EYDER PERALTA, HOST:
It's been said many times and will be said many more times as President Trump pushes to get his agenda through Congress - the GOP's House majority is thin. That reality was underscored last week when President Trump withdrew his nomination of New York Congresswoman Elise Stefanik as ambassador to the United Nations. Joining me now to talk about this, as well as some of the fallout from the scandal over the Signal leak, is NPR's senior national political correspondent Mara Liasson. Good morning, Mara.
MARA LIASSON, BYLINE: Hi, there.
PERALTA: So Stefanik was expected to be easily confirmed by the Senate. What does this withdrawal of her nomination say about the president's thinking?
LIASSON: It says that he's nervous enough about that thin House majority that he's willing to pull the plug on someone who's been very loyal to him. You know, there are two special elections this week in Florida. Both of them are in very red districts. They were expected to send two more Republicans to Washington, but the Democratic candidates' fundraising and the polling is making Republicans nervous. So Trump decided not to take any more chances, and he decided not to let Stefanik's seat go up for another special election because it was a risk that a Democrat could take her seat.
PERALTA: OK. So, I mean, how important are those special elections on Tuesday? It's not just Florida. There's a Wisconsin race for the state Supreme Court that's gotten a lot of national attention, too, no?
LIASSON: That's right. All these special elections are the first chance that voters have to weigh in on the Trump administration, and Democrats have already won a bunch of special elections for state legislative seats. But now the Wisconsin State Supreme Court race is the first race with national implications. Unlike Florida, it's a battleground state. The balance of power on the state Supreme Court in Wisconsin is up for grabs. That court could determine congressional redistricting.
Right now, the state is pretty much a 50/50 split between Republican and Democratic voters. You saw that in the presidential elections, how close it was in Wisconsin. But in the congressional delegation in Wisconsin, there are six Republican House members and two Democratic ones, and Democrats want to redraw those districts to be more competitive and reflect the state's partisan makeup, and the Wisconsin State Supreme Court will weigh in on that.
So this race has gotten a lot of national attention. Elon Musk is spending about $20 million so far in Wisconsin. He said that today he's going to give out two checks for a million dollars to two voters at a rally. And not only is Musk the biggest spender in this race, he's become an issue in the race. Democrats are trying to make the state Supreme Court race a referendum on Musk and his involvement in government.
PERALTA: So we're now a week into the scandal over the Signal app, where Trump administration officials used a chat to discuss a military operation in Yemen, and they inadvertently included Atlantic journalist Jeffrey Goldberg. Is there any fallout?
LIASSON: Well, there's no big political fallout that we're seeing for Trump. But inside Washington, there are Republican members on the defense and intelligence committees in Congress that are upset about this, and, of course, members of the intelligence community and the military are worried about the Trump administration's seemingly cavalier attitude about secrets.
But that chat also revealed something about the administration's animus towards Europe. Vice President JD Vance and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth expressed real hostility to Europe on that chat. They were - they described Europeans as pathetic freeloaders. And this sends an even more explicit message to Europe that their former ally, most important military protector, is no longer on their side.
And not only does the United States want Europe to pay more for its defense - which is something presidents of both parties have asked for, for years and years and years - but that Americans might not be inclined to see them as allies at all. You know, Trump said last week when he announced new tariffs, he said, quote, "friend has" sometimes been "much worse than foe," and that is Trump's worldview.
PERALTA: So that brings us to another Trump priority, pressing for a ceasefire in Russia's war in Ukraine. Where does that stand?
LIASSON: Well, Ukraine has agreed to a complete ceasefire. Russia has not. Ukraine and the U.S. continue to talk about a mineral deal. The latest version of that deal has shocked Ukrainians. Reportedly, it includes no security guarantees and retroactively turns all the support Ukraine has so far received from the U.S. into loans to be repaid with interest and gives the U.S. almost 50% of every Ukrainian resource, not just minerals but oil and gas, in perpetuity. So I think this just shows you how far a peace deal between Ukraine and Russia may be for a conflict that Donald Trump famously promised to solve even before he was sworn in.
PERALTA: Finally, Mara, I want to ask you about Trump's continued use of executive orders. It seems every week now, he uses more of them. He issues more of them, a range of actions - including reshaping the federal workforce or targeting law firms he doesn't like or requiring proof of citizenship in order to register to vote. And it seems every week, a judge blocks some of them. Is there a method to this?
LIASSON: Yes, I think there is. This is the EO presidency, the executive order presidency. And this is Trump's concept of the executive branch - all-powerful, unchecked. He likes to do things by himself, without judicial review or congressional buy-in - legislation. But these orders do have to pass muster with the Constitution. That's something judges decide.
And that last one you mentioned over voting rights - the executive has no control over the way elections are run. States do that, and Congress can change voting laws. But at some point, the Supreme Court is going to review all of these cases, all of these EOs, and we're going to find out to what extent they agree with Trump that the executive branch should be made much more powerful than the other branches of government.
PERALTA: That's NPR's senior national political correspondent Mara Liasson. Mara, thank you.
LIASSON: You're welcome. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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