Blanche and the DOJ, Michigan Primaries, Spokane Wildfires

0:01The Senate Judiciary Committee votes today on Todd Blanche's nomination for attorney general. Blanche won the support of Republican holdouts after meeting their demands. What else concerns lawmakers about the record of the president's former personal lawyer? I mean, Martinez, that is Steve Inskeep, and this is Up First from NPR News. Five states hold primaries today. In Michigan, voters have some issues. People are pissed. Gas is expensive. Groceries are expensive. Healthcare is insane. Democrats decide between two Senate candidates. How different are their choices? And a man is arrested on arson charges in connection to one of the wildfires ripping through Spokane, Washington.

0:41More than 60 ,000 people have evacuated. I have a lot of memories, pictures and stuff of my family that I can't get back. Stay with us. We've got the news you need to start your day.

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1:42You may keep waiting for a catch. There isn't one. Sell today at Carvana.com. Pickup fees may apply. The Senate Judiciary Committee is expected to vote today on Todd Blanche's nomination for attorney general. Two Republican senators dropped their objections after President Trump's nominee put two statements in writing. Todd Blanche addressed demands from the senators relating to a fund that could be paid to the president's political supporters and also to a tax immunity deal. NPR Justice correspondent Ryan Lucas joins us now with more. So, Ryan, for much of the past week, it wasn't really clear whether Blanche's nomination would get through or actually survive.

2:19So now the Senate Judiciary Committee is about to vote on it. What changed? All right. Well, what happened is Blanche and the Justice Department managed to provide the sort of written guarantees that addressed the demands of Senators John Cornyn and Tom Tillis. Now, Cornyn and Tillis are both Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Their support is critical for Blanche's nomination to advance. And they wanted written confirmation that a controversial$1.8 billion anti-weaponization fund is dead and also written limits to a tax immunity deal for Trump, his family, and businesses. Late Sunday, Blanche released two documents that purport to address those.

2:56One says it formally rescinds the order that created the anti-weaponization fund, meaning the fund is dead. The other purports to clarify the scope of the tax immunity deal, including that it only applies retroactively and only to Trump, two of his sons and the Trump organization. That said, legal experts say neither document that Blanche released is actually legally binding and they don't provide the sort of ironclad guarantees that they purport to. But they are enough for Cornyn and Tillis, who yesterday thanked Blanche for the assurances and said they would now support his nomination. Yeah.

3:30Now, typically, Republicans rubber stamp the president's nominees. But why was this issue one that really got these two senators to hold up Lance's nomination? Look, this anti-weaponization fund was deeply unpopular with Republican senators from the very beginning. Remember, this would be$1.8 billion of taxpayer money that the DOJ said could be doled out to, in essence, anyone. That includes rioters who attacked the Capitol on January 6th and beat up cops. The tax immunity deal was also problematic for some Republicans. As Cornyn himself put it last week, that deal would provide Trump with benefits that no other American taxpayer could get.

4:06To be clear, those benefits still very much remain in place. It's also worth pointing out that there is a long list of other issues at the Justice Department that legal experts, department veterans think should make Congress question Blanche's leadership as well as his fitness to be attorney general. Okay, such as? Well, some point to his handling of the Epstein files. You can also look at the department's politicization under Blanche or the targeting of Trump's perceived enemies. But more broadly, there's also the unraveling of what's known as the presumption of regularity, this idea that courts assume that DOJ officials are acting properly, acting in good faith, that they're making accurate factual representations in court.

4:45Under this administration, federal judges, we have seen them repeatedly express concerns about the Justice Department not complying with court orders. Judges have questioned the representations that the DOJ has made in court. We have also seen high-profile cases unravel in spectacular fashion just in the past few days. For example, the U.S. Attorney's Office here in D.C. moved to dismiss its felony vandalism case against former Olympic canoeists for damage to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. In a court filing, the DOJ said the damage to the Reflecting Pool wasn't caused by vandalism, but instead was just the result of a botched insulation job.

5:16So a dramatic climb down and, as I said, really a long list of issues that raise concerns for many folks about Blanche. And yet these issues haven't really been much of a speed bump at all in his nomination process. That's NPR's Ryan Lucas. Ryan, thanks. Thank you.

5:36Five states hold primary elections today. The marquee race will be in Michigan, where Democrats see holding an open Senate seat as essential to reclaim the chamber. First, Democrats decide where to place their bet. In a primary, they choose between two candidates to take on Republican Mike Rogers. NPR congressional reporter Sam Greenglass joins us from Petoskey, Michigan. Sam, what's it been like on the campaign trail? I've talked with maybe 50 voters in the last two weeks, from the Detroit River to Lake Michigan, at a UAW picnic, local Democratic clubs, community events, and it is hard to overstate how tense this race has become.

6:14And a big reason for that is because it has turned into this proxy for so many of the debates roiling the party right now. You know, establishment versus insurgent, further left versus more moderate. So speaking of that, where do the two candidates sit on those lines? There is Congresswoman Haley Stevens. She flipped a suburban House district in 2018 and has focused on her crossover appeal and support for Michigan manufacturing. She's got support from Michigan heavyweights like Governor Gretchen Whitmer. You know, I'm just beating MAGA four times in my congressional races, and I'm passing laws, and I'm doing damn good work.

6:50We don't need wish lists. We need action now. Stephen's opponent is former public health official Abdul El-Sayed. He's backed by the left's biggest stars like Senator Bernie Sanders and is running on Medicare for All and eliminating corporate money from politics. He has criticized millions of dollars from the pro-Israel lobby AIPAC flooding the race against him. Problem too often with the Democratic Party is that we have an instinct to say the right thing, but we're bought off by the people who are on the side of doing the wrong thing. And so we're constantly hedging and pulling punches. And so this race will test whether a candidate on the left, like Al-Sayed, can prevail in a battleground state.

7:32Sam, you mentioned all of these tensions. How would you describe the common theme in this race? The prevailing feeling I am hearing is frustration, even anger. This is Alyssa Dybalt, chair of the Macomb County Democrats. People are pissed. Gas is expensive. Groceries are expensive. Healthcare is insane. She says the voters hungry for change now are not always motivated by leftist politics. It's more demand for candidates who will buck the system, not do the same old, same old. OK, so how is that kind of filtering into how voters are thinking about their choice? Yeah, so I met so many voters truly struggling with their vote.

8:09On Lake Michigan Beach, Elizabeth Schaefer told me holding the seat is what matters. Who has the best chance of beating the Republican? That's going to be my biggest priority. But up the beach, Madison Miles decided she just didn't want to think that way anymore. And I just want to vote for who I think will be the best representative for me and my beliefs. Now, pundits and politicians will try to make inferences from what happens in Michigan. One Democrat I talked to, Joel Rutherford, said none of this will matter in 2028 if Democrats win both chambers this fall and fail to deliver. All right.

8:45Now, what else will you be watching today? I'm also keeping tabs on primaries in Michigan's governor's race and several competitive House seats. It is also primary day in Kansas, Missouri, Washington, and Virginia. One race I'm watching is in the St. Louis area, where former Congresswoman Cori Bush is challenging Representative Wesley Bell from the left. Another test of how much an anti-establishment mood is powering this political moment. That's NPR congressional reporter Sam Greenglass in Michigan. Sam, Thanks. You're welcome.

9:25We go next to Spokane, Washington, where authorities have a man in custody on arson charges in connection with the old Trails fire. It's one of three out-of-control wildfires that have burned hundreds of homes. We've got NPR's Kirk Sigler on the line from Spokane. Kirk, tell us more about this arrest. Well, the sheriff's office says it's arrested a suspect, a 37-year-old Spokane man. He's a convicted felon. It's part of their investigation into the origins of the Old Trails fire. It's the most destructive wildfire of the three burning here in and around the city right now. The suspect's name is Aaron Farinacci.

9:57He was arrested, we're told, without incident, being charged with first-degree arson. And this is a significant development. I mean, combined, these three fires have displaced tens of thousands of people since last weekend, which is just extraordinary for a city this size. Now, you're across the street from the downtown Spokane Convention Center. That's been transformed into a Red Cross shelter. Right. There have been dozens of people sleeping inside on cots. There's just a lot of need. They're looking to expand the shelter. It's also not just residents having to flee these neighborhoods. We're talking about the evacuation of businesses, the entire VA hospital campus.

10:32I've been watching people coming in here on buses from nursing homes, elder care facilities. I met Charlie Patrick, who's 54 and disabled, and she's struggling with the dense smoke here in Spokane. It's brutal. And just listen as she chokes back tears, saying she doesn't know if she has an apartment to even go home to. I hope so. I don't want to be homeless. I hope it's still there. I have a lot of memories, pictures and stuff of my family that I can't get back. Wow. Any idea when people might be allowed back in? Well, some have, just to check on things. It could be days, though, maybe weeks. It just depends on what these fires do.

11:12It's a very tenuous situation. One minute, the winds will pick back up. They'll shift direction and start threatening neighborhoods again. You know, these are the major urban wildfires we've come to dread and know all too well. It's not the level of destruction just yet like we saw in Los Angeles last year, but it's a big worry here in Spokane. You've got fires that started out in the wildlands outside the city. Wind brings them into these neighborhoods, and the structures themselves, the houses, just create the fuel for the fires to spread. Longtime locals like Deborah Curran are shocked. You know, until this last weekend, the idea of evacuating from a wildfire in the city hadn't really been on her mind.

11:49Obviously, we've had wildfire seasons a lot, and I never, because we live so inward in the city, I never, ever imagined us having to be a level three evacuation. Yeah, and she sounds exactly like someone who has lived in Altadena or in Palisades, I might have thought, in the last couple of years. But given the western drought, I mean, is this on the radar of city officials? Well, here, fire officials have been warning about this and worried about this very thing happening for years. I mean, I remember being up here a decade or so ago doing a story about them planning about this very situation happening.

12:26And like a lot of American cities, even here in the Pacific Northwest, Spokane's been built out into what's known as the wildland urban interface. You've got these dense stands of ponderosa pine forest next to the gas stations, the mall, the Costco. And they're just towering their presence in so many neighborhoods. And right now, with climate change and coming off the winter that we just had, the extremely dry and warm, these forests and brush are just dry and flammable. It's only being made worse by climate change. And everyone across the region is worried right now. And it's only early August.

12:58That is NPR's Kirk Sigler in Spokane, Washington. Kirk, thanks. You're welcome.

13:08And that's up first for Tuesday, August 4th. I'm Ian Martinez. And I'm Steve Inskeep. Today's Up First was edited by Anna Ugunanov, Jason Breslow, Jennifer Portman, Arazu Resvani, and Lindsay Tati. It was produced by Ziad Butch and Nia Dumas. Our director is Christopher Thomas, and I'm laughing because the words on the page here say we get engineering support from engineer, and our technical director is technical director. I know that our technical director is Carly Strange. Nisha Hines is giving us engineering support. And our supervising senior producer is Vince Pearson.

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