The NPR Politics Podcast - Weekly Roundup: Thursday, May 2

Episode Date: May 2, 2019

The Attorney General William did not show up to testify before the House on Thursday setting up a potential showdown over constitutional powers between the White House and Congress. Plus, the United States weighs whether or not to increase intervention in Venezuela. This episode: White House correspondent Tamara Keith, Congressional correspondent Scott Detrow, Congressional correspondent Susan Davis, national political correspondent Mara Liasson, State Department correspondent Michele Keleman, and White House reporter Ayesha Rascoe. 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 Claire and Steph from Bellingham, Washington. We are calling from Washington, D.C. where we are watching the Forest Service vs. Fish and Wildlife softball game with our family and our new nibbling Siegfried. This podcast was recorded at 2.26 p.m. on Thursday the 2nd of May? May. I was going to say the it's going to be May joke, but it's already May. Things may have changed by the time you hear this.

All right. Here's the show. Hey there. It's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. I'm Scott Detrow. I cover Congress.

I'm Susan Davis. I also cover Congress. And I'm Mara Liason, national political correspondent. We've got a lot to talk about today. The attorney general was supposed to testify on Capitol Hill today. Not so much. And the United States has a lot of opinions about what's happening in Venezuela. But let's start with the Attorney General William Barr. Sue, was there a empty chair hearing today? Well, the Attorney General made clear that yesterday that he was not going to show up this morning. But Democrats on the committee, led by Jerry

Nadler, a Democrat from New York, had sort of a mock opening hearing to bring attention to the fact that the Attorney General was not indeed going to show up. Yeah. Hey, what was that bucket of chicken, Susan? So Steve Cohen is a Democrat from Tennessee. He is known to like a prop every now and now and again. He brought a bucket of Kentucky fried chicken and a small ceramic chicken to make the point that Barr was a, wait for it, chicken. Unfortunately, Marty McFly is not the attorney general. Otherwise, that would have worked well and gotten the hearing back on track. Although everybody was talking about the chicken. So in some ways it may have worked.

Well, but so this was clearly a stunt. But the concern the Democrats have is real. No, it's very real. And I think it's important to remember, too, that what happened with Barr is important. But it's also not a standalone event. I think for Democrats, they see this as part of a much bigger pattern of the Trump administration and an increasingly confidently post Mueller report defying congressional requests for testimony, for subpoenas and for doing it on Congress's terms. That is a key part here in the Barr hearing. You know, he came up to Capitol Hill. He testified

before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, but that was before a Republican controlled committee. Check your podcast feeds. There's a whole podcast about that. And then in the House side that he was supposed to come today. The issue was Democrats wanted to have at the end of the hearing after members asked questions, they wanted to allow staff lawyers to question the attorney general. The Justice Department objected to that. They wanted to allow staff lawyers to question the attorney general. The Justice Department objected to that. They said they did not think it was appropriate, that they only wanted to be subjected to member questions. And that was sort of the crux of this back and forth in which Democrats essentially said, you're going to have to answer staff counsel questions. And Barr said, OK, I'm not coming.

Why was that the sticking point? That confused me because to me, like a staffer would probably actually ask you a question as opposed to harangue you for five minutes like many members of Congress do instead of asking you questions. That's the whole point. They'd actually ask him a question instead of just haranguing him. Was the Justice Department position, though, that elected officials, they are the ones with power. They are the ones that the people brought here. And to have some staff lawyer asking questions would be an insult to the attorney general. Well, there's two things going on. The principle here is that the committee gets to decide how it conducts its hearings. The executive branch doesn't get to decide how they conduct oversight.

But the other issue is, really, why can't staff prepare their bosses to the extent that they can also ask pointed good questions like we have seen some of them do? I think that what happened today, and I've talked to a lot of Democrats post-hearing. Post non-hearing. Post non-hearing. That they see this, they're angry. I mean, the Democratic caucus is really angry. You heard House Speaker Nancy Pelosi today call Bill Barr a liar. He lied to Congress.

If anybody else did that, it would be considered a crime. Nobody is above the law, not the president of the United States and not the attorney general. I've talked to many Democrats on judiciary and oversight committees saying they plan to meet with their own lawyers to discuss any number of options they have against Barr. Things they're talking about is, you know, censoring him.

Many have called for him to resign. Some are saying, hey, we should maybe we should try to impeach Barr. Others are looking at compelling subpoenas. talk of inherent contempt, which is, God, something that goes back to the 19th century, which would allow Congress to essentially try to arrest someone if they've been found guilty of contempt of Congress. I mean, it is ratcheted up what has already been a pretty tense political dynamic between the Trump administration and Democrats on Capitol Hill, and today did nothing to diffuse that. If anything, I think Democrats are much more inclined to want to be more aggressive in their pursuit of this administration, not just on the post-Muller stuff, but all the lines of inquiry into the White House. But Sue, let me ask you this. It sounds like we are having a real bona fide constitutional

confrontation between the Congress and its constitutional right to perform oversight over the executive branch and the Trump administration. As Trump said himself, we're going to fight all the subpoenas. As you said, it's not just Mueller. It's every congressional investigation. They don't want to provide witnesses. They don't want to provide documents. And if they did take the administration to court, most legal experts say Congress would probably win, but it would take an incredibly long time. Yeah. Do you understand that process?

Why couldn't it be expedited? Well, I would say this. I don't know about the legal side of it, but I have heard from the politics side of it. I've heard a couple of different arguments. And there are some Republicans. I mean, if you look at it this way, obviously, the president feels like he's been vindicated by the Mueller report and he likes this game of fighting with Congress. But is he also taking on a risk of holding back all these people from testifying? Because I've talked to a lot of people who think ultimately, they'll probably lose some of these fights. I mean, the Constitution is pretty clear that Congress has an oversight authority and can obtain these documents and there's precedents and

Congress would probably win a bunch of them. And do you run the risk of delaying these confrontations well into the election season when they could actually have more impact on public opinion? For instance, if he feels really confident about the Mueller report, there's an argument that's like, why don't you just flood the zone right now with Barr, with White House counsel Don McGahn, let special counsel Robert Mueller come up, let them, you know, like do it fast and now to mitigate the damage of any kind of testimony. So does fighting it delay the story? And I think this is where you get to like who

gains from prolonging and intensifying this fight. Do Democrats look like they're on a quote unquote witch hunt? Or does the president obstructing congressional oversight make this a bigger problem for himself than it needed to be? Well, I think as long as we're talking about kind of lofty principles of congressional oversight. Don't use lofty in Congress. But I'm saying as long as we're talking about these constitutional principles of whether or not Congress has the right to conduct oversight the way it wants to, they have a very strong leg to stand on. If it's about Congress impeaching the president over the Mueller report, then I think Trump has a stronger leg to stand on because that's why the Democratic leadership in the House has decided

that's not the way they want to go. This other clash is a little bit different. Yes. The White House keeps making an argument. In basically every letter they lob back to Capitol Hill, they say there is no legitimate legislative purpose to this investigation. There is no legitimate legislative purpose to get the president's tax returns. In the lawsuit that the president and his adult children filed against financial institutions in Congress to try to prevent documents from being turned over, again, no legitimate legislative purpose. Except that oversight is a core purpose of Congress. Yeah, this is a fight

that apparently the Trump administration and the lawyers involved with President Trump want to have. Even though every legal experts say eventually in the long run, they will probably lose, maybe not politically in their own minds, but legally. But Marge makes a good point because I did I was talking to a lot of Democrats today and one of them was Pramila Jayapal. She's a Democrat from Washington and she she's the head of the progressive faction of the caucus. And she was talking about this, and I asked her, I said, do you think you're being baited by the White House?

And she said, oh, of course we're being baited. This is clearly like the president is trying to bait Democrats into talking about impeachment more and more. And Democrats have to be careful here. We can't be looking like we are trying to attack the president. We have to make the case that what the president's doing is wrong. But the president just really raised the stakes for them in a way I don't think they're happy about because now there is a risk, a real risk to the future authority of Congress for not ratcheting up this fight, for not fighting for

their powers, because the third article of impeachment for Richard Nixon was that he didn't turn over documents and witnesses to Congress. It's one thing not to impeach the president because of the Mueller report. It's another thing to basically lay down and say, okay, we won't fight for our own constitutionally prescribed oversight responsibility. And more broadly, every day that this is in the headlines, Democrats aren't making their case on health care. They're not making the case on their plan for the economy, a whole bunch of things that House Speaker Pelosi wants to be talking about. And, you know, NPR, PBS, NewsHour and Marist just came out with

another poll. And it shows that even though seven in 10 Democrats want Congress to begin impeachment, less than 40 percent of Americans overall want to do that. And this is important because there's such a partisan breakdown in this. Fifty one percent of independents say impeachment's a bad idea compared to 40 percent who say it's a good idea. Well, there was also another sort of fun thing in that poll, which was that a huge share of people are saying, yeah, this Mueller report stuff, that's not going to affect my vote. And so, okay, it's not going to affect your vote. Pretty much nothing is affecting people's votes. I mean, like voters' minds are so made up about President Trump and about either they love him or they hate him. And poll after poll after poll, you you dig slightly below the surface and you're like, oh, yeah, it's just, you know.

Well, you know, it's just a partisan divide. Health care. Yeah. This is the double bind for Democrats, though, right? Like they are seeing these poll numbers as much as anybody else is. But then also they are confronted with this actual burden of governing question. Do you a lot of them increasingly, I think, feel like they're going to have to do something more aggressive? And do you do that if you think it's the right thing, even if the public isn't behind you? And that's like the worst possible position any politician ever wants to be in is in the burden of having to do something they think is right, but knowing that their voters aren't behind them on it. But there are a lot of some things they can do. Immediately opening impeachment hearings is one thing, which they seem to think is a bad political idea right now, but they can pursue this in court. They can subpoena Bill Barr. They can pursue these questions in court. They can't give up on their constitutional responsibilities, but they have to try to chew gum and walk at the same time. They've got to pass legislation about health care,. Sue and Scott, we are going to say goodbye to you. Thanks, guys.

See you later. And Scott, we will see you in not too long because you're going to come back for Can't Let It Go. But first, a break and then the crisis in Venezuela. Support for NPR and the following message come from the American Beverage Association. America's beverage companies are working together to support families as they reduce the sugar in their diets. Coke, Dr. Pepper, and Pepsi are providing more great tasting options with less sugar or no sugar at all. Smaller portion sizes, clear calorie labels, and reminders to think balance. More choices, smaller portions, less sugar. Learn more about how they're working together at balanceUS.org.

Support also comes from ZipRecruiter. Hiring used to be hard. Multiple job sites, stacks of resumes. But today, hiring can be easy and you only have to go to one place to get it done. ZipRecruiter. ZipRecruiter sends your job to over 100 of the web's leading job boards. Then ZipRecruiter scans thousands of resumes to find people with the right experience and invites them to apply to your job. Try it for free at ZipRecruiter.com slash weekly. And we're back and we have Aisha Roscoe from the White House. Hey, Aisha.

Hey. And Michelle Kellerman over at the State Department. Hi there, Tim. And we have you here. You are a special guest on the NPR Politics Podcast because we are talking about international politics, specifically what's happening in Venezuela. We have been following, watching, seeing on TV a lot of footage out of Venezuela over the past several days. And we are hoping that you can sort of walk us through this international political story and we'll get back to the American politics of it eventually. Sure. So let's start with the characters in this story. We have Nicolás Maduro, who is the president of Venezuela, and Juan Guaido, who also says he is the president of

Venezuela. Is that right? Yeah. So, you know, basically what happened is Maduro was reelected last year, but they were widely seen as fraudulent elections. So when he came up to be inaugurated again in January, this guy, Juan Guaido, who was president of the National Assembly, said Maduro's not a legitimate leader. And according to the Constitution, if there's no legitimate leader, then the head of the National Assembly, which is also an elected body, becomes president, becomes interim president. And so he declared himself president. So you can't have two presidents at once, though. Right. I mean, he was calling himself interim president and said the idea is to transition and to hold new elections in this country. I mean, this is a country that's reeling from an economic crisis. Maduro has kind of driven the country in the ground economically.

Corruption is high. There's been a huge refugee crisis. You know, 10 percent of the population has fled. There are shortages of medicine, shortages of food, hyperinflation. So, you know, this was a way to come in and say, I'm going to do this. I'm going to take charge in a transitional way and push for new elections. The problem is that not enough of the authorities have come to his side, not enough of the military officers, not enough other people have come to Guaido's side. He does have the backing of the Trump administration and some 50 other countries around the world, but he really needs, you know, the guys with the power, the guys with the guns in Caracas. Michelle, this is what's confusing to me. This is a very rare case of the Trump administration working in concert with our allies. They usually don't do that. That's a lot of support for getting rid of him in Central and South America. Why can't they push him out that they're doing it, the strategy kind of is to put these targeted sanctions on certain Venezuelan officials and offering to lift them only if they switch sides.

And then there was this big push this week to kind of provoke an uprising in the military ranks. And it didn't go as the U.S. and others had hoped. Now you see, you know, National Security Advisor John Bolton stirring the pot, naming certain Venezuelan officials who he says were going to, you know, join ranks with Guaido and telling Maduro, hey, look, you're surrounded by these conspirators. You don't know who to trust. The way he put it was, it looks like scorpions in a bottle. Aisha, let's bring this domestic. Let's bring it back to the United States. Why is the president and his administration so focused on what's happening in Venezuela? It is interesting because President Trump came into office basically saying,

America first, we're going to focus on ourselves, not really get involved in other countries' affairs. I think what they say is different in this case with Venezuela is this idea that this is happening in kind of the hemisphere where the U.S. is and that therefore it is in their interest. Basically, Venezuela is close enough where it's in our interest to know what's going on in Venezuela. And that's why they're concerned. And they are saying that they are standing with the Venezuelan people that basically that Maduro has to go. And you also kind of have this influence of Cuba. The Trump administration is accusing Cuba of kind of helping to prop up Maduro. And they are, and just this week, President Trump threatened that if Cuba continued to interfere,

that there would be a full and complete embargo against Cuba. Obviously, there have been embargoes against Cuba for a long time. So I'll add a couple other things of why the Trump administration is focusing on this. Number one, John Bolton and Elliot Abrams. These are old Cold War anti-communist warriors. They were deeply involved in the conflicts in the 70s and 80s. And Florida's electoral votes. There is a huge Venezuelan expat community in Florida. And Marco Rubio has really pushed this senator from Florida. And every Hispanic vote

counts in Florida. Florida is a state that's decided by 1% in presidential elections. And you want the Cubans, but you also want the Venezuelans. And don't kid yourself, this is a huge domestic issue in Florida. And let me just throw in another thing, which is President Trump has already said he wants to make 2020 about socialism. Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, they're all socialists. Well, Venezuelan style socialists, as he puts it, which is completely nonsensical. But yeah, he says, yes, they want Venezuelan style socialism. Venezuela is actually a socialist country. There you go, synergy. Bring it all together.

Yeah, well, I mean, Venezuela has been a socialist state since the Hugo Chavez days. He was a much more charismatic and politically savvy leader than Nicolas Maduro, who took over after Chavez died. But since all of this time, it's been a socialist country. And under Maduro, this socialist country has really fallen apart. Hey, Michelle, if Maduro is a socialist, is Guaido not a socialist? Guaido is trying to appeal much more broadly. But, you know, there are a lot of more right-wing politicians in Venezuela who have never liked the Bolivarian revolution of Hugo Chavez and Maduro. So no, he's not a socialist, but he's trying, the problem is he needs to appeal

to those who are socialists and who are supporters of Maduro to switch sides. Can we talk about what happened this week? Because there were these images of protesters in the streets and these military vehicles, like literally a vehicle ran over people in the streets. What was going on? This was like a pretty big week in that there was a thought that Maduro might leave and then he didn't. That's at least what Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has said, that he claimed that there was this plane on the tarmac that was ready to go and whisk Maduro away until the Russians intervened. He hasn't shown evidence of that. The Russians and the Venezuelans deny it. There has been violence. There was that video of an armored personnel carrier or a big car running over people.

And there have been other incidents of violence, people getting shot with rubber bullets. But it's hard to know how widespread any of that is. You know, in this world that we're in now with Twitter and news breaking all over the place and little false flag reports. It's really hard to get a sense of how widespread any of these protests are. And they sort of fizzled out a little earlier in the week. Is there a risk for the White House, you know, coming out this week, basically making it seem as if Maduro was almost out of the door? Like, are they raising expectations to a point

where even the people of Venezuela may be disappointed if they are supporting Guaido, that things aren't moving as fast as maybe the U.S. is saying? Yeah, there is that risk. But I think this is part of their strategy is to convince people that it is happening and that it's about to happen and that Maduro's on his way out. I mean, their sense is that Maduro's time has run out. Eventually he's going to be pushed out. It's only a matter of time. So they're trying to convince more and more people around Maduro to turn on him and get more support for Guaido. They thought this was the moment this week with all these big protests, and it could still happen.

Didn't they say the same thing about Bashar al-Assad? Yeah. I mean, these guys have a real way to hang on. They do. Bashar al-Assad is the leader of Syria, which has been in civil war for years, where the U.S. is involved on the ground and where Russia is also involved, Russia propping up Bashar al-Assad. This is the first time that I can think of that the U.S. and the Trump administration and the Putin administration have really been in conflict. The question I just want to ask is, what is the Russian role in Venezuela? Well, I mean, for one thing, they don't like this idea of the U.S. going around and deciding who's

a legitimate leader and who's not. We've seen pushback again in Syria and other places about that. But they also have financial interests. They have business dealings in the oil sector in Venezuela. And it's just a geopolitical game with the U.S. Again, you know, supporting this government that was elected and denouncing what they call a U.S.-backed coup. We'll see. I mean, after Secretary of State Pompeo made that claim that the Russians convinced Maduro to stay and not flee Venezuela, he called him and he said, you know, look, you should join us to support Guaido and to support a transition to democracy, that elections are the only way. And the Russians said, well, no, U.S. meddling is

what's the problem here. And the only way out of this is through dialogue. And the challenge is that there is that history of the U.S. meddling in this hemisphere. Right. All right. We are going to leave it there. Michelle, thank you so much for joining us. Sure thing. And 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 NPR podcast and the following message come from BetterHelp. BetterHelp offers licensed professional counselors who specialize in issues such as depression, stress, anxiety, and more. Connect with your professional counselor in a safe and private online environment at your convenience. Get help at your own time and your own pace.

Schedule secure video or phone sessions, plus chat and text with your therapist. Visit betterhelp.com slash politics to learn more and get 10% off your first month. This week on Rough Translation. I found out this crazy thing. The word in French for ghostwriter is France's version of the N-word.

I was like, what? That story this week on Rough Translation. Take a listen. And we're back. And so is Scott Detrow. Yeah, I came back to talk about something really important. Excellent. Because we are here for Can't Let It Go.

That thing where we talk about stuff we can't stop thinking about this week. Politics or otherwise. Scott, clearly it is very important you go first. Of course. I'm here to talk about Oprah we can't stop thinking about this week, politics or otherwise. Scott, clearly it is very important you go first. Of course. I'm here to talk about Oprah. Oh, yes, that's important. Yes. I don't know. What has Oprah been up to? So Oprah is importantly not running for president.

Remember about a year ago, there were all these rumors that Oprah might run on the Democratic side. She is definitely not doing that. But in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, she made it clear she was closely following the race and had one of the funniest, most cartoonish examples of a media elite quote that I've ever heard in my life. So I'm just going to read a little bit from this back and forth with The Hollywood Reporter. They're talking about the campaign and she says that she's been following Pete Buttigieg. Here's Oprah. I call him Buddha Beat Buddha Bop. Just the other day,

I was at Apple with Spielberg, and we were in the hallway talking about, and then it says employing a dramatic voice. What are we gonna do? And I said, have you heard of this Buddha guy? He goes, no Buddha who? I go Buddha Beat Buddha Bop. Look him up. Wait, they were at Apple like not the Apple store. Not the Apple store, like the Apple headquarters.

So, Hollywood Reporter, Mayor Pete feels easier to say. Oprah says, I like saying Buddha. But here's what's important. Oprah Winfrey telling the Hollywood Reporter she is paying close attention to the candidates. She's reading a lot of their books. She's thinking this through. I'm quietly figuring out where I'm going to use my voice and support. I'm sitting back waiting to see.

It will be very clear who I'm supporting. So it looks like there's an Oprah primary happening right now. Oh, yeah. As there always is. Yeah. You get a car, you get a car, you get a car, and you get an endorsement. The last thing that was, I mean, first of all, I've just been thinking about Buddha beat Buddha bop.

I love that. It's very Oprah-like. But she also, when she's saying she's making it clear who she'll be supporting, she also made a point to clarify. There was this thing in that Vanity Fair profile of Beto O'Rourke that Oprah begged him to run, and she said, I did not do that. I just asked him to let me know if he was going to run,

and he didn't do that. So some negative points for Beto in the Oprah primary. How can you make Oprah mad? He didn't call Oprah back. Mara. My Can't Let It Go This Week goes into the category of, I wish I had time to work on a different beat. If I did, I'd work on the cocaine shrimp beat.

So this is a great story. The cocaine what? Shrimp. Shrimp. Those little squiggly aquatic animals that are delicious. Researchers in the United Kingdom have found traces of illicit drugs and pesticides, that's not too surprising, in samples of freshwater shrimp in England.

Cocaine was found in all samples tested by these scientists from King's College London. And they found it very surprising because these samples were taken from rural England. They said they would expect to see some cocaine residue in shrimp in urban areas, in the waterways of urban areas like London, but they're now seeing them all over England, including in rural areas. I think that the scientists are a little biased and a little behind the times. Well, I don't know. I mean, the idea that, you know, rural areas of Europe everywhere are experiencing tremendous drug use and dissolution of every form. And maybe it's not so surprising. I'm surprised they haven't found opioids. But they said that this is a story that has so many layers

to it. I mean, there's the environmental layer, because it could be harmful to people who eat these shrimp. And then there's the social layer. Why is there so much cocaine in the freshwater waterways of England? And why do I love this shrimp so much? Well, I don't know anything about how tasty freshwater English shrimp are. I thought you were going to say that. But I don't know. But I'm wondering what I'm wondering. And they said that it certainly poses a risk to wildlife. What I was wondering is, what happens if you eat it?

If you eat the shrimp with the cocaine? You might have to eat a lot to wildlife. What I was wondering is what happens if you eat it? If you eat the shrimp? You might have to eat a lot of it. Yeah. Yeah. How much would you have to eat? Well, I just had shrimp for lunch. Like I had shrimp pasta. Was it freshwater shrimp? I don't know. I mean, I got it from the grocery store. It might have been freshwater. I do have a lot of energy. That could be it. But it tasted good. I love shrimp. I made shrimp tacos last night. Wow, you guys are so fancy. So I think this study just has to be replicated in the United States.

Yeah. All right, I am going to go next. What I cannot let go of is Jeopardy adjacent. No, it's really just about Jeopardy. So there's this guy, James Holzhauer. He's a professional sports gambler from Las Vegas. He has been tearing it up. He is, like, so good at Jeopardy.

Here are some statistics I got out of the Washington Post. Of the 10 largest single-game winnings, nine now belong to him. He blasted past the $1 million mark in total winnings in just 14 days, twice as fast as legendary player Ken Jennings. So he has surpassed. He is the new number one Jeopardy guy? In terms of the winnings. So not shows yet, but in terms of money, right?

On a per show basis, he is the number one guy, I think. Ken Jennings did it for like a century, and so it's going to take a while to catch up to Ken Jennings total. Anyway, this is not my can't let it go. That was a can't let it go. Here's what it is.

This was all the bad. Clearly we all watched Jeopardy. This is the build up to there is a question that he did not get right. That he did not know. He was on. They brought the question up and he did not know the answer and what was it wait wait wait how are we gonna all buzz in do something about national public radio i can tell

just go social studies 2000 he's a senator from nebraska and the author of them, Why We Hate Each Other, and How to Heal. Ooh. Wow. Ooh, burn for Ben Sass. Yes. Burn, burn. He's so obscure. Even the Jeopardy champion doesn't know who he is.

Ooh, bad day for Ben Sass. Senator Ben Sass. You didn't ask him as a question. Oh, oh, oh. Who is that obscure senator that the Jeopardy winner has not heard of? Ben Sasse. Senator Ben Sasse. He tweeted quote, I'll take uncomfortable awkward sciences for a thousand dollars, Alex.

That's what he tweeted? That's really good. Alright. We give him a lot of points for that. Aisha, what can you not let go of? So what I cannot let go of, I didn't want to do this. I just want to be clear. I didn't want to do this. But I got a special request to do this by someone close to the to the podcast. And I said, you know what, someone's got to do it. So there was an award show last night, Billboard Music Awards. And there was this performance by Taylor Swift.

Have you heard of her? I have. And, but the thing about this performance is she walked out, she had this start with this marching band. Uh-oh. I don't know if you've heard of Homecoming. I don't know if you've heard of Homecoming. I don't know if you've heard of Beyonce. People are accusing her of ripping off Beyonce's Coachella performance, gentrifying the Coachella performance.

Plagiarism. Well, no, not necessarily that far, but she is basically, Beyonce kind of owned that moment. And now she's doing a little marching band and people are raising, they're raising concerns about it. We call this mother cuck. There is an argument out there that I may have heard from our producer on this fine podcast. That one, her song actually references a band. Taylor Swift's song references a band. Strike the band up. So perhaps this was a long time coming and was not a total ripoff of Beyonce.

Well, look, and look, I'm being funny, but yes, look, Beyonce did not invent the marching band. There will be other people that will bring out marching bands. They would just never do it as well. That's all I'm saying. You know who else had a drumline type of thing? Cory Booker in his announcement. Oh, right.

His announcement video. That was the best announcement video. He had that drumline going the whole time. I think Cory Booker, if the nomination were based solely on your rollout video, Cory Booker would have gotten the nomination. Of course, it is not based on that.

It is based on the 900 months between your rollout video and the primaries. So maybe Taylor Swift was just ripping off Cory Booker's announcement video. That's good. That's the best. Let's leave it there. That's the best. Alright, that is a wrap for today.

We will be back as soon as there's political news that you need to know about. And guys, we are back in the top ten on iTunes in the Apple app. So thank you to all of our listeners. And if you think we should stay there, head on over to iTunes and rate us,

review us, tell your friends to do it, your parents. Just give us five stars. It'll be great. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. I'm Scott Detrow. I cover politics. I'm Aisha Roscoe.

I also cover the White House. And I'm Mara Liason, national political correspondent. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast. Music Music Music Music