Domenico Montanaro
Appearances
NPR News Now
NPR News: 04-02-2025 5PM EDT
His agenda of sweeping federal cuts has been unpopular, and this result is a warning sign for the party not to embrace them too tightly. Republicans won the Florida House seats by double digits, but Democrats significantly cut into the margins in these deeply conservative districts.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 04-02-2025 5PM EDT
You don't want to overread results of special elections, but the party that consistently overperforms in them usually does well in the next midterm elections. Domenico Montanaro, NPR News, Washington.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 04-02-2025 5PM EDT
The win in Wisconsin for Democrats was big because it saw the most spending for any judicial seat in history, and it became something of a referendum on Elon Musk. Musk spent roughly $20 million to support the conservative judge in the race and even made an appearance in the state.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 01-29-2025 7PM EST
The idea is what you've seen. Make things unclear. Make people exhausted. Make it harder for the media to focus on one thing. And make it harder for the opposition to organize a message. around what to focus on. But the backlash to this spending freeze memo shows that there are limits to that kind of strategy.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 01-29-2025 7PM EST
Just because something is done fast doesn't necessarily mean it's the best way to run the government. And this is now the first major misstep by the Trump administration. But don't think this is going to mean any kind of dialing back.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 01-15-2025 7PM EST
Trump has said he wants to pardon January 6th defendants, impose tariffs on other countries, and conduct mass deportations of immigrants in the U.S. without legal status. But the NPR poll of almost 1,400 adults doesn't find a lot of support for those initiatives. More than 6 in 10 disapprove of Trump potentially pardoning people who are convicted of of attacking the U.S.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 01-15-2025 7PM EST
Capitol on January 6, 2021. When it comes to tariffs, 48% think that they'd hurt the U.S. economy, while only 31% say that they think they'd help. And on deportations, people are evenly split. The survey has about a three percentage point margin of error. Domenico Montanaro, NPR News, Washington.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 02-21-2025 7PM EST
CNN's poll also found that 62% think that he hasn't done enough to reduce the price of goods.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 02-21-2025 7PM EST
The bottom line is that it looks like that the honeymoon for Trump appears to be over. The country has largely always been split on Trump, slight majority disapproving. And that's what we saw in back-to-back polls with CNN and Washington Post Ipsos. People were split on Trump's approach to immigration, but both polls found a majority think that he's exceeding his power as president.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 04-07-2025 3PM EDT
We did hear from President Trump last night on Air Force One after a weekend of playing golf in a seniors tournament. And the first thing he wanted to tell reporters was that he won. He did talk about those tariffs, which is a big reason that the protests have gained steam in the first place. He was asked about the market going down and if there's a threshold of pain.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 04-07-2025 3PM EDT
that he's willing to tolerate from the markets and have to take medicine to fix something, he said. But for a lot of people who crossed over to vote for Trump, they were hoping that the medicine would be to bring prices down.
The NPR Politics Podcast
Dems Face Pressure To Fight Trump
Well, life in the minority stinks. I mean, no other way to really put it. I mean, it's hard to really have a lot that you can do, especially procedurally. You know, there is the Senate filibuster for legislation, you know, where they'll need 60 votes to get something passed. And Democrats can certainly stand on that, as Mitch McConnell did when he was a Republican leader.
The NPR Politics Podcast
Dems Face Pressure To Fight Trump
But there's going to be a lot of things like those Trump tax cuts that Republicans are probably going to be able to pass by tying it to the budget. They'll only need 51 votes. So and they certainly have that. So there's not a lot that Democrats can do procedurally, even when it comes to these nominees.
The NPR Politics Podcast
Dems Face Pressure To Fight Trump
Democrats actually changed the rules some years ago during President Obama's term because Republicans are standing in the way of a lot of Obama's nominees. They got rid of the filibuster for those cabinet appointees. So now you only need 51 votes. So beyond talkathons or trying to sort of
The NPR Politics Podcast
Dems Face Pressure To Fight Trump
slow things down a little bit with some procedural maneuvers, there's not a lot they can do to really stand in the way. This is really going to be about messaging. This is going to be about how Democrats are able to take what Trump has been doing, what Elon Musk has been doing, and trying to sell that to the American people as a problem.
The NPR Politics Podcast
Dems Face Pressure To Fight Trump
I'm Barbara Sprint. I cover Congress. And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent.
The NPR Politics Podcast
Dems Face Pressure To Fight Trump
One of the things we've started to hear from some Democrats like Hakeem Jeffries there
The NPR Politics Podcast
Dems Face Pressure To Fight Trump
after he mentioned that what leverage do we have point is about the cost of living and saying that Trump's not focused on the cost of living because Democrats are trying to reach out more beyond just their base because certainly a lot of the people in their base are upset about what they see as a breaking of democratic norms about things like constitutional crises.
The NPR Politics Podcast
Dems Face Pressure To Fight Trump
It didn't work as a message during the election. And it's really difficult because most people don't know or care what the federal government really does. It certainly affects the Washington, D.C. area very directly, but the consequences across the country may take longer to be felt or, you know, if at all.
The NPR Politics Podcast
Dems Face Pressure To Fight Trump
Yeah, I think a lot of this is really going to land in the courts, right?
The NPR Politics Podcast
Dems Face Pressure To Fight Trump
I mean, I think that this is the one area that can actually stop what the executive branch is doing and is going to be the sort of final say on the limits that Trump is testing to see whether or not what he does in how he's firing people in the federal workforce, or, you know, not wanting to continue congressionally approved funding, if any of that is constitutional or legal, it's going to be settled in
The NPR Politics Podcast
Dems Face Pressure To Fight Trump
in the courts. And we know that there's a 6-3 conservative majority at the Supreme Court. So Trump is happy to test as much of this as possible. And we'll see where the court decides to actually stop him. But politically, it's going to be decided at the ballot box and whether or not a lot of the things that Trump winds up doing seems to go too far with people or if people like what he's doing.
The NPR Politics Podcast
Dems Face Pressure To Fight Trump
I don't think that's wholly accurate, to be fair to Democrats here, because I don't think the Democrats have the same powers that Republicans did have. And I think the Democrats tried to go through the Congress way more than Trump is trying to go through Congress. Trump has done everything so far by executive order, by executive actions. A lot of this is reshaping the federal government.
The NPR Politics Podcast
Dems Face Pressure To Fight Trump
He certainly is in charge of the executive branch. Some of that, like we said, is going to be determined by the courts and whether or not it's legal. Like we said earlier, they've sort of been a bit more hobbled about the kind of legislative maneuvers that they can use, especially when it comes to cabinet appointees or judges.
The NPR Politics Podcast
Dems Face Pressure To Fight Trump
Democrats got rid of that because of how much obstructionism that Republicans used in trying to get judges or cabinet appointees through. So I do think that there needs to be a little bit of education that goes on about what actually Democrats are able to do. They certainly could do more in being unified on their message or protesting or gathering people to understand how to fight back.
The NPR Politics Podcast
Dems Face Pressure To Fight Trump
That's hard to do when you don't have one particular person who everyone looks at as the leader of the party.
The NPR Politics Podcast
Dems Face Pressure To Fight Trump
I mean, I don't know. I mean, I think that if they could do it, they would do it. I think that they're generally, I mean, it's very broad strokes, but a bit more opposed to some of those procedural maneuvers.
The NPR Politics Podcast
Dems Face Pressure To Fight Trump
But Republicans would say that's not the case when you look back on somebody like Harry Reid, the former, you know, Senate Democratic leader who was able to procedurally spar pretty well and hold his own with Mitch McConnell. There isn't a Harry Reid anymore, really. I mean, Chuck Schumer is more of a messaging guy. And Reid was much more of a procedural guy.
The NPR Politics Podcast
Dems Face Pressure To Fight Trump
And there's a lot of Democrats trying to figure out who is going to be the person that can really lead them beyond this Trump administration.
The NPR Politics Podcast
Dems Face Pressure To Fight Trump
Sure. I don't know that the structures have anything to do with whether or not Democrats can take back the House in 2026. I think that maybe a little bit of the issue Democrats have had certainly has been redistricting and gerrymandering where the country sort of tips a little bit more toward Republicans because of how gerrymandered so many Republican seats are.
The NPR Politics Podcast
Dems Face Pressure To Fight Trump
Democrats do it too, but not as much as Republicans have in multiple states.
The NPR Politics Podcast
Dems Face Pressure To Fight Trump
Right. And the thing is, Republicans are unlikely to lose the Senate because of the majority that they have now. The real ballgame is going to be the House. And it's only a three-seat majority, as you pointed out earlier. And a president generally does lose seats in their midterm elections.
The NPR Politics Podcast
Dems Face Pressure To Fight Trump
So I think that's where Democrats are probably going to be most focused and likely to have the best ability to win. based on the issues in those districts and seeing what the Trump administration does. I mean it's hard to believe this is only the first – we're still within the first month of the administration.
The NPR Politics Podcast
Dems Face Pressure To Fight Trump
So there's going to be a whole lot more that winds up happening, whether it's popular or not, is going to be a huge reason why Democrats win or don't win.
The NPR Politics Podcast
Dems Face Pressure To Fight Trump
And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent.
The NPR Politics Podcast
Trump Administration Fires Top Pentagon Officials, Military Lawyers
I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. I'm Tom Bowman. I cover the Pentagon.
The NPR Politics Podcast
Trump Administration Fires Top Pentagon Officials, Military Lawyers
I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. I'm Tom Bowman. I cover the Pentagon.
The NPR Politics Podcast
Poll: Majority Thinks Trump Is Making Changes Too Quickly
What we found here is that Trump has a 45 percent approval rating, which is lower, by the way, than any past president in the last 80 years since Gallup has been measuring that number. So, you know, clearly Americans still very divided on Trump. I think one of the big warning signs for him in this poll is independence, because only 34 percent of independents approve of the job that he's doing.
The NPR Politics Podcast
Poll: Majority Thinks Trump Is Making Changes Too Quickly
57% of people expect prices to go up in the next six months, which was the thing that I think is hard to argue is what got Trump in the White House in the first place. He has said that, you know, he could fix it. He would fix the economy. He would fix prices. But after he was elected... The price of apples goes up. It doubles. What can you do?
The NPR Politics Podcast
Poll: Majority Thinks Trump Is Making Changes Too Quickly
Well, Republicans very much are in line with Trump. Only a small percentage think that prices are going to go up. But the real problem for Trump here is with independence because he's underwater by 20 points with independence when it comes to his approach on the economy. They think that it's going to make things worse. And they – I overwhelmingly think that prices are going to be going up.
The NPR Politics Podcast
Poll: Majority Thinks Trump Is Making Changes Too Quickly
And that's a big part of this is because of all the conversation around tariffs. We know that tariffs are supposed to, he says, go into effect tomorrow. But there's some question whether or not he'll actually do that because the stock market has responded negatively. to that every single time that he's threatened those tariffs.
The NPR Politics Podcast
Poll: Majority Thinks Trump Is Making Changes Too Quickly
Well, I do think, though, that Republicans elected leaders are going to be the ones who feel the, you know, either the good things that happen from how people feel about what Trump does or the fallout from what he does. That's for sure. And they have a very narrow majority in the House.
The NPR Politics Podcast
Poll: Majority Thinks Trump Is Making Changes Too Quickly
And if independents continue to overwhelmingly disapprove, as they are, of what Trump is doing and Democratic opposition continues to be strong and they show up at the polls, that could spell real trouble for Republicans, especially in the House.
The NPR Politics Podcast
Poll: Majority Thinks Trump Is Making Changes Too Quickly
Well, Musk and Doge both only have a 39% favorability rating. So only 39% of people have a positive view of Elon Musk and Doge. So in some respects, Trump can use Musk as a heat shield. And all the negative things that people feel about the cuts rushing into things, as a majority of people in our poll say that they think that Trump has rushed into these cuts without
The NPR Politics Podcast
Poll: Majority Thinks Trump Is Making Changes Too Quickly
thinking about the impact, that he can use Musk and maybe cut him off when he needs to. But really, people don't think very highly of either Doge or Musk. And 60 percent of people think that federal workers are essential to making government work. Only 40 percent think that the government would be fine without most of them.
The NPR Politics Podcast
Poll: Majority Thinks Trump Is Making Changes Too Quickly
Well, it looks like a little bit of a mixed bag, but we can break these down. 37% said that the US is not giving enough support to Ukraine. 34% think the US is giving Ukraine too much support. Another 28% say the US is giving about the right amount of support.
The NPR Politics Podcast
Poll: Majority Thinks Trump Is Making Changes Too Quickly
But if you combine that 37% who think that the US isn't giving enough support and those who say that the US is giving the right amount, meaning they likely want to see it continued. That's two thirds of people in this poll, 65 percent.
The NPR Politics Podcast
Poll: Majority Thinks Trump Is Making Changes Too Quickly
It's not like an eight-week-old, you know, or something like that, which would be a lot of work. But I have to say, giving a puppy as a surprise is not usually the best tactic.
The NPR Politics Podcast
Poll: Majority Thinks Trump Is Making Changes Too Quickly
So this idea that the U.S., that the population wants to cut off support to what has been a traditional ally against a traditional adversary is really Trump sort of swimming upstream with his revolutionary foreign policy here.
The NPR Politics Podcast
Poll: Majority Thinks Trump Is Making Changes Too Quickly
I mean, Trump has had, you know, very warm policy. feelings, things he said very positively about a lot of strong men all over the world and autocratic leaders. You know, even going back to his first term, he's done this pretty consistently. He just really likes somebody who's got a lot of power.
The NPR Politics Podcast
Poll: Majority Thinks Trump Is Making Changes Too Quickly
And he sees this foreign policy, the Trump doctrine sort of as something that's more transactional, more he would say America first and less about alliances sort of turning away from America's friends post-World War II. This idea of what the United States is going to be, Trump is really trying to reshape what that means.
The NPR Politics Podcast
Poll: Majority Thinks Trump Is Making Changes Too Quickly
Definitely. It's one of the biggest things that's happened since he was sworn in. Yeah.
The NPR Politics Podcast
Poll: Majority Thinks Trump Is Making Changes Too Quickly
Yeah. And let's get to the numbers first. 56 percent said that that they don't think that the system of checks and balances is working effectively. That included eight and 10 Democrats and two thirds of independents who either disagree or strongly disagree that the country's system of checks and balances is working well.
The NPR Politics Podcast
Poll: Majority Thinks Trump Is Making Changes Too Quickly
72 percent of Republicans, though, strongly agree or agree that the system is functioning effectively because they fully support what Donald Trump is doing for the most part.
The NPR Politics Podcast
Poll: Majority Thinks Trump Is Making Changes Too Quickly
But he wants unchecked power, and he's testing the limits of just how far a president can take things.
The NPR Politics Podcast
Roundup: Congress Works On Budget; Cabinet Meets; Good TV
Trending on Netflix right now is this political show called Zero Day where Robert De Niro is president, former president I should say. There's some Biden vibes that kind of go on. But you find out some other sort of big crises, things that happen. It's actually pretty good. I would say it's entertaining. There's a lot of that though.
The NPR Politics Podcast
Roundup: Congress Works On Budget; Cabinet Meets; Good TV
I feel like Beach Read TV on Netflix right now where everything is just kind of like –
The NPR Politics Podcast
Roundup: Congress Works On Budget; Cabinet Meets; Good TV
You know, thriller, fine. Like, it's, like, fine.
The NPR Politics Podcast
Roundup: Congress Works On Budget; Cabinet Meets; Good TV
I was going to say I think that her adult life is sort of the arc of how differently women who have been in power situations with men who have harassed women or sexually assaulted them, how differently they've been viewed through the years. I mean it's very different now than it was in the late 90s, and I think that her adult life is sort of a great representation of that change.
The NPR Politics Podcast
Roundup: Congress Works On Budget; Cabinet Meets; Good TV
Domenico, what about you? What can't you let go of? Well, we've got the Oscars coming up on Sunday and it also kind of made me think about the life of Gene Hackman, the great actor who tragically died. He was 95 years old. But I just started thinking about reflecting on some of the movies that he made and it's amazing. He's made more than 70 movies.
The NPR Politics Podcast
Roundup: Congress Works On Budget; Cabinet Meets; Good TV
You know, just a couple of movies that always stuck with me were Hoosiers because I played basketball growing up. And, you know, I probably knew every word to that when I was in high school. And his personality is just such a force of life. It was interesting to me. I was reading this week him talking about his father had abandoned the family as a kid.
The NPR Politics Podcast
Roundup: Congress Works On Budget; Cabinet Meets; Good TV
And Gene Hackman is so well known for these little eye movements or forehead crinkles or a little laugh or gesture. And he said that when his father walked out on them, he just gave a little wave. And he said that there was so much to interpret in that wave that it actually, as difficult as it all was, he drew on that as an actor to say a little gesture can really mean a lot.
The NPR Politics Podcast
Roundup: Congress Works On Budget; Cabinet Meets; Good TV
And it was really interesting if you look back through his films, you know, how he really just sort of is able to do that and capture somebody else. And that sort of, I love the description that we had on NPR, someone said that he was a coiled snake of an actor, a sort of rage that was inside, but you didn't quite always see it.
The NPR Politics Podcast
Roundup: Congress Works On Budget; Cabinet Meets; Good TV
And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent.
The NPR Politics Podcast
Roundup: Congress Works On Budget; Cabinet Meets; Good TV
Yeah, it's not that easy when you have such a small majority in the House and you have varying factions within the Republican Party. They have some moderates and you also have some pretty hardline people on the right who don't want to see – much increased spending at all.
The NPR Politics Podcast
Roundup: Congress Works On Budget; Cabinet Meets; Good TV
And, you know, there's a lot of division here among those factions about how much to cut entitlements, for example, if at all, we know Medicaid has been a huge sticking point. Right.
The NPR Politics Podcast
Roundup: Congress Works On Budget; Cabinet Meets; Good TV
And there's a lot of misconceptions about a program like Medicaid. And KFF, which does a lot of polling on healthcare issues, things like Medicare, Medicaid, and all the rest, has done some polling on this and found three-quarters of people have a favorable opinion of it. So really tough to cut programs that are popular.
The NPR Politics Podcast
Roundup: Congress Works On Budget; Cabinet Meets; Good TV
Definitely, and I think that it's a really tough thing for them to try and say that they're going to cut all of these programs and take a chainsaw in the way that Elon Musk and his advisory group DOGE, Department of Government Efficiency, is trying to cut discretionary spending and firing all these federal workers when – it really won't make much of a dent in the federal budget at all.
The NPR Politics Podcast
Roundup: Congress Works On Budget; Cabinet Meets; Good TV
As soon as he started saying Snoqualmie, I was like, I've been there. It's a really nice place. I totally forgot that it was a while back.
The NPR Politics Podcast
Roundup: Congress Works On Budget; Cabinet Meets; Good TV
Yeah, and he didn't quite have a seat at the table. He had a seat off the table. But he was able to stand and preside over everybody kind of in the shadows wearing a black Make America Great Again hat, a black coat that he had on, this long coat. And he thought it was funny. He opened his –
The NPR Politics Podcast
Roundup: Congress Works On Budget; Cabinet Meets; Good TV
Jacket and it said tech support because he felt like he was tech support for the government But I thought that the imagery was interesting there because Trump did give him the floor He let him take a lot of questions about what Doge is doing, but it does set up this What I think a lot of us thought would be the case which is Trump sort of making Elon Musk the sort of the bad cop You know and be able to absorb all the bad press and when he gets to be too much you could see Trump cutting the the rope
The NPR Politics Podcast
Roundup: Congress Works On Budget; Cabinet Meets; Good TV
to send the Musk boat out to sea. But he won't necessarily need to do that until Musk makes all of the cuts he wants to make. Because polling has shown Musk to be pretty unpopular, but Trump above him. So I think that he thinks that it's working at this point.
The NPR Politics Podcast
Roundup: Congress Works On Budget; Cabinet Meets; Good TV
I'm Barbara Sprent.
The NPR Politics Podcast
Roundup: Congress Works On Budget; Cabinet Meets; Good TV
And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent.
The NPR Politics Podcast
Roundup: Congress Works On Budget; Cabinet Meets; Good TV
Yeah, and, you know, it – A lot of people might think, well, so what? The White House gets to determine who's there. No big deal. But what has gone on for a long time is a sort of democratic process where the news organizations that have covered the White House for a long time get together, vote on somebody who's in charge of the White House Correspondents Association.
The NPR Politics Podcast
Roundup: Congress Works On Budget; Cabinet Meets; Good TV
And then they try to have a rotation for what's known as a pool, where people are reporting on the president, and often in tight spaces where you can't fit a lot of media. But you want somebody there who's fast and sharp, and who's giving you unbiased information and giving you all of that relevant information. And that is now called into question because
The NPR Politics Podcast
Roundup: Congress Works On Budget; Cabinet Meets; Good TV
The White House press secretary came out and chided the media and said essentially that this group is no longer going to control that. The White House is going to control it. And that raises eyebrows because who are they going to select for that? They want to be able to control their message more tightly.
The NPR Politics Podcast
Roundup: Congress Works On Budget; Cabinet Meets; Good TV
Every president wants to try to control the message, but this is a bigger step than other presidents have done before. And I do think it's worth reminding people that – Being a member of the press is the only protected job by the Constitution in the First Amendment.
The NPR Politics Podcast
Roundup: Congress Works On Budget; Cabinet Meets; Good TV
I mean freedom of the press is right there, and it's one of the things that around the world people are concerned when they see the freedom of the press reduced because that also tends to track with a lot of autocracies around the world.
The NPR Politics Podcast
Roundup: Kash Patel Confirmed As FBI Chief; China Sees Opportunity As USAID Gets Cut
Well, you know, I ran so far away. You know, you look like a very hairy Jake Gyllenhaal to me was always a funny line. I always thought about Ahmadinejad. Who could make that joke? Right. I mean, it's just so crazy. I love SNL because it's always been so countercultural. And, you know, has lasted as long as it has. And especially when at a time when music videos were going out of style.
The NPR Politics Podcast
Roundup: Kash Patel Confirmed As FBI Chief; China Sees Opportunity As USAID Gets Cut
Well, what I can't let go of, and I'm sorry if you're eating anything, is boogers.
The NPR Politics Podcast
Roundup: Kash Patel Confirmed As FBI Chief; China Sees Opportunity As USAID Gets Cut
Not my own. OK, I have to clarify that. This has to do with Elon Musk's very young son. He was he was in the White House this week and he picked and wiped something that you're not supposed to do. We tell our kids all the time, but he did it on the resolute desk at the White House where Donald Trump was sitting, the president of the United States.
The NPR Politics Podcast
Roundup: Kash Patel Confirmed As FBI Chief; China Sees Opportunity As USAID Gets Cut
And if that's not funny enough, word then came out this week that the Resolute Desk, Donald Trump reports on Truth Social, is being lightly refinished. A very important job. This is a beautiful but temporary replacement.
The NPR Politics Podcast
Roundup: Kash Patel Confirmed As FBI Chief; China Sees Opportunity As USAID Gets Cut
Yeah. Yes, known germaphobe. You know, whether or not it's not clear that it's related to that exactly, but that didn't stop places like the New York Post, which are generally pretty friendly toward Trump from jumping to that conclusion, saying in their lead, which I love, the White House has assured the public it's not a permanent change.
The NPR Politics Podcast
Roundup: Kash Patel Confirmed As FBI Chief; China Sees Opportunity As USAID Gets Cut
And I'm Domenico Mazzanaro, senior political editor and correspondent.
The NPR Politics Podcast
Roundup: Kash Patel Confirmed As FBI Chief; China Sees Opportunity As USAID Gets Cut
And that just simply wasn't who Kash Patel was before he was at that Senate hearing.
The NPR Politics Podcast
Roundup: Kash Patel Confirmed As FBI Chief; China Sees Opportunity As USAID Gets Cut
This is somebody who was known for being provocative, who wrote a book not just about the government gangsters, as he noted in the book title, but he wrote a children's book called The Plot Against the King that seemed to depict someone with blonde hair as the king, looked like maybe President Trump, and somebody who looked like Nancy Pelosi as one of the people who was engaging in the plot against and
The NPR Politics Podcast
Roundup: Kash Patel Confirmed As FBI Chief; China Sees Opportunity As USAID Gets Cut
Someone who maybe looked like Kash Patel, who seemed to be the sorcerer behind the king. So it's one thing when you're trying to sell books and get yourself on podcasts. It's another thing when you want to run the FBI, which is one of the most important structures in this country for fighting crime.
The NPR Politics Podcast
Roundup: Kash Patel Confirmed As FBI Chief; China Sees Opportunity As USAID Gets Cut
And he says that he's not going to engage in political weaponization or try to go after enemies and all of that. But we saw people who said one thing at the hearing, which defied what they believed before the hearing seemingly. And then when they got confirmed, did something else.
The NPR Politics Podcast
Roundup: Kash Patel Confirmed As FBI Chief; China Sees Opportunity As USAID Gets Cut
And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent.
The NPR Politics Podcast
Roundup: Kash Patel Confirmed As FBI Chief; China Sees Opportunity As USAID Gets Cut
Well, I mean, the idea that the U.S. would walk back from the idea of soft power really kind of flies in the face of decades of what was American foreign policy following World War II and then the ascent in the 1960s and into the 80s and early 90s of the Cold War against Russia. Really, the idea was to counter communism and what Russia was trying to do around the world. And now the U.S.
The NPR Politics Podcast
Roundup: Kash Patel Confirmed As FBI Chief; China Sees Opportunity As USAID Gets Cut
has a different sort of calculation to make, which is China, because China is in places like Africa trying to build infrastructure projects and try to, by the way, also mine in places where they're helping those countries out. to try to take some of those natural resources from those places, but also try to win over some of those populations in some of those countries to try to win allies.
The NPR Politics Podcast
Roundup: Kash Patel Confirmed As FBI Chief; China Sees Opportunity As USAID Gets Cut
And it's a really America-first sort of approach, but one that a lot of critics believe is really short-sighted And not and something that's too transactional for the long term success and power of the United States.
The NPR Politics Podcast
Roundup: Kash Patel Confirmed As FBI Chief; China Sees Opportunity As USAID Gets Cut
Well, morality and humanitarianism is something that a lot of Americans believe in, although it's not always a great argument for a broad swath of Americans because, of course, they're concerned about kitchen table issues and how it affects their pockets.
The NPR Politics Podcast
Roundup: Kash Patel Confirmed As FBI Chief; China Sees Opportunity As USAID Gets Cut
And one area that maybe a lot of people don't think about is farming and how American farmers could be affected by cuts in USAID because a lot of the food that USAID uses to feed others in the world and the developing world comes from places like Kansas, where grain sorghum farmers are supplying USAID. And as that's cut, you're going to see those American farmers hurt as well.
The NPR Politics Podcast
Roundup: Kash Patel Confirmed As FBI Chief; China Sees Opportunity As USAID Gets Cut
I think it's super annoying. I agree with you. I mean, and I've always been a little confused by it because this is kind of like going backwards in time. I don't know. I can't understand anything anymore. Frankly, I get a voice note and I'm like, now I have to listen to this. I got to make my phone quieter. Just text me what you want to say.
The NPR Politics Podcast
Roundup: Kash Patel Confirmed As FBI Chief; China Sees Opportunity As USAID Gets Cut
Also, it helps you think about what you want to say first before you just spit it out.
The NPR Politics Podcast
Roundup: Kash Patel Confirmed As FBI Chief; China Sees Opportunity As USAID Gets Cut
That's a confusing thing because I thought the voicemail was going out of style. I'm so confused.
The NPR Politics Podcast
Roundup: Kash Patel Confirmed As FBI Chief; China Sees Opportunity As USAID Gets Cut
Just text me. Or call. We can call and have a conversation. I'd rather do that.
Up First from NPR
Tariffs Hit At Midnight, Small Business Reactions, National Security Firings
Well, Trump confirmed that there were firings at the NSC for what we don't know exactly. And the NSC said it wouldn't comment on personnel matters. But all this came after Trump met with Loomer. You know, she's someone who was close to Trump during the 2024 campaign, which raised some eyebrows, even among those on the right, because he
Up First from NPR
Tariffs Hit At Midnight, Small Business Reactions, National Security Firings
She's someone who's peddled conspiracy theories or misinformation about everything from COVID to the 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas and the attempted assassination of Trump. She's called herself pro-white nationalist and a white advocate, written racist things about Muslims and former Vice President Kamala Harris that I won't repeat.
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Tariffs Hit At Midnight, Small Business Reactions, National Security Firings
applauded the deaths of immigrants, and a whole lot of other stuff. Trump denied that Loomer was the reason for the firings. He said that she recommended additions. But Loomer herself posted on X, one of the many platforms that she'd been banned from before Elon Musk bought it, that she did report people to Trump who she sees as disloyal to him, not necessarily to the country or constitution.
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The NSA director and his deputy are among the people she called disloyal people, her evidence being that they were, she says, recommended by former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley, who broke with Trump and called him a fascist. Okay, so what's going on here? What's this all about? Well, this is the kind of thing Loomer does.
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Tariffs Hit At Midnight, Small Business Reactions, National Security Firings
She's very online, far-right activist, bills herself as a, quote, investigative journalist. But what that means is that she goes through people's social media history, their backgrounds, and connects dots that are often in conspiratorial ways and puts it all out there. In this case, Trump seemed to be taking Loomer's word over even his national security advisor, Mike Waltz.
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The New York Times reported that Waltz briefly defended his staff, but quote, it was clear he had little if any power to protect their jobs. Remember, it was Waltz or someone on his staff who inadvertently added that reporter to Signal chat group in the first place.
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Yeah, it's always a question with every president who they're listening to, who their advisors are. What this tells us is this is a very different group of people around Trump now than in his first term. Then there were more established, experienced people, but he really soured on those kinds of folks and moved more toward people in the right-wing ecosphere
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Tariffs Hit At Midnight, Small Business Reactions, National Security Firings
of Trump acolytes and devotees that cropped up with him out of office. And the thing is, on any given day, you just don't know who's in Trump's ear or who he's seeking out, someone with more Washington experience or someone like Loomer. And that makes for a very chaotic and destabilizing White House.
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Tariffs Hit At Midnight, Small Business Reactions, National Security Firings
Thank you.