The NPR Politics Podcast - Weekly Roundup: Thursday, September 14

Episode Date: September 15, 2017

President Trump and Democratic leaders Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi say they have agreed to work out a deal to protect DREAMers. House Speaker Paul Ryan says a tax outline will be out soon and Sen. Bernie Sanders pushes for Medicare for all. This episode: Host/White House correspondent Tamara Keith, White House correspondent Scott Horsley, Congressional reporter Scott Detrow 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

Support for NPR and the following message come from million Americans speak Spanish and millions more are learning. For all of you, we'd like to recommend NPR's Radio Ambulante. It's the podcast to hear incredible stories from all over Latin America and across the U.S. Hosted by novelist Daniel Alarcon, Radio Ambulante covers the region like no one else. Reporting and storytelling en espanol, Radio Ambulante is in NPR One or wherever you listen to your podcasts. This is Bryce calling from Shanghai, China.

This podcast was recorded at 1.21 p.m. on Thursday, the 14th of September. 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. It's the NPR Politics Podcast here with our roundup of this week's political news. Deal or no deal? President Trump had dinner last night with the top two congressional Democrats, and now they're all talking about passing a DREAM Act. House Speaker Paul Ryan says Republicans in Congress will release an outline of tax legislation in the next two weeks.

Plus, Bernie Sanders is out with a Medicare for All bill and, of course, can't let it go. I mean, we're going to talk about what we can't let go. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House for NPR. I'm Scott Detrow. I cover Congress. I'm Scott Horsley. I also cover the White House. And I'm Domenico Montanaro, political editor. So last night, Chuck and Nancy went over to the White House for dinner. They had Chinese food.

In honor of Bryce? Yeah, in honor of our time stamp coming from China. Can I say something about Chuck Schumer and Chinese food? You may. Chuck Schumer had a really hard beginning of 2017, and I did as well, because Chuck Schumer's favorite Chinese food restaurant on Capitol Hill, which is also my favorite Chinese food restaurant, Hunan Dynasty, had burned down. It was a problem.

He didn't have a replacement Chinese food place. He eats a lot of Chinese food. It has since reopened a few weeks ago. And I think that might be the reason more than anything else that suddenly Chuck Schumer is so active and engaged. Oh. Wow. Chuck Schumer is so active and engaged. Oh, wow. And apparently that Chinese food was good or worked or something because they seem to have agreed to the rough outlines of a plan to allow so-called dreamers. Very rough.

It's very rough. Indeed. These are people brought to the country illegally as children. They seem to have the rough outlines of an agreement that would allow them to stay and work in the United States without fear of deportation. There are still a lot of details to be worked out clearly. But here's what President Trump said earlier today, shortly after landing in Florida to survey storm damage. We're working with everybody, Republican. We're working with Democrat. I just spoke with Paul Ryan. He's on board. Everybody's on board. They want to do something. We're not talking about amnesty. We're talking

about taking care of people, people that were brought here, people that have done a good job and were not brought here of their own volition. He's on board. That stands out for me. Yeah. Ryan. Yeah. Everybody's on board. We will get to whether they are all actually on board or not in a second. But Scott do this chronologically or should we do this as where things stand right now? Because that's two different, totally different paths on what happened. I guess a telescope chronology would be great. I'm here for that. Okay, so as we know, Schumer, Pelosi, and Trump all had dinner last night. It was 11 people total having dinner. They had Chinese food. Around

nine o'clock or so last night, Pelosi and Schumer send out a joint statement. And this is the part that everybody paid attention to. We agreed to enshrine the protections of DACA into law quickly and to work out a package of border security excluding the wall that's acceptable to both sides. Now, that certainly caught everybody's attention because yet again, Donald Trump was dealing with Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi without any input from the key Republicans in the equation, Mitch McConnell, the Senate Majority Leader and House Speaker Paul Ryan. Can I interject with a Donald Trump tweet? Yes. No deal was made last night on DACA.

Massive border security would have to be agreed to in exchange for consent. Would be subject to a vote. That sounds different. So that sounds different. But then the Democrats came back and now we're into this morning and they're saying, here's another statement. President Trump's tweets are not inconsistent with the agreement reached last night. As we said last night, there was no final deal. There was agreement on the following.

We agreed that the president would support enshrining DACA protections into law. And DACA, just to be clear, is the protection for DREAMers. Yes. So they go on. What remains to be negotiated are the details of border security with a mutual goal of finding all details as soon as possible. Both sides agreed the wall would not be part of this agreement. And as they pointed out, President Trump tweeted his support this morning for keeping DACA

protectees in the country, figuring out how to do this. And then when he spoke to reporters as Marine One's helicopter blades were whirring, he basically said the same thing. They all have decided this is what they want to do. They just need to figure out what sort of border enforcement would go along with it. The wall will come later. We're right now renovating large sections of wall, massive sections, making it brand new. We're doing a lot of renovation. We're building four different samples of the wall to see which one we're going to choose. And the wall is going to be built. It'll be funded a little bit later. Last key detail in all of this, while Trump told reporters at that moment that he had talked to Ryan and McConnell and they were on

board, he didn't talk to Paul Ryan about this until after he got on Air Force One and began flying to Florida. So Trump is making big, broad, I guess you could call them agreements, but he and Pelosi and Schumer decide they're all on the same page in terms of the end goal. And then and only then does he get on the phone and talk to the Speaker of the House. Yeah. And it's clear that, you know, Paul Ryan is not exactly, quote, on board at this point. I mean, a DREAM Act kind of bill could pass probably if it were almost all Democrats and a minority of Republicans, but that is not what a speaker wants to do because look at

what happened to John Boehner. And if Paul Ryan doesn't want to bring it to the floor, he doesn't have to bring it to the floor. Let's remember back in 2013, the comprehensive immigration bill probably had the votes to pass in the House, but John Boehner refused to bring it to the floor. He's in charge of that agenda. Paul Ryan has a say in all of this. He certainly does. I think that that's what he's trying to do here is make sure that President Trump hears the message that he still has to deal with him. The other piece of this I think is really interesting is when Trump talks about the wall, there are indications that he's not going to do the entire border. He said that himself, that there are places where maybe fences would

be OK or maybe where there are natural barriers now that are just too steep or rivers that are too wide that you wouldn't have to go and do that. And I think that there are several things that are really not clear. One, is this the dream act that Democrats have proposed, which includes a path to citizenship for these undocumented immigrants? Well, it's not clear that President Trump is on board with that. He says, no amnesty, no amnesty. His spokesperson, though, said that there might be a path to legalization and citizenship. So it's it's legalization and citizenship are different things, right? Because during the immigration debate in 2013, you know, Republicans in the House seem to be on board with a path to legal status,

but not citizenship, which is what the Senate approved. Which Democrats would say is just a path to second class status. And then the other thing that isn't clear coming out of this is what does border security mean? the second week in a row that President Trump has really undercut the House Republican caucus, who are his strongest allies in Washington, D.C. The vast majority of Republicans represent districts where Trump is very popular, and they're usually on board with him. But last week, when he decided to extend to a three-month extension on government funding and the debt ceiling without including Republican leaders, House Republicans were really

angry. There was a really tense closed-door meeting with Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin. So then today, they get to work this morning to see that this broad framework of a compromise has been reached with Democratic leaders. So I spent about 45 minutes in the hall outside the House talking to House Republicans. And there were a couple of interesting conversations. If we want to hear just a little bit of both of them. Yeah, let's do it. So Lou Barletta is a Pennsylvania Republican who I think is a good person to see how he deals with this, because on one hand, he, like many House Republicans, is a real hardliner. He's a total hardliner on immigration. He has a political career at immigration hardline. Yeah, he made his name politically by cracking down on immigrants living in the city of Hazleton illegally when he was mayor.

But he's also running for Senate next year, clearly strategically running as a Trump ally, as a key Trump ally who's close to the president and agrees with the president. So it was interesting to hear him defend President Trump's decision to reach out to Democrats. He's kept his promises on a campaign trail. I have no reason to doubt that he's not going to. I do understand that he's very frustrated in how things are not getting done. And, you know, hence he's, you know, talking with the Democrats. But what's he supposed to do if he can't get anything done here? He didn't come here to do nothing. He came here to keep his promises. He's a businessman. And that's what he's going to do. I'm going to say this. We're going to get a better deal if the Republicans can pull it together. So that's how most House Republicans were saying, yeah, we support the president.

Seems like he's he's thought this through. But I think he sounded sort of bewildered, though. Yeah, I think they would talk a lot differently if I didn't have a microphone, to be honest. Yes, but you did have a microphone. And for that, we are grateful because you also have a clip from somebody else. Yes, somebody else with an even more hardline opinion. And that is Steve King from Iowa, who is probably the most high profile House Republican when it comes to having. What's the best way to phrase? He is. He has zero sympathy for dreamers. Yeah. And he he thinks that they should all be deported from the country. Many Republicans will say, look, we have sympathy for these people. He does not. So he was clearly upset about this. He said a couple interesting things. One, he said he thought it would be much harder to stop this bill from becoming law than it was the big attempt to do immigration reform in 2013, because he said the fact is the president's Republican and Republicans aren't going to want to oppose him. But he had a warning. He thought that that

strong base of support for President Trump, the 35 percent or so who have never wavered from the president, he thought this could be the issue that cracks that base. But I know the people that are strong Trump supporters that were on his bandwagon early on, they came on board because build a wall, enforce the border, enforce immigration law, no amnesty ever. And if they see amnesty coming out of the White House, then that's the one thing that will crack his base. They are loyal Trump supporters. But the most important plank in that platform is the rule of law. And if that's blown up here in these negotiations, whether it's his intent or not, then they're not going to have

a leg to stand on when they press others to defend our president. Now, we should say that amnesty is not a technical term, but it is a term that he is using here with purpose. Well, it's become a term of political art, let's be honest. I mean, you know, there's no definition to amnesty. Amnesty is a path to citizenship that they have to go through enough hoops and hurdles, you know, that that's not, you know, free, that they actually have to earn it, then they might he might he might try somehow to convince them that that's not amnesty. OK, I have one more question. What's up with Mitch McConnell and and and and Paul Ryan, too?

Like, what's up with the leadership of the Republican Party here? Well, what's up is that they do not seem to be super relevant in these negotiations all of a sudden. And that's just so striking because think about this. Before that meeting with all of the congressional leaders last week that got the government funding deal, the surprise deal, Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer had not met with Donald Trump in the White House since February, since the first month of the Trump administration. And they were the obstructionists. Right. Yeah. Now, suddenly, Trump is dealing with them. Ryan spoke to reporters this afternoon in his weekly Thursday press conference. He said this was a conversation. This was big, broad pictures,

but this was not a negotiation. Republicans will be involved in negotiations. But at the end of all that, he confirmed that something is going to get done, he said, and it will be the basic trade of some sort of protection for DACA recipients and some sort of increase in border security, which is, of course, the exact agreement that Trump and the Democrats announced. Here's the difference, though, between the DACA fix, if it happens, and the debt ceiling extension. The responsible parties in Washington all knew that the debt ceiling had to be increased and that the Republicans didn't have the votes to do it on their own.

So Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer did have leverage there. That was a true must-pass piece of legislation, and they could dictate terms. Paul Ryan can sit on his hands with the end of DACA and let that expire. It would be disastrous for the 800,000 or so dreamers, but it would not send the country and the world economy into a tailspin the way a potential debt default would. So it's not truly must-pass legislation, and Nancy Pelosi's and Chuck Schumer's leverage is considerably reduced. All right. Let's move on to something else, which is taxes. House Speaker Paul Ryan said on Wednesday that the tax writing committees, both the House and the Senate, will release an outline of their tax plan sometime in the week

of September 25th. Happy birthday to me. So within the next two weeks or so. Two weeks. It's the beginning of a very important process to achieve for the first time in a generation, overhauling our tax system and giving middle class families a much deserved break. And so this is really the consensus of the tax writers themselves, so that we're working on the same page. The whole point of all of this is the House, the Senate, and the White House are starting from the same page and the same outline, and then the tax writers are going to take it from there on the details. And President Trump has given some hint as to what he wants this to look like.

The rich will not be gaining at all with this plan. We're looking for the middle class, and we're looking for jobs, jobs meaning companies. So we're looking for the middle class and we're looking at jobs. I was watching Scott Horsley just kind of flinch a little bit when Paul Ryan said, take it from there on the details, because Scott's like, what do you mean? That's the whole thing, the details. I want the policy. Well, and when it comes to tax policy, it's all about the details. That's where it all falls apart. All right, Scott Horsley, you've been following this. It's going to be interesting to see how those details match up with the marketing pitch. That's really what we heard from the

president right there, that this is all about the middle class. It's all about jobs. We'll see when the plan actually comes out, is this about the middle class or is it about tax cuts for the wealthy? When the president floated a tax plan during the campaign, independent analysts said most of the savings would have gone to those at the top of the income ladder. So the details matter here. What do we know? We know the president is still talking about lowering the corporate tax rate as low as 15%. Again, this week, last week, he keeps saying it, 15%, 15%. He sticks to that figure. His own Treasury Secretary has suggested that that's probably too aggressive, but it remains the White House target. We had an independent analysis this week

from the Tax Policy Center, a nonpartisan group, that said, look, let's just, as a thought experiment, if you took away all the loopholes in the corporate tax code and all that extra money came into the government, how low would that let you push the corporate tax rate? And the lowest they could get it was down to 26%, well below the 35% statutory rate today, but a long way from the 15% target that the president set. But like you could then just cut taxes and have less revenue. Exactly.

So what that means is if you go below 26%, you're going to basically put it on the government credit card. You're going to go deeper in debt. Put that soundbite, the rich will not be gaining in the back of your head. And, you know, it's going to come back up

when the policy details finally do come out. By the way, one other point, I don't know if Scott can fact check me on this. You know, a lot of people think they're paying a lot in taxes now. And no one likes to pay a lot in taxes. But aren't taxes the lowest since like the late 1970s? Probably not the lowest, but they're on the low, because remember, we've come up a little bit in recent years. But as a share of the overall economy, federal taxes are still relatively low. And as a share of, if you look at our competitors around the world, the U.S. is not a high-tax nation. Compared to other developed countries, if you throw in all the federal taxes,

all the state taxes, all the local taxes, we're in the lower half of the distribution. The Americans are not overtaxed relative to other developed countries. But, you know, again, this is a subjective thing. Are you overtaxed? Do you feel overtaxed? Yeah. And that 35 percent number, it sounds like a big number, but there are a lot of corporations that simply don't pay that. There are a lot of loopholes and write downs and all of these other things that make it so that some corporations really pay virtually no federal tax or very little. Well, I think we have covered this tax thing for now. There will certainly be more to talk about when we get those details that Scott Horsley is looking for.

When we come back, Bernie Sanders has a Medicare for all plan and it has more co-sponsors than before, and also can't let it go. We are back, and Senator Bernie Sanders this week introduced his Medicare for All bill. So gay, we begin the long and difficult struggle to end the international disgrace of the United States, our great nation, being the only major country on earth not to guarantee healthcare to all of our people. As proud Americans, our job is to lead the world on healthcare, not to be woefully behind every other major country. Scott Detrow, you were there. There were also 16 Democratic co-sponsor senators, right? Yes. And let me start off this conversation by making a confession.

There are a few things that are bigger traps as a broadcast reporter than mixing up Medicaid and Medicare. We've all done it. It's a grievous error. It happens. We have just ended Obamacare repeal conversation where the big issue was cutting funding to Medicaid. And I accidentally said Medicare a couple times. But now it's all about Medicare. And I had to put a giant sign in front of me yesterday

during my segment on all things considered saying Medicare. And Medicare is just so that we are all clear that is the health care program for older Americans, 65 and older. Unless Bernie Sanders gets his way, because he would like to, over the next four years, slowly lower that limit so that in the end, every single American is taking part in Medicare. And not only that, not paying any out-of-pocket expenses. You go to the doctor, you have a procedure, you don't pay anything. No copay. No copay. Of course, sounds great to a lot of people. Also sounds incredibly expensive. And the big thing that was missing from this rollout was how exactly to pay for it. Now, afterwards, Sanders' office put out a white paper that basically came down to offering lots of different tax increase options, raising taxes on this group, raising taxes on that group. Here's the thing that's interesting about all of this.

This is clearly not going to become law. This is not even going to get a Senate vote because Republicans control the Senate, and they're just not going to bring this up. Well, and even Bernie, in his soundbite there, he says, a long and difficult struggle. Yeah. But what Bernie Sanders has done here is polled the Democratic Party, which he still remains not a member of, even more to the left on the progressive scale of how they talk about health care, what their ideal health care system is. Just as a point of comparison, he introduced a similar bill in 2013, and he did not get a single co-sponsor. No Democrat wanted to co-sponsor the bill. This time around, like you mentioned,

16 Democrats co-sponsored. Not only that, but basically every single Democrat who's thinking about running for president in three years, who's talked about running as a presidential candidate, co-sponsored this bill and made sure to stand in the shot with Bernie Sanders and talk about it. So he was standing there with Kamala Harris of California, with Cory Booker of New Jersey, with Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, and with Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts. And Warren put it in an interesting way when it was her turn to speak. We will not back down in our protection of the Affordable Care Act. We will defend it at every turn.

But we will go further. We will go further. We will go further. And we will say that in this country, everyone, everyone gets a right to basic health care. Before we get any further into this conversation, I want to bring in a question that we got from one of our listeners, because there there is some terminology here. This comes from Jeanette in Carrboro, North Carolina. She writes, many Democrats have joined Bernie Sanders in their support of his single payer health care bill. Is there a difference between the terms single payer versus Medicare for all versus the public option? And can these terms be used interchangeably?

And while we are defining things, Tam here would also like to add universal coverage. I think Scott Horsley is probably the best person to do the thing by thing explanation. But what I would say broadly before I turn it over to Scott, who I've just volunteered for this without asking him. He will take this. I think what you're seeing is not just this bill. You're seeing a whole raft of different proposals from different Democrats right now that all end up, whether they do it one way or another, they end up moving toward the system of, you know, true universal coverage is the way they put it. Some sort of monolithic

insurance apparatus that guarantees health coverage for all Americans in a way that the current Obamacare system of mandates to private insurance companies does not fully do. Okay, Scott Horsley, lightning round, universal coverage. It means everybody's got health care. You could achieve it in a lot of different ways. Single payer. Single payer is one entity pays all the medical bills for everyone, presumably the government. Medicare for all. That's kind of a friendly branding of single payer to take advantage of the fact that people

like Medicare. So that's a less scary way of talking about single payer. Public option. This is a holdover from the Obamacare debate. Obamacare set up these marketplaces where people could buy their insurance from a variety of suppliers, most of them private. The suggestion was there should be another option on that menu, a government option. It was rejected, but the idea has resurfaced as some people have had, as some parts of the country have wound up not having private insurers willing to play. And one problem with public option for conservatives was that they felt that that was going to be a Trojan horse, that because it would be able to be lower cost and lower premiums in a lot of places,

then the government option would suddenly look more attractive, insurers would drop out of the marketplace, and that would be the real path for the government takeover. It's kind of an interesting argument. Wow, the public option might work so well, it put all those insurance competitors out of business and lowered cost and improved service for everyone. Well, and maybe eventually cost more money. I don't know. The question I have is, for a long time, the idea of Medicare for all or single payer was seen as too lefty. I mean, it's like a socialist takeover of your medical system. And now you have all these people who think they can be president of the United States signing on. And I think that's certainly a risk. But I have heard I have heard a counter argument

from a lot of Democrats on the Hill this week. So first of all, certainly this is increasingly popular with the Democratic base polls show a movement in that direction. But when it comes to a general election, broader group of voters, I think there is not only some skepticism, but also a real opportunity to define this in a way that it would be very unpopular. The government taking over your health care, increases in taxes, things like that. But here's the counter argument. Democrats are saying, listen, Obamacare, we viewed as a compromise.

We took a lot of Republican ideas. We kept the private insurance market as the foundation of that. And they hit us for trying to socialize medicine anyway. So we might as well just, they've already used that argument. It's against us. So we might as well just push for the bigger thing if they're going to accuse us of that anyway. So we might as well just, they've already used that argument, it's against us. So we might as well just push for the bigger thing if they're going to accuse us of that anyway. And

I thought that was interesting. If we're getting dinged for the government takeover, we might as well get the cost efficiencies of the government takeover. Right. Yeah. Yeah. So I have another theory, which is, as I was reading Hillary Clinton's book this past couple of weeks, she talked about how Bernie Sanders wanted free college and and Medicare for all and Donald Trump was going to build the wall. And maybe none of those plans were particularly practical. Maybe they didn't have like all the payfors and everything figured out. But those things sent a signal that said, you know, I am concerned about these things that you were concerned about. I want to fix it. And maybe Democrats now are just going for we're going to send a signal.

We care about health care. And it's not disingenuous to frame the issue in a big way and then try and fight for as much of that as you can get. But that is the fundamental divide when it comes to what the primary is going to be fought over in 2020. Richard Blumenthal, all I could think of, and I want everyone to take out your phones or toggle over to Twitter and start this hashtag because it's going to be started by somebody else, hashtag BerniePrimary, okay? Because that's what is going to be going on. Because there was also this big poster that was making its way around Twitter. It looked like one of those stamp collection things where, you know, you have to put the quarter with each state. And it had all of the Democrats faces who were supportive of this.

And then one giant Bernie Sanders picture, Medicare for all. But isn't Bernie part of the Bernie primary? Isn't Bernie probably running for president? They're all running to be the heir apparent to Bernie Sanders left, including Bernie Sanders. Well, I don't know if he's I mean, maybe he'll run. Maybe he won't. But if these folks can show that they are really the inheritors of the Bernie Sanders populist mantle and he feels he's too old to run or doesn't want to run, then he can grant that to the next person. And whether or not he's running, he's certainly going all over the country this year. He went to a lot of different states during the Obamacare repeal debate and rallied really hard in support of the Affordable Care Act.

He has visited Iowa, among other things. So he's certainly been continuing to build himself out as a national leader of a party that, despite doing all that, he still won't join. Can I just say, I think Domenico just put stamp collectors and coin collectors in the same group, which is like putting Star Trek fans and Star Wars fans in the same group. And it's not okay. Not okay. But I think as astute as all of this is about the politics and the challenges in which socialized medicine is perceived as giving goodies to somebody else. Just to inject a little bit of economic reality, let's remember the United States pays more for health care than any other country in the world and gets less for it. And let's also remember that when we talk about single payer,

if you consider the government subsidy for employer-provided insurance plus Medicare plus Medicaid, the federal government is already paying two-thirds of the total health care bill in this country. So we are two-thirds of the way to our single-payer system already. But this was not the only health care bill introduced this week in the Senate. There was another one. This is from Republican Senators Lindsey Graham and Bill Cassidy. And who wants to talk about that? I'll talk about it briefly. This is the last effort, the last gasp by the Republican Congress to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act.

And it's perhaps the most dramatic. It would end the subsidies for people buying insurance on the private market. It would end the funding for the Medicaid expansion, Medicaid expansion. It would do away with the Obamacare marketplaces. It would take some of that money and repackage it and give it to the states to do what they want. So presumably blue states could set up their own sort of cut rate version of Obamacare. They wouldn't have as many resources to do it, but they could try. Red states could do some other kind of experiment if they wanted. The important thing to know is this has not actually been converted into the form of legislation. It hasn't been scored by the Congressional Budget Office. And the clock

is ticking because if Republicans don't get this done by the end of this month, it ain't going to happen. And just to add a tiny little bit of political reality, Scott Detrow, Graham Cassidy, and Bernie Sanders, Medicare for all, both not really going to pass. If either of them has a fractional chance of passing, it would be Graham Cassidy because it's a Republican bill and Republicans control the Senate and what votes come up when. But we've seen no indication that anyone is taking this seriously in a way that suggests it's coming up for a vote and it's something that could get to the president's desk. And remember, the Republicans only have about two more weeks to pass some sort of health care bill based on a procedural ruling that's been made

about the way that they were trying to get this passed, that that bill expires at the end of September. Turns into a pumpkin. And we are about to turn into a pumpkin, but first can't let it go. However, before we get to that, if you're enjoying this podcast and you listen using Apple Podcasts, we know many of you do, please do us a favor and go subscribe and also rate the show. It helps people find us. Okay, now it is time to end the show the way we always do with Can't Let It Go, where we share one thing we can't stop thinking about this week, politics or otherwise. Scott Detrow. So this is very easy for me this week because I have talked about this on the show before and I have been made fun of this in the newsroom a lot.

But I love the train that runs underground in the Capitol. There is a subway that runs from the Senate offices to the main Capitol. And it is really fun to ride back and forth. There's an older model that's kind of open air. And there's a newer one that looks like the tram that goes around Disney World. The monorail at Disney World. Yeah. I love the trains too, just for the record.

Who doesn't love a train? Sam Sanders used to make fun of me for the amount of times I would post Instagrams riding the train. But- As Sam would say, you do you. And to be honest, sometimes when I have a little bit of writer's block and a deadline, I'll just go down and ride the train back and forth and come back and finish my story. It helps that there's coffee on the other end of the train. But I found out yesterday that my love for the Capitol train is shared by one Lin-Manuel Miranda,

who was at the Capitol all day yesterday. He had been given an award the night before in Statuary Hall in the Capitol, and then he spent all day yesterday going around advocating for arts funding, and in between, he was posting these videos on Twitter of him breaking out into song on the subway. And I'll bet you Sam Sanders didn't say anything about that.

We on a war tour with Miranda, my man, going everywhere. All right, there he is. He just keeps rolling along. So he was like screaming Congress train in most of them. Wait, wait, wait, that's a steamboat song, though. That's not a railroad song. He also did a song from Oklahoma. We know we belong to the land.

And the land we belong to is grand. And when we say, a secret Congress train. He did a wide range of songs on the Congress train. And I was about to get on the train and I got all ready to go. I was like, all right, Lin-Manuel Miranda is going to be on this. I'm ready to go. What am I going to try and sing with him? Let's do this.

He was not on the train. So I just rode back by myself. That's maybe a good thing, Scott. Well, now, Scott, it's not too late. You can pretend right now that you are on the train. What would you sing? Well, I thought about this, and I know that he's a fan of the Little Mermaid soundtrack. He has talked a lot about that.

And because I know those lyrics better than... Are you going to do Under the Sea? Yeah, I thought Under the Sea could easily become Congress Train. Secret Congress Train. Under the ground. Congress Train, you know. It could have worked. No?

No? Oh, wow. Yes! Let's have more! Scott Horsley! On Dada Hill. Is that it? Scott Horsley, what can't you let go of?

Mine also involves government transportation. But first, remember Louise Linton? Oh, yes! She's the wife of Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin. She got in a little bit of hot water last month when she posted her own embarrassing Instagram photo of herself stepping off a government plane, and she attached a bunch of luxury brand hashtags to the picture. That drew some criticism from ordinary Americans, and she later apologized. Well, now ABC News reports that the Treasury Secretary and his new bride sought to take a government plane on their honeymoon to Scotland, France, and Italy last month. Now, that's unusual. It was unusual in

both cases that they would even think about taking a government plane. Treasury secretaries usually fly commercial domestically, and sometimes they'll take a military plane if they're on business overseas, but not for something like a honeymoon. In the end, they didn't wind up taking the military plane on their honeymoon. And it costs like $25,000 an hour. It's very expensive to operate these aircraft. They're very nice aircraft. The Treasury Department's explanation was that Steven Mnuchin needed a secure communication system. And I remember that way back in the first Bush administration, his chief of staff, John Sununu, got in some hot water for using a government plane

on personal business. And that was his explanation. I needed a secure phone. It didn't work out too well for John Sununu. He wound up losing his job in the end. But I am starting to think that maybe with the luxury planes and the luxury brands, the Treasury Secretary and his wife may not be the poster children for the president's so-called middle class tax plan. Can I say something about all of this? Louise Linton is the Cleveland Indians of the NPR Politics Podcast, Can't Let It Go. This is the third straight week she has been a Can't Let It Go. This is the third straight week she has been a Can't Let It Go. Well, and let me just point out that in her response to someone who was critical of her initial Instagram post, she said, it's not like the government paid for the plane for

our honeymoon. And in fact, they didn't, but not for want of asking. Okay, Domenico, what's your Can't Let It Go? This is kind of serious and on a topic that is, you know, always hotly controversial. And this has to do with ESPN's Jamel Hill, who had tweeted about President Trump calling him a bigot and a white supremacist. And she's the host of The Six. It's a sports center show. And she's African-American. The show is two people of color who host the show, and it's a very different kind of show than the regular traditional sports center. It's a little more loose. There's more opinion but more perspective. situation where now you have her making these comments and a lot of pressure from conservatives to say, well, hold on a second, ESPN, you fired Curt Schilling for saying inappropriate or

offensive things. Is there a double standard at ESPN in the way it handles these situations? ESPN has called her comments inappropriate. There have been sections of their handbook that have been printed out. And, you know, they said it violates that she's apologized for how it makes ESPN look and that it was inappropriate of how she how she presented it. But whether or not she's fired is the question. And this has stirred an entire racial and gender debate when it comes to ESPN. ESPN has been criticized for not having enough women and minorities in front of the camera. They've made an effort toward that. And this show was a big piece of that.

And she's since come out and said that she thinks that there's a certain crop of people who are not trying to see ESPN get more ethnic, more gender balanced, really stirring a lot of debate. And you had Curt Schilling himself come out and say that this was basically ESPN allowing liberal racism. And White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders also suggested this was a firing offense. She said it was a fireable offense after she was asked about it yesterday. She was asked about it in the White House press briefing, and she went there. I think that's one of the more outrageous comments that anyone could make, and certainly something that I think is a fireable offense by ESPN. It's not usually something a lot of White Houses will weigh in on.

I think that it's one of those topics that is going to bleed over into politics, and certainly in the Trump era, you know, has even more resonance. So, yeah, I mean, it's definitely something I can't let go because it's something that's causing a lot of conversations and shutting a lot of them down, too. So, Tam, what's your can't let it go? Well, last night my husband brought home a new dog. What kind of dog is it, Tam? So she is a stray. She's kind of a mutt, but she's definitely a hound.

The best kind of dog, a hound. Yes, the best kind of dog, a hound. A news hound. Yes, she's definitely a news hound. And, you know, the really cool thing is that she came from... I just want to for the record, I didn't make that joke. It was a dad joke not made by Domenico.

I was just being pro-hounds. I wasn't going for puns, but yes. Somebody had to go there. And the really cool thing is that she comes through this program called the Pen Pals program

where they take dogs that are not adoptable. They hook them up with prisoners in the penitentiary and also with dog trainers, and they get trained to become adoptable dogs. And now she is part of our family.

That is really cool, but you have not shared the best part of all of this. You need to tell everyone the name of your dog. Her name is Cokie. Cokie after the famous Cokie Roberts, who was a regular on NPR. When we sort of were tossing around names, we're like, what should we name her? And then I, my husband suggested Cokie. And then I thought, oh, that's great. Then I emailed Cokie Roberts and I said, Cokie.

And she enthusiastically. Is it okay? She said she is okay with it as long as we do not yell at Koki the dog when we're mad. Because she does not want her name taken in vain. That's quite flattering. There's a beagle hound in my neighborhood named Horsley, and I've always been very pleased at that. And they stop you all the time, right? When they hear your voice.

Do people do that on the street, Scott? They're like, oh! Very rarely. Oh, yeah. All right. That is a wrap for this week. Keep up with all of our coverage at NPR.org, NPR Politics on Facebook, and of course, on your local public radio station. And as always on Up First, the daily news podcast, every weekday morning. And for those of you in Chicago, we are coming to town. We'll be live at the Athenaeum Theater on Sunday, October 22nd. Scott Detrow will be there. I'll be there. Ron Elving will be there, as will Daniel Kurtzleben.

For tickets and more information, go to wbez.org slash events. Also, the NPR Politics family has some very good news. Producer Brent Bachman is engaged. Wow. Yay! That's awesome. Snaps? I don't actually like doing snaps.

Brent and Acacia, congratulations. We are super excited for you. They're awesome. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House for NPR. I'm Scott Detrow, fellow hound owner and congressional reporter. I'm Scott Horsley, Beagle namesake, and I also cover the White House. And I'm just Domenico Montanaro, political editor.

And thanks for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.