wednesday. No one would suggest it is perfect, but we worked hard to find common ground and stay focused on serving the American people. Budget deal doesn't have everything Democrats want. It doesn't have everything Republicans want, but it has a great deal of what the American people

want. We got the language late last night. It is more than 650 pages long. But get this, the deadline to pass it is today because the short term spending legislation currently in place expires tonight. Congress is like the classic procrastinator, right? I mean, this idea that it's lightning or glacial. It's like do no work for like the entire semester and then pull in all nighter and hope it works out. Actually, one of the reasons why they were able to pull this together so quickly is they've been working on this for a long time. So this budget deal has been kind of in the background of the thing that was standing in the way was the argument over immigration. We have heard up in the Capitol from people that they were very close on a budget caps deal for months, but that they couldn't ever get to a point where anybody would say yes or no to final details because it was all wrapped up in DACA.

OK, but let's talk about what is in this thing and what this does. This is a whole lot of fiscal policy that's happening all at once. So the way I've been explaining it is that the deal includes four major parts. One is a two-year portion of this package, which is an agreement to increase spending by about $300 billion over two years. Part of it divided into the 2018 fiscal year and the rest in the 2019 fiscal year, stepping things up for both the military and domestic spending. The second thing that it includes is a six-week spending bill that allows Congress to take that time and write the actual part of spending money. So the first part just sets the caps where they're going to write the actual spending bills. And now Congress has to go and

do that job. It also includes an increase in the debt limit. It suspends the borrowing limit through March 1st, 2019, and includes roughly $90 billion in emergency money for areas hit by storms, wildfires, and other disasters. Another agreed upon area is the Children's Health Insurance Program, which winds up getting funded for a decade. And that's kind of remarkable to me, honestly, because the CHIP program, or Children's Health Insurance Program, went from essentially being in a funding crisis at the end of last year to now being fully solvent through the next decade.

Yeah, I think what you're seeing there is some political regret. It was left in the situation that you were describing last year because there was some sense that it could be a bipartisan bargaining chip, a thing that brought people to the table to vote on a big package in the future. And what ended up happening is that it became a political pawn or a political football. And that really didn't play out very well when you saw news stories of families saying, my child is losing health insurance because Congress can't get its act together. So they don't want to do that again. And no pun intended there with the bargaining chip, right? No pun intended. The other big thing here, we're talking about domestic stuff,

is the military, which gets even more spending and more additional spending than domestic programs. And this had been really important to a lot of Republicans, very important to the White House. They brought Jim Mattis, the defense secretary, to the White House briefing yesterday to basically endorse this deal. So what does it specifically do? The Pentagon would see an $80 billion boost in 2018 and an additional $85 billion the year after that. So that's a lot of money. And it allows the Pentagon to start planning in a way that they haven't been able to since Trump took office. They often say that short-term spending bills make it impossible for them to make long-term troop deployment decisions, invest in big new equipment, and having some sort of

certainty about how much money they'll have to work with. It is often said by defense hawks that it is the most important part of this process. And to tack on to this, I feel like it's hard to talk about the divide between defense and non-defense spending here without getting at least a little bit into how we got here. I'm not going to go too far into the weeds, I promise. But I mean, what to be. Take us back. Yes, let's.

What year was that, 2011? Right. Well, so to give the short version. Thank you. So to go way back in 2011, y'all might remember, we got very close to hitting the debt ceiling. And as a part of an agreement to avoid hitting that debt ceiling, Republicans controlled the House at the time. We had a Democrat as the president. And so the sort of compromise agreement they reached was, all right, we'll raise the debt ceiling. In return, we want these really big spending cuts.

I believe it was about $2 trillion total. Am I right, Kelsey? Yeah. And they delayed the start of those until 2013. Right. Some of those cuts went into place. But then in 2013, they set into action these cuts that were half military, half non-military. So like both sides of people who wanted these cuts and didn't want these cuts and vice versa would feel the pain. Yeah. The idea was giving them those two years would give them time to work out a better idea and to knowing that these scary, scary cuts were coming, come up with a big long-term plan for the federal government spending money. Except they didn't. Because that's not something Congress is

good at. Right. And so since then, there has been this, you know, constant fretting about, OK, like that 2013 agreement put these budget caps into place. And so on multiple occasions, it's been like, all right, we need to raise these caps. And so this that brings us back to the present. Ta-da. This bill would raise those caps by that $300 billion that Kelsey and I started out talking about. Well, the thing that's really notable about this is the last time we saw a two-year budget agreement was because House Speaker John Boehner was resigning. Part of his resignation was he was, I think they called it sweeping the barn. And he, like, they put together this two-year agreement because they just couldn't figure out how to keep the government open. He was fighting with his far right flank, the Freedom Caucus,

and at the time, the Tea Party. And there was just seemed like there was no with his far right flank, the Freedom Caucus, and at the time, the Tea Party. And there was just seemed like there was no solution. So he said, I'm leaving. I cut this deal with the Democrats. See you later. He wanted to sweep the barn so he could get out of the stable. Yes, he did. And so there was some degree of certainty for two years after that. And then when that ran out, Congress didn't know what to do. And they've been fighting and doing these short-term spending bills. We saw another shutdown. It's been chaos. And for those of us who follow the budget, it has been an incredibly long slog of bouncing from deadline to deadline and not really seeing what the end would be. So how did we suddenly get here to this apparent deal that's another long-term, two-year spending agreement? This is something that both sides wanted and had been working on for some time.

They were not able to reach an agreement because Democrats at some point in time decided that the best place that they had leverage on anything at all was on a spending bill because they need 60 votes in the Senate to get anything passed. And that means now it means nine Democrats need to vote for anything. And they, you know, they also often need Democrats to vote for spending bills in the House because a number of those far right people that we talked about with Boehner are still in the House and still don't like voting for spending bills that grow the government. So Democrats are really necessary here. And there was a decision made, a political decision made to tie together immigration where Democrats have less influence with spending,

where they have more influence and try to force Republicans to compromise on both. That is now decoupled, it seems. It is decoupled. Democrats got an agreement in the Senate from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to hold a vote on some sort of immigration bill as soon? What are the politics at play? And I guess one question we could start with is, does $300 billion of fresh, hot new money buy a lot of goodwill and yes votes? It certainly does in the Senate, and it probably buys a lot of them in the House. So there is no question in my mind at this moment that the Senate can get this passed if they want to. The question is when they're going to do it. The House, on the other hand, it's another story. You've got the conservatives that we talked about who don't want to vote for this. And Democrats in

the House say that they won't vote for it either because they're mad that they don't have the same kind of commitment on immigration that the Senate does. Speaker Ryan didn't make that commitment. In fact, he says that he won't bring up anything that can't get signed by the Senate does. Speaker Ryan didn't make that commitment. In fact, he says that he won't bring up anything that can't get signed by the White House. And that led to a big Democratic protest on the House floor yesterday. Right. And part of the issue among those Republicans that don't like this bill that Kelsey was talking about is that you said $300 billion of fresh, hot, new money. And I mean, you have plenty of people who see this as $300 billion of fresh, hot, new deficit.

And that's a deal breaker. That's a big problem for a lot of people. Yeah. And I need to go back to not that long ago that we were just talking about. For years, for eight years, there was almost this single-minded focus in Washington on the deficit and needing and and and like President Obama would say, we need to bring down the deficit. I know we've got to bring down the deficit. Even in the face of this economic crisis that was happening, there was always talk in the upside down of fiscal nerddom. Everything. Everything is upside down and backwards. And the conversation about the deficit has completely gone, I would say, more than 180 degrees. It may have gone 180 degrees three times since President Obama left office. And the other dynamic in the House is if you lose the Mark Meadows and the sort of the fiscal conservatives, then you have to make up the votes with Democrats. That's just the way math works in the House of Representatives and the way it has worked for like the entire

time I've covered Congress is that with these big spending bills, in the end, Democratic votes, even when they're in the minority, become very, very important. And Democrats are, in the House in particular, are not fully on board with this. Right, Kelsey? Yeah. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi was on the House floor for more than eight hours yesterday protesting this because she wants there to be an agreement on immigration as well. She actually, just as we were sitting here recording this podcast, sent out a dear colleague letter to Democrats saying that she doesn't support this bill. I understand in talking to folks inside of Democratic leadership that they are not actively whipping, so are not actively calling on their members to vote against this. I'm looking at an email that they sent to

their Democratic colleagues, just asking them where they stand. So they're kind of taking the temperature right now. But you're seeing a lot of leaders coming out and saying that they personally will not vote for this budget bill. And Nancy Pelosi, when she was on the floor for those eight hours, what she was doing was for much of the time reading letters from DACA recipients, from young people known as dreamers who are participants in this program called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, which President Obama's administration created, President Trump has said will end on March 5th. And there is currently really no solution, no political fix for it. There's a lot of arguing about it. And let's just hear a little bit of Pelosi from the floor.

For the last eight hours, I have had the privilege of reading the testimony of so many dreamers. I still have more, but I'll either just submit. So she read a bunch of these letters. It's an interesting dynamic. Well, am I right in saying, Kelsey, you can probably answer this. So is what Nancy Pelosi, is this where she differs from Chuck Schumer, that she and some other Democrats think that this was the last chance to get leverage on this or the best chance to get leverage on this? Yeah, I think that's part of it. Speaker Ryan really has taken a very different approach to this than Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

McConnell agreed to a process that would allow amendments, and they discussed it on the floor today. Schumer and McConnell were on the Senate floor today talking about the commitment to allow Democrats to have amendments, Republicans to have amendments on an immigration bill, and so that they could, through the process of using the Senate floor, craft a bill that has support and hopefully in their minds get 60 votes and be enough to pass and send it over to the House. But Ryan hasn't committed to anything like that. And he notably hasn't committed to voting on whatever the Senate passes unless it has the backing of the mercurial White House. This is what he said today. I know that there is a real commitment to solving the DACA challenge in both political parties.

That's a commitment that I share to anyone who doubts my intention to solve this problem and bring up a DACA and immigration reform bill, do not. We will bring a solution to the floor, one that the president will sign. We must pass this budget agreement first, though, so that we can get on to that. So please know that we are committed to getting this done. Kelsey, can you translate that at all? He says that he's committed to getting something done. That is a little bit further than he's gone in the past. But for Democrats, that's not enough. They want the same kind of firm commitment that McConnell gave.

And what Ryan did there is just not that. Now, big picture here. Chuck Schumer and Democrats shut the government down not too long ago over DACA. And it didn't work out so well for Democrats. Not only did they not get anything out of this, but they were almost evenly blamed for the government shutdown. And President Trump this time around is saying, hey, if this is going to be over DACA, let it shut down. So you don't have a negotiating partner at the White House that wants to get something resolved and done on this. And they're not far enough along in Congress to be able to get something done that they can deliver to the

president. So they take out this kind of file that Kelsey says they've been working on, and they decide to show something that looks like bipartisanship and pass this. And we'll see if Democrats in the House go for that. Let me just say on immigration, the White House would say they do want to get something done. They just want exactly what they want. There are four pillars. Those pillars would be path to citizenship for 1.8 million people who are eligible for the DACA program. Twenty five billion dollars for wall funding, as well as a bunch of other border security measures. And then some pretty dramatic changes to the legal immigration system, which most Democrats say they just absolutely can't agree to.

And a lot of Republicans won't agree to. But I will tell you this. There are Democrats who I've talked to who think that Democrats should have taken the deal that the White House wanted to put forward. The fact is, they said this wall isn't going to be built and Mexico is not going to pay for it. So blame Mexico for not paying for it. Give twenty five billion dollars for border security for a wall that won't get built along the entire U.S.-Mexico border, as the president has already himself said that there are deserts, there are rivers, there is terrain. So give the $25 billion, which, by the way, pales in comparison to the amount of money that they just allocated for defense and for domestic spending.

So they could have done that given almost two million Dreamers citizenship and maybe negotiated something down when it comes to the visa lottery system or families and which family members could be brought to the United States. Because frankly, they're not far that far off when it comes to the kind of extended family that could be brought over and unified. Is there any chance that this doesn't get worked out and there is a government shutdown of some kind tonight or some sort of brief lapse? There are some complicated things happening as we sit here. My phone keeps buzzing and so does my inbox. So we may be in a nail biter of a situation late tonight, or they could pass a short-term spending bill that doesn't actually shut down the government. It's hard to say exactly how this will work out. It's Congress and things get screwed up on a pretty regular basis.

But there's a lot of there's a lot of energy around wanting to get this done and not wanting to look like the gang couldn't shoot straight. OK, we are going to take a quick break. And when we come back, the latest on the possible release of the Democrats memo, you know, the memo. Support for this NPR podcast and the following message come from ZipRecruiter. Are you hiring? Every business needs great people and a better way to find them. Something better than posting your job online and waiting for the right people to see it. ZipRecruiter can help. Their technology identifies people with the right experience

and invites them to apply to your job. Try it for free at ZipRecruiter.com slash weekly. ZipRecruiter, the smartest way to hire. 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 we are still awaiting the release or possible not release of the second memo,

the Democrats' rebuttal to last week's much-hyped memo from Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee. For more than you ever wanted to know about that memo, go back to the podcast we taped last Friday night to get a full breakdown on what that memo said and didn't say.

But in short, it was accusing the FBI and Justice Department of improperly seeking surveillance on a former Trump campaign foreign policy advisor, a man by the name of Carter Page. As with the GOP memo, it is now in the president's hands with this Democratic memo to decide whether to declassify it, whether to allow it to be released, and if he does allow it to be released, whether to redact parts of it. And they're on the clock, Domenico. Yeah. Our colleague Phil Ewing calls this memo mania. So maybe we'll stick to that. Memo-pocalypse, perhaps. Memo-geddon. I'm just glad we're not calling it memo gate. There's way too many gates that are thrown in in Washington. But anyway, what's happening here is that the recommendations that the

national security team at the White House had to give to the president, Chief of Staff John Kelly said this week that Thursday, today, was the deadline that they'd They were going to get their recommendations to President Trump. He had five days by statute to get this released or not released, to give a sign off or not give a sign off. That means, guess what? We're moving toward a potential Friday dump situation, which, you know, that afternoon Friday or the morning Friday or Saturday even, we're going to be in some territory where either this thing is released or it's not released or it's heavily redacted, meaning that there is, you know, lots of black marker all over this thing. And it's 10 pages penned by Adam Schiff, who is the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee. It's largely seen as a rebuttal. Like a point by point rebuttal. Yeah. To Devin Nunes's released memo. That was a four and a half page memo that House Republicans

voted to release. He's the congressman from California who is in charge of the House Intelligence Committee. They're both the congressmen from California. They're both the congressmen from California. They're both the congressmen from California. Different Californias. Very, very different Californias. Not that far apart. Very different Californias. is that he thinks that this one's a lot less clean, that the Nunes memo seemed like it was less problematic to release. There was lots of Sturman drum around that one, and it eventually got released. In full.

In full. But this one, the thought is that it likely is going to be redacted some. And the less clean, in theory, what that means is that it might reveal more about sources and methods that the lines of a redacted memo, which reminds me of my favorite Onion headline of all time, which showed Porter Goss, the former CIA director under George W. Bush, at a congressional hearing and this piece of paper that's up there on poster board with lots of redactions in it. And the headline was CIA realizes it's been using black highlighter all these years.

Okay. When that memo comes out or doesn't come out, we will be back with you about what's in it. In the meantime, there is a story that's really causing a lot of turmoil over at the White House. And that is White House Staff Secretary Rob Porter has resigned. The staff secretary is basically the person that is the gatekeeper for all the information and paper that goes into the Oval Office. It's a very low profile and yet critically important position. The reason he resigned is that his two ex-wives came forward and accused him of spousal abuse, both emotional and physical abuse. So yesterday, Sarah Sanders at the White House press briefing comes out and addresses the

allegations in a way that is unique, I guess. I can tell you that Rob has been an effective in his role as staff secretary and the president and chief of staff have had full confidence and trust in his abilities and his performance. In a more of an update on that front, Rob has put out a statement, which I can read to you now, and I think it will address some of those other questions. These outrageous allegations are simply false. I took the photos given to the media nearly 15 years ago, and the reality behind them is nowhere close to what is being described. I've been transparent and truthful about these vile claims, but I will not further engage publicly with a coordinated smear campaign. And just to be clear what those photos were, it was a picture of his first wife with a black eye, which she said that he gave her while they were on vacation in Italy.

This is one of those stories where the reaction is fascinating. The way the White House has handled this is as much the story as the fact that this guy has now resigned. This is a case where the White House really circled the wagons and was defending this person, put out statements the night before praising him, praising his character. And then the story didn't get that much worse, though the pictures came out. And then within 24 hours, there was a new statement from Chief of Staff John Kelly. This came out late last night where he said he was, quote, shocked by the new allegations and that there is not a

place for domestic violence in our society. But then he also said he stood by his previous praise of Porter and that everyone should have a right to defend their reputations. So one question I have is, Tam, you cover the White House, you might know this, to work in the White House, they usually go through your past with a fine-tooth comb, right? Yes. And what both ex-wives have told reporters is that when the FBI came to do the background check on their ex-husband, of course, people doing background checks come and talk to the ex-wives. That is part of it. And they both raised the issue of the domestic abuse, their allegations of domestic abuse with the FBI. The White House isn't willing to comment and they never are willing to comment on people's security clearances. But the reporting is that he was not able to get a permanent security clearance and also that

White House officials, including John Kelly, have known about this for months. One of the weird side stories that kind of went along with this was among those statements of support that the Daily Mail reported on was one from Senator Orrin Hatch, who used to employ Porter. Is that right, Tam? Yeah, he was Orrin Hatch's chief of staff at some point. So Hatch, in that original statement reported by the Daily Mail, appeared to be supporting Porter. And he has had some very confusing back and forth comments, where he's put out an official statement saying,

I'm heartbroken by today's allegations. In every interaction I've had with Rob, he's been courteous, professional and respectful. My staff loved him. He was a trusted advisor. I don't know the details of Rob's personal life. Domestic violence in any form is abhorrent. I'm praying for Rob and those involved. But then reporters caught up with him yesterday and today, and Hatch said that he was not sure, and he would prefer if Porter didn't resign. And then today he's on video saying that he says, I'm somebody who believes in helping people. He's a good guy. I don't understand what happened there. And then he said, I don't believe all of the allegations. And this also just puts more pressure or more spotlight on John Kelly, the chief of staff, who clearly made a calculation that it was more important to have this guy there as his very close aide than it was to respond to these charges.

And this is not the first time this week that John Kelly has been in the news. Kelly also this week in talking to reporters up on Capitol Hill describing why some young people may not have applied for the DACA program said the difference between 690 and 1.8 million were the people that some would say were too afraid to sign up. Others would say were too lazy to get off their asses, but they didn't sign up. And another time said, well, maybe they should have gotten off the couch, which is. That has been a major, major, major issue for a lot of Democrats who say that when they try to work with the White House on particularly on immigration, they don't trust that the White House is coming at it with the same perspective and empathy for these kids that they say they have. And it's I mean, it has been it has been a major problem. We're going to take one more quick break. And when we come back, can't let it go.

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Yeah? Then join me, Ophira Eisenberg, host of NPR's Ask Me Another, every week on the NPR One app and wherever you listen to podcasts. All right. And we are back. And it is time for that thing we do every week that we love to do. Can't let it go where we talk about something that we cannot stop thinking about this week, politics or otherwise. Danielle, you're up first. All right. So earlier this week, you all may have heard that the Dow Jones,

the major stock index, you know, plummeted quite a bit in the course of a single day. We may have done a whole podcast about that. But it's like back up, right? So it doesn't matter. No, I think it's back. It's down again. Down, up. It's volatile. So all week, the Dow Jones has been losing its mind.

But so earlier this week, this fellow named Sean Usher appeared to retweet the president. And he appeared to retweet the president saying the following. If the Dow Jones spelled J-O-A-N-S falls more than 1000, quote unquote, points, there are a little unnecessary quotes here. In a single day, the sitting president should be loaded into a very big cannon and shot into the sun at tremendous speed. All caps. no excuses. And that's, you know, the tweet is filled with dubious capitalizations and quote marks and caps and weird stuff. So, and Sean Usher, the guy that tweeted this, tweeted, you know, there's always a tweet, except I said appeared to that whole time because the tweet was not real. But all of Twitter seemed to think it was real. And this tweet, I should say, the screen grab that I have of it shows that it really got around. It had sort of, I'm sure, witty commentary on, you know, what people will and won't believe.

But then what's funny to me is that this Usher guy didn't for a second think that people would think this was real. And the string of his tweets after this are just, it's like him watching a slow motion train wreck. His next tweet is, sweet mother of God. Not for one second did I think people would believe that to be genuine. And then later he tweeted, OMG, it's everywhere. What have I done? And then my favorite one is, Siri, can I be arrested for making a fake tweet? He's not a journalist, is he?

No, no, no, no, no. Thank goodness. When it comes to journalism, we have an expression for this, too good to check. But it's so good to check, you know, but I will say if you want to check out there, many of you may or may not know this, but there's a great website called Trump Twitter Archive, Trump Twitter Archive dot com. You can check any tweet from President Trump or non-President Trump and it goes back. You put in Jones, for example, like I did. I went and looked. I did J-O-A-N-S.

And there are a couple of Jones, but it's like him retweeting someone named Joan. Right. But there literally is a tweet for everything. And you can also just use the advanced search on Twitter. Well, yes, but it's not as fun. But I mean, like, anyway. People are gullible. Poor Sean Usher.

I hope he's doing OK. Or maybe not. I bet he got a lot of followers out of it. And this could be could have been a, you know, subversive tactic on his part on purpose to do. True. Maybe he has a book deal. It looked too real. All right.

I'm going to go next. Do it. The thing I cannot let go of is, you know, everybody loves a good parade. And President Trump, it seems, really, really wants an over-the-top parade with tanks and missiles and the military, like a really, like a military parade. Like the one that he attended for Bastille Day in France earlier this year. And so back in September, he was with Emmanuel Macron, the president of France, and he said this thing. And everybody kind of thought he was joking at the time. And to a large extent, because of what I witnessed, we may do something like that on July 4th in Washington down Pennsylvania. I don't know. We're going to have to try and top it.

So it turns out he has asked the Pentagon to draft up plans. The Pentagon is working on plans. The city of Washington, D.C., is not thrilled about this because tanks probably would wreck the streets that are already not that awesome. Oh, right. So, Tam, the thing is, I was wondering about all this when I heard the president was going to do this. Has the United States ever held a military parade before like this? Yes. In fact, we have. There have been military parades upon the conclusion of great military successes, like at the end of

World War One and the end of World War Two. And even at the end of the Gulf War, there was a military parade. But generally speaking, in the United States, we do not have parades outside of great war victories or way back during the Cold War, they had some military stuff during inaugural parades. But usually in the United States, the only military presence in our parades are marching bands, military marching bands, not tanks, not missiles. But so I actually I called a historian, Michael Beschloss, the presidential historian, because I wanted to know, like, is this part of our norm at all? And he told me about Dwight D. Eisenhower. And this really stuck with me.

In the 1950s, when Dwight Eisenhower was president, there were big parades in Moscow past Lenin's tomb in Red Square. They'd roll the tanks through, and bombers would fly overhead, and the leader, in that case Nikita Khrushchev, would stand on Lenin's tomb, and the idea was to show Soviet might. Back at the White House, some of Dwight Eisenhower's people went to him and said, well, maybe we should have some parades like that in Washington

or elsewhere to show American might, and Eisenhower, who didn't need his credentials to be questioned, he was the hero, of course, of D-Day. Eisenhower said, absolutely not. We, the United States, are seeking peace. We are the preeminent power on Earth. For us to try to imitate what the Soviets are doing in Red Square would make us look weak. And Eisenhower was a general. He conquered Europe. Right. And he was acutely aware of the risk that a parade glorifying the military could easily start looking like a parade glorifying the commander in chief. Domenico, what can you let go of?

I mentioned the New York Mets. And I have to tell you, last Friday was Groundhog Day. And I have a better way to tell when spring is here, and that's something called Pitchers and Catchers Report. And I was surprised to find out because somebody told me, that's Monday, this coming Monday. The New York Mets, Pitchers and Catchers, are going to be in Port St. Lucie, Florida. I just looked up the temperature there. It's 81 degrees. You want to talk about green shoots for spring. There's nothing better than spring training has begun.

And, you know, seeing pictures of people throwing baseballs in warm weather and green grass. There's just there's just nothing better than that. And this is also the week, by the way, that the Winter Olympics began. Speaking of freezing cold, non-green shoes. A little different, but there's a thing called mixed doubles, which normally most people think of in tennis. This was curling, my friends. The first time ever that there's been mixed doubles in curling at the Olympics. So they've sort of, you know, you've had women's curling. You've had men's curling. Now they've brought them together for mixed doubles.

That is a piece of trivia I would not have known had you not brought that up. Wait, so are you heading down to spring training? There may be a long weekend here or there that my boss won't know about. Hmm. Idiot. Your boss is definitely not listening. She doesn't listen to this podcast. Your. She doesn't listen to this podcast. Your boss definitely doesn't listen to this podcast.

Oh, wait. Kelsey, what can't you let go of? Okay. So, I need you guys to picture this in your mind. You're driving up a driveway in the middle of the night. It's dark out. And the lights of your car turn down the side to where you keep your pony. Because in this story, you have a pony.

Ooh. Okay. Your pony has one eye, and his name is Cricket. I don't know where this is going. Is this a guided meditation? Riding on Cricket's back is a corgi. What do you do? You obviously get out your phone and film it, right?

Like, that's the first thing that you do. Sure. This is what happened to a girl named Callie Shanker in Missouri somewhere. She posted a 15-second video of her one-eyed pony cricket with a corgi riding on its back on Facebook. Wait, did she put it there or did the corgi get on the... No, she literally drove up and you see the car lights on the back of the pony and they like tried to make kissing noises to make the pony come back and the pony runs away with the corgi still on its back. They're making a run for it together. Amazing video. Gets millions and millions of views and it gets written up in USA Today and a whole bunch of other newspapers. And the best thing about this story, the very end of the original story from the Springfield News leader, is the kicker.

That since the owners of the Corgi are Mennonites who avoid going online, Shanker said they have no idea that their dog is now internet famous cricket and corgi right off into the sunset yeah so that's been making me really happy today and whenever i get really stressed out i just watch a dog ride a pony okay i have to say that is a heck of a lead and a genuine driveway moment. Are you going to tweet that out so that we can all see it? Oh, yeah. I have, but I'll do it again. Do it again. Just do it every couple hours. Just reminding people.

This is going to be a long day. And that is a wrap for today. We will be back in your feed soon. 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 one of us on Up First every weekday morning. And if you're in Cleveland or anywhere nearby, come see us live. We're doing a show at the Ohio Theater at Playhouse Square on February 23rd. For tickets and more information, go to Nprpresents.org. We are

so totally looking forward to seeing you there. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House for NPR. I'm Kelsey Snell. I cover Congress. I'm Danielle Kurtzleben, political reporter. And I'm Domenico Montanaro, political editor. And thanks for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast. politics podcast.