The NPR Politics Podcast - WH Counsel Don McGahn To Resign; Plus, FL's Governor's Race Is 2018's Bernie v. Trump

Episode Date: August 29, 2018

White House counsel Don McGahn is resigning this autumn after a tumultuous stretch as President Trump's in-house lawyer. Plus, after a surprise upset in yesterday's primary, Florida's race for governor has become a proxy for the Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump showdown that never was. And Arizona will make history by guaranteeing a woman will be their next senator. This episode: White House correspondent Tamara Keith, justice correspondent Carrie Johnson, reporter Sarah McCammon, and political editor Domenico Montanaro. Email the show at [e-mail]. Find and support your local public radio station at npr.org/stationsLearn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hey, y'all. This is Chelsea from Kissimmee, Florida. I just finished voting in the Florida primary and now I'm going to Disney World. This podcast was recorded at 12.23 p.m. on Wednesday, the 29th of August. Things may have changed by the time you hear it. All right, everyone. Here's the show. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. White House Counsel Don McGahn is leaving this fall. We know because the president tweeted an announcement. Plus, we've got the big takeaways from Tuesday's primaries in Arizona and Florida. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. I'm Sarah McCammon, also covering the White House. And I'm Keri Johnson, justice correspondent. And let's just start with that tweet this morning.

It came at 10.30 a.m. from at real Donald Trump. White House counsel Don McGahn will be leaving his position in the fall shortly after the confirmation, hopefully, of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the United States Supreme Court. I have worked with Don for a long time and truly appreciate his service! So, Carrie, can you just tell us who Don McGahn is, what the White House counsel does, what was his role? Sure. The White House counsel is the lawyer for the presidency, the the president didn't seem to always understand that distinction, wanted Don McGahn to protect him and not to protect the institution. He has left a legacy, an important legacy, in terms of the number of federal judges, particularly number of federal appeals court judges. The Trump administration has confirmed at a record pace 26 federal appeals court judges to lifetime appointments. So do we know really why he's leaving now? One person close to the White House I talked to today said that President Trump couldn't stand McGahn and that he regularly, openly complained about McGahn to White House aides.

And the same person told me that McGahn has been on his way out for a long time, but that he got to stay on, in essence, to work on the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh, that this will be his swan song. You know, I got to say that it makes sense that there would be some friction between this president and this White House counsel, in part because this president doesn't like to hear no. And it's sometimes a lawyer's job to say no. There were reports early on that Don McGahn was telling President Trump, you can't just call the Justice Department and issue orders over there. The Justice Department is a part of the executive branch, but it's supposed to be quasi-independent in certain ways. You're not supposed to be doing that. And the president didn't want to hear no for an answer.

The other thing, though, that we should probably talk about with McGahn is, and this may go to some of that tension, right? He sat down with Robert Mueller's team not that long ago, and it sounds like he was pretty frank, right? Well, in fact, Don McGahn, according to The New York Times, has had at least three sit-downs with the Mueller team. We already knew about at least two of them. The Times Don McGahn, according to The New York Times, has had at least three sit downs with the Mueller team. We already knew about at least two of them. The Times says McGahn's total amount of interviews was 30 hours. That's a lot of talking. And what was he talking about? Well, we know that Don McGahn was in the room for discussions about President Trump wanting to fire former FBI Director Jim Comey. He was in the room for conversations where the

president expressed a lot of disdain for his current attorney general, Jeff Sessions, wanted to get rid of Sessions. And we also know that McGahn was privy to conversations about getting rid of the special counsel himself, Robert Mueller. Now, all of this would play into any part of the investigation by the special counsel into obstruction of justice, whether the president may have been trying to derail this investigation by firing the investigators. Of course, the White House position is the president can fire anybody in the executive branch anytime he wants to. Do we think that McGahn's departure is related to the Russia investigation, is related to his conversation with Mueller? Do we have any sense of that, Tam?

You know, the White House is saying this was a long time coming, that the president likes him, though other people on background say the president didn't like him at all, and that it was just time for him to go, that there's not really a connection there. So I don't know that we can know for sure whether it's connected or not. But the reality is that because he was a witness and he was given the blessing by the by the president's legal team and other lawyers in the White House to fully cooperate with with Mueller, he was sort of limited in his ability to deal with that investigation while being White House counsel because he was also a party to it. You know, remember that Don McGahn first sat for an interview with the special counsel in late November of last year. He did one lengthy day of interviews, and then he broke and was supposed to go back later on. And he was not able to keep that appointment because, lo and behold, the president's former national security advisor, Michael Flynn, had pleaded guilty. So McGahn had

to reschedule his appointment with the special counsel to deal with that crisis. This is a guy who has been in the frying pan, if not the fire, for his entire tenure as White House counsel. And in fact, somebody very interesting nodded to that today on Twitter. George Conway, the very prominent lawyer in town who is married to Kellyanne Conway, presidential advisor, was tweeting about McCann's departure. And he said basically that you need to remember the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution. So in case you don't know, the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution prohibits cruel and unusual punishment. And George Conway appeared to be suggesting that being the White House counsel to Donald Trump

was running into cruel and unusual punishment. As for Don McGahn in the Mueller investigation, we don't yet know everything he has told investigators. He may have some things to explain of his own doing because he was in rooms where firings were discussed and other things came up. There are things that Don McGahn knows and had to explain, and it's not yet clear to me whether he explained them to investigators to their great satisfaction or not. Do we know who's going to replace McGahn? Well, one name that is floating around is a man named Emmett Flood. And Flood is currently the White House special counsel. He's the person inside the White House who is dealing with the Russia investigation. He is a heavy hitter. He actually represented the Clinton administration as well as George W. Bush's White House. So he has sort of a long history of serving past presidents. One source told me that part of Flood joining the White House team was that he would ultimately become White House counsel.

Emmett Flood is a lawyer who was a partner at one of the best law firms in Washington named Williams & Connolly. He didn't come into the White House to be second chair to anybody, as they say in the legal profession. It's quite clear he's been angling for this top job for some time. And when he took the job, people described him to me as somebody would want if you were on war footing. And of course, if Democrats take control of the House in these midterm elections in November, this White House is going to be on war footing, and he may be just the guy to represent the White House's legal interests. Right, as there would be potential Overs oversight committee investigations and things like that. Carrie, we're going to let you run and take a quick break. And when we come back, we're going to bring in Domenico Montanaro to talk about why the Florida governor's race just became one of the hottest races to watch this fall. We'll be right back. Support for NPR and the following message come from Newsy,

the TV news channel with honest, in-depth context on the stories that matter. Newsy is for people who aren't satisfied with getting only the loudest part of the story. Newsy delivers more, more context, more solutions, and greater understanding of the people and events that shape our world. Learn more at newsy.com slash watch. This is Terry Gross, the host of Fresh Air. The Emmy Awards are coming up. So this week, we're listening back to interviews

with some nominees and people whose shows are nominated, like Issa Rae, Jake Tapper, Brian Tyree Henry, Tim Gunn, and Stephen Colbert. So check out this week's Emmy series on Fresh Air. And we're back and we've got Domenico Montanaro in the studio. Hey, Domenico. Hey. And let's talk about the big takeaways from yesterday's primaries in Florida and Arizona.

There was a big surprise in Florida. Sort of the theme being like progressives versus MAGA America. Is that how you would do it? That's kind of the theme of America right now. And this race in Florida is essentially going to encapsulate all of that, which is why I am really, really excited about this race and how it's going to shape up this fall. And we're talking about the Florida governor's race. And essentially what you had was a Bernie Sanders-backed candidate, Andrew Gillum, who is the Tallahassee mayor, who won in a big upset. No one had expected him to win.

He wound up defeating Gwen Graham, who's a former congresswoman. She also happens to be the daughter of the former governor and senator, Bob Graham. And Gillum now, who is largely unknown, ekes out this victory. Lots of energy in the final days. And now he's going to go up against the candidate who arguably has been the Trumpiest candidate of the entire cycle in Ron DeSantis, who is a congressman. He won by far more than anyone expected. President Trump backed him. And that's what you've got.

You've got a Bernie Trump face off, the one that never happened in 2016. DeSantis, of course, who is the guy who in his campaign ads is shown with his children building a mini wall and reading a storybook about Donald Trump. I mean, I love those cardboard building blocks, by the way. They're really great for kids. Could you lean into being Trumpy any more than that? A few months ago, if you had asked us, well, who's the favorite? Who's the one who is the likely winner of the Republican primary in Florida? Ron DeSantis wouldn't have been that guy. But then he got an endorsement from President Trump and he just ran with it.

He wrote it. I mean, Adam Putnam was who was expected early on. He's a former congressman and the current agriculture commissioner. But Putnam, he's somebody who criticized President Trump during the campaign and afterward. He didn't show up with him at any campaign events. Guess whose party it is, folks. I mean, this is President Trump's party. And we've seen reminder of that pretty much week after week in these primaries. Week after week.

So there's been a lot of talk that, you know, all the energy is on the left and Democrats are just fired up and turning out. Is that what we saw last night? Well, Gillum certainly has gotten a lot of the mentions and he's been talked about. He's excited the Democratic base, the progressive base. But Republicans turned out in more numbers than the Democrats by about 100,000 voters. And DeSantis wound up getting some 900,000 votes while Gillum wound up getting about 400,000 or so. I think it's important to point out that, you know, Gillum, he's known as sort of the Bernie Sanders candidate, but that's because of the issues he stands for, right? I mean, he has come

out very much in favor of Medicare for all, which is a popular theme with some of the more progressive candidates like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who won in New York, who was a big surprise in that Democratic primary a couple months ago. And also expected to advocate if he's elected governor right for Medicaid expansion, which has been an issue in many states for years, but a lot of states still haven't done it. He wants to increase teacher pay and he wants to improve public schools. He has this message that he talks about. If you looked at his victory speech last night, where he really has this positive, aspirational, working class message. It's really it really does stand in contrast to President Trump's sort of grievance politics, grievance based economic populist message that he puts out there. You know, Gillum has this really fascinating, interesting life story talking about his parents

and how they really instilled hard work in him. And, you know, again, it is going to be the complete polar opposites when it comes to him versus DeSantis. And Domenico DeSantis, he's a member of Congress. But what do we know about him? He's a staunch Trump ally. And that goes with everything you can think of. Again, Sarah mentioned that ad where he's building the wall with his kids. He reads to them from the art of the deal and says, you know, I love when he says you're fired. Basically, everything that President Trump wants done, Ron DeSantis wants also done. And he is a staunch conservative.

But he's running for governor. Well, I mean, I think it's more a matter of sending a signal to the base voters about where you want the party to go and, you know, more broadly, the issues you stand for. I mean, we see this in a lot of statewide races and state house races all the time, right? People vote based on party. They vote based on issues that their state lawmakers, for instance, may not have any real control over. But it's about sort of partisan identity. And increasingly, that means for Republicans, that often means Trump. And on health care, you know, another really big issue in this midterm

election, DeSantis voted multiple times in Congress to repeal the Affordable Care Act. So he's definitely on Trump's side on that issue as well. A huge divide, huge split in the state between these two candidates, very different directions that they could possibly go. Is this race going to be about issues? Obviously, there are big differences on things like health care and immigration and other issues. I mean, there's already some signs that this may be sort of devolving into personal attacks, personal attacks, a war of opposition research. It's definitely going to be a war of opposition research. I had someone tell me, for example, that they're kind of surprised that Gillum won. They expected Graham to be the nominee. So everything that they had for this governor's race, they're starting again. They expected Graham to be the nominee. So everything that they had

for this governor's race, they're starting again. They're going back to the drawing board, this source said. Now, at the same time, they have already been drawing a lot on that board because this source told me that they're going to go after Gillum. One, when it comes to the FBI, because there have been a lot of problems within the city government of Tallahassee. Gillum says that he's not a target of this investigation. The FBI has not said he's a target of the investigation. But this source said until he's publicly cleared, this is a cloud that they're willing to keep over his head. They also are going to talk about the impeachment of Donald Trump.

Republicans, their private polling shows Trump with a 50 percent approval rating in Florida. And they think that Trump is actually a positive for them. And when you have Gillum saying that he'd be in favor of impeachment, that's something they're going to hit on. Because governors are really involved in impeachment. And speaking of personal attacks, first of all, we should mention that Gillum is black. And DeSantis was out this morning with a comment that we'll just play it and you can make up your own mind. We've got to work hard to make sure that we continue Florida going in a good direction. Let's build off the success we've had on Governor Scott.

The last thing we need to do is to monkey this up. There is, of course, a long history of that word being used as a racist slur against African-Americans. Well, and look, the Democratic Governors Association is out with a statement immediately afterward and said that on the first day of the general election, Ron DeSantis showed Floridians who he is, they said, and they called it resorting to dog whistle politics within hours of winning the GOP nomination. Wow. I want to turn to another state, the great state of Arizona, where we now know who will be running for the Senate seat being vacated by Jeff Flake. And we know one thing already. Arizona is sending a woman to the Senate. That's right. There have been a lot of discussions about the year of the woman and the Democratic wave of Democratic women. But in this race,

we have two female Congresswomen running for the Senate seat vacated by retiring Republican Senator Jeff Flake. And would be the first woman sent to be a senator from Arizona. They haven't had a woman in that position. OK, let's name names here. We've got Martha McSally, who won on the Republican side. She's a former fighter pilot. And Kirsten Sinema, who won on the Democratic side and is the fastest woman in Congress. Is that true? I mean, it's not like her primary selling point, but there is a running race every year. And she won, which means she's the fastest woman in Congress. Fun fact.

I know. So tell our listeners something relevant, please. Well, so Martha McSally has she ran her primary race to the right and she was running up against two very conservative, very pro-Trump Republicans. She, too, has been very pro-Trump. He's already out and endorsed her for the general election at this point. She has run hard on her identity as a fighter pilot in her victory speech. She tried to sort of paint this race as she said, as a patriot versus a protester, alluding to cinema's history as a she'd been a social worker. And she's also been involved in the past in some peace activism, anti-war activism. And there was an ad to that effect already from McSally. That's right. Everyone remembers where they were on 9-11.

I was deployed to the Middle East, led airstrikes against the Taliban, and was the first woman to fly a fighter jet in combat. I know the price of freedom. While we were in harm's way in uniform, Kyrsten Sinema was protesting us in a pink tutu and denigrating our service. She's going to be trying to paint Sinema as a leftist. She even said last night that she's to the left of Nancy Pelosi. Sinema, meanwhile, is running as sort of a centrist Democrat. Clearly, she's real headstrong. I call it being independent. She talks about affordable health care without getting specific about whether she wants Medicare for all.

She talks about fixing the VA, an issue that's a bipartisan issue. She talks about safety and fighting terrorism and strengthening Social Security and Medicare. Stuff that really candidates on both sides of the aisle talk about. Whereas McSally, again, is going to try to paint her as a liberal. McSally has been trying to out-tough her this entire campaign. That has been the entire premise of essentially McSally's candidacy, you know, out-toughing everybody. She had her famous ad where she said she told Republicans to grow a pair of ovaries and get the job done, right? I mean,

and there is this tradition in the country where you have women underrepresented in the Senate and to national positions where they feel like they have to run in a way that shows that they're not weak. And it's really interesting to hear how she talks about her gender. She talked about when she was in the Air Force fighting against an expectation that she wear, you know, she cover herself in Muslim majority countries. And she described it as the burqa battle because she said she was raised to believe that a woman should be treated equally. So she sort of painted that as a feminist stance. She's up against another woman. So they can't out woman each other, but they can definitely sort of paint a different vision of what it means to be a female candidate. And bottom line here, this is a race we care about because Democrats, if they want to take back the Senate, they need to net two seats.

This is a terrible landscape that they're facing this year. If they're going to take back the Senate, they're going to have to do it in a state like Arizona. By the way, this race is going to get really, really nasty and already has because Sinema has been holding on to a fairly narrow margin and Republicans believe that they have to bring her down to McSally at this point so that they can kind of restart the race. Yeah. I mean, Sinema has had the ability to sort of define herself for a while now. Courting independence the entire time. Well, and as she has in Congress for years, I mean, she you know, you look who she hangs out with in Congress and she hangs out with Republicans as much as she hangs out with Democrats. That is going to be a wrap for today. We will be back tomorrow with a roundup of this week's big political stories. And until then, you can email us your timestamps

for the top of the show to nprpolitics at npr.org. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. I'm Sarah McCammon, also covering the White House. And I'm Domenico Montanaro, political editor. And Sarah, we're sad because you've been hanging out with us as part of the NPR politics team for several months now. And you're going back to your

job. I'm going back to my day job on NPR's national desk. I'll still be covering a lot of issues that intersect with politics. And I will be seeing more of my kids and spouse who do not live in Washington, D.C. So I will miss you guys. But it's time. I'm hearing a lot of boys to men. It's so hard to say goodbye. It's just plays in my head every time we have to say goodbye well i feel like you should sing it dominico i think i've done my singing on the podcast well my boys are turning into men so i need to spend more time with them when that happens like like many politicians say i i need to spend more time with my family but i'm not leaving npr i'm just shifting back to a different position.

And I know that our audience will hear from you again. So thank you, Sarah. And thanks, everyone, for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast. To be my sunshine after the rain