The NPR Politics Podcast - Weekly Roundup: Thursday, March 14

Episode Date: March 14, 2019

Beto O'Rourke announces that he will run for president. Plus, the Senate votes to block Trump's national emergency declaration that would give him the money for his wall. This episode: political editor Domenico Montanaro, political reporter Danielle Kurtzleben, editor correspondent Ron Elving, national political correspondent Mara Liasson, and Congressional correspondent Sue Davis. 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 Andrew from Aurora, Colorado. I got the day off work because we got 50 mile an hour winds and about four inches of snow on the ground so far. I figured this would be a perfect time to take advantage of my complex's heated pool and catch up on back episodes of the NPR Politics Podcast. The following was recorded at... 1.55 p.m. on... I don't know what day it is. Thursday. I so wanted to make sure I had the time.

1.55 p.m. on Thursday, March 14th. And let's be honest, you know things have changed in the meantime. All right, let's start the show. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. Beto O'Rourke has finally made up his mind. He's running, actually, for president. And the Senate holds a vote to block the president's national emergency declaration. I'm Domenico Montanaro, political editor. I'm Danielle Kurtzleben, political

reporter. And I'm Ron Elbing, editor correspondent. And I'm Mara Liason, national political correspondent. Let's kick things off with Beto O'Rourke. Early this morning, he tweeted out a video where he announced that he was running for president. Let's take a listen to some of that. Amy and I are happy to share with you that I'm running to serve you as the next president of the United States of America. This is a defining moment of truth for this country and for every single one of us. The challenges that we face right now, the interconnected crises in our economy, our democracy, and our climate have never been greater. And they will either consume us or they will afford us the greatest opportunity to unleash the genius of the United States of America. Okay, so we're asking you to listen to a video, which is always complicated,

but you guys all watched it. You all listened to it. The watching is important on this as well. The president of the United States had his own reaction to it, talking about O'Rourke's hand use. It was quite a bit of hand use. What were your guys' reaction just going around? Danielle, what'd you think? Watching this and watching his announcement in Iowa today, I mean, I was struck by he's very clearly going for, you know, positivity and, you know, being upbeat and be and doing what a lot of strategists have said a Democrat needs to do next time, which is say, like, not just make it about Trump, not just I'm not Trump, but more like, here's the kind of person I am. Let me introduce you to me. Here's what I want to do. Yeah, I mean, that kind of optimism is definitely something that in some

ways stands apart from some of the rest of the Democratic field in this era of Trump. Not everyone, but not all. Cory Booker is in the same sort of vein. Right. Yeah, you could see that. But of course, Booker didn't have the same amount of money or enthusiasm behind him for the Senate bid, which we'll talk more about. But Ron, what did you take away when you watched this video? Herden saw a lot of urgency and energy and youth. He was communicating, as he did as a Senate candidate, that he was a different sort of politician, not somebody who was emphasizing ideology or party, but somebody who was trying to be a uniter, but uniting people around the urgency and energy of youth. You know, he is the phenomenon candidate of this cycle. He has tremendous online presence.

He has a kind of viral lifestyle where you see him on a skateboard in a parking lot at midnight. He's kind of, he was the Senate candidate who was the Senate version of AOC. You know, he's a viral native. And when you're talking about AOC, you're talking about Alexandria. I'm sorry, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. He also just is on the cover of Vanity Fair, where he's posing as Ronald Reagan did with kind of Western jeans, hands in back pockets. And my favorite line of the Vanity Fair profile was the writer said, the more he talks, the more he likes the sound of what he's saying. Wow.

So there is this immediate backlash. He's the faux-bama or the bro-bama. And the question is, he has a very optimistic, positive kind of charisma. The question is, where's the substance and what effect he's going to have on this field? So who is this phenomenon candidate, Danielle? Let's get into a little bit of his bio, where he came from, the kind of work that he did as a member of the House. Sure. Well, he's a Texan through and through. He was born in El Paso. He grew up there. He eventually went to Columbia University, but he came back. He was on the El Paso City Council from 2005 to 2011. Then he was a congressman from that district from 2013 until

2019. And of course, he didn't run for reelection because he was running against Ted Cruz to run for that Senate seat. And that's when really most Americans heard who Beto O'Rourke is. And Beto, by the way, we should get into is also not his Christian name. He is Robert Francis O'Rourke. Beto is a childhood nickname that he has said just stuck with him. Yeah. So, Danielle, is O'Rourke identified with any one big issue the way that some other candidates are, Warren or Sanders, or the way Obama was against the Iraq war to Hillary's pro-vote for the Iraq war? He's definitely not like the policy-heavy wonk like Elizabeth Warren is. He's not a person like Bernie Sanders who is even heavily identified with his platform. But he did come to be known quite well for immigration, especially in that

Senate campaign last year, because what happened during that Senate campaign, the family separation policy that the Trump administration was undertaking, well, Beto O'Rourke is from a border district, and he came out quite forcefully against that. And he has also come out strongly in favor of, for example, citizenship for dreamers and their parents, that sort of thing. So that's one definitely one policy area he's for. So, I mean, you guys talk about I mean, you mentioned immigration. Obviously, he's doing this rally in March 30th in El Paso. That's sort of his main big kickoff event. How much do you think the backdrop of where he'll be

in El Paso matters to what the sort of, you know, the premise of his entire candidacy is, especially going against President Trump. He is a Westerner. He is a genuine Westerner. He is somebody who can claim the American adventure-ism of the West. And he's somebody who has, I think, a much more outside Washington image. He only served three terms in the House. That's enough, perhaps, to keep from being besmirched with it. He did identify with some other issues that I think also connect him to younger voters, such as gun control, has been very strong on that particular issue, and has remained outspoken even after he left Congress. You know, one of the things that he did that I think set him apart was he was willing to

sacrifice what was a fairly promising career in the House at a time when the Democrats looked like they might be moving into the majority to run against Ted Cruz, which, given Ted Cruz's strength in Texas, looked like a highly risky career move at the time. And he did well enough, not only in terms of coming close to beating Ted Cruz, which was impressive enough, but did well enough throughout that campaign to very much eclipse the incumbent senator and make it largely about him and make himself a viral hero nationally. Now, one thing he did say in his announcement video when he talked about immigration, and of course, he's going to have this big rally on the border

soon, he said, And all of us, wherever you live, can acknowledge that if immigration is a problem, it's the best possible problem for this country to have. And we should ensure that there are lawful paths to work, to be with family and to flee persecution. And that sounds like a kind of controversial line, to be honest. And what's interesting about that is that is the Trump argument against Democrats. They're for open borders, whereas Beto O'Rourke is going to say immigration is what makes our country great. Of course, we want it to be legal. You know, he'll be for some kind of comprehensive immigration reform, as are all the Democrats.

But on a lot of things, he has vigorously resisted saying where he stands. Most definitely. So and fundamentally, right, this is like one of the big issues for him that is, you know, people are wondering whether or not he can do well or win. I mean, the thing that he's most known for that launched him onto the national scene was losing to Ted Cruz. Yeah. Right. And he lost. Yes, he came close. It was in Texas. He lost by three percentage points. He raised boatloads of money. But we're going to have to see if he actually is able to raise the kind of money that he was able to raise during that campaign. That wasn't just money coming in from out of state

to help someone try to win in Texas. And what I'm kind of wondering about, Mara, you talk about him being a phenomenon. And Danielle, we're talking about his policies and where all that that meets up. I want to talk about another P word. Is he progressive enough for this Democratic activist base? Well, that's going to be one of the most interesting things to see. You already have Republicans, the RNC, going after him for being too left and the Club for Growth saying that he's not left enough because they want to remind progressive Democrats, you know, that he isn't your guy. But I do think in a weird way, he will be a competitor to Bernie Sanders. Right.

Not because he offers an ideological contrast, not because he's not left, but because he's cool. And so much of Bernie Sanders' appeal is that he is the cool guy who's been saying this stuff about socialism or social democracy for his whole career. So that'll be one interesting thing to see. I do wonder if Beto O'Rourke's faculties with social media, like we were talking about him being a sort of analog to Ocasio-Cortez, I wonder if that could end up shooting him in the foot in a certain way, just because there was this moment that you guys may remember where he was live streaming, like, there were headlines. He's live streaming from the dentist, everybody. So I'm here at the dentist, and we're going to continue our series on the people of the border.

I'm here with Diana. Now, if you guys remember this. That was icky. Well, yes, but here's the thing. Roughly three seconds of that video were him with implements in his mouth, the dentist noises and so on. The rest of it was him saying, hey, I'm at the dentist. Here is my hygienist. So and so, forgive me, I've forgotten her name, but he interviewed her and she spoke about her life on the border. It was a Latina woman. Like, here's a resident of El Paso. And he was actually

trying to get substance. But what everybody remembers is that eye-rolly moment when they went, all right, he jumped the shark. And I wonder if he will have shark-jumping moments in this campaign totally unintentionally. Let's remember that the candidate who wound up winning in 2016 was the person who won the media wars, the person who got the media to be all about him. Whether they liked him or not, whether the issue was paramount or not, the focus was always on Donald Trump. And that is a knack. That's a talent. That is something that you cannot necessarily control or teach. And it's something that Beto O'Rourke seems to have. Getting yourself on television for free is something called earned media. And the candidate who can usually do that pretty well usually wins. And just this morning, when O'Rourke did his announcement video, he was on TV for half an hour where CNN was carrying that. And we remember that that happened with another candidate in 2016.

And I think you'll hear supporters argue that because he came so close to Cruz in Texas, he got the Boobie Prize. That means that he can also be competitive in the three states that count, Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. He's also young. And that's something we can't, there are many, many cross-cutting currents in the Democratic primary. One of them is about new fresh face versus somebody who's been around for a long time. Okay, to wrap this up very briefly, where does he stand in the rest of this field, especially since we're waiting on just one person really left, former Vice President Joe Biden, and whether or not he gets into this field. Where does O'Rourke fit in? And how do we see this entire field sort of solidifying at this point? I think he stands outside the current field. The current field is dominated by a bunch of senators.

And then there are a few governors who are not considered to be as competitive as the senators. Then you've got Joe Biden, a former senator, former vice president. And you've got Bernie Sanders, the former phenomenon. He's also one of the senators. The former phenomenon. Former phenomenon, because he can't be new a second time. He can't be brand new the second time. And so he is now in a competition with a lot of other people stealing his issues. First and foremost, Elizabeth Warren. And that's at the head, as they say. Somebody said he is losing his issues at the head to Elizabeth Warren. He's losing some of his backers at the heart to Beto O'Rourke. So he stands outside all of that. Wonder who said and wrote that. No, really, seriously, who did? We need to know. Was that you?

And there is a big sentiment in the Democratic Party has two main impulses, I think, if you could boil it down. One is they really, really want to beat Donald Trump. But they also really, really want to find the next Obama, somebody they can fall in love with. And it would be wonderful for them if they could see the same, both of those qualities in the same person. All right. These are great points. We'll leave the conversation here for now. And Danielle, we're going to let you go to get ready for your interview on All Things Considered. But please come back soon because at the end of the show, we need to know what you can't let go of this week. All sorts of things.

Thank you. Yep. We're going to take a quick break. And when we get back, will the Senate rebuke the president's national emergency declaration? Support for NPR politics and the following message come from The New Yorker. emergency declaration. a digital version that includes new stories published each day that don't appear in print. Listeners can receive a New Yorker tote bag and save 50% when they go to newyorker.com slash politics. We all have an online self, and sometimes that self can get us in real trouble. What did he think he was doing? I don't know. I didn't know he posted it. Next week on Invisibilia, we visit a city that blurs reality and online noise with life or death stakes.

And we're back and we've got Susan Davis here with us. Hey, Sue. Hey, everybody. At the top of the show, we said this podcast was recorded at 1.55 p.m. That was true for the first part of our conversation at the beginning of this podcast. But now it's more than two hours later, 4.15. It didn't take us that long to record the first part. It's because we were waiting on the Senate to vote

on whether to block the president's national emergency declaration that would give him the money to build his version of a wall. Sue, drumroll, how'd the Senate vote? You know, it wasn't much of a surprise because we knew that they had enough Republicans going into the vote that it would ultimately pass. What was interesting was the number. Ultimately, 12 Republicans sided with Democrats to terminate the president's national emergency declaration. There were some senators that we already knew opposed it, senators like Rand Paul of Kentucky or Susan Collins of Maine. But we also had some surprises. Before the vote, new Senator Mitt Romney from Utah announced he would vote with Democrats, as did Lamar Alexander, who's a Republican from

Tennessee. And we also had one surprise reversal. Senator Tom Tillis, he's a Republican from North Carolina. He had been one of the first Republicans to come out to say he would vote with Democrats, to say it was a principled stand for the Constitution, that he could not support this in an op-ed in The Washington Post. And shortly before the vote, he said he had changed his mind and he would vote with the president. So the vote was 59-41, right? And that was 12 Republicans who defected, voted with the Democrats. You noted Tom Tillis reversing himself. Now, that doesn't really matter, right? I mean, the fact that if Republicans had gotten to 60, you know, if he had voted and gotten to 60 because of the way that this law was written,

I think, Sue, right? Because I think that's what you told me. Yeah, that's right. I mean, I do think it's important to note that just because we talk so much about the Senate and needing the 60 vote threshold. This was a very specific measure. It's called a privileged resolution. And the way the law was written, that national emergency law that let President make this declaration, also created the process for Congress to take it away. And in that law, it only requires a simple majority in both houses, which is why this resolution only needed 51 votes, not 60. But there is another really important number, and that's 67. Which they fell far short of. And that's what you'd need to override a veto, which they don't have the votes for that. So we will get the veto. And after the president's

veto has been received, one chamber or the other will hold an attempted override vote. It can be either chamber. There's no requirement that it be House or Senate. And that would probably happen as soon as the week after next, because Congress is out next week on recess. So at that point, once the veto override has failed in one chamber or the other, no point in the other chamber voting, it's already moot. So then it goes back to the courts. You could look at this as the biggest rebuke Donald Trump has ever gotten from his own party. 12 Republicans is a lot of Republicans. On the other hand, you could look at it as another step forward for tribalism, because this was a vote where people

didn't seem to care about the constitutional rules. They just were thinking about their next election and whether or not they wanted to stick with the president, whose hold on the party's base, the thing that votes in primaries, is extremely strong. Maybe he doesn't have a complete hold on his party writ large. I think that's right, because, I mean, 12 may not sound like a lot, but in Senate math, 12 is not an insignificant number. And I think, you know, Tillis probably wanted to be part of that. So it could have been 13. And that is kind of a high watermark that we've seen in the Senate so far for breaking with the president. I do think senators, it's a bit cliche, but it's also true that they do tend to have a bit of a high watermark that we've seen in the Senate so far for breaking with the president. I do think senators, it's a bit cliche, but it's also true that they do tend to have a bit of a longer view on these kind of questions about executive power. And there's reason to be

concerned here. You know, the line that we've heard a lot talking about this is what is to stop a future Democratic president from doing something on climate change or gun laws or any number of things. That's a real concern. And if you can see past the Donald Trump presidency, if you can see past your own election, if you care about the Constitution and that separation of powers issue, those that 12 were the ones that I think identified themselves who think of things beyond the Trump presidency. Not to be the skeptical political watcher here, though, guys. I mean, this is not doesn't feel like to me the thing that breaks the dam that suddenly Republicans are going to oppose President Trump

on. Right. I mean, Sue, what are you hearing on the Hill there when it comes to this issue in particular and whether we're going to see them break or not break from the president on a host of other things? It remains. Well, one thing that's also important to note this week beyond this is it was the second time this week that the Senate rebuked the president. The Senate also voted this week to reject U.S. support for the Saudi led war in Yemen, which President Trump supports. That is also not an insignificant thing. Also, another measure that the president has said he will veto when it gets to his desk, which is expected to do because the House Democrats have the votes to pass that as well. On the whole, I think Republicans are still overwhelmingly

united behind Donald Trump. I'm still skeptical that this is a story of big fissures within the party. But I think when you have Democrats in the House and enough Republicans on certain issues, like foreign policy, like executive overreach, like trade, maybe, that they might be able to find lanes to, yeah, drive a wedge between Congress and the White House, or at least have a more confrontational approach to the White House than he's enjoyed in the first two years of his presidency. And there is a third issue, and that third issue is the transparency or the public release of Robert Mueller's report whenever it comes. The House today voted 420 to 0. In other words, a totally bipartisan, unanimous vote of the House.

Well, some people didn't vote, but 420 to 0 to call on the Justice Department to release to the public the full Mueller report when it comes out. Now, that's something, obviously, that also breaks with the president, who was just assumed to have that decision be left up to his attorney general. And the Senate was blocked on voting on it this afternoon, as they might have done, by Lindsey Graham, who stood up and said, no, we don't want to have this unless the resolution changes to also have a new special prosecutor look into Hillary Clinton's emails and the way that that was handled by the Justice Department back in 2016. And that's maybe not surprising as you think about the politics with Lindsey Graham, who has said that he wants to remain relevant in this era of Trump. He told the New York Times,

Mark Leibovich, that that's his goal to remain relevant. So he's got the president's back on this. But on this narrow issue of the national emergency, where do we go from here? I mean, this is going to end up in the courts, right? It goes directly to the courts where trial courts, district courts in several states are going to probably rule on this. There have been a number of states that have followed the lead of California in suing over this. And this is going to wind up producing decisions out of a number of district courts, which will go to several of the circuits. If those circuits don't all agree in their appeals court review of the district court decisions, then it would go more or less automatically to the Supreme Court. But the Supreme Court can pick this off at any time it wishes and expedite the process and bring it to their level. I think everyone expects that at some

point or another, the Supreme Court will have to rule. And as a political matter, this strategy was all about sending a message to the president's base that he would do whatever it took. He'd try every tool in his toolbox to build that wall, which he considers to be one of his top priorities and the most kind of symbolic of his presidency. And even if he loses in court, I've been told by his advisors, it's still going to be a win for his base because he will have fought, fought, fought for it. And these court challenges can take an incredibly long time. Remember that one of the things that President Obama was accused of executive overreach by Republicans was the creation of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program known as DACA.

That is still being fought in the courts. The legal battle over that has not been closed. So it's not entirely inconceivable that how this plays out in the courts could well surpass the 2020 election. All right, so you get the last word. Thank you for stopping in. We're going to let you go for now. But thank you. Let us know if there's any updates. Will do. All right. And we're going to take a quick break. When we get back, it's time for Can't Let It Go. We may be on the verge of another sexual revolution. In this one,

we turn to machines for companionship and sex. My main objective is to be a perfect companion. How artificial intelligence and robots are changing the landscape of love this week on Hidden Brain.

And we're back and welcome back, Danielle. We missed you. I missed you guys too. And we've got you here because back, Danielle. We missed you. I missed you guys, too. And we've got you here because we need your help ending the show like we do every week with Can't Let It Go, the part of the show where we talk about the things that happen this week, politics or otherwise, that we just can't stop thinking about. Danielle, why don't you kick things off? All right, I have a story.

It is not political news. It is agricultural news, and it's international agricultural news. It comes from France. It's a very short news story I found on the BBC, but it's about chickens. Chickens in a school farm in northwestern France are believed to have grouped and killed a juvenile fox. Chickens? Yes. The unusual incident in Brittany took place after the fox entered the coop with 3,000 hens through an automatic hatch door, which closed immediately. There was a herd instinct, and they attacked him with their beaks, said Pascal Daniel, head of farming at the agricultural school that I cannot pronounce because it's French. The body of the small fox was found the following day in the corner of the

coop. It had blows to its neck, blows from beaks, Mr. Daniel told AFP. Like, this story, this is a legit click. I've been thinking about it so much because there are two ways to really think about it. One is that, you know, a group of women came together to defeat a predator. It's beautiful. It's lovely. Like, they were defending themselves and they succeeded by God. On the other hand, this is an upsetting of the natural order of things. The circle of life is out of whack.

The fox is supposed to kill the chickens hand this is an upsetting of the natural order of things the circle of life is out of whack well i mean they're supposed to kill the chickens this is weird but they're kind of evolving maybe and they maybe they took down the you know the young and sending a warning shot to the fox obviously who you know was hoping to kind of i guess can chickens overthrow us next but i mean from the media this is the thing to worry about you you guys. From the media perspective, is this another round in the war on Fox? I can't do better than that. Guys, Ron just won. All right. Let's shut down Cligs. This is great.

That's a good segue to Ron. Your can't let it go. Can't let go the pathway to a fine education at America's best institutions of higher learning. Hard work. Which apparently is not just practice, practice, practice. Studying. It's also have rich parents who are willing to spend something like a million dollars and more on contracts with an outfit that will help you get in, even if that means falsifying

SAT scores, even if it means bribing college athletic coaches. A very extensive conspiracy that has been busted by the FBI, Justice Department. Fifty people have been charged in this particular case, 33 of them parents, who allegedly took part in this plot, including some rather famous people, Lori Loughlin, the actress, and her husband, Massimo Giannulli, the designer, and Felicity Huffman, another actress. These people were willing to part with extraordinarily large sums to get their offspring into some of the most exclusive universities in the United States.

So I will just say, I think it's one of those things like when you grow up in Queens, you think that the system's rigged anyway. You're told that. So you're just like, oh, this doesn't always happen, like where people just pay you off. What's the difference between this and like paying? Put your name on a library. I was going to say pay a million dollars to have your name on a library and get your kid in. And that's why I think this is going to be an ongoing story because I think there's going to be a lot of new focus on some of the ways that people have smoothed the path of higher learning for their offspring.

And the trope that undeserving minorities get in because of affirmative action. I mean, that's another part of this. You've got all of these African-American kids busting their butts and going to test prep and taking advantage of every program that's offered to them. is the point of this, the point, the reason so many kids go to college is to, like, move past their parents or move up in the world. Economic mobility. These people's parents are already at the very top of the ladder. But they're worried their kids won't. These kids are going to be fine anyway. No, no. They're worried that their kids will not maintain their standard of living or surpass it. No, there is tremendous anxiety among the upper middle class who can afford, who can't afford to give a building for $100 million, which is legal.

The lesser graft is what's illegal. So those parents are really worried, they're gripped with anxiety that their kids won't maintain the standard. I see. It's not the top 0.1, it's the top 0.2 to 0.5. Yeah, it's definitely not the top 0.1. It's the top 0.2 to 0.5. Yeah, it's definitely not the top 0.0001. Right. We should make the point that this is not the students begging their parents to spend a million dollars to get them into the school. No, some of these kids didn't even know about it.

Right. This is the kids having the parents push them into these schools by spending this amount of money. And at least you'd say, because there are going to be many arguments made about donations of one kind or another, this was something that involved bribery, involved fraud, involved falsifying records, falsifying test scores. So there was a crime here in addition to just the extraordinary bad behavior. We talk about affirmative action, we could call this super affluent action. And you know, the guy oh, sorry, the consultant, whatever we call him, the college counselor, said there were three ways to get into college. The front door on merit, the back door where you're super wealthy and you give a building, and that is perfectly legal. And then there's the side door for people who can't afford the back door he was offering

these services. You know, the internet memes on this were kind of amazing. I mean, you know, because remember, Laurie Laughlin also, she was known for playing Aunt Becky on Full House, right? And she was supposed to be the one who came in and was sort of like the ethics. All right, Domenico, what can't you let go of this week? Well, this week I was out in Arizona. I was at the Grand Canyon, which I got to see for the first time in my life. And I just, it was mind blowing. I don't know how many of you have actually been in here, been to the Grand Canyon or not, but it- More times than what? I, really?

More times? Yes. Because when I- Lives up to the hype. I try. One of those things that does. It actually does. And you know, you try to take photos of it.

And I was, I remember I was taking a picture and I was just like, these are worthless. Pretty much, pretty much worthless. Yeah. I can show you all and I was like, these are worthless. Pretty much worthless. Yeah. I can show you all my screensavers from the Grand Canyon. They don't save the screen. It was amazing. And they certainly don't capture the canyon. It is one of those things you have to actually see in real life.

Makes me want to go there right now. Well, I was going to say, this is the part where we should magically transport the entire podcast to the Grand Canyon so that Danielle can see it. Finally. Please do. I'm in. It's worth the trip. Anyway, Mara, what is your can't let it go? My can't let it go is this week we're saying happy birthday to Mitt Romney.

He turned 72. Okay. And his staff made him a beautiful birthday cake out of Twinkies, which is his favorite snack. I like that. And when they posted the video of him receiving this fabulous cake, he got up to blow out the candles and one by one picked up the candles and blew them out by hand, so to speak, manually. He picked them up one by one? He picked them out of the cake. 72 candles? Well, I'm assuming there were 72. I couldn't tell how many there were. So, of course, this caused great Twitter consternation.

And it turns out that he said later that he had a cold. He didn't want to blow all over the cake. He also said, I think he also said that this is the way he gets a single wish for every one. Oh, that's better. So he put his fingers all over the cake? I'll take explanation number two, John. No, just plucked out the candles. But to me, if you put this on the Romney weirdo meter, where on one end there's the icky end and then there's the endearing end, this still falls in the endearing end.

This is not like putting the dog on top of the car. Where does ironing yourself while wearing a tuxedo fit? Ironing yourself? You mean ironing the tuxedo? Remember he, well, I guess. Oh, iron, iron, yes. No, that's endearing too. We just mentioned that dog on the roof story, which most of us all remember. When Romney was running for president, he was a Republican nominee in 2012. One of the things that was used against him and that really kind of twisted the public image of Mitt Romney was the story about his family traveling and not having enough room in the car for the dog with all the kids. And there were many kids. They put the dog on the roof.

Right. And of course, he put him on the roof. But, you know, a long trip and accidents happen. Accidents happen. And, you know, that became part of, were... Accidents happen. Accidents happen and, you know, that became part of, like you said, the public image of Mitt Romney. Right, it went on the Romney weirdo meter. And there were a certain number of columnists who never let it go and talked about him putting the dog on the roof of the car in every single piece they wrote

about him. It became shorthand, sort of, for, like Mara said, the weirdo meter, for people saying that he was weird. Right, but not everything on the weirdo meter is bad. Sure, absolutely. That is a wrap for today. We'll be back as soon as there's political news you need to know about. And we have news.

We're headed to Philadelphia to record a podcast just like this one, live on stage. We'd love to see you there. So head to nprpresents.org and grab a ticket. I'm Domenico Montanaro, political editor. I'm Danielle Kurtzleben, political reporter. I'm Ron Elwing, editor-correspondent. And I'm Mara Liason, national political correspondent. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.