The NPR Politics Podcast - Weekly Roundup: Thursday, September 13

Episode Date: September 13, 2018

President Trump denied the death toll of nearly 3,000 from hurricanes Maria and Irma, which swept across Puerto Rico a year ago, in a series of tweets Thursday morning. Plus, we look at what's at stake for Democrats and Republicans heading into the November elections. This episode: Congressional correspondent Scott Detrow, national political correspondent Mara Liasson, White House correspondent Tamara Keith, political reporter Asma Khalid, and political editor Domenico Montanaro. 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

Hi, this is Sarah calling from Queens, New York, where I am up well before the sun on my way to serve as a poll worker in today's primary elections. Today's podcast was recorded at 123 on Thursday, September 13. Things may have changed by the time you listen. Okay, here's the show. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast here with our weekly roundup of this week's biggest political stories. With a dangerous hurricane headed toward the East Coast, President Trump is claiming the death toll in Puerto Rico's hurricane last year is a political attempt to undermine him. We'll talk about that. And with the midterms getting closer and closer, we'll step

back and look at what's at stake for both parties on Election Day. I'm Scott Detrow. I cover Congress. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. I'm Asma Khalid. I cover politics. And I'm Mara Liason, national political correspondent. All right. So Hurricane Florence is headed straight towards South Carolina right now. It's incredibly dangerous. And as that's happening, President Trump is revisiting last year and making some pretty surprising claims about Puerto Rico's death toll. We're going to get to that controversy and we are going to do some fact checking in a moment. But first, let's take a couple of minutes and talk about Hurricane Florence. And to do that, we're going to call up our friend Sarah McCammon, who is covering the hurricane. Hey, this is Sarah.

Hey, Sarah. Hello. Hi, Sarahah where are you so i'm uh you guys have heard of the outer banks right the islands off the coast of northeast north carolina yeah i love the other things is it raining there yet not much just sprinkling yesterday i was up in virginia beach which is about an hour ish from here and it was you know it's been sunny the last couple of days you would never guess the storm was coming but now it's like especially, and it's been sunny the last couple of days. You would never guess that a storm was coming, but now it's like, especially down here, it's gray and windy, and just kind of, there's like this muggy, wild feeling in the air, like something's coming, and it's really quiet. How dangerous is this hurricane for South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, and Georgia right now? I mean, everybody's saying it's a really, really big one. And it's shifted course a little bit. And apparently, according to the meteorologist,

and I'm not going to, I'm certainly not a meteorologist, so I'm not going to try to explain how, but the way that it shifted is kind of weird and surprising. It's been really unpredictable and hard to forecast. This is a huge storm. It's like at one point, at least, it was as big as an entire state or more. And I'm not a meteorologist, but the ones on TV are saying that it's not so much about the winds with this storm potentially, but it's about the water, more like a Hurricane Harvey where it where the rain just sort of set in the storm storm stalled. Yeah. I mean, water is always, you know, at least half of the concern, if not more, with any hurricane, whether it's from storm surge, you know, basically the ocean being kind of overwhelmed along the coast and sort of rising up, or just the rain itself. But this storm is supposed to have a lot of both, and the rain is just supposed to keep coming for days, like maybe even into early next week. It's just supposed to basically hit land and then hang out. So, Sarah, last question before we let you get back to reporting. This hurricane is coming in,

it's hitting in the coming days. What have state and federal governments been focusing on in the lead up to this hurricane? What I've heard watching both state and local officials sort of give advice is there's a lot of emphasis on personal preparation. And obviously, you know, each person having their food and their medicine and their water and everything ready to go is a really good idea and really important. At the same time, we do rely on, you know, state, local, and federal resources to pull everything together and to make a lot of these decisions about when to evacuate and where to send resources. And so people are looking certainly to the federal government to coordinate and to the local governments.

And I know this is a politics podcast, so as you know, there's a lot of politics around that. And every time there's a big storm like this, there are conversations about whether or not that's done properly. And clearly we're seeing that with the discussions about Puerto Rico. And so I think there will be a lot of eyes on these emergency officials and particularly on FEMA as this one unfolds. All right. Thanks, Sarah. And stay safe this weekend. Please.

Thanks so much. Good to talk to you guys. Bye. Bye-bye. So that was NPR's Sarah McCammon. And as all this is happening, Mara, I don't think you've had to do this for a while. So can you read the couple tweets from the president this morning that got everyone's attention? Yes, this was a new barrier broken in the annals of Trump tweets. First, he tweeted,

3,000 people did not die in the two hurricanes that hit Puerto Rico. When I left the island after the storm had hit, they had anywhere from six to 18 deaths. As time went by, it did not go up by much. Then a long time later, they started to report really big numbers like 3,000. This was done by Democrats in order to make me look as bad as possible when I was successfully raising billions of dollars to help rebuild Puerto Rico. If a person died for any reason like old age, just add them to the list. Bad politics. I love Puerto Rico. Okay, Tam. A lot to fact check there. Where did the 3,000 death count come from? Was it just done to make Donald Trump look bad?

No, of course not. But it is a relatively new number. It is the result of the government of Puerto Rico saying, hey, the tally was low and it was simply based on like the people who were killed by wind or water. And it didn't get into the sort of longer term after effects. So the governor. One of the biggest ones was was the fact that large swaths of the island went an incredibly long time without power. I mean, they didn't restore power fully until 11 months after the hurricane. That is an incredibly long time. And a lack of power can be a life-threatening thing for certain people, particularly the elderly. So what happened is the government of Puerto Rico commissioned an independent study. And what that study found is that the number of deaths reported in Puerto Rico in the six months after the hurricane were elevated by about 20 percent

over the levels in a normal year. So that's where that 3000 number comes from. It's an estimate, but it's an estimate that the governor of Puerto Rico has decided to make the official death count from the storm. I wish I'd point out this wasn't just sort of an ad hoc study. This was done by George Washington University and it was commissioned by the government of Puerto Rico. But I mean, there were there's a lot of time and resources put into completing this study. And no one is disputing the number except the president of the United States. Right. It's worth pointing out on all of this. An NPR reporter, Adrian Florido, actually moved to Puerto Rico to cover the long-term recovery from Maria,

and he's been doing a lot of reporting on this study specifically. His reporting's all on npr.org. Okay, so this, to me, got into a broader theme that we've seen since day one of the Trump presidency, but I think has really picked up over the last couple of months. And that is President Trump saying to his base in the long and short of it, if there's a fact that damages me, if there's a source of news that damages me, don't trust it. Right. And I did a story last week that that looked at this precise thing, which is how many times has the president declared something fake or phony? The range of things that he's declaring fake and the frequency of his declarations has really ramped up in the month of August. And fake in if you actually read it doesn't mean not true. It just means that he doesn't like it. They don't cover stories the way they're supposed to be.

They don't even report them in many cases if they're positive. So there's tremendous, there's tremendous, you know, I came up with the term fake news. It's a lot of fake news. And this also comes at a time when we are getting closer and closer to the midterm elections. Florida is going to be one of the hardest fought states. They have a lot of marquee races. And here he is pushing an evidence-free conspiracy theory that involves the deaths of thousands of Puerto Ricans. A certain number of them have moved to Florida and can vote. And the interesting thing to me is, although usually Republicans just kind of shrug their shoulders and run for the elevator in the Capitol when they're asked about a Trump tweet, Florida Republicans have pushed back pretty hard against this, saying

they believe the 2975 number. One Republican who was appointed by the governor to a university governing board, the guy's named Alan Levine, said, Mr. President, shut up. This is a real problem. This is an example of a problem that Trump is causing Republicans as we get closer to the elections. They want to talk about the positive message, the success stories, the fact that they're ready for Florence. The economy is good. Instead, he, because he's super undisciplined, keeps on changing the subject to something divisive, outrageous, controversial. He might think that's the way he dominates the media, and that's one of his metrics for success.

But it also completely overwhelms the message that Republicans want to send out. And the other person who's been outspoken on this that I find very intriguing is Governor Rick Scott, who is now running for a Senate seat in Florida. So I've been making actually some phone calls earlier this week about sort of Scott campaign and how he's really built up a good amount of support in the Puerto Rican community there in Florida. And people have pointed out, you know, Rick Scott is somebody who visited Puerto Rico a number of times, and how people even if they were very disheartened with how the federal government responded, in many ways thought the state of Florida did a pretty good job. And so he has a tweet out saying, I disagree with that POTUS. An independent study said thousands were lost. I've been to Puerto Rico

seven times and saw devastation firsthand. The loss of any life is tragic. The extent of lives lost as a result of Maria is heart wrenching. I'll continue to help PR. Here's an example of a Republican who has identified himself very closely with Donald Trump. Oh, exactly. It will be used against him by the Democrats in this election. But where it counted, Puerto Rican hurricane, gun control laws, he has been able to separate himself. So why are we talking about this now? We are talking about this now because someone asked President Trump, are there any lessons to be learned as this major hurricane is approaching

America? Are there any lessons to be learned from this past hurricane? This was earlier this week. This was earlier this week. And, you know, in a sort of normal scenario, normal president scenario, the president of the United States would probably say something to the effect of, well, FEMA did an after action report. They did find some deficiencies and they have acknowledged those deficiencies. We're working through them and we're going to make sure that none of these problems happen again. That is not what President Trump said. What President Trump said was in Puerto Rico, I think was tremendous. I think that Puerto Rico was an incredible unsung success. And when he did that, it sort of started

the Donald Trump cycle, which is the cycle of him saying something that is factually not true. And then people fact checking him and saying, President Trump, 3000 people died. And then he fights back and he hits back at the facts in some cases, including this case where he's hitting back at the sheer number. But does it matter? I guess. But I mean, I guess it matters in the objective sense of we all really want to believe in facts. I would like to think I wonder the truth. But does it actually matter sort of substantively in a political way? Because I don't see ways in which this has ever tainted him today. And this is not the first time he has struggled with truth.

Well, but so to get away from politics and to get to another does this matter thing, here's a case, one of numerous, where the president of the United States is out of sync with his own government, where the president is saying one thing and FEMA is doing another thing. They're going to try. They are working to avoid the mistakes of the past. And just as a reminder, we're having this conversation as another massive hurricane makes its way toward the East Coast. NPR is going to be covering that throughout the weekend, throughout the storm, and afterwards. You can follow all of our coverage from Sarah McCammon and other reporters who are stationed throughout the Southeast on NPR.org, on NPR One, and on your local public radio station.

Tam, we're going to say goodbye to you, but thanks for coming in. I'm always glad to be here. We're going to take a quick break. We're going to come back and talk about big picture what's at stake in these midterms. We'll be right back. Support for this program comes from SimpliSafe Home Security. SimpliSafe is self-installed, wireless protection for your home. The company was founded by an electrical engineer

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A very enthusiastic podcast about the economy. We're back and Domenico Montanaro is now here. Hello. Hey, Scott. How's it going? Good. How are you? I'm doing pretty well. So we have many, many, many, many, many times on this podcast talked about the midterms because that's what we do. And we're going to keep doing that. But there's a lot at stake here. And I think it's worth taking a few minutes in today's show and taking a big picture view at how much is riding on the results of this midterm for the Democratic Party, for the Republican Party. And Mara, let me just start with this question for you. If after election day,

the dust clears, whatever cliche you want to put in, and Republicans still retain control of the House, what is your first thought in terms of what this means? Well, first of all, that would be just a huge, unimaginably horrible blow to Democrats. Democrats are in such a deep hole after eight years of President Obama, where they ended up minus net 1,000 seats or more nationally. So they were in a very deep hole. If they can't get the House back, they've been totally repudiated. It means that for them, the ACA, the Affordable Care Act, probably dead. It means they can't protect DACA, the Dreamers. It means they won't be able to do oversight of Donald Trump. It's just a huge crushing blow. And there will be a big

circular firing squad in the Democratic Party if that happens. And in four words, Trump would be emboldened. Yeah. I mean, it's just, you know, you think about he has had his back against the wall this entire time. And when his back is against the wall, he lashes out. Right. I mean, nobody is spared if you're coming after Donald Trump. And if the Republicans were to retain control of both chambers, you can bet he's just going to put his foot on the gas. For sure. It's not just about Donald Trump, but the Republican Party writ large would feel emboldened to push through policies. I mean, we saw already that one of the policies that was able to get through was the tax couple.

I mean, that that's not necessarily Donald Trump's talking point that we heard loads about on the campaign trail. That's something the Republican Party has wanted to do for a long time. And that's why Democrats feel so existential about this election. Right. Because I think for me, the biggest message would be President Trump's governing style has been validated again by voters. And the Republican Party's decision to wrap themselves entirely around the persona and the personality of Donald Trump would be validated as well. So flip side of that, Democrats have a lot of policies they're talking about. They're talking about having early bills that focus on health care cost reduction, on boosting the ACA. But with a Republican in the White House and possibly Republicans maintaining control of Senate,

to me, the biggest outcome, the biggest thing at stake for Democrats taking control of the House is that they could start doing oversight of President Trump in the White House. I think oversight is a big, big part of what will happen. But I mean, if they take out, if they take that, if Democrats take back the House, oversight is a big part of what will happen. But I think everything grinds to a halt and is what you wind up seeing. And you know what? Like a lot of people will say that that's how the system was set up, that people want checks and balances. But in this new culture we're in, I'm not sure there are enough people willing to compromise, willing to work together to make the legislative body actually work. You'll see the gears grind to an absolute halt, most likely, unless President Trump decides that he's going to cry

uncle a little bit and wind up compromising. But, Morrow, what does the oversight part of it mean to you? Like, what do you think that means in terms of what Democrats focus on and ask about? Right. If we're talking about what happens if the Democrats take the House back, I agree. Legislation grinds to a halt. Oversight begins. I think that not only will there be a big investigation into all of the things that Bob Mueller is looking into, and at some point we're going to get a report from him, but there are going to be a lot of other investigations. There's going to be an investigation of whether Donald Trump's family and Donald Trump himself has been making money off the presidency. We're going to talk about his tax returns. There are going to be dozens and dozens of investigations. That is what subpoena power means when you're in the majority. So for the White House, life will change immediately. Every single person in the White House is talking to a lot of top House Democrats about what oversight actually means.

And several of them, the first thing that they mentioned wasn't Mueller. It was actually we want to take a look at the Trump administration undermining the Affordable Care Act, undermining laws that were put in place, whether it's not advertising for Obamacare markets or several other things they've done. And I thought that was interesting because they tied it back to something that they see as one of the top policy concerns of voters. The purpose of the House leadership is going to be to use these investigations. And as I said, there will be dozens of them to send a message. In other words, all of these investigations are going to be laying the groundwork for the 2020 presidential elections. And if they think health care is a top issue, well, of course, they're going to want investigations talking about how Donald Trump tried to minimize or deny you health care. The other thing that I think will

happen immediately is there's going to be a wrenching debate inside the Democratic Party about whether or not Donald Trump should be impeached. Should they move to impeachment soon, or should they merely let all of these investigations play out step by step over the next two years before the presidential election and lay the groundwork for why Donald Trump is running a corrupt administration or why he's unfit for office? But there is tremendous pressure from the left-wing base of the Democratic Party to impeach this guy immediately. I don't know how many Democratic activists understand that impeachment is not removal because Donald Trump will not be removed from office. That takes 67 votes in the Senate. But that will become a huge debate inside the Democratic Party. So I guess kind of get a glimpse, I think, into how large of a fight that will be within the Democratic Party, depending on how many progressives end up winning seats.

And I do think, you know, you are seeing this very existential questions amongst the Democratic Party and questions that they don't necessarily want to be having two years before a presidential election where they need to unite their party. Yeah, but also it's a it's a tactical matter. What what makes more sense politically to investigate the guy thoroughly as the party that's the check and balance is supposed to do and let the voters decide or to rush to this conclusion? To me, for many Democrats, they will say impeachment is the left-wing version of lock her up. It's the result of something. It shouldn't be the first thing you start with. And the fact is, you know, polling on impeachment doesn't show a very good potential sign for Democrats. I mean, the fact is more people would have been saying

that they would vote for somebody who would not impeach rather than somebody who would impeach. And that's a big potential problem for the Democratic base and for the kind of more moderate candidates or establishment candidates who are Democrats who would rather have sort of a long drawn out investigation process. Let's let's shift our hypothetical lens a little bit. We were talking about if Democrats do take back control of the House. What are Republicans asking themselves the next day if that does happen? What are they thinking about? What does this mean for the Republican Party? Well, the Republican agenda is over if the Democrats take back the House.

I mean, to Domenico's point, though, policy would sort of grind to a halt. But I would make the argument that a lot of Democratic voters, they don't mind at all. Like you go out and you talk to Democratic voters, they don't mind at all. Like you go out and you talk to Democratic voters. Some of them are livid. They are so angry about Donald Trump's election. I was just on the phone doing some pre-interviews with some people involved in this local indivisible group in the suburbs of Detroit. I mean, these are people who are rallying to get local Democratic officials elected. You're not just talking about congressional seats. You're talking about state elected officials, gubernatorial seats. They want massive, massive change. And so

I would argue a lot of Democratic voters would be thrilled if things ground to a halt because they've been so unhappy with the situation. When you talk to voters, is there a clear theme of what they see this election as about or things that you just keep hearing over and over again? I mean, on the Democratic side, it's really hard to ignore that this race is about Donald Trump singularly, I would say, on the Democratic side. And that's not at all to diminish, you know, the candidates who are running, who I think have really different both sort of like personalities as well as policies in many cases. And they're really individualistic depending on where you live geographically in the country. But time and again, you just hear Donald Trump's

name mentioned all the time. I mean, I look at, you know, Ayanna Pressley, who just won a congressional seat in Massachusetts. In her victory speech, she's talking about Donald Trump. I mean, this is not unusual. You just hear Democrats constantly going back to him. And yet candidates on the campaign trail very rarely bring him up as their top priority. They're more likely to be talking about health care, wage discrepancy, for example. And what Democratic strategists have told me behind the scenes is that that's purposeful because they know that Donald Trump will fire up liberals anyway. I just came back from an event that Ben Ray Lujan did with reporters. He's running the campaign for House Democrats. And somebody asked him again about the fact that so many of the candidates try to avoid talking about him.

His argument was our strategic viewpoint is that Donald Trump talks about himself. We don't need to spend time talking about him when we can talk about other things because he's going to insert himself in the voters' brains. And when we talk about issues, the other thing that I should mention that has come up time and time again is health care. I cannot tell you the frequency with which that has come up. I don't know that voters have a clear idea of what they want as a solution, but I have met many people who do not have health care and many people for whom they feel outrageous fees.

Well, they want to pay less and they don't want to have pre-existing conditions be a ban on health coverage. That's for sure. Well, I think that gets to one of the biggest unknowns here. If Republicans do maintain control of Congress, well, we can likely see another push to repeal Obamacare, which they famously did not get done in this session of Congress. But what happens next if it's split government? Because then we get back to that initial question of the Trump presidency. Could he cut a deal with Democrats? Time and time again, we have seen him give no inclination that he has any interest in doing anything but be a base Republican.

Except for when he went to the arms of Chuck and Nancy. But that lasted like, yeah, 48 hours. But the stakes for Donald Trump are also very high, and they could cut both ways. When you talk to people in the White House, what happens if the House goes Democratic? What does it mean for Trump? Some of them will say, well, look what happened to Barack Obama. He lost Congress and he cruised to re-election. Donald Trump will get another foil, which he lives for. He likes to have a foil and a punching bag, and the House Democrats will automatically be his number one enemy. And they think it could work for him. But what it really means is that he loses control and

he's faced with the kind of question, the big strategic question that Scott just asked is, should he triangulate the way presidents in the distant past used to do when faced with an opposition Congress? Like way back in 2006. Well, or way back in, yeah, Obama tried. It didn't really work out, or the way Clinton did. Or does he just double down on the strategy that he's used up until now, which is it's all about the base? That's what he's been focused on. He's never tried to persuade. He's just tried to energal the Affordable Care Act. and that didn't get through.

Yeah, I think the tax cuts are by and large the biggest legislative accomplishment. Two Supreme Court justices likely is certainly a major thing that could impact the country for decades. But after that, it's really just a lot of executive action repealing regulations. And he could continue to do that. Judges is still huge. I mean, let's not minimize that. If Republicans keep control of the Senate, as they are projected to do, but we don't know, they still will be able to confirm judges. And that is the single most important way that Donald Trump is having an impact on American life, a generations long impact. All right. Just some of what's at stake in the midterms. We're going to take a quick break and come back with Cat Let It Go. while you shop. To get started, go to rocketmortgage.com slash NPR politics. RateShield

approval only valid on certain 30-year purchase transactions. Additional conditions or exclusions may apply. Based on Quicken Loans data in comparison to public data records, equal housing lender, licensed in all 50 states. NMLSconsumeraccess.org number 3030. Support also comes from SaneBox, an artificial intelligence assistant for your email. It prioritizes what's important, removes junk, organizes newsletters, and automates tedious tasks. SaneBox works anywhere you check your email free inbox cleanup, a two-week trial of its AI features, and a $25 credit if you decide to stay. you compose. There is something comforting to me about that. You can find the TED Radio Hour wherever you listen to podcasts. And we're back. It is time to end the show like we do every week with Can't Let It Go, where we talk about the one thing we can't let go of, politics or otherwise. And Domenico, I think you should go first because I think this might be something that you and I

have already spent a lot of time discussing in the newsroom this week. I'm excited. You know, OK, there hasn't been this kind of New York centric Internet outrage since Donald Trump and Sarah Palin ate pizza with a fork. But let's get right to it here. Cynthia Nixon, who's running for governor of New York in the runup to Thursday's primary, she ordered something at a deli. Let's listen to that. I'm going to give you cinnamon raisin as well. Yeah, but it's cinnamon raisin.

Yeah, sweet and salty. So you can hear her say cinnamon raisin. And then I heard capers. Capers and lox and cream cheese. That doesn't sound good. There must have been a pause with the bagel guy because she said yes, sweet and salty. The internet went bonkers

over this because it is not a typical order, would I say, in New York to order cinnamon raisin with lox and capers. It's a sacrilege, actually. Here's the thing. I feel like anytime you're a politician and you're doing the food thing, the world is

poised and ready to tear down whatever you did, like John Kerry screwing up the cheesesteak order in Philadelphia, trying to get Swiss cheese on it once. Again, Swiss cheese on a cheesesteak. Just get the provolone. That's what they give you. But that's where you should play the safe option. You got to play it safe. You got to know that we're all ready to pounce.

Mara, you are looking at me. Just wrong, wrong, wrong. Wait, what? I'm just saying cinnamon raisin plus capers and lox, gross. However, the political ramifications of screwing up an ethnic food order used to be very, very big. I don't know if they still are. But I've seen people mess up the fish fry many, many times. You're supposed to take a piece of fried fish from Jim Clyburn's fish fries and stick it in a piece of Wonder Bread and hold it and then eat it without a plate, which I've seen Barack Obama do correctly. I wouldn't do it. I think it's gross. But at the same time, I buy her don't

yuck on my yum. Right. If she likes it, I mean, I don't know. Like, fine. That's her thing. All right. We can't talk about this for the rest of the show as much as I would like to. Mara, what can you not let go? I can't let go. talked in the past about wanting to the State Department to, quote, get its swagger back, feels that its swagger was squelched, perhaps by Donald Trump's repeated disparagement of the deep state and diplomats. But the reaction to the Department of Swagger was a huge Twitter groan, kind of like as if somebody, a politician put on dad jeans. Basically, it was put into the Department of trying too hard. However, one of the things that I like best about this episode was that Merriam-Webster, the dictionary, which has

been a real player this year in politics, trolling Donald Trump often. I think they're the ones who've been trying too hard. Yes. I just want to close by reading the definition of swagger from the dictionary. Quote, to conduct oneself in an arrogant or superciliously pompous manner, especially to walk with an air of overbearing self-confidence. I kind of disagree with that definition because I think that swagger. It's from the dictionary. I do disagree with the dictionary. The dictionary is created by people.

I mean, like swagger in pop culture is taking on a positive connotation. You might hear someone say, I like your swagger. Like, it doesn't mean, like, oh, you're super silliously pompous. But I don't think of the State Department in pop culture. No. All right, Asma. All right, well, mine, can't let it go, is not nearly as funny. But I've been, like, strangely obsessed with it.

So let's put it in that category. So the New York Times has started something called live polling. Actually, Domenico, we were on a chat. Actually, were you on this, Scott, too? I was, and I was going to respond until I realized that everyone disagreed with me. Uh-oh. I can't wait to hear the hot take. Okay, so basically what they're doing is I would argue they're trying to kind of lift

the veil of how polling works. I think there have been a lot of questions, particularly this political cycle about why do we poll, how accurate are polls, what exactly are polls? And so what they're doing is they have these live polls that show you how many calls they are making. And they're actually updated in real time. So, for example, I'm on their site right now. And they can show you that in the Wisconsin First District, they have,

which is Paul Ryan's congressional district, they have made 21,552 calls to get 422 people to actually answer the poll. They could have just written that and said that that's what happened. Here's what I like. I liked this for a couple reasons and I know that a lot of you guys didn't like it. I liked this for a couple reasons and I know that a lot of you

guys didn't like it. I kind of liked it. When you're on the site at night when they're doing the live calling they have a graphic in real time and you can see them. It shakes when they're calling the person and then when they don't answer it goes, oh, did not pick up and it moves down and it's like an assembly line of calls and it's kind of

mesmerizing to watch them call hundreds of people and have nobody pick up the phone. But mostly it's transparent. How can that be bad? I think that's... I'm with you. Alright, I will go last. I guess I have a late break and can't let it go in that I just realized that my pen has been leaking all over my hand throughout this entire taping so my hand is covered with green ink.

So I'm going to bring this back to Monday and I saw on Twitter that Ben Folds had a new song that came out. So I clicked on it. I was listening to it. Hey, who's Ben Folds? Oh, man.

I have to ask that question because there might be listeners. He's not even new. He's been around for a long time. Yeah, but there might be listeners who don't know who Ben Folds is. Okay. I'm representing them in this podcast. I would say he's like an indie rock guy. He's been around for a couple decades.

I had a phase earlier in my life where I liked listening to music. I still like his music. And I was like, okay, this sounds like a very classic, traditional Ben Folds type song. And as I'm listening to it, I realized that the song is about Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. House Intelligence Committee piles on. They'd love to know what Rosenstein has on the balls. But it's just for cameras, yeah, it's just a show for us. We all know he can't comply, but that's the point, of course.

I love Ben Folds, but everything sounds the same. It sounds the same. It sounds like he was just like, so wait, explain what this is about. The Washington Post did a special issue of its magazine and asked him to just like write a song and they'd record him throughout the process. To me, the biggest takeaway is that it reminds people that Donald Trump reportedly referred to Rod Rosenstein as Mr. Peepers. So two pantologos. One, it's just like bizarre and weird that he's making songs about Rod Rosenstein. Two, it seems like he was just kind of like,

all right, let me just get the generic blueprint for all of my songs and plug in current politics. They say it dies in the dark right now They're trying to kill

The improv daylight Can flashlights really Fight bombs We'll see Right now All right, that is it for this week. We'll be back in your feed

anytime there's news. And we will, starting this weekend, be in your radios, too. The podcast is now a radio show. We have a secret alter ego on the radio, though. We are not the NPR Politics Podcast. We are the Politics Show from NPR.

So I don't know if that's our superhero name and the podcast is our secret identity or the other way around. Either way, go to your local public radio station and look for the Politics Show from NPR. We'll be on this weekend, and we'll be back in your podcast feed next time there's news. round. Either way, go to your local public radio station and look for The Politics Show from NPR. We'll be on this weekend, and we'll be back in your podcast feed next time there's news. I'm Scott Detrow. I cover Congress. I'm Domenico Montanaro, political editor. I'm Asma Khalid, political reporter. And I'm Mara Liason, national us all.