The NPR Politics Podcast - 'A Dagger At The Throat Of Democracy': President Biden Decries Election Lies

Episode Date: January 6, 2022

In a speech from the Capitol one year after the building was attacked, President Biden warned that the United States could become a nation that "accepts political violence as a norm" and allows "partisan election officials to overturn the legally expressed will of the people" if Donald Trump's supporters in the Republican party continue to bolster his election lies.This episode: demographics and culture correspondent Danielle Kurtzleben, congressional reporter Claudia Grisales, and White House correspondent Scott Detrow.Connect:Email the show at [e-mail] the NPR Politics Podcast Facebook Group.Subscribe to the NPR Politics Newsletter.Find and support your local public radio station.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

USA! USA! USA! USA! We're going to the Capitol and we're going to try and give... Take my vote! We're going to try and give them the kind of pride and boldness that they need to take back our country. It's January 6th, 2022. The time now is 2.06 p.m. Oh, up on the steps of the backside of the Capitol, we're seeing protesters overcome the police. The police are now running back into the Capitol building. We have cheers from the protesters that are watching behind the scenes.

This is incredible. And at this time one year ago, Capitol Police were evacuating Congress as Trump supporters shattered the first windows as they stormed the U.S. Capitol. We're in, we're in. Let's go. It's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Danielle Kurtzleben. I cover demographics and culture. I'm Claudia Grisales. I cover Congress. And I'm Scott Detrow. I cover the White House. And one year ago at this time, we and so many other people in the country were watching and hearing this scene unfold on Capitol Hill. Scott Detrow, you and our teammates were supposed to be taping this

podcast at that time. It got delayed as we all watched this happen. A year later, what about January 6th sticks with you? I mean, this is a really hard anniversary, and I think that's the case with a lot of us who live in Washington and cover politics. I mean, I remember hearing that shattering glass and watching coverage from people we know describing it, thinking through who we knew inside the building, thinking as a reporter and as an American, what does this mean for our country? What is happening right now? How serious is this? And ever since, just thinking about, was this a one-off thing? Or was this the beginning of a new, darker phase in our politics and our democracy? I think about, Claudia, you and I just a few days later walking through the Capitol and

seeing that broken glass and just being in the middle of the rotunda and thinking about and seeing the soldiers who were then stationed there and just not even saying that much, just looking around and trying to figure out what happened and what would happen next. Right. It was just so stunning to walk through there. I had been working remotely that week. I had not planned to be on the Capitol. And so we were going through our different shows, giving updates on what was supposed to be a very boring day,

certifying President Biden's election results. And slowly but surely over the day, we start to get alerts about these pipe bombs that were discovered, about a house building being evacuated, and then protesters are pushing through this outer perimeter, which was held just by bicycle racks, and not enough Capitol Police officers, and the damage that ensued. It's an excruciating day to relive. Those sounds take you right back there, and when you talk to people, that's a lot of what they remember is the sounds that they heard that day. And so I went as soon as I could after January 6th. And as Scott mentioned, we walked through and all of this damage remained. The windows, the shattered windows, the damaged doors, the artwork that was damaged as well with

bear spray. And it was pretty incredible, that scene, and kind of seeing how in the last few months, how they've tried to transform that Capitol and erase a lot of what we saw that day, Scott. So a lot of it is gone as if it in some ways it never happened. All right. Well, let's jump ahead one year to today when President Biden addressed the nation about those events. The former president of the United States of America. Has created and spread a web of lies about the 2020 election. He's done so because he values power over principle, because he sees his own interest as more important than his country's interest, than America's interest. And because his bruised ego matters more to him than our democracy or our constitution.

He can't accept he lost. Again, that's President Joe Biden giving a forceful speech at the Capitol this morning. And he gave that speech again to mark that it's been one year since Donald Trump supporters attacked the Capitol building as Congress worked to certify the results of the 2020 presidential election, which Joe Biden won. You can't love your country only when you win. You can't obey the law only when it's convenient. You can't be patriotic when you embrace and enable lies. Those who stormed this Capitol and those who instigated and incited and those who called on them to do so

held a dagger at the throat of America and American democracy. Now, Scott, I think it's pretty apparent, even from these clips, that a major part of this speech was anger. There was anger at Trump for continuing to push lies about the election. There was anger that many Republican officials have backed Trump. And there was especially anger that all of that has continued for a full year. So what struck you about this speech? Yeah, I think off the bat, I will say I think this is the most forceful speech I've heard from Biden since, since he became president, maybe one or two other moments rise to around this, but but this was forceful. It was notable how,

how much he went after Donald Trump. Look, for the past year, Biden has really tried to lean into the idea of being a unifying presence, trying to reach out to Republicans, even as he tried to push through an agenda that was by and large mostly Democratic priorities in his tone, in his actions, trying to reach out. As he has done that, Trump has made rejecting the reality of the last presidential election a central organizing principle of the Republican Party, right? I don't think that's an exaggeration. So Biden seemed to be shifting here. I'm curious if it stays this way or not, going after Trump in the way we heard, saying that he is purposely trying to undermine the electoral system. He's doing it because he lost. And I think related to that, I was surprised by how much time Biden spent just stating the facts of what happened. Because tied to these attempts to undermine the election has this been the real effort, which Claudia has covered for us day in and day out, of trying to underplay, trying to water down just how deadly,

just how serious and frightening this attack was and how sinister the motives of some of the people in the Capitol were, Biden said, no, here's what happens. Think back to that day. You know, it was really interesting. Scott can speak to this because he heard Biden's stump speech repeatedly, but it seemed that he was delivering it in a new way when he talked about we're in a battle for the soul of America. It almost felt like a battle cry today, kind of looking at the Capitol a year later, even though it's come a long way in terms of transforming its security to ensure a mob cannot breach the Capitol again. At the same time, the divide seems to be greater than ever in terms of

who believes it was a free and fair election and who does not. As we stand here today, one year since January 6, 2021, the lies that drove the anger and madness we saw in this place, they have not abated. So we have to be firm, resolute, and unyielding in our defense of the right to vote and to have that vote counted. There's been a lot of frustration, I think, from a lot of progressive activists at the way that Biden has dealt with this. By and large, talking past, talking around, trying to do other things as a lot of people out there in the country are actively working to undermine trust in our electoral system and future elections. I mean, just go Google Miles Parks and read every story he's been writing for us for the

last year, you know? And I think kind of Claudia mentioned this part of it. When Biden was talking about, you know, basically in his many words, I'm not seeking out a fight, but if there's going to be a fight, I will be a part of it. I will defend democracy. Like, it was a real parallel, actually, to a lot of the speeches that Abraham Lincoln gave right at the start of the Civil War, when it was unclear what direction that was going to go. And I thought that way, I mean, given how much we've talked about the stakes of things, and what could happen down the line if this continues, that jumped out to me. And the

question is, what happens next, though, right? Because Biden has said that voting rights is something that his administration has as a top priority. And yet there remains no clear plan to actually get a voting rights bill passed through the Senate. Right. This is a huge struggle, the voting rights, in terms of that legislation is currently stalled out. And you could see Democrats trying to join those messages together. And yes, Biden was very forceful today. He brought up that image of the dagger again when he said, I will defend this nation. I will allow no one to place a dagger at the throat of democracy.

I did not seek this fight brought to this Capitol one year ago today. But I will not shrink from it either. I will stand in this breach. I will defend this nation. I will allow no one to place a dagger at the throat of democracy. We will make sure the will of the people is heard. It was a call, it seems, not just to Democrats, but perhaps an attempt to reach others who still aren't believers that he won this election over former President Trump. What can Joe Biden do about any of this? I mean, yes, he can give a big rousing speech, but what concretely can he do to strengthen the fabric of a democracy that is fraying from distrust and disinformation? I think he can do some things. Let's talk about

our area of expertise, facts, right? A big part of the story from January 6th on has been a denial of what happened. And a big part of what led up to January 6 is a denial of the reality of the election. And I think I talked about this a little bit when we're talking about what's going on with vaccines, where there's this like asymmetric information warfare happening where the side that is invested in spreading lies obsesses on it and does it again and again and again and just hones in on making people question reality. And then like the reality-based people don't talk about it that much because, yeah, it's what happened. Moving on. And I think forcefully saying, no, the election was not stolen.

Here is what happened. the courts and elections officials who verified it, I think has some value when you have seen, you know, Domenico is in charge of polling and NPR and continues to ask questions. And you see this sustained amount of Republican voters who don't trust what happened in the 2020 election. So talking about that, I think has some value. The next thing, getting legislation passed, I think that's the Biden administration challenge of every single topic. It's tough with the votes. Yeah, and I think we've seen Biden play a role already in terms of pulling back the curtain, waiving executive privilege when it comes to the House Select Committee investigating the January 6th attack and allowing them to pursue

hundreds of thousands of pages of documents tied to the previous administration, as well as going after witnesses like Trump's former chief of staff, Mark Meadows, and calling them to testify before the committee. So Biden has really green lighted a lot of this committee's work, which is part of fueling this search for facts. And we're hearing details that we did not know before, text messages that were being exchanged within Trump's inner circle from Fox News personalities to his own son, Donald Trump Jr., who were pleading for the president to stop the attack that day. And so I think that's part of that whole effort that Biden is helping kind of direct when it comes to getting that information out. And so these are some of those efforts where he could actually play a big role. All right. We're going to take a quick break and we will talk a lot more about voting rights, and I want to get into that more. Vice President Kamala Harris pushed for voting rights action today in her speech. So, Claudia,

tell us more about this. Senate Democrats do seem serious about trying to forge ahead on this front. What seems doable, though, at this point that enough senators can really agree on? Right. They have run into obstacles again and again in terms of Republican opposition, especially in the Senate. So for now, it is still it still appears stalled. And there's discussion back and forth, for example, from Schumer of saying, let's debate the filibuster then and see if we can change the Senate rules. But the hopes are not high that they can address this in an evenly divided chamber. They just don't have the votes to move a lot of this forward. Right. And Scott, I'm curious about the White House's side of all of this. What are they

pushing for on this front? I'm really curious to see. I'm thinking back to last summer, last spring or summer. I'm getting a little better at remembering when things happened after last year. But sometimes it's still tricky. Biden gave a big speech about voting rights in Philadelphia and about the push from his administration and how it was a top priority. And it was a very forceful speech. There were some parallels to what we heard this morning from Biden.

But our colleague, I'm just shouting out everybody's reporting today. Our colleague, Juana Summers, did a lot of reporting around then about how it left voting rights advocates hollow, because they all said, what are you going to do next? And the answer was, talk about this occasionally forcefully. There was no concrete plan to get things passed. And I think one big question I have is how much pressure Biden puts on this conversation about whether there is any sort of way to change the Senate rules for voting legislation. Of course, that involves the same cast of characters that Biden spent months

negotiating with and catastrophically came up short with Build Back Better. So do those two things overlap? Is this something that Biden says, look, that's a Senate issue, we'll leave that to the Senate? Or does he weigh in? Mm hmm. You know, before we wrap up here, I think we'd be remiss not to talk again about January 6, then particularly about the January 6 committee in the House. Claudia, fill us in. What are they working on lately? So the committee's made a lot of progress in a matter of months. They've seen more than 300 witnesses. They've obtained more than 30,000 pages of

documents. They've issued subpoenas for more than 50 individuals. And so they're moving as quickly as they can because they're trying to present their findings, a more comprehensive report of what happened a year ago today. And they're hoping to do that by this summer through a series of hearings. And they're also weighing these legislative fixes that they could consider, such as, is there an option to strengthen the Electoral Count Act and ensure that a future president can't exploit it again? Or should we consider criminal consequences, ramping those up for someone who obstructs an official proceeding of Congress, such as certifying the election's results? Can I just say one quick thing as I, you know, round out everybody's

coverage of this with shout outs? Like we were saying at the top that this is like a really personal and hard story for us at times, you know, people who live in Washington and saying at the top that this is like a really personal and hard story for us at times you know people who live in Washington and work at the Capitol I just want to Claudia you have you have every single day covered what's going on with the committee and the news out of it and continually go back to the story for us and I just I just really appreciate it as a listener and as someone who sometimes thinks I'm so glad I don't have to go through that evidence that was just released oh my gosh my gosh. Thank you. It's hard, and you do a really great job with it.

Oh, thank you so much. I haven't cried yet today, but you might get me there with that. So thank you. I appreciate it. Allow me to echo what Scott said. Thank you, Claudia. And thank you, Scott, for your excellent work. Yes. Thank you, Scott. But you two are around the White House and the Hill, respectively, a lot. From your reporting, what have you seen in how January 6th has changed or hasn't changed the country? What have the effects of that been over the last year? I'm curious what you've seen. You know, I was at the inauguration for NPR. You know, January 6th happened. A week later to the day, Trump is impeached for an unprecedented second time. A week after that, Joe Biden is inaugurated. And just walking through the National Guardsmen and

military ringing the inaugural and through the security fences and just the insane amount of security and seeing the inauguration happen anyway, it felt like these people who tried to stop a free and fair election did not win. The new president was inaugurated. Democracy worked. But a year later, it's hard to feel like that triumphant moment because it feels like the people who want to undermine the democratic system in the United States

have somehow gained momentum in the last year. And that's a tough feeling to sit with as someone who's like pro-democracy. I think you're allowed to be pro-democracy as a reporter. Strong stance. Yeah. All right. Well, we are going to have to leave it there. I am Danielle Kurtzleben. I cover demographics and culture. I'm Claudia Grisales. I cover Congress. And I'm Scott Detrow. I cover the White House. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.