The NPR Politics Podcast - Biden Visits Hawaii After Deadly Fire

Episode Date: August 21, 2023

The president's visit to the state is a fresh reminder of the increasing frequency and severity of extreme weather in the United States — and of his fraught reputation among climate-conscious voters.This episode: White House correspondent Asma Khalid, White House correspondent Tamara Keith, and senior political editor and correspondent Domenico Montanaro.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

Hi, this is Angie from Indianapolis. I'm at Howard University in Washington, D.C. today, dropping my daughter off for her freshman year of college. This podcast was recorded at 1.08 p.m. Eastern Time on Monday, August 21st. Things may have changed by the time you hear this, but my daughter will still be a Howard Bison, and I will still be missing her terribly. Here's the show. I put my kindergartner on the bus today for the first time. Was that hard? Were you sad? I did not cry. It's not that I wasn't sad. It's that I held it together.

Thank you very much. All right. Well, hey there. It's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Asma Khalid. I cover the White House. I'm Tamara Keith. I also cover the White House. And I'm Domenica Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. And today on the show, we're going to talk about the devastation in Maui and the president's role as consular in chief. President Biden is headed to Hawaii today as the state reels from one of the deadliest wildfires in recent U.S. history. More than 100 are dead. Thousands are displaced.

The beach town of Lahaina was almost totally destroyed. Here's Hawaii's First Lady, Jamie Kanani-Green. More than 200 years ago, King Kamehameha I unified our islands and made Lahaina the capital of the Hawaiian Kingdom. Over two centuries, with their aloha, their dedication, and their hard work, the people of Lahaina built their town into a special place. And Tam, you can hear just the emotion in her voice. People have really been struggling with the recovery. And the president's visit comes about two weeks after the fire started. What will Biden be doing while he's in Hawaii? Yeah. And you mentioned the death toll. It could still climb. There are still 850 people unaccounted for. So this is an ongoing and devastating event. The White House says that

this is going to be an emotional day for the president, for the first lady, and obviously for the people of Maui who are still grappling with this. The president will get an aerial tour of the devastation. He'll get an operational briefing. He will deliver remarks. He will meet with first responders and thank them. He will meet with victims and survivors. In a lot of ways, this is the typical consoler-in-chief visit with these sorts of disasters. They are never easy. But being with people who are going through the worst times of their lives is something that President Biden really embraces. I think he would say it's one of his superpowers, is like being there

with people relating to their grief. You know, that being said, Tim, the White House has faced some criticism from both Republicans, but as well some survivors of this wildfire, that it responded too slowly to the disaster. What is that criticism about? Right. So it's been two weeks. People's lives are nowhere near normal. They are still struggling with very basic things there in Maui. And this is a major disaster. The White House says that they responded immediately. I was traveling with the president out west when the fire happened. As soon as they got the request to declare a major disaster,

they did. President Biden addressed it publicly the Thursday after the fires started on Tuesday. But the criticism is that he hasn't been talking about it. He's been on vacation. In fact, he was in Rehoboth Beach and reporters shouted asking him about the mounting death toll. And he said, nope, I'm not going to comment. And he gave like a grin that really doesn't play well, didn't play well in Hawaii and certainly has been amplified by his political opponents. You know, disasters are the kind of thing where a president can easily get it right, and they can also easily get it wrong. Yeah, I mean, these tragedies are always about tone for a president, how they interact, how they make people feel, whether it's in person or from afar. You know, when local officials look to the federal government, what do they really want from the government? They want money,

right? They want money, they want resources, they want FEMA to be able to come in, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, to be able to really supplement what's been going on because people are at their wits end. They're exhausted. They need help. And, you know, the White House would say that Biden didn't hear the question very well. They said that he, you know, that's why he had this sort of no comment that seemed curt, but it certainly fueled Republicans' criticism that he hasn't been

saying enough about things. You know, the White House would also point probably to the fact that, you know, the FEMA administrator would like more money, considering climate change and how all of these disasters are really taking an increased toll on communities all across the country and across the world, that the agency, that the federal government, that Democrats would like to increase this funding. But there is a fight right now over how much more money FEMA can get and FEMA having to dig into some reserve dollars. So part of the response is what the president and the White House can say and do from afar. But part of it is also about showing up. And Republicans have been criticizing the president in total for his response. So why, Tam,

did he not visit sooner? It's not clear that he could have visited much sooner simply because of the incredible resources that are required for a presidential visit. Whenever a president comes, they bring, they have this massive footprint. Now, it's important for the president to be there to see it, to be able to elevate the stories of the people who've been affected. But it also just takes local resources. No, I mean, there are logistical reasons, I hear you, for why the president couldn't go sooner. I think one of the challenges is in any moment like this, there's also the politics and we are running up against an election cycle. And so you've heard Republicans really vocally criticize him.

Right. But let's not act like this is something that the president should have done, you know, day one. He's not an emergency responder. Right. And this was an ongoing tragedy where people lost their lives. This was a historic part of Hawaii that he's going to now of Maui that just was devastated. Right. And what could a president really functionally do by going there on the ground? What they need the president to do is be engaged to be able to work with local officials to get them the money that they need

and the resources they need to get in there as soon as possible, and to be able to, number one, give them enough resources and funding to fight for that funding to recover, because this is going to be a very long road for that section of Maui. You know, I want to ask you both about broadly how presidential responses to natural disasters are interpreted by the public, right? Because to some degree, you have Biden going into Maui today.

He could be seen as a bridge builder, as a healer in a week when Republicans may be squabbling with themselves on the debate stage. But there are also some presidential visits that have gone terribly badly. And I think, Domenico, of George W. Bush with Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Definitely. I mean, obviously, that's the one that it's about optics, right? And the White House at the time would say that Bush flying over the area, looking out the window was him trying to surveil from higher ground to be able to get a sense. I think of that picture. Yeah.

Right. But that is the picture that sort of, you know, made him look aloof and out of it when really the White House would say that was only one part of what he was doing. So all of this has to be carefully choreographed. And that sounds terrible to say when people are losing their lives. But the fact is, you have to be there, be part of it, be on the ground, have the right tone. And that's a big problem in some respects sometimes. I mean, I also think about, you know, former President Trump going to Puerto Rico during Hurricane Maria and, you know, tossing paper towels out to folks. And it

just seemed like an odd thing to be doing. You know, you can really get yourself in trouble as a president when this is really something that should be a layup because you should like people, you should want to comfort them, you should want to be there for them. Well, and George W. Bush, it wasn't just that he looked aloof looking out of the window of Air Force One. Then he went to New Orleans and said, heck of a job to the FEMA administrator who had really botched the response. Michael Brown at the time. Yeah. And that you're right. I mean, I think that's the real issue here is the substance. Do they get the help they need? Can they recover in time? Do they have the money? Do they get the money? Yeah. And that is the big

question is, is the federal response now enough? And six months from now, a year from now, five years from now, will the federal response be looked upon favorably or unfavorably? Of course, politics moves in a different schedule. And I guess we'll see how that all plays out, because there's always these fights in Congress over additional aid money. It hasn't necessarily been easy to get that money through Congress in recent years. All right. It is time for a quick break. We'll be back in a moment. And we're back. And there was also a big tropical storm that flooded Southern California over the weekend. You know, Domenico, we are talking, it seems, about so many climate-related issues,

not just on today's pod, but rather routinely in the news. And it is an issue, I will say, in this election cycle, particularly on the Democratic side. We've seen that President Biden has passed what his administration touts as the biggest climate law in history, $369 billion aimed at combating climate change in the Inflation Reduction Act. But at the same time, you know, Biden has been criticized for breaking some climate promises, notably this promise to have no new drilling. And that's upset some particularly younger voters who really prioritize climate. How do you see this all playing out in terms of just Democratic-based voters? Well, I mean, there's clearly one party that's going in one direction and the other party that's going in another.

I mean, when we polled on this pretty recently, the majority of Democrats really take climate change very seriously and see it as a major threat. Republicans didn't. Seventy percent of them say that climate change is either just a minor threat or no threat at all. So that makes it really difficult to get things done when one side of the of the aisle just doesn't see it as a problem. Though the thing is, if you talk about resiliency, resiliency to storms, resiliency to big, bad hurricanes and wildfires. And you put federal money into helping communities be better prepared for climate disasters. And you don't call them climate disasters. Everybody wants that money. Everybody needs that money. And so, you know, yes, the politics of climate change are as polarized as anything else in our politics.

In terms of President Biden, he does talk about climate change a lot. Certainly, I was on this trip with him out west where it was a big theme, trying to basically shout from the rooftops, hey, we did this thing. It's called the Inflation Reduction Act, but it actually deals with climate change. So, guys, I'm dealing with climate change. He's out there touting it, trying to get attention to it, trying to get credit for it. But in terms of electoral politics, like, yes, climate motivated young voters are deeply disappointed in some of the moves that he's made or some of the projects that are being allowed to go forward. The White House would say they're forced to because of, you know, legal cases and whatever.

But are those young people going to go vote for a Republican? Probably not. Are they going to stay home? That's the question. Yeah, I mean, that's the issue, right? I mean, it's the level of enthusiasm overall that, you know, Biden sees the sag, you know, with younger voters who, you know, have shown that they're not don't have a high, high approval rating of Biden. It's a mix of whether or not they think that he really is the person who's their standard bearer for the things that they care about. He was never the like huge pick of of progressives in the first place. He was always seen as too middle of the road for some. And his age is an issue for the generational split that we've seen with younger voters just thinking that he's too old or doesn't get it.

That doesn't mean that they won't necessarily vote for Biden, especially if Trump is on the ballot, for example. They may very well go to the polls and do that. But it is definitely a piece of the electorate, a key pillar of the Democratic Party and coalitions and the Democrats' ability to win the presidency that this White House, that the Biden reelect campaign has to work on because it's a glaring red flag right now. You know, on that note, Tim, I want to ask you, what are you hearing from the White House, from Biden's team, about how he's trying to navigate this all

and trying to really energize this key part of the Democratic base? I heard you saying he was out there last week. What else and how else are they trying to do this? He is going to keep being out there. This man is going to go to every possible green energy production ribbon cutting he possibly can. They have cabinet secretaries out there, you know, by the side of the road with reporters watching them plug in electric cars into electric car chargers, talking about how they're going to build more infrastructure for this. They're out there. They're trying to sell it. I just wanted to come back to sort of go full circle to Hawaii and talk about the pure electoral politics of it, right? The state of Hawaii is a democratic state. It's not going to become a Republican state because of the federal

response to this disaster, which local officials who are all Democrats say the federal response has actually been pretty good. But where disasters become a problem is if it becomes a competence issue or a performance issue, if it transcends the state where it happens and tarnishes the administration's reputation for being able to serve the American people. I don't know that we're even close to there yet. All right. Well, on that note, let's leave it there for today. I'm Asma Khalid. I cover the White House. I'm Tamara Keith. I also cover the White House. And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. And thank you all, as always, for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.