Geoff Bennett:
It is only Monday, and it is shaping up to be a busy week as tensions continue to rise in Minneapolis after the ICE shooting and some Republicans push back against the president’s threats to the Federal Reserve and the strike in Venezuela.
A lot to talk about with our Politics Monday team. That’s Amy Walter of The Cook Political Report With Amy Walter and Tamara Keith of NPR.
It’s good to see you both.
Amy Walter, The Cook Political Report:
Good to be here.
Geoff Bennett:
So let’s start with that headline, last night, the DOJ launching investigation into the Federal Reserve and its chair, Jerome Powell, amid President Trump’s now long-running pressure campaign to lower interest rates.
Tam, I mean, so far, there are just a handful of Republicans, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Thom Tillis of North Carolina, who’s not running again, who say this crosses a line.
Tamara Keith, National Public Radio:
Yes.
And then there are a few others who say, well, this is a distraction or they’d like to see this resolved before the before the president’s nominee for a new Fed chair comes through. Tillis is saying that he intends to take a stand, that he does not want this investigation hanging over and that he does not intend to vote to confirm Trump nominees to the Fed until this is dealt with.
But this is still — in terms of pushback, it’s still pretty tepid. You have the speaker of the House saying he doesn’t really have a problem with it. You have a lot of people just not commenting on the investigation and bashing Powell, which is essentially what President Trump did as well, saying, oh, I don’t know anything about that, but he’s not good at what — at his job and he’s not good at building buildings.
Because, of course, the underlying premise here is that there are cost overruns in the construction or reconstruction of the Federal Reserve building. This is part of a long pressure campaign from President Trump. In July, he toured the Fed headquarters to get his eyes on it and said he would fire somebody if that person was as over budget as this project is.
And as recently as December, he was saying he was going to sue Powell for — quote — “incompetence.” And then, of course, there is Lisa Cook, the other Fed governor who is about to be argued — her case is about to be argued before the Supreme Court about whether Trump can fire her for cause, when in fact there has been no cause proven.
Geoff Bennett:
And, Amy, you have these two or three Republicans who are speaking out on this issue combined with the five Senate Republicans who voted with all the Democrats on that war resolution to rein in President Trump’s actions in Venezuela.
Amy Walter:
Right.
Geoff Bennett:
How do you read all that?
Amy Walter:
Yes, I think Tam had the right word, which was tepid.
Many of the people who have come out on the War Powers Act, who’ve come out speaking out about Powell are also the people who we see as sort of the usual suspects. They’re the same people over and over again, Murkowski being one of them from Alaska. Tillis, as you noted, is leaving.
And then you have some of the other moderates like Susan Collins from Maine or Ron Paul — Rand Paul, I’m sorry, from Kentucky, who is sort of eclectic. He is…
Tamara Keith:
Is his own man.
Amy Walter:
He’s been — yes, he’s been on the other side of Trump for some time now.
So you’re not seeing, like, a concentrated force of Republicans in any of these measures coming out against what the president’s doing, even as we see, for example, there was a vote to try to overturn a veto of two very popular, uncontroversial bills that had passed earlier in the year.
The president is upset about certain things happening in Colorado. He’s upset about certain things not happening in Florida. He said, I’m going to veto this not-controversial legislation. Only about 25, 30 Republicans agreed to go back and try to overturn that veto.
The one thing that Congress has stood up, I will say, is on the filibuster, where Republican senators, those who are big fans of the president and those who maybe aren’t, are all seemingly in agreement that they do not want to follow Trump’s admonition to get rid of that filibuster.
Geoff Bennett:
Let’s shift our focus to Minnesota, because protests continued there over the weekend. Kristi Noem continued to double down on the administration’s defense, even surging more federal law enforcement to the city.
Tam, why has the administration chosen such an aggressive posture here, even after the fatal shooting of a U.S. citizen in the street, even in the face of all this mounting backlash?
Tamara Keith:
This administration has one gear, and that is just charge forward. Never apologize, go forward. And they are driven by the view that they are doing what they were elected to do, that this is what Trump’s base wants.
Now, if you look at polling on any number of topics, including immigration enforcement, including on the Fed, what you see is that the president has lost independents and he never had Republicans — never had Democrats.
But he is losing independents on a bunch of these issues. And this is just another case of him really governing for his voters, versus governing for a broader swathe of the country.
Geoff Bennett:
And, Amy, there can be an appreciation for tough positions on crime, tough positions on illegal immigration, even while there’s broad concern about overreach and unilateral power.
Amy Walter:
Right.
Geoff Bennett:
How are Americans — just based on the data, how are Americans viewing all of this?
Amy Walter:
Well, I mean, I think Tam has that correct that, overwhelmingly, where Americans seem to sit is kind of in this middle place, not surprisingly, which is to say, we want to see enforcement on the border. We want to see enforcement of our laws. If they go over the line, we would like to see accountability for those things.
And what’s interesting is watching Democrats try to also figure out this moment and at this time. If you remember, back in the first administration, there were a lot of Democrats after the family separation policy who came out and said, we should abolish ICE. There was some backlash among Democrats after that election that that was too — they went too far and it gave Republicans the opportunity to own the crime and safety issue.
You’re not hearing Democrats talk about it as much this time around. And, in fact, there’s really not much appetite from leadership to hold government funding over DHS to once again shut the government down over an issue like this.
So, even as there is backlash to what Republicans, what the administration is doing and saying, there is not necessarily an appetite for Democrats to go all in to say, let’s get rid of ICE altogether or let’s hold off their funding.
Geoff Bennett:
To your point that the White House is doing what they believe the American people elected them to do, two weeks ago, we were talking about the Epstein files. Now we’re talking about Venezuela, Greenland, what happened in Minnesota.
Is this the conversation Republicans want to be having in an election year?
Tamara Keith:
Well, President Trump tomorrow is going to Detroit to deliver a speech at the Economic Club of Detroit. He’s going to tour a Ford F-150 plant.
That is what the administration keeps telling us they want to be talking about. I will be very interested to see whether this speech weaves, like almost every speech the president gives, or whether he stays on message on the economy.
What Republicans want is the president to focus on affordability and convince the American public that things are getting better. But often what they’re getting is a lot of everything else. And next week, the president’s going to go to Davos and talk about housing affordability in Davos, which is a little discordant.
Geoff Bennett:
Tamara Keith, Amy Walter, thanks, as always.
Amy Walter:
You’re welcome.
Tamara Keith:
You’re welcome.
