Mayorkas Impeached, Harris Goes To Germany, Indonesian Elections

Indonesia voted today to elect a new president.

The largest country in Southeast Asia plays an important role for stability in the nearby South China Sea, so how are Washington and Beijing viewing the results?

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After a whirlwind start to their campaign, Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, are celebrating their newly minted ticket.

And Democrats are pitching their platform to the nation.

Listen to the NPR Politics Podcast for the latest news from the DNC.

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The Republican-led House voted along party lines last night to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

Now, according to the text, more people are coming to the United States these days and the administration has paroled many into the U.S. to wait for their court dates.

Past administrations have also paroled people because the U.S. lacks enough detention centers to hold migrants or courts to give them quick hearings.

Democrats and a few Republicans cast this as a policy disagreement rather than an impeachable offense.

Good morning.

How did this impeachment become such a focus for the party?

The Republican base and conservative media figures have been calling for the impeachment of several Biden administration officials, including Mayorkas and Biden himself, since the 2022 midterm elections.

But with Democrats running the Senate and Biden in the White House, they really have no way to change laws.

Instead, they've really focused on investigations and oversight as a way to follow through on promises to hold the Biden administration accountable.

This impeachment, though, has been a bit divisive even among their own members.

Three Republicans voted against impeachment last night and the same three voted no last week.

The difference this time was House Majority Leader Steve Scalise was back in town after lengthy absence to seek treatment for cancer.

The first time a sitting secretary is impeached in 150 years.

What laws is Mayorkas actually accused of breaking here?

Is this just a policy disagreement?

Should it be an impeachment?

Democrats are arguing that this is politically motivated, as you noted, and it has been over 100 years since an impeachment of its kind.

Democrats in the House insist that this is not the right response.

They say Republicans have a policy disagreement with the White House.

And the same three Republicans who have rejected this measure have generally raised concerns about the strength of the case against Mayorkas.

There have also been concerns about the standards set by impeaching him over policies that, again, are set by Biden and not Mayorkas himself.

But Speaker Johnson defended the process last week, and he said that Mayorkas refuses to enforce the laws and left them with no other option.

The Homeland Security Department last night said after the vote that they believe there's no shred of evidence of this.

It's going to the Senate, which is controlled by Democrats.

So does it just die there?

So there are impeachment managers that have already assigned, and there is a Senate trial that will begin sometime after the senators return to D.C. around the 26th.

But a conviction requires two thirds vote, and that simply will not happen in the Senate controlled by Democrats.

Is there any expectation that Congress can actually address some of these policy issues before the election?

We saw a bipartisan border security agreement fail last week in the Senate.

Senate Democrats have rejected the House option version of the bill, which they say is too hard line.

And Biden has vowed to veto that as well.

She wants NATO allies and others to know that the United States is a reliable partner when it comes to conflicts like the one in Ukraine.

Good morning.

right after former President Donald Trump raised fears about the long term U.S. commitment to NATO.

Is the reaction to what Trump said going to be a huge part of what she deals with on this trip?

Who is also, of course, the Republican front runner in 2024.

Trump said that Russia should, quote, do whatever the hell they want to countries who don't contribute enough money to NATO.

It sounded like he was encouraging Russia to attack an ally.

And yesterday we heard President Biden denounce the comments.

It's dangerous.

It's un-American.

And I would say, you know, people are going to be hanging on her words.

I spoke to Wolfgang Ischinger about this.

He's a retired German ambassador who for years led the Munich Security Conference.

And he told me Europeans are watching the political situation in the U.S. very closely.

But to step back, the White House is in a tough place right now.

They want more aid money for Ukraine.

But Republican leaders in the House are blocking that.

And it is not clear when and even if Congress will agree to more funding.

This White House promised that the Trump era was over, you know, that America was back.

So I will say there is a lot at stake both for the Biden administration's reputation and the United States' credibility as a world leader.

Here's former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta.

when even a Democratic president we are seeing cannot guarantee additional money for Ukraine because of partisan fights in Congress.

The former German Ambassador Ischinger flatly told me that Europeans are increasingly thinking about a Plan B,

how to defend themselves if there is indeed a future in which they cannot depend on the U.S.

Will she be able to reassure allies who are thinking about Plan B?

She certainly traveled abroad on some major trips, but it's really fallen more on other members of Biden's inner circle,

like Secretary of State Antony Blinken, to lead on diplomatic efforts.

You know, that being said, Biden himself will not be in Munich.

And so it does fall onto Harris to send the right message and the right tone to reassure allies at a critical time.

And because of the politics at home, as we head into an election amidst growing questions about Biden's age, Harris really does have no room for error.

He has the backing of the current president and also has a controversial record on human rights.

Poll workers were manually taking each ballot out of a box and reading it and tallying it.

And if you consider that Indonesia has more than 200 million eligible voters, that's a lot of work.

Now, these unofficial exit polls show that Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto has defeated two former provincial governors.

The official results will come out in a month, but it looks like Prabowo has scored the absolute majority he needs to avoid a runoff vote.

And if Prabowo takes office, he's expected to continue the popular policies of President Joko Widodo or Jokowi, as he's known here.

It's the world's largest Muslim-majority nation. And this country's future direction is at stake.

This country was under the dictatorship of the General Suharto for 32 years.

It's been a fledgling democracy for about 25 years.

It still faces huge challenges, poverty, corruption, deforestation, big ethnic and religious divisions.

And the election is going to have an impact on these.

Also, we should say that elections are being held in many countries around the world this year.

And when people look to see where democracy is advancing or retreating, Indonesia is an important case.

but is now backing a candidate with a record of human rights abuses.

And he may deny them, but Indonesia's own military sacked him in 1998 for his role in kidnapping

and killing political activists and opponents of Indonesia's annexation of East Timor.

Now, in the election, there have been reports and allegations of Jokowi and Prabowo buying votes,

intimidating critics, and people accusing Jokowi of making his son the vice presidential candidate

in order to build a political dynasty.

And there are also concerns about disinformation, particularly the use of artificial intelligence.

We have seen, for example, videos of the candidates altered with AI to say things they didn't really say.

But we don't know how big an impact this is having.

to connect it and get the resources out.

And increasingly, it's relying on China to do this.

Indonesia does not want to have to pick sides in the U.S. and China rivalry.

But Jokowi has moved closer to China, and Prabowo has indicated he may follow suit.

Tom Suozzi won a special election to replace Republican Congressman George Santos' old seat.

You may remember him as the freshman congressman whose tenure was filled with scandal.

He was ultimately indicted for alleged crimes and then expelled from Congress.

Suozzi's win narrows the already slim Republican majority in the House,

and this race may inform Democratic strategy going forward.

For more, listen to our radio show, Morning Edition, or visit us at NPR.org.

And that's a first for Wednesday, February 14th.

Happy Valentine's Day.

I'm Laila Fauldon.

Today's Up First was edited by Kelsey Snell, Roberta Rampton, Miguel Macias, and Mohamed El-Bardisi.

It was produced by Ziad Butch, Ben Abrams, and Lily Quiroz.

We get engineering support from Stacey Abbott, and our technical director is Nisha Hynes.

Join us here tomorrow.

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