Title: Monday Morning Politics: Greenland, the Panama Canal and Trump's Foreign Policy

Amina Srna: It's the Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. I'm Amina Srna, a producer for the Brian Lehrer Show, filling in for Brian today. Coming up on today's show, of course, we'll remember President Jimmy Carter, who died yesterday at 100 years old. The one-term president had a long and busy life after he left office and gained many admirers for his work in public health, democracy, building houses for Habitat for Humanity and in women's rights. We were lucky to have President Carter on the show several times throughout the years. And today we'll play an excerpt from an interview he did with Brian from about a decade ago. Plus, our WNYC centennial series, 100 Years of 100 Things, continues with a look at the history of Times Square, including its New Year's Eve celebrations. This has actually been going on for more than a hundred years. And we'll round out today's show with a conversation about New Year's resolutions and how to keep them.

First, we turn to President-elect Donald Trump and his statements on foreign policy plan ahead of his inauguration next month. For the past several weeks, Trump has made multiple statements on what his foreign policy will be. Most recently, they include taking over Greenland, bringing the Panama Canal under American control, and he's also suggested making Canada the 51st state. And while unusual to go after countries seen as traditional allies of the US the tactic is provoking reactions from all three countries.

Greenland's prime minister has said the island is not for sale. The president of Panama has said that "every square meter of the Panama Canal and its adjacent zone belongs to belongs to Panama and will remain so," and at least two top ministers for Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau visited Trump in Florida last week.

Joining us now to discuss all this and more is Jacqueline Alemany, congressional investigations reporter for the Washington Post. Her latest is titled, Trump team says Canada, Greenland, Panama comments are part of a broader plan. Welcome back to WNYC, Jackie.

Jacqueline Alemany: Thanks, Amina, for having me, and Happy New Year.

Amina Srna: Happy New Year to you too. Listeners, later in the show, we'll re-air an interview with the late President Jimmy Carter. We can take some of your calls ahead of that. Maybe President Carter was the first president you ever voted for. I know I've screened calls about that. Tell us that story or anything else you'd like to remember. 212-433-WNYC. That's 212-433-9692. You can also text that number.

All right, Jackie, we've got a few countries to get through here in your latest piece. So let's start with Canada. You write that earlier this month "Canadian officials announced a plan to increase spending on border security and use canine teams and artificial intelligence to intercept illegal drugs." The Trump transition team points to this as an early sign of success for their foreign policy strategy. What is the Canadian government hoping to bring to the table in terms of border security as a bargaining chip?

Jacqueline Alemany: That is really a good question because there hasn't been much agreement past this initial plan that Canadian officials announced. There were several Canadian officials who actually visited Mar-a-Lago over the weekend, but they again said that there were no further agreements made on what exactly border security is going to look like. But the common thread on both the Southern and the Canadian border that the President-elect Trump has been preoccupied with is stopping the flow of fentanyl and illegal drugs through the border.

As this conversation has progressed, Trump has also escalated his attacks on Justin Trudeau and Canada writ large, mocking him as the 51st governor and sort of trying to threaten the annexation of Canada as a 51st state. And these are obviously veer on the side of more ludicrous and highly unlikely and as part of a bargaining tactic. But as we saw during Trump's first term, his foreign policy was constantly marked by upending diplomatic conventions and international relationships, especially with traditional partners and our neighbors.

Amina Srna: And staying on Canada for another beat. The President-elect has been threatening to slap tariffs on all Canadian products, which you report about. To what extent does the administration see this bluster about Canada as a 51st state, as sort of a negotiation tactic, I guess.

Jacqueline Alemany: Yes, that's exactly right. And he has threatened a 25% tariff. That is how I think a lot of people have viewed his bluster, not just now, but during the campaign, as well as a Trumpian negotiation tactic and as leverage. The actual economic consequences of what that would look like are so far ones economists have said that would would be potentially catastrophic for the US economy in terms of a cumulative 25% tariff on not just Canadian imports, but Mexican imports as well, which he's also threatened.

Amina Srna: Moving on to Greenland, you note that it's the semi-autonomous Danish territory where the United States maintains its northernmost air base. What is Trump's interest there? Is it possible to buy Greenland?

Jacqueline Alemany: It is not possible. Denmark has made it extremely clear Greenland is a semi-autonomous Danish territory, which is its own sort of complicated conversation that diplomats in Denmark are actually actively trying to avoid and wade into because of the history of colonization and the sensitivities around that, at least in that region. They have said that Denmark is not for sale. This is a consistent point that they've made since Trump first raised this idea when he actively pursued the idea of buying Greenland in 2019, pushed his top aides to look into acquiring the island, whether it was legal and where the money to purchase the landmass could come from.

This is an idea that has come from an old friend of Trump's, Ronald Lauder, an heir to the Estée Lauder cosmetics fortune, pitched him on the plan at the outset of his term. We talked to a handful of former and current Danish diplomats over the weekend about this idea. While it sounds hilarious, a former diplomat who worked on this issue during Trump's first term said to us, it is actually a long standing issue in US foreign policy. Trump's announcement was not unexpected, not just based on his past positions, but also what what Greenland is looking ahead to and some of the actions Trump took during his first term.

Mike Pompeo, Trump's secretary of state, visited the region In June of 2020, shortly after the US had reopened its first consulate in Nuuk for the first time since 1953. He highlighted America's presence in the Arctic, taking aim at Chinese and Russian efforts to gain a foothold in the resource rich island. There is sort of this feeling that the conversation of independence in Greenland is something that could arise in the next 10 to 15 years. The US hedging for all futures is more strategic, I think, than people might realize at first glance or at first read of some of these Truth Socials that Trump was posting over the weekend.

Amina Srna: I going to ask you one more follow-up on that. Listeners, if you're just joining us, my guest is Jacqueline Alemany, congressional investigations reporter for the Washington Post. We're taking calls on two tracks here. You can call in to ask Jackie a question on Trump and his foreign policy, or you can share a Jimmy Carter memory if you'd like. We will play that tape following this segment. Give us a call now at 212-433-WNYC. That's 212-433-9692. You can also text that number. we already have some callers calling in. So let's go to Lawrence in Brooklyn. Hi, Lawrence.

Lawrence in Brooklyn: Hey, hi. I'm struck by this. Thank you. Thanks to Ms. Alemany for her reporting. It seems to me three sort of threats have been made. The Canadian one seems to be a joke in extremely poor taste. The other two are actual serious threats to annex or at least use aggressive diplomacy to acquire territories that don't belong to the United States. I'm not sure we've seen this since, I don't know, the Spanish American War, the Mexican American War. This is a sort of shocking line to be crossed to me. I will also say that what does this do to our good faith and credit when we negotiate treaties in the future, we're talking about Pana, when we just decide decades later, "Hey, we changed our mind, we're taking it back." What, what does this do? Even if we think that's justifiable, we signed on the line to return this to Panama. What does our word matter if we don't live up to that?

Amina Srna: Thank you so much for your call, Lawrence. Jackie, do you have any thoughts on what Lawrence said?

Jacqueline Alemany: Yes. Well, Lawrence, we do go into a little bit of that, the history here and where sort of Trump's expansionist views are really echoes of foreign policy of some part-- Of not any really modern presidents, but at least the early foreign policy of Woodrow Wilson, who was one of the first politicians to run on the catchphrase America First. We talked to historians who said that it was Wilson who kind of was able to look at this idea of isolationism as meaning that we'd stay out of European wars, but then engaging in other wars and effectively engaging in annexation everywhere else.

Wilson obviously is remembered for his efforts to advance international order through the creation of the League of Nations. He had run for office on the slogan he kept us out of war, as he vowed to keep the US out of World War I. There were other places, the people of Haiti, Dominican Republic and Mexico who would have disagreed with that motto because of US intervention in those countries during Wilson's first term. There is a concern amongst some Trump allies that Trump's imperial bluster could cross that fine line into actual inter-military intervention, which would be a big break from his campaign promises to end wars and not start them.

One conservative foreign policy adviser who has some insight into the President-elect's transition process said that while he believed that Trump's position is mostly posturing, that some of the unanimous agreement that has coalesced around the idea, for example, of trying to make the war on Mexican cartels through military intervention by firing missiles at them into Mexico was troubling and hazardous.

Amina Srna: There's also a tie in your piece to the late President Jimmy Carter and his actions in Panama. Let's first take a memory from a listener on the late president. We have Catherine in Tribeca. Hi, Catherine, you're on WNYC.

Catherine in Tribeca: Hi. Thank you very much. You may recall that President Jimmy Carter put solar panels on the roof of the White House. If we would have followed his prophetic voice, we would not be having these extreme hurricanes and floods and forest fires and things we're having now. He was our first major environmental president. He and Rosalynn got out of the car and on their way to the inauguration and walked for another sign of his dedication to using our energy wisely. I just want to remember him fondly for what he did with putting those solar panels on the roof of the White House.

Amina Srna: Thank you, Catherine. Thank you so much for your call. Let's take one more remembrance, Kit in Bayville, New Jersey. Hi, Kit, you're on WNYC.

Kit in Bayville, New Jersey: Hi. Thank you for taking my call. I just want to say he's the favorite president of my lifetime, even though I was too young to vote for him while he was in office. My father was a political science professor for 50 years and we watched the news every single night. Jimmy Carter was an honorable man. Even after he left the White House, he set a great example for all Americans.

Amina Srna: Kit, thank you so much for your call. Jackie, it was so interesting to read about Trump's remembrance and maybe focus and fixation on the late President Jimmy Carter. Trump's focus on Panama Canal, you actually cited John Feeley, who served as Trump's ambassador to Panama, as saying that Trump felt that President Jimmy Carter made a "historic mistake by signing two treaties that relinquished American control over the canal." Given that, we'll listen back to an interview with President Carter later in the show. I wonder if you can just explain Trump's thinking here.

Jacqueline Alemany: Yes. The timing is very interesting here. Yet Trump felt that Carter had made one of the biggest mistakes of his presidency, a historic mistake, according to Feeley, by signing the two treaties that relinquished American control over the canal. And actually, at the time, Trump was still a Democrat when he started vocalizing some of these opinions and was one of the few people to side with Reagan's position, who came into office after Carter on the position that the US was the rightful owner of the canal, and that he actually raised this matter during his first meeting with then President Juan Carlos Varela in 2017 during his first administration, but that, Feeley, as he told us when he was in the room for this meeting, that Varela managed to respond with a non sequitur about Syria, sort of trying to change topics as quickly as possible, and avoided an escalation of the topic. According to Feeley, this was a long standing obsession Trump has had really since the '80s.

Amina Srna: Historically, Trump has bashed interventionalism while in office and on the campaign trail. In your piece, you write about how he said the US should limit spending to defend Ukraine against Russia. He's bashed NATO. We do have a text and a call coming in specifically on NATO. Let's go to Lee on Staten Island, Excuse me. Hi, Lee, you're on WNYC.

Lee on Staten Island: Good morning. To me, when Trump talks like this, it sounds an awful lot like what Vladimir Putin did and said about Crimea and Eastern Ukraine. The thought occurs to me that we should have listened to Donald Trump a lot more carefully when he was talking about how he admired Vladimir Putin.

Amina Srna: Thank you so much, Lee, for your call. Jackie, do you want to talk a bit more about the through line between Trump's rhetoric. I know you've spoken about-- Yes, go ahead. You've written about Woodrow Wilson. You already spoke to us about Woodrow Wilson, but sort of this anti-interventionism versus going into these countries and taking them over.

Jacqueline Alemany: Well, it's very interesting because Panama also, these two treaties that Carter signed was a major turning point for the US's foreign policy posture on interventionism. It was really in Panama where the US decided, according to Jonathan Katz, who authored the Gangsters of Capitalism, a biography that a decorated Marine veteran who fought in foreign wars in the late 19th and 20th centuries, where America decided we were not going to formally colonize this area. It was the shift away from territorial expansionism toward a more informal empire, which is what Katz wrote.

The through line here is again back to this idea of countering China and Russia through theaters, that the US has a higher likelihood of success. Rather than countering them directly in regions where maybe the US is more vulnerable, going at them through proxies via some of our neighbors and allies and closest friends has a higher likelihood of making strategic advances. We talked to a number of people who study this issue closely.

Actually, we talked with Ryan Berg, who's the Director of the Americas Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, who said that, yes, there were clear issues and falsehoods that Trump propagated in the Truth Social that he posted about Panama ripping off the US and that Chinese soldiers being allowed to operate in the waterway, claims that the Panamanian president vehemently denied, but that there is some validity to the idea that China is expanding their global port influence on both sides of the Panama Canal, and that there are a lot of worries about the Chinese influence and the reliability of US operations.

That it's one of the main routes to deploy US Naval vessels from the Atlantic to the Pacific, especially if there is some sort of contingency situation where we have national security interests, like some sort of situation in Taiwan, for example, where having access through that waterway and being able to maybe shave down potential deployment times by a matter of hours could be really crucial. One of the main companies that does operate in these ports is Chinese owned. The idea of all of the information that is running and coursing through the canal, that data is getting swept up by China as well. Again, while these ideas feel ad hoc and scattershot and out of the blue, if you look a little bit closer, there are some real national security concerns here.

Amina Srna: Actually, you were touching on this already, but we do have a clip of President-elect Trump speaking at a Turning Point USA rally in Phoenix on December 22nd. Let's take a listen.

President-elect Trump: As another example of the things we're doing and looking at, it's such a terrible thing that's happening. The Panama Canal is considered a vital national asset for the United States of America due to its critical role, American economy, the whole world economy, and also national security. The Panama Canal. Has anyone ever heard of the Panama Canal? Because we're being ripped off at the Panama Canal like we're being ripped off everywhere else.

Amina Srna: So interesting. I think a lot of people have heard of the Panama Canal, but I am curious about the national security concern. I think you were hinting at it in your previous answer, but can you explain that any further?

Jacqueline Alemany: Yes. It's again based on this idea that the canal does have really a strategic location from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and that if China manages to secure some important parts of the canal, that it could limit access in the case of escalated aggression or a contingency situation in a place like Taiwan or another area in the Western Hem. We should take the time to fact check the President-elect that we are not getting ripped off by Panama. That is the one thing that he is wrong about. There actually was a historic drought in the canal, I believe earlier this year, and it did cause prices to raise. Actually at some point, Panama was having to auction off basically slots for people to be able to get priority to go through the canal because the water levels were so low, and so prices did raise, but for everyone, not because the US was getting ripped off.

Amina Srna: Just to add a little bit more to that, Panama has been suffering a prolonged drought that began even as back as early 2023, according to some sources. We have to take a brief break. My guest is Jacqueline Alemany, congressional investigations reporter for the Washington Post. More with Jackie and your calls in a minute. Stay with us. It's the Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC.

If you're just joining us, I'm Amina Srna, producer here at the Brian Lehrer show, filling in for Brian today. My guest right now is Jacqueline Alemany, congressional investigations reporter for the Washington Post. Jackie, we are getting some interesting calls that are sort of threading the needle here between our two different tracks of call outs. We are taking calls of your remembrances of the late President Jimmy Carter and also any questions you may have for Jackie on Trump's foreign policy. Let's take a call. Matt in Newberg, you are on WNYC. Hi, Matt.

Matt in Newberg: Hey, how are you guys doing today? I just wanted to say that the experience that Carter had with the contrived delay that the CIA manipulated to benefit Reagan with the Iran hostage situation was the exact template that Putin and Netanyahu used to essentially goad Biden into defending issues that ultimately were vulnerable to him politically. He played chess with essentially marshmallow pieces.

Amina Srna: Thank you so much, Matt. Let's take one more call. Oh, Jackie, do you want to respond to that?

Jacqueline Alemany: Oh.

Amina Srna: I believe it comes up in the tape that we will play after the segment.

Jacqueline Alemany: Okay, great.

Amina Srna: One more remembrance. Let's take Bud in Nutley, New Jersey.

Bud in Nutley, New Jersey: Good morning, ladies. I have a story. My father in 1972, as a businessman, met Governor Jimmy Carter from Georgia and came back to our house and he said that one day Jimmy Carter would be president. Of course, we doubted him for all the four years until 1976. In 1976, he was asked to be a delegate for the convention and he said no. Everybody said, "Why? You're the only one in Ohio who knows Jimmy Carter." They did get to be friends and exchange letters. I have a great picture of my parents with the Carters at his church in Plains, Georgia.

Amina Srna: Thank you so much for sharing that story. Jackie, I know this isn't necessarily your beat, you investigate Congress, but do you maybe want to tell us a little bit about how the passing of President Jimmy Carter is playing out in Washington D.C. your vantage point? Oh, do we have Jackie?

Jacqueline Alemany: Sorry about that. I had a barking dog, [unintelligible 00:27:26].

Amina Srna: No problem. Thank you so much.

Jacqueline Alemany: I think I've actually been really surprised at the number of bipartisan statements rallying around someone and celebrating someone who had become a punching bag during the 2024 election for conservatives and for Donald Trump. Trump tried to make a lot of Carter-Biden analogies. What we've seen from members of Congress is a lot of praise for the one-term president who really redefined the post-presidency and a number of other aspects of the way the presidency works. He also entrusted Walter Mondale, his vice president, with sort of a modern version of what the vice presidency looks like. This is someone who is being celebrated across the board right now. That is something that is quite unusual at least in the rotunda.

Amina Srna: I see BBC's reporting that Trump said all Americans owe Carter a debt of gratitude. Definitely remembrances coming out of both sides of the political aisle, as you say. I wanted to ask you actually about one more question about the late President Jimmy Carter. One aspect of his foreign policy legacy that had a lasting global impact was his move to normalize relations with China. So as we're speaking about President-elect Donald Trump's foreign policy, I wonder if you are familiar with what Carter was thinking at the time or how did the improvement of relations between China and the United States transform both countries?

Jacqueline Alemany: Well, after the Panama Canal treaties, I think the biggest strides he made was granting full diplomatic recognition to China, taking advantage of an opening that had been made by President Richard Nixon. He did that though in a sharp departure from Nixon by focusing on human rights and making that a central theme of UN as foreign policy. Carter has said himself that one of his most proud moments out of his time, that he has a lot of regrets in his time in office, mainly over the Iran hostage crisis, but that has worked to normalize relations with China. His focus on human rights are really some of his proudest moments.

Amina Srna: We have a caller who would like to talk about the history that the US has had with Denmark. So let's go to Philippe in Brooklyn. Hi, Philippe, welcome to WNYC.

Philippe in Brooklyn: Hey, Amina, how are you?

Amina Srna: Thanks so much for calling.

Philippe in Brooklyn: Thanks for taking a little ride. And by the way, your former intern, Brandon said hello.

Amina Srna: Hello to Brandon. We remember him fondly.

Philippe in Brooklyn: I meant to mention this before because I know you guys have had this discussion about Trump's maybe veiled threat or real threat, who knows, about Denmark. And I've been surprised over the various discussion that no one has mentioned that, yes, the United States have had these little square mission, obviously geopolitical issues with Denmark before because that's how the United states got the US Virgin Islands, where a lot of my formative years were spent.

There was a time during 1865, the Civil War, when the United States wanted it from Denmark and Denmark said no. That settled [unintelligible 00:31:38] for a while. Then around World War I, the United States then threatened Denmark with violence and war if they didn't sell the Virgin Islands to the United States because they were thinking of strategic possibilities of being attacked from U-boats, etcetera. It's not anything new. The Virgin Island still has a Danish queen's capital, Charlotte Amalie, and they still drive on the left hand side with American made cars on the road. So there's a lot of that still. It's not a totally new idea.

Amina Srna: Yes, the legacy of US Interventionalism. Philippe, thank you so much for calling in and sharing that. I have one remembrance. We have somebody texting in, Erica in Brooklyn with another Carter remembrance. "Jimmy Carter was the first person I voted for-ish. When I was in the fourth grade, we had an election in my class and President Carter won overwhelmingly. As a public health professional, I want to note his contributions to health across the world, where he's been quite a giant. Much love to him and his family as we remember a great and profoundly good man." Let's take one call. Lisa in Jersey City. Hi, Lisa, you're in WNYC.

Lisa in Jersey City: Hi. I just wanted to remind folks about something that occurred very early on in Trump's first administration. President Carter was due to go down to Chile to receive their highest national honor for his help in securing democracy there and also his Habitat for Humanity work and other humanitarian work he'd done down there. It was going to be a very big deal for him, and he and Rosalynn were supposed to go down there for that.

The first Trump State Department revoked his official permission to go down and represent as the former president. So Carter didn't go. I remember that, and I remember President Carter said, "well, maybe we'll be able to do it some other time." then he got brain cancer and Covid and whatever else. He never got to go down to Chile to receive that honor. I think it's worth reminding people that other countries respected him in that way and wanted to give him their highest honor.

Amina Srna: Thank you so much for sharing that, Lisa. Jackie, I wanted to briefly switch gears in our last few minutes here because we were off for the holiday last week when the House Ethics report said that Matt Gaetz paid for sex and possessed drugs. I know that you had reported on this and it has been widely reported over the past week, but I just wanted to spend a few more minutes with you on that story, so it doesn't go past our news feeds. Former Congressman Matt Gaetz from Florida, you write, regularly paid for sex, possessed illegal drugs and paid a 17-year-old girl for sex in 2017. That's according to that 42-page report released by the House Ethics Committee last Monday. Matt Gaetz was President-elect Donald Trump's former pick for Attorney General. Can you tell us a little bit more about how that story has played out in this past week?

Jacqueline Alemany: Yes, it's pretty remarkable that Trump's pick for really the top law enforcement job in our country was found to, by at least the panel of bipartisan lawmakers and the Ethics Committee, to have engaged in what they concluded was statutory rape, illicit drug use and in violation of a number of other laws, although they did not find sufficient evidence to conclude that he violated the federal sex trafficking laws.

This was the culmination of a drawn out battle that was taking place between members on this panel who had finished the report but did not want to release it because it would have been a break from precedent about releasing a report about a member who had already resigned from Congress. Ultimately there was at least one Republican who sided with Democrats to create a majority to decide to release this review that they had been working on for years. Although their House Ethics Committee chairman, Michael Guest, did not let the report be released without stating his position on the matter that while that he supported the findings of the report wholeheartedly, he did not support the release, and that said, the majority had deviated from the committee's well established standards.

I think perhaps the most interesting parts of this report were the sources in the appendix and the text messages and the communications of the committee obtained that outlined Gaetz's communications with some of these women who were involved with what they described as sex parties and also payments in exchange for sex and a relationship with them. The committee was able to string together different scenarios and stories of Gaetz's behavior and wrongdoing. There was one trip in particular that he made to the Bahamas between September 13th and 16th in 2018, again while he was a member of Congress, where Gaetz appeared to be under the influence of drugs and engaged in sexual activity with a number of women on the trip who were paid for their work, and that the panel also had concluded that Gaetz had received impermissible gifts, for example, accepting travel to the Bahamas via a private plane and other travel costs in violation of the House's gift rule.

Amina Srna: Of course, Gaetz has denied all the allegations against him. I do want to ask about the sex trafficking charge and the federal investigation into that. Your reporting was on the House Ethics Committee report and the DOJ, as I understand it, decided not to prosecute on this. I wanted to ask just if you can clarify that distinction a little bit and then what, if anything, are the legal repercussions, if not, the political repercussions?

Jacqueline Alemany: The Justice Department had closed their investigation that was opened, by the way, during the first Trump administration in 2020, while Trump was still in office, that that was looking into an alleged relationship with a 17-year-old girl. The Justice Department ultimately did not bring any charges. At the time, the Post reported that it was because of career prosecutors. Career prosecutors had ultimately decided that they didn't think that this was a case they were going to be able to win because of some issues with the credibility of some of witnesses and inconsistencies that they had found through the course of their investigation. So they decided not to pursue any charges.

This was a parallel investigation, this Ethics report that was being run by members of Congress. Actually over the past few years, there was some disagreement and frustration from the congressional side of this in terms of getting information that the Justice Department had obtained through their investigation. That's a constant tension in Congress between a congressional investigation and a Justice Department investigation, especially when the DOJ and the FBI has far more tools at their disposal to obtain information from witnesses.

They had convened actually a grand jury panel. A lot of these witnesses testified before a grand jury. There were subpoenas that people were forced to abide by and including Matt Gaetz. On the congressional side of things, I think if you read the report, the panel will have concluded that Gaetz was essentially also obstructing Congress because of how uncooperative he was with this investigation. The one thing that is outside of the DOJ's purview that the Ethics Committee did conclude was that while he didn't violate federal sex trafficking statutes, that they found that Gaetz having sex with a 17-year-old in July 2017 was in violation of Florida's statutory rape law. That is a strict criminal liability. That is something that you could potentially see down the line if there was any sort of appetite for it being picked up in the State of Florida and maybe as a part of a new or continuing investigation.

Amina Srna: More to come. That's all the time we have for today. My guest has been Jacqueline Alemany, congressional investigations reporter for the Washington Post. Jackie, thank you so much for coming on. Happy New Year.

Jacqueline Alemany: Happy New Year. Thank you so much.

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