The NPR Politics Podcast - Weekly Roundup: Thursday, September 21

Episode Date: September 22, 2017

The policy and politics of the Republicans' latest effort to repeal-and-replace the Affordable Care Act. Plus the latest on the Russia investigation and the unusually contentious Senate race in Alabama. This episode: host/White House correspondent Tamara Keith, political editor Domenico Montanaro, Congressional correspondent Susan Davis and Justice Department reporter Ryan Lucas. More coverage at nprpolitics.org. 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

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local NPR radio station. Okay, here's the show. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast here with our weekly roundup of political news. Obamacare repeal and replace is back from the dead again. And we're going to dig into what the Graham-Cassidy bill does and doesn't do. We're going to get caught up on the latest Russia-related news. There's a lot of it. And the Republican primary for the Alabama Senate race is more strange. Actually, those are the names of the two guys on the ballot. And, of course, we will conclude with can't let it go. Is that a mom joke?

That was totally a mom joke. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House for NPR. I'm Susan Davis. I cover Congress. And I'm Domenico Montanaro, political editor. OK, so we are going to start today with health care. As we talked about on the podcast Tuesday, Republicans are once again really close to having the votes to replace much of the Affordable Care Act, though the math is still being worked out. This latest attempt is called Graham-Cassidy after Senators Lindsey Graham of

South Carolina and Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, who authored the bill. And, Sue Davis, it could come up for a vote next week. It could. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has said in his office in a statement that it is their intention to bring the bill out to the floor. I think we should note that intention certainly gives themselves wiggle room to not bring it to the floor. There has been a debate about whether they will bring it up for a vote if it doesn't have the votes and that there is one argument that they should do it no matter what to really prove, even if they don't have the votes, that they don't and put the final pressure on people. You're never going to know if you can get there unless you really put the screws to people. Wasn't that the argument the last time they did this? It was. I think, you know, the fact that they are coming up against the September 30th deadline, there is a significant number of Republicans who don't want to let that pass without a fight. And I think there's a significant number of Republicans who think they really might

be able to do it this time. Okay, quickly, let's explain the September 30th deadline. And then I want to get into the substance of this bill. Great. September 30th is a deadline because they're trying to use a process called reconciliation. We've explained this a few times on the pod. It is this budget procedure that basically means that they only need 50 yes votes plus the vice president in order to pass this. Ordinarily, they'd need 60 to get past a filibuster. Right. And that authority expires September 30th because that's the end of the fiscal year and budget matters and September 30th. So how would they be able to would would they be able to re-up it if they wanted to at some point? Theoretically, yes, but in practical terms, no. It really is

kind of a dead, at least in terms of our healthcare, because they want to use the same process again in next year's budget resolution, but that's what they've carved out to do taxes. So that is why Republicans are saying this is a now or never moment. Yeah, they are saying this thing is the last best hope. So, Sue, walk us through what it does. So Graham-Cassidy is, I think, being described as one of the most radical plans that Republicans have come up for health care. And I think that's a fairly accurate assessment of it. In other words— Not radical bad, not radical good, just radical difference. Radical change. I think disruptive is also another good way to put it. If you think about every other Republican plan essentially kept the structure of Obamacare in place. They took tax credits and changed them. They got rid of the individual mandate, but there was incentives for people to sign up for health care.

The structural system wasn't that different. This completely blows up the structure. There's a lot of familiar things in there, too. It gets rid of everything they possibly can in the Affordable Care Act under this budget process. Individual mandate. It gets rid of the individual mandate. It scraps the entire tax credit system that incentivized people to sign up for insurance. And it eliminates the Medicaid expansion over time that allowed other people to get into the system. And really significantly, it overhauls the entire Medicaid program from a guaranteed benefit, an open-ended federal guarantee that means the federal government will spend as much money as needed to cover the health care needs, to a capped per capita system

where states will essentially be put on a budget. And then what it does is it writes a check to states and says, you can spend this money any way you want. And the problem there for a lot of advocates of health care and making sure that this money is dog- blank check, the fear is that states would start pulling from this pot of money and you would actually reduce the number of people who have insurance and you wouldn't maybe fund Medicaid to the same extent that you would have funded or fund whatever health system they come up with in that state. This plan reduces the amount of money that would go to many states for health care. It reduces the amount of money. And this gets into tricky political talk, but I do think it matters. When you hear that they are saying it cuts Medicaid, it cuts Medicaid, in policy terms, it's something else. It just projects that it's going to spend less money year over year. So it's not a direct spending cut. And the argument is that, well, one, there's an argument that we need to spend less on entitlements because they are drowning the federal budget. And two, this will force states to be more efficient in health care, innovative, that there is a lot of waste in the

system and that when you're put on a budget, you make sharper decisions. The problem is, though, you know, when you're talking about making sharper decisions, it's not as clean as saying, OK, I'm going to spend less on groceries this month. Because if you wind up with, you know, fifteen hundred kids who need open heart surgery, who, you know, then their families have to wind up paying more money because of annual caps, you know, as opposed to a hundred kids who needed it last year. That's not something you can really foresee. And I bring up the open heart surgery thing on purpose because Bill Cassidy has been talking about how his bill passes the, quote, Jimmy Kimmel test. And Jimmy Kimmel himself says, no, it doesn't. That was something that happened this week.

Now, previously, Cassidy had gone on Kimmel's show and talked about how he thought that any health care legislation needed to pass the so-called Jimmy Kimmel test. Kimmel has a young son who was just born a few months ago, required open heart surgery. And so Kimmel got very interested in the health care legislation. And as the Cassidy bill has taken on steam this week, Kimmel did a monologue all about the bill. And this guy, Bill Cassidy, just lied right to my face. Do you believe that every American, regardless of income, should be able to get regular checkups, maternity care, etc., all of those things that people who have health care get and need? Yep. So yep is Washington for nope, I guess.

And I never imagined I would get involved in something like this. This is not my area of expertise. My area of expertise is eating pizza, and that's really about it. And then Cassidy was on CNN's New Day and was asked to respond to Jimmy Kimmel. I'm sorry he does not understand. Under Graham, Cassidy, Heller, Johnson, more people will have coverage, and we protect those with pre-existing conditions. Which then prompted Jimmy Kimmel to do another monologue last night.

And then help me out. Which part don't I understand? Is it the part where you cut $243 billion from federal health care assistance? Am I not understanding the part where states would be allowed to let insurance companies price you out of coverage for having preexisting conditions? All right. So there's a bit to unpack here. Sue and Domenico, this whole question about what the bill does and what is covered is sort of fundamental both to this argument and to sort of understanding the legislation. I think the pre-existing conditions part is really central to this. And it's complicated, but it's worth spending a minute on. When Cassidy and Graham talk about this bill and they say it will not hurt people with pre-existing conditions, their argument is, and there's language in the bill that says, if a state wanted to change what it could offer, these 10 essential

health benefits that were put into law under the Affordable Care Act that require every plan in the exchanges to offer things like hospital care, prescription drug coverage, some baseline of mental health coverage. So maternity care. They were essentially created so people weren't sold junk plans. So you weren't paying a lot of money for something that didn't cover anything. And their bill has language in it that says if a state wants some wiggle room on these regulations, because the argument is this over-regulated market has made premiums go up, that if you want to get out of it, you have to apply for a waiver with the Department of Health and Human Services. This bill puts tremendous authority in the power of whoever the HHS secretary would be to make that call. But it says if a state wants a waiver out of some of

these regulations, they have to be able to explain in the words of the bill how they would provide adequate and affordable coverage. That is the language in the text. But there's no definition for that. There's no definition for that. There's no guardrails. And it also gives the HHS secretary a lot of leeway to say, well, that sounds like a good plan. You have a waiver from these exemptions. So it does eliminate the guardrails. It absolutely does. It weakens pre-existing condition protections. Now, you can say it still has pre-existing condition protections. That is accurate. But it is absolutely accurate that it is weaker than current law. Their argument is that states should be able to decide this and that the market demands, not Republicans on what the role of federal government should be.

And what Republicans have been trying to sell this week is the word federalism to say that states have the right to figure out how to do health care, how they want to ensure the most people, you need these things in place. And not only that, with what Sue's talking about, make sure that it's mandated that they have a certain kind of outline for the types of health benefits, maybe call them, I don't know, essential health benefits. To borrow a phrase from Obamacare. To say that this is how it should be done so that there's uniform standards across the board. And that has been part of the problem. And I would say, if you want to get deeper into who's right and who's wrong, I would point you to the trusted source of NPR News, because NPR actually tweeted out a whole stream of how we read this bill from our science desk, because Senator Cassidy had actually taken issue with one of our fact checks and said it was false and it had to do with preexisting conditions.

And we didn't let it go and explained it very cleanly for people. It's also not just news outlets and fact checkers. Every independent budget analysis of this, every actuarial – that's a hard word to say – every actuarial analysis of this, every patient advocate group has made the conclusion that it weakens pre-existing conditions. This really isn't an argument. It does weaken pre-existing conditions. They're just saying that they believe that they're – and again, this is where it is a radical reimagining of a healthcare system. In their radical reimagining of this, people with pre-existing conditions will be covered. It'll just be covered in a different way. And it may be covered differently state by state. But this is the thing I think is really important about Graham-Cassidy. It's also the most consistently ideologically conservative view of what health care should look like.

Every Republican in Congress has argued that the federal government should have less regulation, less say on how those dollars are spent, that states should have more control, that Medicaid should be block granted. I mean, this is consistent with what everything Republicans say they believe in. So this in some ways is why I think what's generating the push behind this is it is the most conservative alternative that they've offered to repeal and replace Obamacare. And now they have to put their votes where their mouths have been. Let's talk basic Senate math. And I have two pieces of

audio that I want to sprinkle in as we have this conversation. First, the numbers. Where do we stand? Senator Rand Paul from Kentucky, who was a yes vote on some of the previous versions, he was on all things considered yesterday, and it's pretty darn clear that he's a no vote. You could be saying I'm letting perfect be the enemy of a really crappy bill. I mean, this bill isn't anywhere near perfect. It's not even anywhere near good. Look at it this way. Usually appropriation bills labor through a process very public with public scrutiny and appropriation committees. This is not going to any committee and it's a trillion dollar appropriation. Basically, Republicans can only have two no votes because there are 52 Republicans in

the Senate. Rand Paul is a no. Susan Collins from Maine seems very no-y. The three that we are all focused on now are Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, John McCain of Arizona. Three familiar names if you've been paying any attention to the health care debate this year. None of the three have said publicly how they're going to vote. I think there is very widespread confidence that Susan Collins is certain to be a no vote. She has none of her criticisms of past bills have changed about this one. She made a point. I was in a scrum talking

to her this week and she went to walk away and then she turned around and she was like, I also want to make another point that this is estimated that this bill would cost Maine rural hospitals a billion dollars over the next 10 years. That is not the voice of a senator who's going to end up voting for this. She is also, like McCain, been hugely critical of the way Republicans are doing this. This bill dropped last Wednesday. If they are going to pass it, it's going to be within 14 days. I mean, that is unprecedented in terms of the scope of this legislation. One-sixth of the U.S. economy. So if you assume that Rand Paul and Susan Collins are the no's, and I would say that is Washington's assumption right now, then you need everybody

else. So the question marks are, and I think the other assumption is that all the other Republicans in the Senate are going to vote yes, because every other one of them has voted yes on some combination of repeal and replace bills. So that comes down to John McCain and Lisa Murkowski. And it's inscrutable. It's really there's anybody who tells you that knows what's going to happen next week that has no idea what they're talking about. In a very rare occasion, I don't actually think Mitch McConnell knows what's going to happen next week. What's on the line for Murkowski and McCain? You know, McCain's argument with this has never really been about the substance. I think in theory he would vote for this bill as a matter of policy if it had gone through, as Rand Paul outlined, a committee process with open amendments, with the ability to give the public time and input and to weigh in on this.

He hates the process. That has been his gripe, that it is not regular order, that it is run afoul of all of that, that it is against the traditions of the Senate, that it is a terrible way to make policy that affects one-sixth of the American economy. The whole thing stinks. That said, Governor Doug Ducey is one of the Republican governors. It's his home state of Arizona who's come out in favor of it. And McCain all along has said his governor's opinion would weigh heavily on his decision. And this bill was written by his best friend in the Senate, at least, Lindsey Graham. And I don't think you can underestimate sort of those political relationships when you're trying to win a tough vote. I don't know where McCain is going to go. I have no idea. He is consistently, he is consistently complained about this bill all week.

If it's like last time in July, when he was that decisive vote, he's probably going to keep his cards pretty close to the vest up until they're going to cast that vote. He's a wild card. Lisa Murkowski, I would argue, is the Senate's true maverick. She really is one of the most independent voices in the Senate. And the politics for her on this are tough. One, as Tam noted earlier, where some states are winners and losers, Alaska in the original writing of this is a loser. They get less money out of Graham Cassidy. Alaskans like federal assistance. They need federal assistance for survival. So that's a killer. The bill also includes, as previous bills did, the one-year defund of Planned Parenthood.

Lisa Murkowski has consistently voted against that. So it's hard to see if they won her vote, that might have to come out. And also remember when they voted no, when she was one of these dramatic no votes in July, when she went home, whereas I think, and we can talk about the politics is where a lot of Republicans went home and got chewed out for this failing. I mean, she was the stories from the Alaska press were hugs and tears, literal hugs, cheered at the grocery store, Lisa's our Alaskan hero of independent woman for Alaska is always going to fight for Alaskans. So the home state politics for her and her governor, Alaska Governor Bill Walker, who I believe is an independent, but independents in Alaska also lean pretty conservative, came out against it. So the mix of her getting to yes, I don't know. But I will tell you that

she's been meeting with McConnell. They've been working her. She's been meeting with Seema Virta, who is the top government official on Medicaid. I mean, they think they have a chance and they're working her. If Lisa Murkowski is a yes, I think reasonable people conclude that John McCain is probably a yes. And that's how they get there. But it is very hard. It is very, very hard. I don't think we can. And I think that's why there's been so much skepticism that this was going to happen. But then suddenly it started to just feel really real. Nine days. Yeah. One last idea, just to put a button on this, the stakes for Republicans. Why?

Yeah. Why this is pushing so hard. Senator Chuck Grassley from Iowa did a call, as he often does, with newspaper reporters in Iowa. And he was asked about Rand Paul's no vote. Just listen to the tape. You know, Rand Paul says that his opposition is that he doesn't think it goes far enough. I mean, what do you think of that perspective? You know, I could have maybe give you 10 reasons why this bill shouldn't be considered. But Republicans campaigned on this so often that you have a responsibility to carry out what you said in the campaign. And that's pretty much as much of a reason as the substance of the bill. I think he's right. And the thing I'd say about

Republicans, they've kind of worn this on their sleeve. They're not being coy about the fact that they want to do this for political reasons. Lindsey Graham talked about this this week, reminding his Republican colleagues, this is something we all campaigned on. I will also say when sort of the why now, what's driving this is the one thing I heard

consistently from Republicans after that dramatic Senate vote where it failed in July and they all left town for August, that a critical mass, enough of them just heard it. I mean, they just heard it back home. They heard it from voters who saw them as failing. Part of it was base voters who said, you're not working hard enough for the president. That was a lot of things we heard. And that donors, you know, the money behind the party. So they were getting squeezed from both ends. Their constituents are

unhappy. Their constituents are unhappy. Their donors were unhappy. And a lot of them came back and were talking to people like Lindsey Graham and Bill Cassidy and saying, I really do think we need to try again. This was not an effort led by leadership. Mitch McConnell was not driving the train on this. Enough of his senators came to him and said we need to try again. OK, we are going to take a quick break. And when we come back, the Alabama Senate runoff, which is wild, and the latest on the Russia investigations. And we're back next week. There is a big Republican runoff in the Alabama Senate race.

This is the seat that once belonged to now Attorney General Jeff Sessions. And it has been contentious. And the alliances in this are kind of surprising and wild, really. So the race pits Roy Moore, former Chief Justice two times over of the Alabama Supreme Court against the incumbent, who sort of the interim he was the person put into place to on a short-term basis replace Jeff Sessions. His name is Luther Strange. President Trump is going tomorrow to Alabama to campaign for Strange. Today, though, Sebastian Gorka, who was part of the Trump White House until very recently, and Sarah Palin are campaigning for Roy Moore. Yeah.

Well, and Steve Bannon has endorsed Roy Moore and wants Roy Moore to win. So it's lining up in this very unusual way. Part of what is testing all the bounds of this is it's just testing the bounds of party loyalty, right? Like usually an incumbent Republican president picking a favorite in a Republican state to win a race, most people usually get on board, particularly people that worked in his own administration. Not this time. You know, this is, if you recall Steve Bannon, who has suggested that he is going to spend his efforts outside of the White House creating primary difficulties for who he sees

as establishment Republicans, I think this is the first test case for that. Roy Moore is without question an anti-establishment candidate. I wouldn't even put him in a Tea Party bucket or an activist bucket. He is his own creation. He's kind of a brand in Alabama. He has a strong evangelical base candidate, but people know who he is. And that is a really potent factor when you're talking about low turnout special elections. And he's somebody who has talked quite a bit about, you know, with some very provocative language, even during this campaign. Provocative might be an understatement. You know, definitely not politically correct. Maybe I was being politically correct in describing his provocations, to put it mildly. But Luther Strange is also known in the state too because he was the attorney general when the governor of the state was finally ousted and he was supposed to be the person

investigating him and got appointed to the Senate by that governor. Who he was investigating. Right. So it looked like something that seemed a little fishy. But this is why this race, I think, is so interesting just beyond who wins the Senate race. But it's testing a little bit, I think, as well, the brand of Donald Trump. One, Donald Trump remains hugely popular in Alabama. Oh, yeah. Hugely popular. I've talked to political consultants that say they've seen some polls where his approval ratings are in the low 80s. I mean, that's amazing. So you would think, and he's going there.

He's having one of his big rallies, going there, having a rally arm around Big Luther. This is my guy. Oh, yeah. And he has a nickname. It's actually a nice nickname. Big Luther. That's always been preceded. That preceded Trump.

He is very big because he's big. But if he loses, right, if what does that say about Trump's brand? Even in places where the Trump's brand is the gold standard, if he can't deliver, is there a disconnect between voters, between voting for Trump and voting for down ballot Republicans? And if he loses, Domenico, what does this mean for 2018? the conservative base. You'll see the Breitbarts of the world, which Bannon runs, and maybe the Sarah Palins of the world kind of come back out from the woodwork where she had been sort of quiet. She had been off the campaign trail. They'd sort of ceded the spotlight to Donald Trump. But you may see them feel more emboldened to sort of push the party more to the right, while at the same time, you're going to have Democrats going through primaries of having to look over their left shoulder and as the party's being pushed more to the left and people sort of wondering

where that moderate middle goes, if it exists and what you wind up with in a general election. But this is the race where Donald Trump is rooting for the establishment, which is so wild. It doesn't make any sense. And yet it does make sense because of personal relationships. We should also note this is not the final chapter in this race. This is just the runoff from the primary. So whoever wins this race still is facing a general election this December. And Democrats will argue, and I would say everyone should be skeptical about this, that if Roy Moore wins, there is some elements of Democrats who think that they might be able to make Alabama competitive in December. I'm not willing to go there.

Not when Donald Trump's approval rating is in the low 80s. Exactly. But because Roy Moore is so controversial. And then Republicans, the Senate Republican Campaign Committee is going to have a choice to make whether they want to put official party resources and backing behind a candidate who has said provocative and sometimes racist things. And moving on to Russia, there have been a lot of headlines in the last week or so, heck, in the last 24 hours or so, on various pieces of the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential campaign. We have called in reinforcements because there's a lot here. So hello, Ryan. Hello. So welcome, Ryan.

Ryan is new to the pod, first time, new to NPR, relatively. How long have you been here? Five weeks, six weeks. Whoa, time flies when you're having fun. It does indeed. All right, can you introduce yourself for us? I'm Ryan Lucas and I cover the Justice Department. Along with friend of the pod, Kerry Johnson. Just picked a nice, quiet beat to ease in at NPR, right?

Nothing going on. Plenty of time to learn and nothing to see here. Okay. So let's just dive right in. Paul Manafort, the former chairman of President Trump's campaign, has been in a lot of headlines. What's up with Paul Manafort? So Paul Manafort has indeed been in a lot of headlines. Paul Manafort has been in a lot of headlines for a long time. Yes.

And this does not change our understanding of Paul Manafort and his place in the whole Russia question, but it does add something. Last night, the Washington Post reported that Manafort had offered to provide private briefings on the 2016 race to a Russian billionaire who is close to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Why he would be giving briefings on the campaign to a Russian oligarch doesn't totally make sense to me. This is an oligarch who he had connections with going back many years, but it's still, it's fishy. It's weird. And then earlier this week, CNN had a report that the U.S. government had what's known as a FISA warrant. So basically it was tapping Manafort's phones to speak colloquially during and after the campaign. Now, NPR has not confirmed this. The big point is, is that there was, according to CNN,

a wiretap for criminal reasons, business reasons, looking at Manafort's work. It was then stopped because the FBI, according to CNN, could not charge Manafort. And then it was restarted during the campaign. This has not been confirmed. And obviously, Mueller's people, special counsel, they don't talk about warrants. No U.S. government official has confirmed this. So this is all just based off of the CNN report. How central to this broader Russia investigation is Paul Manafort? He's very central.

He's the one person that we know for sure that the Mueller investigation is looking at because they've raided his home. But Manafort is crucial because one, he was campaign chairman and two, he's somebody who provides kind of the sinew between Russia and the Trump campaign in the sense of he has a long running political and lobbying experience in Ukraine, which put him in touch with people both in the Russia sphere. And then, of course, he had his work with Trump. And then these reports about this idea that he allegedly may have offered political briefings or something to these Russian oligarchs gets inches you closer to the C word, right? Which is collusion. That there was some or some element

of pay to play or some element of criminality. I mean, that seems to be the question. Did anything he do break the law? And collusion isn't illegal, but- Collusion is not illegal. This is definitely a connection. This is a connection. And one thing to remember that the special counsel's investigation and the congressional investigations are looking at. And the key question that they want to answer is ties between connections, links between the Trump campaign and Russia. And what the Washington Post report does is provide another example of an

actual connection and outreach between somebody who was a central figure in the Trump campaign for several months and people who had direct access to Vladimir Putin. That's why this Washington Post report is important. So there are obviously a lot of people that the FBI is looking at and trying to talk to at this point, right? And we see these sort of murky reports that come out and Manafort does seem to be somebody who's central, seems to be part of the broader investigation. I had one person describe it to me as like the FBI has three lanes when they're looking at specific people. You're either a target, a subject, or a witness. And nobody stays a subject. That in order to try to flip you, the pitch is sort of like you can either be a witness or you can be a target.

It's your choice. And that's how they sort of move up the food chain. Do you have any sense of at this point where Manafort is in those sort of three? Is he closer to target? I mean, this is not something that investigators are obviously going to be talking to me about. But one thing that I will say that is important to remember is that Manafort and his legal issues are not necessarily related to Russia and conspiracy with the Russian government during the election.

A lot of Manafort's problems that we've seen so far really seem to date back to his time as a lobbyist and as a political operative working in Ukraine. And a lot of them appear to be financial. One other thing that has been coming up, social media, Facebook and Twitter. Twitter is going to come in and testify next week. Yes. Representatives from Twitter are going to be meeting with the Senate Intelligence Committee next week. Yes. So why do they want to talk to Twitter, social media organizations? Is it just going to be in 140 characters?

God help us. Back and forth. Do people at Twitter actually speak? Okay. We'll find out. Yes, representatives from Twitter are going to come in and speak to the Intelligence Committee next week. And this comes, of course, after Facebook acknowledged this month that Russian-based

accounts had purchased ads, $150,000, I believe, worth of ads on political issues in the United States and targeted them to Facebook users in the U.S. on very divisive political issues, immigration, gun control, stuff like that. And they tried to make those accounts look like red-blooded Americans. They did indeed. And there were around 500 of them. Mark Warner has said that this is probably just the tip of the iceberg. And he's the top Democrat on the committee. He's the top Democrat.

On the Senate Intelligence Committee. And he has been very adamant about wanting to talk to more social media companies, which is why we're seeing Twitter come in next week. And what they want to talk about is the prevalence of bots, which would be basically fake accounts that are just churning out, trying to drive trends on Twitter, on divisive issues, and the dissemination of fake news and misinformation.

That's the other thing that they want to look at because there was a lot of that on Twitter. There was a lot of bombarding and pushing certain hashtags to try to affect the conversation. Well, and on Facebook, too. I mean, if you go back and read the Intelligence Committee's report that they made public about what they saw happening in the 2016 election, there's a big focus on what happened on social media. I feel like we're in this moment in American history where it's almost like we're in the Wild West. If you look at digital and political online stuff as a Wild West, and we're starting to

see the potential for sheriffs to come in because there's just too many things that are going on. And they're like, OK, we need some rules around this. But I think what's really going to be kind of amazing is how quickly the technology is changing and whether or not government, government regulation, regulators can keep up with the pace of change. I mean, the campaigns love social media. They can use social media to reach voters and to target people very specifically. But it appears that in this last election, not only were campaigns using it, but a foreign adversary

weaponized the very tools that everybody loves. And if those foreign adversaries are ahead of the U.S. government in trying to figure out what works and what doesn't, then we're susceptible to that kind of manipulation. Have you heard of any lawmakers talking about a legislative response in terms of the influence on the elections? And is the effort of the Intelligence Committee, because they don't prosecute, they don't have that law, I mean, is the end result that they want to make a legislative recommendation on how we either shore up our elections or, you know, it seems to me one of the questions that has never been

answered is how does the government respond to those efforts? And I don't know if there's a legislative response to it. I think that everybody's really waiting on the intelligence committees to finish their investigations and produce the report that will give us a better understanding, a more comprehensive understanding of what the Russians did. And from there, I've heard both ways that they will have recommendations, they won't have recommendations. I think it kind of remains to be seen. But lawmakers in Congress and the public in general will be in a more informed position to like you have on TV. All right. We are going to take one more break. And when we come back, can't let it go. OK, we are back and it is time to end the show the way we always do with can't let it go.

When we all share one thing we can't stop thinking about this week, politics or otherwise. I think I'm going to take privilege. Can I take privilege? Please. Go ahead. So Sean Spicer's back. Did he ever leave? Well, not really.

So he appeared Sunday on the Emmys in a surprise appearance. This will be the largest audience to witness an Emmys, period. Which was a little controversial because there was a question of whether Hollywood was enabling him, helping him clean up his image by making a joke about sort of the original sin of his press secretary tenure. I did appreciate the Melissa McCarthy cutaways. She looked shocked and entertained. And for her to look uncomfortable, given her humor. And we've seen Saturday Night Live before sort of cement the image of what some politicians

can look like and seem like, to the point where you remember some lines of certain politicians that aren't really attributed to them at all, but to the person who played them on SNL. Like I can see Russia from my house. Correct. Sarah Palin never actually said it. However, I repeat it all the time. OK, but so his rehabilitation, the Spicer image rehab tour continues. And so this morning he was on Good Morning America. And in an interview with

Paula Faris, he was asked about his tenure as press secretary. People have hard feelings towards you because they feel that you lied to the American people. Have you ever lied to the American people? I don't think so. You don't think so? No, I'm cheating on my taxes. That's his answer? I don't know where this goes. There has been reporting that he has been trying to get a television contract where he would- Unsuccessfully to this point. You know, it's also interesting is reading a couple of the newsletters this morning, you could see that Sean Spicer apparently has a reputation for taking copious notes that certain investigators may be interested in. And that during the campaign, he kept

very detailed notes that may wind up turning up. So we may hear more about Sean Spicer, what was in those notes, what he was thinking later on. And there were a couple of people who said, you know, there were a lot of people who are going to wish they were a lot nicer to Sean Spicer because he was in a lot of meetings. I would read the Spicer diaries. Uh-huh. This actually kind of reminds me of a Veep plot. But whatever. Moving along. It literally is a Veep plot. Yes. Sue, what can you not let go of? My can't let it go this week is if you are a fan of the genre of animal narrated literature,

this has been a good week for you. Because Marlon Bundo, aka the bunny of the Pence household who has his own official social media account. Who our Scott Detrow is a big fan of. Big fan. And a lot of fans here at the Empire Politics Podcast family. A lot of Bundo fans. Bundo has written a book, and I should say in air quotes written a book. Marlon Bundo has a Bundo-driven book coming out next year in time for Easter. Ha ha. Appropriate. That was written by the vice president's daughter and illustrated by Karen Pence, the vice president's wife. And it is a book being told from the perspective of Marlon Bundo as he follows the vice president around and explains what the vice president does for a job.

And this is surprisingly, or maybe not surprisingly, like an actual genre of book in Washington. If you, it's a small genre. Wait, has Beau written a book? What about Buddy? There wasn't a Beau and Buddy book, but if you, I think the most recent one was Senator Ted Kennedy wrote a book about his dog that was called My Senator and Me. And it was from his Portuguese water dogs that were often with him on the hill, talked about his – from their perspective from inside the Capitol. I think the most famous of the genre is House Mouse, Senate Mouse that talks about how Congress works through the perspective of two little mice. And Hillary Clinton, when she was first lady or after she left the White House, I'm not sure when the book was published, same kind of genre wrote a book about, but it was publishing the letters that the kids had written to Socks and Buddy, who were the animals in the Clinton White House.

And she's also written a children's book now to go along with the other book. Right. It's called It Takes a Village. But that one doesn't involve animals. This is a sub-genre is what I'm focused on here. Well, there is also like Ellis the Elephant. Remember that whole thing? Oh, yes.

Newt Gingrich and Callista Gingrich would go on their tour with this elephant. To tell the stories of America. Yeah. Ryan is making a face. I had no idea that the Gingrichs had written an elephant book. Yeah. Oh, there's several. They took it on tour during the presidential campaign that he ran.

Yeah, there would be a guy dressed up as Ellis the Elephant who would go to Newt Gingrich campaign events and sign books in the back. And this book is, as many of these books do, they use them to take the proceeds, give them to charity. The Pence family says they'll do that. And I'm curious to see, the life of Marlon Mundo, he might have, Marlon Mundo might be having the best time in all of the Trump administration because he's got nothing but good press. He's got a book deal and he's got tons of followers on social media. And I will say if the book is half as good as his Instagram feed, I'm in. Spicer Diaries, Marlon Mundo's book, 2018 reading list. Domenico. So this week, a lot of the leaders in the world gathered at the United Nations General Assembly. Everybody's eyes

were fixed on Donald Trump and what kind of speech he would make. You know, we podcasted about analyzing what he had to say. A lot of people paid attention to Hassan Rouhani, the Iranian leader, because Donald Trump had threatened to tear up the Iranian nuclear deal. But what I found really interesting, I just happened to be watching a live feed of the UNGA and I saw Justin Trudeau up there. And I said, well, let's see what he's got to say. And I caught the tail end of his speech. He's the Canadian prime minister. Yes, he's the Canadian prime minister.

Anyway, so Justin Trudeau delivers a speech. And it was the most Canadian thing I think we've ever heard. We know we need to do this all together. We know it will be hard work, but we're Canadian and we're here to help. And he says this, that was the last line of the speech. He gets off the stage. Was there roaring applause? No, I think people were, were entranced by his eyes and his hair because he was like, kind of like moving his shoulders and sort of like tipping his head a little bit. Like he was like smiling at the crowd.

But it was also just struck me as like, OK, here's the United States. Donald Trump has to make this speech that everyone's hanging on every word. And Justin Trudeau is like, whatever. We got free health care. Like things are pretty much OK in our country. We can't solve everything. But, hey, well, we're Canadian. We're here to country. We can't solve everything, but hey, well, we're Canadian. We're here to help. Canada. Just happy to be here.

Yeah. Just happy to be there. But more importantly, Sue sent around a tweet that had a zoom in on Justin Trudeau's socks during some meeting he had during the UN General Assembly. And I don't know what meeting it was or whatever, but- Not the point. Not the point. What was with the socks? Chewbacca socks. Chewbacca socks? Yes.

Seriously? Yes. Wow. Because my son's a big Star Wars fan, I've got a Star Wars shirt on today and so are you, so, Tam, so that's why I've got this on. So I had no idea this wasn't planned. I didn't know there'd be a Chewbacca sock reference. Oh, yeah. Wow. Chewbacca socks.

So this is my inaugural can't let it go. My maiden voyage, so to speak. So my can't let it go is also from the UN, a different leader, a different speech, a different tone. This is Rocket Man. I cannot let Rocket Man go. Donald Trump obviously used Rocket Man to refer to the Korean leader Kim Jong-un. And there was some negative reaction online when it turned out, because people did some digging, of course, as one does, outrage that Rocket Man had surfaced before in relation to North Korea. So it turns out that The Economist had a cover in July of 2006 with the title Rocketman, and it has a picture of Kim Jong-un's father, Kim Jong-il, the previous leader,

taking off, and there's a cloud of smoke underneath him, and he's like a rocket launching, thus Rocket Man. And this was in relation to the Korean missile tests that took place in July of 2006. I appreciate, one, the term Rocket Man because as much as I dislike the fact that a lot of these nicknames get in there, this one has stuck with me. I chuckle at it every time I hear it. I've woken up several times this week just kind of with the song Rocket Man in my head. As I say, it sent a lot of people, including me, down an Elton John rabbit hole,

I will just say. All right, that's a wrap for this week. We will be back in your feed soon, maybe Monday, maybe Tuesday. We're kind of, we've been waiting to see how the news develops before we jump in the studio early in the week. You can keep up with our coverage on nPR.org, NPR Politics on Facebook, and of course, on your local public radio station. And if you like the show, subscribe and leave us a review on iTunes. That helps other

people find the podcast. All right. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House for NPR. I'm Susan Davis. I cover Congress. I'm Ryan Lucas. I cover the Justice Department. And I'm Domenico Montanaro, political editor. And thanks for listening to the NPR. I'm Susan Davis. I cover Congress. I'm Ryan Lucas. I cover the Justice Department. And I'm Domenico Montanaro, political editor. And thanks for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.