The NPR Politics Podcast - DOJ Announces Minneapolis Police Investigation; Biden Governs With An Eye On History

Episode Date: April 21, 2021

One day after a jury convicted former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin on murder charges, the U.S. Justice Department launched an investigation into possible patterns of discrimination and excessive force among the police department there. President Biden, the oldest man to occupy the nation's highest office, is conspicuously concerned with how history will remember him.This episode: White House correspondent Ayesha Rascoe, national correspondent Cheryl Corley, national justice correspondent Carrie Johnson, national political correspondent Mara Liasson, and senior political editor and correspondent Ron Elving.Connect:Subscribe to the NPR Politics Podcast here.Email the show at [e-mail] the NPR Politics Podcast Facebook Group.Listen to our playlist The NPR Politics Daily Workout.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

Hey, this is Max in Tampa, Florida, and I'm taking a walk before I present at my first-ever research conference. This podcast was recorded at... It is 1.33 p.m. on Wednesday, April 21st. Things may have changed by the time you are hearing this. Here's the show. Well, congratulations on your first presentation. I'm sure it went well. Yeah, thanks for listening. Yes. So, yeah, public speaking. It's kind of tough doing it right now. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Aisha Roscoe. I cover the White House.

I'm Keri Johnson, national justice correspondent. And the Justice Department is opening a sweeping investigation into policing practices in Minneapolis. That is the city where former police officer was convicted of George Floyd's murder. Attorney General Merrick Garland announced that he would be conducting this investigation this morning. And NPR's Cheryl Corley has been covering all of this from Minneapolis. Hey, Cheryl. Hey. Carrie, what does an investigation like the one that Merrick Garland announced, what does that actually mean in practice? This is an investigation by civil rights lawyers in Washington in the U.S. Attorney's Office in Minnesota.

And it's what's called a pattern or practice investigation. It's going to look at whether in Minneapolis there's a pattern or practice of unconstitutional policing. And we'll look at the whole department, things like the use of force and force used during protests, whether the police there engage in discriminatory practices. Garland said it's also going to look into the department's handling of misconduct allegations and its treatment of people with behavioral health issues. And it's going to look at the current systems of accountability to make sure they are working.

And if they are not, to examine why not. Cheryl, you know, you obviously you're on the ground in Minneapolis. What is the reaction to having an announcement like this? Was this expected? You know, it's been interesting because the former Attorney General Bill Barr decided not to do an investigation of the Minneapolis Police Department. But now we see a return to this kind of practice, which was very strong under the Obama administration, and now the Biden administration returning to it. You know, there have been a number of excessive force complaints lodged against the Minneapolis Police Department and charges of discrimination, even from the now chief of the police department, who as a lieutenant was part of a lawsuit accusing the Department of discriminatory and racist practices and behavior. So, you know, I think that might be one of the reasons that he applauds this decision coming now, especially after the death of George Floyd. This comes after Biden promised last night that his administration would take police abuse and brutality seriously. You've both covered these pattern or practice investigations before. Does this investigation feel different? Well, you know, certainly we have a new sheriff in town at the Justice Department,

Attorney General Merrick Garland, who said he's basically spent his entire adult life in law enforcement. But he said today, Ayesha, that good officers welcome accountability and that public safety requires public trust. And that's going to be a mantra I think we're going to hear from this Justice Department and this White House. Moving forward, they're trying to build trust between police and communities. They know it's going to be hard. But the attorney general said today it's an urgent effort and they got to get to work on it now. To me, it's very similar to investigations that we've seen in the past. You know, and a lot of these investigations begin when there's a

particularly egregious use of force or some sort of incident that spurs, you know, widespread protests. Like in Chicago, where I'm from, it was the shooting death of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald, who was shot by a police officer 16 times. And that caused this really national outrage, prompted the Department of Justice to come in. The officer in that case, Jason Van Dyke, was found guilty. But we've seen it too in Ferguson, Missouri, with the death of Michael Brown and the widespread protests that occurred then, and now here with the murder of George Floyd. So in some sense, you know, very similar to investigations that we've seen in the past when we've had these types of incidents where police have killed an

individual, usually a person of color. And what generally can come out of these sorts of investigations? What can they actually force police departments to do? Well, you know, these are very detailed plans for reforms. These investigations, they come up with these huge reports that are pages and pages long, and they're telling police departments these are the things that you have to do. Some of the changes include, like, use of force policies, what needs to be different. Some of them call for more training or outreach to communities, practices in crisis intervention, what police have to do, and even things like just collecting data, like how many police stops do you make, how many involve

people of color, you know, those sorts of things. And police departments have timelines that they must meet. A federal judge will select an independent monitor who reviews whether the police department is actually meeting these deadlines and really complying with the requirements of the consent decree. So these, like I said, are very detailed plans and generally takes a couple of years at the very least for departments to make changes or follow along and meet these timelines. You know, I just point out, you know, we talked about how in the Trump administration, this whole tool for civil rights enforcement had kind of fallen out of favor. It's only last Friday that the new Attorney General Merrick Garland revoked a Trump administration memo that would have made it very, very hard for the Justice Department and the Civil

Rights Division to investigate these kinds of problems. And if they find trouble to go to court and sue and begin this process of getting a consent decree. So this action from DOJ last week kind of clears the path. And I think we're going to see a lot more of these kinds of pattern or practice investigations moving forward. All right. Well, let's leave it there for now. Cheryl, Carrie, we're going to let you go and go about your day. Thanks for joining us to talk about this. Thanks. Happy to do it. All righty. Bye-bye.

All right. We're going to take a quick break. And when we come back, we're going to talk about this. Thanks. Happy to do it. All righty. Bye-bye. All right. We're going to take a quick break. And when we come back, we're going to talk about how Biden's choices in this moment will help to shape how he's remembered by history. In stressful times, you want to spend your time checking out not just what's best, but what's best for you. We know you care about what you watch, what you read, and what you listen to. NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour podcast is with you five days a week to make sure that time is well spent. Listen now to the Pop Culture Happy Hour podcast from NPR. And we're back with Mara Liason and Ron Elving. Hey, guys. Hi there.

Good to be with you. At this point with the pandemic, with the verdict yesterday, this moment for civil rights, Biden is at a really historic moment. And he is a president that has been really focused on history or had an eye for how he will be viewed by history. Yes, he does. And he's actually called historians in to speak to him, advise him, if you will. And he has invited comparisons to the iconic Democratic presidents of successful former eras, LBJ in the 1960s, FDR in the 1930s. And he's trying to, in some sense or another, invoke, if you will, the better spirits of democratic achievements in administrations early days in the past. He's doing this by going to a very large scale with his first legislative things that he's pushing. He pushed the COVID aid relief package, which passed, that was, I think, $2 trillion. I think it was $2 trillion. What's a trillion dollar here or there?

And now he's pushing infrastructure, which is just the first half of it is $2 trillion. I mean, that is massive, Mara, like what he's trying to do in a very short period of time. Look, Democratic presidents want to do things with government. That's why they are sometimes more ambitious than Republican presidents who pretty much want to cut taxes and confirm judges. But Biden has a very ambitious agenda. It's kind of a new, new deal. Big investments in infrastructure, both physical and human. And he knows he has a tiny little window. Most presidents can only get anything done in the first two years. And Biden has a minuscule majority in the House and Senate to do it with. So he is somebody who's very cognizant of history. He wants to be a transformative

president. Ron, when you look at kind of the historical comparisons, obviously nothing is totally appropriate because each presidency, each time is different. But what is the historical precedent for what Biden is trying to get done? It's not a direct comparison, but FDR and LBJ could only dream of spending money the way Joe Biden is spending money. It isn't just that Joe Biden is in the trillions. It's that even adjusted for inflation, these are far, far greater sums of money than even FDR and LBJ might have imagined. But what FDR was able to do was largely to transform the way people in the United States thought of government, the acceptance of a social

welfare program far beyond anything people had seen before, a change in labor management relationships far beyond anything people had seen before. And so that was probably more transformative across the board than Biden could be, even if he got everything he wanted, even if he were to reach for things beyond what he has thus far committed to, such as a Green New Deal or some sort of international global climate agreement. The thing with him trying to transform the way that people look at government, or that's what some, you know, that's what FDR did. But when you look at some of these other presidents, they were able to dominate the media landscape in a way where everything right now is so, you know, split and scattered that it's really impossible to duplicate.

And Biden isn't even trying. You know, he's not trying to dominate the media landscape. He knows he can't expand his coalition. He can only energize it. Donald Trump never expanded his coalition, even though he did dominate the media. So Biden is trying to pass this stuff and then he'll do a victory lap and sell it the way he did with the COVID relief bill. I think he understands the new moment he's in. Some people called him naive about Congress, thinking that Republicans would want to deal with him. I think he's pretty clear-eyed about what he can and can't do. And I think that he's trying to take advantage of a very unique moment in American history. He happens to have come into the White House at a time when

there's a new consensus about activist government. The Reagan era, where government was the problem, not the solution, is pretty much over. And because of COVID, because of Trump, because of January 6th, people are willing to look to government and say, yes, government should make investments, government should help me. And Biden is going to take advantage of that moment. Right now, though, he is focused on these issues that are popular. Getting COVID aid is pretty popular. Doing infrastructure, depending on how you define it, is pretty popular. There are other things that are more tricky, like civil rights reforms, racial justice. What do you think, Mara, about how he might move on those issues and the way that that squares with his focus on all these things that are so more popular and more widely well-received? Well, I think he's

just going to do infrastructure first. I think he wants to move a voting rights bill. I think he wants to do police and civil rights reforms. He's just not going to do them first. And also, you know, Congress has to move. Congress has to decide what kind of legislation it wants. I think he'll push hard for those things. But as he said in his first solo press conference, successful presidents know how to prioritize and sequence. They know what to do first and what to do second. And that's, I think, the key to understanding Joe Biden. He's going to do infrastructure first, then he's going to move on to all these other things that, yes, will be harder, immigration, civil rights, police reform. But I do think he'll do them.

He's just not going to do them right away. All right. Well, let's leave it there for now. I'm Ayesha Roscoe. I cover the White House. I'm Mara Liason, national political correspondent. And I'm Ron Elving, editor correspondent. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.