The NPR Politics Podcast - Black Democrats Fired By Tenn. GOP Peers After Gun Protest

Episode Date: April 7, 2023

Tennessee House Republicans voted to expel Reps. Justin Jones and Justin Pearson after they led a protest on the floor of the chamber in response to a recent deadly school shooting in Nashville.Rep. Gloria Johnson, who also participated in the protest, held on to her seat by a single vote and suggested that's because she is white. And the Biden administration released a report shifting blame for the chaotic final days of American troops in Afghanistan to the Trump administration. The document offered little information about what errors may have led to the deaths of 13 American soldiers amid a chaotic exit that left a number of Afghan allies stranded.This episode: White House correspondent Tamara Keith, White House correspondent Asma Khalid, Nashville Public Radio reporter Blaise Gainey, Pentagon correspondent Tom Bowman, and congressional reporter Barbara Sprunt.The podcast is produced by Elena Moore and Casey Morell. It is edited by Eric McDaniel. Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi. Research and fact-checking by Devin Speak.Unlock access to this and other bonus content by supporting The NPR Politics Podcast+. Sign up via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org. Giveaway: npr.org/politicsplusgiveaway 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 Johnny. I'm sitting on the beaches of Ghana about to celebrate my daughter Malia's 11th birthday. This podcast was recorded at 12.11 p.m. on Friday the 7th of April. Things may have changed by the time you hear this, but I'll still be enjoying my life in Ghana. Enjoy the show! Well, happy birthday, Malia! Happy birthday! Enjoy the show. And I'm Asma Khalid. I also cover the White House. And we are joined by Blaise Gainey of Nashville Public Radio. Hey there. Hi, how are you? Great. So you have had a busy couple of weeks. Tennessee's Republican-dominated House voted Thursday to remove two Democratic lawmakers for violating decorum. After the mass shooting that killed three children and three adults at a school in Nashville, they led a protest from the House floor calling for gun control legislation.

No violence, no peace. No violence, no peace. And so with Republicans united and Democrats dramatically outnumbered, the two lawmakers were expelled, leaving in the wake an intense conversation about racial politics, majority rule and democracy itself. expelled, leaving in the wake an intense conversation about racial politics, majority rule and democracy itself. So, Blaise, you were in the Capitol last night for all the drama, but I want to go back. Let's start with these men, who they are and and what was the protest about? Yeah. So Representative Justin Jones of Nashville and Representative Justin J. Pearson of Memphis

are both black men under 30 years old and before being elected were activists and led successful protests in their prospective cities. of people that were calling for Republicans to take action in the General Assembly, mostly led by Republicans, to take action on gun control. They were calling for things like red flag laws, also some more extreme ideas like banning assault rifles. But this only came after they tried to bring up the conversation multiple times, but House Speaker Cameron Sexton cut their mics. So they went to the podium in the House. That's like not a thing that you're technically allowed to do. This was a protest. The rule that they broke was going to the podium or the well is what it's called officially. And then having a megaphone or a sign would also break another House rule. Were they interrupting any

session, Blaise? It's interesting you say that. They were in. Were they interrupting any session, Blaise? It's interesting you say that. They were in the middle of a floor session, but this was right after a bill was voted on and the next bill hadn't been called up yet. So technically it was like sort of an intermission period, except the speaker hadn't actually called for a recess. So to be clear, these two Black men were expelled after their protest. However, they were not the only people protesting. There was a third lawmaker who joined in that protest, and she advocate for children. You know, she stood up there with her colleagues.

She didn't grab the megaphone. She didn't hold up a sign and she didn't appear to yell as loud as the two black men next to her. So when I spoke with Representative William Lamberth, the Republican leader in the House, he said that other members who did not vote for her to be expelled felt that she did not reach the level the other men did because she was not as loud. Johnson had a different analysis about what the difference was. Gloria, why do you feel like there was a difference in the outcome between you and your colleague? I'll answer your question. It might have to do with the color of our skin. You know, Blaise, beyond the way that this looks,

it sends a signal whether or not, you know, some of the Republican lawmakers intended to send that signal or not. And it feels like it shifted the conversation overnight to be more than guns. And it quickly became this racial debate in a way that it didn't need to be if that's what they were trying to push for. And I'm very confused with why Republican lawmakers thought that this was a politically judicious thing to do. Yeah. The House Speaker Cameron Sexton has said multiple times that this is not about who they are. It's more so about the fact that they broke decorum and what they did has never happened before. And they actually, the House GOP released a statement today saying

unprecedented measures receive unprecedented consequences. So Asma, the White House has weighed in on this. Blaze, it's noteworthy to me to hear you use that word unprecedented, because that is the same tone that the president struck when he issued this statement. He said that this was without precedent. He described it as being shocking and undemocratic. And then he said that, you know, rather than in fact debating the merits of the gun issue after this tragic mass shooting that took place in Nashville the other week, that here you have lawmakers choosing to punish, silence, and in his words, expel duly elected representatives of the people of Tennessee.

Biden reiterated his calls for Congress to do something around guns, you know, whether that's banning assault weapons, whether that's requiring stricter background checks, and he wants to see state officials do the same. But his point here is that rather than focus on the issue that, you know, resulted from this mass shooting the other week, here you have Republican lawmakers, in fact, trying to shut down the debate. Blaise, were there other options? Like, I guess I do want to get to the precedent here. Have people been expelled before? And, you know, is there like, you know, an ethics committee or something short of expulsion?

You know, it's so funny that you bring that up. There is an ethics committee. The two people who were expelled before in the House, one was in the 80s and one was in 2016. The more recent one was after a man was accused of sexual assault by more than 20 women. That person was not expelled right away. It took months to expel him. It went through an investigation. It took time. A lot of people have said that he was given the correct due process in this matter. Now, the person in the 80s, I believe, was also not expelled right away, but they were accused of bribing another lawmaker for their vote. So very different things.

Yes, their matters were much more serious. They committed crimes. And these two lawmakers who were punished here just broke house rules. Now, I'm not saying house rules don't matter, but they could have just been silenced. They could have been removed from committees, which they were removed from committees. Representative Justin J. Pearson had actually never been assigned to committees because he was a pretty new representative. And for some reason, a lot of people were actually upset about this. He hadn't been assigned to committees yet at all. So there was action taken already of removing the members who had committees from their committees. But for some reason, members felt it responsible to expel them fully. Right. And now this goes to the local councils to appoint replacements.

And they've signaled that they'll probably send these two men right back to their seats. So a lot to watch for. Blaise Ganey of Nashville Public Radio, thank you for your reporting. Thank you. And we're going to take a quick break and we'll be right back. And we're back and we're joined by NPR's Tom Bowman, who covers the Defense Department. Hi, Tom. Good to be with you. Good to have you. The Biden administration this week finally released its analysis of the 2021 U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby

laid out what was in the report and defended the Biden administration's handling of the withdrawal. He didn't negotiate with the Taliban. He didn't invite the Taliban to Camp David. He didn't release 5,000 prisoners. He didn't reduce force levels in Afghanistan to 2,500. And he didn't have an arrangement with the Taliban that they weren't attack our troops. He came in with a certain set of circumstances. He had no ability to change. He had to deal with it based on what he had. The U.S. did withdraw troops there in the summer of 2021, ending nearly two decades of conflict. But the exit was chaotic. Thirteen troops died in an attack, and Afghans who had helped Americans were left scrambling to escape as Kabul fell.

So, Tom, this report was a long time in coming. What does it say was the reason for the chaos? Well, a lot of this is blaming the Trump administration. Right. They negotiated with the Taliban and the agreement said everybody out, all the U.S. out by May. And also, he's right. They did reduce the troop numbers as well, down to 2,500. So it didn't give you a good enough force to really do anything. So that was a problem, too. Here's another thing.

A lot of that Taliban deal that was done by the Trump administration, some of that is still secret to this day. And that's a question for members of Congress and the administration. Why don't you release all that secret information? It's over. You know, I've got to echo you there, Tom. I'm just struck in reading through the summary that the White House released yesterday of how much that document seems to be a political document. It's seeking to punt, maybe you could say justify what happened, but not really accept any accountability. And in fact, John Kirby was asked during the White House press briefing about this. And he said, you know,

the purpose of this document is not about accountability today. It's about understanding and gleaning some lessons learned. But, you know, I think for anybody maybe seeking to understand if the White House took fault for anything that happened, or if there were sort of specific mistakes, you don't get that in this document. It's largely about blaming the previous administration for not adequately planning what went on. And you heard John Kirby say that, you know, kind of time and again when he was asked questions during the briefing. Well, while it was always the president's intent to end that war, it is also undeniable that decisions made and the lack of planning done by the previous administration significantly limited options available to him. The problem is they don't talk about the problems

the Biden administration had. Now, the military told the State Department, you should start removing people, start moving Afghans and start removing American civilians in May, because that's the agreement that was reached with the Taliban. The U.S. had to leave by May. They should have started earlier on. And if you read the document, it's like, well, we had discussions with interagency for months. They didn't start removing people until August. Wow.

Really, when the whole place started falling apart. And then Kirby basically says, I didn't see any chaos. Any air breather watching TV could see the streets clogged with people, thousands of people, their families, their belongings, holding up documents that showed they work with the Americans, even, you know, hoisting their children over the wall so the American military could grab them and bring them to safety. It was completely chaotic. They should have started moving people out much, much earlier in the spring. They failed to do that. And there's nothing in that report that even talks about that. Yeah, they talk about the need to plan earlier for these kind of, I believe their words were low probability, high risk scenarios, right? The idea being that the Taliban would take over Afghanistan very quickly. And they say that their experiences in Afghanistan informed their decisions for how they've been able to deal with the conflict in Ukraine and some of their planning there. So that is their explanation of one lesson learned that this report may not be totally satisfying to everyone,

but lessons have been learned and absorbed. Tom, have lessons been learned and absorbed? Has the U.S. military or State Department or apparatus of U.S. defense adjusted based on what happened there? Not that I see. And they say, you know, with Ukraine, for example, we started moving people out fairly quickly. But that's apples and oranges here. Ukraine is nothing like what you saw in Afghanistan. Again, when you saw thousands of people trying to get out, it was chaos. And also, if you read the report, it said, well, we thought we would have plenty of time that the Kabul government wouldn't fall for maybe a year or two. Anybody that spent any time

in Afghanistan talking to people, as I did, knew that once the Americans started pulling out, the whole thing would fall apart. The Afghan army was never any good. They had a commando force that was quite good, but everyone knew, anyone who knew anything about Afghanistan knew that country would fall very rapidly. And it did in the spring and into the early summer. And the Biden administration didn't move fast enough. I mean, that's what I kept coming back to, Tom, is the sense that, you know, we're inching closer to a 2024 election. I mean, I hate to be the cynic that looks at everything through a political lens, but there really wasn't any sense of accountability here. And to your point about, you know, the

Taliban very quickly taking over, you hear the White House saying that no agency predicted that that would happen. And then, you know, you hear from someone like yourself who spent time on the ground and they said, well, they ought to have known that this could happen. The best case scenario I heard was the Taliban would take over the entire country, including Kabul, by October. So don't give me this one year, two year thing. Nobody thought that was going to happen. The real problem, if you're stepping back here, isn't about the withdrawal. It's about 20 years spent in Afghanistan. And there was never any real hearings on this, never any oversight hearings like you had during Vietnam with the Fulbright hearings. Why is the U.S. in Afghanistan? What is it trying to accomplish? You never had those serious

hearings. It was always some general coming in and saying, I'm heading off to Afghanistan. It's getting better by the day. The Afghan forces are getting better. Again, it was a fiction. And no one, the Democrats and Republicans on the Hill, nobody wanted to own this thing. Well, I guess there's an argument that the administration in charge is perhaps not the best to do a clear-eyed assessment of what went right and what went wrong. Is there any chance of ultimately understanding truly what happened or learning from Afghanistan? Yeah, there is a commission on the Afghan war that has begun or will begin shortly, looking at these larger questions about what was the point of nation building in Afghanistan?

Did anyone think it had a chance of success? How good was the Afghan army? And again, they weren't that good. But the generals and others at the Pentagon kept saying they're getting better by the day. And again, that was just not the case for those of us who spent a lot of time on the ground. The other thing was corruption. They never effectively dealt with corruption, which is rampant in Afghanistan and which drove many people into the arms of the Taliban. They didn't trust their government.

So if you have a government that people don't trust, if you have a military that's fairly incompetent, what can you actually achieve in that country? Are you going to send an 18, 19-year-old kid to force a cultural change in that country, create a new government, new judiciary? No one was asking these questions for the past 20 years on the Hill. All right. We are going to leave it there for now. Tom is part of a new podcast from NPR called Taking Cover. You can find that anywhere you find your podcasts. Tom, thank you so much. Good to be with you. We're going to take a quick break. And then when we get back, it's time for Can't Let It Go. And we're back and it's time to end the show like we do every week with Can't Let It Go, the part of the pod where we talk about the things from the week that we just cannot stop

talking about politics or otherwise. And Barbara Sprunt is here to crash Can't Let It Go. Hello, Barbara. Hi. And I'm going to go first. And the thing that i cannot let go of is that there is an actual snakes on a plane incident what in real life for real i didn't hear about this oh yes so a pilot in south africa named rudolph erasmus said i felt this little cold sensation underneath my shirt. Wait, he was the pilot of the plane while he was flying? He looked down and he says he could see the head of the snake receding back under his seat. Oh my God, that's terrifying. I don't know actually how this was resolved. How did he like keep the plane?

I'd be like autopilot. I didn't get all my clothes. From the movie Airplane, autopilot. Do we know what kind of snake it was? Oh, we do. It is a highly venomous cape cobra. Lord above, I would be. Well, he lived to tell the story.

So it seems like everything was resolved. I think things worked out. Apparently, this was like a small private plane, I think, because he informed his passengers of what was going on. And somehow, everybody remained calm. That's okay. If I were on board that aircraft, I A, would not want to know what was going on in the cockpit of a snake nature.

And if I did find out, I would not be calm. Yeah, I also don't know how the snake got on the plane. Yeah. Anywho. Barbara, what can't you let go of? Well, now I'm going to be thinking about that for a very long time. So thank you for sharing. Keep one eye open.

Seriously. What I can't let go of this week is that Love is Blind, the popular dating television show. Oh, the show. Yeah, is apparently casting for its future season here in DC. And I just love this for many reasons. One, because I feel like, oh, maybe we'll just probability wise know someone who ends up on the show. And that would be a fun viewing experience. But I also think DC culture has, is so unique that I am excited to see the ways that it kind of manifests on the show. Like I, I love the idea of like people, because the, the pretense of the show is potential couples meet and talk and see if they would connect and they're separated by like a

barrier. So they can't see each other hence the name like is love blind you know sight unseen but in dc yeah it doesn't matter what you look like the only thing that matters is what you do that's what i was gonna say from the other side of the screen what do you do i know and i just love the idea of like talking like through the wall being like so what's your take on mandatory minimums? And like, I just think the politics of it will come out in a cool way. And apparently, they're looking for people on LinkedIn. So if you're in DC, you may get a LinkedIn message from one of the show's producers, seeing if you're game to be a contestant. Okay, so quick question before we ever go. Would you really ever go on a reality show? Absolutely not.

Okay. 100%. Me neither. Me neither. Wait, aren't we on the radio version of reality TV right now? Yeah, but notice how we don't say anything personal about ourselves. Bingo. I don't need, you know, no thank you.

Asma, what can't you let go of? So this week, Tuesday, I believe, yeah, that was when Donald Trump got arraigned. It feels like this week. It's been a very long week. But Donald Trump was arraigned, right, in New York City. But New York City is New York City, and lots of life goes on with or without Donald Trump being there to face his day in court. And so there were couples who showed up, right, to get married and perform like normal living things that they want to do, not knowing that Donald Trump was going to be arraigned in court that day. And I loved it. I mean, there's quite a few couples, it seems like, have had this experience. But there was one couple story that I saw shared online that I thought was beautiful.

It was this guy, Peter Don and Khalia Beckford. They were college sweethearts. And they did not apparently know. Like they'd heard about this, wasn't really sure it was going on. They apparently were the first people in line to get, I guess it's the marriage certificate, right, that you usually go to City Hall for. You get a marriage license. Marriage license, exactly. And, you know, people asked them about or reporters ask them about what was

going on with trump and they initially were like well the cameras are here for us this is our big day and i was like this is a way to own your wedding right regardless of what is actually happening in the world you have to like lean in at that point they're probably getting better pictures of their civil ceremony they got all the photojournalists out there i know i know they send know. They send the pictures of the big day to their friends and at the bottom it's like, credit to Reuters, credit to Getty Images. I love it. All right, that is a wrap for today. Our executive producer is Mathani Mathuri. Our editor is Eric McDaniel. Our producers are Elena Moore and Casey Morrell. Research and fact-checking by our intern, Devin Speak. Thanks to Krishnadev Kalamar and Lexi Schapittle. I'm

Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. I'm Asma Khalid. I also cover the White House. And I'm Barbara Sprunt. I cover Congress. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.