Brian Lehrer: It's the Brian Lehrer show on WNYC. Good morning everyone. Don't look now but a little bit of bipartisanship and strange bed fellowship seems to be breaking out in Washington. Contrary to most major news headlines some wins for president Biden as the midterm election year that's underway. This bipartisanship, strange bad fellowship includes the crisis in Ukraine, the attack on the ISIS leader in Syria, a major economic bill in Congress just as the president can crow about the January jobs numbers. Omicron on the run and even a little bit on January 6th and the big lie. Did you hear Mike Pence on Friday?

Mike Pence: I heard this week that president Trump said I had the right to overturn the election. That president Trump is wrong. I had no right to overturn the election. The presidency belongs to the American people and the American people alone. Frankly there is no idea more un-American than the notion that any one person could choose the American president. Under the constitution I had no right to change the outcome of our election and Kamala Harris will have no right to overturn the election when we beat them in 2024.

Brian Lehrer: That was Pence speaking to the conservative lawyers group, the Federalist society last week maybe he's just running for president and has no choice if he's going to be a competitor to Trump but it's certainly a change. We will start there and go on to the war footing around the globe, vaccine victories over the virus and new wins on the economy, with Grace Segers's staff writer for the New Republic who was writing about most of these things. Grace thanks for coming on. Welcome to WNYC.

Grace Segers: Hey thanks so much for having me.

Brian Lehrer: What's up with Mike Pence?

Grace Segers: I think that Pence having been there on January 6th, having had his life endangered with the riders literally chanting hang Mike Pence. He recognizes the gravity of the situation in a way that perhaps many other Republicans do not, for him it is indeed personal. He made the personal decision on that day to continue with his constitutional duty. We haven't seen him challenge Trump this much over January 6 although he had previously said that the two do not see eye to eye on it but this is really the first time that he's staking out his ground on it. I think considering what he personally went through and how he views his constitutional duty and indeed the specter of 2024, all of that factors into why he said these things.

Brian Lehrer: In that talk Pence said quote, there's more at stake than our party or political fortunes. If we lose faith in the constitution, we won't just lose the election, we'll lose our country. That is really further than he's gone before. Do you think they'll kick him out of the party now like they're doing with Liz Chaney?

Grace Segers: I don't know if I would go that far. He is definitely staking out his ground as the leader of another wing of the party perhaps saying that he stands with Liz Chaney and Adam Kinzinger although hopefully not as politically toxic as them if he wants to run in 2024.

Brian Lehrer: Your latest January 6th recap article is about emerging evidence on how far Trump was willing to go to overturn the election. One of your references was to papers from the National Archives that might show who was lobbying Pence to not certify the electors. What are you looking for there?

Grace Segers: You have a bunch of people on the Trump side of the equation, Trump's allies who were hoping to figure out a way to get Mike Pence to unilaterally overturn the election. Trump's lawyers were very into this theory trying to figure out a way that they could use the Electoral Count act which determines the guidelines for how electoral college folks are certified. They're trying to figure a way to get around that trying to make it seem constitutional that one person had the opportunity to overturn a duly elected president elect.

It seems as it if Pence really did have a lot of personal choice here where there's a scenario where he could have followed along with his [inaudible 00:05:11] plan and decided not to but there was a lot of constitutionally questionable legalizing going on here. We're beginning to see that emerge from the January 6th committee.

Brian Lehrer: A lot of the rest of the article that you wrote about outrageous things Trump considered but actually didn't do like using the National Security Agency to try to gin up something before January 6 about foreign interfere on behalf of Biden in the campaign and getting the Justice Department to pressure Georgia to reject its own electors and some other things. They never actually did these things though we know about the Trump phone call to Georgia Secretary of State but some of the other ways despite the evidence they were considered. How much trouble can they get Trump in as he mulls a run for 2024 because the subhead of your article says a lot of things are adding up to Trump might be in a heap of trouble

Grace Segers: Really depends on who is conducting the trouble for Trump. We're not really sure yet what the January 6th committee itself can do. They right now are gathering evidence looking at these documents. Eventually they might try to call Trump or even his family members. I'm sure that will be mired in lawsuits the second that they attempt to subpoena the former president. There's also the possibility that the justice department could take action here. This could get a little bit dicey because a justice department prosecuting a former president is extremely unpresented.

This has never been done before. We're not really sure how exactly this could go down but there's possibility that the justice department could take action. There are investigations into the president from local district attorneys including in Georgia that may come to fruition. There are local and state possibilities for prosecution as well. The thing to really keep in mind is that we are in completely uncharted territory here with having a former president not only actively seek to overturn the election but also now be investigated for it and perhaps even face a penalty.

Brian Lehrer: On the National Archives papers that you're waiting for. Does that relate to the story today? A lot of our listeners may not have even seen this yet about some of the Trump document papers and these are the paper that the Supreme court recently allowed Congress to subpoena. That they had to be retrieved from Mar-a-Lago. Were those papers supposed to be stored at the National Archives in DC was even having them at Mar-a-Lago a crime or a cover-up perhaps of some sort?

Grace Segers: That's some really great reporting from the Washington Post that was out today. Again we're in uncharted territory here but what we do know is that the National Archives have been able to deliver these documents to the January 6th committee in Congress. The big nut of this story is that we're continuing to see documents just a deluge that are going to be given to the committee and that we don't yet know what is in them or indeed how incriminating they may be but there's going to continue to be this flow. That's including from these documents that are coming from Mar-a-Lago as well.

Brian Lehrer: One more ounce of what might be called bipartisan sanity here before we move on to other issues like Ukraine and the economic winds. You report that Senator Lindsay Graham says he would not support Trump pardoning January 6th rioters who were convicted of crimes as Trump said he might do if he's elected president again. Lindsey Graham has been so oh, let me say decisively on both sides of these issues. What's his story at this point as far as you could tell.

Grace Segers: Lindsey Graham is a staunch ally of Trump in the Senate. The two are relatively close. They play golf together and I would not go so far as to say that this is a sign that Graham is turning his back on president Trump. That is I think far from the truth. What we are seeing is that Graham is willing to stake out certain positions and draw a line in the sand. For him, it actually is consistent to say that he is against violence against the police, which there very much was on January 6th at Capitol with the attacks on Capitol and Metropolitan Police. It is consistent for him to say that a riot on the Capitol is bad, and he doesn't think that the people who were involved should be pardoned. What's interesting about it is that it's just so divergent from the position that Trump has, and indeed, Trump called Lindsey Graham a Rhino for saying it. Graham didn't back down after that quote from Trump and I would expect that this is a position that he will continue to stake out.

Brian Lehrer: Rhino, wink wink meet you at the first tee. Listeners, we can take your national politics calls for grey seekers from the New Republic on the January 6th investigations plus Mike Pence explicitly saying Trump was wrong, Grace is following the investigations very closely, or the jobs numbers in the economy or US policy toward Ukraine and ISIS, and anything else about bipartisan support or strange bedfellow dissent camps, and we'll get to at least one of those that you might be in on anything.

212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692, as we talk Monday morning politics, national politics, 212-433-9692 or tweet @brianlehrer. All right, let's go on to bipartisanship on Ukraine. Your article on that cites a joint appearance on CNN State of the Union last week by the Democratic Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Bob Menendez, and the ranking Republican Jim Risch. Here's a minute of them piling on Russia together, Risch speaks first.

Jim Risch: Russia is simply a gas station that is masquerading, a thinly disguised masquerading as a country. This is going to have a devastating effect on the economy around the world when it comes to the price of gasoline. If you're someone who doesn't care about the price of gasoline or oil, that's fine. If you do have a concern about the quality of life for people all over the world, this is something always you have to consider and you always have to take these things into consideration particularly when you're sympathy and trying to help democratic countries.

Dana Bash: [crosstalk] As a-

Bob Menendez: A brief-

Dana Bash: Please go ahead.

Bob Menendez: A brief comment on that, listen, this is beyond Ukraine. Although certainly we dramatically support Ukraine. We cannot have a Munich moment again. Putin will not stop with Ukraine if he believes that the West will not respond.

Brian Lehrer: Democrat Menendez and Republican Risch with CNN's Dana Bash. Risch and Menendez are the top senators in their parties on the Foreign Relations Committee, Grace Segers from the New Republic as our guest, why'd you write about that CNN appearance?

Grace Segers: Well, it is always intriguing to see a bipartisan appearance members of opposite parties on a major news channel together as a show of strength. One of the goals that Congress has with considering a sanctions package against Russia is to show Russia that whatever they do, the United States as a whole will have some kind of response. They want to show that any sanctions package has strong bipartisan backing.

This is an attempt for a show of unity among members of Congress to say to Russia, we're not backing down and we will respond in full. We are not going to be wishy washy about their response, where it's just going to be one party but not going to have the backing of the full Congress. This is a way for Menendez and Risch, and largely most Republicans and Democrats in Congress to say that there will be consequences and we will impose them together.

Brian Lehrer: I wondered actually, on the consequences if the Senator Risch clip made American viewers want tough sanctions or developed doubts about them? Was Risch saying gasoline prices are going to go up for everybody if the US imposes these sanctions?

Grace Segers: Now, that depends on what kind of sanctions the US ends up imposing. The most likely sanctions that you're going to see according to the experts that I've talked to, and who have been discussing the situation are financial sector sanctions. These are sanctions on Russian elites who are very involved in the economy. That way, it would do more to harm the Russian government than necessarily the Russian people and critically, the rest of the world too because we don't want, or the United States government doesn't want to impose any sanctions that would inadvertently affect the American economy.

Having sanctions on oil production could influence that. We know that the Biden administration is in conversation with other countries to make sure that whatever happens here, we will not be affected or will not be as negatively affected in terms of oil prices going up.

Brian Lehrer: If Mitch McConnell's guiding star is to make Joe Biden look bad on everything, why are Republicans in the Senate supporting him on Ukraine?

Grace Segers: Well, we know traditionally that Republicans are hawks, and it is easy to forget because so much has changed. There is still that position that holds sway among the majority of the party, and you see the libertarian streak that's against getting involved in foreign conflicts. Most Republicans do want to act very forcefully against Russia. Again, that might seem counterintuitive after four years of Donald Trump but this is traditionally the position that they have staked out. It is one that holds for the majority of the party, especially in the Senate, maybe less so in the house, but they do want to see Russia be punished. In fact, they don't think that Biden is showing enough strength and being forceful enough in countering Putin.

Brian Lehrer: Before we go to the winds on the economy, and some phone calls and looks like we're getting some interesting calls on the January 6th investigations in particular, and also listeners our second segment today, when we're done with Grace Segers from the New Republic, we're going to look at why this is the month that legal weed sales are supposed to begin in New Jersey, but it's not going to happen. We're going to dig into that with Caroline Lewis, from Gothamist, who's done a very deeply reported article on all the obstacles to launching the cannabis dispensaries in New Jersey right now.

We'll do that coming up later this hour. There's a complementary and opposite angle on Ukraine politics, Grace, in Mother Jones now about dissenters from going hard against Russia on Ukraine. It cites, "Peace camp progressives who are skeptical of the US deploying more troops to Eastern Europe, uncomfortably aligned with hard right, Putin friendly, Trump friendly conservatives like Tucker Carlson." Here he is briefly on Fox.

Tucker Carlson: Who's got the energy reserves? Who's the major player in world affairs? Who has the potential counterbalance against China, which is the actual threat? Why would we take Ukraine side? Why wouldn't we [unintelligible 00:18:37] Russia side? I don't-- I'm totally confused.

Brian Lehrer: Some counterbalance against China as they had a nice, huggy meeting in Beijing as the Olympics are getting underway. Is there some progressive caucus US hands off the world meets Putin pro Trump authoritarianism friendly coalition here on foreign policy?

Grace Segers: These would be strange bedfellows indeed. I don't think that you would ever see a progressive member of Congress say that they were aligning with Tucker Carlson on any subject. There is some green of agreement here where there are a lot of progressives, and particularly younger progressives who are particularly scarred by interference in foreign conflicts. For younger progressives, having grown up with the shadows of the failed wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, they don't want to see the US become mired in another conflict and they are just naturally skeptical of that. We haven't seen as many progressive members of Congress actively talk about being against sanctions on Russia or some kind of interference in Ukraine, but there's definitely that skepticism there that is shared with Tucker Carlson and his ilk although the origins may be a little bit different and they disagree on everything else. There is that sense of, well, why do we want to get involved in another foreign conflict? Let's just stay in our lane as it were and I think that there is a little bit of overlap there.

Brian Lehrer: Is the common thread in these stories that we've talked about so far that for all the media focus on divisions within the democratic party, it's mostly just Jill Masion when we're talking about the economy. There are some other things like how far to go on bail reform, but the Republicans are deeply divided on things like Russia and January 6th, and it doesn't get that much in is that a fair takeaway?

Grace Segers: I think part of the problem here, if you are a Democrat wondering, Hey, why is our disarray covered so much in the media compared to Republicans? Democrats are in the majority, they have control of the house Senate and white house, and yes, that majority is tenuous, but they are in the majority.

If they don't accomplish things, ultimately that is on them for not being able to get every single member in line. Now, if in 2022 Republicans take back the house and or the Senate, perhaps both, then I would expect to see the same level of scrutiny of them as we saw in 2017, when they had the majority in house and white house, and weren't necessarily able to get their act together on certain things, such as an Obamacare appeal, not being able to enact that, but that's part of the pitfalls of being in the majority is that you are going to get extra scrutiny and if you are unable to enact your biggest legislative priorities, even if it's only one or two members standing in the way that is still worth reporting on and remarking upon.

Brian Lehrer: Jerry in Nutley, New Jersey, you're on WNYC with Grace Segers from the new Republic. Hi Jerry.

Jerry: Hi. How are you? Thank you for taking my call. I just wanted to remark that the Republican response, everything about January 6th is glossing over Trump's use of the word overturn. To me that reads an acknowledgement that he actually did lose and he wanted to change the outcome, and then the fig leaf of the patriotism or defensive democracy that the January 6th supporters are using absolutely is everything that they're hanging that logic on absolutely falls apart. You don't need to change election laws. You don't need to run with it the way they have run with it. If Trump is admitting that he actually did lose and he wanted the results overturned.

Brian Lehrer: Yes. That's an interesting distinction that I'm not sure that he's made, but Grace, what do you think?

Grace Segers: That is an interesting point. The thing is even if Trump uses the word overturn and implicitly acknowledges that he lost the election, he never will explicitly. That is the point here and how Republicans show fealty to him as the leader of the party is by never explicitly acknowledging that either. That's why you see certain Republicans refusing to acknowledge that Biden won the election.

They'll just say, well, I believe that he's the president. There is the implicit acknowledgement that yes, he lost among many members of Congress and perhaps even among the former president himself, but as long as he does not explicitly say, "Yes, I lost, it's a bummer." It's just, I don't think that distinction is going to matter very much for his supporters.

Brian Lehrer: We'll continue in a minute with Grace Segers from the New Republic. We'll talk about Joe Biden and the great American jobs machine as he put it take more of your calls on January 6th and other things. Then we'll go on to Caroline Lewis from Gothamist and why there will not apparently be recreational marijuana dispensaries in New Jersey, at least not this month as originally scheduled, so stay with us, Brian Lehrer on WNYC.

[music] Brian Lehrer on WNYC with Grace Segers covering all things Washington for the New Republic. We've covered outbursts of bipartisanship and strange bed fellowship on foreign policy, and January 6th, Biden got a nice win on Friday with the January jobs numbers so much better than expected. Here he is on that.

Joe Biden: This morning's report caps off my first year as president. Over that period, our economy created 6.6 million jobs. You can't remember another year when so many people went to work in this country, there's a reason, it never happened.

Brian Lehrer: "It never happened," says Joe Biden on Friday and you wrote an article that day, Grace citing those numbers and also that Congress is poised to hand Biden a big economic win on what bill is that?

Grace Segers: This is a bill on competitiveness aimed at increasing competitiveness with China, easing some supply chain woes. It is focused on boosting creation of semiconductor chips which go into all things especially cars, and so creating more of those could help ease the backlog and increase car production.

There are also provisions of the bill aimed at boosting trade and reasserting the US' position as a major global economic power to counter the emergence of China. The idea is to bring the US fully into the 21st century and reassert its power. There is a fair amount of bipartisan support for different versions of this bill.

The version of the bill that passed in the house on Friday only passed with one Republican vote and the rest was all Democrats, there was a Senate version of the bill that passed last year, that was far more bipartisan. Now what Congress has to do is get together and reconcile these two bills until they come up with a compromise that is agreeable to all and then they can send that to president Biden's desk.

He can sign it and say, "Look at how we are boosting competitive with China and creating semiconductor chips and addressing our supply chain problems." It's still far from the end point, but this was another step in bringing some economic good news to Biden.

Brian Lehrer: Do they have 10 Republicans so that this bill won't be killed by a filibuster?

Grace Segers: That is exactly the problem. Now, the version of the bill that passed last year in the Senate, that did have the support from almost 20 Republicans, so more than enough to be approved in the Senate, the version that just passed in the house, probably not, like I said, it only got one Republican vote in the house and there are a lot of issues with it that Republicans are iffy about, they don't like the amount of spending on climate related provisions, for example, some say that it is too soft on China because it eases immigration restrictions for certain entrepreneurs and high level workers.

That's why the house and the Senate have to get together now for a process known as conferencing and they are going to work together to find the middle ground on these two bills. There are a lot of overlap and create a bill that is amenable to all.

Brian Lehrer: Chris in Darien Connecticut. You're on WNYC. Hi Chris.

Chris: Hi, good morning everybody. A question that I have is with respect to Trump as Trump, how much of the current ecosystem in our political world is a function of Trump and how much of it do we think is a function of just behavioral patterns amongst Americans and Trump being a manifestation of that. Things like the prominence of politicians like Marjorie Taylor Green and Matt Gates and candidates for office staking out super extreme positions to place the bets. [music]

Brian Lehrer: Chris. Thank you. I don't know where that sounder was coming from listeners or if it was only in my ears but Grace, you're still there. You heard his question and that's such a deep question. We grapple with that on the show where if I'm understanding Chris correctly, this is about just how radical Republican America has become that Trump is not just Trump. He's a reflection of something that is actually very popular in the United States, minority popular but a scaringly large minority as far as a lot of other people are concerned.

Grace Segers: Trump is really a fascinating political figure just as an outsider looking in because he is both a symptom of a direction that the country is taking while also being a very sui generis figure where he has this influence and power that no other Republican has at the moment. Although some are beginning to get close and may eventually surpass him but the make America great again mentality, the forces that led to his rise.

They are not unique to him. He is perhaps unique in being able to harness it. We haven't seen anyone be able to harness that same rage that we have seen him do so effectively. That doesn't mean there isn't someone out there who could eventually supplant him but he is an interesting figure again as both a symptom of something larger but also being his own unique persona.

Brian Lehrer: This has to do with "white grievance in America," this has to do with democracy versus authoritarianism I guess when we're talking about Ukraine and Russia. One of the things we could look at is there was an Ann Apple balm piece in I'm trying to remember where she writes the Atlantic of course saying what does Putin really want in Ukraine? Her takeaway was that what Putin really wants is to discredit democracy. When you think about it what Biden says, this doesn't get this much press because it's not a hot button issue like some of the bills that are stuck in Congress or some of the other things.

He says one of the most important reasons that he does a lot of what he does on foreign policy is to show the world that democracy can still work when democracy is under pressure in a lot of places by authoritarian leaders who are gaining strength by failures of democracy in various places or under performance and people. You could say in the United States people who are interested in Trump and his style of governance to some degree are losing faith in democracy. When Trump was in power he was trying to move US foreign policy away from a fundamental alliance with other democracies like the NATO democracies as the bedrock core of US foreign policy to an alliance with authoritarians around the world who also supported Trump.

That would be Putin, that it would be Erdogan, that would be Xi Jingping who as far as hard as Trump has gone against China at various times he was cultivating Xi Jingping for that group and the leader of the Philippines and Bolsonaro and Brazil and go where you want. This is another one of those deep things and it relates back to January 6th, people willing to overturn a free and fair election because they've convinced themselves that there was fraud when there was no evidence of fraud because they want their strong man in power. I know I'm going on but I think those dots connect, Grace.

Grace Segers: I think that there is definitely a connection between all of those points that you mentioned. Also we're highlighting here. This is where you see the difference between Tucker Carlson's opposition to getting involved with the situation in Ukraine and perhaps that of some progressives because there is that inclination among both to not get involved in a foreign conflict but Carlson is identifying specifically with Russia and with Putin.

Carlson is also a voice support for Viktor Orbán who is the authoritarian leader of Hungary. There's this streak of authoritarianism that is present in that opposition to getting involved in the situation in Ukraine. It's partially because of a deference to Putin and believing in that form of government as being effective.

Brian Lehrer: One more caller before we run out of time and it's Sam in Brooklyn who I think is going to put himself in the peace camp on Ukraine if that's the right way to put it Sam hi you are on WNYC, is that the right way to put it?

Sam: That is, hi Brian. Hi grace. I attended an anti-war demonstration this weekend with conceitedly a small group of people but this just feels to me so familiar that everybody is lining up lockstep behind Biden who is in deep trouble politically. There's nothing like a war or the threat of a military conflict to distract us from a president's domestic blows. What I feel is that the media, the government we're not getting a full picture here.

Everybody is lining up. Even when I watch progressive stations like MSNBC I don't hear the other side of this. I don't hear a historical analysis of the dispute between Ukraine and Russia. Ukraine shares a 1,200 mile border with Russia. If they're brought in to NATO isn't the obvious why Russia would feel threatened by that the way we felt threatened when Khrushchev put nuclear missiles into Cuba.

Brian Lehrer: Two questions for you Sam. One, how much discomfort do you feel that Tucker Carlson and people like him are on the same side of that issue? We played the Tucker Carlson clip earlier and Biden would probably say at least privately, the peace camp has already won. We are not talking about going into Ukraine and stopping Russia. In fact Biden has taken hits for something that he said in his news conference a couple of weeks ago what the US response is will depend on how much of an invasion seeming to give Russia a little bit of a pass for a little bit of an invasion of Ukraine.

We are not sending troops to defend Ukraine probably even if Russia goes all the way to Kiev and takes the capital. What we are doing is then just deploying troops to Western Europe and some Eastern European countries that are in NATO and only imposing economic sanctions. We are not going to war in Ukraine maybe in the '80s the '90s maybe even under Clinton the response would've been different but we are not going to war in Ukraine.

Sam: I guess I'm not sure that I buy it completely, number one and in terms of aligning myself with Tucker Carlson, that's historically been an odd alliance. Since Vietnam that there was a large progressive Anti-war movement and there were also a handful of right-wing isolationists who for different reasons you came out with the same result. I don't come at this from the point of view of supporting authoritarianism.

I'm in the exact opposite camp. I'm no fan of Putin. I just think the military option has to be seen as an absolute last resort. If what you're saying is accurate that we're saying we're not going to do that under any circumstances, that's great but it just feels like there's a very warlike atmosphere in the country right now and that nobody's questioning it.

Brian Lehrer: Sam we really appreciate your call. Thank you very much. We're going to make that the last word in this segment, Grace Segers is covering all these things for the New Republic. Thanks for your deeply reported pieces, Grace. We really appreciate you coming on the show.

Grace Segers: Thanks for having me.

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