The NPR Politics Podcast - Weekly Roundup: Wednesday, July 3

Episode Date: July 3, 2019

President Trump's decision to deliver a speech from the Lincoln Memorial and add flyovers and tanks is prompting Democrats to say he's turning Fourth of July into a campaign rally. Trump issued a surprise invitation to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un for a meeting along the demilitarized zone between North Korea and South Korea. This episode: White House correspondent Tamara Keith, White House reporter Ayesha Rascoe, congressional reporter Claudia Grisales, chief economics correspondent Scott Horsley and editor correspondent Ron Elving. Email the show at [e-mail]. Find and support your local public radio station at npr.org/stations.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hi, this is Azan and Sai in Hong Kong, and we have just returned from the annual Pro-Democracy March across Hong Kong. This podcast was recorded at 12.37pm on Wednesday, the 3rd of July. Things may have changed by the time you hear this. Keep up with all of NPR's political coverage on the NPR One app or on your local public radio station. Okay, enjoy the show. Wow, thank you for making time to listen to our podcast while also marching for democracy. Amidst historic events in Hong Kong. Yeah, all the way from Hong Kong.

Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Tamara Keith, I cover the White House. I'm Aisha Rostow, I also cover the White House. And I'm Ron Elving, Editor-Correspondent. And we have one more person in the room with us, Claudia Grazales. Hello. Hello. You are a new member of the NPR Politics team.

Yes. And you cover Congress. Yes. And tell us a little bit more about yourself. Well, I'm originally from Chicago, Illinois, born to Colombian parents, lived in Texas because Chicago was too cold for Colombians. It's too cold for anybody. Exactly, right?

So I was there for about 30 years, worked at the Daily Newspaper in Austin, Texas, and moved to D.C. a couple years ago, and now I'm here. And welcome from the former Chicagoans Club. Oh, thank you. It's a good club to join. It's a good club to join. It's a large club. Yeah. And welcome to the podcast. We are glad you are here, especially because you've been doing a lot of reporting this week about the big event happening tomorrow in Washington, D.C. It is, of course, the 4th of July. But President Trump has decided to add on to it and he is calling it a salute to America. Yes, there is a long list of add-ons. There will be military aircraft flyovers and military bands playing, and much of the military brass will be in attendance during his speech at the steps of Lincoln Memorial. And he was telling folks to expect a lot of surprises.

And he revealed one this week that there will be tanks on display on the National Mall. And we're going to have some tanks stationed outside. Got to be pretty careful with the tanks because the roads have a tendency not to like to carry heavy tanks. So we have to put them in certain areas. And the fireworks display is apparently going to be double the length it normally is, something like now 35 minutes of fireworks on the National Mall. Ron, what is the 4th of July normally like in Washington, D.C.? Well, the fireworks are very much a traditional part. And what it is, it's a huge picnic that starts more or less in the morning and goes on into the night,

where hundreds of thousands of people gather on the mall, including local residents, but of course many, many people coming from out of town. They come by bus, they come by car, they come by train. Yeah, and locals kind of turn their noses up at the whole thing. Well, to some degree. Or they go to a roof deck. You know, but I've gone out to this many years. In the past, it's the National Symphony Orchestra plays on the grounds of the Capitol building itself.

And the party stretches out all the way to the Lincoln Memorial. And there are people out there, you know, getting too much sun all day long. It's a big party. And it has always been like a big national picnic, but with really as little political content as you can imagine anything in Washington, D.C. having. And traditionally, the president watches from his balcony of the residence in the White House or travels outside of Washington, D.C. and attends other kinds of patriotic events in other parts of the country. So this is typically a non-political thing. White House aides who will not go on the record keep insisting this is not going to be a

political event. This is not about politics. This is about honoring America and the troops and all of that. Do we think that that is going to work out that way? There's a history there. And Trump seems to veer towards the partisan and kind of that political rally atmosphere at these events. So that will be a tough test for him tomorrow if he can reach that kind of middle tone and stay nonpartisan. It's such a traditionally nonpartisan event. I went through some of, you know, we'll walk down memory lane and just a few examples. He talked about politics to the Boy Scouts at the Jamboree. There was an event in 2017 that was supposed to be honoring veterans for Independence Day. He went political there.

And then, of course, in Iraq, the day after Christmas, I was there with him as he spoke to the troops. And then again, he started bashing Democrats. He may actually show more restraint in that area in this particular instance. I wouldn't be surprised if he is satisfied to praise America and to praise the country and even to praise his own administration and its own achievements, accomplishments, whatever he wants to call them. And of course, he will have the aura of the militariness of it all and the greatness of American military might all around him. That may be enough for him. He may not have to start talking about Joe Biden or Kamala Harris. I have seen him at these Medal of Honor ceremonies at the White House, and he does largely stick to the script at these events. So that is possible. That's what happens. Well, and Claudia, there's like a legal ethical reason for him to stay on the straight and narrow,

right? Right. Basically, taxpayers cannot be footing the bill on an event that has political overtones that favors one party. And that's what's got Democratic lawmakers worried, is that all this planning is going on behind the scenes. And there are details that sound partisan, such as the RNC issuing tickets for this special VIP section for his speech. And so in the end, if this is an event that is political in nature, favors a party, taxpayers should not be paying for that. How is the RNC able to do that, to hand out tickets for this event? This is a public event, right?

It is considered traditionally a public event. But because you have a new special restricted area that is close to the president for this speech, the White House took charge in terms of who would get access to that area. We later learned that the RNC received a small number of tickets, we were told by an official for them, and they are distributing them among donors and VIPs and others. And the justification that you get from the campaign and from the RNC, because the campaign, the Trump campaign also got some of these tickets, is, well, this is no different than, you know, the president inviting people to the South Lawn of the White House. And so these tickets are just like as if it was on the South Lawn of the White House. But there

is a very big difference between the South Lawn of the White House or something on the White House grounds and something on the National Mall. That's right. The National Mall is not supposed to be a place where you go to have a partisan campaign event. And this is going to look very much like one of the president's campaign rallies. I think that's quite intentional. I think that there is no accident about that whatsoever. And that's one of the reasons think there is no accident about that whatsoever. And that's one of the reasons that in the past, presidents have stayed away from this. In campaign years and non-campaign years, presidents have been very sensitive to the criticism that they are, as it were, extending the bounds of their own province, that is the White House grounds, and crossing over all those lanes of traffic to get to the National Mall and away from the South Lawn of the White House.

And making that big leap has a tremendous symbolic value in terms of the traditions and the norms. There's that phrase again, the traditions and the norms of the American presidency and our American political system. All right. So how much is this party going to cost? You've been looking into that. And we still don't have the final bill. Unfortunately, it's something we've been asking about for days now, as well as other media outlets, and we don't have a total. But we do have hints, if you will, in terms of flyovers for these military aircraft. That's going to tally more than 300,000, according to our estimates. Other media outlets have also done some digging. The Washington Post reported overnight that the National Park Service will have to shift over $2.5 million in fees over to pay for this big day. So where did this idea come from for a big

show of military might? So President trump uh i guess this might have been 20 i don't i can't remember the year but it was 2017 and i was there so president trump went to paris i was there with him covering this trip uh and he was treated to uh a bastille day he got to see in a special seat right beside french president emmanuel macron and he got to see in a special seat right beside French President Emmanuel Macron. And he got to see the flyovers and all of the troops and all of the all of the military hardware that is associated with Bastille Day. And since that day, and you can see he was really into it, he would be pointing and it really he's he was really impressed. And ever since then, he's just like, well, why can't the U.S. do the same thing?

Why aren't we doing this? We should have these big parades. We've got, as he would always say, you know, we've got the best military. We should put it on display. Trump really likes it. And he's always really like that sort of thing anyway. He loves like the military and the hardware and all of that. He loves. And so this is his way to kind of get that done. Okay, Claudia, you are doing, you did Up First this morning. You did Morning Edition this morning. You're on this podcast and you're going to be on All Things Considered.

So we're going to let you go get ready for that. Thank you. I would call it a hat trick, but there's more hats. There's like, there's more than three. I know. It's fun getting it out's more hats. There's more than three. I know. It's fun getting it out of the way, so many in one day. So maybe I'll have another day where I can do a fury of them as well. But you can't take tomorrow off.

That's true. No, no. Big work day for you tomorrow. That's right. All right, Claudia, we are going to let you go. And when we come back, Scott Horsley is going to join us to talk about his trip to the demilitarized zone. Support for this podcast and the following message come from Gelmar, maker of CLR. For some of life's mucky moments, there's CLR.

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and traveling to the edges of our big, wild, beautiful world. You've known what National Geographic looks like. Now hear what it sounds like. Overheard at National Geographic. Listen in starting June 11th. No matter what you've got planned, you need a song of the summer. This week on NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour, we are rounding up experts from NPR Music. We will play a ton of songs to lift your spirits, and you might even find your next favorite artist. That's NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour. Listen and subscribe now. And we're back.

And NPR Politics noted alumni Scott Horsley is here with us. Good to be here. So, Scott, you are just back from an epic adventure. It was described by one participant as legendary. Would that participant be the president of the United States? It was. That's right. All right. So let's go back to how this all got started. President Trump went to Japan for the G20 summit. Scott, you decided to go because... Well, the bosses decided to send me, we should say, because we sort of thought the marquee meeting of this trip was going to be

his sit down on Saturday with Xi Jinping, the president of China, because, of course, we've all been gripped by this trade war that the president has launched with China. The markets were on the edge of their seat. The Federal Reserve was watching. Everyone wanted to know, are they going to cut a deal? Are they going to suspend the threat of additional tariffs? Or is it all going to blow up and we're going to have an all-out tariff on everything we buy from China, which would have caused higher prices for a lot of consumers and that sort of thing? So that was the main reason I went along. And then on Saturday morning, hours before his meeting with Xi, the president tweeted,

Hey, tomorrow I'm going to be in South Korea, might make a trip to the DMZ. Kim Jong-un, if you're in the neighborhood, why don't you come by and we can have a handshake? I actually want to just read this tweet because it's, well, you know, it's a tweet. While there, if Chairman Kim of North Korea sees this, I would meet him at the border DMZ just to shake his hand and say, hello, question mark, exclamation point. Call me maybe if you're around. That sounds right. That sounds about right. Scott, you were the radio pooler, which means you were along for the ride in a helicopter to the DMZ. Take us there. Another helicopter. The press corps travels in a separate helicopter, not in the president's helicopter. And in fact, our helicopter was full of American flags, which we assume were then used as the backdrop for the Trump-Kim photo op. Now, ordinarily,

you know, those flags are there well ahead of time. Steamed, ready to go, wrinkle-free. They were hustling them up on the press helicopter does suggest that this was something of a last minute plan, although maybe not quite as impromptu as the president's tweet made it seem. I think there was some effort by the White House to keep this under wraps in case Kim didn't show up or in case things went badly. They didn't want to have a whole lot of buildup. But the president did have the flags. They did have the flags.

And when we flew back to Seoul and to Osan military base after the Kim Trump summit, those flags were no longer on the helicopter. So we guess they left them behind the DMZ. Gifts. Gifts. You were there to witness what was actually a historic moment. Yes, that's right. Not since the end of the Korean War, when the two Koreas were divided along the 38th parallel, has a sitting American president ever visited North Korea. And so President Trump made history in stepping over a little raised concrete barrier along the 38th parallel that divides North and South Korea with Kim Jong-un at his side.

Now, we should say the president argued that lots of previous presidents would have liked to have done this and that only he could. In fact, other presidents didn't see fit to step foot into North Korea, especially when the country was running an outlawed nuclear weapons program. Which it still is. Which it's still doing. And human rights abuses, serious human rights abuses. So, you know, this was this was absolutely a dramatic moment. It was a camera ready cinematic moment for the president. But whether there was any real geopolitical significance to it, I think, remains to be seen. So one expert I was talking to about this one analyst, a former Defense Department official, he said that it was faux historic.

He felt like this, that, because... Like Epcot. Yeah, that there is... I love Epcot. Okay, sorry. But there's a question of what will happen after this and what it will really mean for both of these countries now that they've had this photo op. I think it's also fair to say that for decades, U.S. foreign policy under presidents of both parties has been to try to isolate North Korea and deny got the President of the United States to come to his country for a photo op. And who does that actually make a larger figure on the world stage?

I'm not going to answer that question. that one thing that was accomplished with this is that in February in Vietnam, there was a summit and it completely broke down. Aisha, you were there. Yes. So we were at Hanoi. They met for this second summit and things just didn't work out at all. Trump walked away. Basically, there's this fundamental issue between the two countries. The U.S. right now is demanding that North Korea give up all of its nuclear weapons and then the U.S. will ease sanctions. What North Korea was saying is we will give some, we may give up like one nuclear, our main nuclear facility that is that that the world knows about. And then we want something in return, we want some sanctions relief. And so that was unacceptable to Trump at the time. And the talks broke down,

and they left without anything. And there hadn't really been talks since then and so what this did in the DMZ is it jump-started talks again and now they're saying they're going to go back to the negotiating table and have teams and try to work out some type of agreement it's still not clear how they get over that fundamental hump of do you get rid of all your nuclear weapons first North Korea Korea, which North Korea has pretty much, it seems like that is not, they're not willing to do that. And so is the U.S. willing to bend or is North Korea willing to bend? And in the immediate glow of this dramatic photo op there in the DMZ, the president was asked, are you going to offer some sanctions

relief in the short term? And the official position of the White House right now is no, sanctions remain in place. But the president did seem to leave the door open for some sanctions relief at some future point, possibly short of North Korea fully scrapping their nuclear weapons program. One thing that really stood out to me about this whole event was just how grateful Trump seemed, how he kept thanking Kim, kept thanking him for showing up. And I want to thank Chairman Kim for something else. When I put out the social media notification, if he didn't show up, the press was going to make me look very bad. So you made us both look good, and I appreciate it. That's obviously important to the president, and he is risking some of his prestige by showing this openness and this willingness. So it was important to the president to have all of this come off as well as it did, so that it could be received as positively as it was back in

the United States. But we're still left with all the questions. Who does this really benefit? How does this really advance our negotiation with North Korea? And does it actually advantage the United States? It was interesting. There was, as there often is in these kinds of settings, a lot of pushing and shoving between the U.S. press corps and the North Korean press corps and some of the North Korean security officers as all the cameras jockeyed for position to try to capture this dramatic, choreographed photo opportunity. And at one point, some North Korean security guards were standing in front of the NBC pool camera, the U.S. pool camera that was serving all the TV networks. And a White House advance guy tried to explain to the North Koreans, he said, hey, that camera gets your boss, Kim Jong-un, on television. You don't want to be blocking that camera. It didn't seem to carry an enormous amount of weight with the North Korean security guard.

And it occurred to me that probably for Kim Jong-un, getting on television back home is not a huge priority, or if he wants it, it's something he can do at any time. The person who really wants to be on television here is President Trump. And he was. He certainly was. He absolutely was. This also took a little bit of the attention away from what may or may not have happened between President Trump and President Xi of China. It quickly eclipsed the Trump-Xi meeting, which really was a case of Trump backing down from his earlier threat to impose stiff tariffs on China without necessarily extracting any particular concession from Xi Jinping other than to go back to the bargaining table. Which is exactly what happened six months, seven months earlier at the last G20 when President Trump met with Xi Jinping. And they came away with the president saying, well, they're going to buy some agricultural goods and we're going to hold

off on the tariffs. And that's almost word for word where they wound up again. Exactly. So in terms of the really structural issues about intellectual property protection and the forced transfer of American technology know-how, not necessarily any real movement on those big issues. And as for whether the North Korea meeting will be a success, even President Trump himself said, we won't know whether this meeting was a great success or not until we find out what comes next. OK, we are going to take a quick break. And when we get back, it is time for Can't Let It Go. What if video games could help you and your child bond and learn important skills?

NPR's Life Kit for Parenting is taking on screen time. One of the big things we're working on right now is the concept't Let It Go, that thing that we do where we talk about the one thing we can't stop thinking about this week, politics or otherwise. Ron Elving. Lee Iacocca. He passed this week at 94. This is the man who was responsible for turning around Chrysler Motors in the 1980s. The last time. And also the man who was responsible for the invention of the,

or the marketing of, if you will, the design and marketing of the Ford Mustang all the way back in the 1960s. He was a legend in Detroit and truly a legend in Detroit. And he was a person who not only turned around the automotive industry in the 1980s, but really began, I think, the realization in a political

sense of what was going on with the industrial base in America, the manufacturing base in America. He talked a lot about working people. Some Democrats tried to recruit him to run for president in 1988, and they were using rhetoric even at that time. We were mostly worried about Japan at that time rather than China, but using a lot of rhetoric that I think we would recognize from the Trump era. At any rate, Lee Iacocca never actually got into politics. And nonetheless, he did embody the American auto industry at its zenith. At kind of the peak of his Chrysler rescue popularity, he also spearheaded the renovation of Ellis Island.

And I think, as a child of Italian immigrants, led all of Americans to sort of celebrate our immigrant heritage. Yes, he did indeed. His father had come from San Marco, Italy. His name was Nicola. And he came through Ellis Island, as did my grandfather. All right, Scott Horsley, what can't you let go of? My can't let go is Christine Lagarde. You have really gone to the other side. You are fully a business reporter now. Christine Lagarde, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund, is having kind of a week. stars in this viral video from the G20 summit where she's talking with some other world leaders and giving a death stare to the president's daughter, Ivanka Trump. Then just days after

that... Which turned into a meme. A meme. Yeah. And I always think it's unfair with those videos because you never know what someone's thinking. She might have been thinking like, oh, I forgot my lunch or something and getting upset about it. But like she didn't look impressed by Ivanka. No, she did not. She did not. And then just days after that, she is tapped starting this fall to lead the European Central Bank. So she'll sort of be the Jay Powell of Europe. Very important post.

She is always someone who adds some glamour and French style to what are often kind of gray gatherings of finance ministers. Men. Men. Is that what you're saying, Ron? I'm saying men. But even more interesting, to really know Christine Lagarde, you don't turn to, say, Marketplace or Planet Money. You have to go to her appearance on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me when she was a guest on Not My Job and talked about her history as a member of the French national synchronized swimming team. It's very weird

because when you're a synchronized swimmer, if you shave your legs completely, you lose sense of where you are and how you're doing. Oh my gosh, so it's like you're Samson. So what you're telling me is like when you see Synchronized swimming As you once were And these women Are in the pool And their legs Are straight up in the air They can only tell

That their legs Are straight up in the air Or wherever they're Supposed to be Because of the sensory Feeling from the hairs On their legs Exactly right

Perfect That is the excuse I need not to shame I didn't hear that Alright match that Jerome Powell Aisha what can't You let go of So I'm kind of That is the excuse I need not to shame. All right, match that, Jerome Powell. Aisha, what can't you let go of?

So I'm kind of doing this in honor of our producer who's not here today. He's off. I guess he's enjoying a vacation. Barton, it is about Taylor Swift. Okay. And he's a bit of a fan fan or he's a lot of a fan. I am not as much of a fan, but there was this drama this week that I

was just fascinated by and it started with Tay Tay, as I like to call her. She posted this... I don't even know what it was on. She posted this post on something and even know what it was on. Well, she posted this post on something. And she talked about how she basically her masters were bought by Scooter Braun, who has like managed Justin Bieber and other people.

And apparently who she's already had, who Taylor Swift has had beef with, with the Scooter Braun guy. And so now he owns her masters which is he bought this he bought the studio oh yeah and the masters are like explain what a master the masters are like I mean it's basically like the rights to the music so people have to so if you want to use it in a commercial or something like that he owns that and so there was just all this drama with like people coming out against Scooter Braun. And then people coming out like Justin Bieber was like tweeting in defense of himself and then,

or Instagram or whatever in defense of himself. And then Scooter Braun's wife, she posted all this stuff basically saying that Taylor Swift was not telling the truth, that she had opportunities to own her masters and she didn't take those offers and then like all these people were getting involved Demi Lovato tweeted in defense of Scooter Braun it was just I'm so confused it was a lie because it was just people were taking sides like people were getting on Taylor Swift's side and then they were getting on Scooter Braun's side and I was kind you know I kind of side-eyed

Taylor a little bit I'm not because I'm not a huge. And I was, you know, I kind of side-eyed Taylor a little bit. I'm not, because I'm not a huge fan. So I was just like, and she does kind of put herself out there as like, you know, people always doing her wrong, basically. And so I'm always skeptical. But maybe in this time she has a point. And I cannot let it go. Tamara, what can you not let go of this week? Well, this is a very special day because it is July 3rd, which is the eve of Independence Day. And we have a very special tradition here at the NPR Politics Podcast.

Now, Morning Edition has a very special tradition where they read the Declaration of Independence. But we have a much more special tradition. This is the fourth annual reading of the most amazing movie speech in the history of movie speeches. Yes. It comes from the film Independence Day. So the aliens are trying to take us out, right?

And President Thomas J. Whitmore addresses the fighter pilots as they are about to take us out, right? And President Thomas J. Whitmore addresses the fighter pilots as they are about to go out and take on the aliens and save the Earth. Good morning. In less than an hour, aircraft from here

will join others from around the world. And you will be launching the largest aerial battle in the history of mankind. Mankind. That word should have new meaning for all of us today. We can't be consumed by our petty differences anymore. We will be united in our common interest. Perhaps it's fate that today is the 4th of July and you will once again be fighting for our freedom, not from tyranny, oppression, or persecution, but from annihilation.

We are fighting for our right to live, to exist. And should we win the day, the 4th of July will no longer be known as an American holiday, but as the day when the world declared in one voice, we will not go quietly into the night. We will not vanish without a fight. We're going to live on. We're going to survive. Today we celebrate our Independence Day. Woohoo! Woohoo!

You get the fireworks. Yes! Half an hour of fireworks. 37 minutes of fireworks. I think that's going to be the President's speech tomorrow. I think it'll be very fitting. It would be well received. We will be back as soon as there's political news you need to know about. To keep up with up to the minute news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Just search for NPR

Politics. And a reminder that we have two live shows coming up, one in Boulder in September and one here in D.C. in November. You can get tickets at nprpresents.org. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. I'm Ayesha Roscoe. I also cover the White House. I'm Scott Horsley. I cover Christine Lagarde. And I'm Ron Elving, editor-correspondent. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.