The NPR Politics Podcast - A Reporter's Tour Of The US Capitol

Episode Date: May 29, 2023

Join us on an audio tour of the U.S. Capitol complex, through Senate office buildings, press work stations, the Capitol subway, and the House floor — originally released as a bonus episode for NPR Politics Podcast+ supporters. This episode: political correspondent Susan Davis, reporter Barbara Sprunt, and producer Casey Morell. The podcast is produced by Elena Moore and Casey Morell. Our editor is Eric McDaniel. Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi. Unlock access to this and other bonus content by supporting The NPR Politics Podcast+. Sign up via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org. Connect:Email the show at [e-mail] the NPR Politics Podcast Facebook Group.Subscribe to the NPR Politics Newsletter.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Susan Davis. I cover politics. We've got something special for you today. We're off for the Memorial Day holiday. So instead of a regular episode, today's episode is an audio tour of the U.S. Capitol. The tour is led by yours truly with reporter Barbara Sprunt and producer Casey Morrell. You're going to ride with us on the Capitol subway, check out Senate hideaways, visit our favorite interview stakeout spots, and a lot more. Now, if you're an NPR Politics Podcast Plus supporter, you got a chance to hear this episode a few months back when we released it as a bonus episode. Today, we're excited to share it with everyone. And it's a good example of what we do in our bonus episodes, which is peel back the curtain on our jobs as political journalists. Bonus episodes come out every other Saturday as a thank you to our supporters. You can learn more about that at the link in our episode notes. And with that, let's get to the tour. Producer Casey Morrell picks it up here. Hey there, I'm Casey Morrell. I produce the show. And we are actually today going to take you on a little bit of a behind the scenes tour of the U.S. Capitol.

And I'm with these two folks who know this building like the back of their hands. Our political correspondent, Susan Davis. Hi, Sue. Hey there. And our Washington Desk producer, reporter, wearer of many, many hats, Barbara Sprunt, is also with me. Hey, Barbara. Hi. So we're going to start walking around. We're currently, well, where are we, Sue? I've never been in this particular space before. Where is it that we are? We are in my least favorite office building on Capitol Hill. So this is a good place to start because it's only uphill from here. We are in the Hart Senate office building. And when I say why it's my least favorite, it's really just a personal design aesthetic. The Hart Building is architecturally

the most modern and brutalist of the Capitol buildings. And it's in pretty stark contrast to the Capitol itself and sort of the classical architecture style of so many Washington government buildings that are so iconic. And it was kind of designed that way to be different than the rest. But I'm a traditionalist. I like the sort of traditional architectural, you know, Hollywood version of Washington architecture. And Hart doesn't really scratch that for me. Not enough crown molding happening in here. Well, as someone who does like brutalist architecture, I'm sorry that we won't be spending more time here. But this is probably a place that no listener wants to dwell on. So why don't we head toward the elevators and

head towards the actual Capitol that we all see on television, see in movies, and start exploring. So one of the things I'm noticing as we're hitting this elevator bank to go toward the Capitol is that there is a specific, I mean, all of these, there's a lot of elevators, they're all numbered, but one of them specifically just says senators only. What happens if you get in one of those by accident? You do not want to know. It mainly is mostly, most strictly enforced during votes.

So they have, especially in the House side, they have similar members of the elevators over there. It's supposed to like, so you don't impede the movement of the senators. It honestly depends on the senator. It depends on the House lawmaker. Sometimes if you try to get in the members-only elevator, they don't care. They're like, come on in, ride with me. There are other members, I will not name names, who would be telling you to get right out of there,

that this is members-only and you're not allowed in it. In our defense, there used to be on the House side, too, an elevator that was just for reporters. So, you know. The other day I was in like a scrum and... What's a scrum? Oh, great question. A scrum is where a lawmaker is like kind of holding court with a bunch of press. So there's like reporters, producers all over them.

It can get quite humid. But he was like, oh, come on in. I love NPR. And he noticed it because he knew I was NPR, not because of me, but because of the microphone, the one that you're using now. He was like, only NPR uses that microphone. So we should say that part of the reason why we are able to walk around as we are is because we are all accredited members of the press. We are all wearing press passes that have our name, our photo. They say NPR, and they're issued by the Sergeant Arms office. You have to apply to get one. They're then given to you, and that basically then lets you wander around.

And we should say the reason why we are not swarmed by other reporters or senators is because it's a recess week. So lawmakers go back to their districts, their states, and it's a lot more empty around here. So we've left the elevators of the Hart Building. We're now standing in front of a subway, which exists here inside the Capitol Complex. And Barbara, tell us a little bit about this. Where does it go? It's obviously not connected to the main subway here in D.C.

No, although wouldn't that be something? It connects all the office buildings so that members and senators have a way of quickly getting to votes from their offices. Quickly, depending on which office building it is. There's usually at the start of a session, like a office lottery, which is always really fun to cover because people are sort of angling for the best office. And a lot of that has to do with access to a quick route into the Capitol for votes. This would be one of those ways. As a producer, it can be a little difficult because as we'll find out in about 20 seconds it's quite loud when it comes in and it doesn't give you like a clean sort of audio pathway to making things sound beautiful you'll

be like in the middle of getting a great quote from someone and then it'll go like and you're like kind of like okay great that will work very well on the radio and here it comes it kind of looks like a little bit of a a smaller version of what you would see at a theme park, like a Disney monorail. An airport. Very airport. You also learn the patterns of people, like senators, when you've been up here a long time. There's certain senators who almost always walk. I mean, I imagine sometimes they get on the tram.

But John Cornyn of Texas has his office. He's, he's a walker and he talks to reporters. So a lot of times I like the walkers because that means you'll see, and this whole ride, it's not long, but if someone's walking, you get a lot more time with them, right? So you'll see, so you'll see like senators like Cornyn walking along this path that goes along the tram. And a lot of times if you see a senator like him, he's surrounded by like eight reporters walking with them all the way back to the office because, you know, the cool, one of the cool things about the Hill is like, unlike the White House or other places, you can kind of go anywhere, you know, like you can walk with a senator all the way back to their office. Now they might not want to talk to you and they might even say, hey, leave

me alone. But there's nothing that kind of stops you from walking right up to people. And that's always been part of the cool thing about the Hill. It's like you get in this tram and you're like, oh, hey, Senator Mitt Romney. Hey, Kyrsten Sinema. And sometimes the tram's great because you have a captive audience, you know. There's a way to just, we're in here and you better. And sometimes you have that stress moment where you're like, oh, ask a good question, you know, because you got them in this captive moment and you're like, okay, you've got two, maybe three questions because you've got them in this captive moment, and you're like, okay, like, what are you,

you've got two, maybe three questions to get in on this tram ride. Like, what do you got? So. One thing that I think is cool, too, is, like, as we're traveling underground here, you see all the flags for different states, and it's a nice little addition to the underground as you travel. It's also been, at times, like,

the art in the capital has been really controversial, especially in recent years, like of the flags of the states that we just passed. In recent years, when we've had these debates about the Confederate flag and Confederate art and Confederate statues, and a lot of the state flags from the southern states still have styles that embody some element of the Confederate flag. And there was conversations at the time, like, should those flags even hang in the capitol now obviously they still do hang and nothing happened there but there has also been a movement to get the confederate statues out of the capitol and they're slowly each state gets to put two statues into the capitol it's not actually decided by members of congress it's decided by the states themselves it's usually approved by legislatures and governors

but there has been a slow movement to get the Confederate honorees in the Capitol out and modernize the people that are honored here. So we just got off the subway and we're on the Senate side. This is my favorite area, actually, I think, in all of the Capitol, because it is, for me, the easiest place to get good audio from senators. Other than the subway. Other than the subway. Other than the subway. You get possibly longer audio here.

And it makes me feel sort of like a detective. And you get to be a little sneaky here because you can basically figure out, where should I position myself to get the best chance of getting to talk to a senator as they come in or out of votes? And that part can be kind of fun. When you think about covering the Hill, I can't emphasize enough how much this very boring little space right here by the subway is so critical to what we do every day. Especially on a big news day, former President Trump's going to be indicted. If the Senate, they're not in today, but if they were before votes, this is, there would be a hundred reporters here right now, because this is where you get them all, because this

is a feeder place from not only the Hart office building, the Dirksen office building, the Russell office building, all of the senators that are coming to vote, unless they often come in from the outside, which they do to avoid us sometimes. But this is it. This is where they come through, oftentimes by themselves, without staff. And this is where the reporters wait for them to try to get them before they get on the elevators. And we'll go up and there's other places we do it. But I would say the Senate basement is like,

this is where the magic happens. This is where we do, I'd say on the Senate side, at least half of my reporting comes from just standing right here for sometimes many hours. Hence the comfortable shoes conversation that we had prior to the podcast, which is critical. You can always tell when a woman is new to the Hill. I can't speak to men because I don't wear men's shoes,

but you can always tell when a woman's new to the Hill, and interns can often be guilty of this, because I always say the higher the heel, the shorter the time they've been up here. Unless you're Nancy Pelosi, because she's one of the few women, and maybe Kyrsten Sinema, because they have impeccable fashion sense. But it's hard. It's literally a hard place to walk a lot of the floor is marble marble doesn't um take a lot doesn't absorb a lot of impact and it hurts to wear uncomfortable shoes up here so uh someone once described Washington fashion to me as Armanian aerosols uh and it's true like a comfort shoe

will be your best friend. The third floor of the Capitol is, at least for, especially for our purposes, is often where all of the press galleries are. And there's more than one. And it's usually divided up by what type of medium you work for. So this one right here is the Senate Daily Press Gallery. That's where it would be the New York Times,

the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, daily newspapers. And then there's radio and TV, obviously where all the TVs and NPR, and then the photographers have their own gallery. That's where it'd be the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, daily newspapers. And then there's radio and TV, obviously, where all the TVs and NPR, and then the photographers have their own gallery. So we all sort of have competing interests in how we cover the Hill. And then we have our own folks that sort of staff the galleries. And they technically work for the Sergeant at Arms. They don't work for us, but they're like diplomats. They work with reporters. They want to help get access. They're great people that are really just trying to keep the Capitol open and accessible. And they run the galleries where we work. We're now in a room that you've probably seen on television at some point. This is the press

briefing room, I guess you could call it, for the Senate. So you would see people like Mitch McConnell, the minority leader from Kentucky, or Chuck Schumer, the majority leader from New York, stand in front of this lectern, or behind the lectern rather, talking about whatever has been going on in the Senate that day. This is like the made-for-TV shot, too, that you would see in a movie or something that looks kind of like the White House briefing room. This is the equivalent for the Senate side. And much like the White House briefing room, the first time I was in here, I was just remarking how small it feels. The main visual, right, is

what's projected in front of you, right? The lectern. But like when you're on the back end, you're like, wow, we're just all smushed in here like sardines. And like, you know, that's the part that you don't see on television but it is it does feel really small when you first see it at least it did to me we're also more egalitarian up here there's no assigned seats it's not like the white house briefing room where every outlet knows where they have to sit it's always generally first come first serve in these places and if you'll notice what looks like beautiful leather bound book uh decoration fake books it's like ho like Hollywood soundstage.

It just looks like the congressional record, but it's just actually fake. There you go. So I'll show you, we're in a rather nondescript hallway. We're still technically on the Senate side. The rotunda is like the neutral zone between Congress, and then once you cross, you're

on the House side. But you see a lot of hallways like this that look very typical, you know, fancy carpet and these doors that have numbers on them, but no markings. These are the Senate hideaways. Almost every senator has a little nook or cranny inside the Capitol that's their own private space. They can be really small. Former Senator Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts notoriously had a really beautiful one with a beautiful view. But most of them are really nondescript. And on January 6th, when there was the attack on the Capitol, a lot of senators hid in their hideaways because you wouldn't, it's not like their office buildings that say like, Mitch McConnell on the door. I actually don't, I don't really know who's in there. And they can

change up the same way that members offices can change. If especially longevity gets you a better hideaway, as more senior senators leave, someone might try to get their space and it's kind of one of those soft power things like there's no process you know it's it's all handshake agreements who's in the majority who does the majority leader have a favor to like to and who's jockeying for what space but these are very these are these very nondescript spaces are some of the most coveted spaces for the actual lawmakers in the Capitol. What would you want in your hideaway? Like a good view, a bathroom?

A bathroom, I think. And I will tell you, I won't say names because a lot of times when you go into a hideaway, it's kind of presumed to be off the record, right? These are kind of, you can do an interview in one, but not to disclose the location of it. And I was in a senator's hideaway that was near the rotunda and was like a private office with a bathroom in it. And I was like, this is great. It was just a very, and a lot of them, you think you walk in and they're like very cozy and warm and they can design their offices kind of the way they want to within limits. But yeah, I think that would be one of the cool parts of the job if you were a senator. So we're approaching the Speaker's office. So we're like directly across from it now. And it is funny because it is like one of the busiest places to try to catch him coming in and

out of his office on his way to votes to try to, you know, ask questions about the day. But you can see right now, like there is an exodus of young children in hoodies and, you know, like, headphones listening to the tour of the Capitol. And I just think, like, in no other job would you be like, I was thwarted by a teen today, you know? The president isn't confronting teenagers walking past the Oval Office. Like, Kevin McCarthy could walk out at any moment, and you'd have. And you have those moments, right, where tourists are coming through, and, like, Pelosi or McCarthy or McConnell are, like, just walking through, and people are like, oh, wait. Speaking of, we're in the Rotunda now, which is why it is loud, as you can tell.

There are a lot of people on the periphery, on the edges, looking at the different painting statues that you see here. You know, the famous paintings of folks signing the Declaration of Independence. Controversial guy. Tell me he doesn't have swagger in that statue. It's a statue of Andrew Jackson that we're looking at. Former President Andrew Jackson. He carved it himself, you know. This is one of truly the only things you could see if you were with people like Barbara and I are a staffer. This is you have to kind of climb through the House Periodical Gallery,

which is off the Statuary Hall on the house side of the Capitol. And there is just a sort of nondescript metal door, but it's pretty cool. If you open it up, it takes you out into the balcony of Statuary Hall. So we're standing here, we're overlooking Statuary Hall,

which is one of the places in the Capitol where each state is allowed to submit two statues of people who are influential or have had some sort of history, as we were talking about earlier. And as we're looking down, it is bustling, although I would say probably not as bustling as you would see on like a busy day of legislative session. Yeah. And this is where a lot of ceremonial events happen on the House side. And it's also like, you know what I was saying before, like how I don't love modern brutalist architecture. Stadthall gives you that like traditional, you know, founding fathers, marble columns.

Like it just looks and feels the way you would think of a Washington institution. We're standing like directly behind like a draped gold curtain. It's not subtle. It's not subtle. It's not subtle, yeah. But also, you don't come here for subtlety, right? That's how I feel. You want to feel like you're in a place. And when you're in Stead Hall, when you're in Hart, you could be in any office building in America.

When you're in Stead Hall, there's only really one place you could be. That's a good way of putting it, yeah. So we're continuing to walk through the House side. This is how long... It says Ladies' Gallery, but this is where, when we actually go into the House chamber and watch floor debate, this is the entry for reporters to go through, and this is what they would call the Press Gallery. In the days of yore, it was called the Ladies' Gallery,

as you can still see, right next to it, the Diplomatic Gallery. This is like, when you think of the State of the Union, where the First can still see, right next to it, the Diplomatic Gallery. Like, this is, like, when you think of the State of the Union, where, like, the First Lady's sitting, the Speaker's box, like, they all enter through these doors up above around the chamber. This would be for press, I think. And the First Lady's box is on this side, if my mind is, I'm visualizing inside the chamber. So, yeah. Do you want to try it? We can get on the floor? Yeah, let's try to get on the floor. We're actually really close to where the First Lady sits during the State of the Union. Yeah, we're standing here in the House Chamber.

So if you see the House Chamber on C-SPAN or during a State of the Union address, this is not the place where the members are sitting down on the floor, but instead it's the seats that are up above looking down into the gallery. And as Barbara said, where the First Lady, her guests, other dignitaries sit during the State of the Union address. So this little area, just these nine little bar stools, this is the radio TV component of the gallery. So on State of the Union Night, you get a one-par, and we're jammed up in here. And this is the only time we're ever allowed to broadcast live from this chamber is State of the Union Night.

There's often requests to do other coverage from here, and there's always been a blanket no. Even during the speaker's race, a lot of people wanted to be be alive from the chamber but state of the union is pretty much it in the modern world you know reporters don't sit in here as much because they can watch on tv we all have c-span on in our booths but sometimes with a really dramatic vote if we don't know the outcome um it can like sort of help your reporting just to watch votes and see the dynamics you also kind of learn which members are friends. So it can be really illuminating. And the same thing in the Senate too.

If you can sit and watch votes, you kind of see which senators make each other laugh, which ones tend to hang out. And it can kind of help give you a better understanding of these people, like as people, not just as the people you cover. So Sue, there's one place left that you want to show us that you think kind of just like encapsulates what it's like to work here yeah yeah let me show you where i microwave my lunch so one of the cool things about working in the capitol keep walking we'll walk and talk we'll do a walk and talk like aaron sorkin one of

the cool things about working in the capitol is you have these moments where like oh i'm on deadline i gotta like i bring my lunch a lot and you have these moments where this is the dinette of the house you know radio tv radio, TV, press gallery. It's got a little dinky microwave and a fridge. But oftentimes when I'm microwaving my food or lunch, this is the view. And it's this is it. Like, this is the classic Washington view. I'm looking out the third floor of the Capitol.

You can see, like, the beautiful Capitol columns. And I'm looking directly down the National Mall at my 12 o'clock is the Washington Monument. You can see sort of like L'Enfant's vision of Washington, you know? Like, it's a really beautiful shot. And it gets even more beautiful as springtime comes around, because a lot of these trees and things are just coming back into bloom. But like, this is gorgeous, right? Like, this is like, this is my microwaving my lunch view. And that's cool. This is like the view when somebody says Washington, like the view that just will pop into your head, you know, just looking at the mall, looking at the monument, the Smithsonian museums on either side of the mall. It's a very nice day today that we're

taping this, you know, it's blue skies, it's maybe 70 degrees outside. There are a lot of people milling about on the mall. And yeah, this is just like that quintessential kind of Washington view that you see all the time in movies and in television. Yeah. These are the moments where I'm like, I've been working in and out of this building for over 20 years now, never gets old. And someone once said to me, like, when this gets old, then you know it's time to walk away. And it's not old yet. It's still not old. It's really pretty. And I feel like these are the moments where I you know, it's time to walk away. And it's not old yet. It's still not old. It's really pretty. And I feel like these are the moments where I'm like, we're lucky to do these jobs. Like, this is a good job to have. So that's it. That's where I microwave my lunch.

Before we go, a reminder, if you want to support NPR and get regular bonus episodes like this one, go to plus.npr.org. You can also sign up for the NPR Politics Podcast Plus on our show page in Apple Podcasts. We're back with a regular episode of the show tomorrow. I'm Susan Davis. Thanks for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.