The Daily - The Democrats’ Dianne Feinstein Problem

Episode Date: May 3, 2023

For the past few months, a single lawmaker has prevented Democrats from carrying out their agenda in Congress. For now, there is no simple solution in sight. Annie Karni, a congressional correspondent for The Times, explains the issue surrounding Senator Dianne Feinstein.Guest: Annie Karni, a congressional correspondent for The New York Times.Background reading: Ms. Feinstein, who has been absent from the Senate for more than a month after being diagnosed with shingles, sought a temporary replacement on the powerful Judiciary Committee.High-profile absences have created complications for Democrats in Congress and prompted new questions about the future of the Republican leadership.For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. For the past two months, a single lawmaker has prevented Democrats from carrying out their agenda in Congress. And for now, there's no simple solution in sight. Today, my colleague Annie Carney on the growing political crisis surrounding Senator Dianne Feinstein. It's Wednesday, May 3rd. Annie, tell us about the drama that's been unfolding inside this really crucial corner of the U.S. Senate for Democrats, which is the Senate Judiciary Committee.

So the Judiciary Committee is facing a crisis and could come to a complete standstill soon if she doesn't return. And this matters because the committee is very important, especially in a moment when the government is divided. Republicans control the House and Democrats control the Senate. And there's no real hope of passing meaningful legislation. So for Democrats, the one thing they can do in this moment is to try and appoint federal judges, a process that does not involve the House at all. Their goal is to rebalance the courts after there was a flurry of judicial appointments made by Republicans during the Trump era. on confirming as many progressive judges as possible, and to investigate Supreme Court justices who have increasingly gotten into a lot of ethics troubles like Clarence Thomas.

The problem for them is they can't do any of that because of this strange situation involving the absence of a single senator, Dianne Feinstein. And remind us what happened to Feinstein. Why is she not there? Right now, she is absent because she was diagnosed with shingles in February. Shingles is pretty serious when you're 89 years old. She's in San Francisco recovering, and she has not given many updates at all about how she's doing, only that she says she's recovering and that she'll be back soon.

Soon, a rather vague term when your entire party is trying to get a committee to do the one important thing that it can do for your side of the aisle. Exactly. What you have to understand is that the math of a committee like this is very tight by design. Senate Democrats have a single seat majority. So that means with Feinstein gone, the committee has 10 Democrats, 10 Republicans, and everything just deadlocks and nothing can move forward. The obvious thing here in a normal world would be that someone else replaces her on that committee so that they can do their work and move ahead. Right. The Democrats just put someone in her place on the Judiciary Committee. Very sensible. Yes. Very sensible. She can take her time to recover. Someone else can fill her spot on a temporary basis.

And when she comes back, she can take back her spot. That would be a seemingly easy fix to this problem. And so on April 12th, Feinstein actually made this request for a temporary replacement. Schumer gets to it days later when the Senate comes back from its recess. He picks a replacement, and it all seems like this would be normal and easy.

But in the Senate, nothing is actually easy. Replacing a senator on a committee requires some degree of bipartisanship. Republicans use their power to immediately block this from happening. They love the idea of being able to stop Democrats from doing the one thing. Democrats can just move forward on their own. And now because of Dianne Feinstein, they can. Exactly. Now they have found a way to slow it down or stop it completely.

So this has left Democrats in a very strange position. They're kind of back to where they started at a point where they can't do anything. And it seems like their best option might be to force her to resign against her will. She doesn't want to resign. And it's extremely delicate in part because of what Feinstein's career has meant in the Senate. She's a legendary trailblazing politician and what she has represented makes it even more delicate and difficult to try and push her out against her will. Well, tell us about that historic trailblazing career

of Dianne Feinstein. So Dianne Feinstein starts her career in San Francisco in the 1970s in local politics. She's president of the Board of Supervisors, which is the city council of San Francisco. She's president of the Board of Supervisors, which is the city council of San Francisco. She's not really known outside the city until a shocking tragedy. Code 3, room 200. I'm in the mayor's office. She was in City Hall when a former member of that Board of Supervisors came into the building with

a gun. Witnesses say after killing the mayor, White ran down the hall and fired three shots at Milk, killing him. Shoots and kills Harvey Milk, the gay city council member, and the mayor, George Moscone. In the total confusion after the shooting, the president of the board of supervisors, Diane Feinstein, spoke. And Feinstein is one of the first people to find their bodies. As president of the board of supervisors, it's my duty to make this announcement.

And she's the one that breaks the news to the world. Both Mayor Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk have been shot and killed. And it's sort of a galvanizing moment that propels her further into politics. She runs for mayor, served for a decade as mayor of San Francisco, and then in 1992. The myth that women can't play in the big leagues is perhaps pierced once and for all. She was one of four women elected to the Senate, and it was considered the year of the woman. I think the message of the election of both Barbara and myself is really that the status quo must go. And it was the first time that two women were elected to represent the biggest state, California, in the Senate. Senator from California, Mrs. Feinstein, for herself and others, proposes an amendment number 1152.

Without objection, so ordered. Mr. President. And in the Senate, she is known as a complete workhorse and legislative powerhouse. as a complete workhorse and legislative powerhouse. The bill I have sent to the desk deals with a problem that 66% of all American citizens want addressed. In 1994, she wrote the country's first ban on assault weapons.

I am quite familiar with firearms. I became mayor as a product of assassination. I'm aware of that. I found my assassinated colleague and put a finger through a bullet hole. And she kind of had the moral authority to be a lead on that in part because of the Harvey Milk assassination. And it's a landmark piece of gun control legislation which passed and that helped reduce the gun murder rate while it was in place. After the assault weapons ban, she becomes chairman of the incredibly important and powerful Senate Intelligence Committee. In that role, she

oversees this huge investigation of how America treated its detainees after September 11th. And she and her staff write a 7,000-page bombshell report that basically finds that the U.S. was using brutal techniques like waterboarding on its detainees, and she was under pressure not to release it. And driving D.C. today, a battle on Capitol Hill over an explosive Senate report on the use of torture. It's expected to be made public as soon as tomorrow. I mean, the military, the intel community, President Obama.

There's been an ongoing debate between Feinstein and the White House about redactions in the report and the political implications. All urged her not to release this report. And she said the truth matters more than anything else. She just was adamant that America had to talk about what happened here. It is no secret that the United States used torture in the years following 9-11. But today, the world learned exactly how often it used it and just how brutal it was. And it becomes a huge international story. Good evening, a scathing report issued today.

The brutality is shocking. Detainees were subjected to the most aggressive techniques immediately. Stripped naked, diapered, physically struck, and put in various painful stress positions for long periods of time. And it's not just the torture that is so shocking in what they find. It finds that coercive interrogation techniques did not produce the vital, otherwise unavailable intelligence the CIA has claimed. intelligence the CIA has claimed. This report arrives at a conclusion that none of these efforts actually made America safer. And America had betrayed its values in how it treated these detainees. And there was no reason, there was no upshot of it. History will judge us by our

commitment to a just society governed by law and the willingness to face an ugly truth and say never again. Right. I remember this report really well. I think I just arrived at the Times as a reporter, and it felt like this report that Feinstein had overseen and had forced the release of was a real moral reckoning for the entire country about what we had done in the panic that followed September 11th. It was, and Feinstein has really established herself as this force to be reckoned with in the Senate.

But throughout all of this, she's getting older. By 2018, she's 85 years old and she's been in the Senate for 36 years. And she has to decide whether or not to run for another term. It was a big deal because Senate terms are six years. So we're talking not about 85, but she would be over 90 when her term was over. Even in the aging Senate, this is old. And so it was a natural question to ask, is it time for her to step aside? Progressives want new blood and there's pressure for her to, you know,

open the door to the next generation. The California State Democratic Party even endorses a younger progressive candidate over Senator Feinstein. Now, the personality that was able to stand up to the president and the intel community and the military was not about to be bowed by the California State Party. And she says, absolutely not. I want to run. She wants to stay in office. She thinks she has more to accomplish. And she runs.

And she wins by a landslide. And it's in her sixth term in the Senate, the one she's in right now, that her problems really begin. We'll be right back. So, Annie, what are the problems that come up for Feinstein in this latest term? She starts behaving in ways that people can't quite make sense of.

And some of those have occurred behind the scenes. One staffer gave his resignation to her, and then the next day had to come back and do it again because she didn't remember that it happened. Wow. And some of it has been more public. Good morning, everybody. The biggest one in public was in 2020. The hearing to confirm Judge Amy Barrett to the Supreme Court. When President Trump nominated Amy Coney Barrett to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the Supreme Court. We're confirming the judge in an election year after the voting has occurred.

It was just a little over a month before the presidential election. My Democratic colleagues will say this has never been done and they're right in this regard. Nobody, I think, has ever been confirmed in election year past July. Ginsburg had died suddenly and Republicans were just intent on ramming this nomination through. The Republican majority has steamrolled over principle in their rush to confirm a justice. And Democrats were absolutely livid that they would do such a thing with just days to go before the election. Donald Trump, Mitch McConnell, and their Republican buddies

are shoving aside the wishes of the American people in order to steal the Supreme Court seat. I think this rushed, hypocritical, partisan process should not proceed. Right. And I remember why they were so livid, which is that Republicans, in pushing for this rapid confirmation, were violating the standard that they themselves had set a few years earlier when President Obama nominated Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court in 2016. And the standard Republicans set back then, when they refused to let Garland's nomination go forward, was that nobody should be put on the Supreme Court close

to an election. Voters' voices should be heard first in the election, and whichever candidate won the presidency should then have the opportunity to appoint a justice. But in that case, Garland had been nominated to the Supreme Court eight months before an election. And Amy Coney Barrett, by contrast, had been nominated, I think, something like 40 days before an election. So this was seen as the height of hypocrisy. It was the height of hypocrisy. And Mitch McConnell and Senate Republicans absolutely couldn't care less. What they care about is that they would have a lifetime appointment on the Supreme Court replacing a liberal justice with a conservative justice. I mean, as we've seen the effects. Overturning Roe v. Wade is what came next. Right. So Democrats are beside themselves. And when the hearings wrap up, Feinstein does something incredibly bizarre.

Mr. Chairman, I just want to thank you. After Democrats railing against the process, she publicly congratulates the Republicans for the hearings. This has been one of the best set of hearings that I've participated in. And then she goes on and hugs Lindsey Graham, who's the Republican chairman of the committee. And together, this seems completely disconnected from the rage on the left. And like she doesn't understand the political moment she's in or what she just participated in. Right. It was, for Democrats, a moment when her behavior felt very inexplicable.

a moment when her behavior felt very inexplicable. It did. And her defenders will say she's a creature of the Senate where they have bipartisan relationships. She and Lindsey Graham are friends, just like Ruth Bader Ginsburg used to be friends with Antonin Scalia. But it was stranger than that. To call these hearings the best hearings that I've participated in looked completely disconnected from the reality that every other Democrat was experiencing. And this creates an absolute uproar. It raises questions about whether she's even fit to head up the Judiciary Committee for the Democrats. But then just a few weeks later, there's another concerning incident. This is when the CEO of Twitter at the time, Jack Dorsey, came to Capitol Hill to testify in front of the Judiciary Committee.

On November 7th, President Trump tweeted, and I quote, I won this election by a lot, end quote. And Feinstein asks him, reading. And Feinstein asks him, reading, The warning label that Twitter has applied to the tweet says, and I quote, official sources may not have called the race. Whether his company was doing enough to stem the spread of disinformation. Do you believe that label goes far enough to prevent the tweet's harms when the tweet is still visible and not accurate. Then, minutes later.

On November 7, President Trump tweeted this. She asks him the exact same question. Does that label do enough to prevent the tweet's harms when the tweet is still visible and is not accurate? Word for word, with the same inflections. And it really looked like she was unaware that she had already asked it. So it's after this hearing at this moment that people really start to wonder, is she okay? And reporters start digging around. And what we start to learn is that she's having pretty serious short-term memory problems.

And in moments like this at this hearing, she won't remember a question that she just asked minutes before. And my sense is that during this period, you know, the 2020, 2021, 2022, when people are realizing that she's having these memory problems, that it's an awkward situation. It's kind of a sad situation, but it's not seen as a crisis, right?

Yeah. I mean, the way it's been is that occasionally there'll be a flurry of stories about her short-term memory issues and her mental decline. But in reality, and her mental decline. But in reality, she's functioning in the Senate. Her office is really staff-run, but she shows up for votes. She votes with Democrats correctly on the issues. And it hasn't really been an acute problem until February when she is diagnosed with shingles

and hospitalized in California and is out for an extended period of time. Which is how we get to the moment we're in now, where the Judiciary Committee is at a standstill. So how do Democrats handle the situation once they realize that her absence is going to be so consequential? What exactly do they say and what do they do about it? So this is when Democrats really start to worry

about how long this absence really is going to drag on. And we start to see some of these private concerns go public. We're not being able to confirm judges every day that goes by because Senator Feinstein is unable to be there. Ro Khanna, a representative from California, comes out and says Dianne Feinstein is unable to be there. Ro Khanna, a representative from California, comes out and says, Dianne Feinstein needs to go. For the good of the country,

for confirming these judges, let's have someone who can vote. This opens up a big conversation with some people jumping to her defense. She deserves the respect to get well and be back. Saying, I've never seen them go after a man who was sick in the Senate. This is sexist.

She's a woman. No one would do that to a man. Other people kind of saying, you know, he's saying what we're all thinking. She does need to go. And it's immediately after this public pressure that she comes out with that halfway solution where she asks Chuck Schumer, the Senate majority leader, to replace her temporarily on the Judiciary Committee so that they can move forward with their work. But remember, the Republicans are able to block that, and they do. Got it.

And how do Republicans justify blocking Senator Feinstein's own will in this moment? If she's saying, I'm ready to leave this committee temporarily, it's time to replace me, how do Republicans argue for blocking that? It was really interesting to watch the arguments. Some Republicans tried to make it look like they were on her side. Her longtime friends, Susan Collins, a Republican of Maine, said, you know, Democrats have been trying to get rid of Dianne Feinstein for years and I'm not going to help them. This is outrageous. Sort of glossing over the fact that Democrats were merely responding to her own request, acting like I'm for Dianne Feinstein. I'm against this pressure campaign.

And other ones really were pretty blunt about what all of this is about. The reason this is being made is to try to change the numbers on the committee in a way that I think would be harmful to the Senate. Lindsey Graham got on the Senate floor and said, This is about a handful of judges that you can't get the votes for. This is about confirming liberal judges. The end. Right. So in Graham, you have a senator saying, let's not mince words. We have a chance to deprive Democrats of their power in the Senate to confirm judges. And that's what we're

going to do. This is not about Feinstein's honor or her career. This is about raw power. Yeah, pretty much. So what can Democrats now do about this very messy situation that they are in? What options do they really have? In one world that I don't think exists, Chuck Schumer, Senate Majority Leader, could publicly and privately really ramp up the pressure for her to resign and say she needs to go, we need to move ahead with our work. to resign and say she needs to go. We need to move ahead with our work. And the thinking there among the people who think it's time for her to go is that if she goes through the trouble of resigning, then that replacement would take her spot on the Judiciary Committee and that this issue would be over. But there's been more and more voices raising the possibility that Mitch McConnell, a master obstructionist, would find a way to avoid seating a replacement on the Judiciary Committee. This is a senator who prevented a Democratic justice from ever getting a hearing. we've heard Democrats expressing concern that possibly the only answer to moving ahead

with judges is that Dianne Feinstein herself returns to Washington to sit on that committee because there's no other way to fill that spot. Another way of saying this is that really Democrats' only option is to get Feinstein back in the Capitol, get her finger on the button to vote, even if she's not really medically ready to do that, which sounds very Machiavellian. It sounds kind of cruel, but that's their best option now. Exactly. As I said, they have no good options. Hmm. Annie, what are the people that you talk to in Congress, senators, staff, what do they make of this all?

I mean, the reality that Feinstein has gotten to this unfortunate point in her health and that her political rivals on the Republican side are exploiting it. Well, Congress is a gerontocracy, and it's really a problem on both sides. Chuck Grassley, a Republican of Iowa, is the same age as Dianne Feinstein. The issue of age and ability to function in these high-powered jobs is not something a lot of them want to talk about or call attention to, in part because it's just there, but for the grace of God, go I. It could be me tomorrow, and no one wants to be in that position. I mean, in the Senate, there are a dozen senators who are older than 75 and the average age is 65, which on Capitol Hill is

basically a spring chicken. So the Feinstein situation is unique in that she's not merely an aging senator who could have health issues that keep her out. But she is single-handedly holding up the only affirmative agenda that her party can move forward with in a moment of divided government. Right. And because of that, is there now a real risk that this unique situation, at the end of a very long and distinguished career could end up changing Dianne Feinstein's legacy, which is what we've spent so much time talking about today. There are real concerns about that from people close to her, that this will be how she's remembered as the Democrat who held up her party's agenda, who didn't know when it was time to leave, who selfishly hung on to power

and really did her party a disservice. And a long standing one at that. There's a scenario where if judges are held up and the next president who wins in 24 is a Republican, and that could have a long lasting effect on policies across the country. And I think, Annie, that a lot of listeners, when they hear you say that, are going to be thinking about somebody else in Washington who decided to stay in a job for a very, very long time with huge consequences. There have been comparisons of Dianne Feinstein

to Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the Supreme Court justice who many Democrats wish had simply resigned when the president was a Democrat, something she refused to do. She died when Trump was the president, and that replacement had huge consequences, cementing a conservative supermajority on the court for years to come. And it feels like the lesson in both of these cases, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Dianne Feinstein, is that when your job is of a certain level of importance, sticking around longer than perhaps you should

can be an actual danger to your party and to the values that you have fought for. And so I'm curious how Feinstein thinks about that, how she talks about that, why she wants to stay in the Senate despite what may be the real costs to her party. First of all, she has never acknowledged that she has trouble with memory issues. She has said she is totally capable of representing the residents of California, that she can still do the work. And I think on a human level, we've seen this play out countless times, that giving up power is incredibly difficult. difficult. And when I talk to people around her, it's not just clinging to power. She's deeply committed to her work. She never takes a vacation. She really thinks she can still do this job.

She's said that she's not going to run for re-election in 2024, but she feels like she can complete the term that she was elected for. And she thinks she's earned the right to make her exit from the Senate on her own terms. Well, Annie, thank you very much. We appreciate it. Thank you. We'll be right back. Here's what else you need to know today. On Tuesday, more than 11,000 movie and television writers declared a strike in a move that could shut down both Hollywood studios and TV networks.

The writers' latest contract expired Monday night at midnight, and negotiations over a new contract stumbled over the union's push for higher pay for the writing on streaming shows, which have shorter seasons than traditional TV shows. The first casualty of the strike were late-night shows, including The Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon and Late Night with Seth Meyers, both of which immediately went dark. It doesn't just affect the writers. It affects all the incredible non-writing staff on these shows,

and it would really be a miserable thing for people to have to go through. In an online video posted before the strike was declared, Meyers said that he sympathized with the writers and warned viewers that a strike was a last resort. So if you don't see me here next week, know that it is something that is not done lightly and that I will be heartbroken to miss you as well. broken to miss you as well. Today's episode was produced by Carlos Prieto, Sydney Harper, and Ricky Nowetzki, with help from Michael Simon Johnson and Asta Chaturvedi. It was edited by Patricia Willans and Rachel Quester, contains original music by Marian Lozano, Dan Powell, and Alisha Ba'etube, and was engineered by Chris Wood.

Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsberg of Wonderly. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.