The NPR Politics Podcast - Weekly Roundup: Thursday, May 10

Episode Date: May 10, 2018

President Trump tweeted out the details of his upcoming meeting with Kim Jong Un. The announcement came hours after three Americans being held in North Korea landed back in the United States. We look at who is bringing what to the negotiations over nuclear weapons. Plus, Trump's nominee to lead the CIA is under fire for her involvement in enhanced interrogation methods, and Michael Cohen's web of troubles gets a little bit messier. This episode: political reporter Asma Khalid, White House reporter Ayesha Rascoe, political editor Domenico Montanaro, 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 Mr. Fox's AP U.S. Government and Politics class in Northeast High School in Cecil County, Maryland, and we're reviewing for next week's AP test. This podcast was recorded at 1.19 p.m. on Thursday, May 10th. Things may have changed by the time you hear it. Keep up with all of NPR's political coverage at npr.org and with the NPR One app or at your local public radio station. Okay, here's the show. Shout out to Mr. Fox's eighth grade class because I used to write for the Cecil Week. Oh.

Yeah. When I was at the University of Delaware, I covered sports in Cecil County. Look at that. I wonder which town. I thought you were going to say I was an AP government student, of which I was not. We didn't have it at my high school. AP government? No. I had AP U.S. history. Any of you all? Yeah. I was. AP government student, of which I was not. We didn't have it at my high school. AP government? No.

I had AP U.S. history. Any of you all? Yeah. I was. AP biology. AP European history. You were AP government? AP U.S. history.

AP government? I don't know if it was government. I don't know if we had government either. But in any case, shout out and good luck to all the AP government students there. Because this was actually sent in last week. But they're taking their tests today, I believe. Yeah. students there because this was actually sent in last week, but they're taking their tests today, I believe. So for anyone who is listening, we do hope that we at the Empire Politics Podcast help you out in your civic education. But now we should probably start with the show.

Okay. I'm Asma Khalid, political reporter. I'm Ayesha Roscoe, White House reporter. I'm Domenico Montanaro, political editor. I'm Ryan Lucas. I cover the Justice Department. All right. Well, we have loads to talk about. And let's start with North Korea. The president just a couple of hours ago made an announcement on Twitter. Ayesha, can you read it for us? Yes. So the president said on Twitter, quote, the highly anticipated meeting between Kim Jong-un and myself will take place in Singapore on June 12th. We will both try to make it a very special moment for world peace, exclamation point. And this is a big deal. This is a huge deal.

When President Trump first said that he would agree to meet with Kim face to face, there were questions of whether this would actually happen, because this is a huge deal for a sitting U.S. president to meet with the leader of North Korea. This is something that North Korea has wanted for decades. And now we have a date and a location. And now we have a date and a location. So presumably it would be hard to pull out at this point. And it's significant when you look at where we were just several months ago, where you had President Trump calling Kim a little rocket man, and you had threats of fire and fury. And now you have these two leaders setting up a meeting to come together and try to find some peace. And this announcement came just hours after the

president welcomed three U.S. hostages who were being held in North Korea. They arrived at Andrews Air Force Base in the wee hours of the morning, and the president was there to meet them and welcome them in person. The president was there, and that shows just how big of a deal that he thought this was and just how important he thought it was. And he kind of looks at this as a sign that these meetings could be successful. He said on the tarmac that he thinks that something meaningful could come out of this meeting. My proudest achievement will be, this is a part of it,

but will be when we denuclearize that entire peninsula. And he said he thanked Kim. I want to thank Kim Jong-un, who really was excellent to these three incredible people. They are really three incredible people. And that, him saying that Kim was excellent to these three people is part of, I was talking to some foreign policy experts and people who have been in that region. And part of the concern that they raised, this is excellent, full stop to have these Americans back. But to say that Kim treated them excellently, they would say they shouldn't have been taken

in the first place. And the danger with these sort of things is if it looks like you're rewarding North Korea for returning these Americans, it gives them incentives to take Americans in the future. It's sort of the best and worst of Donald Trump, right? He has this 3 a.m. tarmac, you know, thing where he makes an event of it. He said, in addition to Kim treating them very excellently, that this is probably the biggest ratings for a 3 a.m. TV event ever. That's the way he looks at things. Right. But then he goes and makes this sort of off the cuff comment about Kim. And it definitely highlights the kind of things that people like about President Trump and the kinds

of things that make them roll President Trump and the kinds of things that make them roll their eyes. Now, let's let's provide a little bit of a reality check here on some of this stuff. This was not a big lift for Kim Jong Un to do this. This is a very easy thing for him to release these these three Americans and present himself as taking a big step and doing something for the Americans and for Donald Trump to make these upcoming talks a success. But it's not like he's doing something that is really difficult, such as giving away his nuclear program, giving away his nuclear weapons. That is a gigantic step for a regime like Kim's to take when they view those nuclear weapons as kind of an insurance policy. But giving three American citizens who were held, as the U.S. would say wrongfully in North Korea, a ticket out and a return ticket

to the U.S. is not some massively grand lift on Kim's part. No, it's the beginning of what is supposed to be something bigger, right? And the fact of the matter is it's almost like the Iran deal where we're looking at sanctions, which is what North Korea wants lifted and denuclearization, which is what the U.S. wants. So which direction do both parties go? You would think that that would be baked before President Trump were to meet with Kim in Singapore, which is coming up. But it doesn't look like it is at this point. And Ayesha, I have a question for you. We know from what Trump has said and others in the administration that what the U.S. is looking for, of course, is the total denuclearization of the

Korean Peninsula. Do we have a sense of what Kim wants out of this? What they have, North Koreans have said in the past and have said repeatedly is that they want less U.S. military presence in South Korea. Now, that has been thought to be a nonstarter, but President Trump hasn't totally knocked down that idea. Now, they say there are no plans currently in place to do that. But that is something that will likely be discussed is the military presence in South Korea. Now, the danger with that is if you make an agreement and you do begin to pull some U.S. troops out of South Korea is that if North Korea decides we don't want to be nice anymore, we want to now attack South Korea, they're in a better position. So that's the issue.

So Ayesha, in addition to demilitarizing the area, doesn't North Korea also want to lift the economic sanctions it's been under? Yes. So they have faced really tough sanctions under the Trump administration and with the help of China and other countries. So they've they are under economic pressure. And so they so part of what North Korea will likely want is some type of easing of those sanctions, perhaps if they meet certain milestones or take certain steps that in return for that, that the U.S. would ease some of those financial sanctions. Unquestionably, though, this has been a political winner for President Trump so far. Back in March and earlier than that, people were very skeptical of Trump's handling of North Korea.

And now three quarters of Americans, according to a recent CNN poll, said that they agree with Trump actually going and meeting with Kim. That's up among within those numbers, 24 points among Democrats alone. So that's a huge thing for him. You know, 53 percent of Americans, a majority, approve of Trump's handling of North Korea in the CNN poll. According to CBS, they had a poll that showed 51 percent of Americans agree with his handling of North Korea at this point. That's a flip from March just a month or two ago, showing that 42% of Americans had approved of his handling of North Korea. So what you're seeing with this as prisoners are released, as we move further away, as Aisha was mentioning, from a nuclear standoff to something that looks more like

some kind of together, you know, bringing together of the Koreas, that's helping Trump. And to your point, Domenico, I've heard that a lot from Republican voters. I just got back from Georgia, where I spent a lot of time talking to Republicans sort of in the suburbs outside of Atlanta. And I can't tell you the amount of people I met, folks who even would describe themselves as sort of lukewarm on Donald Trump's presidency as a whole, had a lot of questions about how he would govern, but yet point to how he's handled North Korea as a real point of success for how they feel like the president has done thus far in his first year and a half-ish in office.

And I actually want to play you just a quick clip of tape from one guy I met. His name is Mike Davis. He's a Republican who was a supporter of John Kasich, just to give you kind of a sense of what type of Republican he was. He ultimately did vote for Donald Trump, but said he was lukewarm on him. And this is what he had to say about North Korea. Yeah, the way he's handling North Korea, you know, we had three presidents in a row who all played out of the same playbook and North Korea continued to get whatever they wanted from us. And I think we finally have a guy that knows how to negotiate with somebody like that. The point that I heard from a number of voters is that maybe sometimes when you're dealing with an unpredictable person,

like they'll say Kim Jong-un, you've got to deal with them in unpredictable ways. And so people would laugh but tell me like, hey, maybe calling him Little Rocket Man was a sort of successful strategy. Well, even Trump's biggest critics in the foreign policy establishment will grant him that solving what has been a very intractable standoff on the Korean Peninsula would be in everybody's interest. But ultimately, the question is, you know, whether the talks when they sit down, whether they will actually be able to hammer out a deal that both sides can agree to. And that's a big question mark still. I say politically here, though, the numbers are very helpful to Trump. And when you look at what Americans felt back in October for how serious a threat North Korea was, some 62 percent of Americans said North Korea was

a very serious threat when you look at some polling. Now that's down to 47 percent. So that's less than a majority when almost two thirds had said that North Korea was a very serious threat. I think that's not coincidental, then, that you've seen President Trump's approval rating overall tick up. He was at a low of about 37% back in October, and he's up at around 43% now, if you look at the real clear politics average. Now, that's still historically low. It's not very good at all. I mean, President Obama, when he, just before the 2010 elections, those midterms, when Democrats got shellacked, in his words, losing 63 House seats, Obama had a 45% approval rating. Trump is still below that,

but he's improving the economy, you know, 3.9% unemployment, the lowest since 2000. You know, foreign policy wise, we're looking like we're moving away from a nuclear standoff with with North Korea rather than toward one. All of those things combine and all of the talk of a potential blue wave. You do have to wonder if that becomes a bit lower. I'm with you, Domenico, and I think that we'll just have to see how the actual summit plays out. So we will be watching June 12th on a really historic occasion. I mean, we cannot take away from that. We haven't had the president of the United States meet with the leader of North Korea.

Sitting president. Sitting president in ever? Ever. No. All right. We're going to take a quick break. But when we get back, we're going to talk about Trump's nominee to lead the CIA, Gina Haspel. My moral compass is strong. I would not allow CIA to undertake

activity that I thought was immoral, even if it was technically legal. But the thing is, veteran Arizona Senator John McCain says she's disqualified for the job. More on that after the break. Support for NPR politics and the following message come from Rocket Mortgage by Quicken Loans. Rocket Mortgage gives you confidence when it comes to buying a new home or refinancing your existing home loan. With Rocket Mortgage, you can apply simply and understand all the details so you can mortgage confidently. To get started, go to rocketmortgage.com slash NPR politics. Equal housing lender. Licensed in all 50 states. NMLS.

Consumer access.org number 3030. Planet Money tip number 17. Sometimes the most important things need a hype squad. Corporate. Corporate. Income. Income. Tax.

Corporate income tax! Planet Money, a podcast about the economy. A very enthusiastic podcast about the economy. And we're back. Yesterday, Gina Haspel, Trump's nominee to lead the CIA, testified in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee. If she gets the job, she would be the first woman ever to lead the agency. But first, she has to satisfy a lot of concerns about her own personal history around interrogation and torture. So, Ryan, can you give us a quick primer on who Haspel is and why some folks believe she's controversial? Gina Haspel is a bit of a, well, has long been a bit of a question mark because

most of her career, a 33-year career with the CIA, was undercover. So we really don't know that much about her. What the CIA has done after she was nominated is a kind of very, well, I don't know if I would call it skillful, but has launched a PR campaign to try to ensure that she does indeed get confirmed. And so what they've done is very selective declassifying of elements of her biography. So we have learned a little bit more about her. She is from Kentucky, oldest of five children. Her father was in the military, so she grew up bouncing around a lot, called herself a military brat. I welcome the opportunity to introduce myself to the American people for the first time. It is a new experience for me as I spent over 30 years undercover and in the shadows. I don't have any social media

accounts. But otherwise, I think you will find me to be a typical middle class American, one with a strong sense of right and wrong, and one who loves this country. A typical middle class American who happens to have been a spy for over three decades. So as part of this kind of introduce the country to Gina Haspel campaign that the CIA has been doing, one of the things that they did was float that she's a big Johnny Cash fan. What we did get as well, though, is a bit more details on what her career has looked like at CIA. So she joined in 1985. So she's kind of a cold warrior in that sense. Spent time in Ethiopia and Africa, served as a field officer there. Then worked on Russia for a while in the 90s. She then transferred to counterterrorism

her first day working on counterterrorism, according to what the CIA says was on September 11th, 2001. So quite the day to begin your work on counterterrorism. In 2002, she then oversaw a CIA detention facility in Thailand where Al Qaeda suspects were waterboarded. Another controversial part of her resume is that in 2005, she drafted a cable that ordered the destruction of tapes of interrogations, videotapes of interrogations. It was ultimately her boss who ordered the tapes to be destructed. She says that she supported destroying the tapes. This was a very controversial part of her confirmation hearing. It came up again and again and again. Democrats in particular hammered her on this. Were you an advocate for destroying the tapes senator i absolutely was an advocate if we could within and conforming to u.s law and if we

could get policy concurrence to eliminate the security risk posed to our officers by those tapes and the consistent legal of what those tapes contained? No, I never watched the tapes, but I understood that our officers' faces were on them and that that was very dangerous at a time when there were unauthorized disclosures that were exposing the program. Was that a sufficient answer? That was not a sufficient answer for many Democrats. It was a sufficient answer for many Republicans. But those two points of her resume were really what the focus of her confirmation hearing was. It was not the issues that she'll face as CIA director dealing with threats from Russia, China, Iran, terrorism. It was really what she had done in the past. The one thing that I will add now to kind of finish up her resume is that she became

deputy director of the CIA last year, which is the number two position at CIA. She was Mike Pompeo's deputy before Pompeo moved over to lead the State Department. And the number two position is basically the person who runs the day-to-day affairs of the agency. So a very big job indeed. And it's worth pointing out that everybody who's worked with her previously, from the Obama administration to the Trump administration here has endorsed her. You know, they said that she's done a good job. She has the endorsement of senior former senior CIA though, about what signal the country is sending. If you are putting in the director's job somebody who was directly involved in enhanced interrogation, as it's called, or as some people say, torture. Yeah. And John McCain has been the leading person to talk against her nomination as a Republican and somebody who was held captive in Vietnam for all those years and who was tortured and who has spoken out about it.

And I'll read some of his statement. He said, I know that those who the methods we employ to keep our nation safe must be as right and just as the values we aspire to live up to and promote in the world. Which is exactly to your point, Ryan, that if you're putting somebody in charge who has done these things, that what's the signal that you're sending to the rest of the world? Is part of the sticking point that at the time, I recall there was a large debate in the public, right? And even among officials about the enhanced interrogation techniques or torture, you know, and what sort of constituted that. And there was this debate about whether or not this was legal versus, I mean, now that was sort of the question Gina Haspel was asked, I think, because at the time it was deemed legal. It was deemed legal by those within the White House and those within the intelligence community. For those who were in favor of doing it.

And there are certainly people who have spent the past 15 years advocating against the use of these sorts of interrogation techniques. But is the question that it wasn't necessarily more- Saying that it was illegal then and it's illegal now. What came up again and again in her confirmation hearing was a question of moral versus legal. Yes, yeah. And she said at the time it was deemed legal and that's why we did it. We were told by our superiors that it was legal and we were following the law.

She also said that she had a very strong moral compass at one point. My moral compass is strong. I would not allow CIA to undertake activity that I thought was immoral, even if it was technically legal. Some of the lawmakers pointed out like, okay, you have a strong moral compass, but if you think that torture is wrong, why were you engaging in activities when you were overseeing this detention facility in Thailand? Why were you allowing those things to go on that we say amounts to torture then? or the White House is telling you that it's legal and you're trying to do your job. And look, there's a different time.

It was a time after 9-11 when people were trying to make sure that the country was safe. And in retrospect, a lot of- But the argument isn't that that's the reason why there's the Geneva Conventions specifically for this time. Even now, with hindsight, as she was given the out to do, she wouldn't say if she felt it was immoral that it was wrong to do then. So even that she wasn't willing to say. And that's a thing that McCain said is disqualifying. He said that her role in overseeing the use of torture by Americans is disturbing and her refusal to acknowledge torture's immorality is disqualifying. That's an interesting point. Yeah, go ahead.

And how much of this, everything that we're talking about is really these lawmakers and really this country still trying to reckon with and come to terms with what happened after 9-11, what took place. There hasn't really been some type of conclusion on where do we stand as a country on what happened. Now, they say that it's illegal now, but what about those people who were involved then? What does that say about them? And how should they be treated at this point? And this is, I think, what's important to note with Haspel as compared to, say, Mike Pompeo, who was the CIA director directly preceding her. Now,

Pompeo was a politician. Pompeo had talked as a politician favorably about enhanced interrogations. And he was asked in his confirmation hearing whether he would ever condone the use of such techniques again. And he said, absolutely not. It's not what we should do, blah, blah, blah. The case of Haspel, Haspel was directly involved in these things because she was working undercover. She was an agency officer. That's a very different position to then come out and say in a public hearing that you disown everything that you did. You disown all of your former colleagues, all the people that you worked with on the front lines, in the trenches, in the conflict with al-Qaeda. She wasn't willing to do that. And that will certainly win her the support of people within the agency who feel that they have been unfairly attacked by the public

about the role and the steps that they took and that they viewed as necessary to try to protect the country after 9-11. I think it was Kamala Harris who specifically asked and said, I think it's a yes or no answer. Do you believe that the previous interrogation techniques were immoral? Senator, I believe that CIA officers to whom you referred... It's a yes or no answer. Do you believe the previous interrogation

techniques were immoral? I'm not asking do you believe they were legal. I'm asking do you believe they were immoral? Senator, I believe that CIA did extraordinary work to prevent another attack on this country given the legal tools that we were authorized to use. Please answer yes or no. Do you believe in hindsight that those techniques were immoral? Senator, what I believe sitting here today is that I support the higher moral standard we have decided to hold ourselves to.

Can you please answer the question? When it's become publicly accepted that they were immoral, I guess what I don't entirely understand is why she just doesn't say that they're immoral, if that's where we as a country are now. Now, the question for people who worked in counterterrorism after 9-11 is. Not really a fair one, they think the answer is you asked us to protect the country. We did what we had to do to protect the country. And we did it with the blessing of the White House, with the blessing of the lawyers at the White House, with the blessing of the Justice Department. Why are you trying to hang us out to dry now? You can have this conversation again and again. But the view from folks in the intelligence community has been consistent throughout, which is not to defend what happened.

And there certainly was a debate within the intelligence community about the use of these tactics. There were people at some of these facilities who sent cables questioning what it was that they were doing and saying, this doesn't seem right. With her answer, do you feel a liability politically? Because she does need to get through this confirmation hearing if she wants to lead the CIA. It certainly didn't answer to the extent that the Democrats wanted. She did not give them what they wanted to hear. But one can also say that she wasn't ever going to give them quite what they wanted to hear. And her responsibility, as she views it as a career CIA officer, is to protect the men and women of the CIA. And I would question the supposition

that Americans have moved on from torture techniques and think that they shouldn't be used, actually. A couple things here. First, legally, the U.S. has moved on because Senator John McCain was able to- And Dianne Feinstein. And Dianne Feinstein were able to quarterback a provision to say that they're going to stick to the Army field manual techniques. Back when these enhanced interrogation techniques, as the CIA calls them, were being used, the FBI was against the CIA's tactics, saying that they don't work. And there hasn't been much, if any, evidence to one poll from 2016, that said that they think sometimes or often justified to get information from terrorists using these techniques. And I had not seen that. And let's not forget what President Trump campaigned on. OK, this is somebody who said I'd bring back a hell of a lot worse than waterboarding.

He said we have to fight fire with fire. We're not playing on an even playing field. And this is a drumbeat that he has beat over and over and over again throughout the campaign. And President Trump said when in defending Gina Haspel that people are just trying to get on her for being tough. Why would you why would you get on her for just just being tough? That's a good thing. And she was asked during the hearing about, you know, whether, you know, if President Trump asked her to commit some of these acts, would she do it? She said she didn't think he would ask her to do it. And I think there were some people who kind of scoffed at that. But Trump has said that General Mattis, who's Secretary of Defense, did convince him that

torture doesn't work. We should also say that she was asked point blank. And one of the first questions was, would you engage in those sorts of tactics again? And she said, under my watch, the CIA will not do that full stop. They will not use those sorts of interrogation techniques. The question hanging over this, all of this, you have the moral and legal question of torture. But the question of whether Haspel is going to be confirmed or not is the big political question, right? And John McCain came out against her nomination. As Domenico said, the other big voice, of course, is Senator Dianne Feinstein of California, the Democrat who was the spearhead behind the Senate Intelligence Committee's majority report on torture, which gave us the fullest view

to date of what the whole CIA program looked like, what it did, the techniques that they used, where this stuff happened. She came out and said that, like McCain, she also believes that Haspel should not be CIA director came out against her nomination. Those are two big voices. And I know that those are voices that carry a lot of weight on this question with other members of the Senate. Whether it's going to be enough to doom Haspel's confirmation remains to be seen. It's going to be a very, very tight, tight confirmation process. All right. Well, we will keep you all posted on that. And now I want to shift gears. President Trump's longtime personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, seems to be under this sort of barrage of bad news that continuously seems to

get a little bit stranger. This week, Stormy Daniels, the adult film actress who we have been speaking about for a number of months now, her lawyer essentially broke the news that the money paid to his client to keep quiet about an alleged affair with President Trump, well, that money, he alleges, came through or via a Russian oligarch, sort of, maybe. So, Ryan, I feel like there's a lot of different dots to connect here that are not really linear. Could you explain what those dots are and maybe help us connect them? Some of the dots may not even be dots. They may just be a speck of dust on the paper or something. This is all very confusing. Yes. And I will attempt to set this out in a way that makes sense. So what Stormy Daniels' lawyer did was release this memo that contains what he says are details of deals that Michael Cohen had through this shell company that he set up and then used to pay Stormy Daniels. That shell company was called Essential Consultants. in this memo is that there were a number of other clients that had engaged Cohen and paid him large

sums of money, more than a million dollars total, well more than a million dollars for, well, he didn't quite say what they were being paid for. But a number of the companies that he allegedly had business connections with have confirmed that they did indeed have business ties with them. So you have AT&T, big telecom giant, acknowledged that they did engage Michael Cohen and essential consultants to learn more about the incoming administration. There's a large Swiss pharmaceutical company called Novartis that also confirmed that it had engaged Michael Cohen, paid him $100,000 a month for one year for insights into healthcare policy in the U.S. under the new administration. They met with him once.

They said they met with him once, realized after that meeting that he didn't have the insights that they were looking for, but the contract was for a full year and they could only breach it. That's just to me a sign of how desperate some companies were to establish relationships with a really unfamiliar sort of administration. That's mind boggling. Well, I have to say, when the news first came out from Stormy Daniels' lawyer, he released this report. I thought, oh, this stuff, who knows if this is true. And then when AT&T quickly confirmed it, and you had all these other companies confirming it it shocked me because why are they giving money to the president's at that time personal lawyer who has no known connection to the government that that we he doesn't work for the government um we didn't

know him as a lobbyist at the time he's supposed to be doing legal work you're trying to talk to him about I guess telecom policy and health policy he's not known as a policy wonk. So what is he providing? somebody who didn't actually know anything about health care, didn't give us useful information, continue to pay that individual. You know, and then the CEO of Novartis winds up popping up at this group dinner with President Trump in Switzerland. You have Novartis saying, oh, that had nothing to do with it. This deal predated that CEO. Is this the way things just happen to work? I mean, that would be a question that I certainly have as a journalist, because I didn't know that this is what they try to do with incoming White Houses to pay over a million dollars a year to maybe get close to somebody who might be close to the president. Does that really surprise you that much though, Domenico? I guess maybe I'm naive, but I just, it was surprising. I mean, we know that it happens on a public facing level with lobbying. I feel like

this is just a sort of different facet of that relationship building. In this memo that Stormy Daniels' lawyer put out, there are four big companies that I first talked about. AT&T, Novartis, I both mentioned. There's Korea Aerospace, which also had a contract of $150,000 that it paid Cohen through essential consultants for information on accounting practices in the U.S., which is very different than other stuff. And that was just one time 150? One time 150. And then there is Columbus Nova LLC, which is a private equity firm. And this is where we tie back into the Russian oligarch.

So Columbus Nova LLC is run by, as I said, it's an American-based private equity firm, but one of its largest funders, one of its largest investors, is a man by the name of Viktor Vekselberg, who is a Russian oligarch, ties to the Kremlin. He was recently sanctioned by the Treasury. That was last month over a number of things, one of which is the Russian interference in the 2016 election. Now, Columbus Nova LLC did confirm that they brought Cohen on in the consulting role regarding, they said, potential sources of capital and potential investments in real estate

and other ventures. And they also brushed aside any suggestion that Vexelberg had a hand in the decision, had a hand in paying Michael Cohen. And what Stormy Daniels' lawyer, Michael Avenatti, was trying to do in this memo was suggest that the money that came from, not the money from any of the other companies, but the money from Columbus Nova is the money that may have been used to pay Stormy Daniels. He didn't offer any evidence to back that up. He didn't offer any evidence, in fact, to back up any of the claims in his memo. We do know, as I said earlier, that these four companies have confirmed that they had connections with Cohen. Now, Cohen's lawyers came out last night and said there are errors in Avenatti's memo. They mentioned

three in particular and say that they relate actually to other Michael Cohens, not this Michael Cohen. Avenatti's information may not be 100 percent correct, but it was disturbing enough to the Treasury Department that the inspector general of Treasury has opened an inquiry to see whether this information may have been improperly disclosed. And can I just say this is May, right? And while Aisha and I pick up our jaws off the table in our, you know, regard for the ingenuity and swampiness of Michael Cohen's actions, someone else already knew about this six months ago. Robert Mueller and his investigative team had already contacted Novartis and AT&T. They confirmed that yesterday.

Well, look, all of this stuff is new to us. It's not going to be new to Mueller's team. It's not new to the U.S. Attorney's Office in the Southern District of New York, which is investigating Cohen and his business dealings. There was, remember, the FBI raid on April 9th of Cohen's hotel, his home, his office. This all ties in together. All right. We're going to take a quick break. And when we get back, we're going to talk about all of the things that we just can't let go this week. What does it take to start something from nothing? And what does it take to actually build it? I'm Guy Raz.

Every week on How I Built This, I speak with founders behind some of the most inspiring companies in the world. Find it on NPR One or wherever you get your podcasts. All right. It is now time to end the show as we always do with what we cannot let go. That's when we share all the things that we just can't stop thinking about this week, either political or nonpolitical. All right. So I think I'm going to go first. So what I cannot let go this week is Mitt Romney at the Met Gala. Okay. Did you all see this?

There were so many great costumes from the Met. Aren't they costumes? I guess they're not costumes. They're costumes, I would say. They're like a costume. Yeah, costume ball. So we should explain for folks who aren't really familiar with this. So every year the Met has this fancy gala with a red carpet, loads of celebrities, right?

So you're talking about like Rihanna, Kim Kardashian, and then apparently Mitt Romney also. And people dressed in these sort of like surreal costumes. But this was a Catholic theme, right? Yeah. So the theme was based off of this exhibit at the Mitt that's called Heavenly Bodies. You know, that's why you have people like Rihanna was dressed up as like a sort of pope. Sort of.

I don't know. A sort of. Did you see the costume? It was. No, as a sort of pope. Sort of. I don't know. A sort of. Did you see the costume? No. I've got to go take a look at it. You haven't seen this? Oh, wow. Did I hear that the Catholic Church sanctioned this event?

Apparently, because I think that the Vatican might have provided some of the- They provided, I think, artifacts or something. They provided stuff. Exhibit. What did Mitt Romney have to do with all this? Okay, so Mitt Romney is there. He's not even Catholic. I'm actually just trying to find this picture so that you can actually see.

Oh, no, it was amazing. Hold on. It was amazing. That's Rihanna as the Pope. Yes. She was a bad gal Pope. Just to give you a sense of the costume. Ryan literally speaks this.

Let me see this for a second. Yeah. So that's a sense to give you what the costumes are. I think that's how- Like glitz and glamour. I think that's how Pope Benedict dresses now. Pope Francis. So that's essentially give you what the costumes are. Like glitz and glamour. I think that's how Pope Benedict dresses now. Pope Francis.

Anyhow, so Mitt Romney shows up there on the red carpet and it's just kind of random. What was Romney dressed as? So Mitt Romney did not dress

according to the to the dress code. He was wearing and this is what I love. He was wearing this tux. And so apparently the New York Times asked him, because that's the whole thing with red carpet, you ask like, who are you wearing?

And what's this? And so he said that he bought his tux on discount from Amazon. What was it? It was a, hold on, I got to find it. Oh yeah. So he says that he was wearing a size 40 long black. Okay. I don't wear men's tuxedo. Brioni, is that a big company? Brioni is a designer. Brioni is a good one. Okay, I don't know. Brioni. I don't know. You're the fashion.

I mean, I don't wear tuxes. A Brioni tux that he purchased on discount from Amazon. He's literally just wearing a tux. But also the fact is he bought it on Amazon. And I was like, I didn't know you could buy tuxedos on Amazon. Is that a subtweet of Trump? So this is what I was going for. No, tell me.

What do you think? what do you think? No, I mean, because Trump has been bashing Amazon, and Romney decides to actually go and say he bought it on Amazon. Exactly. That's interesting. You can't imagine it would help the relationship. Yeah, okay. But why didn't Mitt Romney have money to just buy?

I mean, he has a lot of money, right? Isn't that the whole thing with Mitt? He has a lot of money. Yeah, but he has a lot of money because he saves a lot of money. Because he buys Tuxes on Amazon. He also gets his shirts from Costco, supposedly. Does he really? Yeah, he's like a big Kirkland shirt wearer, supposedly.

Oh, wow. Or maybe that's what he just said when he was running for president. Also, did you know he is now 71 years old? Yeah, he looks great. He looks really good. I was like, wow, I didn't even know he was 71. He runs about two and a half miles a day still. Oh, wow.

All right. Well, there you have it. That's where the candidate who is running for the Senate in Utah spent his past evening. Ayesha, why don't you go next? And we do not coordinate this. We try to keep these to ourselves. So my follow-up is actually about the Met, too. Really? Yes. Can you believe it? Yours is actually about The Met, too. Really?

Yes. Can you believe it? Yours is actually about opera, though. But no. So I didn't focus on Mitt Romney. But what I liked about The Met was rapper 2 Chainz. 2 Chainz. You got 2 Chainz, Phyllis?

We don't know 2 Chainz? I don't know 2 Chainz. OK, 2 Chainz, very famous rapper. I don't know why you guys don't know. And he goes, 2 Chainz. very famous rapper. I don't know why you guys don't know. And he goes, 2 Chainz. And my little kids love it. But anyway. Pull out the Google.

Yeah, pull out the Google. Oh, it's with a Z. With a Z. With a Z. So he proposed to his longtime girlfriend on the red carpet of the Met. And so I was, you know, I'm always a sucker for romance and, you know, proposals and things like that. So I thought it was really nice. They'd been together a long time, Keisha Ward.

And they had three kids. And what I also thought was cool and why it was so appropriate, they have three kids and their kids are named Heaven, Harmony, and Halo. And they were at the Heavenly Bodies. Yes, I thought it was so great. That's really cute. So I really liked it. His jacket's pretty.

Yeah, his jacket was really cool. Her dress was beautiful. So that's what I can't let go of this week. I thought that was really nice. All right, who wants to go next? Ryan, you want to go next? I'll go. I'll take us out of the world of fashion.

Take us to the literary world. So what I well and Hollywood, I guess. So what I can't let go, I suppose, is I was sick a couple weeks ago and this is still on my mind. I started watching a series called Babylon Berlin. It's on Netflix. It's a German production and it takes place in the Weimar Republic. A zany, crazy kind of murder espionage story. It's 16 episodes. It's based on a book

by an author named Volker Kutcher, which was a huge series in Germany. And it is fantastic. You've got communists, you've got fascists, you've got corrupt cops,

you've got gangsters. You've got fascists. You've got corrupt cops. I don't know if that sounds so exciting. You've got gangsters. I binge-watched it, very much enjoyed it. Is it just one season? I found the book. It's two seasons, but they scrunched it into one on Netflix. It's 16 episodes, about 45 minutes, 15 minutes apiece. I recently found the novel that it is based on on the bookshelves here,

and I look forward to reading it. What's it called again? Babylon Berlin. Babylon Berlin. Babylon Berlin. I'm always looking for good new TV bingeable shows, right? This is bingeable. Okay, cool, cool. All right, does that mean I go next?

Yeah, you're up. Oh, okay. Well, you know, we've been talking a lot about disharmony. We've talked about harmony. Harmony. But, you know, I think let's talk about some coming together. And we've talked before on the podcast about this long brewing feud between Taylor Swift and Katy Perry. Apparently, it's over.

I feel like you've been following this very closely. You know, I went down a rabbit hole when I first learned of this. And apparently, I was three years behind everybody. But I did get caught up to speed. There was a stealing of a background dancer. There were songs that came out. It was basically Tupac versus Biggie for a while. I don't know if it went that far.

No one was killed. But there were a lot of egos that were hurt. But anyway. Was it like an East Coast, West Coast divide? I like how you said that. That was like the most Evian Ted Talk way to possibly talk about. East Coast, West Coast divide. I like how you said that. That was like the most Evian Ted Talk way to possibly talk about. East Coast, West Coast.

Well, I'm from the Midwest. We actually just did it. So here's a part of a story. Taylor Swift shared this video on Instagram Stories on Tuesday, showed Perry's peace offering. It included a literal olive branch. Literal olive branch.

That's not how it's supposed to work. That's a metaphor. But it was a literal olive branch and a letter in which Katy Perry said she was, quote, deeply sorry and wanted to, quote, clear the air. And Taylor responded that, oh, that means so much to me. So Taylor didn't say sorry either? Yeah, that's my question. Did Taylor say she was sorry back?

You're in these situations, even if you're not wrong, you're always supposed to say, Thank you, Kate. That's my question. Did Taylor say she was sorry back? You're in these situations even if you're not wrong, you're always supposed to say, I'm sorry too. That's like decorum. I don't know that she felt like she did well, maybe she didn't feel like she did anything wrong. She accepted

apparently. As Tamara Keith, who is not here currently, she's out on maternity leave. She said to me when she heard about this story, I thought band-aids don't fix bullet holes.

Band-aids don't fix bullet holes. You say so. See, I got to Google that. Who is that from? That's one of the song lyrics. So, yeah, look, kids, it's spring. If they can do it, you can too.

All right, well, that is a wrap for this week. We will be back in your feed soon. And you can keep up with our coverage on NPR.org, NPR Politics on Facebook, and of course, on your local public radio station. And if you like the show, please leave us a review on iTunes. That helps other folks find the podcast. All right, I'm Asma Khalid, political reporter. I'm Ayesha Roscoe, White House reporter. I'm Domenico Montanaro, political editor. And I'm Ryan Lucas. I cover the Justice Department. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.