America's Talking - Episode 24: Biden Administration Rolls Out More COVID Measures

Episode Date: December 3, 2021

Taxpayer-funded critical race theory training program draws criticism. Biden administration rolls out more COVID measures, says vaccine requirements for domestic flights not ‘off the table’. Congress faced government shutdown this weekend. Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/america-in-focus/support Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to America in Focus, powered by thecenter Square.com. I'm Cole McNeely. I'm filling in for Dan McAulb today on America in Focus. Casey Harper and I, D.C. Bureau Chief of the Center Square, will catch you up on all of the stories happening in the Capitol. And just a few right here on America in Focus. Hi, this is Chris Krug, publisher of the Center Square. Our team produces the nationally read and recognized news stories at thecentersquare.com.

the country's fastest growing, non-profit, nonpartisan, state-focused news and information site. We deliver essential information with a taxpayer's sensibility through reporting that's easy to understand and easy to share with your friends and family. We know that you need information that allows you to understand what the governor and your local legislators are doing. Get the news that you need to know at thecentersquare.com. That's thecenter square.com. Thecenter square.com. Welcome to American Focus. I am Cole McNeely. America's talking general manager. We are recording this on December 3rd, 2021. Joining me today. That's Casey Harper, the Center Square DC Bureau Chief. Casey, how are we?

We are good. I'm just still here in D.C. We had our first little snow flurry a couple days ago, and so winter is well underway. Did you build a snowman? Would you like to build a snowman? I would, Casey, if there is one person in the world that I would like to build a snowman with, it is Dan McAid. But you are a close second. It's Casey Harper. Yeah. You'd be amazed how many times I've heard that. You just go to, you just go to random bars around D.C. And that's what you hear.

You just hear people exclaiming about Dan McAulb and his love and passion for winter, because I know he loves it so much. Yeah, there's an Irish pub that's named a beer after him, but that's a rough topic. Yeah. All right. So the winner, the winter's happening over there in D.C. I mean, we've got a busy Congress right now. Although, Casey, you had a pretty big story this week about a taxpayer-funded critical race theory program going on, or at least in the talks. What's, what's the deal there?

Yeah, not to, uh, to our own horn too much, but that's one thing I like about the center square is we have time to dive into bigger stories. Um, we don't just write, you know, we don't just transcribe what every politician's saying, but we, we, we, we, we, we, we, dig into the numbers, we consider the taxpayer angle. And in this case, I was digging through federal grant documents from the Department of Education. And as you know, federal funding for critical race theory has become very controversial. I mean, critical race theory itself is really controversial. And, you know, people will define a different ways. I think a succinct definition is really the critical race theory teaches that America is fundamentally racist, especially in its institutions, and really has been, you know, you hear a lot about the 1619 project.

And the idea behind that is that America didn't really begin in 1776 with the, you know, Declaration of Independence. The true start date is 1619 when the first enslaved African Americans were brought to the U.S. So it's a reframing of American history around issues of race, saying, you know, the main argument is that all issues of history and politics and society can be viewed more accurately through this lens of race. And, you know, it's really, it's really controversial. And more recently, it's been brought it to the light. And people are saying, you know, well, first of all, they disagree with it.

But, you know, there's a lot of things out there that people disagree with a lot of teachings and things. The main thing is that this is being taught with taxpayer dollars. And so once that kind of came out, then a lot of, especially Democrats, have tried to defend it and say, no, this is just something that's taught in colleges with no impact on K-12 schools. So if you want to go to a college and study critical race theory, that's your right. but it's not like your third grader is being taught critical race theory.

And so now there's like a lot of research being done, a lot of reporting on whether that claim is true. And I won't get into all that. I think there has been some significant evidence that actually critical race theory in different forms is being taught in local schools. But for this story in particular, with a very long introduction, basically these, I found that there's been several million dollars awarded by the Department of Education to a cause. college in North Carolina, North Carolina Central University. And that school basically has a program that trains future educators in critical race theory. And they're being federally funded to do that. Now, they have, you know, about 60 students, I believe it's 60 students a year come do this fellowship. But they have 60 students do one-year fellowships. And with those, many of those

students go on to do education policy at a higher graduate level, but many of them likely become teachers. And so you've got this twofold impact. One, they're going on to potentially write education policy and be thought leaders in the education space. And then some of them are going on to teach K through 12 to teach kids in local schools as education majors tend to do. So of course, again, the big thing here is that it's federally funded. There's two grants, one in 2016 under the Obama administration. It's $1,116,895. And then there's another one that's actually about $1.6 million in 2021. So nearly, you know, closer to $3 million in federal funding. And just the timing is what makes this big. You know, this is a big issue. And I reached out to the leader of this program at

NCCU and wasn't able to get a response. But we've had some response from lawmakers. And the story is getting some attention. Is it fair to say in terms of trying to characterize it, that it is not as much about an explicit funding of that program, but they are sending funding to the program, meaning when I say that program, I'm talking about the critical race theory training program, but they're sending money to a larger umbrella program that has this program as part of it. Is that a fair characterization? Yeah, it's fair, but it's a central. It's a central theme of the program. I mean, so it's a one-year fellowship, and I looked at the documents, you know, on the federal website

and on the website of the program, which is called Rise, just for use of our conversation. It's called Rise. So the Rise program, what it really sells itself on is you, you know, your students, when they come, they're going to get a $5,000, you know, dollar stipend to really dig into issues of race, in particular critical race theory. And so this is not like there's some education program that happens to mention critical race theory. It really is a main component of the program. So were they doing that critical race theory program back in 2016 as well when they got that initial grant?

Or is that more of because critical race theory, that's become more of a recent discussion point in the political world. Yeah, it's more recently well known, but it's been around for a while. And so, yeah, 2016, the grant that they, the 2016 grant, explicitly mentions critical race theory in the grant. There's a big, you know, hullabaloo earlier this year because the Department of Education said that they were going to give preferential treatment in their grants to people that taught critical race theory or that included critical race theory. And this caused a lot of backlash. People got really upset about this because now there's this public awareness about critical race theory. And so the Department of Education backed down

and they said, oh, never mind. Sorry, we're not going to do that. But it's really not clear whether there was a true repentance on that. It's just there was a PR, you know, backlash. And so they backed down. But what that tells you is as early as this year, the Department of Education has been prioritizing critical race theory. And we have, you know, a grant. The grant was five-year grant. So 2016 through 2021. This grant was, you know, funding critical race, this critical race theory program. And now it's actually just been re-upped this summer. Now, it's worth noting that the the 2021 grant does not include the phrase critical race theory but the grant otherwise is almost identical which is very interesting to me I mean I can't speculate too much I again I reached out to the

the founder of the program and asked why she removed this phrase and you know I talked to a lot of sources talk to people about this in one theory that's emerged is that because that term has become so controversial you know it's it might be wise to remove the term but still teach the same content, right, because the term has become kind of radioactive. But, you know, you look on the, you look on the website and all promotion materials still talk about, you know, critical race theory on these various websites. But the federal grant itself is almost identical, but it changed the phrase. So it'll be interesting to see if that becomes a trend because this phrase has become so, you know, controversial.

And why I use, too. I mean, you even mentioned it earlier, right? So it's saying, you know, what exactly is the definition of this? I mean, and it's, and it's, If you define it one way, there's probably a dozen other definitions out there of what a race theory is. So I'm sure this will not be the last time we hear about this story, at least this discussion, you know, moving on a bit to, you know, more brighter, more comfortable news stories that really feel, you know, in our comfort zone. You know, for the last two years here, we've been dealing with our cousin COVID coming into town.

He's just sitting around. Biden administration has rolled out some more COVID measures, has floated the idea of vaccine mandates for domestic flights. What's going on there, Casey? Yeah, so if you pay attention to this Omicron variant has really hit the scene last week, and the White House announced some preliminary travel restrictions to some African countries. The stock market really took a tumble last Friday over this. It's been kind of up and down this week, a little skis.

kiddish because people are really unclear. There's just a lot of mystery around this variant. You know, initially we were told that it's very dangerous. And now there's been some South African doctors saying, actually, the symptoms are pretty mild. And now as people are saying, well, we just have to see what the data says. And so there's kind of an initial scare. I think this is probably partially the fault of the media. You know, media wants to run.

You know, a story that says, a dangerous new variant could kill your whole family is going to get a lot more clicks than, well, we need more details. on this new variant, but it could be something. You know, so the, the, the stories that are more inflammatory up, it's kind of scared of a lot of people. But in response to this, you know, Biden, well, basically, there's a lot of things Biden is doing, but one, he's doubling down on this push for boosters, right? Vaccination has been, you know, a big push for a while.

But the idea of making boosters really like a, not optional. Maybe they're optional legally, but he's pushing for boosters. they're going to be, you know, deploying federal agencies to create these clinics for people around the country. People can get vaccinated where they can get boosters. You have to wear, you know, the mask mandate on flight. It's got extended to March 18th. Some of these things are pretty small, but it does show a shift in focus onto boosters in my mind.

And they're, you know, they're partnering with pharmacies, which you're going to reach out. AARP is going to be reaching out to all seniors, like 63 million seniors they have contact with about getting a booster shot. Chip employees are going to start, you know, part of their job. They're going to be getting paid by the federal government to push vaccination. So this is a big focus. One thing that really caught a lot of people's attention, though, and maybe, you know, you feel free to wait on this too, is, you know, Jen Salki, White House Press Secretary for Biden administration, was asked if domestic flight travel restrictions, restrictions would be possible,

which is like you have to have a vaccine passport to fly. from Florida to Ohio. And she said it's not off the table. And that caught a lot of people's attention, this idea of restricting interstate travel because of COVID. So there's a lot of, you know, some of these boring administrative changes. It's a change in focus.

There's a lot of questions around Omicron. But then there's this big question about can the federal government put a vaccine requirement for interstate travel? Well, they've even, correct me if I'm wrong on you're probably more well versed, but for my understanding, they've even floated the idea that if you have your initial vaccine and your booster shot from that first round, essentially, vaccinations, you may no longer be considered fully vaccinated in the eyes of whatever governing organization may be determining that.

Yeah, there's been, there has been talk about changing the definition of fully vaccinated, which, you're right, that's another thing that's got a lot of people say. It just creates this. It sets a precedent where, you know, you could be required to get a booster every six months or lose your, you know, right to engage in, you know, public society and go to a restaurant, which I think that there's a, you know, obviously there's a big debate right now over how far the federal government can go in the name of safety and infringing on people's rights with lockdowns, vaccine passports.

And then also the second part of that debate, which is what level of power states have versus the federal government. We have states like Florida or Ronda Santhas or even Texas have really stood up to the administration. And at least for now, Florida is doing really well with their cases. And we'll see how that goes. But there's a lot of legal and questions about rights for sure being highlighted. Well, and I imagine that part of the concern of sorts that comes out from the administration saying they're floating those ideas around is a lot of Americans look at what's happening in Germany, where Germany has come down with some. pretty harsh restrictive policies.

Australia, sure. And I think there's probably a concern that, oh, is that going to come top down from the federal government? It kind of gets to that state's right issues as well. So listen, it doesn't look like COVID's going anywhere. Our cousin COVID's going to be hanging around for a little while more. And we'll just see how we have.

I mean, I mean, this is where we're at, though, right, which is where do we go from from this point of saying, okay of that balance of freedom and safety I mean that's kind of been the discussion health health safety and freedom the last you know year and a half two years here and if the variants are going to

keep rolling out and we'll see you know if the new variant um if that is going to be what they say you know there's so much speculation out there but it's you know okay what level of risk are we willing to accept to some degree to you know return to some level of normalcy you know whatever that may be. So, I mean, if, if the idea is, I mean, it's not going away, right? I don't think, and I, again, correct me if I'm wrong on this. I don't think any federal officials sitting there saying, hey, we're at two weeks to flatten the curve anymore. I mean, we're well past that. Yeah, that was Fauci a year or two ago and he's past that. So we haven't changed the phrase to two years to flatten the curve. I think it is tough, though, right? I want to give people benefit

the doubt here to be in a leadership position because everybody on every side has criticized every leadership position during this whole pandemic where if you recall early on everybody was criticizing president trump for calling travel restrictions and now that's been champion by the other side and at you know at some point i wish people would just take a step back and say hey maybe we're just trying to look for the solution that has the best utility not everything through a political lens i mean and i and i do think that's what a lot of people in those positions are trying to do um You know, I don't think anybody has a real strong interest and dragging this thing out too long, but I could be wrong on that.

You know, beyond that, all right. So, you know, we're talking about freedoms potentially being restricted and that sort of thing. Federal government, Congress, faces a shutdown this weekend. I mean, what's going on their cases? Are they working with Major League Baseball, Rob Manfred, the new, you know, the house over there? What's the deal? Well, actually, we have some breaking news.

And you mentioned we were recording this Friday morning, but actually just happened that Congress passed a short-term funding bill to avert the shutdown. So you did it, call. Like, you know, all you do is, well, we had to do is report on it. I say it and people, people take action. That's right. So. Well, what was the deal before that then? I mean, it's still very relevant.

And there's a lot. There's no problem. No, rest assured, they didn't actually solve the problem. They just barely delayed. it. Yeah, don't. Yeah, don't get your hopes up on that. So set the stage a little bit. There, in a couple months ago, there was, you know, debate that the government was going to shut down. There was, you know, of course, Biden's legislation has repeatedly been, you know, point of debate in Congress. And also there was a risk that we would default on the debt because if we, the debt ceiling, you know, basically limits how much money the government can borrow.

And so if that wasn't raised, basically we wouldn't be able to pay our debtors. And then if we don't pay our debtors, then it's like a late payment on your credit card. It's really bad for your credit score. Turns out the United States credit score is super important for the world economy. So it was really, you know, it's a really big problem. But so they passed a short term funding, you know, for raise the debt ceiling and fund the government until the middle of December. And so that's what we've been coming up against today, you know, or this week, really. let's see, I want to look at something, but so Congress extended or they passed a short-term measure.

They were basically fund the government for a couple more months. So they did that today, which gives them time to, you know, it gives them time to come up with more negotiations on bigger spending items. I think this was not really ideal for a lot of people. They didn't want to, Congress doesn't, you know, members of Congress don't like voting on this spending over and over because, you know, It can be used against them in campaigns. And they definitely don't want to be, you know, in the midterm election next year, they do not want to be having long, drawn out controversial negotiations where the government may get shut down because it's bad for business, quote unquote. It's bad for politics.

So, you know, we'll see how that goes out. I think it's till February. Basically, Biden is, you expected to sign this today. there's no reason he wouldn't. It was actually, you know, the deal was struck late last night. But what this really means for Congress is they have a little bit of breathing room. They, you know, they can address some of these debt ceiling issues more long term, hopefully. And it sets up another battle in February. The other thing that goes into this is to build back better plan. So Democrats have really been unable to get on the same page about whether they should fund Biden's

nearly $2 trillion social spending plan. And the ongoing debate over that is a big part of what's delayed their ability to fund the government. They also haven't really, they've had a lot of trouble funding the NDAA, the National Defense Authorization Act, which is the annual congressional spending bill that sends billions of dollars into the defense industry to build jets and all the things that they do. So Congress is a bit dysfunctional right now. Part of it is, I would say, because they have too much.

to do though. Biden is, you know, this is his third multi-trillion dollar sending plan. He's trying to get Congress to pass. And it's just it's just gumbed up, you know, the gears. And so whether they'll be able to pass, you know, more government funding in February without so much of a headache remains to be seen. Well, thanks for that information, Casey. That's why you're the DC Bureau Chief over there. Beyond that, speaking of D.C. and the federal government here. We've got a couple federal judges this week that ruled a block Biden's various vaccine mandates. Do you know what's going on there? Yeah, I mean, I think we're, you know, we're running close to our time. So I'll just keep it brief. Essentially, there's been a few,

there's not just one big federal vaccine mandate. There's actually a couple, a few of them. There's a vaccine mandate for, you know, the troops, the soldiers. There's a vaccine mandate for federal employees. And there's a vaccine mandate for private. sector companies with at least 100 employees. So the private sector mandate has been most controversial. And then the federal employee mandate has been, you know, less controversial because people kind of say, well, they did choose to work for the government. But the idea of the government putting a requirement on a private company has really drawn, you know, some scrutiny. And so there's been, you know, on the front, on the front of federal employees and private

companies, Biden has taken some legal setbacks. They're both going to the courts. He really was shut down by court on his private sector mandate. So these are going to be appealed. I think it's very possible. These could go all the way to the Supreme Court. But, you know, it's reminiscent of the eviction moratorium that Biden did earlier this year, where he, you know, he said basically the landlords could not evict their tenants because of COVID. And the Supreme Court, it went all the way to the Supreme Court.

and the Supreme Court said it was not constitutional. You can't do this. You can't tell landlords they can't evict people on such a broad basis just because of a pandemic that may not be, doesn't rise to a level of emergency for this. So I think we may see a similar thing there, but, you know, it's been interesting to see. You know, this is we all grew up hearing about the branches of government and the, I'm just a bill and all these things and the balance of power separation of powers is really a work when we're asking these big constitutional questions about freedom you know bodily autonomy the vaccine

freedom versus security on on COVID and so it'll be interesting to see but I do think this is going to go to the Supreme Court there's a there's a Conan O'Brien bit from a couple years ago I don't know if you remember this but he was talking about the I'm just a bill thing and the bit was then he comes in and aggressively goes like, you know, I'm an executive order. And it's like anyway. So yeah, well, hey, good stuff. I'm glad that it sounds like gridlock has been at least temporarily suspended over there in D.C. And I attribute that to the Center Square DC Bureau Chief.

I take full credit. He's all humility. He's holding the people accountable. That's what he's doing. And go check out all of Casey's stories at thecenter.com. That's at the center square.com. That's all the time we've got for today. Hopefully for everybody's sake, Dan McAlebe will be back next week.

I'm Cole McNeely, America's Talking Network, General Manager. That's Casey Harper. Thank you for tuning in to America and Focus.