The NPR Politics Podcast - Weekly Roundup: Thursday, January 25

Episode Date: January 26, 2018

There have been a number of revelations this week related to the Russia investigation. Among them, that the special counsel's team has talked to Attorney General Jeff Sessions, and that Robert Mueller is now looking to sit down with President Trump. And while the shutdown is over, the underlying problems remain, particularly when it comes to finding a resolution on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. This episode, host/congressional correspondent Scott Detrow, congressional correspondent Susan Davis, justice correspondent Carrie Johnson, political reporter Danielle Kurtzleben 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

Hi, this is Daniel calling from Sao Paulo, Brazil, where it's summer, we are nine months away from our presidential elections, and six months away from hopefully winning the Soccer World Cup. This podcast was recorded at Thursday,'s political coverage at NPR.org, on the NPR One app, and on your local public radio station. Okay, here's the show. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast here with our weekly roundup of the week's political news. There's been a lot of revelations on the Russia investigation front. The special counsel's team has now talked to both fired FBI Director James Comey and Attorney General Jeff Sessions. And Robert Mueller is now looking to sit down with President Trump. We'll sort through what exactly matters out of all of that and what else has happened. And the shutdown is over, but the underlying problems remain, both on funding for the

government and on finding a resolution on DACA, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. I'm Scott Detrow. I cover Congress for NPR. I'm Carrie Johnson. I cover the Justice Department. I'm Danielle Kurtzleben, political reporter. And I'm Mara Liason, national political correspondent. Carrie, you tweeted something along the lines this morning that you had a very busy week this morning alone. It's all right. I had a meatball sub for breakfast. We're powering through the day.

Sounds like a great choice under any circumstances, especially on a busy day. Breakfast of champions. Let's just start right there and walk through some of the things I just mentioned and just kind of provide what context we're able to provide right now. We learned that special counsel Robert Mueller's team has interviewed both fired FBI director James Comey and Attorney General Jeff Sessions. And we've learned that President Trump is happy to talk to Mueller or at least says he is happy to talk to Mueller. So first, let's start with those interviews. What do we know? We know that the special counsel Robert Mueller's team interviewed fired FBI Director James Comey sometime last year, questioning him about memos and correspondence he hours for an interview with the Robert Mueller special counsel team.

And we don't know exactly what Jeff Sessions said, but we do know he's in a position to have a lot of answers that could be relevant to Robert Mueller's investigation. First of all, he was a top campaign surrogate for Trump, led the foreign policy team on which George Papadopoulos, the aide who's pleaded guilty, sat. And also, Scott, he advised the president to fire Comey last year, part of what appears to be an ongoing obstruction of justice investigation. So that Sessions interview could have been about both of those tracks that we seem to think the investigation is looking at. Obstruction of justice. Did Trump take steps or say things to try and shut down an investigation? And the campaign question. Yeah, there are two separate streams, we think, of this special counsel probe at this moment. There may be more.

Robert Mueller is not giving us a blueprint as to what he's looking at, but based on what we can tell from witnesses he's interviewed and what they're saying, what their lawyers are saying, those two areas are quite active. And we know the president's lawyers, President Trump's lawyers, have said they're in communications with the special counsel about when and whether the president is going to sit for an interview himself. Some news on that this week. He says he actually would very much like to sit for an interview with the special counsel. But I would love to do that. I'd like to do it as soon as possible.

Good luck, everybody. Thank you, Mr. President. So here's the story. Do you have a date set? I don't know. I guess you're talking about two or three weeks, but I would love to do it as soon as possible. Good luck, everybody. Thank you, Mr. President. So here's the story. Do you have a date set? I don't know. I guess you're talking about two or three weeks, but I would love to do it. Would you do it under oath? Again, I have to say, subject to my lawyers and all of that, but I would love to do it.

Would you do it under oath? A big caveat there. A hole you could drive a truck through. Trump said if his lawyers advise it, he'll sit for that. So I have a sort of basics question on this, which is if Trump doesn't want to sit for an interview, does he not have to? Can he can't be compelled to be to talk to Mueller? Here's the deal. You can sit for a voluntary interview. If you sit for an interview, your lawyer can show up and sit there with you and raise questions and refuse to answer certain questions. If you do not agree to a voluntary interview,

it's possible the special counsel would decide to send you a grand jury subpoena, where you would have to go to the courthouse, raise your right hand, testify under oath, and your lawyer would not be invited into the grand jury. There's another issue, and that's everybody has the constitutional right to remain silent, to not incriminate yourself. The Fifth Amendment, the president could always exercise that right if he wants to. Now, Mara, I want to go to you because you were in the room when President Trump made this statement Wednesday night. First of all, can you can you explain the setting of why it came to be that President Trump was talking to you and a handful of other reporters about this and other topics?

Because we had all been invited to an off-the-record conversation on immigration with Chief of Staff John Kelly. That was getting underway when the president popped in. Just popped in, stuck his head in the room. Stood in the doorway and started talking. And it was all on the record with him. And during the course of that conversation, he said, as Carrie said, I'd love to do it. I'm looking forward to it. He says, but again, I have to say subject to my lawyers and all of that. But what was so interesting is he didn't try to make the distinction between under oath and not under oath, even though that sounds like

it's a distinction without a difference, because as we learned with Mike Flynn, lying to the FBI, whether you're under oath or not, is a crime. Yeah, it doesn't matter if you're under oath. If you're talking to the FBI, you have to tell the truth. They can charge you whether you've raised your right hand and sworn on the Bible or not. Well, and so right after all this happened, I saw that Ty Cobb, one of the attorneys for the president, said something to the effect of the president is not volunteering to speak before a grand jury. So is that the White House lawyer is already putting a kibosh on what Trump said? How much does that negate what Trump said? The president has said a lot of things about his level of

cooperation with the special counsel over time. He's previously said 100 percent he testify under oath. And then he said, well, we'll see the investigations, a witch hunt and a hoax. I don't know that I want to talk to these people. There's nothing to this. Now he's back at, I'd love to do it. Then his lawyer was walking back. We're not going to know until the day that that of strength. There's nothing there. I would love to. I don't have, I'm not afraid because that's his bottom line for everything. But he has a chorus of friends and supporters like Chris Ruddy of Newsmax, like Roger Stone, who are saying, no, no, do not talk to Mueller. It's a perjury trap. Donald Trump is a notoriously loquacious, unreliable witness, and they think he could get himself in trouble. What are the risks that present themselves to President Trump,

no matter what the setting is, any sort of interaction where he's answering questions to this investigation? What risks pop up? So the president has said, and he did again last night in Mara's presence, there was no collusion with Russia. There's no obstruction of justice. Everyone's misinterpreting my efforts to defend myself as some kind of obstruction of justice. Even so, if he lies about something important to the special counsel or the FBI, he exposes himself to some kind of false statement charge. There's also a whole bunch of other unknowns. He doesn't know what some of these other witnesses have told the special counsel. He may not be aware of all the documents, emails, other things that the special counsel has got his hands on. And getting surprised in that kind of setting is a very risky business. That's why even people like Rush Limbaugh, the conservative talk show host, are saying,

Mr. President, don't do this. Don't talk to Bob Mueller. I have a dumb question here. When it comes to lawsuits, when it comes to trials, there's the idea of discovery. There's the idea of generally speaking, lawyers from both sides will have to share the general idea of the evidence they're bringing. Is that the case or not the case in an investigation like this? Couldn't you walk into an interview and just have absolutely no idea what's coming? Yeah, you could have absolutely no idea what's coming. There's a problem with that, though. That's that the president's lawyer, John Dowd, has come out and said that this White House has been unbelievably cooperative with this team of investigators. Something like 20 people have been

interviewed from the White House or the campaign. And presumably, those lawyers are in close contact with the president's lawyers. So they're talking back and forth. There's like a game of telephone going on constantly. What they ask you, what do they want to know? And all of that information is getting funneled back to the lawyers for Donald Trump. There may, though, be some secrets from the cooperators like Mike Flynn and George Papadopoulos. One thing that really struck me last night with the president was how he was talking about obstruction in a new way. And he is a master at developing a narrative, like no collusion, no collusion, it's a hoax, it's a witch hunt. Now he's focusing on this issue of obstruction. And he says, oh, did he fight back? You fight back and they say it's

obstruction. So in other words, what he's saying is, I might have fired Comey, I might be trashing the FBI, I might be casting aspersions on Bob Mueller, but that's all intended to defend myself. Somebody comes at me, I counterpunch. Is that a good defense against an obstruction charge? Well, it's not clear to me the president himself, even if there is evidence, can be indicted or charged with a crime while he is the president of the United States. There's an ongoing debate in the Justice Department about that. Of course, the president said he didn't do anything wrong. What investigators appear to be amassing, according to the witnesses and the public testimony in Congress last year,

is an alleged pattern of conduct by the president and some of his closest advisors, starting with their response to learning that Mike Flynn, the national security advisor, might not have been truthful, going to the dismissal of acting attorney general Sally Yates, moving on to the dismissal of FBI director James Comey, and then asking, allegedly, the acting FBI director Andy McCabe whether he had voted for President Trump in the election. And he said last night, I don't remember if I asked him, but if I had, it was an unimportant question. How much did he vote for?

Did you ask him that? I don't think so. No, I don't think I did. You did not. I don't know what's the big deal with that. I would ask you, who did you vote for? I don't think that's a big deal. But I don't remember that.

I mean, I saw that this morning. I don't remember asking him that question. A lot of people are thinking that Bob Mueller is going to come out with some dramatic, final, big report or perhaps a charge. First of all, does he have to write a report? Might he not at all? And second, if he decides that you can't charge a sitting president with a crime of obstruction, could he lay out a description of what Donald Trump did that basically meets the definition of obstruction,

but because he feels it's a political matter, not a criminal matter, that he leaves it up to Congress to charge him or not? This is a wonderful question, and I'm going to answer it in a wonky way because we're the politics podcast. And you know what? Rules matter. So Robert Mueller was appointed through Justice Department rules. it in a wonky way because we're the politics podcast. And you know what? Rules matter. So Robert Mueller was appointed through Justice Department rules. He has a boss. For right now, his boss is the Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. Robert Mueller doesn't get to decide whether or not he gets to write a report that's made public to the citizens of the United States of America and the world. The Justice Department gets to decide that. We're not there yet. So that's going to be a big question.

So let's shift gears here, because as all of this has been happening, as we've learned that these interviews have taken place, as the conversation has intensified about what sort of interview could happen with the president, there's been a ramped up effort in Congress, from House Republicans in particular, to try and disparage this investigation, to ask a lot of critical questions about the investigators and the roots of the investigation. And the two things that we've been hearing a lot about are hashtag release the memo and the idea of missing text messages at the FBI. So let's start with with this memo. This is from Devin Nunes. You may remember him as he's still the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. For a while, he had been heading the Russia investigation going on

there. He's kind of stepped away from that, but still playing a big role in all of this, particularly when it comes to this memo. What exactly is this memo about and what's the context here? We haven't seen the memo. You know who else hasn't seen the memo? The FBI or the Justice Department, which is a point of contention for them. But the way it's been described, it appears to raise questions about the basis for the Justice Department's application to the secret foreign intelligence court to get some wiretaps. And Nunes seems to be claiming that the Justice Department acted with some kind of improper partisan bias, perhaps relying overly much on that dossier by the former British intelligence agent Christopher Steele. What we do know from the Justice Department is that they don't want Nunes to release that memo without giving DOJ a chance to look at it first.

DOJ also says there was no wrongdoing in his scene with respect to that application to the FISA court. And Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the committee, came out this week and said that Nunes has done a lot of different things at various points in this investigation that happened to pop up right at a moment of tension that looks bad for President Trump. Chiefly, this conversation about unmasking, you remember it from about a year ago, where it turns out that Nunes had gone to the White House, coordinated with members of the Trump administration about that. Yeah. In fact, Adam Schiff now says he's going to write his own memo. The Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee are going to prepare their own memo.

The question for somebody like Mara is, is that really going to matter? Yes, I think it matters. It matters to a certain audience. What we have here is charges and counter charges about the conduct and bias or not bias of the Department of Justice and the FBI. There are a lot of layers to this. There's a legitimate layer. Were they biased? There are text messages that suggest they might have been. We haven't seen the full group of text messages between DOJ employees. We haven't put them in context yet. So there are legitimate questions about bias against

Donald Trump in the FBI. But then there's another whole layer that I put in the basket of conspiracy theories. And you have sitting Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin saying that there was a secret society of anti-Trumpers inside the Justice Department that were conspiring to take down the president. He has said at one point that there was an informant. And none of this has any evidence yet. It's based on the word secret society that was in one standalone text. Right. Let's pause right there, because, Danielle, can you explain what we know about this text? It seems like it might have been sarcastic. Right. So the text in question about this quote unquote secret society, it was from Lisa

Page to Peter Strzok. And one line in that text says, maybe it should just be the first meeting of the secret society. Now, from that text itself, we can't really know exactly what she was talking about. It very well may have been a joke. We have no idea. But this has led to some speculation and theorizing about there actually being some sort of secret society at work here. If you have a real secret society, you probably shouldn't text about it, right? You'd keep it secret.

Forgive me. I want to back up just a teeny bit and ask Carrie something. The Steele dossier, do we even know to what degree that has influenced or will influence the Russia investigation at all? So you talk to people who used to work at the FBI and participated in the compiling of applications to the secret foreign intelligence court, and they'll tell you that something like the Steele dossier would not have been enough on its own to get a judge on that court to approve a wiretap. Was it used in combination with some other things? I think that's what Devin Nunes and Adam Schiff are fighting about right now, without actually being able to say how much of it was used or was not used. Because by the way, it's a secret. So we're talking about

things that are secret in a political context where people are using the dossier to hit each other over the head. And we have not seen the dossier to hit each other over the head. And we have not seen the dossier and we have not seen the application. But people are talking about this memo, which appears to have been produced for partisan reasons. So, Carrie, before we let you go, one thing you keep reminding us of in the newsroom is that we have no idea where this investigation is right now, where it's going and what the timeline is. I mean, there are so many definitive things being said out there, among them that if they're trying to interview President Trump, that means this is almost over. How certain should we be of anything when it comes to trying to have a big picture understanding of this investigation? I don't think we know a lot. And I think we should be honest about what's still unclear in our minds.

The Justice Department and the special counsel's Office are not steering reporters away from stories that may be wrong. And there are a lot of people out there speaking with great confidence about the multiple areas under investigation by the Special Counsel team. The Justice Department inserted in a court filing in the last couple of weeks the notion that the full scope of the investigation has not been made public. And there may be a lot of misinformation out there about what actually is under investigation. Remember that this special counsel team has had the ability to surprise us all, including the White House, last year and this year. And my bet is that they are not done surprising us. They are not going to tell us what they are doing until they're ready to announce it in court. That's the only time we're going to get a sense with any clarity of what they've been up to and when they're done. Nobody was talking about George Papadopoulos

until suddenly he popped up in a court filing. That's exactly right. All right, Carrie, thank you very much. My pleasure. All right, we're going to take a quick break. We're going to come back, swap out Carrie and bring in Sue Davis and talk about Congress and that whole shutdown thing that happened this week. new, unexpected idea to help you make sense of the day's news. Listen every afternoon on NPR One or wherever you get your podcasts. Okay, we're back. And remember way back on Monday when we were talking about a federal government shutdown? The government is, of course, open again. But the key reason for the shutdown, the fate of the people protected by the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program has not been addressed. So what happens next? We've now brought in Susan Davis, who also covers Congress. Hello. Hey. So let's start, I guess, with what President Trump said about any future immigration deal last night at that spur of the moment gaggle with Mara. Do you think you're

going to get a deal on immigration, Mr. President? I think so, yeah. I think so. We're going to get a wall. We're going to get great border security. In fact, I just wrote something out, and you might talk about it, Chief, if you want. Otherwise, we'll do it for tomorrow. But I just wrote something out while we're looking. We want great border security. We want to do a great job with DACA.

I think it's our issue. I think it's a better issue for the Republicans and for the Democrats We're going to We're going to morph into it. It's gonna happen What's that point in the future and you're over over a period over a period of 10 to 12 years? Somebody does a great job. They've worked hard. It gives incentive to do a great job, but they worked hard They've done it terrifically whether they have a little company or whether they work or whether whatever they're doing if they do a great job. If they've worked hard, they've done terrifically, whether they have a little company or whether they work or whatever they're doing,

if they do a great job, I think it's a nice thing to have the incentive of after a period of years being able to become a citizen. How much is the legal status? We're looking at 10 or 12. Sue, more was not a phrase we had been familiar with, but 10 to 12-year citizenship path sounds a little familiar. Right. And in the outline of what the president told reporters in this sort of impromptu press conference fits with what negotiators and Congress and the White House have been saying are the, quote unquote, pillars of a deal. So it was interesting that the president sort of reinforced that this is the scope of legislation that they're looking at.

And I would say that the announcement from the White House that they're going to send up a more specific legislative framework of what they want was welcome news on Capitol Hill. So, Mara, was this something that he brought up or was it only when people started asking? He came in and he was asked right away. He started talking about I'm going to Davos. But then one of the first questions was, are you going to get a deal? And he started laying this out. And I can only tell you that the other part of the interview, all about Bob Mueller, that was normal Trump, what we're used to. This was something new. And we all perked up because he was laying out very specifically the terms for a deal that he would accept that hadn't been done before.

The Hill has been begging him to do that so they would know what he would accept because, unlike all the other issues that have been before Congress this year, this one can't be passed with 51 votes or Republicans only. This needs compromise. Therefore, it needs presidential leadership. And he is actually getting involved in this. And as Sue just said, what he outlined in terms of paths to citizenship and a couple other issues which we can discuss is pretty darn close to what the bipartisan group of senators is talking about. The substance is the same. It'll probably have a little more to satisfy Republicans, but this is what they've been talking about. And this is a question I was just about to ask you, Mara, was, you know, the fact that Trump has moved around a bit on this. He said, you know, give me something and I'll sign it. And

then he rejects this. Do we have a sense of why he's moving around? Where I think the president is, is he wants a deal. He wants to both be magnanimous to the DACA recipients. He said that before, but he wants to be seen as being magnanimous to the DACA recipients, he said that before, but he wants to be seen as being magnanimous to DACA recipients. Deporting these sympathetic young people is a bad look for the Republicans. And that's why this issue has vast majority support among the general population and even among Republicans. He wants to get this done. Now, what's interesting, and Sue can talk about this too, is over the course of the shutdown, the Republican Party moved very hard line on the DACA recipients. And in a way, they were suddenly illegal immigrants. There was an ad by the Trump campaign that if Democrats don't

agree with the president, they're going to be responsible for every single murder committed by an illegal immigrant. So they were really kind of veering into a much harder line approach to this particular piece of the immigration puzzle. And when things were going pretty well for a while after that initial White House meeting that they carried it live on national TV in another impromptu moment, there was a sense of bipartisan cooperation in the Senate. The deal falls apart. And then there was more attacks of Democrats, you know, are siding with illegal immigrants over American citizens. The use of the phrase chain migration, which is very troublesome for immigration activists. And I think the escalation of the rhetoric gave a sense that people were starting to walk away from the table, that people were retreating to their corners. The turnaround now of the president kind of laying out, again, the terms that they've already agreed

to, I think there is still some optimism that a bipartisan deal can be dealt with. And I think a question of how much of a specific fine point the president puts on these details that come up on Monday. And I would say part of the problem that Durbin Graham had from the very beginning was really just a PR problem. Sue, can you remind us again what Durbin Graham is? Sure. So the proposal was by Dick Durbin, a Democrat from Illinois, and Lindsey Graham, the Republican from South Carolina. And they offered essentially to the president the four pillars he had laid out.

It was a path to citizenship for the people in the DACA program. It included some money for the wall and other border security and some restrictions on family unification and the diversity visa program. So that was the offer that was put to him that was rejected by the White House. Where is the table and how many tables are there in Congress right now? The only negotiations that really matter are with the leadership in the White House. And the one thing that Republicans will consistently tell you is they're not going to put anything on the floor that Donald Trump isn't already saying he's going

to sign into law. So that deal by nature needs to be the Donald Trump immigration proposal, which is why it's so interesting that essentially what he said at the White House is what everybody's been saying all along. It's just now the president really finally taking ownership of this. And I think he has to do that to give Republicans cover to get on board. I want to get at one thing you were saying there, Sue, which is about, you know, the language that he used, you know, is used chain migration being the term favored by, you know, opponents of that program versus family reunification, which is the more friendly term used by proponents of that program. It sets up a sort of false dichotomy, is what one immigration expert was saying to me this week, by the way, which is, you know, there's all this talk of a potential points-based system, a system of, you know, making immigration a bit more skills-centered. And what this guy told me was, you know, it doesn't have to be either or. If you have a points-based system like Canada has, which is the country that everybody brings up these days,

you can have points for both. It doesn't have to be one or the other. You can have a sort of hybrid system. By the way, right now, we do have both at work. Far more people come in because of family-based immigration. But both things do happen right now. And this chain migration or family reunification, to me, is the biggest issue in this package. The Democrats were willing to give him the $20 billion for the wall. They're willing to do something about diversity lottery. Last night, he said, we're either going to get rid of it, or we're putting a replacement for it. That sounded a little more flexible. But chain migration is about legal immigration. This is about potentially radically altering the legal immigration system. And for hardliners like Stephen Miller or Steve King or Tom Cotton, it's about drastically reducing the number of legal immigrants who get to come to the United States by 50 percent, I think, in Cotton's legislation.

So the president said that he wants to create a new standard. He didn't say get rid of chain migration altogether. He said a new standard that's a good standard so that not everyone that you've ever met can come into the country. Who's talking about that anyway? He says we'll have wives and husbands and sons and daughters, and then we'll talk about parents. If he wants something big on chain migration, the last time that Congress passed something big on this was part of comprehensive immigration reform in 2013. It was the Gang of Eight bill that got 68 votes. And in exchange for changing the chain migration were willing to give in exchange for 11 million people in the country illegally. Because there were a lot of headlines of Chuck Schumer rescinds offer to pay for the wall, which to me didn't seem like something that was worth putting too much stock in. Because over and over again, Democrats have right off the bat said we are willing to concede border security in order to get something for DACA.

Right. And I don't know if it was necessarily taken off the table as much as like once one negotiation falls apart, you're back to starting from scratch. The fact that Democrats have already conceded in various forms that they're going to have to supply more money for border security. There will have to be more some form of a physical wall. And the thing that Democrats do fall back on is that a lot of what this bill may fund is existing law, that there was a 2006 border law passed that did authorize the construction of a physical barrier along the U.S.-Mexico border. And that got bipartisan support as well. He passed with a significant amount of bipartisan support. The wall has just become much more of a political football because part of the politics of what the wall contains is a lot of the racial insensitivity that Trump has promoted throughout his campaign and his presidency when he talks about immigration.

So let's talk about how all these policies are viewed by Americans. Danielle, you took a long look at where polling is on all of these issues. Walls, DACA permanent fixes. What are the takeaways? I mean, the wall and the point that Sue just made are a great place to jump off here, because several polls taken this January have shown a remarkable amount for a variety of polls of similarity on the wall, which is pollsters will ask, do you support building a wall or expanding a wall? Around six in 10 Americans say they oppose that. However, one interesting thing that came out this week was a Harvard

Harris poll. One of its questions said, do you support, it didn't ask a wall, it said a combination of physical and electronic barriers along the border. And that got much more support than a wall does. It got just over half. And so what my educated guess is that the word wall, the phrase border wall, has become so politicized and imbued with Trumpness that people don't like it. But if you say, hey, how do you feel about these other border security things that we're not going to put the Trump branding on? People are much more fine about it. One other big thing I found that Mara also got to is that DACA is just really popular. People like it across polls, depending on how they ask it. Once again, six and ten to eight and ten, sometimes even more Americans say, yes, we want people who

were brought here as children and are now young adults, we want to allow them to stay in some form. One other interesting thing is that when you ask people about legal immigration, which Mara also got to, Americans are more likely to say they want less legal immigration than we have right now than they are to say they want more legal immigration right now. Now, it depends on how you ask it. If you say, should the levels stay the same? There are a fair number of Americans who want that, too. But still, it looks like there are more Americans who want less legal immigration than more of it. And that's so interesting because every economist tells us that we are about to face a deep labor shortage. Correct. Yes. Yes. Mainstream economists, these are not biased people,

mainstream economists will tell you immigration is on balance, good for the economy. And absolutely necessary. Yes. We can talk about wages and different skill areas and so on. But I mean, on balance, good for the economy. And that's why corporate America does not want to decrease legal immigration, because they know that very soon they're going to have a really hard time finding workers. So last question on all of this, the funding bill that solved the government shutdown from earlier this week runs through February 8th. The promise for Mitch McConnell to move on to immigration February 8th, if it's not solved already, was a big part of that.

Given the way Congress works when it comes to deadlines, when do you expect to see some sort of firm agreement start to come into place here? I don't think that there is any expectation that Congress is going to pass any kind of law on immigration before February 8th. The best hope is that negotiators in the White House could perhaps come up with a deal in principle, that they could announce a joint agreement on what that would look like, and then you could start drafting legislation to that effect and passing it shortly thereafter. There just simply isn't that much time to do this. I know it may sound like a three-week stopgap is a lot of time to negotiate because Congress can move very fast when it wants to. But next week is a bit of a wash. We've got the State of the Union. Congress is adjourned for a lot of the week because House Republicans are having their annual policy retreat. So we're really talking about that week of February 8th. It's

just not likely going to happen, which means Congress is going to have to pass an additional stopgap measure, maybe two more to get these to keep the government open, because part of what's being held hostage in all of this is a longer term budget agreement on what the spending levels should be for fiscal year 18. And what Democrats have done strategically is said that they will not cut a deal on the budget until they have a deal on immigration. So, again, we could see the question of will we have another shutdown on February 8th? I think the lesson coming out of the last shutdown is Democrats didn't gain much out of it. And there doesn't seem to be much appetite for another one. All right. I'm sure we will talk about this many more times.

Let's shift gears here and talk about something else that happened in Congress this week. It was a week that had more news on the sexual harassment front in Congress. This started over the weekend when the New York Times reported that Pennsylvania Congressman Pat Meehan, he's a Republican, had paid out a taxpayer-funded settlement to a staffer who accused him of sexual harassment. This was notable for a couple reasons. First of all, Pat Meehan sits on the House Ethics Committee and had been one of the lawmakers investigating harassment. This was notable for a couple reasons. First of all, Pat Meehan sits on the House Ethics Committee and had been one of the lawmakers investigating harassment. And secondly, is the way that Meehan responded to this. He decided it made sense to do a tour of a lot of

the local media, including WHYY, the NPR member station in Philadelphia. Let's just listen to a couple of the things that Pat Meehan said. Starting off, Pat Meehan told Dave Davies, who's the reporter who interviewed him, that what he did was basically go to this younger employee and tell her he had feelings for her. That I had an affection for her, but I clarified that beforehand, that I was a happily married man. I was not looking for any kind of a relationship, that when I expressed those sentiments, it was in the context of where I admitted that it was something that from time to time I struggled with. One more thing to listen to before we talk about it. One thing that Meehan said about this woman and how he viewed her was that he viewed her as a soulmate. Even though he was married and even though he says he wasn't trying to pursue a relationship, he thought they were soulmates.

Let me describe the term soulmate. And I can only tell you what it meant to me. And it related to the kind of kindred spirit that was going through the experiences that we shared together. And in my job, as with all colleagues like this, you know, there are highs, there are lows, there's excitement, there's all kinds of things that you deal with in terms of the pressures of the day. And here was the very person that was at the center of all of that. Yes. Can we also just add one of the other amazing details in the story is that part of the harassment

complaint alleged that when the congressman found out she had started dating, was it a serious relationship? He got very jealous and started treating her poorly. And also in additional interviews, he blamed that on the effort to repeal and replace Obamacare. That was that I thought was in terms of spin and excuses for why you. But what was the exact quote? Like I said no to Obamacare, but I want to say yes to you. Yes, he said, he said, I came out and this is this is in the handwritten letter he wrote her. He said, I just came out of the White House and I had to say no to the president. But I realized I said yes to you.

So, OK, who wouldn't be won over by that? Am I right? So the thing about there's many places to go here. But to me is that and I think we should just hear the cut because Dave Davies asked him, like, why are you telling me this? So let's just listen to that. Okay, this is obviously a lot more personal information than one would normally share. I think I know the answer to this,

but why are you kind of going into this kind of detail in this circumstance? Because I've got people making accusations that somehow I have acted in a sexually harassing way and i think if people see the nature of the communication they will appreciate that it was intended as a as an invited conversation with somebody that i believed i would have been able to uh you know to have that and the last thing in the world that I would have engaged in is sexual harassment. I tried to get into this guy's head at least a little bit to try to figure out where he's coming from.

And, you know, clearly he seems to have a fundamental misunderstanding. What he seems to think is because there was no sex involved, there was no assault, there was no coercion, there was no quid pro quo. Therefore, nothing was wrong. And I don't know how many standard deviations away from the norm he is on how much he's misunderstanding this, but he doesn't seem to get it. The big issue of the moment when it comes to sexual misconduct, it's not just about rape and assault and all of that. It is very in large part, but it's also about power dynamics. And he was misusing his power. And as Sue said, she felt that she was mistreated after she informed him she was starting a relationship. Exactly. And he doesn't seem to get that very fundamental thing. We should note that he is now a former member of the House

Ethics Committee. House Speaker Paul Ryan has unilateral authority to appoint members to that committee. He has removed him from the panel. He is also now subject to his own ethics investigation that the committee confirmed is underway. It's also interesting because in this process of this sexual harassment settlement, he is again one more of these lawmakers that use their taxpayer-funded office accounts to pay out the settlement. The Speaker called on him to pay out of pocket and reimburse the Treasury. His spokesman said he would only do that if the House ethics investigation determined that he was guilty. So there's a lot more we could say about this. But there's also some politics involved in this, too.

And obviously he's a congressman. But this is also relevant to a very current political dynamic in Pennsylvania that's interesting. Pat Meehan is a suburban Philadelphia Republican. He represents a district that voted for Hillary Clinton, but is also drawn in an incredibly complicated way in that when people bring up the most gerrymandered districts in the country, his district is often at the top of that list. So he was probably really vulnerable going into this year, which he says he's continuing to run anyway. But as all this happened, Pennsylvania State Supreme Court ruled that Pennsylvania has to redraw all of its congressional maps to be more fair in time for

this year's election. So his district is probably about to get even more Democratic leaning than it is now. And there's probably a lot of Republicans that would like to see Meehan step aside so they can have a sacrificial lamb district to mitigate the pain. I mean, there is not much incentive for having him stick around. And as we've seen with other lawmakers who have resigned over these allegations, it stops becoming just about them and their race and about the party and what the party stands for and which candidates they stand behind. So sticking around when you're facing these allegations can have ramifications and races outside your own, which is why people like the speaker and campaign people start to say, hey, hey, pal, maybe it's time for you to go. OK, so let's let's talk about something else that that's far more disturbing and angering, and that's the Larry Nassar story.

Larry Nassar, of course, is the former USA Gymnastics doctor who was just sentenced to up to 175 years in prison for sexually abusing young women, gymnasts, many of them in the USA Gymnastics program, many of them at Michigan State University, where he worked as well. Not a political story per se, but certainly something that was really vivid and got a lot of people really upset this week as woman after woman after woman just gave really powerful testimony about him. But Sue, this did also reach Congress. This is something that had an effect on Congress this week. It did. I think we saw members of Congress really embrace and wake up to the rage that I think the public was feeling as the conviction hearing played out over the course of the week. And we started to see things like Senator Jeanne Shaheen is a Democrat from New Hampshire. She sent a letter to Senate leaders calling for them to create a select committee to look in to the allegations that a lot of the accusations against Nassar were ignored or covered up over a 30-year period between the university, the Olympic Committee, and USA Gymnastics. There were senators like Democratic senators, the Michigan senators, Gary Peters and Debbie Stabenow, had called on the MSU president to resign over this.

She ultimately did this week and stepped down. Statements from senators like Ted Cruz praising the women who came forward. One of the training facilities was in his home state of Texas. And there has been some initial reaction from Congress because it didn't get as much notice. Feinstein introduced a bill and it was passed by unanimous consent in November that essentially would crack down on these athletic associations to require reporting allegations of sexual abuse to legal authorities, which you would think would already be a law. But it is not that passed by unanimous consent. She used this week to call on House Speaker Paul Ryan to bring it up for a House vote. I would think that a unanimous consent support in the Senate would be a good indication that there's probably an appetite to do that. Okay, we're going to take another quick break. And when we come back, we're going to get into can't let it go. And I'm just

going to say it involves snakes, it involves sharks, and it involves gay bars. Be right back. Every get to Friday, look back on the week and say to yourself, what just happened? I'm Sam Sanders. Check out my podcast, It's Been a Minute, where every Friday we catch up on the news and the culture of the week and try to make sense of it all. Listen on the NPR One app or wherever you get your podcasts.

Okay, we are back. We have had a pretty weighty podcast today. A lot of serious topics, a lot of, you know, kind of disturbing topics. So I think it's really great to end the show like we do every week with Can't Let It Go, where we all talk about one thing. We just can't stop thinking about politics or otherwise. Not only should you go first, but if you want to just do a couple. I have like a top ten list. I will give you my, potentially my favorite one out of this week. Especially as you said, Scott, it's just been like a very heavy news week and I needed something to lighten the mood. And I saw this story and it really cracked me up.

And I think it was just a good example of how people can be kind to each other. And my colleague this week comes out of Gulfport, Mississippi. And a little gay bar there known as Sips. The bartender at Sips is a woman named Cara Coley. I hope I'm saying her name right, but it looks pretty much like Cara Coley, who is the bartender there. And she shared an anecdote on Facebook that got picked up in the media in which she was tending bar and the phone rang and she answered, you know, this is Sips. How can I help you? And a woman on the phone said, is this a gay bar?

And she was like, well, I like to say we're an everybody bar, but yes, it's mostly a gay bar. And the woman says, can I ask you a question? And she's like, OK. And she goes, are you gay? And the bartender says, yes, ma'am. Yes, I am. And she says, great. What was the one thing you wanted to hear from your parents when you came out? And the woman is like, excuse me so much for for talking to me. I really appreciate it. And she says, good

luck. And they like kind of hang up. I just love that. It's like local mom calls gay bar to ask gay bartender about advice about gay son. And who can I call? Who would know? But what a great story about community. That's just so great. You know, gee, there are all these I see these people going into this bar. They could help me know what to do. And they did. Right. And that I think it also shows that the mom probably doesn't know a lot of gay people was, you know, looking for the answer, not knowing who to turn to. And, you know, when in the answer, not knowing who to turn to. And, you know, when in doubt, just turn to your local gay bar for some love and acceptance. But really open-minded. Yeah.

And the bartender could have easily been snarky. Right. Exactly. You know, what do you... Why are you calling here? And they just engaged on a very human level. And it was just a nice little story out of Gulfport, Mississippi. And if I'm ever there, I'm going to swing by Sips and say hi to that bartender.

All right. Mara, what about you? Well, I feel that after that, I should probably just retire. But I had a feel good, can't let it go this week, which is that Tammy Duckworth, who is a senator from Illinois, is having a baby. And she is the first female senator to have a baby while serving in the Senate. Ever. Ever. There are reasons for that. You have to be 30 years old to become a senator.

There are not a lot of women senators. Women House members have given birth, but she is the first. And in addition to that, she is a decorated war hero who lost both her legs when she was in the service. There have been women who have had babies in Congress. They've all otherwise been in the House. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand had children while she was serving as a House member, but she didn't have any more kids when she became a senator. It's also probably worth noting, just for context, that generally speaking, one, you have to be 30 to be a senator, but also it's usually not your entry job into politics to become a U.S. senator. So most people build a political career before they run for statewide office.

And historically, even women that do tend to run for office, one of the things they always say, and they're trying to change the culture of this, is that women tend to not even start to think about running for office until after they have all their children. Famously, Nancy Pelosi of California talks a lot about that, that she was in her 40s and had five kids before she even really started to engage, because for a lot of obvious reasons, women have to sort of do that first before they can pursue their career, and men aren't held back that way. But she got a lot of kudos and a lot of credit from her senators. And she already has a child, which she gave birth to when she was in the House of Representatives. Oh, but the prime minister of New Zealand, I think, just said said that she is not only pregnant but she is actually planning on taking a parental leave for a little bit when the baby comes this oh that is really interesting is she the first

head of government who's given birth in office second benazir budo benazir budo oh interesting all right we've come a long way baby and now you know um so do we want to talk about snakes or sharks next? Ooh, I'm going to go sharks. Sharks. Sharks. Okay. Sharks. Sharks, Danielle. I just gave up a little bit of it, but Danielle, sharks, go.

So this all starts with a story that flew under the radar, really. It's about a woman named Stormy Daniels. And so Stormy Daniels, for those who have been living under a rock for the last week or two, Stormy Daniels is the adult film star who allegedly had an affair with Donald Trump years ago. Now, the White House denies this. But in 2011, she gave this very long interview to In Touch magazine. That interview is 5,000 words if you want to read it. But as part of those 5,000 odd words, she talked about how one of her encounters with Donald Trump,

she went to see him at a hotel and they just hung out and watched Shark Week for a while. And while they're watching Shark Week, and who doesn't like Shark Week, she said he was obsessed with sharks and that he's terrified of them and one of his the things that she quoted him as saying is quote i donate to all these charities and i would never donate to any charity that helps sharks i hope all the sharks die which are all the things in that storyline that is the one that seemed to have gotten into the news orbit like i was no I was at a shutdown rally that Democrats were holding and a speaker, not a senator,

but the emcee grabs the mic and goes, I don't know if you heard, but Donald Trump's afraid of sharks. And the crowd all cheered. I know. So as Market Watch reported this week, since this interview came out, various ocean conservancy organizations have seen a surge in donations.

Cynthia Wilgren, chief executive officer of the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy, says, who knew? Who knew? I know. We have been receiving donations in Trump's name since the story was published. And the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society had a lovely quote. Paul Watson said, it's actually more dangerous to golf than it is to go swimming in the ocean with sharks. I don't know what data he's relying on there, but lightning. Yeah. I mean, such as such as politics.

Now the president says something and he can inspire. But that is Trump Trumponian physics. Everything he does gets an equal and counter reaction. Right. I hope a pollster sticks a shark question in their next poll. Public policy polling is the pollster that would do it. How do you feel about... We hate sharks, too.

Do you think all the sharks deserve to die? Yes or no? How do red and blue America feel about sharks? You got to work on question wording on that one. Yeah. Anyway, can't let it go, Scott. How about you? I hear there are snakes.

I'm just going to read to you a Reuters article that I delightfully came across this week. Dateline Jakarta. U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis saw Indonesian troops drink snake blood, roll in glass, break bricks with their heads, walk on fire, and more, in a rare military demonstration on Wednesday meant to show the unique skills of Indonesia's military. It goes on to say that often Pentagon chiefs are treated to some sort of military parade or presentation. The ceremony at Indonesia's armed forces headquarters was far more theatrical, however, even featuring a blindfolded soldier shoot out a balloon held between the legs of one of his colleagues. At least one shot missed, although no one appeared injured. To the sound of beating drums, the Indonesian soldiers performed a series of gripping martial arts techniques,

breaking what appeared to be concrete bricks with their heads. They also smashed stacks of burning blocks with their hands. This goes on, and I want to keep reading, but I will say, as I get to the highlight, there was video of it as well. So let's listen to the video as I explain. Is there ever. Perhaps the highlight was a demonstration involving live snakes, which Indonesian forces brought out in bags and scattered on the ground just feet from where Mattis was standing. That included a king cobra which widened its neck

as if it was going to attack. The soldiers then cut off the snake heads and fed the snake blood to each other as the crowd looked on. At least one Indonesian soldier bit a snake in half. So is that like practical on the battlefield in any way?

What are the life skills that you apply in war? I mean, don't get me wrong, it's badass but like... Is this what happens when you don't have a country that has enough money to like buy bombs? So two more things. I feel like madness is by like

just get some drones, dudes. It would intimidate your enemies. It's kind of like the haka, you know? True. This is more intense. So two more points. One, Mattis apparently loved the snakes and was raving about the snake presentation to the reporters on the plane afterwards. Oh, goodness.

Two, there was one more practical aspect of this demonstration. At the end of the demonstration, to the tune of the movie Mission Impossible, the Indonesian forces carried out a hostage rescue operation, deploying stealthily from helicopters with police dogs. The dogs intercepted the Guzman,

quote, as you can see, the dogs bit the terrorist, the narrator concluded. So there you go. Action-packed welcoming ceremony for Jim Mattis on his trip to Indonesia. Eating snakes is like hard to top in terms of like, we'll never forget that welcoming ceremony. And that is a wrap for this week.

We'll be back in your feed soon. You can keep up with all of our coverage on NPR.org, NPR Politics on Facebook, and of course, on your local public radio station. If you like the show and listen a lot, please subscribe to us and rate us on iTunes. That helps people find the podcast more than anything else you can do. Thanks so much. I'm Scott Detrow. I cover Congress for NPR. I'm Susan Davis. I also cover Congress. I'm Danielle Kurtzleben, political reporter. And I'm Mara Liason, national political correspondent. Thank you for listening to the NPR. I'm Susan Davis. I also cover Congress. I'm Danielle Kurtzleben, political reporter. And I'm Mara Liason, national political correspondent. Thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.