Pod Save America - “When they Cuomo, we go high.”

Episode Date: February 22, 2021

House Democrats try to pass the American Rescue Plan by the end of the week, President Biden says he wants schools open five days a week by the end of April, and Governor Andrew Cuomo’s Administration is under investigation for undercounting Covid-related nursing home deaths. Then Georgia State Representative Bee Nguyen talks to Tommy about her fight against a new round of voter suppression legislation from Republicans.For a closed-captioned version of this episode, please visit crooked.com/podsaveamerica. For a transcript of this episode, please email [e-mail].

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Jon Lovett. I'm Tommy Vitor. On today's show, we'll talk about how Republicans are failing to stop Biden's COVID relief bill, even though Democrats might not get everything they want. We'll take a look at the school reopening debate, talk about why New York State underreported the number of COVID deaths in its nursing homes, and Tommy interviews Georgia State Representative Bea Wynn about her fight against a new round of voter suppression legislation from Republicans.

Love it. Tell us about the show this weekend. Emily Heller, Jason Concepcion, Megan Gailey. I talked to Adam Grant about his book on persuasion. I talked to Alicia Garza on the protest in the Biden administration. We played a bachelor game. It's one of my favorite episodes in a while, John. Cool. Very cool. Also, if you haven't, check out What A Day's Making Black History episode from Friday. The team put together a fantastic montage of black men and women who just became the first in a variety of fields and what it means to them. There are more of these coming out over the course of Black History Month, so subscribe to What A Day and check it out. All right, let's get to the news. Joe Biden's $1.9 trillion American rescue

plan is moving. House Democrats introduced their version of the plan on Friday and hope to pass it by the end of this week. It includes all the president's priorities, $1,400 checks, a $400 per week expansion of unemployment insurance, money to speed up vaccinations, open school safely, save state and local jobs like teachers and first responders, and an increase in the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour. In the spirit of bipartisanship and compromise, House Republican leaders responded by urging all of their members to vote no on what they're calling the Payoff to Progressives Act. Cool.

Love it. First, the Republicans tried complaining that the bill wasn't unifying and bipartisan. Then they tried to pretend that they care about the deficit again, said it was too expensive. Now they're calling it payoff to progressives. The plan is still one of the most popular pieces of legislation in years, maybe decades. 70% of Americans support it. Why do you think the usually very effective Republican propaganda machine has yet to dent the support for the bill?

So it is extremely popular. Our poll with Change found that it has 69% support. Nice, but also 39% report among Republicans. You know, you mentioned 70%. That's what The Times found today. It's gone up over the last month. It went from 59% to over 70% in the Times poll. There was a write-up in the poll,

and I thought there was a paragraph that I thought was understated about their challenge here, right? Republican pushback is complicated by the pandemic's ongoing economic pain, with millions of Americans still out of work and the recovery slowing. It is also hampered by the fact that many of the lawmakers objecting to Mr. Biden's proposal supported

similar provisions, including direct checks to individuals while Mr. Trump was president. So there's still a huge economic crisis, though it's popular, and they all supported this stuff before. So I think they've tried a couple of things. I think what is striking about going to this progressive bailout language is it doesn't feel like it's an argument for the country at all. It feels like now they're just talking to their own members and trying to keep as many defections down because they clearly lost the public relations fight on the actual bill itself. So I think they're just trying to try to make this as painful as possible for any Republicans, especially in the House, that might bail and join with Democrats to vote for it. Yeah. And Tommy, I mean, there may be a few defections because like, isn't it at this point, like

politically stupid for Republicans to oppose this bill? So much of the discussion over the last few weeks has been Biden and Biden's need and the Democrats need to find Republicans or else it's politically damaging for them. But like how politically wise is it to oppose a bill that 70 percent of people support? Yeah, I mean, if I'm a statewide elected official or in a moderate district, I would want to be for this. I think it's the answer to your question. Is it politically stupid to oppose this bill? I think unequivocally, yes. It doesn't mean that the bill is going to be, you know, the number one issue in the midterms in 2022 or some like silver bullet politically for Biden. But I'm very confident that everyone in the country wants the pandemic gone. Everybody, they want to get vaccinated. They want schools open. They want

economic relief if they're out of work. Like this is basic stuff. And like Lovett was saying, the arguments against the bill are either whining about unity, whining about the bill being too big, or now they boil down to some sort of version of this money is going to liberals and liberal states and you hate liberals more than you want help. And it's not working, right? I mean, 75% of independents like the bill, 40% of Republicans support the bill in the New York Times poll. I would want to find a way to be for this. And I think, you know, Republicans are really showing their colors here after all this crying about unity, if they're whipping against the bill, calling it like a progressive

bailout or a blue state bailout, right? It's like very shallow stuff. There's also been a lot of parallels to 2009 in the recovery act over the last several weeks the big difference here is in 2009 we were staring into a very uncertain future and that even if the recovery act passed we had no idea where the bottom was in the in the economic crisis and when the economy would fully recover the difference now is now that we have the vaccines and, you know, economic projections are looking so far, fingers crossed, like quite good for the end of the year and into next year. And so if Republicans want to be against a bill that passes soon after like, you know, and we're all sitting here in late 2021 or

2022 and the pandemic is much more under control and the economy is back, it does seem like it is a much bigger risk than being against the Recovery Act in 2009. Yeah, I'd also just say too, you know, even if you take, if you are as, you are so generous, if you take, if you are as you are so generous, generous beyond reason on this progressive bailout soundbite and say, well, what do they mean? And they mean they're against state and local aid because they believe some of it will go to cover budget shortfalls for blue states that had problems before the pandemic. The issue of state and local aid is still popular. It's not like you, you, you pull off one of these issues that they're trying to drive home

and you find something where there's some weak underbelly of the bill. Up and down, the major pieces of the bill are popular from top to bottom. I mean, also, Florida is going to get a check. Texas is going to get a check. They're all going to get the check. They're all going to get like-

People like checks. Their state and local government money. Yeah, they're going to get their checks. They're going to get their unemployment insurance. They're going to get their state and local government money. Yeah, they're going to get their checks. They're going to get their unemployment insurance. They're going to get their state and local government funding. All the red states get it. All the people who voted for Trump get it, too. It's fucking absurd.

So with most Republicans opposed and Congress this closely divided, just about every Democrat has to support the plan for it to pass. One place where that might be a problem is the $15 minimum wage increase. The L.A. Times reports that Senator Joe Manchin said he wants a smaller increase, such as $11. And Senator Kyrsten Sinema said she doesn't believe the minimum wage is appropriate to pass through the 51-vote threshold budget reconciliation process. Budget Committee Chairman Bernie Sanders disagrees and said that he's, quote, confident that the Senate parliamentarian will advise next week that we can raise the minimum wage through the reconciliation process. Tommy, how do you think that Biden should be handling this issue? Because he has now said both that he doesn't think the parliamentarian will rule in our

favor on a minimum wage and that he's willing to compromise on the size of the increase. Yeah, I mean, it does seem like he's trying to do a little bit of expectation setting when it comes to the minimum wage piece of this. And as you said, he's got two problems. The first is this procedural matter where this random parliamentarian gets to decide if the minimum wage can pass as part of the reconciliation process because, you know, he will decide whether it impacts the budget. And then the second piece is getting votes from Joe Manchin or Kyrsten Sinema because Manchin thinks 15 bucks is too much and Sinema

thinks it's inappropriate to pass in reconciliation. I think if I were Biden, I would do a little bit less talking out loud about expectations or how the parliamentarian may or may not score it. I would focus on why it's important to get done, why people desperately need an increase in the minimum wage, why the minimum wage is not a living wage in most states. I mean, there's, I guess, a bigger message you could make about how it's ludicrous that the U.S. Senate is so broken that this random parliamentarian gets to make a decision this big. The good news is that Bernie Sanders is confident that it can be part of reconciliation. He's made the point that opening up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for oil and gas exploration was part of a

reconciliation package. And this clearly has a bigger impact on the budget than that did. So, you know, but I would just in terms of messaging, I would just focus on the need and why, you know, this is long overdue, frankly. Yeah, I love it. I kind of think I agree with Tommy on this, that he should be sort of get caught fighting for this. And if Manchin and Sinema want to be the ones to sink it or potentially other Democratic senators, like then make sure people know that they're the ones sinking it, not you, the president, who is the one who put it in your package in the first place.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, so there's three things. So Manchin has a policy, it seems little to do with the parliamentarian. He has a policy opposition to going to 15, right? And it seems like there's some negotiation there. Sinema has two objections, right? One of them is around, she has said she doesn't want to go against the parliamentarian. And then she has another objection, which is she doesn't know that it's totally germane to this and shouldn't be because it's not in the spirit of unity. A good idea to include it when it's not part of covid. Neither. Right. Right. Now, the parliamentarian piece, I think, is she's been definitive about in the sense of saying, I won't basically undo the filibuster for any of this to get this in if the parliamentarian objects. She has not been as

definitive on whether she would vote against the package. And I find it hard to believe she would oppose a minimum wage increase she would support. But for the fact that it's in the wrong bill, I think that that's strange. So regardless, I agree. I think some of the expectation setting though might be if you look at where this is heading, Bernie is extremely bullish on it getting into the package. Manchin seems like he would fight to get it to be a lower number. I think if Biden is basically setting the expectation on I'm not sure we can get any minimum wage done and then they land at somewhere between where we are now, which is 725 and 15. I do think it's important to be able to declare raising the minimum wage for the first time in so many years of victory, even if Joe Manchin gets it lowered. So I agree on the thinking out loud, but like a little bit of like, hey, if we get to a minimum wage increase, which is incredibly difficult under

these circumstances, there'll be a lot of people angry that it's not 15. But at the same time, it would have been a Herculean achievement under the circumstances. Yeah, I mean, it seems very clear that the chances of us getting a $15 minimum wage increase right now are very low, because Joe Manchin has been very clear that he doesn't want it at 15. And we need his vote, or we don't get it. So the question is, so then if you're Biden, and the Biden administration, and Schumer and everyone else, you go to Manchin and say, okay, if it's ruled that it can be part of reconciliation, what does it take to get you to yes? Do we delay the increase longer? Do we make it, you know, a lower federal minimum wage in some states like Virginia,

where the cost of living is lower than in California, New York, where fifteen dollars doesn't get you as much as it does in maybe West Virginia. So like you got to figure out if there's room for compromise. But I do think at this point, it's hard to see a $15 minimum wage passing as is if Manchin is so opposed. One place where Manchin is definitely causing problems for the Democrats is with Neera Tanden. The senator said he's opposing her nomination for director of the Office of Management and Budget because she sent some mean tweets, which he said would have a, quote, toxic and detrimental impact on her relationship with Congress. He framed his decision as a, quote, meaningful step to end the political division and dysfunction that pervades our politics. This morning, Senators Collins and Romney also came out against Neera's nomination, leaving her without many options for the 50 votes she needs. Mean tweets, guys. Tommy, why do you think Manchin did this?

And what happens now? It's completely ludicrous. I mean, just one note on people who want to impact Joe Manchin's vote on the minimum wage. Reverend William Barber, his Poor People's Campaign, has been organizing rallies in West Virginia with folks who would benefit from a minimum wage increase. So that's one way to actually impact politics in West Virginia. Why Joe Manchin has drawn the line on mean tweets? I don't know. Like maybe I'm just being, you know, this cuts close to home as a guy who sends mean tweets, but I believe in freedom of speech. I believe, I believe, I believe that there's a lot to

criticize in Washington. Like if he has a substantive critique of Neera's qualifications or her policy views or her work at the Center for American Progress, that would be one thing. That's a conversation that they could have. honest and cruel and do cruel things all day long and prioritize their own political futures over a good policy. And what this vote to me says is you can't criticize us or you can't advance in Washington. And I think that is total bullshit. to anyone who wants to climb the ranks in D.C. is shut up and, you know, never, you know, color outside the lines or speak honestly. I mean, I think it's a terrible, terrible precedent. Yeah, you won't see any of us at a confirmation hearing in Washington for a number of reasons, but one of them is definitely because of the mean tweets that we've sent. That's been very, honestly, that's been the hardest part of the past couple of days is just watching my own confirmation chances swirl down the drain.

Yeah, it's a little, I would also, it's Joe Manchin voted to confirm Jeff Sessions, who was denied a federal judgeship for being a fucking racist. Like this is- Rick Grinnell. Rick Grinnell. Fucking Rick Grinnell. Twitter troll. So like it's, it's beyond absurd.

It's ridiculous. Like criticize NeuroTandem on substantive grounds. Denying it over tweets is bullshit. I don't presume to understand Joe Manchin's motivations, what he's trying to project. Again, I say that as one of the biggest Joe Manchin fans in the world. And I don't ever want that to go unnoticed. I don't want to take that away from you at all.

But there's a little bit of like, it's obviously very high stakes in terms of, you know, the Biden administration not wanting to get pushed around. It's high stakes for Neera Tanden. But like, clearly, like people like Joe Manchin saying that Neera Tanden should not be confirmed. People like Hugh Hewitt writing that she should be confirmed. It's sort of like almost like a free chance to demonstrate some kind of bona fides in one direction or another when you know that the ultimately like the ideological stakes are very low. Like the Biden can we know the Biden general position that's going to come out of ONB. It's true whether or not it's Neurotandin or some of the others that have been floated like Gene Sperling and others. So, you know, I do think it's really hypocritical and despicable that a Senate may not be able to

confirm something, you know, when the previous president was a monster tweeting like crazy all the time. And a lot of those no votes will come from on the basis of tweets from the people who supported Donald Trump for years. Who supported Donald Trump and pretended to never see those tweets. One of the things that really annoyed me most about this is Susan Collins saying that she doesn't necessarily, that Neera doesn't necessarily have the experience to run OMB. Of course, Neera has the experience to run OMB. She's had high-level positions in the government. She's run the Center for American Progress. Again, you can take issue with her positions on certain issues if you would like that's completely fair but the idea that she doesn't have the experience is fucking bullshit this is but it is the perfect cancel culture

like anger story right because all like the republicans who go on tv all day and get really mad about cancel culture are almost never impacted by the actual event they're mad about, right? Like all the people on Fox News angry about and mocking the San Francisco school board don't live in San Francisco and don't send their kids to public school there and thus will not be impacted by the names of said schools. But they want to find and seek out and highlight these issues to get people mad about them. And it's a ridiculous waste of time. Yeah. I mean, long term here, I think, you know, by the time we record this, it could be

over. But I think, you know, the White House said they're pushing ahead on Neera's nomination. I guess you could still get she could get Murkowski's vote. She needs one Republican vote now if Manchin's a no. So I guess you look at Murkowski. I don't know who you start looking at beyond that unless someone does something kind of wild, like another Bill Cassidy moment, right? I don't know. But you could, but by the way, like actually totally plausible. Like who knows? Again, it could be withdrawn by the time this is out. But I also, first of all, fight for the posters, fight for the right to post. Honestly, we want people in government who grab a glass of Chardonnay at 11 p.m. and start arguing with people that have no pictures with their faces. But just like we want that fight for freedom of speech.

Like, are we damn right in our speech or not? I just it's so frustrating. Everyone is for freedom of speech until it hurts their feelings. If we if if near is pulled and we end up with like Gene Sperling, you know, that is another outstanding progressive to be in that role. Who's very experienced and, you know, like long term big picture for the future of the Biden administration, the Biden agenda. It will be OK, but it is fucking bullshit. But bullshit. Nira, fight for Nira. I want I want every Red Rose out there

to fight for the right to post. This is about shit posting. First thing came for Nira Tandon's tweets. This isn't about the federal budget. This is about shit posting. First thing came for Nira Tandon's tweets, but I did not speak up. I supported Bernie in the primaries.

If any speech should be acceptable in almost any circumstances, it's criticism of powerful elected officials. You know what I mean? It's like any chilling of free speech of elected officials is a real, real problem. This is not like getting mad. You know, this isn't Tom Cotton going on Fox News being mad about the Muppets being edited. Right. was being mad about the Muppets being edited, right? He's going to vote down someone who was critical of his colleagues because he's pissy about it.

I'm just going to go on record as saying I am not standing up for the San Francisco school board, though. Some of that shit is crazy. I mean, sure. I totally agree. But it's like, why is it national news? Because a bunch of Republicans sought it out because they wanted to lift it up and get people mad about it. Right. Like that's why this whole conversation gets so exhausting.

This is it is it's you're totally right. Like they they pick something that is annoying or sounds silly and they lift it up to put it on the same plane as much larger, more consequential debates. Right. It is fucking absurd all right let's move on to the debate over reopening schools speaking of schools uh president biden said last week that his goal is to have grades k through eight open five days a week by the end of april currently an estimated 60 of students aren't attending in-person classes full time, either fully remote or hybrid. The Biden administration has been saying that passing the American Rescue Plan would help schools reopen safely by funding physical distancing, testing, contact tracing and ventilation. Vaccinations would also help.

The challenge there is that as of now, educators are only on the priority list in 28 states. And as Dr. Fauci told me on Thursday's episode, the timeline for vaccinating children is probably sometime this fall. Republican strategists are looking to exploit parents' frustration, of course they are, by blaming school closures on Democrats and teachers' unions. One former House Republican official

told the New York Times, quote, school closures have radicalized suburban mothers for the last six months. Let's start, Tommy, with how much power and influence does the federal government have when it comes to reopening schools? Very little. The federal government has very little authority when it comes to pushing for school reopenings. A lot of the control is local. What Biden can do is fight for his COVID relief package to get passed because that has $130 billion in it that will be used to safeguard K through 12 schools. And it's also what the teachers unions

are pointing to in saying, hey, this needs to happen to make these schools safe for everybody before we can go back in. Biden can also, you know, his messaging can be powerful. They can use the bully pulpit to make the case for schools to reopen, to talk about why it's important. He can also, you know, just handle COVID better than Trump did. Right. That will make it safe to reopen schools at some point. But in terms of when it comes to forcing schools to be open, the president has very, very little power. Yeah, I mean, love it. So the federal government, you know, does offer guidelines on how to safely reopen schools through the CDC, which has recommended at least partial remote learning wherever there's high community transmission of the virus, a category which

currently includes most of the country. So it is tricky for the Biden administration here. And I sort of get digging into this debate, you sort of get why there's been, you know, the press calls that mix messaging. I think it's more like some nuanced messages, partly because of the CDC guidelines, like Biden campaigned on a promise to follow the science on COVID. So if the science or the CDC is saying, well, if you're in a high transmission area, we wouldn't recommend you opening unless you can adhere to really strict guidelines. Is there anything the Biden administration can really do to push schools to go faster than the CDC recommends?

So first of all, yes, it's extremely complicated. It matters how old the kids are. And by the way, saying that 90% of schools shouldn't fully reopen is different than saying most schools should have some form of partial in school, partial at home, different for K through eight than nine through 12, different depending on the community transmission. So I think it's a really difficult issue. and prepping for this conversation, I found myself more and more angry about the last year and just the last year that we had, because I would say like, first of all, there was just an absence of leadership. Just words to express sympathy

and support about the difficulty of this situation. The best, you know, what we got out of the past president was just like schools must reopen with no guidance, no leadership. Betsy DeVos was at her fucking lake house. So it was a despicable abdication of leadership that caused a lot of this. And then, you know, there's been this effort,

I think on the part of some Republicans, uh, to make this about parents versus teachers unions. And I think teachers unions are also local and there's been incredible variation in terms of what they've done, uh, in terms of what they've called for. Um, the other piece of this is that for parents, for teachers, for everybody, like there's no great outcome here. You know, the Times looked at what happened in Rhode Island when they reopened schools, incredibly difficult, a lot of, you know, sacrifices. You look at places where schools aren't open, kids are falling behind and having mental health difficulties. Parents, especially moms, have had to stay home or give up jobs. It's a horrible issue. And so you see that in the polling where it's like, should schools reopen safely? Of

course people say yes. Are you worried about your kids going back to school? Of course they said yes. Are schools safe? Should schools reopen? Yes. Kind of reopen? Yes. Not reopen? Yes. Like parents, everybody is all over the place because there's no great answer. But like giving money to help make sure schools can do testing, ventilation, making sure there's masking, making sure that you're setting up protocols so that kids can stay in groups that like the way you divide children changes. I mean, this is what Raj Shah, who is head of USAID and Randy Weingarten, who's the head of the AFT, the union, basically have written up what we need to do to get schools to reopen safely. It's just it's it takes money.

It takes incredibly sophisticated and thoughtful planning. And it just hasn't been there. And now we're almost in March. Even if you pass Biden's plan, when is that money going to be able to make a difference? So like I think they should try as try very hard to get teachers vaccinated, put these plans in place, do safe school reopenings. But in reality, I think we're still looking at trying to do as much as you can before the end of this year, but making sure schools are open in the fall. I think that's the reality. I think what gets lost in this discussion is that almost everyone is in agreement that remote learning is bad and it doesn't work well. Like I have several family members who are teachers and they have described to me the process

of teaching children remotely. And in some of these school districts, the hybrid learning where some kids go in and some are, and it is a disaster. It is hard to do it. The students aren't developing well academically. They're not developing well emotionally. It's not easy for teachers to do these lessons. They don't like it. The parents obviously don't like it. The administrators don't like it. Like everyone is in agreement that kids should be in school attending in-person classes. Of course, there are trade-offs and there are risks. And the reason it's not easy is because you can say both two things can be true. That remote learning is bad for children and that there are risks to both children and teachers for being in schools when there is a deadly virus running

around out there so like it is it is a fraught difficult issue i do think that so far the messaging has been we want schools to open right they want to be on the side of schools opening. And I think trying to say, we want to give schools and teachers and children every resource possible and available to make sure that the schools can open safely is sort of the best position to hold. Because, and again, it's not just a question of resources, though it certainly is. A lot of this comes down to trust and to feeling that your kids are going to be safe when they're in school. And if you're a teacher, that you're going to be safe when you go to school. And because the messaging has been so mixed and because there's been such a lack of leadership from the Trump administration over the last year, it's going to take some real time to sort of rebuild that trust just around the messaging of what's safe and what's not. Yeah, I mean, there's also just so many different equities here, right?

I mean, like teachers obviously want to feel safe in the classroom. Parents want their kids to go back to school, but they also don't want their kids coming home with the coronavirus and getting them sick. So like everyone's got a different vantage point. There's a lot we could do right now to make schools safer, right? Universal masking. You group kids and teachers into stable groups that don't change so that if one person gets the virus, only a limited number of people

are exposed. They need, schools need better ventilation. That could be open windows. That can be HVAC units. And then you just need like lots and lots of testing, including asymptomatic testing for kids, for students, for teachers to spot these outbreaks. But like what I guess I don't totally understand is why teachers weren't a priority 1A when it came to vaccination in every states. I think something like 28 states teachers can get vaccinated right now. right now. But like, for example, here in L.A. County, teachers are in the 1B tier, which means starting in March, 10% of COVID vaccinations will go to teachers. But like, so the 1A was healthcare workers. But for example, I went to the dermatologist last week. Everyone in that office had been vaccinated. I'm glad they were. I agree they should have been vaccinated. But

those aren't healthcare workers who are treating COVID patients and thus needed to get vaccinated, right? So if the priority was opening schools right away and making sure the environment was as safe as humanly possible, I would imagine you would just want to make vaccinations available to every teacher on day one, right? Like sometimes this tiering that we do, I think can get in the way of even our own priorities. I totally agree with that, Tommy. I mean, I think for this, for the states that do not have teachers on the priority list as of today, they should do it immediately. And I think the federal government, while Joe Biden and the federal government can't force the states to put teachers on the priority list right now, they can certainly talk about it a lot. They can use the bully pulpit.

And they have, you know, Kamala Harris said this last week. Joe Biden has said it. Dr. Fauci said it to me, like teachers should be a priority right now. If you are a teacher, you should be able to get a vaccine immediately. Now, where, you know, where there has been some confusion is because Fauci and the CDC also said it's not a requirement for every single teacher to be vaccinated for schools to reopen. And, you know, what he said to me is basically, I think that's a question of demand too, right? Like if there are some teachers who don't want the vaccine or don't get the vaccine, you can't hold out to open schools because some people, you know, don't want to get it, but it should be available to every teacher, certainly.

We will look back on this period and we will find it abhorrent that we open bars, but not schools. We should have done everything in our power over the previous year to get the transmission rate low enough so that schools should have been first, not last. They should have been first. And as more and more evidence has come in, as we see that, like, kids can get it and they can

transmit it, though not as much, and that as you get older, the Times has done a great reporting on this, that the older the kids get, the more they look and transmit like adults. It's not perfect in places that have open schools. It's not gone very well in Rhode Island. It's not particularly well. You read about it. It's incredibly stressful for the teachers. Teachers and staff have gotten sick. Schools are open and closed and open again. They create wreaks havoc on the parents trying to figure out their own work schedules. Like there's no good options here. But Tommy pointed out to the to the four steps that like even the teachers unions have gotten

behind. And it is incredible that we haven't been able as a country to rally enough resources to get those things done, because one thing that they have found is the places that have done that, that have been able to take those steps, keep the kids apart, keep them masked, keep them in stable cohorts, do the testing, do the tracing, do the masking. It works. It works. It has kept the kids safe. It has made it possible for them to get an education. So the question is like, how did Biden, you know, we just had this conversation that, you know, we all decided is a very nuanced, difficult debate, which is like a bullseye for Republican demagoguery. Any kind of nuanced, complicated discussion about a policy issue. So how did Biden and the Democrats

and teachers union sort of handle the political challenge from Republicans on this issue because they are really amping up their criticism on this? I'll say just one thing, which is we shouldn't be cowed. Like the idea that there's some radicalization going on that like, oh, there's, you know, I don't see any of that at any polling. What I see in polling is that everyone understands this conflict, that there is a sense of that there are trade-offs here, that nobody has perfect answers. So my view on this is just acknowledge the difficulty and set it. I think basically what Biden is saying, we want schools to be open. We want to follow the science and make sure it's done safely. We want teachers to be vaccinated. We want kids back in the classroom as soon as possible for as much of the week as possible. And I think as long as

they're reflecting the difficulty of the debate and the trade-offs and what parents are going through, kids are going through, teachers are going through, I think that's all you can do. Tommy, what about you? Yeah. I mean, the first thing I would say is if you want schools to reopen, then vote for the COVID relief bill. And if you refuse to do that, and if you refuse to give, you know, the hundred plus billion dollars that schools need to retrofit and be safe, then you're not really serious here. I also do think like politically speaking, this may feel like an acute short term issue. But if but if cases keep going down as they are, if we're all vaccinated by the end of the summer, you know, I do think just handling COVID generally solves this this school question. And you can you know, you can manage the problem. But yeah, it is incredibly cynical. No, it's what it's what you said at the beginning, Tommy,

which is like, it's just like when we would always say, you know, the best Biden would always say during the campaign, best way to open the economy again is to fight the pandemic and to get the pandemic under control. It's also the best way to open schools again. If the CDC is saying that schools can open for in-person attendance where transmission rates are low, then get the transmission rates low. And the way to do that is to vaccinate everyone as fast as possible. Yeah. So this could be this could be a problem that gets solved by the summer and fall. And I think that the messaging is, so far the messaging is right. Like Sean Patrick Maloney, the House member who's running the DCCC this year, said, you know, you're going to see an area after area of the Republican attempts to exploit frustrations

while the Democratic Party addresses those frustrations with real solutions. That was sort of his message about the Republican attack on schools. And then I think even, you know, the teachers unions, Randy Weigart, and said, like, if the NFL could figure out how to do this in terms of testing and the protocols, then we should be able to do it, too. My members want it. They just want to be safe. Right.

Which I think is sort of the right side to be on. Yeah, I just like I just don't get why vaccines aren't at least available to every single teacher. I mean, in twenty seven, twenty eighteen, that school year, there were three point five million full and part time public school teachers in the United States. That's not that many. I mean, I'm not saying they all could get vaccinated right now, but they all should have the vaccine available to them right now. If we're saying that this is absolutely critical and that we need them vaccinated to reopen schools, then we should vaccinate them in the same way we've decided that the dermatologist's office is absolutely critical and therefore all of them should be vaccinated so that office can be open safely. In the same way, the dentist, everyone in a dentist's office is

vaccinated because dental care is critical. We just need to prioritize education in the same way that we have healthcare. I think that seems entirely appropriate. Yeah, totally agree. Last story for today. The Wall Street Journal reported last week that federal prosecutors in the Eastern District of New York

are investigating how Governor Andrew Cuomo's administration handled the pandemic in the state's nursing home after New York Attorney General Letitia James released a report that said the state's Department of Health published data that undercounted the number of COVID-related nursing home deaths by as much as 50%. This comes on top of the criticism Cuomo has received for a March health department directive that said nursing homes couldn't refuse to admit a resident who came back from hospitalization and had still tested positive for COVID-19.

Lovett, what is the Cuomo administration's side of the story here? And how well do you think it holds up? Well, there's seems like their defense is twofold on the communications front. They're saying they never they never failed to communicate any deaths, but that they were just referring to people who died in hospitals versus people who died in nursing homes, and that they were worried about Trump misinformation, misusing their data. And then on the actual outcomes of this, in terms of the nursing home deaths that took place in New York, I don't know what their explanation is other than they were moving quickly to make a bunch of very difficult decisions in an unprecedented pandemic.

Yeah, I mean, Tommy, it seems like, you know, the Cuomo administration says, okay, well, on the decision to, you know, tell nursing homes that they have to admit patients, even if they're COVID positive, back from the hospital. They say, okay, well, that was the CDC guidance at the time. Other states like Florida did it as well. You know, you can argue about the merits of that decision, but it does seem like withholding data about nursing home deaths and then trying to not count them as deaths just because the person died in the hospital, even though they were originated at a nursing home. So you don't count it as a nursing home death just because the place that the person actually died was in the hospital and not the nursing home. Seems pretty, pretty bad to withhold that data. Yeah. I mean, this does seem very bad. So in terms of disclosing the data to

the legislature, this Cuomo aide who was recorded on a conference call talking about this issue said that basically they got an inquiry from the legislature about nursing home data, and then they got one from the Department of Justice, and they decided to prioritize responding to the inquiry from the Department of Justice first. And then they also argued that the data sets they had were inconsistent. They took a while to clean up, et cetera. I mean, I do think that any criticism of New York's handling of COVID does have to be viewed in the context of them getting hit first, getting hit the hardest. Like, you know, it laid bare just how unprepared the entire country was to manage COVID.

Because if you look at Tish James's report on nursing home deaths, it talks about the lack of PPE and how that put residents at risk. It talks about the lack of testing and screening and how that there wasn't enough training for staff. Right. And it's found that bad nursing homes had more fatalities, like all things you would expect. All that said, I can't understand any excuse to withhold this data, to screw around with numbers this way. I mean, it seems completely inexcusable. good that the the Tish James, the attorney general's office, has put out a report despite also being a Democrat, right? Like there's no there's no cover up by the party here. There's just something weird happened in Cuomo's office. So we're getting to the bottom of what happened,

but it looked extremely bad. Yeah. And so like, you know, there's there's sort of three parts of this story. There's the original directive about nursing homes. And you can debate that policy choice that was CDC guidance at the time. Then there's the sort of misreporting, underreporting of the data, the withholding of the data from the DOJ and from the public and from the state legislature when they asked for it. And then the third part is, you know, Assemblyman Ron Kim in the New York state legislature told the New York Post that the Cuomo administration needs to show contrition to the public and the families of people who died

in nursing homes. He said that to the Post. In response to those comments, Kim says that Cuomo called him and threatened to destroy him. Do you think that episode will be included in the paperback version of Cuomo's American Crisis Leadership Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic? Now with an expanded epilogue, you know, it's in an unprecedented pandemic, there will be mistakes. There will be mistakes that look avoidable in hindsight. There's a lot of things they got right. There were going to be a lot of things they got wrong. We were learning about this virus in real time.

But I do think that this moment is sort of an acute, like Cuomo has had a reputation for a long time of being a bully, of being vindictive, of being a bareknuckles fighter, whatever would be the euphemism that would be in a report. He also then set himself up as a hero in this crisis, as a leader in this crisis. He wrote a book about it. And the combination of this scandal and the scandal exposing some of his bullying tactics in the past, on top of him, I think, getting over his skis and deciding to declare victory over the pandemic in the middle of the pandemic, it looks very, very bad. It just all comes together to look extremely foolish.

Yeah, I mean, you know, look, to Tommy's point, like there are some, because the federal response was so bad and because New York was hit first and hit so hard, you can't really completely fault the state's leaders in Cuomo included for how bad things were. At the same time, you can't try to take all this praise and and like write a book about leadership when you know that things haven't gone perfectly. And that's, you know, some are the reason that the, uh, that things got better in New York is because the wave hit so hard and so early, right? Like, it's like, if you don't want all the blame,

you also can't try to take all the credit. Yeah. I also will say too, like, uh, you know, this is true of, of, of, of Gavin Newsom in California as well, in that I do, like, that does not detract from the, I think, the important role these governors played in being more honest communicators about the seriousness of the pandemic being about, you know, rejecting the downplaying of the pandemic that Trump was putting forward for the entire time he was in office during the pandemic. And I do think that that was important. And I do think that that played a role in this image that I think has been, you know, undermined, to say the least, by what's come out in the last few days about the nursing home deaths. Yeah, I mean, I do I do think it is a it's a lesson

that so far the Biden administration is heeding, which is like in a pandemic, like there's going to be bad news. There's going to be failures at times. You just got to be honest and you got to communicate with people constantly. And you got to have to make sure that that communication is honest. And then when you make a mistake, you've got to own up to the mistake. Right. And that's the irony here, right? Because like New York got hit hard and hit early and the fatalities were awful and the

situation was bad. But what Cuomo got credit for was holding these daily televised press conferences where it seemed like he was communicating rationally and clearly in a way that was a stark contrast to Trump. And then if you go on and withhold very important data sets and act like, you know, it doesn't really matter that you did so because, you know, a death is a death, you undercut your entire argument for why your leadership was good. And you, you know, you do so in a way where you look pretty callous.

So yeah, it's a big problem. Yeah. Before we go, this was obviously a very serious story, but it has led to some reporting about Cuomo's bullying tactics. And there was one anecdote that did make me laugh. And in this difficult time, it's important. Apparently there was some kind of a list for people who don't get yelled at. And this was in the Times piece. State Senator Liz Krueger, a Democrat from upper Manhattan who holds sway in the legislature, et cetera, never been yelled at by the governor for a reason. She said, Joseph Pococco, a former aide, said she was on the do not yell at list. I responded,

you people have such a list? He said, it's very small. Mr. Pococco is in federal prison and could not be reached for comment. A do not yell at list is so good. I just, the little touch of they couldn't get him because he's in prison. All right. That's all I had. I mean, you know, you talk to people who've worked for him, who've worked for him for years. Like, yeah, that's the reputation he has.

He's an asshole. People say that all the time. It's not great. OK, when we come back, we will have Tommy's interview with Georgia State Representative Bee Nguyen. We are very excited today to talk to our guest Bee Nguyen. She's a member of the Georgia House of Representatives and represents a district in the Atlanta area that was once represented by friend of the pod, Stacey Abrams. Bea, thank you so much for doing the show. Thanks for having me on. And that is my piece of street cred because most of the time

people are very uninterested that I'm a state rep until I tell them, well, I have the seat that Stacey Abrams had before she decided to run for governor. It means you are already doing and destined for great things is the takeaway here. So we wanted to talk with you today because there's a growing conversation about voter suppression in the wake of the 2020 election. And Georgia, unfortunately, is at the center of it. Republicans in Georgia have introduced a sweeping voter suppression bill in response to their election losses in November and then again in January. Can you fill us in on some of the specific things that this piece of legislation would do? Sure. So I do want to start off by saying this. In the past four sessions that I've served in the Georgia General Assembly, I have seen

bills related to voter suppression every single year. And obviously, the country has seen the long lines here in Georgia, sometimes spanning up to 11 hours for people who are waiting in line to cast a ballot. And we saw a lot of the voter suppression manifest itself in 2018. And so this is not new to Georgia, though this year it is more aggressive than it has been in the past because of the results of the 2020 election and then the two U.S. Senate runoff seats in 2021. So Republicans dropped a 48-page omnibus bill sort of encompassing all of these things that they've been talking about for the past year and the past several years. And so it does a number of things that

would be damaging to both local election boards and to voters. So to begin with, I'll highlight some of the top liners. One, it restricts local election boards from receiving any kind of grant funding. In 2020, there was grant funding that all local election boards could apply for to make up for some of the added financial costs of running elections in a pandemic and running an election with unprecedented turnout. And so that restriction would take money away from election boards. And thus far, we haven't seen the Secretary of State commit to allocating more funds. The messaging behind that is it's liberal organizations specifically targeting certain counties and giving them liberal money. But we see that

Republican counties have also received those grant fundings and they have been given the discretion to use them in a way that supports all voters. So some of the things were new equipment, PPE, and hazard pay for their workers. Two, there's a massive attack on absentee ballots, which Republicans have been planting that seed prior to the results of the June primary, prior to the results of the November and January elections. The messaging around absentee ballots is that it opens the door or it is right for fraud that we have actual no evidence as it pertains to absentee ballots being insecure. In fact, the audit in Cobb County showed that out of 15,000 ballots, two came back, but they were both valid legal voters. One was a wife who signed the ballot

for her husband, which is understandable. I think in a lot of situations, family members say, oh, go ahead and sign it for me without understanding the full implication of the law. And the second ballot was somebody who signed on the front of the ballot versus the back of the ballot. And so the restrictions around absentee ballot voting are related to showing ID. When you apply to vote in Georgia, when you apply for registration, you already have to show a form of ID. One of the reasons absentee ballot voting is so successful for older voters, for rural voters, for people who basically don't have access to internet, smartphones, printers, is that that information is already stored with election boards and the Secretary of State. And so the new provision would require somebody to enter in a driver's license number or a valid state ID

number. And if they don't have those things, then they have to make a copy of an ID and send it in the mail, which also I think is disconcerting to voters for security reasons, because we know that voter fraud isn't an issue in Georgia, but identity theft certainly is an issue. isn't an issue in Georgia, but identity theft certainly is an issue. There is an attack on secure drop boxes. This is probably one of the most absurd pieces of the legislation. We successfully implemented secure drop boxes in most of our counties, especially our metro counties, and those drop boxes already have regulations around them. They have to be monitored 24-7 by video surveillance. They have to be bolted to the ground. They have to be on government property. ADA is accessible, and election boards have to empty them at least once a day. In this bill, those secure drop boxes

can only be located at early voting locations inside the building and only during the hours in which the early voting location is open. That means if you are a worker who works in non-traditional hours, like many workers do, you would have to go between 7 and 7 or whenever the hours are for that specific day. The convenience of the secure drop boxes were also so that people would not have to go inside and expose themselves further to other people. So the other piece of that is election boards invested a lot of money in these drop boxes, and now they are going to potentially see all of those financial investments being wasted. And in testimony last week, all the election directors that testified said that they liked the drop boxes and voters liked the drop boxes as well. There is also a

provision that would no longer allow a voter who came to the wrong precinct but was in the right county to cast a provisional ballot, that would automatically throw out a significant number of valid ballots. The example that I like to give is on election day in November, I was a poll monitor and the precinct that I monitored was also an early voting location. So voters thought that it would also be open to everybody on election day. And so they came to this early voting location to cast their ballot. They were in the right county. They cast their ballots provisionally, and those are automatically cured at the end of the night by elections boards. And so in that particular precinct, there were probably about 600 people

who voted in person. Over half of those were provisional ballots. That means automatically 300 people in just one precinct in one of our largest counties, their ballots would not have counted even though they are legitimate voters. So those are a few of the things on the table in this 48-page omnibus bill. Seems wildly complicated and solving a problem that doesn't exist. What communities do you think would be the most impacted by this bill if it passed? Oh, I actually forgot as you're asking me about the community issue. One of the most blatant things in this is the prohibition of local election boards to expand weekend voting and to eliminate Sunday voting altogether.

So in 2020, over 70,000 voters voted on Sunday. And of those 70,000, over 36% were Black Georgians. So the elimination of souls to the polls is directly targeted at Black voters who turned out in unprecedented numbers. So it will be black voters, older voters, rural voters, and then people who simply just can't make it to the polls because of the demands of their job. What argument are Republicans putting forward for eliminating Sunday voting? Let's pretend they're acting in good faith for five seconds. What is the argument there? There is none. They have been very, I think, smart and strategic not to address that specific portion. And so when they're talking about this bill, a lot of their focus is around absentee ballot and alleged fraud or just one single incident of fraud being a justification for

changing these laws. And so they haven't had a response to Sunday voting. It is just so blatantly obvious that it is targeted towards souls to the polls that I'm not sure that they will be able to come up with a reason as to why eliminating Sunday voting improves election security or elections integrity in any way. You're absolutely right that, you know, we have seen a number of voter suppression bills before. It was had a huge impact on Stacey Abrams race in 2018. But one of the reasons we want to talk about this specific bill today is because it is, you know, advancing this lie that the election was stolen from Donald Trump, that our elections are no longer trustworthy. And we suspect that

that will be perpetuated in lots of states that are controlled by Republicans as part of a broader voter suppression effort. You have spent more time than most people have or possibly could trying to disprove that lie, going through voter rolls. How effective is that effort to correct the disinformation and how much damage do you think has been done to Georgians faith in the voting process? You know, they have, there were so many instances of lies and misinformation and Republicans were silent, knowing that what was being said by witnesses in these committee hearings was not true. And in some cases, they weren't even controversial. It is true that it is legal for both parties to have a ballot curing program.

It's not disputable. It is in our state law. And so the fact that they were unwilling to speak up at any point in that committee meeting just to correct some of the information, the fact that we had members sign on to the Texas lawsuit knowing that the election was not stolen stolen and the fact that they continue to allow all of this to go on, it is really challenging to undo because we know if you hear a lie a certain number of times, people begin to believe it. But what they're doing is a disservice to their voters. And we saw that with the January election in which our voters were enthusiastic. We turned out. People were excited

to vote. When I was a poll monitor in DeKalb County on that day, I talked to both Republican and Democratic voters. Republican voters were angry. They were very angry, but they were not angry at Democrats. They were angry at their own party. They were reluctant to vote. They felt like their vote didn't count or it didn't matter. In fact, I had to help a Republican woman look up her vote on the Secretary of State website to show her that it did count. And she did leave after that, but she had pulled up in her car just yelling and angry. So I think that it has done irreparable harm. We saw violence towards our election workers, threats towards our election workers.

And we see massive pressure from Republican constituents to fix something that wasn't broken in the first place. And I think that some of this stuff is going to come back and bite them in the butt because the bill that passed no excuse absentee ballot voting in 2005 was passed by Republicans to turn out rural voters. So some of this stuff is going to suppress their own votes. So, you know, part of why we're having this conversation today is these voter suppression efforts are happening in dozens of states, and a lot of people are looking to the U.S. Congress for help.

There's a bill before the Senate and House, there's H.R.1 and S.1, that would do a whole bunch of things to help prevent voter suppression efforts like this, like what's happening in Georgia, from happening. How would H.R.1 impact Georgia's ability to fight back against this voter suppression law? Look, we have been, you know, banking on winning these two U.S. Senate seats. And one of those reasons is because we need to have a Federal Voting Rights Act that can act as a safeguard against some of the things that we're seeing in

the state legislature and specifically the preclearance provision. I assume that that would be restored and protect some of the things that are going to get passed in the state of Georgia. But H.R. 1 also does a lot of things that we've been proactively trying to do in the state of Georgia, such as same day voter registration, such as codifying the ability to use secure drop boxes, to use absentee ballots with no excuses. secure drop boxes, to use absentee ballots with no excuses. So it is extremely critical that Congress passes H.R. 1 because what we're looking at in the state of Georgia with this omnibus bill is something that is going to have a devastating impact on voter turnout in the state of Georgia. But also it is taking us back to a time in which people are having to fight for the right to vote again. And I think somebody said it best when they said, this is Jim Crow in a suit. It is Jim Crow in a suit. And when we think about the history of this country, it was founded

on the premise that the only people who could vote were white men who owned land. And if we think about what is happening now, it looks like those restrictions are going back to a place where Republicans believe in the severe limitations of who should be allowed to vote. It's gone as far as a Republican woman who served in the legislature a couple of years ago suggesting that there ought to be an education level associated with the ability to vote. Basically, a literacy test. And so we're in a really dangerous place as we begin to see that voters of color are see that voters of color are coalescing and building these broad-based coalitions so that we can see policies that change our lives in a meaningful and positive way. And so I think,

you know, we're in a really dangerous place in the state of Georgia. We need Congress to act and to act swiftly because these election laws are not just related to voting and elections, but it will fundamentally change so many things in our state. And then we have redistricting coming up as well. And some of those things pertaining to redistricting are also covered in both the H.R.1 and the companion bill. Well, we've got to get rid of that filibuster. We've got to pass those bills. B. Wynn, thank you so much for doing the show. Thanks for all you're doing to raise awareness about this and to fight back on these voter suppression efforts. It is ugly stuff. And

we really appreciate your wisdom today. Thanks for having me on. Thanks for all y'all do. Thanks to Representative B. Wynn for joining us today. And we will talk to you guys later. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. The executive producer is Michael Martinez. Our associate producer is Jordan Waller. It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick.

Kyle Seglin is our sound engineer. Thanks to Tanya Somenator, Katie Long, Roman Papadimitriou, Caroline Rustin, and Justine Howe for production support. And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Narmal Konian, Yale Freed, and Milo Kim, who film and upload these episodes as videos every week.