The NPR Politics Podcast - Weekly Roundup: Thursday, March 7

Episode Date: March 8, 2019

Paul Manafort was sentenced to 47 months in prison. House Democrats vote on a resolution that both does and does not publicly rebuke one of their members. And multiple 2020 contenders announce that will not be running for president. This episode: White House correspondent Tamara Keith, White House reporter Ayesha Rascoe, Congressional correspondent Susan Davis, and justice correspondent Ryan Lucas. 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 Jess from Dayton, Ohio. I'm currently on a road trip to Atlanta, Georgia with my dog, Berkeley, where I'm going to get to see the NPR Politics Road to 2020 live taping. I'm so excited. This podcast was recorded at 747 p.m. on Thursday, the 7th of March. Things may have changed by the time you hear this. Okay, enjoy the show. That's awesome. We need more dogs in the podcast. Every podcast should have a dog reference. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. Paul Manafort was sentenced to 47 months. House Democrats vote on a resolution that both does and doesn't rebuke one of their freshman representatives. And in the race for 2020, the list of who is not running for president just got a little longer. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. I'm Ayesha Roscoe. I also cover the White House. And we've got Ryan Lucas on the line from Northern Virginia. Sunny Alexandria. Hello.

So you're in a hotel across the street from the courthouse where Paul Manafort, the president's former campaign chairman, was just sentenced to 47 months. Do the math for us, please. I had to use my calculator. I actually, in the courtroom with a reporter who was sitting next to me, had to kind of count it out on my fingers. So it comes out as three years, 11 months. That is the total time that Judge T.S. Ellis sentenced Manafort for eight counts that he was actually convicted by a federal jury here in August on. So he was convicted of tax fraud, failing to disclose a foreign bank account, and bank fraud. He could have faced from 19 and a half to 24 years. The judge in this case called that range way out of whack.

Ultimately, he said 47 months is the sweet spot here. He also imposed financial penalties on Manafort, $24.8 million in restitution and a $50,000 fine. 47 months is a lot less than like 19 years. It is. Is this a defeat for the Mueller investigation, for the Mueller team? It's not. What the judge said in this case, and there are a lot of white collar cases that involve

what essentially amounts to is tax fraud. There's a long history of looking at what the previous sentences were. That's one of the things that Judge TS Ellis had to take into account. You can't have a sentence that's 24 years in this case. And in a number of cases that were cited, it was something akin to seven months, eight months. So a range of 47 months is much lower than obviously 19 or 24 years. But again, he was convicted on eight counts. That's what matters. And he is facing time in jail. And as the judge said, for any of you out there who is scoffing at this 47 months, spend some time in a federal prison. But that said, people will point out that it seems like, you know, if you were dealing drugs or something like that, you'd get a much higher sentence. Maybe. But again, on Manafort's case, this is not the end of the legal road for him. Sentencing in this case is not it. He has another case that was brought by the special counsel in

Washington, D.C. He's going to be sentenced there next week. The maximum sentence in that case is 10 years total. So there are two things about this. One, this is the president's former campaign chairman going to prison for a very long time. And that is a big deal. But it is also something we have to say that he was not convicted of doing things for the campaign. The conviction is related to other activity, lobbying and work he did in Ukraine. Political consulting, lobbying work that he did in Ukraine and the tens of millions of dollars that he earned from doing that work. And one thing that the judge today made clear over the course of what ended up being nearly a four-hour sentencing hearing, he said at the beginning, Manafort is not before this

court for anything having to do with colluding with Russia or the Russian government to influence the election. He made that clear from the beginning. And so what did Manafort have to say for himself? Did he talk during this sentencing? He did. And we actually hadn't really heard from Manafort in this case. He didn't speak at all during the trial. He was wheeled in at the beginning of this hearing in a wheelchair.

He was also carrying a little wooden cane. He's wearing a baggy green prison uniform with Alexandria inmate written on the back. He remained seated as he spoke, which is not normal. And he said that, you know, the last two years were the most difficult years for him and his family. He said that he felt humiliation and shame. And he said that the nine months that he spent in jail so far have been very hard. They've impacted his health. He's suffering from gout. That's part of why he was in the wheelchair. His professional and financial life are in shambles, he said. And he also added that he's

had time to reflect while he's in jail. He wants to turn his notoriety into something positive. And he asked for the court's compassion. Now, I was in Michael Cohen's sentencing hearing as well back in December. And Cohen gave this kind of impassioned emotional speech where he had at times kind of started crying and he had to compose himself. It was a 12 minute long speech. Manafort's lasted three minutes. And as the judge actually noted afterwards, when he was got to the point that he was going to sentence Manafort, he said, I didn't hear you say that you regret breaking the law. You didn't say sorry. You didn't say that you regret not complying with the law. And he actually recommended that Manafort say something akin to that next week when he's sentenced in Washington.

All right, Ryan, we are going to let you go for now. No, thank you. I'm gonna go grab some dinner, actually. I'm starving. Good plan. And let's bring in Sue Davis, who covers Congress for us. Hey, Sue. Hey. So you all day today, and actually all week, have been following the news of a vote in the House to condemn anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, racism, and other forms of bigotry. And that just passed 407 to 23, with one member voting present. But there's a lot more to this story than just that. It's been a really contentious week inside the House Democratic Caucus. They've really tortured themselves over getting this resolution to the floor.

They had we're going to vote on it. They pulled it. They put it back on again. I think it's served to do a lot of things. We should first back up, though, and explain why this was happening this week. Yeah. Let's go back to the very beginning. We've probably talked about this before on the podcast, but Minnesota Democratic freshman Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, she is one of the

first two Muslim women ever elected to Congress, and she's already caused a bit of controversy this year. Last month, in a couple of tweets, she made some comments that were widely condemned as anti-Semitic. She apologized for it. The House voted to condemn anti-Semitism. We move on. Last week, at an appearance at Busboys and Poets, which is a coffee shop here in Washington, D.C., she made additional controversial comments. I want to talk about the political influence in this country that says it is okay for people to push for allegiance to a foreign country. I want to ask, why is it okay for me to talk about the influence of the NRA or fossil fuel industries or big pharma and not talk about a powerful lobbying group that is influencing policy? The wording she used for a lot of people played off of this anti-Semitic trope of dual loyalty,

which is to say a Jew cannot be, at least in the American view of anti-Semitism, that dual loyalty charges have been used to question Jewish patriotism to the country, that you are more allied with Israel than anywhere else. Throughout history, dual loyalty charges have been used to persecute Jews and Jewish people. It is a really sensitive topic. And for a lot of Democrats, Jewish and not Jewish, this was too much for them. So leading Democrats, people like House Foreign Affairs Chairman Elliot

Engel, Ethics Chairman Ted Deutch, both like House Foreign Affairs Chairman Elliot Engel, Ethics Chairman Ted Deutch, both Jewish lawmakers, a number of party leaders, over the weekend decided we need to condemn anti-Semitism again. They intended to bring this bill to the floor earlier this week. And when lawmakers all got back to town, it kind of went off the rails. Yeah. Because there was some pushback against this, right? Like who in the Democratic Party, like why was there some pushback against the pushback against Omar? So one of the things that has this debate has exposed is, I think, a bit of a generational and cultural divide in the Democratic Party about when it's OK and not OK to criticize Israel. And among the younger, more progressive lawmakers, there is a much more willingness to really take on

the Israeli government and Israeli policies as it pertains in the Middle East. Even though the language was using these tropes. Yes. And what you heard from a lot of Democrats this week is that, yes, her words were bad, but she didn't know what she was saying or she didn't mean it in that way. Even House Speaker Nancy Pelosi offered up that defense this week. were not based on any anti-Semitic attitude, but that she didn't have a full appreciation of how they landed on other people where these words have a history and a cultural impact that may have been unknown to her. And so what has Omar said herself

about the comments that she made? So the first time that she was accused of anti-Semitism, she offered an unequivocal apology and said that that was not the intent of her words. She apologized to any hurt she may have caused. What was different the second time around is she actually refused to apologize. She really pushed back against this idea that what she was saying was anti-Semitic. She has not given any media interviews on this, but a lot of this is played out on social media. And on her Twitter feed, she has essentially said that she doesn't apologize for being a critic of Israel, and she has sort of embraced this position. And there was also just kind of this issue of

it looking like you had groups kind of attacking this. As you said, one of the first Muslim women voted into Congress, a black woman. She wears a hijab. Yes. And that there were some criticisms of her that have been kind of comparing her to a terrorist or alluding to her as a terrorist. No, there was like a poster that was put up in Virginia somewhere that had her in a picture of her in front of the Twin Tower. It was West. I think that was West Virginia. Yeah. So sorry. Wrong, Virginia. Yeah. Apologize. I apologize to the great state of Virginia.

But to West Virginia, like saying, don't forget. And the Twin Tower. So there was a lot going on in this in all of this and in the kind of debate over how to handle these comments. Totally. And as she is saying comments that are being characterized by a lot of people as anti-Semitic or felt as anti-Semitic by a lot of lawmakers, she herself has been subjected to a lot of Islamic phobic attacks. You talk about the West Virginia attack. She has said publicly she's received death threats as a member of Congress. So and also I think that another element of this inside the Democratic caucus, which is the most diverse group of people that's ever been elected of one party in

a chamber that's ever been elected. So they have a lot of different viewpoints on this. The Congressional Black Caucus also came to her defense, and they made the point that Congress is so quick to condemn controversial comments made by a black woman when a lot of lawmakers and the president say really offensive or bigoted or, you know, any pick your ism all the time or frequently that aren't given the same amount of condemnation and scrutiny, and at least certainly not the speed at which everybody wanted to condemn her. So they also kind of came to her defense a little bit too. So which is why Democrats were like, all right, maybe we should hit the brakes on this resolution and not vote on it right away. And they went back to the drawing board and they reworked it to not just include anti-Semitism, but to also include Islamophobia, white supremacy, and all forms of bigotry. Essentially just tossing in the whole mix of things that we should all just be against.

And that was meant in some ways to mollify Democrats who weren't comfortable just singling out Congresswoman Omar. But now you have Democrats sort of in this circular firing squad beating each other up over this issue. And at the same time, you know, they were they were taking a vote today on election security and voter access. But that is not going to be the thing that everyone is talking about, because instead it's this resolution about one of their members. It has certainly served to derail the Democratic message for several weeks. You know, this has taken over the news cycle when it happened last month. It's happening again. I think that that has also been a frustration for a lot of Democrats

that Congresswoman Omar is just not more careful in the way she uses her words and the understanding that like party politics are team politics. And when one of you says something that is seen as an outrage, it affects the whole party. What is interesting, though, is that the defense of her. And we should also note that a lot of the leading 2020 contenders, people like Kamala Harris and Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, also came to her defense this week and essentially said she has a right to criticize the U.S.-Israel relationship. And also, they have, as many others, raised this question of her own safety, that these controversies have sort of elevated her national profile. She has been the target of death threats, and that it has created this, I think, just like a really toxic mix of conversation about race and bigotry and anti-Semitism, which is really not what the new Democratic majority wanted to be spending their first couple of months in office focused on.

And that could be a going theme of the last few weeks, which is, wow, our politics are not equipped to talk about race. We are going to take a quick break. And when we get back, 2020 contenders and a surprising announcement by Senator Martha McSally from Arizona. Support for this NPR podcast and the following message come from the Ford Foundation, working with visionaries on the front lines of social change worldwide to address inequality in all its forms. Learn more at FordFoundation.org. Hey, it's Maria Hinojosa, host of NPR's Latino USA, the podcast that takes you inside the Latino conversation. Each week, we'll take you into one story that will fascinate and often surprise you.

Listen to Latino USA on the NPR One app or wherever you listen to podcasts. And we're back, and we're going to have a quick conversation about 2020. It has been a really big week in people announcing that they're not running for president. Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown is out. So is former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, former Attorney General Eric Holder and Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon. All of them this week announced that they are not running for president. And it may have something to do with another guy whose name starts with B.

Michael Bennett. Beto O'Rourke. I can't say the name. Someone say that. Beto O'Rourke. No, not Beto O'Rourke, though lots of people are waiting for him, too. We are talking about former Vice President Joe Biden, who reportedly is getting ever closer, 95 percent of the way there, to running for president for the third time. So let's go back to all the people who aren't running. Why is Sherrod Brown not running? He's been out campaigning. He's been doing his dignity of work tour all over these early voting states. As you said, Tam, he had gone on a tour.

Part of his aim, and I think when we talk a lot about the lanes of the 2020 contenders, he had a pretty clear path in that he won Ohio, right? He was someone, one of the few Democrats in the field who could say, people who voted for Donald Trump voted for me too. And his appeal was to white working class voters in the Midwest. So it comes as a bit of surprise that he's getting out just because there was nothing precipitating it. But he did announce to a group of Ohio reporters that he was going to get out, but he was still going to continue to be a voice, a critic of the president that he in one of his words, he was going to call out Trump's, quote, phony populism and that he would work to get a Democrat elected in 2020.

But it won't be him. What about Michael Bloomberg, former mayor and owner of Bloomberg News? So Bloomberg, he wrote this opinion piece announcing that he would not be running for the White House. And of course, it ran on Bloomberg. But basically, he was kind of frank that he didn't know if he could win the Democratic nomination, that the field is very crowded, that he might have to change his viewpoints to win the nomination. He's unwilling to do that. And he basically said, why should I devote the next two years to talking about my ideas and record, knowing that I might never win the Democratic nomination? Or should I spend the next two years doubling down on the work that I'm already leading and funding and that I know can produce real and beneficial results for the country right now? So basically he was saying he didn't think he could win, which is probably a reason why people don't run. Yeah. More people could conclude that. Yeah. And maybe they will. But it also speaks to, I guess, where the Democratic Party is now that

and that is such a crowded field that even someone like Michael Bloomberg says, I don't think that this is a fit for me. And also he's a billionaire. Is this really a point, especially for Democrats, where you're going to elevate a billionaire when there's all this talk about inequality and things like that? How do you address that? How do you square that? I just think it's pretty clear eyed from Bloomberg. I mean, he knows who he is, right? He's a centrist, independent style figure who was going to run for the Democratic nomination. And I think he is, you know, been very clear about the fact that he was assessing the field. And I do think it speaks to this idea that what the Democratic primary voter wants right now is not the centrist nice guy who's going to reach across the aisle and work with the other side. And I think he knows that he just can't run and win in a party that is veering to the left. And this week, or in the last 10 days, we got word of two people who are running. We have

John Hickenlooper, the former governor of Colorado, and Jay Inslee, the governor of Washington state. And where would we put them on sort of the spectrum of Democratic candidates? I would say Hickenlooper probably falls more into that like proud moderate and campaigned as a proud moderate. And I did think it was very notable that when he announced this week and he made comments about he was asked, you know, OK, you're president, what do you do? And he was talking about reaching across the aisle and I'm going to sit down with majority leader Mitch McConnell and I'm going to work with him and I'm going to cut deals. If you were following that at all, you were also noticing that so much of the Democratic Party operatives, analysts just dogged him for that. And that idea that moderation is what they need right now and the idea that what they really want is a fighter and the idea that you can cut a deal with Mitch McConnell is something that a lot of 2020 Democrats are kind of rolling their eyes and laughing at. And Governor Inslee, Jay Inslee, he announced his campaign saying that he was going to focus almost entirely on climate change as an issue.

Yeah, and that's been his big thing, even when he was in Congress. I covered energy for a long time. So this has been something that he has been focused on, the idea of how do we address climate change for a really long time. And obviously this is picking up all over with the Democratic Party. You have this Green New Deal. To me, it will be interesting to see how big an issue that will be when it comes to voting. It seems like that has always been somewhat of an issue. It's making that really tangible for people voting today about climate change.

It is a huge issue and it is affecting people right now. But kind of translating that whether that can translate into votes. And all of this is happening as everyone's sort of sitting around and waiting for Joe Biden to make up his mind. And what seems to be happening is that he is expected to announce that he's going to run and what that does to the field and how that shakes things up is going to be really fascinating to watch. Well, I do wonder if somebody like Brown got out because of that. Yeah. And I mean, according to a lot of reporting that Biden world has sort of been reaching out to other allies in the Democratic Party and haven't been committal, but have been indicating

that he will run. And Biden getting in immediately puts him into the front tier of candidates. I don't know if he stays there again Again, so many different moving parts here. But Biden getting in will be a really dramatic moment in the 2020 race. And going back to some of what we were talking about earlier, about this idea of the centrist working across the aisle, that issue could come up with Biden, right? He got into a bit of trouble for saying that Pence was a decent human being. He kind of had to walk that back because of issues, you know, with LGBT people and Pence's comments about that. It seems like this is going to be an issue for all of these candidates. with Republicans and reaching across the aisle and being that sort of magnanimous figure in American politics. I think all that changes when you're actually running for office again. You

know, his 70 percent approval ratings aren't going to stay that high if he actually starts running for president. But yeah, I mean, you know, Biden's one of the older candidates in a field and in a party that's really trying to appeal to a younger next generation set of Democrats who I don't think are as beholden to Joe Biden as other sets of voters. And he also has one of the longest records that he's going to have to explain and defend in a party and in a country that has very different views on a lot of these issues than when he was running for the Senate and the White House in the 80s and 90s. Well, let's switch gears now and talk about something that happened yesterday in the Senate. Senator Martha McSally, the newly appointed senator from Arizona,

she was at a hearing in a Senate Armed Services subcommittee on sexual assault in the military. And then she started sharing her own story. Like you, I am also a military sexual assault survivor. But unlike so many brave survivors, I didn't report being sexually assaulted. Like so many women and men, I didn't trust the system at the time. I blamed myself. I was ashamed and confused. I thought I was strong, but felt powerless.

The perpetrators abused their position of power in profound ways. And in one case, I was preyed upon and then raped by a superior officer. I decided to stay and continue to serve and fight and lead, to be a voice from within the ranks for women, and then in the House, and now in the Senate. So this is personal for me, too. But it's personal from two perspectives, as a commander who led my airmen into combat and as a survivor of rape and betrayal. Wow. I mean, really interesting for a lot of reasons. One, just on its own, just a really emotional, dramatic moment. You can, the room is dead silent as she's talking about this.

But also for McSally, this is the second time that she has revealed being a victim of sexual assault. Last year during her Senate campaign, she revealed that she'd been sexually abused in high school by a coach. And then in this hearing, she reveals a rape as a member of the military. And on top of that, the second female senator this year to say publicly that they had been rape victims. The other being Iowa Republican Senator Joni Ernst also revealed this year that when she was younger, she had been raped. You know, I think that this does point to, you know, obviously the Senate for years now has been trying to deal with a problem of sexual assault in the military. And now you have members of the Senate who are women, who are veterans, and who, in McSally's case, experienced the very thing that the hearing was about. Yeah. I mean, I think in some ways it does speak to our cultural moment that we have been living in for the past couple of years,

born out of the Me Too movement, in that I do think women feel more empowered to come forward and publicly admit these things that have happened to them. I think the culture has shifted to believe women more. I think there is a comfort level that women have in sharing these experiences that have happened to them, partly because women in positions of power have admitted that it's happened to them. And I do think it does change cultures in that it shows you it is not a small problem. It is not a finite problem. It doesn't just affect certain types of women, that it is a much more broad cultural problem than I think, you know, I think we're still going through this reckoning. And having two of the six female Republican senators say

that they are rape survivors is a cultural moment. There's always this question of why would someone go through something like that and not say it? So when you have these examples of these women, as you said, in very powerful positions who are speaking out and saying, you know, I went through this and I didn't report it because I didn't feel like people would believe me. I didn't feel like the system would be there for me. I think that it gives a voice to all of those people who maybe haven't talked yet, who haven't revealed yet, but are going to or thinking about it to say that this is something that happens to people. And sometimes people don't tell for years, don't tell for decades that this is something that they went through. And McSally in particular had, she had sort of the, her personality or the way she's sort of

explained it, she's like a tough woman. She's a fighter. You know, she was one of the, she was the first woman to command a fighter squadron in the Air Force. You know, like this was part of her narrative. And I think that her admitting that even women like her, right, women who were ground, who were breaking ground in the military, who have led combat troops, were still were victims of rape. And I think that it does change the way people perceive who this conversation and who's affected by it. And if she so chooses, and if Joni Ernst so chooses, if they choose to use their voices as, you know, these issues come up in legislative debates, I think that it does give their voices added weight because they can speak to it from a perspective that other people can't. Was there any sense coming out of this that, you know, this hearing would lead to any kind of change? Well, you know, I think the underlying issue is a really good point because military sexual assault is still a very big problem. And one of the things that the hearing was talking about was in a Pentagon report for fiscal year 2017, they received over

almost 7,000 reports of sexual assault involving service members. That is up 10% from fiscal year 2016, where it was about 6,100 reports of sexual assault. So clearly, it's still a problem and still a problem that the military isn't doing a very good job of confronting. All right, we are going to take a quick break. And when we get back, it's time for Can't Let It Go. 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.

When's the last time you had a really good workout? Not of your biceps, but of your brain. I'm Shankar Vedantam, host of Hidden Brain. Listen every week and flex your mind. And we're back. And we're going to end the show like we do every week with Can't Let It Go, where we talk about one thing we just can't stop thinking about, politics or otherwise. Aisha, you want to go first? Yes. So what I cannot let go of this week is, and it's really just one part of this issue. And there was an interview you might have heard heard you might have seen pictures with R. Kelly

and but it was by Gayle King she did this interview with him that was just kind of extraordinary and really what was extraordinary to me and what I can't let go of is the way Gail was so calm the entire time he was crying cursing he jumps up at one point his arms are raised he's kind of flailing and you know pacing around pounding his chest I didn't do this stuff this is not me y'all I'm fighting for my life y'all killing me with this and she is she is sitting there just with complete poise and she's just not being dragged into it at all which was incredible to me because i just always think like if I were in a situation like that I don't know if I could not escalate like because you're not supposed to escalate with the other person but when people get escalated with me then I start escalating and everybody is escalated

there's a great photograph still of this interview where he's like standing up over her like raising his arms up like he's screaming at her and she's just sitting there with like perfect posture notebook on her lap just like giving him this like you know mother looking at an exasperated child look i also liked in the interview how she kept being like robert yeah robert robert like like your disappointed mother telling you to sit down and and speak, you know. Robert, we have to have a conversation. I don't want you just ranting at the camera. I came here for them to hear me talk. I need help.

What kind of help? This is the kind of help I need. Yes, what kind of help? Yeah, and just saying, look, I don't want you just ranting at the camera. Like, do this. Like, Robert, like, just very calmly. Like, that was incredible I think and that's what as a journalist you you kind of have to do but yeah I thought that was just amazing on

her part Gail is great because she did what I think it's hard to realize how hard this is to do if you don't do it for a living but that staying calm in those situations especially with the television cameras rolling is so hard and it was like a master class in how to stay calm when you're doing an interview with a really unpredictable, volatile subject. Tam, what can't you let go this week? I cannot let go of Kylie Jenner. Oh, my goodness. Oh, you can't let go? I can't. I can't.

I can't. I can't. I can. I can just read article after article after article about how Kylie Jenner, at 21 years old, became the world's youngest self-made, in quotes, billionaire. So she was on Forbes' annual billionaire list this year. They listed her as the world's youngest self-made billionaire. And everyone, including the dictionary's Twitter account, was like, how exactly do you define self-made? But Forbes is standing by its distinction, saying that it was all her money, even if she was part of this reality TV dynasty before she was old enough to make business. But the way she became a billionaire is what really has me because she when she was like 16, there started to be these rumors that she had gotten lip implants or fillers or something because her lips were suddenly huge. And she was like, no, that's not true. I just have really great lipstick and lip liner. And you just have to know how to do it.

And then she created a line of makeup with Kylie's lip kits, which are lipstick and lip liner. And then later she admitted, oh, yeah, I did get fillers. I like it because it's like one of those funny stories where you're like, only in America can a child born to privilege worth millions translate that into success. Just another hardscrabble story of America's millionaires becoming America's billionaires. Exactly. And it's like, yes, she did this stuff with her lips and then sold these kits. She's not the first person to sell these kits, but I'm sure.

But people wanted to buy them because she was Kylie Jenner, not because she was some person off the streets. Because she's got a huge Instagram following and these lip kits immediately sold out. And her business, her makeup business is worth 900 million dollars and she owns it all herself because her mom had signed her up for all these like branding opportunities and everything and she just had like 250 000 laying around to start her makeup company well you know just a 250 000 loan everyone gets that you know yeah i mean i just have that in my um like you know my backup checking account oh really I got it in my back pocket whenever I'm ready no I mean that's not self-made to me self-made is you came from nothing and then you make something and then the whole issue with

the lips thing there there are issues there where people feel like they kind of appropriate from other people some people naturally have big lips you know they're you know there where people feel like they kind of appropriate from other people. Some people naturally have big lips. There are people out there who have full lips, and then the Kardashians or Jenners come along, and it becomes a big thing. Then you can pay for them. And you can pay for them. Some people naturally are curvy, and then you have people that come along and it's it seems it gets to be a bigger deal so I I'm very skeptical of this whole thing although I was I didn't realize how popular her

lip kits were until around Christmas time I was buying gifts for my nieces and nephews and I have a teenage niece and I kind of texted her being like is this a cool gift or is this a lame gift and she was like oh my god they're amazing like she was like i got her kylie lip kit for christmas and it was like her favorite thing that she got and it did make me realize that like one we're not the target demographic for the kylie lip kits but the people that are i mean i it made me understand why she made herself a billionaire because it is like the cool brand among teenage girls in America. Sue, what can't you let go of?

Guys, I can't let go this week, Luke Perry. I don't know if you were Beverly Hills 90210 watchers growing up, but I was. I was a huge fan of the show and he played Dylan McKay on it and he died tragically this week. He was only 52. He died of a stroke. He was also on TV right now he played uh the dad on riverdale which is also a show that i've talked about on this podcast yes um so that was just really sad and he was sort of this like heartthrob when i was growing up uh fact about me i had a

luke perry poster in my middle school bedroom really i did uh but to connect this all back to politics because that's what we do here. When the news broke that he died, I got shortly after it there in my inbox, I got a statement that was like Senator Sherrod Brown's statement on the death of Luke Perry. And I initially kind of rolled my eyes because I was like, man, how are you capitalizing on this actor's death? What I did not know, but learn from his statement, Sherrod Brown's father delivered Luke Perry as a baby. What? He is a son of Ohio and he grew up in the same town where Sherrod Brown was. His father delivered him. He was his pediatrician. He was, you know, he had a relationship with the Brown family all throughout his childhood. In his statement, Sherrod Brown said that when his father was dying, like Luke Perry was one of the people that called to talk to his dad.

And when Sherrod Brown was running for the Senate for the first time in 2006 luke perry hit the campaign trail for him so luke perry shared brown connection all of my worlds collided this week what you learned something new i definitely didn't know that wow i definitely did not know that and i always joke that like what is your dream final Jeopardy question? And mine is now like, what senator enjoyed the support of 90210 actor at his Senate campaign? Speaking of Jeopardy. Hi, everyone. I have some news to share with all of you.

And it's in keeping with my longtime policy of being open and transparent with our Jeopardy fan base. Yeah, and speaking of Jeopardy, Alex Trebek, he announced this week that he has stage four pancreatic cancer. Now, normally the prognosis for this is not very encouraging, but I'm going to fight this and I'm going to keep working. And with the love and support of my family and friends, and with the help of your prayers also,

I plan to beat the low survival rate statistics for this disease. Truth told, I have to, because under the terms of my contract, I have to host Jeopardy for three more years. So, I mean, he's great. He's been in our homes for decades. Like every night you're watching Jeopardy

and then Wheel of Fortune. Like it's just like it's a ritual. Like he's always been around. Sending healing thoughts. Yes. To Alex Trebek. Absolutely. Keep the faith and we'll win.

We'll get it done. Thank you. All right. And that is a wrap for today. This is our final reminder that we are headed to Atlanta, Georgia tomorrow. We will be taping the podcast live on stage all about 2020. Head to nprpresents.org to grab those last remaining tickets. We can't wait to see you there. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. I'm Aisha Roscoe. I also cover the White House. And I'm Susan Davis. I cover Congress. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.