The NPR Politics Podcast - Weekly Roundup: Thursday, March 1

Episode Date: March 2, 2018

Guns are still dominating the conversation in Washington, though Congress has come and gone this week without taking any real steps to pass legislation. President Trump held another made-for-TV meeting on school safety and gun laws where he confused and frustrated Republicans. It's also been a week of staff turmoil at the White House. One of Trump's closest and most trusted aides, Communications Director Hope Hicks, is stepping down, and his son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner, has lost his top-secret security clearance. And the president made a controversial announcement Thursday, that he plans to impose tariffs on imported steel and aluminum. This episode: host/congressional reporter Scott Detrow, White House correspondent Scott Horsley, political reporter Asma Khalid 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

Hi, we are Brandon and Kristen Costa, currently at the Winter Beer Dabbler in St. Paul, Minnesota, which is a beer festival outdoors in February, and it's snowing. This podcast was recorded at Winter Beer Dabbler is a great name. It is 205 Eastern on Thursday, March 1st, which happens to be, I'll say it, my half birthday. Happy half birthday. Thank you. Things may have changed by the time you listen to it. Keep up with all of NPR's political coverage over at NPR.org, the NPR One app, and your local public radio station.

Okay, here's the show. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast here with our weekly roundup of political news. Guns are still dominating Washington, but Congress has come and gone this week without taking any major steps toward passing anything. President Trump took the gun debate and turned it on its head yesterday with another made-for-TV meeting where he agreed with Democrats more than Republicans. And at the end of this week, President Trump finds himself more isolated than ever. One of his closest and most trusted aides, Hope Hicks, is stepping down. And his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, has lost his top secret security clearance. I'm Scott Detrow. I cover Congress for NPR.

I'm Scott Horsley. I cover the White House. I'm Asma Khalid, political reporter. And I'm Ron Elving, editor correspondent. How's everybody doing? Can I just say I'm very excited to be in a podcast with two Scots today, Scott Squared. I've never been in a podcast with two Scots before. That's true, yeah, because you had left before the two Scott era really fully began. Exactly. This is quite novel for me.

So I'd just like to say I feel very honored. All right, so this was yet another one of those weeks that I've started to think of as like we didn't start the fire weeks. There's so many different stories. You could just kind of round the whole song out if you wanted to. But the main theme this week, as it was last week, was guns. We've been talking a lot lately in the podcast about guns and about the moment we're in after the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida, whether there's something different going on that might actually lead to policy changes or not.

And this week felt a bit more like it was in the or not category, at least in Congress. But on the other hand, there was one of those off-script White House meetings with Trump and lawmakers where once again, at least in that meeting, and that is something we will talk about, Trump sounded more like a Democrat than a Republican. I like taking the guns early, like in this crazy man's case that just took place in Florida. He had a lot of fires. They saw everything. To go to court would have taken a long time. So you could do exactly what you're saying, but take the guns first, go through due process second. So I said it sounded more like a Democrat, but in that moment saying take the guns,

that's the caricature of the Democratic view, something they push back on. But here he is, a Republican president saying that. And didn't he say this, like, in response to Mike Pence, his own VP coming out and suggesting somewhat of a more nuanced stance? I mean, that's what's sort of amazing. Yeah, there's a lot here. And there's a lot of specific moments and exchanges with Democrats and Republicans. But, you know, we've done this so many times before where we're kind of we stand agock looking at a live unscripted moment that does not have much precedent. So I think in this conversation, let's try and like take a step back. And Ron, just the setting, the scriptedness, what Trump was saying or not saying, what stuck out to you about this moment? Having seen the movie before, Scott, we've seen it a couple of times. We saw it back in the fall when the president sat down with, quote, remember this, Chuck and Nancy, and also a bunch of Republican leaders from Congress, and sided with the two Democratic leaders of the House and Senate on a raft of issues that the Republicans thought he was going to stand firm on and said, you know, I think we can get a deal on DACA and we can get that done really quickly. Chuck and Nancy didn't know what

to say. They were so taken aback. And then we saw it again on immigration just a few weeks ago when the president had another one of these live White House gatherings, whole hour live on TV. He's got a bunch of Republicans and a bunch of Democrats. And he starts right in insulting some of his own Republican members of Congress, saying to Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, for example, you sound like you're afraid of the NRA because you won't raise the gun age to 21. And then saying a lot of things that implied, for example, to Dianne Feinstein that he might be okay with going back to the assault weapons ban. That was the biggest anathema of the last 50 years for the NRA. So this was an astonishing thing. But the first two ended with the president not doing any of those things that he said he would do in those conferences. And in fact, aggressively tanking proposals to do those things. Yeah, the parallel would be is if Toomey and Manchin and Chris Murphy

and John Cornyn come back to the president and say, Mr. President, we did just what you told us. We've put together a package deal to have universal background checks. We think we can get 60 votes. And then Trump turned around and said, OK, that's great, but now you've got to add concealed carry and torpedoed it. That would be what we saw happen on immigration. And then veto. That's right. And then veto if they don't.

Let's listen to one of those moments that, Ron, you mentioned. And Asma, I want to get your thoughts on the whole situation, because it's a back and forth with Pat Toomey, who's a Republican senator from Pennsylvania who right after Sandy Hook, he and Joe Manchin, West Virginia Democrat, put together a background check measure that got more than 50 votes in the Senate, but not the 60 it needed. Pat Toomey really in that moment put his neck out and was criticized by the NRA. And here's what Trump says to Toomey in the cabinet room. And I'm a fan of the NRA. I mean, there's no bigger fan. I'm a big fan of the NRA. They want to do it. These are great people. These are great patriots. They love our country. But that doesn't mean we have to agree on everything. It doesn't make sense that I have to wait till I'm 21 to get a handgun, but I can get this weapon at 18. I don't know. So I was just curious as to what you did in your bill.

We didn't address it, Mr. President. You know why? Because you're afraid of the NRA, right? So Asma, Pat Toomey is one of the Republicans who clearly tried to keep Trump as far away as possible in 2016. He never rejected Trump's candidacy. He tried to do the arm's length dance. He did end up voting for Trump, but he clearly wasn't happy about it. But he like many Republicans have made this really uncomfortable piece with the president. And what do they get for it? They get him insulting him on live television and pushing these policies that Republicans disagree with. It is. And Scott, what strikes me so much about what we heard the president say in that meeting is that in some ways, it seems like

he's speaking to his Republican base voters. And what I mean by that is actually we just polled recently with Ipsos on essentially what both Republicans and Democrats feel around gun policy. The full poll will come out tomorrow. But just a glimpse of it is that actually over 90 percent of Americans do support mandatory background checks for all gun buyers. You know, we're seeing an increasing number of both Republicans and Democrats calling for stricter gun laws. And so when I hear the president, it makes me feel as if he actually understands what the Republican voters want and he's speaking to them. Perhaps you could argue he's even a little bit maybe more in sync with them than sort of

traditional Republican political officials who do seem, you know, very loyal to the NRA. And who knows where the president's going to be, right, in terms of the NRA. One day he's saying that other folks are too sort of in bed with the NRA, but the next day he's talking about and tweeting about his support for the NRA. But I think that he's talking about and tweeting about his support for the NRA. But I think that where we're seeing him talk about overall wanting some comprehensive gun reform bill speaks to the fact that a lot of Republican voters at this point also feel that way. What exactly they want in it, who knows. But they want some sort of change. And we're beginning to see that in polling as well. And Joe Manchin, the conservative Democrat from the conservative state of West Virginia,

made an interesting point yesterday where the president was suggesting that the reason Toomey Manchin failed in 2013 was that former President Obama just didn't try hard enough to push the bill across the finish line. President Obama put an awful lot of political capital on the line early in his second term to try to get that done and just couldn't. But Manchin said is what's different is Trump has credibility with gun owners, with Second Amendment supporters, with NRA members that Barack Obama did not. And so there is kind of a Nixon to China opportunity here for Trump to win some kind of gun safety measure that would have been out of reach with a Democrat in the White House. The run, it doesn't seem like Trump was saying, I firmly believe this specific thing is the solution.

It seemed like there were a lot of moments where he just wanted to say, I stand up to the NRA more than you. I do more than Obama. He seemed to have a scattershot approach here, jumping on a lot of different proposals, arming teachers, hardening schools as sites, making sure that this age for long guns is raised to 21. A number of things, by the way, that all poll well, all poll well. And when the president had his television doodah several weeks ago on immigration, he was again taking a series of positions that all poll well. Then the next day, he's tweeting to his base. And even back last fall on the budget issue, nobody likes government shutdowns. So the president was trying to avoid a government shutdown, but then in the end,

didn't do any of the things that he was offering to the Democrats. So he has a very high sensitivity to the polling results of where the American people are. He likes to speak to that. But then he feels completely free to turn around the next day and do something utterly different on the policy front. And Ron, you're so right about how acutely aware he is of polling, right? I mean, we've seen sort of widespread support for a whole number of gun control policy suggestions. And actually, in our poll that's going to come out tomorrow, the only gun control policy that was opposed by a majority of Americans is the idea of training teachers

to carry guns in schools. But what I find so interesting is that is something for which there are clear, deep partisan divides on the issue. And you do have a majority of Republicans supporting that idea. So it kind of makes sense

that we hear the president speaking out of one side of his mouth that he wants to raise the age, say, to purchase a gun, but he also favors the idea of training teachers. It's precisely what we see some voters want. The president sort of poured cold water on a related idea to arming teachers, though, and that's this concealed carry reciprocity bill that the NRA has been pushing. Their number one priority has been a bill that would let someone who has a permit to carry a concealed weapon in one state carry in all 50 states. And even though the president himself says he's for that, he argued against folding it into this overall bill because he said it would torpedo its chances.

You couldn't get the votes in the Senate. I think that maybe that bill will someday pass, but it should pass as a separate. If you're going to put concealed carry between states into this bill, we're talking about a whole new ballgame. And, you know, I'm with you, but let it be a separate bill. You'll never get this passed. If you add concealed carry to this, you'll never get it passed. He's right about that. So as we're all saying, though, it's hard to put too much stock in meetings like this. And the question is, what comes next? Right. So so after the meeting, Chris Murphy, a Democrat from Connecticut, who's been probably the leading Democratic voice on gun measures, tweets. So the president just committed to support universal background checks, protective orders and raising the age for rifle purchases.

If he's the dealmaker, he says he is. He only has to get a few Republican votes to make it all happen. Republicans came back from this meeting pretty agitated. Just a couple of statements that sum it up. Ben Stass from Nebraska, though I don't know if he was actually at the meeting. Stass was not at the meeting. But he puts out the statement saying, going back to that first quote we heard from Trump, we're not ditching any constitutional protections simply because the last person the president talked to today doesn't like them. And let's listen to a clip from John Cornyn, Texas Republican, number two Republican in the Senate, who was pretty agitated walking back into the Capitol. Well, I wouldn't confuse what he said with what can actually pass. So I think I don't expect to

see any great divergence in terms of people's views on the Second Amendment, for example. And he went on to say, it's still unclear to me what can actually pass. And my experience is these things are harder to do than they sound. So any sense what happens next? I mean, Asma, we've seen what pulls well, but there's usually a pretty big gap between what pulls well and what happens. That's true, right? And we saw, as Ron said, the exact same thing with immigration. What I will point out, though, is that maybe this is

slightly different. And I don't know, because we are leading up to a midterm election. And the president, you know, has remarkably had a really good handle, I would say, on what his base supporters want. And I actually just was in Ohio. I spent some time talking to folks who specifically had voted for President Obama, you know, either in 2008 or 2012, and then chose President Trump in 2016. And I connected with a former retired elementary school teacher.

Her name is Lisa Moore. And somehow we ended up talking about guns. And she actually had this to say about the idea of arming teachers in schools. I know I wouldn't volunteer to be trained with a gun, but I know there would be teachers that would. Have them come, sign up to see who wants to be concealed carry. They should have one for each grade level. You know what I'm saying?

On the floors, you know, and I think that'd be a good idea. And what strikes me is she's, you know, the type of voter who switched over to support Donald Trump. He is very aware of what those types of voters want. And so, you know, he's going to be talking a lot about it. But whether that will actually lead to any legislative action, you know, I am somewhat skeptical, given that we sort of feel like we've seen this movie before when it comes to immigration. All right. So one last reaction to this that's worth flagging. This is Lindsey Graham kind of acting like the political analyst that he often plays the role of as well, in addition to being a senator. If the president has another one of these sessions and he doesn't follow through, it's going to hurt him. It's going to hurt the Republican Party. I've

seen this movie before. If it ends up like immigration, he's done himself a lot of harm. I wonder if the audience Lindsey Graham's talking about there, though, is not the millions of people who might have watched the television program, but the hundred folks on Capitol Hill who are actually counting on the president to broker something here and whose words been tested once and might not withstand being tested a second time. So while Congress has not made much progress on this, there was some action on the corporate side of things. You had Dick's Sporting Goods and Walmart both making big decisions that said basically, well, Congress may not be raising the age anytime soon, but

that's what we're going to do. Yes. Dick's, which is an enormous sporting goods chain, has decided to stop selling AR-15s. That's a change that's rather notable. Walmart, which is, of course, the behemoth of retailing, has said that it's not going to sell long guns to people under 21. We have already seen, of course, a number of car rental companies, a number of airlines, people saying, we don't want to have discounts for the NRA anymore. We don't want to endorse the organization in that fashion. They've had some blowback on that as well. So this is also being fought out in the courts of public opinion and also in the marketplace. So we are in a different space in terms of talking about guns post-Parkland. I interviewed Chris Murphy right before he went to the White House yesterday,

and I asked him about the Dix decision. It's often the private sector companies that lead Congress to make big changes. So take a look at the fight for marriage equality. It was Fortune 500 companies that decided to treat their employees the same, regardless of sexual orientation, that finally led state legislatures and the Supreme Court to make the same decision. So I think it's ridiculous that Congress hasn't passed legislation that 97% of Americans support. But I do think that this wave of private companies that are standing up to the gun lobby will ultimately be dispositive on

the debate we have here in Congress. Like, is that a chicken or egg thing? Do the companies only start to act because public opinion is already shifting? I mean, I'm of the opinion that yes, they do, right? And so he even gave the example around gay marriage, but we began to see public opinion change. I mean, companies have a financial responsibility, right, to their shareholders. So they're not going to be jumping into a hotly debated political issue unless they believe, in addition to the moral argument, they don't have loads to lose financially. Yeah, I think Dix has made the calculation that there is more downside risk of being the company that sold a gun to a guy who goes into a school and shoots a bunch of people than there is the heat that you might get from some hunters

who come in and find the shelves empty of the particular weapon that they were looking for. And Dix had sold a weapon to Nicholas Cruz, but it was not one of the weapons that he used in the shooting. But that still seemed to clearly alarm Dix executives. All right. We're going to take a quick break. And when we come back, the staff turmoil at the White House. Longtime Trump aide and loyalist Hope Hicks is resigning. Jared Kushner has lost his top secret security clearance. keep watch or you can rest easy knowing that your home and family are protected with SimpliSafe. Each SimpliSafe system is a complete security arsenal. There are no contracts and no hidden

fees. Learn more today at simplisafe.com slash NPR politics. Hey, just want to let you know that Invisibilia, NPR's show about the invisible forces shaping our behavior, is back on March 9th with a new season. This time, they're taking on some of the biggest cultural fights of our time. Russian hacking, reality TV, Me Too, just to name a few. You can listen and subscribe to Invisibilia on the NPR One app or wherever you get your podcasts. OK, we are back. And the White House confirmed yesterday that communications director Hope Hicks is resigning, likely sometime in the next few weeks. Hicks has been communications director since August, but she's been with Trump for three years, longer than many people at the White House. She was a day one campaign staffer.

You almost never heard from her or even read that many quotes attributed to her, but she's one of Trump's closest and most trusted aides. Scott, this was a little bit of a surprise, like, I guess, like most things in the Trump White House. But this was one of those things that kind of snapped a lot of necks when it was announced. It's always sort of surprising when you see Hope Hicks' name in a news story, because she did a pretty good job of staying out of the spotlight until six weeks ago or so. But as Tamara Keith said on the radio yesterday, she's been in the spotlight and in the headlines in recent weeks for all the wrong reasons.

She was being questioned this week by congressional investigators looking into the Russian affair, and she acknowledged having told white lies for the president, although not in relation to Russia. Before that, she was tied up in the whole Rob Porter scandal. She was having a romantic relationship with Rob Porter, helped to craft the talking points that were initially used to discuss the staff secretary, who was ultimately forced out of the White House, allegations of domestic violence. So the sort of behind-the-scenes player was under the microscope. And even though the White House says this departure was in the works for a long time and not related to those recent events, it had gotten a little hot for Hopix. Ron, depending on your generation, communications director is either drummer for Spinal Tap or defense against the dark arts professor of the Trump administration. I'm all those generations. First of all, how important is a communications director? What does this person do in the typical White House?

And what is this person done in the Trump White House. Most people think of the spokesperson for the White House, that is, in this particular case, Sarah Sanders, as being, in a sense, the real voice of the administration. They don't really think about the communications director. And back through a sequence of communications directors back over many administrations, that job has been relatively faceless. Sometimes we don't even see that person at all. And that is what Hope Hicks would have preferred. She was trying to be behind the scenes and have a role in shaping communications policy for the White House, deciding what the White House might say about things, but then having somebody else go out front and center and actually say them and be on camera. That was not

a role that she wanted. That was not, in fact, it was a role that she quite actively shunned throughout the time that she worked for Donald Trump. So this is a moment in which people will ask the question, what does the communications director do? I think it's varied quite widely from one administration to another. Some of them have been enormously important, critical even, in an administration. But in this particular one, it's a title that's been passed around so often. Anthony Scaramucci had it for a period of hours. And this is something that in this administration,

who knows what the communications director is really responsible for. But even though her public role was largely invisible, her maybe most important role was sort of as a security blanket for Donald Trump. She was somebody he liked having around. She had traveled with him for years. And this is one more way in which this president is kind of losing the close allies who have been around him throughout his short and stormy tenure in the White House. Scott, can I ask you a question? So, you know, I know this came... Which one? Scott Horsley.

Gotta clarify. Scott H. So this came, right, a day after she testified for hours and hours. And I understand what you're saying, that people are saying that this was a predetermined decision, but she's also a comms director. People in the White House are saying that. Right, yeah, but she's a comms director. And that's what I don't understand is like, there's clearly the optics of this. And I feel like comms directors jobs are supposed to be to know and understand the optics of communication decisions that they make. You mean a communications professional might say, if I let it be known that I'm quitting the day after I testify before the House Intelligence Committee, people might connect the dots and think I'm leaving for that reason. Exactly. On the other hand, there's probably no great time for the comms director to walk out the door when people won't ask, isn't this a bad time? Isn't this a bad moment? When you talk about the president's

security blanket, he had a person who had been his body man for a number of years, who was a security person, but who also was clearly a confidant of the president, somebody who he felt comfortable around. His name was Keith Schiller, and he is gone and has been gone now for a number of months. These are people that the president relies upon to maintain his basically comfort zone. And his comfort zone is getting to be quite narrow indeed. So, yeah, this week, we also learned that president's son-in-law and senior advisor slash sometimes shadow secretary of state slash guy who early on was assigned every single job in the White House, Jared Kushner, has lost his top security clearance. It had been an interim clearance. And even now, more than a year into his

time at the White House, Kushner still has not been approved for a permanent clearance. So, Scott, first of all, what does this matter that he loses this interim clearance that he's been knocked down to secret? How does that affect him in the way he does his job? Well, it depends on who you talk to. The spokespeople for the White House insist it will have very little effect and that Jared Kushner will still be fully able to carry out his vast and wide-ranging duties. When you talk to people from previous administrations, they say they don't understand how he could possibly, for example, be in charge of the Middle East peace process since he'll no longer have access to the most sensitive classified information. He'll no longer, for example, be able to read the president's daily intelligence briefing, which is something he had been able to do under his interim clearance. Now, can Trump just override that on an ad hoc basis if he feels like it?

He can. However, he told reporters last week that he wasn't going to do that, that he would let his chief of staff, John Kelly, make the decision about what Jared Kushner got to read and didn't get to read. How do you get an interim clearance, by the way? Because, I mean, I was an intern, keep in mind, just a lowly intern at the State Department some years ago. And there's like a pretty lengthy process to go through just to even get like a basic clearance for an intern. So I don't fully understand how you get an interim clearance and how that just isn't resolved within a defined amount of time. Ron, that was the problem, right? Among many other problems, Kushner kept not putting all the information he needed into these applications, especially when it came to more suspicions and more suspicions.

And one of the things about this process is that if you push back on the process, the process has ways of elongating itself and seeing your pushback as in and of itself a question mark on whether or not you should be getting a final clearance. So this was a serious error on the part of the White House allowing that to happen. And it now has reached this pretty point. As far as why this really matters and whether or not he can continue his duties, let's assume he really had all those duties that he was putatively carrying out. Let's quote Hamilton here. I want to be in the room where it happens. You aren't in the room where it happens unless you have full access to all the intelligence. You simply aren't. You might be physically sitting in the physical room, but you are not possessed of the information you need to be part of the intelligence. You simply aren't. You might be physically sitting in the physical room, but you are not possessed of the information. You need to be part of the process.

Can I admit something really embarrassing? I did not listen to Hamilton start to finish until like three weeks ago. I still haven't seen or heard Hamilton, guys. If you haven't, it costs a lot of money to see it. I know. But it doesn't cost very much money to hear it, and it's really, really worth it.

I found that it lived up to the hype and was embarrassed it took me into 2018 to listen to it. All right. That's inspirational for me. But Asma, you're behind me. I'm really, I'm so behind. I know. All these pod listeners probably think I'm really hip and cool. Now they'll be like, what?

She's never listened to Hamilton. You're going to get a lot of email now from people who haven't either. I will probably get a lot of email. Who haven't either. What is this Hamilton thing? What? So last thing? What? So last thing on Kushner, and then we've got to move on. But Kushner, this comes during a week where it's just headline after headline that's pretty damaging to him.

There's headlines about foreign governments trying to target and manipulate him. There's headlines about companies giving loans to his family business, possibly right after they met with Kushner about official business. His spokesperson is stepping down, somebody who'd worked very closely with Kushner and his wife, Ivanka. So not a good stretch for somebody who's in the pretty close orbit and one of the remaining close orbit people. Scott, a lot of that is like pretty serious stuff. It's very serious stuff. And what was new, for example, in the Washington Post report based on intercepts of foreign governments communicating amongst themselves just confirmed what I think a lot of foreign policy professionals had been worried about, which was the suspicion that Jared Kushner

was in over his head. He was being given a lot of responsibilities for which he was not prepared, and he was not availing himself of all the support and all the experience at the State Department and in the foreign policy apparatus. He was sort of out there freelancing on the Middle East, on China, and that he ran the risk of stepping in it, and also that he ran the risk of serious conflicts of interest, because even as he was doing this, he was part of a family with deep debts out there trying to raise money to finance various real estate projects. And even though Kushner had nominally separated himself

from the family business in most ways, it's still the family business, and blood is thicker than a White House disclosure form. All right. So one more quick break. We're going to come back. We're going to talk about tariffs and can't let it go. 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.

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It takes just a few minutes and you'll be doing all of us at the NPR Politics Podcast a huge favor by filling it out. That's npr.org slash podcast survey. Thanks. Okay, we're back in one more thing that happened today. President Trump announced that he's imposing new tariffs on imported steel and aluminum. Twenty five percent on steel, 10 percent on aluminum. Scott, can you explain to us what Trump announced today, what he didn't quite announce today, what we thought he might have been announcing today, and why all of that matters. Yes, he announced plans to raise, not lower, raise tariffs on imported steel and aluminum.

This is a response to an investigation that's been going on for about the last year looking at whether those imports are putting so much downward pressure on the domestic steel and aluminum industries that they could go out of business and jeopardize national security. And so the Commerce Department recommended that he raise, not lower, but raise tariffs. Show mercy. This is, but just to give you the flavor of this, and the Commerce Department laid out sort of several options, combination of tariffs or quotas to try to curtail imported steel and aluminum. The Dow Jones, as we record this, is off 516 points as the stock market anticipates the likely retaliation from trading partners and the potential for a mini trade war here.

So this is a controversial move, certainly in the economic world. It's also controversial within the White House. There was a lot of tug of war within the White House, and so much so, it didn't appear that Trump was actually supposed to make this announcement today. He didn't actually have an order ready to sign. He said, I'm going to order this next week. And maybe he will, but that at least hints at the possibility that maybe there's still a little tug of war. And there have been times when the president's announced that he's going to do something only to not actually do it. So we'll see if these materializes. But it's a pretty major market moving economic move that the president has taken here in defense of the domestic steel and aluminum industries,

but one which could have negative rebound effects on both businesses that use steel and aluminum, which are going to pay higher prices, but also other companies that want to export to other countries. And other countries have already said they're prepared to retaliate in a pretty politically targeted way. For example, going after Kentucky bourbon, a major industry in the home state of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, or Wisconsin cheese. Maybe that's aimed at House Speaker Paul Ryan. Absolutely, yes. Or Florida orange juice, an important swing state that's going to have a Senate race in the upcoming midterms. So the rest of the world will also have a say in this. But the Congress will not. No, this is the president acting under existing legal authority. He doesn't need a congressional

vote on this. And it was also widely reported that this morning, both Gary Cohn, who's supposed to be the number one economic advisor to the president, and also Steve Mnuchin, who is the treasury secretary and also a major advisor on economic policy to the president, had also Steve Mnuchin, who is the treasury secretary and also a major advisor on economic policy to the president, had both strongly inveighed against these tariffs. Kind of like how the defense secretary and secretary of state were both strongly against undoing the Iran deal. That's right. And they're very upset about other countries being upset about these tariffs as well.

So you've got a big chunk of the senior most members, the top members of the cabinet, all being against this. But Wilbur Ross was in the room and he was there to nod and approve and say, over at Commerce, we think that these tariffs are just great. To me, this is just so clear, though, that we've systematically seen President Trump really not often care about the consequences on a macro level, that he cares essentially what his base of voters thinks. And it just feels like in some ways it is a genius political move to shore up support from a key part of his coalition. Right. He's already pleased, say, the traditional wealthier Republicans with a tax bill. He's already pleased some more social conservatives with a Supreme Court pick. And now he's, you know, purportedly trying to please some of these more blue collar working class Democrats who became Republicans who supported him all throughout the Midwest. And and again, like I was just in Ohio where a lot of this really

resonates with folks and whether or not it actually is going to make the situation better for towns where steel mills were essentially the only industry in town. I don't know that that actually matters to people. It's just the fact that it indicates that President Trump cares, that he's paying attention to them. And I think for some of these folks, that may be enough. And it just to me shows that the president, again, cares most about his popularity among his base of supporters, perhaps more than he cares about really the political consequences or the economic consequences. And Donald Trump has strong protectionist instincts. I mean, this is part of the core Trump brand going back for decades. It is something he campaigned on

very strongly. So this is not something, you know, even the tax cut was maybe sort of a break from what he what he campaigned on. This is very much in line with the Trump campaign. All right. To the disappointment of everyone who wants to hear another extended conversation on tariffs, which, yes, they are very important, and this is an important story with broad implications, but I still think- I didn't even talk about the quotas. I'm going to do the unpopular listener move here of shifting gears to can't let it go, where we all talk about one thing we just can't stop thinking about this week, politics or otherwise. Scott Horsley.

Well, I was reminded of this by an interesting essay on the Vox News website today by Laura McGann. The headline is, When does Hopix get to be a wunderkind instead of a former model. And it sort of complains about the fact that every news story about Hopix makes reference to the fact that in her teens, she worked as a fashion model. Isn't it just a question of Wunderkind being a little too long a word for a headline? To your point of this thing that she did briefly as a teenager that makes it into every profile, what is a random thing you did as a teenager? Hold up. She was also a model for Ralph Lauren. It's not like a no-name brand that we've never heard of. I feel like Ralph Lauren is kind of like classic, iconic Americana, right?

Like I actually do think that a lot of times like who we are and where we come from matters about sort of who we are and where we are now. A wunderkind is somebody who is amazing at a very early age, at something that people don't do all that well at that age. And so in the case of Hopix, one could argue that to get this far into the inner circle of any powerful politician, let alone the president of the United States, to have risen from job to job to job, to have survived through many, many purges in his inner circle, and to have been this powerful, whatever exactly she was doing as communications director, to have that title means that she must have a great deal of talent and that she must be contributing something of great importance to the work of our president at the

highest levels of our government. Speaking of things that shape us, Asma, we have been trying out a new thing on the podcast where nobody tells each other their can't let it goes except an editor. Except we had the same one. Right. So we were flagged because you and I, even though we do not sit next to each other anymore because you're in Boston, had the exact same can't let it go. And you can do it for both of us. So thank you for letting me have same can't let it go. And you can do it for both of us. So thank you for letting me have this can't let it go. So what I have not been able to let go is Jen White's podcast, Making Obama. I have been sort of weirdly obsessed with this podcast. And

what I have found so fascinating is it's a glimpse into the biography behind the president as it relates specifically to the city of Chicago. So I know Ron, you would actually, you might actually find it quite interesting. I mean, it basically goes through the idea of how this man came to be president because of the place that he came from. And I kind of find that a pretty profound idea, right?

That like a lot of us are products of the places that we came from and those places shape who we are and ultimately what we end up doing. I mean, I guess I probably sick and tired of hearing me talk about Indiana, but I always do because I feel so fundamentally that it is a big part of who I am. And it helped me understand things that we saw during the last election cycle. And I don't know that I would have been able to understand those things if I had not come, you know, from Indiana.

So anyhow, I was listening to one of the episodes where they talk about Harold Washington. Asma, I don't know how much you knew about him, but for me, like this, this is basically like a 45 minute detour into Chicago's first black mayor who I, I guess I knew who he was. I knew his name, but I didn't know the details that much. And it was just like this total detour, but that gives you so much context about the political moment and just kind of what Obama was thinking and feeling as he was thinking about going into politics. And it helps you understand, right, that Obama came to a Chicago

that at that point was under the mayoral lead, you could say, of the city's first black mayor. And that was really unusual. And a part of you, I don't know, part of me, I guess, is like a thought experiment, always wonders, like, if this hadn't happened, would this have happened? If this hadn't happened, it's dangerous to go too far down. They might, like, end up at the Civil War.

But I like to think of, like, what historical tracks could happen. And I think with President Obama, you could make the case that had Harold Washington not been mayor of Chicago when Obama was there, that arguably, maybe Obama would never have really engaged in politics the way that he did, and arguably, perhaps, never become president. It's a really good podcast. So Asma, we're going to have to keep comparing notes each time a new episode drops.

Ron, what can you not let go? My can't let it go, Scott is about disillusionment. I have experienced disillusionment. I didn't think I could still experience disillusionment after 30 some years in Washington, but in fact I have. And here it is. It's pretty shocking. I have just learned that people who are nominated for the top awards in the Oscars like Best Actor, and they don't win, they leave. Some of them don't stay

for the rest of the ceremony. They actually get up and leave the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion or wherever they're having it. And they actually have people who come in and sit in their seat in their place so that it won't glare as an empty seat. So the cameras might be attracted to show that so-and-so and so-and-so might have left in peeve

after not being named best actor, best supporting actor, what have you. They don't stay and, you know, carry on in the general honoring of their colleagues. And I found that very disheartening. How did you learn this? I learned it through the media, Scott. I learned it in the media. The best ever, because usually when people lose, they have a good, like, oh, I'm happy for you face. But the best ever, like ever not pretending was Bill Murray

when he should have won for Lost in Translation, one of the best movies ever. So true. I have seen that, by the way. He was stricken. He was not happy. Because he knew that,

I don't even remember. See, I don't even remember. Oh, Denzel's face was really good too with Casey Affleck. Oh, yeah. It was a total Denzel face. Well, at least Denzel knew he'd get back there.

Bill Murray was like, I'm not coming back. This is my shot. This is my shot. This is my shot. Maybe a lifetime achievement with Caddyshack or something. Okay, so I'm going to go last. And this is a true can't let it go because it is a song that has been stuck in my head all week. And it is great.

So here's the setup. It's a YouTube video. It's a six-year-old girl named charity joy and it's her dad seymour harrison charity is a girl scout as we all know it is girl scout cookie season we have all inhaled sleeves of girl scout cookies here in the newsroom but she and her dad came up with a cookie selling song to uh to redbone from childish gambino and it is great. There's some good cookie selling music right here. Yeah. We're gonna get them right here.

She's sitting in the backseat of a car during this. And then he comes in and he sounds great. So I make you feel fine. And then he comes in and he sounds great. Samoas are coconut cookies with caramel. I'm just so impressed with the modern Girl Scout, dude. I was a Girl Scout. We went door to door. Well. This is great.

I think she has sold a lot more cookies because of this. Including. But did she sell as many as the little girl in Colorado who set up right outside the marijuana dispensary? Oh, yeah. I remember that. That was a good click, too. But Donald Glover met her on a Stephen Colbert show and bought more than 100 boxes of cookies from her.

Oh, my gosh. So she's doing well. I call that just a normal order. All right. So on that note, we will doing well. I call that just a normal order. All right. So on that note, we will wrap things up for this week. We'll be back in your feed soon. You can keep up with all of our coverage on NPR.org, on your local public radio station, and at NPR Politics' Facebook page.

And if that is not enough for you, if you want even more political news or if you just want it in a different place, we also have a newsletter. It comes out every Saturday and it has a great in case you missed it section. You can find out at NPR.org slash politics newsletter. I'm Scott Detrow. I cover Congress for NPR. I'm Scott Horsley. I cover the White House.

I'm Miss McCullough, the political reporter. And I'm Ron Elving, editor correspondent. Thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.