The NPR Politics Podcast - Weekly Roundup: Thursday, January 4

Episode Date: January 5, 2018

The forthcoming book, "Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House," has already sparked a war of words between the president and his former chief strategist, Steve Bannon. Utah Republican Senator Orrin Hatch is retiring, and all eyes are on Mitt Romney. Trump has dissolved his controversial commission investigating alleged voter fraud. And Virginia's House of Delegates tips to the Republicans - after a tie-breaking draw. This episode, host/White House correspondent Tamara Keith, congressional reporter Scott Detrow, congressional reporter Kelsey Snell and national political correspondent Mara Liasson. Email the show at [e-mail]. Find and support your local public radio station at npr.org/stations.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hey there, it's Tamara Keith, host of the NPR Politics Podcast, here to tell you about an opportunity to see our podcast live in Washington, D.C. We're heading to the Warner Theater on Thursday, January 18th. You can find tickets at WAMU.org slash events. And we can't wait to see you there. Hey, it's Guy Raz here, host of How I Built This, with the recommendation for another podcast for you to check out, namely How I Built This. Every week,

I talk to the people behind some of the most inspiring companies and brands in the world with stories of incredible persistence, grit, and insight. You can find How I Built This on the NPR One app or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, this is Eve recording from the Capitol in Frankfort, Kentucky, where today is the first day of the General Assembly here in the Commonwealth. This podcast was recorded at 2 o'clock p.m. on January 4th, 2018. Things may have changed by the time you hear this. Keep up with all of NPR's political coverage at NPR.org, the NPR One app, or on your local public radio station. All right, enjoy the show. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast here with our weekly roundup of political news.

President Trump's lawyer has sent cease and desist letters to Steve Bannon and the author and publisher of a forthcoming book, Fire and Fury, inside the Trump White House. Trump, in an official White House statement, said that when Bannon lost his job, he lost his mind. Also, with Utah Senator Orrin Hatch retiring, all eyes are on Mitt Romney, who has already changed his location on Twitter from Massachusetts to Utah. And the president's controversial election integrity commission is no more dissolved. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House for NPR. I'm Scott Detrow. I cover Congress.

I'm Kelsey Snell. I also cover Congress. And I'm Mara Liason, national political correspondent. All right, guys. So it is the 4th and it feels like it should be February already. This has been something. A lot going on. It's just, you know, there's like yesterday I woke up and I thought, this day is going to be about North Korea. Oh, it was not. And it was not at all.

You can never decide by the morning where we'll wind up by evening. It's like a Zen thing. There's a lot of meditation books out lately. You just have to like be calm and present and see which way the news wave is going to take you that day. And the news wave took us to one Steve Bannon and one President Donald Trump. And a feud, I guess, is what has happened. This book from Michael Wolff called Fire and Fury isn't even out yet, but excerpts came out. And then the president released this very unusual four paragraph statement, really just going after Steve Bannon, who was quoted heavily in those excerpts. Scott Detrow, you have read every single drop of this, right?

I have read all the things. Where would you like to start? Do you want to start with the Trump statement? Do you want to start with what Steve Bannon said? Do you want to start with the overall theme of the book? We can go many directions. OK, so this is a book by Michael Wolff, who's a longtime New York media columnist and author and had written a lot of stories about the Trump campaign, the Trump administration early on. He is someone who wrote a story in the week or so after the election, which is an interesting thing to think about in retrospect, where Steve Bannon said, I view myself as the Thomas Cromwell of the Trump administration. A story arc that kind of fits. So he was beheaded, wasn't he? He was beheaded. Yes. So so far being blasted by the president is better than being beheaded. But both of them at one point were very influential in their realms. And this book was seems to be

written from the couch in Steve Bannon's office because Michael Wolff had a ton of access to the White House, which the White House has admitted. Yeah. Spent a lot of time there. And the result is a book with really eye popping on therecord quotes from tons of Trump administration staffers, not just Steve Bannon. Katie Walsh, who was number two to Reince Priebus, is quoted saying very cutting things about the president. Many other people as well. And we'll get to the Bannon quotes in a minute. But the overarching themes that this book is laying out, at least the excerpts that we've seen so far, do fall in line with a lot of other reporting we've seen over the past year. And that is that President Trump is disengaged from the details of the policy in the White House, that he spends a lot of time watching cable news and raging about it,

and that a lot of his staff can be very critical of him and at times disrespect him. I mean, we had reports months ago of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson calling Trump a blanking moron, allegedly. And there are many quotes in similar veins throughout this book. You know, one of the other things about this is Steve Bannon. This is not the first time Steve Bannon has been in the media saying critical things of Trump. And Trump's anger about him and what he's been saying has really been building up. Remember, first he went on 60 Minutes to say that firing Comey was the dumbest political decision in history. Then he went in Vanity Fair, where I think, among other things, he said the president wouldn't last his term. Now he is in this book

saying the president's a narcissist, his daughter's dumb as a brick, and his son took a meeting with Russians that he considered treasonous. Before we get into the bigger picture. Which treason is. Before we get into the bigger picture Bannon thing, I do think we should say the one other caveat to say when it comes to this book and the stuff in it, is that there has been a lot of pushback from people quoted in this book, from people in the White House saying a lot of this reporting is just wrong. And people have been pointing to the fact that Wolf has a reputation as a very lively writer, but has even admitted in some past profiles that have been dug up that that sometimes the details are not his strong suit. But like I said before, a lot of the big picture things mirror other reports we've seen over the last year. And Steve Bannon has not been one of the people denying the quotes.

That's a good point. Some of the pushback I'm hearing from people on the Hill is that this is part of their overall complaint about off-the-record or background sourcing is that it makes it easier to make claims without having, you know, somebody to go back to who can corroborate it. And, you know, this is a big part of the way a lot of reporting gets done in Washington, but it is definitely something that is becoming more and more an issue of debate in this era when a lot of things get, you know, background information gets challenged as fake news. The crazy thing here is he has full-on, you know, detailed conversations that he is chronicling

with quotes, quoting people having these conversations. So that's what Bob Woodward does. But Michael Wolff does have the reputation of writing really juicy books. Not all of his anecdotes can be supported. Yeah, I guess what we're saying is a little bit of a reputation going in that's different from like Bob Woodward. Not Bob Woodward. Yeah, let's let's call it a big grain of salt. All right, so let's walk through some of the high-profile Bannon quotes, and maybe I'll get bleeped here. It could be an exciting moment in the podcast.

Yeah. So the first thing that got a lot of the attention were comments that were first reported in The Guardian of Bannon talking about that infamous June 2016 Trump Tower meeting between Donald Trump Jr., Paul Manafort, Jared Kushner, and this Russian intermediary who had come there promising damaging information about Hillary Clinton. This is the If You Say What It Is, I Love It meeting. Much discussed on the podcast. So here's what Bannon has to say.

Even if you thought this was not treasonous or unpatriotic or bad shit, and I happen to think it's all of that, you should have called the FBI immediately. Wait, what is a Jumo? It's like a schmuck, right? Well, I talked to somebody at Breitbart who said that Steve Bannon uses this word a lot, and it was a typo. It's meant to be Jumoke. Oh, that's what I thought. My friend texted me, and I was like, oh, I think it's like Jumoke. That's what to be jumoke. Oh, that's what I thought. My friend texted me and I was like, oh, I think it's like jumoke. That's what it's meant to be. It's a typo.

It's something that apparently, according to this person at Breitbart, Steve Bannon says a lot. Okay, so it's like a jumoke, which I think is how you say it. I think it's like a wise guy, kind of like a character. Okay, I'm glad we solved that. So basically he's saying, I think that Don Jr. took these guys up to meet Trump,

which he's not saying factually, he's just saying, seems to me that would make sense, and that would blow a big hole in how Trump world has framed this meeting all along, saying President Trump knew nothing about it. White House continues to say President Trump knew nothing about it. Yeah. A couple of other key quotes. Talking about the Mueller investigation, quote, they're going to crack Don Jr. like an egg on national TV.

And he also says, you realize where this is going. This is all about money laundering. Mueller chose senior prosecutor Andrew Weissman first, and he's a money laundering guy. The path to effing Trump, that was a self-edit there, goes right through Paul Manafort, Don Jr. and Jared Kushner. It's as plain as the hair on your face. So those were the first round of key quotes that went into the cable news ecosystem and led to that Trump response. Yes, which I would like to read just a bit of because it is unorthodox. You know, there have been- Even in the context of what we're used to seeing.

Right. Even in the context of President Trump's Twitter feed and even in the context of other White Houses who have hated books about their internal workings, because every White House gets a book like this, though not like this, and every White House hates those books generally. OK, official statement from the president of the United States. Steve Bannon has nothing to do with me or my presidency. When he was fired, he not only lost his job, he lost his mind. Steve was a staffer who worked for me after I had already won the nomination by defeating 17 candidates, often described as the most talented field ever assembled in the Republican Party. Now that he's on his own, Steve is learning that winning isn't as easy as I make it look. Steve had very little to do with our historic victory,

which was delivered by the forgotten men and women of this country. Yet Steve had everything to do with the loss of a Senate seat in Alabama held for more than 30 years by Republicans, and later claimed that leaking to the media is the only thing that Steve Bannon does well. Yeah, I have a question about another part of what he said here is so the statement also says that Steve was rarely in a one on one meeting with me. And my question about that is I understand from other reporting is that there weren't a whole lot of one on one meetings with Trump to begin with, that people didn't want any one other person to be left alone with him, lest they have a better source towards the president's ear. Is that right? Is it is that kind of a misdirection here? Yes. I think this goes under the he doth protest too much category. The thing that really leapt

out at me in this statement, first of all, its length is extraordinary. That's why I'm saying he doth protest too much. It's way longer than anyone would need to totally crush like a bug a former advisor, if that's what you wanted to do. But at the end, he says, you know, many members of Congress and candidates and people are supportive of my Make America Great Again agenda. He says, they're helping to finally take our country back and build it up rather than simply seeking to burn it all down. And when I read that, I thought, whoa, Michael Wolff and Steve Bannon have thrown Donald Trump into the arms of Mitch McConnell, because that sounded like Mitch McConnell, you know, his argument against Steve Bannon. And of course, shortly after that, I noticed that the Mitch McConnell folks had sent out not only an email with this statement, but also a picture of Mitch McConnell smiling. Yes, it was. Like the cat that ate the canary.

It was a much shared gif of McConnell behind a desk grinning. So this has all been fun. More palace intrigue of the Trump White House. It's like, you know, sport. But what does this mean? Big picture. What does this mean for the relationship with Congress? What does this mean for 2018?

Are there political implications of this divorce that may or may not stick with Steve Bannon? Well, I think it means that Steve Bannon's stock as the leader of the insurrection against the establishment in Congress, otherwise known as Mitch McConnell, has just taken a huge hit. Kelly Ward, who was one of his insurgent candidates, who was running in Arizona for the seat being vacated by Jeff Flake, distanced herself from Steve Bannon. This is a huge victory for Mitch McConnell. The president is allying himself with the establishment, not with the nationalist populist insurrection that Steve Bannon said that he was going to run all over the country. He was going to find people to challenge Senate incumbents. The criteria he was going to use were people who were not willing to vote for Mitch McConnell as majority leader. But not only did the president just kneecap him, or as Charlie Sykes, a conservative commentator,

said he ran over him on the South Lawn and put the car in neutral and ran over him again, but he also seems to have lost one of his biggest financial backers, Rebecca Mercer. You know what? And Mitch McConnell couldn't be happier. He was at his press conference, his weekly press conference today, and he said, I'd like to associate myself with what the president had to say about Steve Bannon. And I just want to say, when we were describing that gif earlier, I don't think we fully did it justice. So I would encourage you, if you're listening, to look it up. It was on Mitch McConnell's official campaign Twitter account, which I think is team

underscore Mitch. Yes, that is his campaign version. He has a separate one for his governing, which is, I believe, at majority leader, which probably doesn't send as many gifts. No. Can I go back to the fact checking of how influential Bannon was? When President Trump was driving from location to location during the campaign, I would be there. Who got out of the car after President Trump? Steve Bannon. When President Trump was boarding Air Force One during the first few months of his administration, who was walking right behind him? Steve Bannon. Well, he was the chairman of the campaign and he was the Karl Rove and David Axelrod of the White House. Yeah, exactly. That was the role he played. So there's a little bit of reinterpreting

history here if he was never that important, because that's not true. Bannon was given a position on the National Security Council. I don't think that that has ever been given to a political advisor before. And briefly, I mean, he was removed, but... That was one of the many things that happened in 2017 that had already like left my mind until you reminded me. So another reminder of 2017 that we're seeing play out yet again is the Trump administration and the president himself doing things and saying things on Twitter or information leaking out and then it getting back up here to Capitol Hill and every single Republican saying, I don't know what you're talking about, or I haven't seen that,

or I'm just going to shut my mouth and run into an elevator. That is the trend of 2017 that is not going away in 2018. Which is incredible because 2018 was supposed to be the golden age for Republicans. They just had this incredible victory. The Dow was at 25,000. The economy was doing great. And all of a sudden, Donald Trump has made sure to start 2018, and we've only had a very few days, with this huge fight with Steve Bannon and a bunch of pushing the envelope tweets, even for Donald Trump. So let's get to one bunch of pushing the envelope tweets, even for Donald Trump. So let's get to one of those pushing the envelope tweets. This tweet came on the evening of January 2nd. It came and then like 20 minutes later, he tweeted about the fake news awards that he was

going to do. So it was just one of a stream of tweets that seemed to have been in response to something he had seen on Fox News. There was a segment about this thing that Kim Jong-un had said about having a nuclear button on his desk. So President Trump says, I see your nuclear button. And here's his tweet. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un just stated that the nuclear button is on his desk at all times. Will someone from his depleted and food-starved regime please inform him that I too have a nuclear button, but it is much bigger and more powerful than his,

and my button works! So that tweet came out and it caused, there were a lot of people who were actively worried. Well, because he's talking about nuclear war. So, like, I understand where the worry would come from. I mean, there's been, as we're in year three, year four, depending on when you want to start it, of a world of Donald Trump tweets. Oh, he just says things on Twitter. Oh, you should take it lightly.

But, I mean, this is a country that we have no diplomatic relationship with, that we don't know much about, and they don't know much about us. And there's very little to go on. So when you have the president of the United States making comments and jokes about nuclear war and nuclear weapons, I think you have a right to be worried. The people who know a lot about this are really nervous. Not only is North Korea the number one foreign policy problem on Donald Trump's plate as this new year starts, but as Scott just said, this is the kind of situation where miscalculations can lead and misunderstandings and misinterpretations can lead to disaster. What's really interesting to me is that, yes, he's threatened fire and fury before for North Korea.

He's flirted with this idea that the North only understands one thing, you shouldn't talk to them. But real things are happening with North Korea. For instance, South Korea has decided to take Kim Jong-un up on his offer to talk to them. South Korea is nervous about Donald Trump's bellicose language because in the event of a nuclear war, planned or unplanned, hundreds of thousands of South Koreans would be the first casualties. Yes, there are also thousands of American troops on the peninsula, but they would bear the brunt of it. And what's really interesting is after Prime Minister Moon took up the North on their offer of talks, Donald Trump tweeted again. And he said, with all of the failed experts weighing in, does anyone really believe that talks and dialogue would be going on between North and South Korea right now if I wasn't firm, strong, and willing to commit our total might against the North? Fools. But talks are a good

thing. The South is pursuing a different strategy than Donald Trump, but he's taking credit for it anyway. This also makes me think about the pure politics of this a little bit. There are a number of people who have had discomfort with, A, the way the president makes comments like, my button is bigger than your button, or the little hands conversation. Particularly evangelical voters don't like that about him. They also don't like the big, blustery, bellicose way of talking about nuclear war and about things that are of grave importance. And this may come back to the president later on when these people who voted for him on the idea that he was going to be a non-interventionist and who would tone down when he became president.

There's a possibility that this plays into the broader rhetoric that has been alienating them. One thing that happened today is that President Trump spoke with President Moon of South Korea, and they talked about the Olympics, which are coming up very soon in South Korea. And President Trump said that they're going to send a high-level delegation. But the thing that's really notable here that comes at the end of the statement from the White House about it is that the two leaders agreed to de-conflict the Olympics and our military exercises so that United States and Republic of Korea forces can focus on ensuring security of the games. So they had some exercises planned and they have regular exercises that Kim Jong-un hates and wants to stop.

Yes. And they have just agreed to at least at least temporarily not do those exercises. So that is that is actually a, you know, a diplomatic decompression. So you have the bellicose rhetoric, but the actual strategy is being conducted by South Korea. All right. We are going to take a quick break right now. And when we come back, and if you're setting new goals for your business, you need the right people on your team. ZipRecruiter has transformed how you find them. ZipRecruiter posts your job to over 100 job sites with just one click. Then they actively look for the most qualified candidate and invite them to apply. That's why 80% of employers who post on ZipRecruiter get a quality candidate through the site in just one day. Try ZipRecruiter

for free at ZipRecruiter.com slash weekly. Support for NPR politics and the following message come from Rocket Mortgage by Quicken Loans. Rocket Mortgage gives you confidence when it comes to buying a home or refinancing your existing home loan. Rocket Mortgage by Quicken Loans. Rocket Mortgage gives you confidence when it comes to buying a home or refinancing your existing home loan. Rocket Mortgage is simple, allowing you to fully understand all the details and be confident you're getting the right mortgage. To get started, go to rocketmortgage.com slash NPR politics. Equal housing lender licensed in all 50 states. NMLSConsumerAccess.org number 3030. I'm Stacey Vanek-Smith.

I'm Carlos Garcia. And we are here with a new show. The Indicator, from Planet Money. On every show, we take some number in the news and we dive into it to find the big idea behind it. Get it on NPR One or wherever you get your podcasts. All right, we're back. And longtime Utah Republican Senator Orrin Hatch announced this week that he is retiring. There have been a bunch of other retirements announced this week, too, over on the House side. And Hatch's decision to retire comes despite President Trump's attempts to persuade him to run for another term.

And almost immediately after that announcement from Hatch, one Mitt Romney or probably one Mitt Romney aide went on to Mitt Romney's Twitter account and changed his location from Mitt Romney, Massachusetts, to Mitt Romney, Utah. Conveniently, Mitt Romney does own a home in Utah, at least one, and also is something of like a Utah hero because of the way he saved the Winter Olympics in 2002. We are talking about the Olympics a lot in this podcast. And that is exciting. Yes. We love the Winter Olympics.

Can't wait. Okay, so Kelsey. The Hatch situation is both unsurprising and impactful, if that's possible to be both things. He is the longest serving senator currently in this building. But he has some hipster glasses that make him look a little younger. And he's got some hipster staffers who are tweeting fun things for him on his official account. But his ties are insane. Right. But Hatch, I mean, Hatch has fueled speculation about his political future on his own. He has changed his mind

publicly several times. And there was a lot of talk about his overall physical and general health playing into his decision. He has, you know, his physical ailments have become more prominent over time. We should say he's 83 years old, and he has chosen to leave. But his decision leaves a huge void. I mean, he is the chairman of the Finance Committee, which handles health care and taxes and a number of other things. He is one of the most senior people on the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, which is a really long way of saying they handle the other entire rest of the health care system. And he's also really high up at the Judiciary Committee. He is one of these elder statesman types who is also known as a big bipartisan dealmaker. And it's a time right now when we're seeing a lot of losses in that department.

We're seeing people who are reliably viewed as Republican dealmakers saying that there is just no point in running for reelection in this political environment. People like Bob Corker of Tennessee, Jeff Flake of Arizona. These are people who, you know, Democrats would turn to when they would want to make a deal and where presidents would turn to them to reach out to Democrats when they needed people to get on board with, you know, complicated, marginally bipartisan issues. And unlike Flake and Corker, Orrin Hatch was very loyal to President Trump, like saying over the top positive things about him, especially recently as they were getting this tax bill, which he carried over the finish line through the Senate. Yeah, he was absolutely one of the architects of that legislation. It is a loss that people are not quite sure, you know, who will fill that space. And I mean, the idea right now is that it'll be Mitt Romney, but Mitt Romney does not fulfill that space of being, you know, the guy who's going to stand by President Trump. And, you know, in terms of filling a space, I have been obsessing about Mitt Romney taking Orrin Hatch's seat for many months, as people here know, because he would

fill a different kind of space. If, as he is widely expected to do, run and win easily, he would immediately fill the space being vacated by Jeff Flake, Bob Corker, he would be automatically the Republican in Congress with the most stature, respected, even beloved former presidential candidate by his party, and he would become the center of gravity for the kind of anti-Trump, to the extent that there is that sentiment on Capitol Hill. Anti-Trump Republican. Anti-Trump Republican. Yeah, a lot of Democrats for that. Even though right now, since the Corker, McCain, George W. Bush and Flake kind of explosions of criticism, we've had radio silence from Republicans. But Mitt Romney, just by being there, he doesn't even have to say anything.

He represents the alternative for the Republican Party. It's an alternative to Trump. I don't think he undercut himself when he talked to Trump about the secretary of state job. There's a criticism from a lot of people that that when Romney went and had that incredibly awkward but amazingly photographed French dinner with President Trump. Frog's legs. Frog's legs. And it looked like it was in Cloud City. A lot of people said that he undercut all of the very harsh criticism that he had made of Trump. He seemed to approach it as, if I can help this country, especially in an administration where I may have concerns about it, I'm happy to have that conversation.

He apparently talked to Hillary Clinton before he went and had that meeting. I also think that that idea puts him in a different camp than Flake or say Corker, who say they want to push back against the president, but they're leaving. He is saying, I want to push back against the president and I am volunteering to go into the breach. And since we're talking about Jeff Flake, he made some news today on All Things Considered. Kelsey, Jeff Flake was asked whether he would consider running against President Trump in 2020. Yeah, and he said that he wouldn't rule it out. That is by no means him saying that he will do it. But he also said, of course, that he didn't know for sure that the president would run again in 2020. But he says that he does think that an independent

challenge will be coming. And he wouldn't be surprised if a Republican challenge came. But he wouldn't say it would be him. He just wouldn't say it wouldn't. absolved the president's advisory commission on election integrity. The president had created it back in May after claiming that he would have won the popular vote in 2016 against Hillary Clinton, if not for all of the millions of illegal votes that were cast. But then the president and his aides were never able to back that up with any proof whatsoever of widespread voter fraud. They created this commission. The commission was controversial from the day it was created. Yeah. And again, it mostly goes back to the fact that that a lot of people viewed this entire commission as nothing more than a way to to validate a tweet that there was no evidence for. Democrats off the bat and again,

repeated those claims again when this was dissolved, said that the purpose of this was nothing more than, this is a Chuck Schumer quote, a front to suppress the vote, perpetrate dangerous and baseless claims, and was ridiculed from one end of the country to the other. The fact is, this commission never really did that much. It was... It meant twice. Yeah, and it was led by Vice President Pence, but Kansas Secretary of State Chris Kobach took the lead on this. He is a controversial figure in this world. Yes, a lot of states just refused to hand over the voter data that the commission requested. But there were also a lot of lawsuits. And it wasn't just lawsuits. It was the fact that these lawsuits had gotten to the point where they could credibly ask for information about communications, about internal discussions within the commission.

And at that point, the commission just basically stopped doing any work. Yeah, a lot of states refused to turn over voter data that was requested by the commission, including Chris Kobach's own state. Yep. So there was that. A member of the commission actually sued the commission. The whole thing was a morass and highly, highly problematic. The White House in a statement said that not only is the president dissolving it because of these issues, but is turning the issue over to the Department of Homeland Security to review the

commission's initial findings. Editorial note, there were none. And to determine the next courses of action. One interesting thing about having it over in the Department of Homeland Security is that there could be public records requests for information about what is being done on this issue. All right, we are going to take one more quick break. And when we come back, that tied race in Virginia for a House of Delegates seat has been decided by a drawing and also can't let it go. Support for this podcast comes from Amazon Crossing and Masaji Ishikawa's new memoir, A River in Darkness,

an inspiring true story of escape from North Korea. Ishikawa tells the story of a man without a country. This riveting book lifts the curtain on life under totalitarianism and gives readers a never-before-seen look at one of the world's most secretive regimes. Listeners can purchase this title by visiting Amazon.com slash A River in Darkness. have a really good conversation with a Republican member of the House. He is from this really big swing district in Texas, and his situation kind of represents the challenge a lot of Republicans will face in 2018. Yes, the president is the titular head of the Republican Party, but he is not the only voice. He's the loudest voice right now. Of course he's the loudest voice, but guess what? I'm also a voice and a wing of the Republican Party.

Congressman and former CIA officer Will Hurd. Check it out. I'm also a voice and a wing of the Republican Party. Congressman and former CIA officer Will Hurd. Check it out. It's been a minute, wherever you get your podcast. We're back and we've got an update on one of the craziest political stories of late. Republican David Yancey has won a seat in the Virginia House of Delegates in a tie-breaking draw. The winner of House District 94 is David Yancey. And the way this was drawn. Why can't they just flip a coin? It's so crazy.

So they had two film canisters in a bowl with the name of candidates in each. Then they took the first canister out of the bowl was the winner. Then they took the second and show it just to show both candidates were in there. Why not just flip a coin? Also, how weirdly specific is it to have film canisters? There could be any number of containers, but film canisters? Let's find something that really highlights just how arcane this system is. So weird. I guess our

concerns here are like based on the premise that the best way to resolve a dead tie election is a 50-50 chance thing. But I don't know what else you could do other than re-vote. And it wasn't just a 50-50 election. It would have determined the majority in the House of Delegates, which would have been 50-50 if the Democrat had won. And this is particularly high stakes in Virginia, where they have a number of issues that have been fought pretty significantly in recent years, and where the Democratic governor is at odds with a Republican legislature. And so this is not one of the situations where nothing's at stake. Right. The possible expansion of Medicaid in the state of Virginia is one of those things that is at stake, though it potentially could still happen. We'll have to wait and see, as the president would say.

And if you had strong thoughts on this election and you slept in our system, which is imperfect and is particularly imperfect when it comes to disputed elections and elections where it's a tie or where there are disputed ballots. It's just it just gets a little bit messy in close races. Speaking of messy. No, not messy. The fun part of our show. It's time for Can't Let It Go, the thing that we always do when we talk about things we can't stop thinking about this week, politics or otherwise. Kelsey. All right, I'll go first because mine is about the weather. It is, if you are in the East Coast or basically anywhere, oh gosh, east of the Mississippi, I think, you are thinking about cold snaps and snow. Well, I can't let go this interview that our local NPR station, WAMU, did with Peter Sagal. He's the host of the NPR show, Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me.

They called him up to ask him what his advice was for Washingtonians about dealing with the cold, because he's living in Chicago. And as we've established before, I'm a Chicagoan. And you're all smug about it. I don't know if you notice it about Ron and me. We talk about it sometimes. But this idea that there's like a half of an inch of snow outside here in D.C. and people are complaining. They're so worried about how they're going to get to work and what they're going to do. So, you know, WAMU called Peter Sagal up, and this is what he had to say. Do not complain about it, because that's not cool. Don't walk in and go, oh, my God, I can't feel my hands.

Walk in from minus whatever degrees it may be. You've got ice in your beard. First of all, grow a beard. And then you walk in, and you have ice in your beard, and you're like, whoa, a little brisk outside, huh? And then shake your beard so the little snow crystals tinkle on the table in front of you and you will be the coolest. I love this. I love this because my husband came home yesterday and he was like, see, it's okay that I still have my beard. See? See? In defense of facial hair.

I mean, we're the type of people who each own four or five winter coats because we see them as fashion statements. So I definitely can't let that go. Can I say two things about that? One, I heard this live and I was like doing dishes and not in a position where I could like touch my radio and change it. It went on for so long. I would agree. It was a little too long. Two, I did have a beard for a while and it is a very satisfying feeling when there is snow in your beard and you have an icy, crusty snow beard. You feel really cool about yourself. I cannot identify with this at all. I'm the only one who can speak to that in the podcast. It's a true thing. Okay, I'm going next. Right after President Trump tweeted about his nuclear

button being bigger than Kim Jong-un's nuclear button, he then made an announcement that he will be doing a fake news awards ceremony or award. We're still trying to get the details on exactly what it will be, but he will be awarding his fake news awards on Monday night. Well, one Stephen Colbert saw that as an invitation to campaign because he wants to win a fake news award. Personally, I'm excited for the most dishonest and corrupt media awards of the year, or as we call them, the biz, the fakies, because nothing gives you more credibility than Donald Trump calling you a liar. And I, of course, don't want to get snubbed.

That's why tonight, and this is true, I have placed a billboard in Times Square, the failing New York Times Square, and purchased a full-page ad on my Twitter feed with a for-your-consideration ad. You know, for me, the best part is that Bob Mundello, our film reviewer, is one of the people who was quoted in this campaign literature that Stephen Colbert has created. He is quoted not talking about Stephen Colbert or his show, but in fact about the movie Dunkirk, because why not? All right, Mara. Okay, just to show you when we talk about Can't Let It Go, we really, really mean it.

A couple of weeks ago, my Can't Let It Go was Roy Moore's wife, Kayla Moore, announcing at a rally to refute criticisms that she and her husband were anti-Semitic, she stood up and said, Fake news would tell you that we don't care for Jews. I tell you all this because I've seen it all, so I just want to set the record straight while they're here. One of our attorneys is a Jew. And then she let it hang in the air with a little smile on her face.

It turns out, which I thought was an extraordinary moment in the campaign, one of our attorneys is a Jew. Not Jewish, but is a Jew. And the foreword, which is a publication that has a big Jewish audience, it's a Jewish-oriented publication, went to work to find out who was Roy Moore's Jewish attorney. And they came up with someone who fits the description. His name is Richard Jaffe. And this has been like a month-long investigation. Yes.

He is someone who defended the Moore's son, Caleb. He wasn't a campaign attorney, but he was one of their attorneys. But it turns out that Richard Jaffe is not only an enthusiastic supporter of Doug Jones, who beat Roy Moore in that Senate race, he was on the stage at Roy Moore's victory celebration, and he was at his swearing-in in the Senate this week. That's my can't let it go. But I think this segues well, Scott. It does. Because I'm here to talk about Hanukkah.

Very specifically. Which is technically over. But the light lives on. And I actually have not been able to let this go because it is a song and it has been stuck in my head for a week, including throughout the entire taping of this podcast, to be honest with you. And that's not necessarily a great thing as you'll hear from the song because this is a Hanukkah song

penned about a decade ago by Orrin Hatch. Hanukkah, oh Hanukkah The basketball of light In Jerusalem The oil burned bright Patch, like many older members of the Senate, most of whom I think have now retired, likes to write songs. He's prolific.

Yeah. John Ashcroft also wrote songs, and they sang together yes uh so we're at the chorus let's celebrate tonight hey so days of hanukkah come let's celebrate come let's celebrate tonight so hatch at the request of one of his friends, wrote a Hanukkah song. It was filmed. And this is a music video. And I love that the video, it's like... It's a bunch of nice little Jewish girls singing this song. But they're cutting the album in the studio, except they're all just kind of awkwardly standing around.

And Orrin Hatch is just sitting there looking at lyrics. It's really funny. But I listened to this many times the day that he retired. Hanukkah, oh Hanukkah, the basketball of light. In Jerusalem, the oil burned bright. And that is a wrap for this week. 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 also always catch up with one of us on Up First every weekday morning. And if you like the show, please subscribe and rate us on iTunes. It really helps other people find us. And one other thing. For an entire month, Scott and I have been coming on this podcast and asking you to please make a donation to your local public radio station and talk about it with the hashtag WhyPublicRadio. Well, the campaign is over and we are grateful. Stations are grateful. And not that it was a competition. It was kind of a competition. It was kind of a competition. And Scott?

We won. Woo! The NPR Politics Podcast audience was the most engaged of all the NPR podcasts out there. Thank you very much for that. More importantly, thank you for supporting

your local public radio station and the work we do on the podcast. And thank you for bearing with our repeated requests to contribute to donate.npr.org slash politics, which we won't say anymore for a while, but that actually really helps a lot. All right. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House for NPR.

I'm Scott Detrow. I cover Congress. I'm Kelsey Snell. I also cover Congress. And I'm Mara Liason, national political correspondent. And thanks for listening to the senior senator from Utah. I think that's all it is.