The NPR Politics Podcast - Weekly Roundup: Thursday, May 24

Episode Date: May 24, 2018

President Trump has called off a highly anticipated summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, and he held two meetings with justice and intelligence officials to discuss classified information in the Russia investigation. Plus, the Trump administration rolls out new guidelines for abortion funding, and the Supreme Court restricts workers' rights. This episode: Congressional correspondent Scott Detrow, White House reporter Ayesha Rascoe, political reporter Sarah McCammon, and national security editor Phil Ewing. 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 Nick and Sandra calling from Orlando, Florida. We're on the way to the hospital where my lovely wife Sandra will give birth to our beautiful daughter Sophia. This podcast was recorded at 1 30 eastern on Thursday, May 24th. Things may have changed by the time you hear this. Keep up with all of NPR's political coverage on npr.org, on the NPR One app, and on your local public radio station. All right, here's the show. That was nice. That was nice, and that gives new meaning to things may have changed.

They're going to change a lot for those young people. Scott must be having flashbacks. I did not call into the podcast on that drive. Hey, it's the NPR Politics Podcast here with a weekly roundup of political news. A lot to talk about today. A lot to talk about in just the last few hours. President Trump has called off his meeting with Kim Jong-un, but he added not one but two meetings to talk about what he's calling Spygate.

We will talk about that. And the Supreme Court handed down a decision on workers' rights that Ruth Bader Ginsburg calls egregiously wrong. Also, the Trump administration revived a rule that restricts funds to organizations that recommend abortions. We'll get into all of that. Plus, can't let it go. I'm Scott Detrow. I cover Congress. I'm Ayesha Roscoe. I cover the White House. I'm Phil Ewing, national security editor. And I'm Domenico Montanaro, political editor. Let's just start with North Korea because it's confusing and there's a lot. There had been all this attention leading up to Singapore, June 12th, Donald Trump, Kim Jong-un.

It's not happening. Not right now. Anything is possible. But right now, it's not happening. The White House put out a letter this morning to Kim Jong Un saying from President Trump. And it basically said, thanks for agreeing to the summit, but it's off. And I think it's worth just you reading specifics from that letter because there were some lines. There were some lines. I was interested in the fact he made a point of saying, North Korea, you requested this meeting. But then he says, we were informed that the meeting was requested by North Korea, but that to us is totally irrelevant. Then he goes on to say, based on the anger and hostility that he said is coming from North Korea now, the summit is off. And he made a point of saying, quote, you talk about your nuclear capabilities, but ours are so massive and

powerful that I pray to God they will never have to be used. So you're back to this territory of making nuclear threats towards each other. And he also said that if North Korea changes its mind about a meeting, he'd be open to that, which is odd because he's canceling it. He said, please do not hesitate to call or write me if you change your mind. Now, Phil, can you help us out here? Because it has been quite the stretch when it comes to North Korea. There had been missile tests.

There had been nuclear weapons tests. There had been missiles shot over Japanese airspace. A lot of tension. Then all of a sudden this breakthrough, Trump and Kim Jong-un agreeing to meet Secretary of State Mike Pompeo going to North Korea. What has happened to lead to Donald Trump to say, just kidding? Well, the interesting part of this is this is actually a very familiar story in terms of dealing with North Korea. They have a rapprochement.

They give you the soft soap. They talk very nicely. There's lots of pleasant messaging from the regime. And then they snap back again and they go back toward a hard policy towards South Korea, towards Japan, towards the United States, towards all the parties. AAA or AA before. This has happened in lower kind of scale cases. But now this was an unprecedented summit between the leader of this regime and the president of the United States, something that's never happened. And both sides clearly said they wanted it, but we just weren't able to get there in the same way that there have been so many past examples of the North agreeing to stop provocative military activities near South Korea. And sometimes they do and sometimes they don't. And then you just go back and forth over and over again. And as

Ayesha and Domenico just pointed out, the president has held open the possibility that we could have another go around on this. This summit could happen in Singapore or there could be another one further down the line. Let's take a moment here and listen to President Trump talking about this today. North Korea has the opportunity to end decades of poverty and oppression by following the path of denuclearization and joining the community of nations. And I hope that Kim Jong-un will ultimately do what is right, not only for himself, but perhaps most

importantly, what's right for his people who are suffering greatly and needlessly. All of the Korean people, North and South, deserve to be able to live together in harmony, prosperity, and peace. That bright and beautiful future can only happen when the threat of nuclear weapons is removed. Now, that was definitely a lot more diplomatic

than the days of my button is bigger than yours, Twitter back and forth. Let's not forget the tension was so high that people in Hawaii, including our Tamara Keith, when they got that false alarm saying a missile is incoming, the environment was so tense that people thought, oh, my God, is North Korea shooting a nuclear missile at us? I mean, what are the odds that we just go back to where we were before and we're getting more tests and stuff like that? The odds are very high. I think the North, if it follows its past practices, will now swing the pendulum in the other way. You'll see more bellicose statements from the regime. You'll see more visual demonstrations as much as possible of new weapons on parade

in Pyongyang, perhaps more missiles fired off. A nuclear test would be a high stakes thing for the regime to try to do. But if you look at it from Kim Jong-un's perspective, his nuclear program is his ultimate insurance policy policy as he views it against coercion. And the president's dispute with Kim is over something that arguably the regime would never give up or would only give up in exchange for something so wonderful from its perspective that the United States, South Korea and Japan might not agree to give it up. So we can see a great deal more. That's a great question. So one thing that's been floated by the administration is a arrangement like the one the world powers did with then Libyan strongman Muammar Gaddafi back before the late unpleasantness there in the year 2011, where in exchange for giving up his kind of nascent nuclear program, Gaddafi got accepted into the Commonwealth of Nations. He got relief from economic restrictions and it worked okay for a while. But then there was some internal problems in Libya and the European powers in the United States intervened and they kind of broke the country and destroyed it. North

Korea sees that outcome, not what took place before, as what it thinks could happen if it gives up its nuclear program and it clearly wants to avoid that. So there's two things here. You know, the leverage that the United States has, first of all, is the meeting. This is a meeting that supreme leaders in North Korea have sought for decades, where they just being seen on that legitimacy scale, you know, that they are world leaders, that they're accepted and have to go head to head, face to face with the United States leader, who's the top, you know, the big leader in the rest of the world. That's one, right?

That meeting. Second, it's sanctions. I mean, President Trump is alluding to them there about how the North Korean people are suffering. Well, they're suffering because of poverty, because lack of food, because of difficulty with an economy that's anemic. And that's why North Korea continues to maintain their nuclear weapons, because that's their leverage. They continue to say that if we give these up, then what guarantees are we going to have of anything else?

And President Trump had said that if North Korea would cooperate and would come to a deal, that he would give them strong security protections. Now, he didn't say what those protections would be, but he did repeatedly say that there would be protections for Kim. He was even trying to kind of sell the meeting saying, you'll be rich, your country will be rich, everything will be great if you will just reach a deal with us. The problem was he did kind of follow some of that up with,

you'll end up like Libya if you don't, and that's what seemed to set off the North Koreans. Now I have a political question for everybody. But first, I want to make a very important point about all of this that Elise Hu, NPR's South Korea bureau chief, tweeted earlier this week, and I think it's really important. Elise wrote, So on the pronunciation of un in Kim Jong-un, it's not un as in moon,

nor is it a straight on like underwear. The U sound is closest to the aspiration in the uh in Master P's Make Him Say Uh. No, no, it's not. It's Make Him Say Uh. Na-na-na-na. So you got it. So is that, it's Kim Jong-un. Yeah, I didn't want to fully lean in.

Thank you. I was, I was, I was holding back. So uh. It's uh. Uh. Na-na-na-na. But how do we do that too? It's uh. So un. It's un. Like how do we. Na na na na. But how do we do that too?

It's un. So like un. Aisha, I'll set you up. So it's Kim Jong. Un. Un. Na na na na. Na na na na.

Say un. As a girl from North Carolina who grew up listening to Masterpiece, that really spoke to me. As you can see, that spoke to me, as you can see. That spoke to me. So politically, going back again, because I feel like we've traveled such a long way from there that we need to keep referencing it because it's a crazy part of the story. Going back to the Twitter back and forth about nuclear weapons. In the months since then, President Trump has gotten really high public polling reviews for the way he's handled this situation is suddenly pulling out of the meeting saying, no, I'm not going to go. Does that bolster that? Or do you think that kind of undoes all the progress he's made? And this now looks like a political liability.

I mean, it may have been artificially high to begin with and probably will deflate a little bit. Right. I mean, but not a lot. I mean, his base is pretty locked in. The opposition to him is pretty locked in. Those numbers will probably start to mirror his approval ratings overall once again. But, you know, as long as the United States is not on the brink of some kind of nuclear disaster with North Korea, you can expect it to be higher than they were in December when we heard more of that bellicose rhetoric? I think that people liked that we weren't talking about fire and fury. That's what President Trump had said, North Korea risk, that we weren't seeing kind of, as you said, this very strong rhetoric and people felt like we were on the verge of something very serious. So when these things kind of cooled down and there seemed to be these nice terms coming between North Korea and the U.S. I think that people like that. People don't want a nuclear. We don't want a nuclear war. So I think

that that was definitely helping President Trump. And remember, people were at his rallies yelling no bail, no bail. So they were there was this idea that he was going to be able to get this thing done that nobody else had been able to get done. I will say also, though, in the political context here of like this anti-elitism and anti-experts, maybe we should listen to the experts a little bit, because the experts on North Korea, the people who've been watching the country for years, you know, listening to the sort of the noise of everyone saying, wow, maybe President Trump will win a Nobel Peace Prize. Maybe this time will be different.

There were a lot of North Korea watchers who said that they thought that what Kim was doing was predictable based on what has happened in the past in North Korea and that this was a setup all along because North Korea had just had a big year in testing missiles and they needed to have an olive branch to take the focus off of that. Yeah. Ayesha, meeting was on, meeting was off. But we heard in that statement from President Trump a little bit of an olive branch. What happens next? We'll see. Well, that's what happens. But that's what that's what President Trump normally says. But no, there doesn't a door does seem to be open if Kim is willing to somehow cooperate with the U.S. or show that it's really serious about this denuclearization. President Trump did say, look, the summit could happen. It is possible. So he didn't close the

door to that. The administration is saying that the maximum pressure campaign, which is the sanctions, et cetera, they hadn't stopped that and it's not going to stop and that's going to continue on. He also, President Trump, did allude to military action. He said the military, the U.S. military is ready if North Korea takes any action that would require them. One last really important question on all of this. Phil, what happens to the coin? Now, this is a special challenge coin that was made for the military operations that would surround the summit, just like any high stakes VIP meeting. Can you explain, first of all, what challenge coins are, what this one looks like, and what happens now? Challenge coins are an important part of military culture.

If you're in a squadron or a unit or you serve on a ship in the Navy, you make these metal coins. And they can be about as small as your palm, or sometimes bigger, and they can come in different shapes. And you can have one just for your unit, or you can have one for a specific deployment. And the White House Communications Agency, which is the military unit that helps the president stay in contact with combatant commanders and intelligence leaders and all the other aspects of American power, wherever he goes, created a challenge coin for this trip to Singapore because it was a big deal to take the leader of the free world with his Air Force One and all the other military aircraft and

helicopters and everything the president needs for a historic summit like this to Singapore. And they struck this coin that had President Trump's face on one half and Chairman Kim Jong Un's face on the other half. Staring into each other's eyes almost. They were like a poster from Rocky III. And in fact, the summit, as we've been discussing, is now off, which means this challenge coin, perhaps among few others, this has got to be one of the all-time great rare military coins. The Hannes Wagner card of challenges. Or the Buffalo Bills T-shirt, Super Bowl champion T-shirt that was sent to Africa. This is the inverted Jenny JN4 postage stamp of military coins.

And if you get your hands on one one listeners, then hang on to it. All right. Well, we learned a lot in this segment, including that Phil is clearly a stamp collector. I was at one time. OK, well, we got to shift gears. We got to move through all the other news. As we tape this podcast, a meeting is just wrapped up between top DOJ officials, House Republicans Trey Gowdy and Devin Nunes. This is a meeting that, long story to get back to where it was, we talked about it in podcasts earlier this week. This gets to President Trump's accusation that the Department of Justice was spying on his presidential campaign. He is now calling it Spygate. A lot of bad things have happened. We now call it Spygate. You're calling it Spygate. A lot of bad things have happened. We now call it Spygate. You're calling it Spygate.

A lot of bad things have happened. I want them all to get together. They'll sit in a room. Hopefully they'll be able to work it out among themselves. Now, I know that this storyline has gotten confusing for a lot of people, but there's a lot of stuff happening today that we need to walk through. We need to fact check and we need to put some context to. Phil, let's start out. What are the facts? What do we actually know about what the FBI did do when it was trying to investigate potential ties between the Trump campaign, George Papadopoulos, all of a sudden is getting importuned by these foreigners who he's never met before, one of whom is a Russian woman who has ties with Russian foreign Russia's foreign ministry. And they're offering him all this kinds of stuff that would help the Trump campaign in its contest against first its primary opponents and then Hillary Clinton, the Democratic nominee. Papadopoulos gets drunk one night and spills all this to the Australian ambassador in London, who then tells through his foreign ministry, the U.S. government. The FBI starts a counterintelligence investigation of these people in London who are working for Trump and these relationships they're developing with

these foreigners, including these Russians. As part of that investigation, the FBI asked a confidential informant who works with the U.S. government, including the Defense Department sometimes, to go and talk with these guys, to talk with Papadopoulos, to talk with one of the leaders of the campaign, Sam Clovis, and another junior aide named Carter Page, and basically feel them out and have meetings and take their temperature and pass on what he learned to the FBI. Trump's construction of this story is that this amounts to inappropriate political snooping by President Barack Obama's administration of his campaign for political reasons. And so in the construction that he's trying to present to supporters, this is not about the FBI investigating a potential conspiracy

between Americans and the Russian attack on the election, but Obama sending a spy to spy on Trump to help out Hillary Clinton. There's no evidence of that. And the underlying information is what's the subject of this meeting that you mentioned that's taking place at the Justice Department. Although we don't know what justice is going to tell these members of Congress or what else there is to learn about that aspect of the story. Ayesha, this is not the first time President Trump has taken a run at the investigation in this way. There was the early claim that the Obama administration wiretapped Trump Tower. Never proven.

There was this investigation all comes back to opposition research done by the DNC. We know it's more complicated than that. Why does he keep doing this? Well, critics would say that what President Trump is trying to do is to get the focus off of what was going on in his campaign and what people in his campaign might have been doing or if there was collusion with Russia and focus on the investigators. It's kind of like the O.J. defense.

It's go and you, instead of looking at what I did, look at the people who are investigating me. They're not perfect. May, a year ago, and Comey went and tweeted, facts matter. The FBI's use of confidential human sources, the actual term, is tightly regulated and essential to protecting the country. Attacks on the FBI and lying about its work will do lasting damage to our country. How will Republicans explain this to their grandchildren? Now, I have a question about all of this, because this seems pretty similar to the way that Trump talked about that wiretapping claim. He repeatedly talked about it. Then you had House Republicans talking about it. from congressional leaders like Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan, from the way that this was covered in the media, saying there's just absolutely nothing to support this claim. This time around, it seems like Trump's narrative has gotten a little more ground, has been able to define

the conversation. And I'm wondering what's changed. Why is that the case this time around when it wasn't very early on in his administration. One reason is that he's attacking the special counsel, Robert Mueller, who is famously terse. He didn't even talk much when he was director of the FBI in a public job. And he says absolutely nothing now that he's running this Russia investigation. So whereas Trump could address the attorney general or the FBI director when it was James Comey, and they could respond in public or in Congress, Mueller doesn't do that. And Phil, isn't it true that President Trump is kind of raising all these questions about what was going on in this investigation, but doesn't he have the power to declassify this information if he really wanted to find out what was going on in the investigation? That's a great

question. It's not clear to me what Trump and the White House can and cannot access from within the Justice Department and the special counsel's office. That's one of the reasons why this meeting that we're talking about is such a big deal, because the idea after President Nixon and Watergate was that the Justice Department would act independently from interference from the president. But what Trump has done since last weekend, since these press reports about this confidential informant, is basically get involved. He said, I am going to instruct you, Justice Department officials and the FBI, to meet with my chief of staff, John Kelly, and meet with these members of Congress and tell them about this confidential informant. The president's chief of staff, John Kelly, was there, but also the president's new lawyer for the Russia matter, Emmett Flood, took part in this meeting. So that's a very unusual development. Yeah, let's focus on that for a second, because we already knew that the lawmakers invited to this meeting, Devin Nunes and Trey Gowdy, were partisan figures. Nunes has been leading the push from Congress to try and discredit the Department of Justice in this investigation. Gowdy has been critical at times of how the White House has handled themselves, but he's best known for his role in the Benghazi investigation.

Pretty partisan guy. The fact that they were the lawmakers being briefed really had a lot of people concerned already saying, what is the goal of this? But now you're saying President Trump's lawyer, the person who's coordinating the defense, is sitting there hearing from the investigators about key things in the investigation? That's right. The way this is supposed to work is the FBI and the Justice Department work inside a black box. And so whether you're an alleged criminal conspirator or whether you're the president of the United States, you're not supposed to have any visibility into what they're doing, who they're investigating within reason, because sometimes people will talk whether they've been interviewed or not and what kind of evidence they've gathered. But the way this makes it appear is that the White House is actually getting some insight into the material that the FBI gathered in 2016,

the way it may have used informants or other ways to gather information from people in the president's campaign. I don't know if Rosenstein and Wray view this as a problem or if they are basically succumbing to pressure from Trump to come to heel and give up this material, because if they don't, they're afraid of what the repercussions could be for their jobs. So it seems like it's reported that Kelly and Flood did leave after the initial remarks. So we don't know how much they learned from that. As Phil's noting about the Mueller folks not talking publicly, Scott, you asked earlier about why this is able to stick. And I think that we're at an exact moment for when it is, you know, sticky when when there's Velcro on the wall for this, because there's been a concerted conservative campaign against Mueller and this investigation for months. And we've started to see over the last few months, views of Mueller and this investigation turn very partisan. Republicans have been saying overwhelmingly that they disapprove of Mueller's investigation,

that they think that it's biased. And now we're even seeing that people are misinformed about the investigation. There was a poll out recently that showed almost 60 percent of Americans think that no crimes have been found as a result of the investigation, when we know that almost half a dozen people have pleaded guilty and there have been some 17 indictments. This is Campaign Strategy 101. This is a negative ad, basically. Why are negative ads effective? Because in a lot of cases, they contain a grain of truth. Was there spying? Yes, there was. Was there surveillance? Yes, there was. Was it of Trump for political reasons? No, not according to the evidence we have now. But if you repeat that without any opposition, without anyone fighting

back or challenging your messaging, as Domenico says, it starts to stick in people's minds. So the question here is how much of that atmosphere sticks the next round of charges are announced, whenever that may be, because a lot of stuff happened behind the scenes that we learned about this week that does show an investigation moving forward. We reported that Jared Kushner

recently sat down for several hours with Robert Mueller's team. Paul Manafort appeared in court related to the multiple charges he's facing. He could go on trial later this year. Another sign that there are actual charges and serious criminal matters being going on here. But the thing is, Aisha, there is no political news cycle timeline that Mueller's team seems to be operating on. And nobody has any idea when they'll next do something publicly.

And we don't know what we don't know. We don't know what's coming down the pike. We don't know what's what's going to happen next. And I think that in a way, the White House has been able to sort of capitalize on that and say no't actually pointed at anything for the president, then he can say, look, this this investigation has been going on. They haven't found anything, although we know that they have people there have been indictments. So they have found things. But because there is no timeline, you can try to kind of run out that clock and just say they're not finding anything. What are they looking for? All right. Obviously, more to come on that front.

But we are going to take a quick break. Phil, it's been real. Thank you for being in the pod with us. Thank you. Goodbye. Goodbye. Phil is leaving. And when we come back, Sarah McCammon will be here to talk about the rest of this week's news.

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limited. Waitlist time varies by city and demographic. Hey, it's Guy Raz, host of the TED Radio Hour. And on this week's episode, we explore what it takes to inspire people to action and to start a movement and why some movements endure and others don't. You can find the TED Radio Hour on NPR One or wherever you listen to podcasts. All right, we are back. And with us is one of the podcast originals, Sarah McCammon, who's covering the White House for us this summer. Hey, Sarah. Hi, Scott. It's good to be back. It is good to have you back. We missed you. Thank you.

Now, you have heard us talk about two super wonky topics, and we are going to keep up the wonkery. So, Sarah, one of the things you've been covering a lot the last couple of years is abortion rights, both the political side of it, the legal side of it. And this was a big week for that. President Trump announced some major changes to federal abortion policy this week. Can you walk us through first what exactly he's changing? Yeah. So the big picture here, and let's not forget that we are in a midterm year where exciting the base is important. OK, so this is all in that context. One of the things that President Trump campaigned on and other Republicans have campaigned on

is promising to defund Planned Parenthood. Basically, what the Trump administration did this week is a big win for the base. They've issued a proposed regulation that is going to get a little bit wonky, but stay with me, that would change the Title X program. Okay.

And now that is the federal program for low-income people to provide reproductive health care, things like STD screenings, birth control, well-woman exams, stuff like that. Any organization that gets these Title 10 grants to provide these services, birth control and so forth, cannot perform abortions or refer patients for abortions. This would be a big change because it would mean that organizations like Planned Parenthood that would have to totally find a way to separate themselves physically and financially from any abortion services. And there was also changes that really empowered anti-abortion groups that provide their own types of services, right?

Right. And this is the other side of the coin. I mean, in addition to wanting to, quote unquote, defund Planned Parenthood, these activists want that money to go elsewhere. Many of them would like to see that money go to groups like crisis pregnancy centers, which are centers that are sometimes have some medical providers on staff, but generally don't provide a full range of reproductive health services. And, you know, and their primary goal is to counsel women not to have abortions. What do critics have to say? Like, is this going to hurt low income people who are trying to get contraception who who may really need it? That is a big worry. Planned Parenthood, for example, serves one and a half million of those four million Title 10 recipients, more than 40 percent of the nation's

recipients of Title 10 funds. And these are low-income people. This is why the program was set up. And parenthood hasn't quantified how much money they receive from Title 10, but they do provide a huge share of those services. And, you know, if this regulation is approved, it could really change the way they do business and similar organizations do business. And they say it can make it much harder for these patients to, first of all, get access to contraception and also to get information about it. Because now there would be this requirement that organizations that get these funds can't cannot refer for abortion. So that would take that off the table. And potentially you'd have more organizations that don't provide a full range of services. Domenico, that gets to a good point, though. Sarah's talked about how much this is real red meat for the Republican base, for evangelical voters, a reason for them to be excited about President Trump.

At the same time, this is certainly something that's going to activate a lot of groups on the left to be loud about their concern about these changes, to campaign on these changes, to challenge in court. I mean, you can't really charge up one side without getting an equal reaction on the other side, can you? No. And, you know, for the people who talk about this being a potential year of the woman in the 2018 midterms, I think we need to add a caveat in there. It's the year of the Democratic woman. And this is an issue that Democratic women are in particular fired up about and paying very close attention to. It's why they outnumbered the crowd at President Trump's inauguration in their initial march after his inauguration, why there have been marches all over the country and why now some 40 percent of the candidates who a long time and will be something that galvanizes them and their support for President Trump.

But it's also absolutely going to be something that fires up Democratic women as they head to the polls this fall. And it's and that's definitely something that reproductive rights advocates are pushing, you know, already talking about, you know, President President Trump's policies are going to take away your access to these programs, to these services, and they're definitely going to be trying to mobilize their voters around this issue, just like the other side is. All right. Last thing we're going to talk about this week is the Supreme Court. We're in the season finale period of the Supreme Court term where all the big dramatic cases start to be announced. Yeah. If you think of it as like HBO or Showtime special, you know, everybody's getting killed off.

It's like that last two or three episode arc. So the term ends in June, but we're starting to see those big rulings. A ruling this week got a lot of attention. Domenico, it's a five to four vote. The way we phrased it in our coverage is that this decision delivered a major blow to workers, ruling for the first time that workers may not band together to challenge violations of federal labor laws. What exactly did the court rule here? So this case was Epic Systems Corp versus Lewis. And the court essentially ruled that the 1925 Federal Arbitration Act trumps the National Labor Relations Act, that essentially says that workers can't band

together to sue a company collectively. And where this stemmed from was that there were three cases that then got merged into one. You had employees who tried to sue in a class action way, Ernst & Young, Epic Systems Corp, and Murphy Oil USA. So these employees tried to sue for overtime pay. But as Justice Ginsburg pointed out in her minority opinion, which wound up being – her dissent wound up being five pages longer than the majority opinion. She wound up pointing out that a typical Ernst & Young employee would likely have to spend $200,000 to recover only about $1,900 in overtime pay. These employees were forced to sign contracts, essentially, as a condition of employment that said that they would not join a class action suit. So one thing that our story noted that I thought was pretty interesting was that this could have

big implications for the Me Too movement. Can you walk me through that? Yeah, because it's not just Me Too, but all civil rights cases across the board. If you're somebody who feels like you've been discriminated against, someone in a protected group, if you're a woman, an older worker, someone who's disabled, and somebody who's been sexually harassed in the workplace, if you wanted to band together, and there are strength in numbers, as Justice Ginsburg pointed out, if you want to band together, you're no longer able to do so. You can only sue on an individual basis, which could have major implications for something like the Me Too movement in a workplace if you're trying to change that workplace. Because what

some people worry about is that there will be now under enforcement of state statutes and federal laws when there are federal or state violations of these labor management disputes. He's on the corporate side of this. Says it gives employers the green light to eliminate their single largest employment law risk with the stroke of a pen. So a lot of money to be gained from this decision for those corporations. We're going to take one more quick break. When we come back, can't let it go. I have a feeling we're going to talk about the NFL during that one. loudest part of the story. Newsy delivers more, more context, more solutions, and greater understanding of the people and events that shape our world. Learn more at newsy.com slash watch. All right, we're back. That was an unusually dense show, even for the increasingly tense news that we've been covering. So I'm happy to say it is now time for Can't Let It Go,

where we all share one thing we can't stop thinking about, politics or otherwise. Aisha, you are up first. So what I can't let go of this week is there is there's been this story that's got a lot of coverage this week of a 30 year old man in upstate New York who has refused to move out of his parents' house. That's a great story. Michael Rotundo. And his parents had written him letters and they were trying to get him to move his broken down Volkswagen out of the driveway. Oh, no. And they were saying in the letters, they were saying, Michael, here's eleven hundred

dollars from us so you can find a place to stay. It says there are jobs available even for those with a poor work history like you. Get one. You have to work. And he just refused. So his parents had to take him to court. And the judge did find in favor of his parents that this guy's going to have to get out. This stuck with me.

I'm a parent. I got some kids. And I know they can be moochers. Can be. Can be. going to have to get out. This stuck with me. I'm a parent. I got some kids. And I know they can be moochers. They can be. Can be. They eat up all your food. We all did that, right? But we eventually got jobs.

Yeah. So my thing is, OK, my kids are like four and two and seven months. So they're supposed to be moochers, eating up all your food, not cleaning up, not doing what they're supposed to do. But 30? 30 up all your food, not cleaning up, not doing what they're supposed to do. But 30? 30, you got to go. You got to do something. And the judge sided with the parents.

They did. And said he needs to get out. And the thing I found fascinating about this when I was reading through this yesterday was that the kids actually – kid. He's 30 years old. He's an adult. All right? This man who's practically all of our ages here, whatever, he actually said to the judge he wants six months to get out. Yeah, he said he needs time. You've had 30 years.

He even threatened to appeal. Right. So he represented himself, and he did what I read said he did some research about the sort of laws in his state, and he believed he had a guarantee of several months before he had to leave. And I'm like, man, rather than doing all this research and representing yourself why don't you just apply those skills and you know find a job find a job this is a crushing blow to the millennials who have been fighting back against the avocado toast stereotypes for years now i like avocado toast but who knows what his backstory is i think i read that he was laid off

at some point like years and years ago And I'm sure that was hard So I hope for the best for this guy I hope so and I hope he can reconcile With his parents and get a job And get out on his own And everyone can come together It's a lot easier to reconcile with your parents when you don't live with them anymore Yes

Domenico What can't you let go? I can't let go of the Trump and NFL storyline. You know, the NFL is going to be... I can let go of that, I guess. I think we all can sort of let go of the controversy, but I just find it fascinating how the NFL, which is this behemoth,

is trying to sort of split the baby between its heavily white male, older white male audience and its heavily, heavily minority players. Right. And you have all these owners who are upset because the ratings fell off by about 10 percent last year. And we had the NFL do is try to split the baby for next season and say that players will not be allowed to kneel or protest during the national anthem if they're on camera. But they will be allowed to stay in the locker rooms. Now, the part of this that I really can't let go is that the Jets organization, the team that I happen to be a fan of. I didn't know you were a Jets fan. I say begrudgingly.

But you've kept that you've kept that under wraps. Maybe, you know, I guess I know why. It's rare to see a Mets Jets split. So it's always you usually see Mets Jets and that's that's me. So but the owner of the Jets, Woody Johnson, was Trump's former campaign chairman. He's also currently Trump's ambassador to the UK. And the New York Jets came out and said, look, if the NFL finds any of these players, we'll stand with them and we'll pay their fines. So I wonder, you know, that wasn't Woody Johnson putting that out. That was his brother. I wonder who what that sort of triangle phone call is like between President Trump to the

court of St. James back to New Jersey. And President Trump did talk about this this morning. He said it was a good move by the NFL, but then he went on to say that no one should be staying in the locker room and that people who are doing these protests, that maybe they shouldn't even be in the country. He said, you have to stand proudly for protests, that maybe they shouldn't even be in the country. He said you have to stand proudly for the national anthem or you shouldn't be playing. You shouldn't be there. Maybe you shouldn't be in the country. Yes, which seems to go against the First Amendment and all those things. And let's be, you know, just to reiterate what these players were kneeling about. It was about police brutality and the mistreatment of black people in this

country. And that's what this was about. And many of them and or pretty much all of them said this wasn't about disrespecting the flag. This wasn't about disrespecting the national anthem. This was about standing up and trying to bring attention to an issue that is very serious and that is affecting people in this country. And then the owners in the league decided to make it about basically nothing. Then it was we're kneeling for unity. And it just got messier and messier and more and more frustrating to all sides. I do want to make a point, though, that there's been a long history in this country of black athletes and political protests. You know, you look back 50 years ago to the 1968 Olympic Games and you had two American Olympians stripped of their medals for putting their fists in the air in protest of how blacks are treated in this country. The Australian runner who actually stood with them was was banned from his sport in Australia, only honored posthumously.

And the two Americans who ran then actually were his pallbearers at his funeral. Kurt Flood, for example, in 1969, the baseball player who said that he felt like baseball players then were well-paid slaves because there was a clause in a contract in the major league contract that said that baseball teams essentially owned those players. He was essentially ostracized and kicked out of Major League Baseball, only to be recognized later because he's basically seen as the father of free agency. And of course, you have Muhammad Ali, who went through a lot for taking his stand against the Vietnam War. He went to jail. Yeah, he went to jail. So this has a long history. And often when these things

happen, these people are not celebrated. Muhammad Ali was not celebrated when he went to jail. So so this is this has a long history. And often when these things happen, these people are not celebrated. Muhammad Ali was not celebrated when he was doing that. And as you said, those Olympians, they were not celebrated until much more recently. And so we'll see what happens with this NFL issue. I don't think this puts an end to it at all. It'll be interesting to see how many people stay in the locker room, for instance. Right. Sarah, what about you? Last year, you may remember that President Trump gave his first commencement speech as president to Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia. This was,

of course, a really important place for his campaign. It's an evangelical college. The leader, Jerry Falwell Jr., was one of the first evangelicals to publicly endorse him. So he went there, made a speech, and there was a lot of criticism of the university for that. There has been a lot of criticism of the university's association with President Trump. This year, they invited somebody from the opposite side of the political spectrum, former President Jimmy Carter, to give the speech. This is a wonderful crowd. Jerry told me before we came here that it's even bigger, I hate to say this, than it was last year. I don't know if President Trump will admit that or not, but to me it's pretty much the same.

Biggest ever. So just a little trolling of President Trump by former President Carter there, who, you know, and we probably all recall when President Trump was sworn in that his crowd size was was a big issue as well. I think it's important to note, you know, Jimmy Carter is a Democrat and is himself an evangelical. He's a Baptist Sunday school teacher and he represents a different tradition within evangelicalism. And I guess that's part of why he was invited to speak at Liberty. But he did take a moment to kind of get in his dig at President Trump. All right. I'm going to go last here. And I am going to go rogue here. I was told by the powers that be who edit our podcast that the royal wedding was old news, that it was not a time for can't let it go because we're all over it.

Well, as they say in the wedding singer, I have a microphone. Go on. This is a sidebar. This did not get as much attention, and I think it's going to bring joy to everyone, so I'm going to keep it quick. I have a beagle. She is a rescue beagle.

She has shown up in the podcast a couple times. There are times where she thinks that she has a very good life right now. She has now been topped by another rescue beagle who has the best, you know, upward escalation in life of any beagle, I think, in the world. This is a rescue beagle named Guy. He was at a Kentucky shelter. It was a kill shelter. He made his way into the arms of Meghan Markle a few years ago. She adopted him. She had posted a lot of pictures about him. She's not allowed to post pictures on the Internet anymore now that she's a royal family member.

Is that true? Yeah. Yeah, she had to get rid of her Instagram and all that stuff. But right before the wedding, there was a picture taken of Queen Elizabeth driving to Windsor Castle. And who was sitting next to Queen Elizabeth in her car? Guy the Beagle. That is like a Disney fairy tale. I wonder how the Corgis are going to feel about that.

You know, I think the Corgis can make a little bit of room for a Beagle in the castle now. And on that note, I think we're going to wrap up this podcast. We will be back in your feed early next week. You can keep up with all of our coverage on NPR.org and on your local public radio station. I'm Scott Detrow.

I cover Congress. I'm Aisha Roscoe. I cover the White House. I'm Sarah McCammon. I'm covering the White House. And I'm Domenico Montanaro, political editor. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.