Trump says his administration should pay him billions of dollars
The NPR Politics Podcast
NPR
4.4 • 25.7K Ratings
🗓️ 18 February 2026
⏱️ 13 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This episode: political correspondent Ashley Lopez, justice correspondent Carrie Johnson, and senior White House correspondent Tamara Keith.
This podcast was produced by Casey Morell and Bria Suggs, and edited by Rachel Baye.
Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi.
Listen to every episode of the NPR Politics Podcast sponsor-free, unlock access to bonus episodes with more from the NPR Politics team, and support public media when you sign up for The NPR Politics Podcast+ at plus.npr.org/politics.
See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.
NPR Privacy Policy
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Ashley Lopez. I cover politics. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. And I'm Carrie Johnson. I cover the Justice Department. |
| 0:12.9 | And today on the show, President Trump has found another way to test the limits of his powers president this time by suing his own government for billions of dollars. |
| 0:22.2 | Tam, can you give us some background here? Why is Trump asking the government for money? |
| 0:26.6 | Because he feels that he was wronged in a couple of different instances. So one, he is filing a claim that |
| 0:33.7 | adds up to $230 million against the Justice Department for the Russia investigation |
| 0:40.3 | that happened during his first term and also the investigation of his retention of classified |
| 0:47.0 | documents after he left the White House. There was that search of Mar-a-Lago. |
| 0:51.0 | He talks about it at rallies that the FBI searched Mara Lago and went through |
| 0:58.0 | his wife's drawers, was in the closet, was in his son's bedroom. Trump sees it as a violation |
| 1:04.1 | and part of a broader weaponization of government against him. And so much of his administration |
| 1:10.8 | is about payback. And these claims of his administration is about payback. And these |
| 1:13.1 | claims are in a way seeking payback. And then there's the $10 billion lawsuit filed recently |
| 1:20.2 | against the IRS. During his first term in 2019, some of his tax returns were leaked by a contractor who was working for the IRS. |
| 1:30.9 | That person is in prison now. Trump is suing for damages because his tax returns were published. |
| 1:38.4 | Yeah. Before we dig into how that's panning out, I want to talk to you, Carrie, about how something like this would normally work, |
| 1:44.9 | because people sue the government all the time. They do. You know, the federal government does a |
| 1:49.0 | whole bunch of stuff. And most of these cases are basically small dollar cases about relatively |
| 1:56.9 | small things, not DOJ investigations and tax leaks. I spoke about this with Rupa |
| 2:02.4 | Badaceria. She actually worked inside the Justice Department as a lawyer for the unit that |
| 2:07.5 | evaluates these kinds of claims. The federal government is involved in a lot of activities, |
| 2:12.4 | and often those activities result in injuries. Some of them are run-of-the-mill, right? Postal vehicles get into |
| 2:20.0 | traffic accidents. VA doctors have malpractice claims brought against them. People slip and fall in |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from NPR, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of NPR and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.