The NPR Politics Podcast - Weekly Roundup: Thursday, July 26

Episode Date: July 26, 2018

President Trump struck a deal with the European Commission President to not impose further tariffs on the EU after Trump had sparked fears of a trade war. And House Republicans file articles of impeachment against Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. This episode: political reporter Asma Khalid, White House reporter Ayesha Rascoe, congressional reporter Kelsey Snell, and editor correspondent Ron Elving. 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

This is Mr. and Mrs. Manganiello calling from our wedding at the National Aquarium in Baltimore, where we are surrounded by sharks, archerfish, puffins, and the alien-like sea robin. This podcast was recorded at 2.17 p.m. on Thursday, July 26th. Things may have changed by the time you hear this podcast. All right, here's the show. Congratulations. I'm so honored that you took time out of your wedding to give us a shout out. So sharks and puffins, if they had some blowfish, they'd pretty much have the whole podcast. What a cool place to get married.

I know. And they can really multitask. All right, well, hey there. It is the NPR Politics Podcast. We are here with our weekly roundup of political news. President Trump and the European Union are apparently kind of friends again. At least they've stepped back from the brink of a trade war. Plus, House Republicans filed articles of impeachment against Rod Rosenstein. I'm Asma Khalid, political reporter. I'm Ayesha Roscoe. I cover the White House. I'm Kelsey Snell. I cover Congress. And I'm Ron Elving, editor correspondent.

All right, well, let's start with the big trade news from yesterday, where President Trump met with the European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker. And after their meeting, Trump had this to say. We agreed today, first of all, to work together towards zero tariffs, zero non-tariff barriers, and zero subsidies on non-auto industrial goods. Thank you. So this seems like a fairly large-scale reversal from what the Trump administration was saying just, I would say, a few days ago even. So Ayesha, why don't you start by just letting us understand how we got here? President Trump had been over the past couple of weeks really expressing almost anger at the European Union.

He referred to them as a foe. And he said that basically they had been taking advantage of the U.S. when it comes to trade and they'd been mistreating farmers and mistreating our industries and that this had to change. He had already put steel and aluminum tariffs on the EU and other countries, but he was then threatening to go ahead with these auto tariffs, which would have been really big. This is a much larger part of our trade with the EU. So that would have been a much bigger deal. Yeah. I mean, can you walk us through that? Because I feel like it seems like they agreed that they're going to hold off on any auto tariffs, but then that isn't

really specified. Right. And then the same with the steel and aluminum tariffs. It's going to hold off on that. But we don't have an immediate suspension of the tariffs, do we? No, they're working towards possibly lifting these tariffs and the tariffs that the EU had done kind of in retaliation. So basically, they're going to work towards zero tariffs, zero non-tariff barriers and zero subsidies. The EU is going to buy more soybeans and buy more liquefied natural gas. And then you're also going to have kind of talking about these kind of regulatory barriers that you have on certain goods and trades between the U.S. and the U.S. try to deal with that. And they also agreed to kind of work together to reform the World Trade Organization. And that's kind of aimed at dealing with some of the issues with China. But as you can see from

what I just said, that's not really, these aren't really deals. They're kind of deals to make a deal. It seems like this tone, at least from what Ayesha is describing, seems more conciliatory between both the EU and President Trump. But it also feels like we've been here before when you talk about other countries.

I mean, I recall, was it the Treasury Secretary went to China and we were told that the trade war is off. And then a few days later, I believe it was, the trade war was back on. So how do we know if this is really a sort of a genuine detente or just, I don't know, what's the opposite of a detente? The proof will be in whether or not the president reverses the steel and aluminum tariffs, takes those off, and whether or not the president changes his tone. Just a few days ago, earlier this week, the president tweeted, tariffs are great. So now apparently tariffs are so bad that we should eliminate them on everything

at all times with everybody. So, all right, contradictory messages can sometimes be a negotiating tool. The president has said many times that we shouldn't be predictable, that disruption and confusion can be tools that can be useful in negotiation. And in this particular instance, a representative from the European Commission comes over. They have a kiss, actually, one of those Gullick sort of air kisses there in the Oval Office. That sends a very different message. This is all in response to an enormous pushback the president has gotten to his trade policies from a variety of his most loyal supporters, not only Republicans in the House, some Republicans in the Senate, but also I'm reading here from USA Today this morning, which had an op-ed signed by Americans for Prosperity, Club for Growth,

Heritage Action, Freedom Works, National Taxpayers Union, the list goes on. These are groups that the president relies on, and they are saying he should stop his trade war before it hurts our economy. So we got this signal, and we got other signals this week that the president is responding to those political pressures. And Ron, those are not just groups that the president responds to. Those are groups that fund many of the campaigns that Republicans are running across the country, including funding the president's 2016 campaign and presumably whatever campaign he may have in the future. So, Kelsey, I mean, Ron was talking just a couple minutes ago there about some of the pushback that the president's been receiving.

And I will say I kind of echo that idea that whenever I go out and talk to voters across the country, Republican based voters, tariffs is the one consistent issue that I have heard pushback on in terms of how the president's been handling himself so far. So I am curious how thus far, at least the specific relationship with the EU or this sort of brink, I guess, what do you call this? I don't know what you call this. I was like, what is the right word for this situation? How is it being received on Capitol Hill? Well, they also have really strong problems. A lot of the Republicans have really strong issues with these tariffs. It's important to remember that most Republicans on Capitol Hill who came from this kind of business background, the Chamber of Commerce Republicans, we sometimes call them, they really, really have never liked this kind of policy. This kind of trade policy used to be a thing that you heard, you know, Labor state Democrats liking. They don't like this. They particularly don't like it if they

come from farm states where a lot of the senators in particular say they hear from constituents who are really worried that the president is putting them on the front lines of this fight. Now, they seem to be encouraged by the idea of the European Union buying more U.S. goods, particularly this idea of buying more soybeans, which is something that the president talked about extensively in that press conference. But they are still really cautious. They don't see this as actually being a total solution. And they are still worried that things couldn't work out and that at the end of the day, these tariffs could come roaring back and they could be back in the same place as they were last week. Now, we had another signal, too, this week, Kelsey, from the president with respect to those farm states where the president said $12 billion would be coming their way to relieve the distress of farmers. Oh, boy. Let me tell you, Republicans in Congress do not like this.

I talked to several people who said, I didn't come to Washington as a Republican to start a new spending program. Now, that is pretty common for Republicans to say they don't want the government to spend more money on something that could be called a bailout. They want the free market to work and they want people to support themselves and not have to rely on government assistance. It is super unpopular up here. And it's really confusing for a lot of Republicans who say this is just not the kind of policy that they would ever write. So actually, Kelsey, can you explain what this farm bailout is exactly?

I call it bailout, B-A-L-E. Oh, I love it. Thank you. But we're talking about up to $12 billion. Can you just walk us through what exactly it is and what its specific goal is? So it's a combination of payments to farmers hurt by the tariffs and, as we talked about, mostly soybeans, buying other crops for distribution in food pantries and trade marketing assistance. So they are giving them all kinds of funding and help. This $12 billion, though, is the big question.

We don't know exactly how they're coming up with this money. It's not money that Congress is going to approve because, as we already said, Congress doesn't really like this idea. It's money that exists somewhere within executive branch authority that they are going to reshuffle and try to fund this new program. Do we have any sense, Ayesha, of why the Trump administration is doing this now and specifically also why farmers? I mean, there are certainly other industries, the seafood sector, the manufacturing sector that have also been hurt by these tariffs. President Trump seems really sensitive about this idea of these tariffs hurting farmers because they're such a big part of his base. And he doesn't want to lose them. And he has said that he doesn't want them to be suffering because the Chinese are not buying soybeans. And that's the big issue because of the actions that the Trump administration has taken. So what he's saying is we're going to do this to help them because I've

got my farmers. I love them. And that this is going to be a momentary, a little bit of pain, but you're going to be better in the end. I think that's where a lot of lawmakers have been saying, and a lot of, you know, some of these farm groups are saying, look, we appreciate the money and farm groups were saying we appreciate the money. But long term, we need these trade wars to be worked out because once we lose that market share, that doesn't just come back. Like you can't just go back to selling into China. And even though Europe is going to buy more soybeans someday, someday, we don't really know. It's not like the European Union directly says, OK, buy all the soybeans. It's still the market. And they were already expecting to buy more U.S. soybeans because there's some issues

in other countries. Yeah, it's a it's a bandaid. And it's I'm sure they appreciate it, but it's not a long term solution. I was talking to farm state Republicans in the Senate yesterday. Actually, I was talking to John Kennedy Republicans in the Senate yesterday. Actually, I was talking to John Kennedy, the congressman from Louisiana. One of the things he pointed out is it's not like a made-to-order situation with commodities. It's not like these farmers can be told that they should deliver X amount of soybeans and then be able to do it the next day. There's a long lead time. Planting takes planning. And if there is a disruption now, it could be something that farmers feel for a long time in the future. And a long negotiation

with the EU over buying or opening new markets won't really solve that problem. Kelsey, I have a question for you, because you're saying that a number of members of Congress really don't like this idea of a bailout. And I guess I'm just confused as to why then they're not trying to sort of stop it within whichever whatever power they may have. I mean, I certainly I know this is not like an apples to apples comparison, but we do remember that when there was talk of bailouts during the Great Recession under President Obama, there was a lot of discussion, right, about whether or not that was needed. And that was during a really dismal economic time. This is in the midst of what most economists would

say is a fairly booming economy. Well, it's important to remember that during that bailout, that was money that Congress had to approve. Like we talked about before, this is not money that what the Trump administration is talking about is they're not talking about asking Congress to approve this. They're just talking about going ahead and coming up with this $12 billion from other accounts that exist. Do we know how they do that? Actually, there is this program that's still on the books. It comes from the 1930s, and it was there to help farmers in a terrible time for rural America. It was the Depression. They'd come out of the Dust Bowl. There were really difficult conditions. And this program still exists. And so they think

that they can work some money through that without a separate appropriation. Now, that probably remains to be seen. Congress will have something to say about it. There will be challenges to it in all likelihood. But that's the gambit. The idea is that they can do this through that program. Now, that would not necessarily get them money for some other things they don't want to ask Congress for because Congress has said no, such as a wall across the entire Mexican border. But in this case, they think they can get $12 billion jimmying it through this program. We shall see. Ron, you've done such a good job of previewing the headache of the spending bill fight that's coming down the pike for Congress over the next few months.

Thank you. All right. Well, we're going to take a quick break. But when we get back, we're going to talk about the articles of impeachment filed by House Republicans. Support for NPR and the following message come from SimpliSafe, dedicated to creating a thoughtfully designed, easy to use system so users can blanket their homes with protection and never give it a second thought. The New York Times Wirecutter called it the best home security system. Plus, SimpliSafe donates a security system to a family in need when you order yours.

At simplisafe.com slash NPR politics. Hi, I'm Shankar Vedantam, host of the podcast Hidden Brain. This summer, we're sharing a series about reinventing yourself. We call it You 2.0. Add us to your summer listening for ideas about responding to life's messiness and chaos with wisdom. We're back. And on Wednesday night, a block of conservative House Republicans filed articles of impeachment against Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. Now, on its face, the idea of impeachment seems a little shocking. So, Ron, let's start off by just explaining what these articles of impeachment are. I mean, what does

this actually mean for Rod Rosenstein? The House Freedom Caucus, and this is a group within the House Freedom Caucus, has long felt that Rod Rosenstein, speaking for the Department of Justice with respect to the Robert Mueller investigation and documents that went into the surveillance of a particular person, Carter Page, who was, of course, a Trump campaign advisor at one point, that all has been roiling in the background for months and months. They've been trying to get more documents, more documents. The Department of Justice has given them some, but withheld others, redacted some of what they've given them. Paul Ryan has spoken up to say that he doesn't see a problem with the compliance level. At this point, he thinks they're doing all they can. But this group of House Republicans feels quite differently.

They think they're being stonewalled, and they are blaming Rod Rosenstein, who, of course, is the guy who appointed Robert Mueller. So they have a beef. And they think that it rises to the point of being impeachable on the basis of dereliction of duty. Now, most of us think of impeachment as a matter of high crimes and misdemeanors. That's the language in the Constitution. But these fellows think that Rosenstein has been defiant enough, not only in contempt of Congress, but actually to the degree of being impeachable. So they want to do this. What they really want here, one is tempted to say, as a political analysis, is they want to say before they go off for their August recess, and they are leaving this week to be gone until September, they want to have something to say back home about how tough

they have been in trying to shut down the, quote, witch hunt, unquote, which is what they call the Mueller investigation and all investigations into the Trump campaign and administration. And they want to be able to say they've done more to resist it than they have been able to accomplish up to now. And to that point, I mean, they certainly have been talking about doing this for a while. So, Kelsey, why are they doing this now? Because we know that they've talked about this for a long time. It is, as Ron said, they want to go out back into the campaign world and say, I am standing with President Trump.

I'm pushing back on the attorney general, the entire FBI, and all of these mechanisms of the intelligence community that a lot of these Republicans say they just don't trust. And they want to make it very clear to voters that they stand with President Trump. And, you know, it's really interesting here is that leadership, House Speaker Paul Ryan didn't want this to happen. And he doesn't want this to ever get to the House floor, which he has the power to prevent, sort of. He had a press conference today where he talked about how he doesn't think that the speed and process for delivering documents merits impeachment. Do I support impeachment of Rod Rosenstein? No, I do not. I do not for a number of reasons. First,

it takes, I don't think we should be cavalier with this process or with this term. Number one. Number two, I don't think that this rises the level of high crimes not want to, that he does not support impeachment. Is this just largely a symbolic move? Are we not going to expect an actual vote on the House floor? It is for now. This particular version of these impeachment articles are mostly symbolic. There are other options because if we're going to get into the nerdery of House procedure, they could do this thing, what's called filing a privileged resolution, where anybody could go into the well of the House floor and read their resolution and then essentially demand that they get a vote within two days. Now, Meadows could have done that from the start, but he chose not to. And I talked to him just a little bit ago. He says he's not ruling out that as something that he could do in the future. But now he's also talking about the possibility of trying to charge Rosenstein with

contempt or some other thing. He's basically trying to keep a buffet of options open so he can keep hammering on the Department of Justice. How coincidental is this that one of the members of Congress who is leading this cause, Jim Jordan, is now announcing his bid for the speakership. One of those kinds of political coincidences that aren't really coincidences. Yeah. So earlier today, Jordan announced that he is running for Speaker of the House. It is a very long shot bid. He would be running against Ryan's handpicked successor. Ryan's retiring at the end of this year. His handpicked successor. Ryan's retiring at the end

of this year. His handpicked successor, who is the House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy. It's not clear to me how Jordan thinks he would get anywhere close to the 218 votes that are necessary to become Speaker. But it is mostly a power move by the Freedom Caucus to remind leadership in the House that they are there, that their numbers are growing, and that if Republicans lose seats, as they're expected to in the House, Freedom Caucus members will become a much larger share of that smaller Republican pie. So Jordan is out there putting his foot down and saying, you can't ignore me. You know, and there are sometimes reasons for people to run for president other than trying to be president. Yes. They might want to make a point of some kind. And in this particular case, Jim Jordan has reason to want to change his profile and make himself a candidate for speaker

rather than just another member from Ohio. And that is because he is facing a controversy back in Ohio, which may or may not actually make it difficult for him to be reelected. He's in a very safe Republican district where he's very popular. But there's this controversy at Ohio State where he used to be an assistant wrestling coach. And it has to do with not anything done by Jim Jordan, but a doctor who committed suicide several years ago after, well, a long career at Ohio State University, where it's now alleged he, in various ways, may have abused some of the athletes there. Jim Jordan has not been accused of doing anything of that nature, but he has been included among those people whom student athletes say knew about this

and should have done something about it. Jim Jordan strongly denies that he ever knew anything about it, heard anything about it, or that anyone reported it to him. I would just say, I mean, these are very serious accusations, not that he's being accused of doing something wrong, but he's accused of not stepping up to protect. Yeah, turning a blind eye. Turning a blind eye. And his response to it has been to call. I think there were at least seven people that have come forward who said he knew and to call them, basically say they're kind of lying. So his response to it, I think, is it would make you think that this is going to be on the minds of Republicans. Do they want this cloud hanging over them to make this person Speaker of the House, where you could have more and more people coming out from Ohio State who would say or corroborate or say that Jim Jordan knew what was going on. Several of us specifically asked him about this, about how he thinks that these accusations will play into his bid for the speakership.

He says that he thinks most of the people that he's talked to understand that he didn't do anything wrong, that he thinks most of his Republican colleagues believe that. And he claims that this won't play in at all. But it's important to remember that Jordan also is probably aware of the fact that he doesn't have the votes to become speaker. This is a power move. And this is an effort by the Freedom Caucus to stake out a greater territory. Yeah. So, Kelsey, you know, as you were saying, I think one thing that's just so interesting to remember about this is, you know, it's a it's a power move, but it's also a power move that in some ways kind of accentuates a lot of the Republican divisions that we've seen within the Republican Party out in the country. And with that, we are going to take a quick break.

And when we get back, we're going to talk about the one thing that we cannot let go this week. Support for this podcast and the following message come from the Annie E. Casey Foundation, developing solutions to support strong families and communities to help ensure a brighter future for America's children. More information is available at aecf.org. I'm Linda Holmes. There's more stuff to watch these days than you can ever get to. That's why we make Pop Culture Happy Hour. Twice a week, we give you the lowdown on what's worth your time and what's not. Find Pop Culture Happy Hour on the NPR One app or wherever you get your podcasts. We're back. And before we have too much fun diving into all the things that we cannot let go this week, we want to update you on a really important story. That's the status of families who had been separated at the border. Today is

the court-ordered deadline for the administration to reunite eligible families. So, Ron, give us a quick update on where that story stands. The Trump administration is saying that they are meeting the deadline. What they are doing is more like responding to the deadline by giving us all the different categories of where people stand. But there are people who have gone back to their home countries without their kids. Their kids are still in the U.S. They don't know when they'll be reunited, if they'll be reunited. And there are also people who are in detention still waiting to be united with their kids. Maybe they're halfway, but at least they're responding to the court and saying we're trying and hoping to get an extension on the deadline. There's still a lot of unknowns in

how this will eventually pan out. But we're going to keep watching with what happens with this deadline, whether or not the Trump administration can, in fact, meet it. And we will be back in your feeds as soon as we know more. All right. Well, this is kind of a strange segue, but we are now going to talk about what we always like to end the show with, which is the one thing that we cannot let go, politics or otherwise. Aisha, would you like to start? Yes, I will start.

And so I've revealed a bit about myself in these Can't Let It Go segments, and I'm going to reveal a little more today. People that know me well know that I have, since I was a very small child loved horror movies and horror fiction and been a fan of Stephen King and other you know and just anything that's scary and so I was very excited when I heard that Hulu was gonna have this new series Castle Rock and it just debuted on Wednesday and it's basically J.J. Abrams is the big he's done some other stuff, too. But it's a big well, it's based on this fictional town that Stephen King has written about Castle Rock. And so it debuted on Hulu. So I'm excited about that. And there was an interview that came out in The New York Times with Sissy Spacek, who, if you might,

you might know, she starred in a Stephen King movie. Carrie. Carrie, exactly. And so one day, that's my era. One day that she said in this interview, when she was asked about Carrie, she said that one thing that she doesn't like when she sees fans is if they have tattoos of Carrie. She says she saw beautiful girls who have like a big Carrie tattoo on their leg with blood all over it. And she's like, don't she was like, don't do that. She was like, she wants to take the opportunity to say, don't get tattoos of your favorite movie character. Just get a painting or a drawing instead.

Don't do this to your body. Something a little less permanent. I mean, would any of you guys get a tattoo? Or maybe you have a tattoo of somebody famous that you really like. I am tattoo-less. Tattoo-less. I'm with my arms up. Ron, who do you like? I'm afraid Sissy's warning is a little late.

Oh, my God, Ron. I'm horrified to hear she feels that way. Ron's going to pull out his big tattoo of Carrie on his ankle. I don't have any tattoos, but I do like scary movies. I did like Carrie. I've never really gotten into horror movies. I think they're kind of fun, but I get bored. Oh, really?

Like they don't seem legitimately scary to you? Do you remember those people that don't get scared? See, I get really scared. And I have nightmares and everything, but I love it. Yeah, but this is a person who spends her time on Capitol Hill. Exactly. I think the scariest thing for me is missing my alarm when I need to be up for up first. All right.

Well, I am going to go next. Some of you all may have heard this story, specifically if you follow the nexus of politics and fashion, that Iv a couple of really key faux pas with her fashion line. Do you remember? I think there was a moment where Kellyanne Conway went on Fox News and started telling people to like buy all this Ivanka stuff. And everyone was like, hmm. And she got reprimanded for that. That you should not necessarily be saying this. In a nutshell, Ivanka Trump came out with a statement and she said that basically after 17 months in Washington, she does not know when or if she would ever return to the business because for the foreseeable future, the work she's doing is here in Washington. And that's kind of all she said. I have some anecdotal evidence on this that her stuff seems to be showing up a lot in like the stores where they're selling stock that didn't sell in main stores. So like you'll see it in like Nordstrom Rack or Off Fifth and TJ Maxx.

You see a lot of Ivanka Trump products there. It's interesting that she's saying she doesn't know when or if and she's just kind of focused on, you know, her policy right now. I would think that if it was selling a lot, that she probably wouldn't have left the business. That she would be able to maintain the two? Yes. You have gotten so cynical. Well, to me, it also just showed that in this era, you know, a certain type of Trump-branded

business clearly just did not meld with the Trump White House. And in this case, it happens to be women's fashion. No. And maybe it was just, and this was more on the pricey side, not super pricey, but maybe priced out some people who... Maybe, yeah. I was up there checking out actually what was still available today. I just wanted to see what was the available stock.

Did they have sales? So they did say that if you signed up for the IT email list, you'd get like 20% off something. This is not an advertisement. But they had, you know, this kind of summery dress, $95. I feel like $95 is like upscale, but not affordable to everyone. No, no. It's not like H&M fast fashion that you can wear a couple of times.

That's why I didn't let go. So, Ron, would you like to go next? Sure. Here's something you can get addicted to in case you need something else. If you need an addiction. So Ron, would you like to go next? Sure. Here's something you can get addicted to in case you need something else. On top of Castle Rock and Hulu. There is a new map on the New York Times website for those political junkies who have not already discovered it. They should check out the New York Times politics website because there is a map now that will allow you to see exactly how parts of the United States voted in the 2016 election, whether for Trump or whether for Hillary Clinton or for Jill Stein, etc., other candidates who ran in 2016. And sure,

you look at it and you see a lot of red because we know that the large rural areas, the less populated areas were heavily for Trump and the cities were more for Hillary Clinton. And that's not a surprise. But when you get down to it, when you start getting down closer and closer and closer to your neighborhood, you get down to precinct level, you get down to neighborhood level, you get down to street by street, it gets a little scary. It's like, how do they know this much about how we all voted? And it makes it quite clear how you can do partisan redistricting and gerrymandering in our time, because if they can get that much

information into this map and make it readily available to you, it's been readily available for years to the people who are doing those partisan maps in the state legislatures and for Congress. I was talking to somebody who said that they could see this becoming the kind of map that instigates block wars. So you didn't really know how your neighbor voted, but now you definitely do. Or think you do. Because his block is kind of light pink, or maybe it's a little rougey, and then it becomes dark red when you cross over a certain thoroughfare. It's amazing the information. It probably isn't going to shock a lot of people because we all had our suspicions about neighborhoods and so on. But don't you think it confirms, I think, a lot of things?

So, like, I, for example, went into the deep dive in the hometown area that I grew up in. And my particular hometown, I would say, is more conservative by sort of the assumptions that I always had growing up, but it's in a pretty Democratic county, Lake County, Indiana. Anyhow, you deep dive into there and you can see like, no, not only is the town, you know, what not only was it a large supporter of President Trump, but the specific subdivision where I grew up in is quite a heavily Republican area. And to me, that was just sort of fascinating to see because that type of micro data is never really released when you see immediate election results. Yeah, it gets really granular. I mean, as you go down further and further and expand it, expand it, expand it, get right down. It's like you can practically see people looking up and waving. And the 2016 election never ends. So we have to keep going and looking, looking back at where exactly people voted and what happened.

So for all the people who still have questions. The endless autopsy continues. Yes. It was pretty amazing. Thank you for that, Ron. Kelsey, do you want to wrap it up? Well, mine was kind of finding out this week that somebody that I see every day is not dead. Wow.

I hope not. is not dead. So earlier this week, Google had on their main site, if you were to Google the name, Senator Orrin Hatch, it said that he died on September 11th, 2017. And his staff noticed and tweeted, just, hi, Google, we might need to talk. And they didn't really stop there. They went through and started posting proof of life over the past months since September of 2017. So they tweeted a picture of him reading the newspaper, of him signing bills, of him going to his favorite restaurant called, what is it, Chuckawagon. The people on his staff would be very upset if I couldn't remember the name of this restaurant because they talk about it all of the time. I mean, he's got this really great Twitter presence and it's very fun. I feel like it's always a great PR strategy that we have to end the story and turn it in your favor. And to get people talking about Orrin Hatch. I mean, we're always talking about him.

You know, I'm always talking about him. But I love that they had the newspaper because, I mean, we're always talking about him. You know, I'm always talking about him. But I love that they had the newspaper because, you know, that's how you prove life if you're, like, being held captive. So you can look at the date and say, no, he really is. He's alive. Yeah. And they've got such a good sense of humor about a lot of things. Like the time when he tried to remove his glasses that he wasn't wearing. I don't know if people saw that.

That got blew up on the Internet. It's gotten so popular. His Twitter feed has gotten so popular that they actually had to go and clarify in his title. It says Senator Orrin Hatch office because it used to just say Senator Hatch. And people were thinking that this 84 year old who genuinely does not really even use a cell phone, had these really great like on the nose Mimi tweets. It was great. And so it has since been rectified. Is that right? It has. All right. Well, that is a wrap for this week. We will be back the next time there is political news you need to know about. Until then, our email address is NPR politics at NPR dot org.

You can send comments, questions, and timestamps there. Those are the little tape cuts recorded for the beginning of the show. I'm Asma Khalid, political reporter. I'm Ayesha Roscoe. I cover the White House. I'm Kelsey Snell. I cover Congress. And I'm Ron Elving, editor-correspondent. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.