Title: Call Your Senator: Sen. Andy Kim: Rep. McIver's Arrest; Putin and More

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Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. Hope you had a very good three-day weekend if you were off, and with a thank you, as I always like to do to those of you who work the holiday weekend so that other people may play. Of course, this particular three-day weekend is not a celebratory one. Our thoughts go to anyone for whom Memorial Day meant grieving a loved one whose life was lost serving in the United States Military.

We will give our first words today to one of those Americans who survived his service with bravery in a time of war. Former Congressman Charles Rangel of Harlem in parts of the Bronx won a Purple Heart and Bronze Star during the Korean War and then went on to serve more than 40 years in Congress, including as Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee for a while.

Congressman Rangel, if you haven't heard yet, died yesterday on Memorial Day at the age of 94. One of his appearances on this show was in 2015 after he announced that he would retire from Congress after that term. He lamented even then people's loss of faith in government that he said was already leading to interest in Donald Trump, which he could hardly believe as a candidate for president at that time, 2015.

He also lamented benefits cuts to poor people already being passed by what was a Republican Congress at that time, and we're going to play a minute and a half excerpt from that appearance here to pay tribute to Charlie Rangel. The Congressman says in this clip that people of all backgrounds and faiths needed to come together and register to vote.

Congressman Charles Rangel: Whether you believe in Jesus, Moses, Allah, Muhammad, the truth is that there are basic ways that we should treat human beings, and the Congress, each and every day, are cutting those benefits, and we don't read out for the do-gooders screaming for it. I think that losing confidence in the government, I can understand, but it doesn't mean that anything is going to improve until people get together.

A classic example has to be the Voting Rights Act, the Civil Rights Act. Everybody knew since emancipation that it was wrong to deny human beings, but until people were able to march and cry and to be shot down and be ready to be killed for it, we couldn't even get the Supreme Court to look at it, and now, as we do nothing except talk about indifferences and government being too big, we find the Supreme Court cutting back those benefits, and you don't find the church is screaming at all about anything.

Hunger increased, joblessness is increasing, and worst of all, hope is decreasing, and a country. The middle class loses hope not just in their country but in themselves. That is not what has made the United States the great country that it is, and it would be sad for me to be leaving this Congress at a time where people should be more excited about things that we could be doing, as the President said, and environment and so many other things, where people are losing confidence, saying, "What difference does it make?" It makes all the difference in the damn world.

Brian Lehrer: Congressman Charles Rangel with his views in November of 2015 on this show. Congressman Rangel died yesterday at 94. Rest in peace. New Jersey Senator Andy Kim will join us shortly with a lot going on that he is relevant to. Here's one of those things that he may have a reaction to, and something you may have missed if you took a news holiday over the break.

One way or another, it looks like President Trump is going to push up the price of iPhones by about 25%. This kind of got buried in the news with a lot of other big things going on, and his temporary pullback of other tariffs that he had also announced on Friday against the EU, but he didn't announce that this one was being taken off. 25% on iPhones. That's based on a tariff announcement that he made that is specific to that product on Friday, just iPhones.

The question is, is that 25% worth it, as in the national interest, if the phones are made by workers here, which it's estimated would push up the price by about 25%, same as the tariff, rather than in China or India or elsewhere? Now, when Andy Kim was in the House, he served on the Select Committee on Strategic Competition between the US and Chinese Communist Party, as that committee is called, so maybe he'll have something to say about those iPhone tariffs, which are largely a US-China thing.

Relevant to Memorial Day and also developments in the Ukraine and Gaza wars, Kim served in Afghanistan as a civilian advisor there to General Petraeus and General Allen, who led the US troops during the war in that country, and Senator Kim worked under both Democratic and Republican presidents with other roles at the Pentagon, the State Department, the White House National Security Council, and USAID.

In the House of Representatives also, he was on the Armed Services and Foreign Affairs Committee as well as the Select Committee on China Competition and the Select Committee on the Coronavirus Crisis, and one other thing he's been involved with just recently to help set this up, the Trump administration's current consideration of suspending habeas corpus, the right of people arrested or detained in the United States, and it applies to anybody who's here as an immigrant, even undocumented, their right to learn and challenge the reason for their detention, habeas corpus.

This is one reason people say we are at or near a constitutional crisis in this country, such as you may have heard Trump's deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller, say this to ABC News this month about deporting people before they can challenge the grounds for their deportation, like the guy who was sent to a prison in El Salvador by mistake, Stephen Miller launching this conversation about habeas corpus on the premise that some of the immigration may be considered a foreign invasion under the law, during which habeas corpus doesn't apply.

Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller: Well, the Constitution is clear, and that, of course, is the supreme law of the land, that the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus can be suspended in a time of invasion. I would say that's an option we're actively looking at.

Brian Lehrer: He said, "can be suspended." I probably overstated it in introducing it, saying it doesn't apply. It can be suspended. It has been suspended at least once during a time of war, and as we will hear from Senator Kim in a minute, it's been suspended four times, but Stephen Miller floating the idea of Trump suspending habeas corpus without the US being at war, per se, then came this kind of unbelievable moment when Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, also this month, didn't appear to know what habeas corpus is, most specifically, who habeas corpus gives rights to or gives the authority to suspend it to. You'll hear her get schooled by New Hampshire Senator Maggie Hassan in this one-minute exchange.

Senator Maggie Hassan: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Good morning-

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem: Good morning.

Senator Maggie Hassan: -Madam Secretary. Secretary Noem, the White House Deputy Chief of Staff recently said that the Trump administration is actively looking at suspending habeas corpus. Last week, you were asked about this, and I want to clarify your position because it's obviously really important to get this right. Secretary Noem, what is habeas corpus?

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem: Well, habeas corpus is a constitutional right that the President has to be able to remove people from this country to suspend their right to--

Senator Maggie Hassan: Let me stop, ma'am. Habeas corpus. Excuse me. That's incorrect.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem: President Lincoln used it.

Senator Maggie Hassan: Excuse me. Habeas corpus is the legal principle that requires that the government provide a public reason for detaining and imprisoning people. If not for that protection, the government could simply arrest people, including American citizens, and hold them indefinitely for no reason. Habeas corpus is the foundational right that separates free societies like America from police states like North Korea.

Brian Lehrer: New Hampshire Democratic Senator Maggie Hassan with Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. Now, Senator Andy Kim, did you forget this was a prelude to an appearance by him? Senator Kim also questioned Secretary Noem on the topic.

Senator Andy Kim: To something that was raised earlier by habeas corpus, can you confirm to us that you understand that any suspension of habeas corpus requires an act of Congress?

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem: President Lincoln executed habeas corpus in the past with retroactive action by Congress. I believe that any president that was able to do that in the past, it should be afforded to our current day president. This president has never said he's going to do this. He's never communicated to me or his administration that they're going to consider suspending habeas corpus, but I do think the Constitution allows them the right to consider it.

Senator Andy Kim: When we saw what happened with-- How many times has habeas corpus been suspended in our country?

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem: Once, that I know of.

Senator Andy Kim: Four times.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem: I'm not certain if those were [crosstalk]

Senator Andy Kim: The instance that you were referring to was one where the courts subsequently showed that Congress is the one that has the ability. Do you know what section of the Constitution the suspension clause of habeas corpus is in?

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem: I do not. No.

Senator Andy Kim: Do you know which article it is in?

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem: No, I do not, sir, the section.

Senator Andy Kim: Okay. Well, it is in Article 1. Do you know which branch of government Article 1 outlines the tasks and the responsibilities for?

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem: Yes.

Senator Andy Kim: Which one?

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem: Congress?

Senator Andy Kim: Yes.

Brian Lehrer: Senator Andy Kim questioning Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. Senator Kim, Democrat from New Jersey, joins us now for his monthly Call Your Senator segment for New Jerseyans and others. Senator, always good of you to do this. Welcome back to WNYC.

Senator Andy Kim: Thanks for having me again.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, we welcome your questions for Senator Kim from New Jersey, with first priority to his constituents there, but not only from New Jersey. Call or text 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Senator, I want to start with that exchange with Secretary Noem. Even at the end, it sounded like you may potentially be in for a constitutional dispute over whether the President can suspend habeas corpus on his own and hope Congress will authorize it retroactively, as they did with Lincoln, or whether he would have to come to you in the Congress and ask for that authority first. Did it seem like that to you at the end of that hearing and that exchange, that that's sort of unresolved in terms of the way you and the administration see things?

Senator Andy Kim: Well, I think it was unresolved because the Secretary of Homeland Security was unfamiliar with the Constitution that she swore an oath to. I think that was the fundamental problem. I've heard her previously, prior to that exchange, talk about how she believes that conditions have been met to suspend habeas corpus, so when I asked her these questions of, "Well, where does that right come from?" the fact that she was unable to understand how many times habeas corpus has been suspended, as well as what part of the Constitution it is in, things that I find to be fairly basic, especially for those of us in positions where we swear an oath to the Constitution.

I very much believe that they are considering, and we heard it from Stephen Miller, but the fact that they really just are uninterested in really knowing what the actual law of the land is on this front and what the Constitution says about this, I think, shows just how off-base they are, how lawless things are right now, which is just such a disrespect for the Constitution.

Brian Lehrer: I think the President's argument, as he explained it in a recent interview, and I didn't pull that clip, but I think I'm quoting him correctly or characterizing this correctly, is that there are so many immigrants here illegally who are subject to deportation that the court system doesn't have the capacity to go through a habeas corpus hearing one by one by one for so many people. What's your reaction to that?

Senator Andy Kim: Well, look, the Constitution doesn't just give him the right to make those types of determinations. If he has an argument to be made, bring it to Congress, but for him, what we've seen is just an unwillingness to do so on any fronts. Even what he's doing with tariffs is a lawless and flagrant abuse of power, and those are the types of actions that he has decided that he will just push forward on.

The idea of him unilaterally taking action to suspend habeas corpus just sort of shows the very foundation of our democracy is at stake in terms of whether or not the President respects the Constitution, respects separation of powers, and so far, what he's done and demonstrated makes me feel like he does not.

Brian Lehrer: Before we go on to other topics, including and kind of still relevant to immigration, the criminal charges against New Jersey Congresswoman McIver that I know you want to comment on, I want to take a phone call on immigration policy, specifically from one of your constituents. Patricia in Hillsborough, New Jersey, you're on WNYC with Senator Andy Kim.

Patricia: Yes, this is Pat in Hillsborough, New Jersey. Senator Kim, I'm wondering whether you are aware of letters that are being sent out by the IRS that require you to actually prove your identity in order to get your refund, and I don't know whether this is widespread, but it has never happened to me before. I'm 89 years old, and my husband, who has Alzheimer's, and I have filed together for as long as we have been married, which is 66 years, and this has never happened to us before.

The letter does not seem to know that we actually filed, and that's why, to me, it looks like it's sort of fishing for people to actually be required to digitally prove who they are before they can get their refund. That's what the letter says.

Brian Lehrer: Patricia, let me jump in for a second. What I think you're describing, just so our listeners follow along, is that you think they're fishing for undocumented people who cannot demonstrate that they're in this country legally, but they're sweeping up even people like you who are not in that status at all. Am I hearing you correctly?

Patricia: Yes, you're hearing me quite correctly. Yes, and there's no reason that they should require this because the refund that we will be getting comes from retirement funds, and all the proof of who we are is on the 1099Rs that we have filed, and yet they are requiring a digital response with digital proof of not just your citizenship and who you are, but your tax income.

I think that it may have multi-reasons for doing this. One may be simply to actually take time to get your money back, and the other thing is that, actually, it's the sort of thing that makes you angry at the IRS, and it's the sort of thing that-- I'm not angry at the IRS. I'm angry because I regard this as a DOGE AI thing that's happening.

Brian Lehrer: Can I ask you one other question, Patricia, before we get Senator Kim's response? Are you sure that this is actually coming from the IRS and it isn't some sort of scam trying to get your information?

Patricia: That has occurred to me. I've got problems about doing-- I don't see terribly well, and as I say, my husband has Alzheimer's, so I haven't actually tried to respond to this yet, and that is one of the things, one of the reasons I wanted to reach out to find out more about it, because it would be very easy to fake this form and send it out. It could be a scam.

Brian Lehrer: There we go. Let me get a response for you. Stay there, Patricia. Senator Kim, can you help this New Jersey constituent?

Senator Andy Kim: Yes, Pat, thanks for flagging this. I'll be honest, I have not heard this directly, and I would be suspicious, as you are, for a number of reasons. I would say, if you don't mind going to my website, kim.senate.gov, and you can get in touch with us, and we'd be happy to look into this and would be very interested in seeing what document, and I would encourage you to have us try to help double-check this before responding because, look, you want to be careful with your personal information in terms of sending that around, but also to try to understand if this is real, why it's being utilized, and whether or not there is some sort of deeper level of concern, not just for you, but for others.

Thank you for raising this. I feel very strongly about making sure that people understand their rights, that you understand your rights in terms of when you need to be able to and have to send out any information about yourself.

Brian Lehrer: Can we, Senator, take her contact information off the air so that we can connect you and her office by phone rather than by email?

Senator Andy Kim: That's right. We'll make sure we do that.

Brian Lehrer: All right. Pat, hopefully, we're going to get to the bottom of this. We'll take your contact info off the air if you want to leave it, okay?

Patricia: Thank you. I would like to.

Brian Lehrer: Okay, hang on, and a producer will talk to you here in just a second. Senator Kim, I want to ask you next about another detention, not of someone suspected of being in the country illegally, that I believe you've commented on, the arrest of New Jersey Congresswoman LaMonica McIver, on assault charges for the incident at the Immigration Detention Center in Newark, where Mayor Ras Baraka, people, I'm sure, heard, was also arrested.

Now, charges against the Mayor have been dropped, but the ones against the Congresswoman imposed. They say she "slammed her forearm" into an immigration agent and "tried to restrain him," according to The New York Times' account of the charges. What do you think about all this?

Senator Andy Kim: After that incident happened, seeing the Homeland Security Department, Stephen Miller, and others talking about this as an invasion, talking about this as an insurrection, a riot, again, that's what raises the concerns, what we talked about with regards to potentially suspending habeas corpus, that's exact language in the Constitution that would try to create the conditions to suspend habeas corpus.

I asked Homeland Security Secretary Noem about this, and she just continues to spout these lies, saying that these members of Congress were trying to break into an ICE facility. That is not the case, and the Secretary confirmed in that hearing, publicly, that members of Congress have the right to be able to show up unannounced to an ICE facility for inspections, which is what Congresswoman McIver was doing.

In fact, they were already invited into the facility when the arrest of the Mayor was happening, so they were already invited in. They were already being processed through to start their oversight inspection. Just the whole thing is clearly this effort of political theater that the Trump administration is trying to push forward to kind of spout this narrative about Democrats, about immigration, and whatnot, and that's something I find so disgusting about this.

We have this US attorney in New Jersey who is weaponizing our law, clearly for political purposes, engaging with this administration in ways that are just defying the truth, and that is why we need to expose this, show the American people what is happening, and why this is such a flagrant abuse of legal authorities, and also something that's wasting a lot of time and money for the American people.

Brian Lehrer: People on either side of this are making comparisons to January 6th, right? When some of the people were arrested on similar charges, but of course, President Trump also pardoned all of them. Is there a January 6th comparison of any kind to you?

Senator Andy Kim: No. I think that this is a situation, again, where the Congresspeople were there doing their legal right for an unannounced inspection of an ICE facility. It is in the law that we have that capacity. When it comes to the Mayor, when they asked him to leave the facility, he did, and they arrested him outside of the grounds of the ICE facility. He had left on his own volition.

It's one of those situations where, again, they clearly wanted to make a scene. The Trump administration wanted to make something of this. It fits their narrative, and they're trying to put on a show, and I think that that's what we're seeing unfolding, and that's why it's so alarming to just see them taking these actions legally for political stunt purposes.

Brian Lehrer: Here's another call from an almost constituent, Alex, in Philadelphia on, I think, the excerpt that we played of you with Homeland Security Secretary Noem. Alex, you're on WNYC with Senator Andy Kim. Hello.

Alex: Hi. A very big fan of you, Brian. Thank you so much for taking my call.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you.

Alex: My question is about the clip you played earlier, and just sort of generally. Great. You played the clip. I heard the great quote. I understand a little bit more about what this person thinks. However, as a general public who has very busy lives and families, all we get are these clips. We get a clip on the radio. We get a clip on YouTube. We get a clip on the evening news, and we don't actually know what these hearings are for.

What are they for? How are they called, and what is the outcome of these sessions? Because as a general public who's trying to sort of stay involved and understand these people and understand our government and how it operates, we sort of don't get a lot of explanation as to like, "How did these little clips and comments come to be?" If it's possible for you to explain a little bit about what the hearings are, why are they happening right now, how are they called, and like, how do we follow up on said hearing? How do we follow up to find out what the outcome was for one of these?

Senator Andy Kim: Yes, thanks for that. I think you're absolutely right, just the little clips that you're getting, little brief glimpses into some of the back and forth in politics, and you want it more than just a talking point, right? More than just some ability to understand. The main thing I'll just convey is we have regular hearings. I'm on five different committees. I have probably about 8 to 10 hearings a week.

In particular, when it comes to the Cabinet officials, each Cabinet official comes before Congress, usually a couple of times a year. These are opportunities to ask about budget questions, which is what this hearing was about, which was raising the questions of "What are the priorities of this administration?" It gives us an opportunity to ask an array of different issues and try to get their response.

For instance, on these purposes, I was trying to push back on comments that she had made about habeas corpus and the conditions being met to suspend, and tried to show and get her on the record saying that she understands that Congress is necessary for the suspension of habeas corpus. That way, if they move forward to try to suspend habeas corpus without a congressional action, that we have her on record to push back upon that.

I also, for instance, use that time to have her on record saying that she understands that members of Congress do have a legal right to go and inspect ICE facilities unannounced. That is something she confirmed to me, and that helps more broadly when it comes to our abilities to follow up and make sure that members of Congress won't be threatened in the future if they show up at a facility.

On other issues, I had her confirm that she's moving forward on restarting in-person trainings at the National Fire Academy. That's a part of her job in Homeland Security. It's something that the Trump administration had suspended, and firefighters around the country were furious about. That was something that I heard directly from a constituent, their concerns as firefighters, and I was able to ask her about that and get her on record saying that she was going to change course and change the direction of the administration.

It helps us try to shine a light on things and get direct answers, and try to see if we can rectify some of the problems we're hearing from constituents. That's the purpose of these hearings. Sometimes they have more specific topics. This one was a broad one when it came to oversight over a Cabinet official.

Brian Lehrer: Alex, I hope that's helpful. Thank you very much for raising that question because people are always calling and saying, "What are you all Democratic Party-elected officials going to do about the Trump administration?" Is coming on shows like this and saying things like you're saying enough? Your colleague, Cory Booker, the other senator from New Jersey, stirred a lot of hearts with his 25-hour Senate floor speech.

Is this an ongoing challenge for you? How do you respond in a context where you don't have much official power because you don't have the White House, obviously, and you don't have the majority in either house of Congress? How do you become or remain effective at opposing things that you think are horrible?

Senator Andy Kim: Well, one thing I'll just say again is I encourage people to stay engaged and to reach out when they have concerns. I've done multiple town halls already, and at one of these town halls, as I mentioned, a firefighter showed up at that town hall, raised with me his absolute disgust in the Trump administration for gutting the World Trade Center Health Program, the program that gives healthcare to our first responders, those who were sifting through Ground Zero.

Many of them got cancer and other challenges, and the Trump administration also gutted the National Firefighter Cancer Registry. I was able to, in a hearing, raise this directly with Secretary Kennedy of HHS and put him on the spot about this, and he admitted that it was a mistake to gut the World Trade Center Health Program, so we're working to get that back up and running, and because of that testimony as well, they committed and restarted the National Firefighter Cancer Registry.

I just sort of say that as an example of, like, it's important for people to raise their voices. I heard that at a town hall, was able to confront a Cabinet official about this, and change the policies that are out there. It doesn't happen for everything, but I hope that gives people a sense of what is possible and why it is that it's important to have these hearings. They're not just theater.

It's about trying to put on record and trying to put pressure upon them for actions that they are taking where Secretary Kennedy clearly admitted he had no idea that the cuts that were happening at Health and Human Services was going to gut the World Trade Center Health Program, and it was something that clearly embarrassed him, and he changed course, and those are the types of things we need to keep pushing on, exposing and showing that level of accountability.

Brian Lehrer: Our Call Your Senator segment, as Senator Andy Kim from New Jersey comes on with us every month to do. 212-433-WNYC, call or text. Here's a text from a listener. I think that the implication here is that they're suggesting that maybe the arrest and the charges against Congresswoman McIver are justified. A listener writes, "Did the Senator watch the video of the Congresswoman's actions?"

You can give the listener a yes or no answer on that and to the language in the charges, if she did "slam her forearm" into an immigration agent and "try to restrain him," is that something that should not be criminally charged?

Senator Andy Kim: Look, I did see the video, and it certainly was very chaotic. Certainly, when I'm looking at the video, I'm seeing, again, the arrest of the Mayor outside of the facility. It was not the members of Congress storming into the facility. It was, in fact, them leaving the facility that they were invited into, and when you see that type of action and blatantness in terms of efforts to arrest a mayor who is not impeding or not engaged in some action that is trespassing because he was leaving on his own volition after they invited him in, that's what I saw.

Yes, there was a lot of chaos that was emerging, and it was the Trump administration and their actions with ICE that put everybody in that type of situation. When I look at the charges, when I look at the footage, look, it's again, the kind of political theater that's out there. They should not have taken these actions, to start with, that caused that kind of chaos.

Brian Lehrer: When we come back from a break, we'll turn to foreign policy with your background and interest in that, and also your take on the 25% tariff on iPhones that the President announced on Friday. Since you were on the House Select Committee on US Competition with Communist China, as that committee is called, and listeners, more of your calls and texts in this Call Your Senator segment with New Jersey's Andy Kim, 212-433-WNYC.

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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC, with our monthly Call Your Senator segment with New Jersey's Andy Kim for you. Senator Kim is a former State Department and Pentagon official. Did Vladimir Putin suddenly change to become more warlike? He was such a peace-lover before, wasn't he? Has he just been playing President Trump for a long time on the issue of Ukraine?

Why do I ask? Listeners, if you haven't heard this yet, after Russia went on a civilian area bombing spree in Ukraine the last few days, one of the worst, or some people are saying the worst of the entire war in Ukraine, Trump over the weekend said this. He doesn't know what has suddenly happened to Vladimir Putin.

President Trump: I'm not happy with what Putin's doing. He's killing a lot of people, and I don't know what the hell happened to Putin. I've known him a long time, always gotten along with him, but he's sending rockets into cities and killing people, and I don't like it at all.

Brian Lehrer: Here's a little more. Again, the President doesn't know what suddenly got into the Russian leader.

President Trump: We're in the middle of talking, and he's shooting rockets into Kyiv and other cities. I don't like it at all. I don't like what Putin is doing, not even a little bit. He's killing people, and something happened to this guy, and I don't like it.

Brian Lehrer: Something happened to this guy, President Trump, on Sunday. What do you make of the President's remarks or the latest bombing spree by Russia, which is, of course, more important than some words out of the President's mouth? He, the President, seems to think, or at least be saying, that something suddenly has come over Putin, and he has changed.

Senator Andy Kim: Yes. I hope the American people can clearly see that what Trump said there, in terms of Putin just starting this violence, is wrong. This violence has been going on. Putin has instigated this invasion, has taken the lives of hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians, lost hundreds of thousands of Russians. This is one of the most bloody conflicts that we've seen in generations, so that is certainly wrong.

I hope that this means that Trump will recognize and take the kind of actions necessary to be able to stand up to Putin, whereas so far, what we've seen in the first 100 days is really capitulating. When I look at the first 100 days, I cannot think of a way in which Trump could have better set up Putin and Russia for success than what he did in demonizing and ostracizing Zelensky, to pushing forward and creating this narrative as if the Russians are the ones that are aggrieved.

I hope that this signifies a change where we can re-engage with our allies in Europe, where we can bolster up Ukraine and put them in the strongest position possible for any of these negotiations to be able to continue on and to really expose the truth of just the murderousness of Vladimir Putin. I hope that this is something that pushes that truth out and not showing the capitulation that Trump has done so far.

Brian Lehrer: What do you think? This might be a little bit of a conspiracy theory, but what do you think the President is willing to do about this? If Zelensky of Ukraine has accepted the US Ceasefire Plan, which I think he has, but Putin hasn't, President Trump says, or some of his representatives say, "We'll just walk away. If we can't get both parties to agree to a ceasefire, we're just going to walk away. We're going to wash our hands of it."

If he walks away and doesn't restart military aid to Ukraine at the level it was before, which I think he doesn't want to do, isn't that the same as telling Russia, "Do what you want, we won't stand in your way"?

Senator Andy Kim: That's exactly right. What we see here is Trump telegraphing that the US will walk away if it becomes too difficult to find an agreement, and that's exactly what Putin wants. Putin wants the US to walk away. It's showing just this level of, oh, if Putin continues to be obstructionist, that he will get what he wants, whereas what we need to show and what we need to engage is that the US will stay engaged, that we will continue to engage with our NATO allies, and Europe, as we're seeing a buildup of Russian forces by Finland and elsewhere.

There's real concern throughout the entire region about what comes next and if the US continues to antagonize our allies through tariffs, through other means, questions NATO, these are the types of actions that are just going to embolden Putin. I would hope that this means that Trump will re-engage our allies, strengthen up and shore up NATO, demonstrate the level of commitment that we have bipartisan support for in the US Senate for Ukraine, and I hope that those are the actions that maybe we can move towards that will strengthen our ability to try to get the agreement needed, that won't just hand Ukraine over to Putin.

Brian Lehrer: I know you got to go in a minute. I mentioned in the intro the President's announcement Friday of a 25% tariff, specifically on iPhones, so they get made in the US, and I saw an estimate. It would cost about 25% more on your price of an iPhone to do that, too, about the same as the tariff. You were on the House Select Committee on Competition with China. What do you think about this move?

Senator Andy Kim: Well, look, at this point, as far as I understand, it was a threat of 25%, not necessarily imposed at this point. We've also seen him announce the 50% for the EU, but that's got pushed back into the summer. First and foremost, we just see a level of coercion that Trump is trying to engage with everybody, and instead of working with American companies to strengthen up domestic manufacturing, we see him, in fact, opposing those actions.

Trump has opposed our bipartisan CHIPS and Science Act, which is about growing domestic manufacturing, advanced manufacturing in America, about working with American companies to build here. If he was serious about this, we can work together to try to strengthen advanced manufacturing in America, but when he engages in this kind of threat, when he does it with no understanding of how this is going to be able to be done, all he is doing is imposing attacks on the American people at a time when people are continuing to struggle with high prices, and we see the prices just skyrocketing for groceries, for other things, and it's not just the tariffs; it's the uncertainty that he's creating, the fact that we don't know what's going to happen next.

Brian Lehrer: I don't know if you have time for this follow-up. If you don't, it's okay, but I think they say the problem with the CHIPS and Science Act is that it was throwing a lot of US taxpayer money at companies to create certain kinds of jobs. We could do this by imposing tariffs on other countries, and then the jobs will come.

Senator Andy Kim: [laughs] Yes, I wish that I had a magic wand, too, but I don't, and it doesn't work that way. The tariffs are being paid by the American people. We can do it in a way that, yes, we provided some US Government support to businesses, but we were able to do it in a way where we were getting multiple fold-back into the country. When you build a road or build a bridge, yes, that costs money, but it creates a huge return-back in terms of commerce, in terms of the communities.

There's different types of spending out there, and there are some that are investments that can grow, and we shouldn't be afraid of that, and what we see from Trump is just this idea that you can solve things through this sense of tariffs. We've been through this play before in the United States. It doesn't work. It raises prices. It hurts our businesses. It isolates us from the world, and what we see is exactly that.

Trump is trying to put in place a neo-isolationist foreign policy where America-first means America-alone, and basically, when we see what he did in the Middle East, it means Trump-first. He's looking out for himself, his own businesses, his family's businesses. He likes the idea that he can dominate other countries, including our allies. It's just hurting us, and I think the American people see that. The polling is overwhelming in people thinking that Trump is doing more harm when it comes to our economy, leading us towards a recession, and raising prices on the American family.

Brian Lehrer: Senator Andy Kim of New Jersey joins us once a month for a Call Your Senator segment. Listeners, thanks for your calls and texts, and Senator, thank you very much.

Senator Andy Kim: Thanks for having me.

Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Much more to come.

 

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