The NPR Politics Podcast - Weekly Roundup: Thursday, November 15

Episode Date: November 16, 2018

A recount is under way in Florida, rebel Democrats claim they can defeat Nancy Pelosi in a speaker vote, a bipartisanship effort at criminal justice reform is happening...and of course, can't let it go. This episode: White House correspondent Tamara Keith, congressional reporter Kelsey Snell, national political correspondent Mara Liasson, political editor Domenico Montanaro 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

Hey there, this is CW from the Virginia 7th in Richmond. I'm just headed out on my 1,808th consecutive daily run, and I'll be celebrating five years without missing a single day this Thanksgiving. I've listened to the NPR Politics podcast since the beginning, and in those three years, I haven't heard a single episode while not running. So thanks for the motivation, you guys. This podcast was recorded at 1 49 p.m. on Thursday, the motivation, you guys. This podcast was recorded at 1.49 p.m. on Thursday, the 15th of November. And of course, things may have changed by the time you hear this. Okay, here's the show. Oh my gosh, I'm so impressed. This is so amazing. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast here with our weekly roundup. A recount is underway

in Florida. Rebel Democrats claim they can defeat Nancy Pelosi in a vote for speaker. There's a bipartisan effort at criminal justice reform happening. And of course, we'll end with Can't Let It Go. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. I'm Domenico Montanaro, political editor. I'm Kelsey Snell. I cover Congress. And I'm Mara Liason, national political correspondent. All right, guys. So let's start with the election results that keep coming in. How does that sound? Right now, Democrats are up to 35 flips in the House. They've gained a net of 35 seats.

We just learned this afternoon that the Democrat in Maine, in that sweeping second congressional district, pretty rural district, has now won because of the state's kind of peculiar ranked choice system where the Republican had been ahead all this time, but because they take the lowest vote getters and they redistribute the vote until someone gets to 50% plus one vote, the Democrat wound up coming out ahead. Is this the first time ranked choice has been used for a congressional election? This is. And Maine did this because of the governor in the state, LePage, who a lot of Democrats didn't like and who has squeaked by because of three-way races.

The irony here is that ranked choice actually doesn't apply to the governor's race, only to federal races in Maine. Well, this is totally a wild system. Yeah, it's completely, wow. Two big picture points on this I want to make. One, the Maine Second Congressional District is a district that President Trump won in the 2016 presidential election and now has shifted back to Democrats. That's a pretty big deal. And also, given the 35 seats, and it could get to as high as 39 seats, you know, this is the largest net pickup for Democrats since the wave election in 1974 after Watergate. So this is the biggest pickup for Democrats in any election since then in the last 40 years. to update my tally of people who President Trump endorsed either via Twitter or by holding rallies

because President Trump had endorsed the Republican candidate in this race. We're now at 51 candidates he endorsed, one and 36 lost and counting. Yeah. So there you go. And another race that goes in the lost column for Republicans is the Arizona Senate race. Democrat Kyrsten Sinema ended up winning. We found that out earlier this week. Martha McSally, the Republican, she conceded. This is a seat that had been held by Republican Senator Jeff Flake, who decided to retire after fighting with President Trump and President Trump saying he would primary him and all that. And Kelsey, this also Sinema's win represents a bunch of firsts, right?

Oh, yeah. She is the first woman to be elected senator in Arizona. She also happens to be the first bisexual member of the Senate. And she is the first Democrat to be elected to that seat since, I guess, the 1980s. Is that right, Domenico? Yeah, I think it was 88. 76 was the last time Democrats won an open Senate race in Arizona. And she has been welcomed with big and warm open arms here in the Capitol. The funny thing that's happening, just so people can understand, is this is orientation week here in the U.S. Capitol, and all the new members are here. And that means Kristen Sinema, who is still technically a member of the House, has been having meetings over here in the Senate. And she was over having Senate meetings around the time that her race was called.

So it's been it's been a really big week for her. And she got to kind of celebrate it with her new group of Senate Democrats. I was really struck by how McSally reacted in concession after all the votes were counted. Given the fact that you had such a different tone coming from the White House and President Trump, Rick Scott, as the governor of Florida, who is ahead in his Senate race, but has been saying that there's voter fraud behind closing vote margins. Every Floridian should be concerned there may be rampant fraud happening in Palm Beach and Broward counties. And you've seen some of the Republican candidates now

in close races in California, for example, Mimi Walters, who's in the 45th congressional district and just saw her lead vanish and is now behind as vote counts continue to come in in Orange County, as well as Young Kim, who's the Republican running for the 39th congressional district seat. She's only up by 122 votes currently over Democrat Gil Cisneros. And both of them are saying that there must be some form of voter fraud happening. And there's no evidence of voter fraud in any of this. But really, the difference between how McSally chose to handle it and how some of the other Republicans chose to handle it is really eye opening. Can we just pause and hear a little bit of McSally's concession video that she put out? Everybody, I just called Kyrsten Sinema and

congratulated her on becoming Arizona's first female senator after a hard fought battle. I wish her all success as she represents Arizona in the Senate. Side note, there is a totally cute golden retriever sitting next to her, pawing at her, trying to get a handshake or a little belly rub or something. His name is Boomer. Very sweet. And, you know, like if you're going to concede, you might as well have, you know, an emotional support animal with you.

Yes, golden retrievers are like a giant hug. Let me ask something about McSally's gracious concession, because I've heard a couple of different theories. One is she did it because, number one, she knew the results were free and fair. She's both won and lost tight elections in Arizona in the past. But I've also heard this idea that maybe she would end up being the senator from Arizona anyway, because John Kyle, who was put in John McCain's spot, kind of almost as a placeholder, might step down and she would be appointed. It's clear that there are Democrats in Arizona and there are moderates in Arizona and there is

a swingy portion of the state that may not feel really good about her trying to undermine the statewide election process. And she's very cognizant of that because I don't think we're going to see McSally go away just because she lost this one specific race. Guys, I want to turn to Florida where they are still counting votes. Yeah, they are. There is a deadline today. Unclear whether that is going to hold is my sense. And yeah, Domenico, can you just give the latest, which will no doubt be outdated by the time people hear this podcast? Yeah, what a mess. You know, there's a lot that's going on there. There are lawsuits, there are rulings from various

judges, and there are timelines set out by the state. I'll walk you through a little bit of it. Machine recounts were due today at 3 p.m. There were statewide machine recounts in three races in the governor, senate, and for agriculture commissioner, a very important post in Florida. There might be an exception that a judge handed down today, throwing things into a little bit of uncertainty, ruled that thousands, almost about 4,000 mail-in ballots that were rejected because of an issue with matching signatures will have two more days to fix those problems and for people to be able to contest that. So you've got this deadline of 3 o'clock today for the machine recounts to be done for any race that's within 0.5 percentage points, which is all three of these

races. And then that would move on to a hand recount of irregular ballots that would be due by counting due by noon on Sunday. But with this ruling, it's very unclear what that's going to mean. You know, the Scott campaign is filing an appeal to this today. So we'll see if anything changes with it. Right now, it looks like at least some voters will have until Saturday or jurisdictions will have until Saturday to review some of these provisionals. But even if every single one of those 4,000 ballots were suddenly counted and all went for Democrat Bill Nelson, he would still not take the lead. Right. Scott is ahead by some 12,000 votes.

So that doesn't change the math, certainly. And that's what Scott's campaign has continued to say. But the Democrats say all the votes should be counted. And this is one chunk of it. But the Democrats are in lawsuits throughout the state trying to hope to see what else there could be out there. You know, one thing I have not understood about Scott's strategy during this recount, it's one thing to say that your opponent is a sore loser. He's so far behind, he'll never catch up. He should just, you know, cash it in and concede. It's another thing to say that the government that

you have run as the governor of the state is so incompetent that it can't count votes correctly and that it's totally susceptible to fraud. How does that help him politically? It is odd, but he's pointing to Democrats in South Florida, in particular in these two counties, very large counties with Broward and Palm Beach, which have had voting issues in the past and have had difficulty counting the vote. In fact, Palm Beach says that they may meet the deadline for today to get all of the vote done for the Senate race, but probably not for the governor's race. They had a hiccup with overheating machines that were, they were trying to count the vote and they had 175,000 ballots that were counted that they had to recount because of it. And really, you have the election supervisor there saying that she's basically going on a prayer at this point, hoping it gets done.

And this is bigger than just three races in Florida for Democrats. Part of their big agenda going forward is that they want to restore faith in American political systems and the government. And I've had many of them tell me over the past couple of days that making a strong case in Florida, even if Nelson loses, is a part of them showing voters that they stand up for the strength of the institution and making sure that voting is something that people believe in and are willing to continue doing and feel strongly that they should go do and that their vote will count. This is all part of making sure that that message gets out to not just Florida, but the entire rest of the country. Just to be clear, recounts are a normal part of

close elections. They exist to reaffirm the conclusion of the vote. In fact, recounts are supposed to give more confidence in the vote, not less. And yet they're being portrayed as this like completely nefarious thing. I mean, I would imagine that the recount in Florida in 2000 is really what drives that feeling, right? People who are roughly my age, that is like one of the most salient political memories I have when I was, when I was figuring out politics was that this was a big deal and that it changed the outcome of the presidency. And I think people still think about that when they hear Florida and recount. But it's not only the history of Florida. Don't forget, we are in this incredible debate about voter suppression versus voter fraud. Voter fraud,

for which there is next to no evidence, has been the rallying cry of Republicans who want to pass laws to do what Democrats say is voter suppression. In other words, make it harder to vote. And you have that in Georgia. You have that in many other places. So this is a debate that's not going to go away even after Florida is counted. We've focused a lot here on the Senate race, but what's the deal with the governor's race? Well, what a lot of people are expecting is once the machine recount is over, that the governor's race could wind up being called because the margin in that race had been outside the 0.25 percentage point margin to go to a manual recount of those irregular ballots. So in other words, if the

machine recount shows that Republican Ron DeSantis is ahead outside the margin of the 0.25 percentage point margin, which he has been, and it affirms that, then it very well would be called that Ron DeSantis is the next governor of the state of Florida. And Andrew Gillum's concession will be reactivated. Well, maybe, yeah. I mean, you know, he is called for the fact that he thinks that every vote needs to be counted. He had conceded on election night and you'd probably expect he would do the same once it's affirmed. Domenico, there is one other state with a couple of undecided races. What's up with Georgia? Yeah, it's a real messy scene there. You've had 15

people arrested at the state capitol, including a state senator, as a result of protesting this process that happened earlier this week. State officials had expected to certify the election on Wednesday, but a court ruling delayed that certification. The judge ordered a review of provisional ballots and said the state could not certify the results until today. So I guess this is one of those things that might change by the time people hear this podcast. It could. But, you know, this is a much bigger margin than what we've seen in Florida. There is no mandatory recount that's taking place here because Republican Brian Kemp, who's the former secretary of state in Georgia, is ahead by more than one percentage point, which is what would be

the range for a recount. There were about 22,000 provisional ballots cast. And why that number is important is because Stacey Abrams, the Democrat, is behind by some 59,000 votes. And in order to kind of get this race to a potential runoff where you'd have essentially a redo between Abrams and Kemp, she would need to pick up about 25,000 votes. All right, Domenico, we have to say goodbye to you. All right. I'll get back to calling secretaries of state. Yeah, have fun calling those secretaries of state. And we're going to take a quick break.

And when we come back, we're going to talk about a leadership fight in the House, White House shakeups, and criminal justice reform. Support for the NPR Politics Podcast comes from SimpliSafe Home Security. SimpliSafe is complete wireless protection for your home that can be self-installed in under an hour. There are no long-term contracts and no hidden fees. CNET, the Wirecutter, and PCMag have all named SimpliSafe their top pick for home security. And SimpliSafe protects their top pick for home security. And SimpliSafe protects over 2 million people every day. Learn more about SimpliSafe and get 25% off any of their home security systems

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We'll be in Paris, in Northern Ireland, and broadcasting from the BBC in London. Check out our podcast for a special Brexit edition of Here and Now. And we're back. And joining us is Ayesha Roscoe from over at the White House. Hey, Ayesha. Hey. So even though we just said hello to you, let's go to Capitol Hill. The freshman class is coming in. They're in town for orientation. They're finding their

ways to the bathroom and all of those things. Kelsey, what's it been like up there? Oh, they're having a good time, except for today is maybe less of a good time because the freshmen are now in a meeting with all of the current Democrats to debate the rules for next year. So they went from like the very exciting part of the week where they all got to kind of meet each other and make their new friends and have really fun Instagram feeds to the really not so fun work of figuring out, you know, how exactly do you run this place? And part of that is figuring out who is going to run this place.

Let me tell you, there is a basically a gauntlet that they have to walk through in the basement of the Capitol. It's the very low ceiling and oddly kind of pinkish colored hallway where all of the pipes and kind of like the cables that keep everything running in the Capitol. They run over your head. You have to walk down this hall to a big room where they all meet. And it was just a whole line of reporters asking who these people are going to vote for for Speaker. Are they voting for Nancy Pelosi or are they voting for somebody else? Why does everyone have their knives out for Nancy Pelosi? That is a good question. I think a lot of the people who support her say that it is unfounded and unfair.

I talked to many of them today who said that Pelosi is the only person around who's really proven that she can lead through a really difficult situation. They point to things like getting the Affordable Care Act passed. They point to things like TARP and other financial bills that went through. During the financial crisis. Yeah, during the financial crisis. And they say that Pelosi's leadership is the only thing that brought those things over the finish line for President Obama. But there are a number of younger Democrats in particular, we have been calling them the rebels, who want fresher faces. Democrats have a fairly old leadership. This is a very young class of freshmen coming in, and it's a much more diverse class of

freshmen. And the people who are in Democratic leadership in the House have been there for a very long time, primarily in their 70s. And many of the younger groups of members say that they want people in leadership who better reflect the priorities and the basic face of members say that they want people in leadership who better reflect the priorities and the basic face of the Democratic Party right now? What I'm wondering is, A, do you think she does have the votes lined up because she is a very good vote counter? And two, if not, she also is a really good dealmaker and knows where every one of her members are. What would be the deal she would make to bring younger faces into the House Democratic leadership that would preserve her position at the top, at least for

now? Because she has talked about herself as a transitional figure. You are absolutely right. Nancy Pelosi is known as a dealmaker, and she has been in this exact situation before. She knows how to fight back when there is an insurgency and people saying she shouldn't be in leadership. So she's got a few things at her disposal right now. One is that when either party gets a big gain in Congress, they get more seats on committees and they get control of committees. And while that may sound boring,

that is where most of the power in Washington is, is running committees and running subcommittees. So she could start promising people that they could be on the committees they want. So say you're from a farm state. You're one of these more moderate people, say, Abby Finkenauer in Iowa. She wants to be on the Ag Committee. Nancy Pelosi could put her there. That's a nice Ag Committee you got there.

But say you're a person who ran on investigating the president. Well, Nancy Pelosi could put that person on, say, the Judiciary Committee or the Oversight and Government Reform Committee. So she's got a lot to play with here. chair of the Democratic caucus, isn't going to be here next year and isn't going to be in leadership, that actually opens up a whole kind of domino effect of additional leadership spots. And Pelosi and her allies have been really working very hard to make sure that a broader, more diverse group of members get those jobs to take some of the pressure off of her. So I have to say, I watched a little bit of her press conference today. Now, she still is doing this thing where she projects total confidence.

Yeah, we want to hear a little bit of how she did that. Yeah, let's hear a little bit of that. Does anybody have a type of question in this regard? Because I'm only going to answer it once. Just pop them out. Pop them out. I happen to think that at this point, I'm the best person for that. I've answered one, two, three, four, five, six questions. Now you want to ask about the omnibus?

Nah. And then she also says she has overwhelming support. I have overwhelming support in my caucus to be Speaker of the House. She was not excited for us to be asking all the questions. She knew it was coming. She knew, yeah. So I guess my question is, number one, who would defeat her, number one. Number two is, is there any doubt in your mind that if she is returned as Speaker, that the leadership team will look different than it does today? So there is not a really good person on the list. And one of the things that her loyalists have been saying to me over and over is you can't beat somebody with nobody. I think we've heard that.

And we have. And right now, the only person that's being floated right now is Marsha Fudge of Ohio. But honestly, I don't see how she gets there with the votes. I can't, in my mind, come up with any combination of math that gets her over the bar of 218 votes on the House floor. Now, that being said, somebody else could come to the fore, right? There are so many other options for people who could kind of emerge as a candidate. But honestly, there really just aren't that many people who have been groomed and prepared to lead in this way. And that's in part by Pelosi's own design. But

Mario, you're right. There will be new people in leadership. You will probably see Steny Hoyer of Maryland reelected to be the number two. But from there, things really could change. You could see a lot of different people coming into the mix. Pelosi has been making a case about gender, saying that women were part of this wave and that she, why would you knock out this top woman? Marsha Fudge, we should say, is both a woman and an African-American woman. It inoculates some of Pelosi's argument, but then she was talking about how the rebels who are leading this at the moment are mostly men. Yes, there is a letter out there that is rumored to have been signed by 17 people saying that they would vote against Pelosi on the floor. 17 right now is

probably enough to make it so that she couldn't become speaker. But when she was asked about that, she first demanded to know which one of us had actually seen this letter. Most people said they hadn't. And then she said, do you know who's signing it? Because it's mostly men. So there's the issue of gender and there's the issue of like age. And but is this really is this a policy fight, though, or is this just kind of a demographics fight? And then those two are can be connected.

But are there things that are people pushing her to be more progressive? Do they feel like she's been too conservative? Is this an argument over policy? When she is asked about whether or not she's progressive enough, the thing she always says is, I'm from San Francisco. And that is her immediate response, is that she is the congresswoman from San Francisco. I'm a San Francisco liberal. That's how she's been excoriated and been made the poster child of everything that Republican-based voters are supposed to hate about Democrats. Nancy Pelosi. often embracing single-payer health care in particular. But this is a lot about style and

substance in fighting against the president and her willingness to talk about impeachment. Now, that may be a political or policy issue, depending upon the way you view it. But that is a bit at play here. Obviously, when Democrats form a firing squad, they get in a circle. And what's so interesting about this is it's just a big inchoate mess of every Democratic frustration. She's too liberal. They attack her. She's too old. We need a fresh face. She's not talking about impeachment enough. Oh, she's not representing rural small town Trump voters enough. I mean, to me, if I was a Republican, I would be sitting on the sidelines shoveling in the popcorn because this is just an identity politics extravaganza. There's nothing Republicans want more than to see Democrats consumed by this. Oh, and they've been reveling in it. They had a press conference yesterday where they kept saying,

well, Nancy Pelosi, she's got problems. What's so interesting is the Democrats just won a historic victory by being disciplined. They exercised unbelievable message discipline, healthcare, healthcare, healthcare. They didn't get sidetracked by impeachment. They didn't get sidetracked by Donald Trump. Now here they are with Pelosi laying out this agenda that will include investigations, but as she said, no scattershot freelancing, not a rush to impeachment. Plus, there's going to be this robust policy agenda that they're actually going to pass legislation, even if it doesn't go anywhere in the Senate, it'll lay down a marker for 2020 of the House, she has become a boogeyman in political terms across the country, in races everywhere. And she is shorthand for Republicans when they want to put somebody on the air and say, this is the definition of everything we're running against. And so I think a lot of Democrats are just uncomfortable with that reality of who she is.

OK, I want to move on to the White House now, but this is actually connected to Congress. President Trump yesterday held an event to announce that he was throwing his support behind legislation that could shorten sentences for some drug offenders and help prisoners adjust to life after incarceration. This apparently has bipartisan support. Aisha, what can you tell us about the legislation? So this bill applies to federal crimes. It includes kind of a rolling back of the three strikes you're out rule. Basically, if you're a third time like drug offender, you could get life in prison. Instead, they would instead of getting life, you would get maybe 25 years. And then also making some of these things like with the there was a disparity between crack cocaine and powder

cocaine, you would get more time for selling crack than powder cocaine, making that retroactive. So it would affect some people who are already in prison. And another thing that they're looking at is bringing back judicial discretion into sentencing so that judges will be able to look at a case and not just go with the mandatory minimum. Here's Donald Trump doing something that has a lot of bipartisan support and was something that had bipartisan support before he was elected. He talked about rolling back provisions of the Clinton-era crime bill. Among other changes, it rolls back some of the provisions of the Clinton crime law that disproportionately harmed the African-American community. And you all saw that and you all know that. Everybody in this room knows that. It was

very disproportionate and very unfair. Is that him triangulating? I think that's him saying, hey, look, I did something that Bill Clinton, I'm like, you know, he's always trying to undo his predecessors. I know, but more than that, this is the first time I've seen him do something that was substantive, where he thought he could reach out to the African American community and get some positive reaction. Well, this has been something that has been very important to Jared Kushner. So he has been the president's son-in-law and top advisor. He has been the one really pushing this in the White House. And if you remember, Jared's father went to federal prison before, you know, long before they entered the White House. Jared's father spent time in federal prison. So this is something that has been really close to Jared's heart.

And so he's been working with evangelicals and with different groups to try to build support for this and obviously talking to Trump and getting him on board with this idea of doing something for criminal justice reform. And I'm sure part of his argument was this is something that Clinton did. You know, you're probably not a big fan of him and you could undo it. And it's something that could help the African-American community, which you're always talking about. Well, President Trump has been like so like anti-crime and Democrats are just going to bring crime. And this is a very different. I mean, there's a lot of nuance in this issue.

Certainly, the president is not actually reversing himself, but he is putting his name on something that is a far more nuanced way of looking at crime than he usually takes. Yeah. I mean, you remember President Trump talked about the death penalty for drug dealers. So this is him not throwing away the tough on crime because yesterday he was saying we're going to be tough on crime. There are people that need to be locked up for a very long time. But he also seemed to acknowledge that sometimes the way the criminal justice system has worked, it has been unfair. And he talked about Alice Johnson, who we've talked about before, who he commuted her sentence. She was a first time drug offender and got life in prison. He talked about Alice yesterday and he said that wasn't right. That wasn't fair. I give an example of Mrs. Alice Johnson, who served 21 years and she had, I think, another 25 or so to go. So she would have been in there for close to 50 years for something that other people go in and they get slapped on the wrist, which is also wrong, by the way, which is also wrong. So side note, the reason that we've heard about Alice Johnson is because Kim Kardashian is the one that brought her case to the president.

Yes, and met with the president. And shortly after he met with Kim Kardashian, he let Alice go free. And I should clarify, she had life in prison. It wasn't 50 years, but Trump says that. But she actually had life. She would have, without Trump, she would have died in prison.

But what's so interesting also is the president also talked about what happens when former inmates leave prison. And we're all better off when former inmates leave prison. And we're all better off when former inmates can receive and reenter society as law-abiding, productive citizens. Now that, to me, really stood out. The thing that I think is really interesting here is this is another one of those situations where we'll be able to test the PR aspect of Trump's abilities here. It's something that we talk about a lot, right, that he is so good at framing things for his biggest supporters in a way that make them,

you know, just want to back him. And I wonder if this is going to be a situation where he can take something that they would oppose if somebody else did it and making him support it just because it's him doing it. Also, a lot of law enforcement signed on to this, which is probably helping helping the president. A lot of law enforcement, the Fraternal Order of Police signed on to it and other groups. So and he talked about that a lot. And I think that's what the president and what some of the senators are trying to use to kind of make the case that this is tough on crime. You have the backing of law enforcement. This isn't soft on crime. Nobody wants to be that. I should say that there are some, you know, I was talking to some, you know, activists

kind of familiar with this yesterday, and they are pleased with the direction that it's going. But there was some concern about if it does get through, and that's still a question, how it would be implemented. And will this White House really have the support? And will their Justice Department have this really do what's necessary to make sure that all these changes actually happen? And speaking of the White House, drama. Ayesha, I don't know about you, but when I was over there earlier this week, there was just this totally weird vibe where there were all of these rumors of staff shakeups and you'd go ask people, well, what's happening? And very high ranking people would just sort of shrug and say,

well, I don't want to give you wrong information. We just don't know. And President Trump has been making it pretty clear that he feels like it's time for a shakeup of some kind following the midterms. Security Council, Mira Ricardell, coming out against her and basically saying she didn't deserve to be in the White House anymore, which is really kind of publicly to have a First Lady come out like that is kind of unheard of, right? Never happened before. Completely. No, First Ladies often exercise a lot of power behind the scenes. But I can't ever think of a statement where the First Lady's office said this person does not deserve the honor of working in the White House. And like 48 hours later. It's like, don't let the door hit you on the way out. It took a while for that door to swing open.

But Rickardell is now it's been announced no longer going to be working at the White House on the National Security Council. Unclear where she's going next, but they say she will be staying somewhere in the administration. Yes. So having that happen while so the statement comes out, you're still working. So she was still like working, you know, in the executive branch with this statement out saying she didn't deserve to be there. And now she's kind of on her way someplace else, which makes you question, like, who are they going to bring in to replace her? Who's going to want this job? Two crazy fun facts. This will be the fifth person that they're looking for to fill this job. This has been a revolving door at the number two position at the National Security Council. And other fun fact, according to an administration official, Mira Ricardel never met

the First Lady. How many times have we asked that question? Who would want to take this job after the way this was handled? And often somebody does take it. Someone takes it. And we'll just say that also Chief of Staff John Kelly is on the permanent list of people who may or may not someday not be there anymore. Also, all eyes are on Kirstjen Nielsen, the Homeland Security Secretary. President Trump, in an interview this week, Mara, said that he may well fire some people soon. That's right. Now, the one thing about Donald Trump, he doesn't necessarily like to fire people to their faces. Might make it hard with John Kelly. I don't know who fires the chief of staff, not the president. But, you know, sometimes he says that and then they don't get fired for a

while. So very unclear. And with that, we're going to take a quick break. And when we return, can't let it go. Support for this podcast and the following message come from Grow with Google. Digital skills are becoming more and more important in today's economy. That's why Grow with Google is providing free online training and tools to help Americans learn the skills they need to succeed. Learn more about Grow with Google and get started by visiting google.com slash grow. Support for this podcast and the following message come from Walmart. Nava Banerjee leads the product search team for Walmart.com. Her team uses machine learning to try to predict customer needs and return fast, accurate search results.

How do we become an intelligent personal assistant for our customers where we know them, we understand them, we can give them exactly what they're looking for and sometimes actually surprise and delight them. To learn more about machine learning and the future of tech at Walmart, visit walmarttoday.com slash machines. The StoryCorps podcast returns this fall with 12 all-new episodes about reunions. This week, what it's like to spend years searching for a father, only to find someone you didn't even know you were looking for. Hear more on the StoryCorps podcast. Episodes are available every Tuesday. And we're back with Can't Let It Go, where we talk about the one thing this week we can't stop thinking about, politics or otherwise. Kelsey, what can't you let go of? Drunk animals. Woo! Partay!

So all the party animals are? All the party animals. This month they're in West Virginia. There's a story this week about people reporting rabid raccoons in West Virginia, in a town in West Virginia. And the police went out to go investigate and they picked up a bunch of the raccoons and figured out that they are not rabid, they are drunk. Put them in the paddy wagon. Drunk on what? They have been eating crab apples.

So they're drunk on some sort of like raccoon cider, I guess. Crab apple wine. Like fermented apples? Wow. Yeah, like they're fermented apples that had fallen off of trees and got these raccoons drunk. And people were worried that they were going to go around biting people. But I think they just might go around passing out. Look, everybody needs to relax. Right? Gotta unwind. They got their reasons. And you know, this is not the first time we have heard

about drunk animals in the past few months. Just last month, there were drunk birds in Minnesota that were kind of wandering around and falling over because they were eating fermented berries. So 2018 is the year of the drunk animal, and I'm here for it. 2018, you're drunk. Aisha, what can't you let go of? So this is sadder. This week we lost a legend, Stan Lee of Marvel Comics, who created, I mean, the list of characters that he created, just to name a few. Spider-Man, Tony Stark, Iron Man, the Hulk. I'm a huge Marvel fan.

So the loss of Stan Lee. Now, he was 95. He lived a long life. But it was sad. But he left so much behind me and my son who's five we have this big marvel encyclopedia and we go through and you know my son will be tell me tell me about this character tell me about what is what is iron man's real name and then we'll go or what is storm's real name and we go and we look it up and we read all the stories. And it's just like it's a modern mythology.

It's amazing. Does he have a favorite? His favorite right now is probably Storm. He loves Storm. And he loves Spider-Man. He was Spider-Man for Halloween. And he loves Black Panther. He goes around and he says, I'm Black Panther.

I must protect my people. Aww. and he says, I'm Black Panther. I must protect my people. And he's... Aww! And someday in like 10 years, you'll actually let him watch the movie. Yes, one day. Yeah, no, he hasn't seen the movie. He just watches like the cartoon.

But yeah, and the Legos. But yeah, so thanks to Stan Lee for all of the wonderful stories that I'm still reading and watching. And, you know, he had an awesome life. Mara, My Can't Let It Go is the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Donald Trump is going to present this medal at the White House in a ceremony tomorrow. One of the things that the White House can do, that the president and the first lady can do, is that they can highlight

cultural heroes and they can do a lot with the White House, not just as a promoter of the arts, but also they can send messages about people that they feel are admirable. So it was very interesting to me who the president chose to give the Presidential Medal of Freedom to. Because there's basically no rules for the Presidential Medal of Freedom. He can give it to anybody he wants. He gave a Presidential Medal of Freedom to Miriam Adelson, who happens to be, along with her husband, billionaire casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, I think the single biggest donors in the 2018 elections. Of course, they are Republican donors. He also gave one to Elvis Presley. He's dead.

He's dead. And Babe Ruth. Big, big pop culture figures, sports giant, rock and roll legend. He also gave one to Roger Staubach and to Orrin Hatch, a retiring Republican senator. And Antonin Scalia. But it didn't sound like he was also dead. Orrin Hatch, not dead. Orrin Hatch, definitely not dead. Just saw him a little bit ago.

All right. I'm going to go last because I'm the only one left. A couple of weeks ago, Pete Davidson was on Saturday Night Live, did a bit as part of the newscast weekend update thing. And it was, you know, really just not funny and completely controversial and caused a huge amount of backlash. He made fun of a congressional candidate, now a congressman-elect, Lieutenant Commander Dan Crenshaw from Texas, because he has an eye patch. And what I'm sure was a huge shock for people who know me, I made a poor choice last week. So then he brings out... Lieutenant Commander Dan Crenshaw, everyone. Thank you so much for coming. Thanks for making a Republican look good. And Lieutenant Commander Crenshaw joins him on stage. Pete Davidson apologizes.

I just wanted to say, for people that don't know, the reason you're wearing an eye patch right now is that you lost your eye to an IED in Afghanistan during your third combat tour. And I'm sorry. Thank you, Pete. I appreciate you saying that. So are we good? We're good. Apology accepted.

Crenshaw's cell phone starts ringing. And the ringtone is an Ariana Grande song. For those that don't know, Pete Davidson was briefly engaged to Ariana Grande. Quite briefly. And then it goes on. it takes a more serious turn, and this is the part that really sticks with you. There's a lot of lessons to learn here. Not just that the left and right can still agree on some things,

but also this, Americans can forgive one another. We can remember what brings us together as a country and still see the good in each other. This is Veterans Day weekend, which means that it's a good time for every American to connect with a veteran. Maybe say thanks for your service. But I would actually encourage you to say something else. Tell a veteran, never forget.

When you say, never forget, to a veteran, you are implying that, as an American, you are in it with them, not separated by some imaginary barrier between civilians and veterans, but connected together as grateful fellow Americans who will never forget the sacrifices made by veterans past and present, and never forget those we lost on 9-11, heroes like Pete's father. So I'll just say, Pete, never forget. Never forget. You know, the thing that was so amazing about that, that is an antidote to tribal politics right there.

And what was so great about it is that Dan Crenshaw didn't demand that Pete Davidson be fired. Pete Davidson didn't give a mealy-mouthed pseudo apology, like, I'm sorry if anyone was offended. I thought it was a great SNL bit, but it was also really meaningful. And it was about, yes, people can apologize. Apologies can be accepted. We don't have to fight each other to the death. I just thought it was a really good thing in a week where voters decided that they wanted divided government. They wanted both parties to try once again, hope springs eternal,

to work together. And the other thing is, I had no idea that Pete Davidson's father had died. Yeah, in 9-11 he was a firefighter and he rushed into the Twin Towers. I mean, it shows how much you don't necessarily know about people and how you can make judgments about people without knowing. But yeah, I think that's great when you can just, it shows you can make a mistake, you can acknowledge it fully, and you can move forward. Okay, that is it for today. We will be back in your feeds. can just it shows you can make a mistake. You can acknowledge it fully and you can move forward. OK, that is it for today. We will be back in your feeds. Oh, no doubt very soon with whatever political updates come our way. In the meantime, you can keep up with our coverage on your local

public radio station on NPR dot org and on NPR one. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. I'm Aisha Roscoe. I also cover the White House. I'm Mara Liason, national political correspondent. I'm Kelsey Snell. I cover Congress. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast. © BF-WATCH TV 2021