The NPR Politics Podcast - Weekly Roundup: Thursday, September 19

Episode Date: September 19, 2019

Democrats unveiled a long-anticipated plan to lower the cost of prescription drugs as they pivot away from an unruly congressional hearing earlier in the week. Plus, President Trump names his new National Security Adviser amid heightened tensions with Iran. This episode: political correspondent Scott Detrow, White House reporter Ayesha Rascoe, White House correspondent Franco Ordoñez, Congressional correspondent Susan Davis, and national political correspondent Mara Liasson. 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

Ahoy me hearties and ye scurvy dogs. Me name be Catherine and I be preparing for the greatest holiday ever to set sail upon the seven seas. International talk like a pirate day. This here podcast be recorded at... I am just going to leave the pirate talking to Catherine right there. It is 109 Eastern on Thursday, September 19th. Avast for the tales you be hearing. Maybe a change.

And by the time you hear them, arrr, here be the show. Mara, can you talk like a pirate? Uh, no. Actually, I am refusing. I am part of the pirate resistance. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Scott Detrow. I cover the campaign. I'm Susan Davis. I cover Congress.

I'm Ayesha Roscoe. I cover the White House. And I'm Mara Liason, national political correspondent. So this morning, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi rolled out a highly anticipated plan to lower the cost of some prescription medicines. It is an attempt to work across the aisle with President Trump, among other things. Let's start off with this. It is a huge pivot for Democrats. And Sue, a lot of House Democrats might have been eager to turn the page to something else this week. They absolutely were. I think there is so much eagerness inside the Democratic caucus to talk about something that is not impeachment, especially following the Tuesday hearing this week featuring former Trump campaign

manager Corey Lewandowski. I don't know if any of our listeners were tuned in to C-SPAN like I was, but it did not exactly go as Democrats had planned. What had they planned? It was unclear to me. Well, you know, Democrats have been hoping to use these hearings to lay out what they would say is the fact case in their impeachment inquiry and deciding whether to determine whether or not they're going to recommend articles of impeachment. Lewandowski was the first fact witness from the Mueller report to come before the committee, and Democrats were hoping that this would be a scenario in which they could have him testify on the record to the details in the Mueller report, which was specifically that the

president had asked him to transmit a message to then Attorney General Jeff Sessions to say, lay off the Mueller investigation or rein it back or risk getting fired. Lewandowski is still a very strong ally of the president. He did not show up on Tuesday to be critical of the president. And if anything, he also abided by terms that Democrats thought were ridiculous and not legally sound, but that the White House was also claiming executive privilege over any of his testimony that was outside the scope of the Mueller report. And Lewandowski was abiding by those terms, much to the frustration of Democrats. Congresswoman, the White House has directed that I not disclose the substance of

any discussions with the president or his advisors to protect executive branch confidentiality. The White House has directed that I not disclose the substance of any discussion with the president or the White House has directed me that I not disclose the substance of any conversations with the president. I'm respecting the executive branch privilege of confidentiality, and I will recognize that this time. Do Democrats really expect him to be cooperative? I think Democrats were prepared for combat. They had been strategizing for the hearing. They had divided up lines of questioning. In some ways, they came too prepared and they were not able to sort of tap dance when Lewandowski was being really combative back. I think there was moments

in the hearing where Chairman Jerry Nadler seemed sort of flustered by the proceedings. Lewandowski had some sort of backup from many of the Republicans on the committee who were saying this was a sham and making moves to adjourn. I think the bottom line is it didn't really do much to move the needle, certainly not in the court of public opinion on how they feel about impeachment, which is that they don't support it. And it didn't do much inside the Democratic caucus to make Democrats feel like they have a really clear strategy for what they're trying to do with these hearings. You know, what was so interesting to me was the way Nancy Pelosi reacted to this. And she said in a meeting that was off the record, but during the meeting, she said, leak this if you want,

according to reports, that she would have held Lewandowski in contempt right then and there. So what I'm wondering is, every time Congress does roll over and not use its full power, for instance, to hold someone in contempt, does it diminish the power of Congress as an institution? I mean, this is part of the driving divide inside the party is that everybody, I think everybody recognizes that the president is not going to be removed from office through the impeachment process. We know that, we've talked about that, members of Congress get it. But they often speak to that point, Mara, like there are greater things at stake here.

And if Congress doesn't exert its oversight authority over an administration that, quite frankly, really is stonewalling the legislative branch in so many areas, not just on the Mueller investigation, that the end result will just be a long term weakening of what has been a weaker and weaker Congress. I mean, beyond the impeachment question, there is this like bigger, higher stakes thing of what is Congress's responsibility here? And what do they need to do? The problem is, I don't think the public is really warming to that argument. And I think the lack of maybe a clear strategy and the lack of these hearings producing

any really good tangible results is just leaving this muddled middle. Those are several reasons why we said that a lot of House Democrats might be eager to turn the page. The other is, Sue, you and others have reported on this. A lot of the moderate, possibly more vulnerable members of the House Democratic Caucus are getting increasingly concerned that they do not have a long list of Democratic accomplishments to run on next year. I mean, at this point, we're getting to the end of September. What can Democrats say they have gotten out of control of the House of Representatives this year? Yeah, I mean, this is like the bigger question and that so many of the voices calling for impeachment are not the same Democrats that have tough races

to run next year. And among those Democrats, they are very eager to talk about things that are not impeachment. You know, look, Democrats have passed a lot of legislation, they've passed gun control legislation, they've passed healthcare legislation, they've passed campaign finance legislation, but it doesn't go anywhere. It just kind of falls on the doormat of Mitch McConnell, who's made very clear he's not interested in advancing Democratic ideas. So the real tangible stuff, the stuff that you can go home and say, you voted for me and I did X for you, they don't have a lot to say there, which is why I think a lot of those same Democrats in those tough districts were really excited this week when Nancy Pelosi

decided to unveil her prescription drug plan to give them something else to talk about. So what's actually in this plan then? So there's a lot of details in the plan, but I'll give you the three main highlights that I think you're going to hear the most about. The core of the plan is that it would empower the Health and Human Service Secretary to negotiate drug prices with drug companies for the 250 most expensive drugs year by year. It would also cap how much seniors in Medicare and the disabled have to pay for prescription drug costs to $2,000 a year. That's significantly lower than a lot of people have to spend now. And it would base all of these negotiating prices off something called an international price index that would look at what other countries pay for the same drugs to make sure that the U.S. isn't paying more than Canada or France or Germany for the same drugs.

Aisha, a lot of these things are big picture, at least things that the White House has expressed interest in doing. So, yeah, President Trump has made lowering prescription drug prices a key part of his platform and his agenda. And so this is something where Trump has said that he does want to get something done. They have started taking executive action to do things. He's taking credit for drug prices going down. And he's always talking about not wanting the U.S. to get ripped off. So when it comes to drug prices, the idea that other countries are getting better deals than the U.S. is something that he should, in theory, be willing to attack. But Mara, I think it's probably a little bit of an understatement to say that

President Trump and the White House do not have the greatest track record on following through in these areas where there is broad agreement. No, but he ran as a populist. Negotiating drug prices to keep them down is widely popular. He likes the idea of negotiating things and keeping costs down. And the question that I have on this one is, what would be the cost for him with his base or with parts of the Republican coalition if he went ahead and did this? I don't really see high costs. I understand why he doesn't want to move on guns because an important part of the Republican base is against any kind of gun control. What would be the pushback on this kind of plan that would stop the president from doing it politically? I think that that is the bet that the speaker is making, right? Like she included things like this price index in it, because she knows the president likes it, that she thinks that these are areas where they can find common ground. The pushback comes from more traditional Republicans who have

long opposed things like renegotiating drug prices and price caps, because again, basically just on free market principles, they don't believe the government should be regulating markets like this. This is a very traditional Republican position. But Trump's not a traditional Republican. No, and especially in this area, he believes the president should have a lot of control over the economy and even individual decisions by corporations. And I think Trump has said, and he has said time and time again, and as you said, he likes to negotiate better deals. He thinks it's absurd that the U.S. government doesn't allow itself to negotiate drug prices. Just like Democrats say. Yeah.

So Trump has. And so it does seem like they have a lot of common ground, but there just has been no evidence, even on areas like infrastructure. I don't want to go back to infrastructure. Don't bring it up. But, you know, where he didn't campaign as a traditional Republican. But since he's gotten into office, he has basically governed legislatively as a traditional Republican. And he hasn't really used that to push back on things like infrastructure, on things like prescription drug prices. I don't know whether it's a question of whether he has a hard time working with the Democrats because of all of these other issues, impeachment, all those things we were talking about earlier. But he just hasn't, there hasn't been any delivery on this. And worth flagging,

we are in the middle of yet another round of extended tentative talks about whether any sort of bipartisan background check measure will move forward, something he's expressed interest in, backed off over and over. I think one other political thing to flag, and I don't know how relevant it would be, is that I know that out on the campaign trail for the presidential race, Democrats find health care costs to be a very powerful campaign issue. They talk a lot about prescription drug costs and how they would address it. I don't know if most of the 2020 field would really love a big bipartisan measure that the president could claim victory on as they campaign on this. Well, that was going to be

my question. Do the Democrats want to give him a victory on this? And how important is it that they deliver on health care, on drug prices? Health care was the way they won in 2018. Are they willing to give him a win so they can have one too or not? Well, that's one of the fascinating things we'll see as this debate plays out. So often when we've had these debates, it's can the president bring Republicans on board? Can the president bring Republicans on board? This time, there's a question of can Pelosi bring progressives on board? I don't think there are a lot of Democrats who would like to vote for anything that's seen as a big domestic victory for Donald Trump. There's a lot of Democrats who don't want to vote for anything Donald Trump supports. So this is something that won't just divide the Republican Party

on the politics of it. I mean, on the substance, Democrats really like this bill. On the politics of it, I think there's a lot of them who think it would be political malpractice to give Donald Trump a victory that in particular would play really well in states with older white voters, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, the exact path he needs to win reelection. Almost like you just mentioned the most important states. It's almost. And in the most important states are a ton of people who would directly benefit from

this proposal. And if there was a Republican president who was going to get this done, it would be President Trump because he has that power to basically push a Republican party to do what he wants them to do. All right, Sue, you've got to run. Thank you for joining us, though. Thank you. See you guys later. We're going to take a quick break. And when we come back, the president has picked a new national security advisor. Who is he? And how much does that matter in a week where there's even more tension with Iran and other countries? Support for this podcast and the following message come from Uber. Uber is committed to safety and to continuously raising Iran and other countries. a brand new safety technology called RideCheck, which can detect if a trip goes unusually off course and check in to provide support.

To learn more about Uber's commitment to safety, visit uber.com slash safety. Support also comes from Google. From Connecticut to California, from Mississippi to Minnesota, millions of American businesses are using Google tools to grow online. The Grow with Google initiative supports small businesses

by providing free digital skills workshops and one-on-one coaching in all 50 states, helping businesses get online, connect with new customers, and work more productively. Learn more at google.com slash grow. What happens when Ronald McDonald walks into a poor immigrant neighborhood in the south of France and sets off a supersized revolution. The story of how a company slogan to sell more shakes and burgers became a rallying cry for workers in France.

That's on NPR's Rough Translation. We are back and we have swap suit for Franco Ordonez here with us. Hey, Franco. Hey, how are you? I'm doing pretty well. And you and I and Mara talked the other week about John Bolton leaving and what would come next. We have since gotten the answer to that question. President Trump has named a new national security advisor, Robert C. O'Brien.

And our Mary Louise Kelly, host of All Things Considered and longtime national security correspondent, I think summed it up well with a tweet saying, overheard in the NPR newsroom, who the blank is Robert C. O'Brien? Yes. Who is he? So Robert O'Brien is currently the presidential envoy for hostage affairs. Before that, he was a corporate lawyer working on a bunch of different issues, obviously running in conservative circles. And he did work during the George W. Bush administration, doing some work with the UN. So he has some history, but he is not John Bolton. He's not an H.R. McMaster. He's not this high, very known quantity. But he's very popular in Republican circles, as you pointed out. But Mara, it sounds like President Trump does not necessarily want someone with a big, expansive reputation.

That's right. He tried that. John Bolton came in. He was a tough talking guy that Donald Trump had loved watching on television. And he wasn't so excited when Bolton tried to convince him to put some of his ideas into action. As he says over and over again, I'm my own advisor. I take my own advice. I make the decisions. And just to clarify, the National Security Council, what is that and who serves on it? Well, the National Security Council is the body that is kind of like the arm of the president of the White House that coordinates information given to him by other departments and agencies across the government. So in other words, first of all, something that's

very important. And second of all, something that a lot of ambitious people in government probably would want to be on. Absolutely. If you're from the State Department, Department of Defense, this is kind of seen as the cream of the crop. It's called like a rocket ship for a career, a path to assistant secretary, for example. Now, Franco, you did some really great reporting this week on the fact that the National Security Council, which has forever been this prized place to work, it's great, a top line on your resume. You're really in the room for important decision making. They're having a hard time filling jobs.

Yeah, this is the kind of thing that Robert O'Brien is going to walk into. This is his staff. These are the people who are going to help him kind of collate and coordinate the policy. And what people are telling me is that under Bolton, and frankly, also under Trump, that career foreign professionals now are saying they increasingly fear going to the NSC because they're really worried that it will taint them as political operatives. So why don't they want to work there? Is that they don't like the outcomes or they don't like the fact that the president doesn't really seem to listen to their input? It's a mix of things. I mean, in many ways, they oppose some of the policy. They oppose some of the rhetoric, the strong language about Iran, about immigration, about China, and they don't feel like it produces the same results. Many of these people are diplomats and they feel like

a little softer hand is necessary. These are people who really put their lives on hold to do this job. I talked to Fernando Kutz, who's a senior director at the NSC in the Trump administration. And he's like, look, these guys don't get paid any extra money. They're doing this basically out of patriotism because they love their country. When that system isn't necessarily working the way that it's designed to work, that has to give you extra pause. Are you prepared to dedicate essentially your entire life for that period of time that you're there, whether it's a year or two years, three years to a system that isn't going to actually respect you. And to be clear, this is a former NSC official. Yeah, a former. He served the Trump administration until last year.

OK. And, you know, talking to people that work at the NSC as well, I mean, it's like you said, Liz, like they they they say that the advice is being given to the president, but he just kind of he does what he wants to do. And so and you can see that because sometimes when you're talking to them, they don't know what's going on either, because even though they are involved in the process, the process kind of breaks down when it comes to the president. Well, there is no process and there is no coherent policy. I mean, I can't figure out what the president's policy is on Iran. He wants to, some people have described it as talking tough and carrying a small stick. And Mara, that matters because it is a very contentious period right now. Saudi Arabian oil field, oil producing facilities were struck last week and increasingly likely it looks like struck by Iranian missiles. That's at

least according to Saudi Arabia. And the U.S. seems to be backing them up on this claim. What does President Trump say he wants to do about this? Well, he said a couple of different things. He said at one point, we're locked and loaded. At another point, we are going to do something that's proportionate, a response that's proportionate. At another point, I don't want to get into war. So we don't know what he wants to do. He did talk about sanctions. So he says they're going to do war sanctions on Iran. After he's told us that the sanctions are the highest ever that could be put on any country. Yeah, but Pompeo raised the game when he started calling this an act of war, you know, it's really, really pushing them into a box here that they're going to have to, you know, something's going to have to give.

I mean, the Iran and other adversaries are certainly watching. And I'm told they want to see what President Trump will do, because as you said, Mara, he has this reputation that he talks tough, but he doesn't go that far to pull the trigger. And that has tremendous implications. If our enemies around the world don't expect him to do anything more than slap their wrists just so he can get the bragging rights, I did something, then they're more likely to act with impunity or think they can act with impunity. And even some allies of President Trump seem to be losing their patience with this. You had Senator Lindsey Graham speak out about and basically say that Iran was behaving this way and had carried out this attack on Saudi Arabia. that. But that is what the implication is, because when they shot down that drone earlier this summer, that President Trump did not act. And so that's why they're taking these actions. And so you're seeing some of that from people like Graham and from even when Bolton, this was something that one of the disagreements with Bolton, Bolton wanted Trump to act. And let's remember, that is the kind of criticism that President Trump laid on

President Obama and said that he was weak and allowed adversaries to cross the line and not do enough. We should point out that it's not like there's this full consensus urging the president to intervene here. There is a wide range of voices not wanting the U.S. to get involved in any sort of Iranian-S Iranian Saudi Arabian dispute. And in fact, there's been a huge push in Congress, a bill that went to the president's desk and was vetoed, rescinding authority for the U.S. to aid in this ongoing proxy war between the two countries in Yemen. Yeah, well, Saudi Arabia is one of the very few things that has caused Republicans in Congress to actually in public voice their criticisms of the president.

The public is also very reluctant to these kind of things, don't want to get dragged into another, you know, quote unquote, endless war. And certainly President Trump doesn't want to be going into the 2020 campaign with this overhanging. All of this feels like things we will discuss next week when we're doing podcasts about President Trump and other world leaders at the United Nations for the annual summit there. We're going to take a quick break. When we come back, it's time for Can't Let It Go. Malcolm Gladwell is one of the most well-known thinkers in the world, but he says a lot of his fans don't know that he's black. White people don't know. Black people always know. How do you feel about that? I thought he was a player. Malcolm Gladwell on race, pop culture, and a whole lot more next time on It's Been a Minute from NPR.

All right, we are back and it is time for Can't Let It Go, the part of the show where we talk about the things from the week that we can't stop thinking about politics or otherwise. And mine is actually pretty intense to the point where we should say it might be upsetting for some people to hear. And it does touch on suicide. And I will explain. After the debate Friday, I flew out to Nevada to cover several of Bernie Sanders events in Nevada over the weekend. And on Friday, I was at an event in Carson City. And Bernie Sanders has been doing this a lot recently where he'll give a little bit of his stump speech, but then he'll do it as a town hall. But instead of having people ask him questions, he asks them to talk about challenges they've faced in the health care system, the health insurance system. And a lot of people go on about high bills and how hard it is to get covered and things like that. And he makes the argument for Medicare for All.

But somebody named John Weigel started to speak, and it was particularly intense and particularly gripping. I have Huntington's disease. I'm in stage four. I can barely take care of myself, and I do not have the energy to fight these people. And every time I get on the phone with them, they piss me off, and I can't deal with them. And he hands Bernie Sanders his medical bill. And the problem is his

insurance had been dropped due to some sort of misunderstanding. And he has $139,000 in outstanding bills. And Bernie Sanders is reading the bill and asking about it. How are you going to pay off? I can't. I can't. I'm going to kill myself. John, stop it. You're not going to kill yourself. I can't deal with this. I have Huntington's disease. Do you know how hard that is? You know, you probably don't, do you? So this was obviously really upsetting to be watching,

and everyone in the room was very upset. Afterwards, Sanders and his wife Jane talked to John for a while. John did an interview with the Washington Post and a couple other outlets talking about this. Some Sanders supporters have actually set up a GoFundMe campaign and have raised a lot of money to help him pay off this debt. But to me, this was just like a really extreme stark example of something that I'm seeing in every state I go cover and every candidate I go see. And that is people are just enraged about the current health care system. They're deeply upset. They feel like it's a maze that they can't navigate. And that's so striking to me because at the same time,

Democrats talk about all of these things that the Affordable Care Act fixed. And yet this current system still has so many people deeply upset. And that's why it's one of these top issues that voters are going to make their decisions based on. We all talk about policy here and covering the campaign, but that was real life. That is someone desperately being impacted and in desperate need of help. And so it's like, that's what all of this is about. Sometimes you can get lost in the numbers, but there are real people in real lives at stake. Yeah. And I mean, in so many ways, what are their options? I mean, that frustration just is going to build and build and build as Congress can't get anything done. They can't agree on even the small things. So for something like health care and, you know, obviously what John is going through,

you know, it's hard to be optimistic. And you just kind of expect we're going to see more and hear more of this. I think this is going to be like the seventh election cycle where health care is the number one issue. And it never goes away because the problems never get fixed. It's why a lot of Democrats think they took the House back in 2018. And remember, Donald Trump keeps on saying in two weeks, I'm going to have a fabulous health care plan that's going to replace Obamacare. It never happens. But this issue isn't going away until these problems are solved. We go out and cover hundreds, maybe thousands of events.

But I'm pretty sure that seeing that moment happen is going to be one of those moments from this campaign cycle that sticks in my head. So, Aisha. Thank you, Aisha, for taking the next one. Yes. So my Can't Let It Go is on a lighter subject. Much so we're going to lighten the mood a little bit here. It is about the awesome, the great Kiki Palmer. You may know her from Akilah and the Bee.

She's also in Hustlers with Jennifer Lopez, that movie about the strippers. I actually have to get to see that. But in her doing interviews, I think in the lead up to that, there's a great meme from an interview. I guess she was being shown pictures of people, and she was shown a picture of someone and this was her response would you say that true jackson vp was a better vp than dick cheney what

the hell is oh y'all are really testing me on some stuff that i i hate to say it i hope i don't sound ridiculous i don't know who this man is i mean mean, he could be walking down the street. I wouldn't know a thing. Sorry to this man. So the sorry to this man is what really takes you out. But she was looking at a picture of Dick Cheney, and that was who she did not know who that was. But it was just her response, like, walking down the street, I wouldn't know him.

Sorry to this man. I just Googled sorry't know him. Sorry to this man. I just Googled sorry to this man. Sorry to this man. And so everyone's been doing it. And they were saying that this is kind of a follow, not a follow up, but this is like the next version of that famous Mariah Carey when she was asked about J-Lo. And she said, I don't know her. I think there's going to be a song. Sorry to this man.

Yes. So if you ever are feeling like you want to kind of shade someone, just say, sorry to this man. But, yeah. Mara, what about you? Well, My Can't Let It Go is a picture of Donald Trump. He was walking up the stairs to Air Force One as part of his fundraising swing to California. And the wind is blowing as it often does. Sometimes it lifts his hair. This time it was pushing his tie back over his shoulder and lifting the back of his jacket. So you could see,

tucked in his back pocket of his suit pants, a couple $20 bills. And I'm not talking about just peeking out. I'm talking about it almost looked photoshopped because it's like a full half of the $20 bill is sticking out. So there it was. And the president was asked later. And Phil Rucker from The Washington Post said, we asked Trump on Air Force One to explain what was going on in this photo. He smiled and pulled a wad of cash out of his back pocket. He said, I don't carry a wallet because I haven't had to use a credit card in a long time. I like to carry a little something. I like to give tips to the hotel. And I would just like to say that this is the most normal thing that I have seen Donald Trump do or talk about. This is a constant with presidents. They don't need wallets anymore.

Some of them make sure to carry cash. It's a populist move in case they are in a diner, they want to pay for something, cup of coffee, they're campaigning, they want to tip someone. And here's Donald Trump saying he likes to give tips to the hotel. So to me, it's like paging David Fahrenthold. Does he tip? We know that he has a reputation for stiffing contractors. He's been taken to court many times for that. But does he tip people in hotels? I thought that was an interesting thing. It was a humanizing moment. And I think this was a net positive for Donald Trump. So something maybe he doesn't have to complain about for the way the news media treats him. Franco, what about you? Well, my can't let it go is on the lighter or the scarier side, depending on your perspective.

The Navy is now confirming that some of those videos that captured unidentified flying objects, UFOs, and were real. The videos were real, but they are calling them unidentified aerial phenomena, as if that will kind of make you a little less scared. You know, there was three videos that were taken. One was in 2004, two were in 2015. As I said, you know, they're saying these videos are real. They're not saying what was in those videos, maybe drone, but they don't know what was going on. I mean, why is it not front page news?

I think that's a great point. Why isn't it front page news? I mean, this stuff is out of the box. It's crazy. I mean, when I heard those crew members talking about saying, what in the world was that? Why? How can these were crew members? These were crew members. OK, that was the thing. So these were military members. There's a whole fleet of them. Look on the essay. My gosh. They're all going against the wind. The wind's 120 miles to the west. You know, you know, also the thing about the UFOs that's so interesting to me is they're kind of benign.

Nobody's super scared of them. They're just really curious. Unless they abduct you and then do their tests. But we're not hearing about that. Or are we, Mara? People have probably tried, but the aliens have silenced them. But this is what I mean. We're all just making jokes.

Lighter or scarier, depending on your perspective. All right. As much as I would love to continue this conversation for another 20 minutes, we're going to wrap things up for today. You're probably thinking why none of us talked about Sean Spicer and Dancing with the Stars in our Can't Let It Go. We definitely could not let that go, but we are going to talk about that in our live show tomorrow evening in Boulder, Colorado, which you'll be able to hear

in your podcast feeds on Saturday. Woo-hoo! Mara, when are you heading to Colorado? Tomorrow, really early, and that's when you guys will find out where to buy that green ruffled shirt. And speaking of UFOs, you're landing at the Denver Airport,

which is UFO central. Is it in Area 51? No, but that's Vegas. They've got all these apocalyptic there are all sorts of conspiracy theories about that airport. Google it on the flight. I'm going to Google that. Where did I start? Alright, so check out your feed Saturday

for that. Until then, I'm Scott Detrow. I cover the campaign. I'm Aisha Roscoe. I cover the White House. I'm Franco Ord Roscoe. I cover the White House. I'm Franco Ordonez. I also cover the White House. And I'm Mara Liason, national political correspondent. Thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast. If aliens really come, we're doomed because no one's going to pay attention or people will be like tweeting jokes.

They could like in Star Trek. They're not friendly. They could bring us warp capability. No, they're not friendly. They might be. They will not be friendly. No, they're going to take us. Maybe they're going to take us to their planet.

No, they're going to come and eat our brains. Well, they're more environmentally conscious.