The Daily - A Socially Distanced Senate

Episode Date: May 6, 2020

The congressional doctor expressed reservations about whether it was safe for the House and Senate to reconvene. Instead, only senators have returned to Capitol Hill, bringing our new normal — elbow bumps, masks and sanitizer — with them. So why was one chamber so determined to portray its members as essential workers in the pandemic? Guest: Nicholas Fandos, who covers Congress for The New York Times. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Background reading: With the Senate back in session, masked lawmakers, hushed corridors and socially distanced news conferences and hearings gave an eerie feel to the Capitol Hill routine.The confirmation hearing for Representative John Ratcliffe, the president’s pick to lead the nation’s intelligence agencies, was the first to employ social distancing rules for senators since the coronavirus pandemic took hold.

From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. Today, despite reservations from its own doctor, the Senate reconvened on Monday. Nick Fandos on why one chamber of Congress is so determined to return to Washington. It's Wednesday, May 6th. Nick, give us the scene inside the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday morning.

So it's a totally surreal setup, particularly for those of us that are used to watching Congress. In a wood-paneled hearing room across the street from the Capitol, which would usually be full of people getting ready to watch senators question a witness, instead you had a totally empty room. watch senators question a witness. Instead, you had a totally empty room.

You're really quiet. Just a few senators gathered at one side wearing masks. They've got pumps of hand sanitizer at the ready. Totally at the other side of the room, maybe 20 or 30 feet away, is a witness who's ready to give them testimony. They wave across the room. Richard Burr, the chairman, and Mark Warner, the top Democrat, throw out their elbows for a little bit of an elbow bump. But there's none of the usual energy that we'd see on a typical weekday morning in the Capitol.

And what exactly is happening in this very weird sounding scene? What was playing out was a confirmation hearing. of John Ratcliffe, who's a Republican congressman and a loyal supporter of President Trump, who's now his nominee to be the director of national intelligence to oversee the country's 17 intelligence agencies. Skip, you ready? Right at 9.30, Richard Burr pulled down his mask and revealed a scraggly, uncharacteristic beard that evidently he'd been growing over the last month.

Right. I mean, who hasn't? Exactly. And I called this hearing to order. Called the hearing into session. This hearing will be a little bit different. It is perhaps the first congressional hearing held during the extenuating circumstances of the pandemic. held during the extenuating circumstances of the pandemic. We have a sparse crowd and an expanded dais reflective of the committee's adherence to the guidelines

put forth by the Rules Committee and the attending physician. You know, senators had certain social distancing requirements. They were spaced out around the room and only allowed to come in to ask their questions in small waves. But without any of the kind of normal energy or tension or crosstalk that we might be used to in a high-profile congressional hearing like this. Hmm. This is basically like a socially distant version of the United States Senate at work. Yes.

I wish I could also welcome your wife, Michelle, and your daughters, Riley and Darby. But given our attempts to minimize the number of people in the hearing room, I send them my appreciation via C-SPAN. And it was not very compelling TV. Nick, everything about this hearing that you're describing sounds labored and surreal and risky, right? I mean, it's a confirmation hearing. It's not a pandemic relief bill. It's not a hospital funding bill. So why is this even happening in this way in person?

You know, a lot of senators were asking themselves that question in the last few days as they prepared to come back to Washington as well. And, you know, the answer really goes back more than a month when at the end of March, senators found themselves staring down this increasingly dire situation. Wall Street is about to close any minute now. The Dow collapsing, its worst single-day loss ever. Ohio and Illinois shutting down restaurants and bars today. The problem is job losses are adding up and it is across the country and it is in all sectors. Out front now,

Jim Bianco. And so the House and Senate, Republicans and Democrats did what they rarely do. The Senate has reached a bipartisan agreement on a historic relief package. They set aside their own kind of partisan interests and issues and very quickly put together this massive $2 trillion health and economic relief bill that they passed almost unanimously in the House and unanimously in the Senate. Right. To all Americans, I say help is on the way. Big help and quick help. And then basically out of concern for their own health and safety, they left town and they didn't know when they were going to come back. They didn't know if it would be a couple of weeks or a month. And almost as soon as they did, lawmakers in both

chambers start to debate when and how do we get back to Washington and get back to doing this thing? There's kind of a few rounds of debate, but it really comes to a head basically last week at the very end of April, when both the leaders of the House and Senate come out and say, Congress will be back in session next month, May 4th. That's according to a tweet from House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer's press office. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell made a similar announcement regarding his... We're going to come back on Monday, May 4th, and we're going to try getting back to normal as best we can. But... Some House Democrats say that they are worried about the spread of COVID-19 at the Capitol, and some say... For the House, as soon as they announced that decision, they immediately started getting pushback from some of their members who were saying, it's not safe for us to come back. We're not ready.

Any decision that we have about when we come back rests with the Sergeant in Arms and the Capitol physician. Democratic leaders in the House consulted Congress's top doctor who told them it really know, it really wouldn't be wise at this point to bring Congress back into session. And so not 24 hours after they announced that they would be coming back. The U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday changed course on its decision. The House reversed itself and said,

no, we're going to stay out of session indefinitely until conditions have improved and we feel that we need to take action on some meaningful legislation. But the Senate comes to a very different decision. Meanwhile, Senate leadership maintains the upper chamber will be back to work as usual on May 4th. They have much the same medical advice. They work on the other half of the Capitol building from the House.

And Mitch McConnell, who's the top Republican and basically sets the schedule in the Senate, he calls the shots, says that we're going to come back into session. And what are the implications of that decision by McConnell, practically speaking, to reconvene the Senate? So on the one hand, you know, the Senate is a pretty small body. It's 100 senators. You know, two-thirds of them are over the age of 60, so they are at an elevated risk. But the real impact when you start to think about it is

there's this huge network of support staff, basically, behind each senator and the institution as a whole. There's cooks that run dining service. There's people that keep the Capitol clean. There's Capitol police stationed everywhere to keep everyone safe. There are all kinds of jobs that you just wouldn't think about. And so the decision to bring an institution like the Senate back into session ripples outward and, you know, could impact hundreds, if not a thousand or more people. you know, could impact hundreds, if not a thousand or more people.

And what exactly is McConnell's stated rationale for doing this? I mean, given that the House has said it's too great a risk, right? What is his argument for why 100 senators from 50 different states have to get on planes and return to Washington? Well, McConnell essentially says, after more than a month away, there is a lot of work piling up for the Senate that it would normally be doing. And McConnell essentially puts senators in league with frontline workers.

If it's essential that brave healthcare workers, grocery store workers, truck drivers, and many other Americans continue to carefully show up for work, then it's essential that their U.S. senators carefully show up ourselves and support them. You know, if we're asking doctors and health professionals and grocery store workers and other government employees to go out and put themselves at risk every day to show up for work, we ought to be doing that too.

The Senate is integral to responding to this crisis. And if we take the right precautions, they can do it safely enough to justify being there. So basically his case is, we're all in this together. That's right. But I think the reality underpinning that is a little bit more complicated. The reality underpinning that is a little bit more complicated. And it has to do both with politics and with the aspirations of a lot of Republicans and government leaders. We'll be right back.

So, Nick, what are these more complicated and unspoken reasons why Mitch McConnell would want to bring the Senate back into session? why Mitch McConnell would want to bring the Senate back into session. Many senators in his Republican caucus come from states like Georgia and Texas and Florida that are run by Republicans and are kind of at the forefront of starting to reopen, where governors and state leaders are trying to convince their citizens to get back to normal, that things can reopen, the economy can restart. And, you know, senators want to be a part of that, too. These Republicans feel like maybe we can model getting back to work. We can show people that if we take the right precautions, if we wear masks and socially distance, we can continue or get back to doing this work.

And we don't have to be cowed by fear. We can start to reinvigorate parts of society. And if government can do that, business could do that too. That's not to say other parts of the country shouldn't move more slowly. Right. But we can lead by example. Right. And there's a certain logic to that, as well as, I guess, credibility.

You know, if the senators are doing this and taking the risk and showing people it's possible, then it's not just them saying it's good enough for you. They're saying it's actually good enough for me. Yeah, they have a certain amount of skin in the game, albeit better protected skin than a lot of frontline workers probably do. But it seems to me, you know, basically a kind of optimistic view that this can be done. We don't have to stay inside forever. Now, something else has been kind of going on here in the last month that is layered on top of this. And that is the kind of political impact of the pandemic. On that New York Times reporting that Republican governors are growing more concerned about President Trump's handling of the coronavirus outbreak and how it could shape the results

of the November election. You know, President Trump has seen internally and public polls have shown that his standing against Joe Biden nationally and in key swing states has grown shakier over the last several weeks. A 17-state survey commissioned by the Republican National Committee, which found that Trump is struggling in the electoral college battleground and is likely to lose without signs of an economic rebound this fall. There's been polls coming out of key battleground Senate races across the country that may decide the Senate majority that show Democrats knocking on the door of the Republicans or in some cases opening up significant leads. There were fundraising reports that showed Democrats outraising Republican incumbents. You know, for three years, President Trump and Republicans in the House and Senate have pinned a lot of their political hopes on the economy and the kind of upward march of the stock markets and

of wages. And the coronavirus has wiped that out. And so there is, and has been over the last several weeks, I think, a real uneasiness settling in among Republicans. And nobody has a better finger on the political pulse, particularly of Senate races, than Mitch McConnell. And how does the Senate returning to Washington begin to change any of that dire data for Republicans that you just took through? You know, one of the best things that Republicans running for re-election who are in office right now can do to make a positive impression on their constituents is look like they're at work. You know, is help put in place programs and policies and solutions that help the country through this. You know, going back to work in Washington, being seen as doing their job as kind of leaders for the country could prove very helpful politically.

Right. So the thinking is that the worst possible situation for a Republican senator in a state where polling shows the president down and perhaps a competitive race coming up in the fall, the worst thing would be getting stuck at home, unable to look like a lawmaker at this moment. Yeah. You know, there are certain things that these senators have been able to do from home, connecting by phone or, you know, Zoom with constituents. But it's lower profile, and certainly they would not want to be accused of sitting on the sidelines while, you know, thousands of Americans are dying a day, when millions of Americans are losing their jobs. are losing their jobs. So from everything you're saying, there's not really in the minds of the Republican leadership

all that much downside to bringing senators back other than perhaps exposure to the virus. Sure. And there is some risk of that, you know, bringing senators back into the Capitol and their staff mingling.

Lawmakers have contracted the virus before, but they have basically judged that that risk is low enough that it's worthwhile, that there's too many other reasons, varied as they may be, to be in session not to. Right. And so that explains why all these senators are going in and out of that room in these kind of weird waves with masks on and all that Purell for this confirmation hearing. And I'm curious, did it end up playing out as Republicans had hoped? Senator Harris. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It looked really bizarre, but at the end of the day, you know, this hearing basically worked out well for Republicans. Why?

Do you believe that President Trump has accurately conveyed the severity of the threat of COVID-19 to the American people? You know, congressional hearings like this are often adversarial. I guess I'm misunderstanding. I'm sorry. Has he accurately reflected the status of the pandemic? Conveyed the severity of the pandemic, yes. And it's about trying to pin a nominee into an unflattering statement or expose something about their background. Has he accurately conveyed the severity of COVID-19 to the American people? I believe so.

You do. And in this case, Democrats really struggled because they were cycling in and out of the room because Radcliffe was so physically far away from them to really kind of build any momentum or any tough critical picture of him. It was just a kind of diffused, stretched out atmosphere. And Republicans lined up in support and they have the majority. So at the end of the day, they're probably going to be able to get their guy through. So it went quite well for Republicans.

It did. I want to thank you, John, for your time this morning. I want to thank the members for working under this temporary construct. At the end of the hearing, the chairman, Richard Burr, you know, pulled down his mask again and essentially announced that he would support the nominee. I look forward to advancing your nomination rapidly and to voting in favor, you know, the full Senate could be voting within a couple of weeks to install this kind of loyal defender of President Trump as the head of the nation's intelligence apparatus. So as well as that, well, I'm curious what happens if over time, as the pandemic persists, if the polling for Republicans ends up staying pretty bad, right? And they have ultimately come to Washington for nothing. Or in an even worse scenario, they come to Washington and members get

sick and maybe staff gets sick and it really looks bad for the party. And all of this ends up kind of backfiring. Will it have seemed at all worth it? You know, there is a lot of different directions that things could go in, but there is one benefit that basically gets locked in as long as they're in session and holding votes. And it's one that McConnell has always been attuned to and sees as the kind of first obligation of the Senate. And that is confirming nominees for the executive branch and in particular, lifetime appointments to the federal courts. And so, you know, the way to think about this perhaps is that if Republicans' political prospects are looking unfavorable at the moment, if they don't recover,

then, you know, these may be the final months of a Republican majority in the Senate. This may be the final opportunity to continue the kind of record streak of putting judges on the bench that will shape the law and policy in this country for a generation to come to move those things through. And that's not an opportunity that Republicans want to pass up on either. Case in point, one of the first actions that the Senate is going to be taking when it's back is setting up a bunch of additional district court judges all over the country. And Democrats can complain about it and gripe about it. And they have. They've argued that senators shouldn't be taking the risk of being back here unless all of their actions are laser focused on the coronavirus and the response and overseeing the Trump administration's implementation of their relief programs, etc.

But ultimately, you know, the majority wins on this stuff. And I think that McConnell feels time is of the essence. So there's a version of this where things do keep going south for Republicans and their response is to just keep crashing these confirmations through and in the process, cement their legacy in this last set of months that they may have the majority? If they can show in these next couple of weeks that there's a way to safely function by putting in place different precautions, then yeah, even in the very worst case scenario for Republicans, where they don't do any additional coronavirus legislating, where their political prospects continue to dwindle and they're going to lose the majority,

there's only upshot in staying in town and filling up every last court seat in every corner of the Trump administration that might still be able to eke out some Republican conservative policy wins before November. Because, you know, if they don't, if they leave town, none of those things are possible. And they essentially, you know, seed back the power of the majority in what may be the last weeks and months that they can really exercise it.

Thank you, Nick. Thank you so much for having me. We'll be right back. Here's what else you need to know today. But I'm thrilled to be here in the fantastic state of Arizona. I love Arizona. With the incredible Drew. I had some good moments here, especially on election day. On Tuesday, during an event at a plant in Arizona, President Trump said that the White House task force on the coronavirus would be shut down

and replaced with something else, which he said he was not yet ready to describe. Don't you need to continue to meet with the task force to get this scientific expertise on the pandemic? We will have certain people. As an example, we have hospitals that we built. We have medical centers that we built. We have people on the task force that focus on that. Asked why he was winding down the task force now, in the middle of the pandemic,

the president offered no clear explanation, but said that the key doctors on it, like Dr. Deborah Birx, would still be involved in the response. Are you saying mission accomplished? No, no, not at all. The mission accomplished is when it's over. The Times reports that the decision will only intensify questions about the ability of the White House to confront a public health crisis that has already killed more Americans than the U.S. wars in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan combined. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.