Trump’s retribution tour: Comey, Indiana Republicans, and ABC

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Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast.

I'm Miles Parks. I cover voting.

I'm Carrie Johnson. I cover the Justice Department in the Supreme Court.

And I'm Tamara Keith and I cover politics.

And a happy Friday to both of you and all our listeners.

We're going to talk about some of the big stories that we haven't hit on the pod yet.

Starting with news of another indictment against former FBI director James Comey,

Carrie, what is the Justice Department alleging Comey did here?

Comey faces two felony charges for allegedly making a threat

on the life of President Donald Trump and transmitting that threat across state lines.

It all revolves around an Instagram post he put up almost a year ago

from a North Carolina beach where he was on vacation.

It's a photo of seashells arranged in the numbers 8647.

86 being slang for Get rid of and 47 representing the 47th president, Donald Trump.

Now the Justice Department says that's a credible or true threat

against the president of the United States.

But Comey deleted that post pretty quickly after he put it up last year.

And he said he had no idea those numbers could potentially have been connected to violence.

He didn't mean that.

Moreover, the term 86 has been around a long time

in the restaurant industry and the bar industry.

And also there are a lot of people around the country who have t-shirts and posters

about 86, 86 Trump, 86 Biden.

So if you were going to make a literal federal case out of this, presumably it would sweep up

lots and lots and lots of other people too.

Has the legal community, the broader legal community had any thoughts on this indictment coming out?

That is the biggest surprise to me, Miles.

What's happened here is not only former Justice Department officials come out and saying

this case is a huge stretch, but also people who are allied with the White House.

People like George Washington University, law professor Jonathan Turley,

people like conservative legal analyst Andrew Napolitano, who told Newsmax this week,

there was no crime here, that this is patently unconstitutional, and that it seems like

vengeance to go after Comey, who of course has irritated the president a lot in the past.

And there is a question about what is protected speech, what is protected political speech,

and what is an actual threat that would be perceived as a threat?

Yeah, there's a lot of Supreme Court precedent about this, starting with a case during the

Vietnam War era where somebody protesting the war made a pretty brazen remark about the

president at the time, President Johnson. And basically said, if you give me a right fall,

the first person I'm going to aim at is LBJ. Now, that case went all the way up to the Supreme

Court at the time. The Supreme Court overturned the case, saying that was like political hyperbole,

not a true threat, and experts tell me Comey's post didn't even go that far.

Kerry, I mean, the thing I'm a little confused that is if the entire legal community is coming out

and saying this seems like a vindictive effort against James Comey, how were they able to

secure an indictment from a grand jury? You friend are not the only one who's confused by that.

In fact, Jim Comey's lawyers have only just begun to defend him. Comey says he's innocent.

There's likely to be some motions for selective or vindictive prosecution. And it may be that Comey,

like other defendants this year who have been targeted by President Trump, asks to see the

grand jury transcripts. So remember that defendants and defenders are not allowed in the grand jury.

The only people allowed in that room are the prosecutors talking privately with the grand jurors.

But there have been episodes this year and last year as well where people's faith and confidence

in the Justice Department has been so weakened that they're asking to pierce the secrecy of the

grand jury and get transcripts. In some cases, judges want to see the transcripts of those

conversations for evidence that grand juries may have been misled about the facts or the law.

And it's a pretty pretty big step to pierce that grand jury secrecy, but we're already seeing

efforts in that direction. This is also not the first time Comey has been indicted during Trump's

second term. How is this indictment different carried to the first time? Remember that first

indictment charged him with misleading Congress about a media leak back in the day. That case got

dismissed because the prosecutor, Lindsey Halligan, Trump's former personal attorney was not

lawfully appointed, although DOJ is appealing. In this case, you know, I don't think it came as

the surprise to Comey. He put out a statement on Substack this week saying, basically,

here we go again. And he also said interestingly, Miles, it's not over yet. He fully expects the

DOJ to keep coming after him, which is a pretty remarkable thing for somebody who served

as the deputy attorney general of the United States, a US attorney in New York, and the leader

of the FBI basically getting dogged by this administration in this DOJ. Why, Tam? I mean, why

does President Trump have such a thing out for James Comey? So Comey was FBI director at the

beginning of President Trump's first term. And as you might remember, there was an investigation

into whether there were ties between President Trump's campaign and Russia or whether President

Trump's campaign was aided by Russia. And Trump calls this the Russia, Russia, Russia thing. It hung

over his presidency. It hung over a big part of his first term. There was ultimately a special

council investigation. Trump ended up firing Comey very early on. That only made things worse for

the president and created even more of a firestorm. And certainly since then, Comey has become a

vocal critic of President Trump. And I think one of the themes that we have seen is that

it's not just the president's perceived political enemies. It's also people who are just

critical of the president who risk having the full weight of the federal government imposed upon

them. I mean, is it fair, Kerry, to see this as part of a broader trend of the Justice Department,

sort of being aimed at people who President Trump has openly said he disagrees with or doesn't like?

There's not just a trend here. It's also intensifying. And the last 10 days the Justice Department

has sought in one indictment against the Southern Poverty Law Center, a former aide to Dr. Anthony

Fauci, and now Jim Comey. And the feeling is, they're not even close to being done yet. The acting

attorney general Todd Blanch, another former personal lawyer of Trump, very much wants to keep the

job on a permanent basis. And the FBI director, the current FBI director, Cash Patel, is feeling a

little bit endangered in terms of his job status too. So both of these guys really have a motivation

to keep the president happy. And what the president has wanted and what he keeps telling us and them

is that he wants cases against these people who upset him. And just to move this to the perspective

of the president and his backers, their view is that the Justice Department was weaponized against him

both during his first presidency. And when he was out of office, when he was prosecuted. And so

they see this new round of going after the president's perceived enemies as a sort of turn

about his fair play. If it's going to be weaponized against us, then we should go after the people

who made us miserable. Well, changing gears, but it feels like a similar trend here. The White House

right now is in a deja vu moment going after Jimmy Kimmel again. Can you explain what's

happening here, Tam? Yeah. So Jimmy Kimmel is a late night comedy host on ABC. And he has been very

critical of President Trump. And there have been many back and forth. But the latest relates to the

White House Correspondence Association dinner a couple days before the dinner. Kimmel did a bit where

he pretended that he was delivering the roast at the dinner and said what he would have said at the

dinner, including saying that Melania Trump had the glow of an expectant widow. Now,

Kimmel had no way of knowing that an alleged assassin would come to the Hilton and try to find

the president. And he has said that he didn't intend it that way. His meaning was like,

hey, look at that age difference between the president and the First Lady.

But on Monday, the First Lady said that it was offensive and implied that Kimmel should be fired

Trump after that was even more severe and is calling for Kimmel to be fired and is saying that

ABC needs to be careful. Right. I mean, it's like one thing to disagree with something somebody

says. But now the government, the FCC, which oversees broadcast radio and television licenses,

is also getting involved. What's going on there? Yes. Now, by their telling, it is completely

coincident that the FCC chairman, Brendan Carr, right after the president said Kimmel needed to be

fired, announced that he was accelerating the process to review the licenses of ABC owned

television stations. This is an onerous and expensive process. And it is essentially unprecedented

in recent history for this to be moved forward like this. They weren't up for a couple more years.

And the FCC is saying, all right, now you do this. You know, this echo is actually in history for

me back in the day over 50 years ago. The Nixon administration actually held TV licenses of

the Washington Post company over the head of Catherine Graham, the owner of the Washington Post.

The Nixon administration was not happy about a post reporting on the Pentagon papers or on

Watergate. And basically, they threatened to yank the licenses of two of the post TV stations in

Florida, like their profitable stations. Catherine Graham held firm and ultimately the post kept

control of those stations. So we've been here before in some ways. And ABC is not backing down.

As you might remember, during an earlier dust up between Kimmel and the president, ABC actually

put Jimmy Kimmel on leave, that caused a massive backlash. People canceled their Disney and Hulu

subscriptions to send a message. ABC put Kimmel back on the air. This time, ABC is holding firm.

Kimmel is continuing to make jokes about the president of the United States every night on his show.

You might remember that President Trump has sued a number of news outlets who he disagrees with,

including ABC and CBS, New York Times, BBC, Wall Street Journal, both ABC and CBS

settled lawsuits that legal experts said they would have prevailed on. And Trump has just continued

to push and push and push. All right, let's take a quick break and more on the politics of

retribution in just a moment. And welcome back. Let's turn now to Indiana where the ongoing

national battle over redistricting that we've talked about a lot this week is playing out on a

micro level. Tam, you were just in Indiana. Tell us about this. Yeah, so this is a state where

late last year, President Trump applied a massive amount of pressure to state lawmakers.

It's a Republican. Red as can be state applied a lot of pressure to state lawmakers to get them to

redraw the congressional maps like Texas had done to favor Republicans. The most they could have

gotten was maybe one or two seats, but state Senate Republicans along with Democrats ended up

rejecting this, which was a pretty remarkable defeat for the president at the hands of his own

party. That just doesn't happen very often. So the president promised that he would come for them.

And guess what? He has. He said that they should be primaryed. And so I was there in Indiana

covering of all things state races where President Trump and his allies have dropped literally

millions of dollars to make these people lose, which is I mean, we really cannot underscore how

uncommon this is for a president to be this involved in a local race. Yeah, just to put this

in some perspective in a normal year, maybe $200,000 would be a lot of money to spend on a state

Senate race. Well, this time, it's like two million in one race, three million in one race.

It is a lot of money. Overall, the president and his allies are expected to spend somewhere around

eight to 10 million dollars on a little more than half a dozen races. Wow. So this is pretty

unprecedented involvement from the president. How are the local politicians feeling about this?

They are suddenly getting recognized on the street in a way that state senators haven't in the past

because their faces are on television all the time in negative campaign ads.

I went out door knocking with a state senator named Jim Buck. Now don't get the idea that he is

some sort of resistance figure. He is a very conservative Republican highly rated by the conservative

political action committee. He is like being called a Rhino. Rhino, which is a reference to

Republican and name only. Yeah. And he's like, who are they talking about? That's not me. But

he did refuse to vote for the redistricting push on sort of a state's rights principle and not

wanting to be told by the federal government what a state should do. And he said he was warned.

Some of my congressional people told me he's begged me to vote yes because said Jim,

they're going to come at you with everything possible. They're going to try to destroy your name,

destroy your reputation. And they're going to bring money that you wouldn't imagine. Well,

they were right. Indiana is such a Republican state. Do you think these lawmakers basically

just support President Trump on almost everything else, but just not this one thing? Yes, that is

exactly it. What Jim Buck said is it turns out loyalty only goes one way. I watched him have this

interaction with a voter where the voter is like, well, how do you feel about our president?

And Buck said, I worked my butt off for him in 2016 and 2020 and 2024. I agree with him almost

on almost everything except redistricting. And in particular, except the way he is meddling in

the state with regards to redistricting. Yeah, like these are Republicans. These are this is a

Ruby red state. But talking to the president's allies, their view is this was the top political

issue for the president of the United States, who is the leader of the Republican party. And people

needed to fall in line. And if they didn't fall in line, then there needs to be consequences.

And the consequences are a huge amount of spending talking to these candidates. They're like, well,

I hope my voters know me because if they believe the ads, they're going to lose.

What did you hear from voters? I guess while you were there on how they feel about all of this.

You know, it's a real mixed bag. It's a little bit hard to tell when you're standing with one of

the candidates who's been on TV. The voters who walk by and avert their eyes are probably going

to vote against them. But there were also a lot of people who came up and said, gosh, I've been a

Republican all my life. And I don't like this. Thank you for standing up. Somebody who came up and

was like, I'm surprised you had backbone. Now that person was neither a Republican nor a Democrat.

You know, it's really tough to get a read on it. What these incumbents say is they listen to

their constituents. Their constituents didn't want this. They believed firmly that it was a bad idea

for Indiana and for Hoosiers. And I was like, but what about taking the path of least resistance?

Like many Republicans in Congress don't agree with everything the president says they need to do,

but they know better than to make it hard for him. And what they said is they just felt they had

to do the right thing even though it would be painful. It just seems like so much effort

to put towards local races for a situation you mentioned. This is only could have neted the GOP

one or two seats. Why, I guess, is the juice really worth the squeeze for the amount of money

and energy they're putting in these races? I think part of it is the message that it sends.

The message that if President Trump wants something, you best not deny it to him. I had a

lengthy back and forth with an advisor to the president, a political advisor. I was like, why

spend all this money on these state Senate races? The answer was because we have enough money

to spend on these Senate races and to spend on maintaining Republican control in the House

in the Senate. And I just want to read you a few things this person said. They said that

these incumbents are going to their electoral slaughter. And this person said Republican voters

are sick and tired of weak politicians who have no problem letting the radical left steal our

country out from under us so long as they are not personally bothered. So that is the message.

I don't know what the results will be. I don't know if it will be a clear message that says, wow,

President Trump still has a huge amount of sway over Republican voters or whether it will be

more of a mixed decision or perhaps it'll say, hey, the president doesn't have the juice. But it is

now a big test on a kind of a small stage. It does feel like retribution is the theme we're

kind of hitting over and over again in today's episode. And I guess I'm wondering from both of you

where this goes from here, both in terms of the future of our politics, but then also just

there's a few more years of the Trump administration. Carrie, this isn't over.

Not over by a long shot. I expect to spend a lot of time in courtrooms for sure. And the interesting

thing about this is how much power the Justice Department and the FBI have to really upend the

lives of lots and lots of Americans. And so even if some of these cases are brought and lost in

court, this means that defendants will have spent thousands, if not millions of dollars,

had to walk into court with their families by their sides, plead not guilty, go through a long

court battle and really suffer emotionally. Yeah. And I think in the case of political

retribution, voters do get the final say. Now voters may say, keep it coming. President Trump

campaigned on, I am your retribution. And voters said, okay, sign us up. Maybe this wasn't

particularly what they were most interested in. I was going to say, I don't know that that was

made necessarily top of the, I think groceries and other things like that maybe were higher on the

list potentially for many people. Groceries, immigration, all kinds of other things were more

important to voters. Few things were more important to President Trump. If you look at the way he's

conducted himself in office and the way he has demanded that his administration conduct itself,

retribution is something that he clearly sees as worthwhile in exerting his power and maintaining

his power because so much of political power comes from people being afraid of the consequences.

All right. One more break and when we get back, it's time for Cantletico.

And we're back and it's now time for Cantletico. The part of the show where we talk about the things

from the week that we just cannot let go of politics or otherwise. Tam, why don't you get us started?

So this week, King Charles and Queen Camilla were here in America for a state dinner. He also

delivered a speech to Congress. And what I was not expecting from this speech is that he brought

the jokes, including this one about America's founding 250 years ago. 250 years ago or as we say

in the United Kingdom just the other day. The other thing I can't let go of is I really think

that the laughter is disproportionate to the quality of the man's jokes.

That's what I was about to say. I was like, that was an extra six seconds of laughter there.

Americans aren't a sucker for an accent. I know. It's like glasses. It just makes you seem smarter.

Apparently it also makes you seem funnier. And that is what I can't let go of.

I guess we'll see him at some comedy club in like six months, you want to type five or something

like that. He did get this like adorable little look on his face like, oh, Brian,

shed something funny. Miles, what can't you let go of?

Have you guys seen the sopranos, the television program, the sopranos?

Let's start there. Have I seen the sopranos? Yes.

I've seen some episodes of the sopranos. I know the basic outline of this program.

Okay. So in the first season of the sopranos, Tony soprano, one subplot is that Tony soprano

becomes very obsessed with this family of ducks that come live in his backyard and swim in his pool.

Which is yeah, there's there's a lot to unpack there. But my mom has is basically going full

Tony soprano over the last couple weeks and has become obsessed with a family of ducks to the point

where every time I call her, like it's the first thing she talks about and it's like we're in

the it's been like a basically a month-long conversation. These ducks live at my brother's house

and she's been staying there a bunch helping take care of my brother's kids and this duck

made a home outside their front door and laid eggs and she bought a outdoor 24 hour camera

that she could basically monitor the duck for days and days as the duck has sat on these eggs

and then a couple days ago the eggs hatched and it was like a deeply emotional. My mom was coming

to visit me and she was like choked up in the airport because she was like watching the ducks.

She like has a video of the ducks hatching and then they all like walk away and I was like

deeply skeptical for weeks. I was like my mom's losing it. She's going off the deep end. This is

the end and actually once I saw the video I kind of understood where it was like a deeply

powerful thing that just like watching nature and action can do it for people you know. She does not

need Dr. Melfi. You need to buy her a bathrobe for Mother's Day show like Tony. She can go outside

and her bathrobe and take joy in the ducks. All right. I will let her know. Amp your ice-carry

Johnson said that. She will she will appreciate that. Endorse. What about you Carrie? What can't you

look go of? I cannot let go of a photo from the New York Knicks game this week which contains

multitudes. The photo is of comedy genius Tina Fey wearing a blazer and pants in her trademark

glasses and some high tops sitting next to Timothy Chalamet wearing a nix cap and a huge puffy

black jacket and his girlfriend entrepreneur Kylie Jenner wearing rhinestone jeans and a tank top

and people are seeing in this photo all kinds of things like Timmy who's not a very large guy man

spreading into Tina's face which you would not believe and the look on Tina Fey's face in this

photo is priceless. People are now repurposing this photo as a meme to talk about New York City

politics or even the media. One meme says Tina is sees man Timmy is TMZ and Kylie Jenner is Fox

news and so you can take this picture and use it to mean so many things. It is art. Sometimes there

are photos that you can transpose so much on to. Do you think it's one of those things like you

I you clearly identified with Tina Fey in this photo? You think other people look is it one of

those like Rorschach tests where some people look at this photo and we're like I identify with Timmy

in this photo or I don't do you think everyone when they look at this photo I haven't seen the photo

yet but I'm curious do you think it's universal that everyone would identify with Tina I'm looking at

it now and exactly do you think somebody would identify with Timmy? No I I think a lot of people should

but I don't think a lot of people would if that makes sense. I mean Tina Fey just looks like so

um buttoned up and like uh what am I next to and slightly uncomfortable and then the other two

are just like living their best life. All right well we can't leave it there for today. Our executive

producer is Matoni Maturi. Our producers are Casey Morelle and Brea Suggs. Our editor is Rachel Bay

special thanks to Christian Dev Calamer. I'm Miles Parks. I cover voting. I'm Kerry Johnson. I cover

the courts and I'm Tamara Keith. I cover politics and thank you for listening to the MPR

Politics Podcast.