The federal government shutdown goes on and Home Speaker Mike Johnson refuses to swear in a Democratic representative-elect. President Trump thinks he has momentum to get a Russia-Ukraine peace deal achieved.
SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
Senior political contributor Ron Elving joins us. Ron, thanks a lot for being with us.
RON ELVING, BYLINE: Good to be with you, Scott.
SIMON: After all, there have been huge protests in the course of the first Trump administration, ladies’s marches amongst them, many demonstrations in opposition to his immigration insurance policies. How do these No Kings protests evaluate?
ELVING: The day after Trump’s first inauguration in 2017, near half one million individuals – most of them ladies – marched on the mall in Washington. There was an estimated 400,000 in New York Metropolis, 250,000 in Chicago, and so forth. However as we simply heard, organizers this yr count on crowds in additional than 2,000 areas, and attendance, they hope, can be within the thousands and thousands. These earlier protests have been largely pushed by advocates for abortion rights and girls’s rights. The present protests cowl a wider vary of points – the rule of regulation, particular person rights below the Structure, and the cutbacks in funding for well being and training. However on the similar time, the overarching concern right this moment is rejection of autocracy, rejection of rule by one individual.
SIMON: We’re now on the 18th day of a authorities shutdown. Is that this changing into showdown – a shutdown, in contrast to every other?
ELVING: In previous shutdowns, there have been severe ongoing efforts to resolve the underlying points, to barter between the events, to succeed in some form of settlement. That is the distinction. Prior to now, there was normal settlement that the harm from the shutdown, the hurt to on a regular basis People was extra vital than having one aspect or the opposite prevail. There was a way of there being an us – not simply an us in opposition to them. And we’re not seeing that now. No matter accountability Democrats have for this shutdown, they’re at the least right here on the town, in D.C., prepared to speak. The president and his celebration have refused, saying there’s nothing to barter. The Home has not had a voting session because the summer season.
SIMON: Speaker Mike Johnson can also be refusing to swear in Consultant-elect Adelita Grijalva. She received her particular election in Arizona greater than three weeks in the past. Arizona’s legal professional normal is threatening authorized motion if she’s not sworn in. What causes has the speaker provided for the delay?
ELVING: Johnson has stated he doesn’t wish to swear in Ms. Grijalva till the Home is again in session so she will have all the standard ceremony. Besides that earlier this yr, he swore in two Republicans elected in particular elections when the Home was not in session – ceremony or no ceremony. We can’t know the thoughts of Mike Johnson or overhear his conversations with the president, however individuals wonder if the true distinction right here is that swearing in Grijalva might price Mike Johnson management on the difficulty of the Epstein information. As soon as she’s a member, there can be a bipartisan majority on the petition to power a vote releasing these information, one thing Mike Johnson has fought laborious to dam.
SIMON: And former Trump nationwide safety adviser John Bolton pleaded not responsible yesterday to fees that he mishandled categorized supplies. What are your ideas, Ron?
ELVING: We hope now to have a trial to check whether or not Bolton shared categorized info in messages he despatched to members of the family and stored copies of these messages at dwelling. One other thought, in fact, is again to the stacks and stacks of paperwork – a lot of them categorized – discovered at Mar-a-Lago in 2017, all of them topic to a subpoena that Trump was ignoring after leaving workplace.
SIMON: And, in fact, Ron, final week, we talked about President Trump’s success with the ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas. Yesterday, the president stated he thought the deal supplied momentum for Russia-Ukraine talks. Does that appear to be the case?
ELVING: That has been a fond hope for all who need these wars to finish. However Trump has not but been in a position to switch his Center East momentum to Ukraine. He has been pressuring Russia to return to the desk. However this week, he had a telephone name with Vladimir Putin, and after that, he stated he thought Putin wished a deal, after which Trump sat down with Ukraine’s President Zelenskyy within the Oval Workplace and poured chilly water on the long-range missiles he had talked about sharing with Ukraine. Clearly, an enormous letdown for Zelenskyy.
SIMON: NPR’s Ron Elving. Thanks a lot for being with us. Discuss to you later.
ELVING: Thanks, Scott.
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