The NPR Politics Podcast - Electoral College Convenes; COVID Vaccine Administered

Episode Date: December 14, 2020

The electoral college votes today around the country. After Biden is officially elected, the results head to Congress where they will be finalized. And: the first doses of the coronavirus vaccine were administered today in the United States — the beginning of a months-long process.This episode: congressional correspondent Susan Davis, national political correspondent Mara Liasson, voting reporter Miles Parks, and health reporter Pien Huang.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

Hi, this is Ami. I've just finished editing my first orchestra virtual winter concert where 100 middle schoolers performed holiday music together without ever playing in the same room. This podcast was recorded at 2.05 p.m. Eastern on Monday, December 14th. I want to hear some of that. Things may have changed by the time you hear this. Okay, here's the show. Oh, that's so great. Your wish shall be granted. That is singularly more impressive than anything I've managed to accomplish doing. Very cool.

Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Susan Davis. I cover Congress. I'm Miles Parks. I cover voting. And I'm Mara Liason, national political correspondent. And today, the nation's 538 electors are casting their votes for president. President-elect Joe Biden is going to deliver remarks tonight after those votes, and we'll be back after his speech with a special podcast on that. But first, you know, Miles, this is not typically a day that we tend to normally pay that much attention to in American politics. It's not. I mean, it's another situation where this very typical bureaucratic thing is now kind of elevated to the national attention,

mostly because of President Trump and President Trump's continued attacks on the election. You know, we've seen, we'll get into a little bit of the logistics here, but we've seen the polarization really take over this process a little bit. We've seen in Michigan, they've locked down the state capitol for this event. Arizona had to hold the electoral college vote in an undisclosed location citing security threats. So, you know, this thing that, you know, most election years we barely would have been talking about now has been this thing of kind of national interest. But this thing is really important because it makes the election official.

It does. It's one of the many steps that's built into the system so we can have free and fair elections and a peaceful transfer of power. Right. It's boring, but necessary. Yeah. People forget that it is. I mean, we kind of have to go over it every time these two months between November and January, basically, that people do not actually vote for president when they vote in early November. They vote to elect these electors, and then those electors then are required by federal law to meet on the, I believe it's the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December, to actually cast

the votes for president. And these votes that are being cast today are what will make Joe Biden the next president. Yeah. I mean, Miles, how does the process exactly work today? Do electors just sort of gather and affirm the votes of their states? Well, gather is in quotation marks, like everything in COVID times, right? I mean, so in some states, they will actually be physically gathering. You can watch these live streams. Most states live stream these events. So we've seen these electors gathering in state capitals in some situations in Arizona, like I mentioned, that was in a convention center. People are wearing masks. Some of the states have been doing these virtually. I just logged on and watched a little bit of Nevada's where they asked for the electors to vote. And each of the electors actually just held up the certificate of who they were voting for to the camera.

And the person's like counting in each of the little Zoom windows to make sure that all of the different votes are coming in. So basically, in each of these states and D.C., these electors cast their votes and then those votes are then mailed to Washington. And then in early January, January 6th, Congress will convene, open those votes, count them. It's the last step for any objections. And then Joe Biden will be president. Yeah, I mean, it's completely clear that Joe Biden has won this election and will, you know, be inaugurated in early January. But Republicans have been putting up a fight at every part of the process. And I don't imagine even after it gets certified again today that that's going to stop. And they're going to have another bite of that apple in early January when the House

has to sort of recognize the votes of the electors. And there's already talk that House Republicans will try to object to state results. The bottom line is you would need Congress in both chambers to agree to overturn state outcomes. And that's just not going to happen. Democrats control the House. And even beyond that, many Senate Republicans have indicated that they have no interest in playing these games. But it is going to sort of continue to sort of undermine what happened in this election for a significant number of people in this country. And the big drama around that, of course, will be Vice President Pence, who will preside over the Senate when that happens. Al Gore presided over the Senate when he had to accept

the election results that meant he didn't win. And it'll be really interesting since so many Republicans think that a viable future in the party means that they have to ally themselves with the false narrative that Trump is pushing that he really won or he was robbed. And we'll see what Mike Pence does at that really high profile moment when he'll be in the spotlight. I talked to an expert over the weekend who basically said the fact that the Electoral College is so complicated and the fact that our voting system is so complicated is why these conspiracy theories, specifically why these conspiracy theories can be successful. Because even we who focus on this stuff for our jobs have trouble keeping track of all

these dates and all these rules. You can imagine that, you know, if the Trump campaign wants to throw all these things into the atmosphere and just confuse people, it's really easy to do because the system is so confusing. Yeah. And just imagine what would happen if the election were actually close, which it wasn't. Yeah. Miles, you have spent, you know, the better part of the last two years covering voting and elections and the process. And I've always been impressed because you've always been able to find some joy in what has been, I think, a really tough beat and a lot of times focused on a lot of

anger in this country. And this week was also a bit of a historical milestone for yourself. A milestone. I see what you did there. So yeah, last week, a listener reached out to me and said on Twitter that she thinks of me every time she hears me on the podcast or on the radio because she used to live across the street from this place called Miles Park, and it was named for the nation's first faithless elector.

I mean, that, for me, as voting reporter Miles. Did you know that Miles Park was the nation's first faithless elector? Well, so it's actually named for Samuel Miles. I was now incredibly intrigued, as you can imagine. And so on Friday, I drove out to Miles Park and I talked to this great University of Pennsylvania law America, because, you know, the voters have acted, they've spoken. But there's still this tiny, tiny chance that these electors can meet in their state capitals and decide a different outcome than the one that the voters decided. I talked to her a lot about that. And basically, the conclusion she came to and a number of other experts I talked to is that faithless electors are going to be a lot less of a thing going forward because the Supreme Court ruled that states can now outlaw faithless electors.

They can put in place laws that basically make it illegal to be a faithless elector. And I just love that he got a park named after him for that. I mean, that's what Claire said. She was like, I don't think the park was named after him because he was a faithless elector. I think voters were probably pretty irritated about that. But he was also like a local politician and he had a farm near the area, from what I could tell. All right, Miles, we know you have to get back to reporting on the Electoral College. So we'll talk to you soon.

Thanks, guys. All right, let's take a quick break. And when we get back, the coronavirus vaccine has begun being administered in the United States. Today, some people argue that the Supreme Court has more power than all other branches of government. But when and how did the Supreme Court end up getting the final say? How the court became more powerful than anything the framers could have imagined. Listen now to the ThruLine podcast from NPR. And we're back and Ping Huang of NPR's health team is here.

Hey, Ping. Hi, Sue. It is so nice to have a member of the health or science team on with some good news for once. And today is a history making day. The coronavirus vaccine is here. It is being administered in the United States as of this morning. Can you talk a bit about what this first wave of doses,

you know, sort of where they're going and how they're getting there? Yeah, absolutely. So you're right. This is very exciting news. The first 3 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine, which was just authorized on Friday, is getting shipped out to all 50 states. It's arrived in some of them already, and they're making their way across the country on trucks from FedEx and UPS right now. Their destinations are mostly large hospitals or staging facilities within these states.

And these are all places that have ultra-cold freezers that are capable of storing the vaccines at negative 70 degrees Celsius. It's so much colder than your normal home freezer. These first doses are largely going to frontline health care workers and also to residents of nursing homes and other long-term care facilities. That's the plan. It was nice to see these scenes of sort of people getting the vaccine and just sort of the visuals of it, of the trucks going out and people getting it in their arm. And it just feels like it's sort of a hopeful day in

what's been a really long sort of dark year in the pandemic, especially as we've hit or approaching this 300,000 death mark. Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, one of the first people to receive the vaccine today was a black ICU nurse named Sandra Lindsay. She works at Long Island Jewish Medical Center in Queens, New York. And around 9am.m. this morning, before a bunch of video cameras, she got her first COVID vaccine shot. I felt a huge sense of relief after I got the vaccine. I was not nervous. As I've mentioned before, I trust the science. So I had no hesitation when I was asked if I would take the vaccine.

I've been waiting for this day forever. There are other people around the country getting vaccines today too, but I wanted to note that today's shots are largely ceremonial. You know, around the country, there are immunization managers and hospitals that are working really hard to stay in programs to give out a vaccine. In some ways, this is something that they've been preparing for for months, but in other ways, you know, the details of the vaccine are brand new. They need to train people on how to get them out, what questions to ask people about contraindications and how to make sure

people come back at the right time for the second shot. So there's still a lot of work happening right now to make sure that these vaccines can actually get out and into people's arms as quickly and smoothly as possible. Mara, there's such a contrast between sort of this hopeful, real time moment of today and sort of the mess that's still happening in Washington with trying to deliver more pandemic relief. And I wonder if maybe this progress might be able to force Washington to sort of get their act together and get something done. Well, that's a good question, or let them off the hook because they think we're now, you know, turning the corner with the vaccine. But the fact is that to get this vaccine to people is going to take a lot of money. And Congress needs to provide that. They've already

provided some for vaccine distribution. But it's true. Right now, thousands, hundreds of thousands of people are facing the end of their unemployment benefits. Lots of people are facing the end of their protection from eviction and foreclosure. And Congress has not been able to act on a new round of relief, despite the fact that we are getting close to 300,000 Americans dead from COVID. And I wanted to add to Mara's point as well about the money that's needed for vaccine distribution. You know, today, the CDC gave out $140 million to states, and that's in addition to around $200 million that they've already given states to help plan for this. But that actually falls really short of what states say that they need to actually efficiently give out this vaccine. You know,

state health officials have been asking Congress for around $8 billion for this. And you know, that's money that's also tied up in this round of relief funding that's stuck in Congress. You know, what we don't know is whether this will become like testing. Remember, testing was supposed to be available to anyone, anywhere. Turned out it wasn't. There were huge long lines. Sometimes the test didn't come back. Or it took so long to get the test back that it was essentially useless. We don't know if that's what's going to happen here. These are huge hurdles for the Biden team, actually, because a lot of this is going to happen after January 20th.

Pink, can you talk a little bit about those logistics and that timeline? I think for a lot of our listeners, and I will put myself in this camp, the question a lot of Americans are asking themselves today is, when can I get it? If you're not a priority person, a health care worker, or someone that's put at the top of the line, what's realistic? What are healthcare experts saying for when regular people will be able to get this? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, like you said, this is like monumental in terms of the logistical challenges. But you know, we just heard today from some federal government officials from Operation Warp Speed, they are saying that they will probably be able to have enough vaccines to be able to

deliver a vaccine to every American who wants one by the middle of next year. So probably around mid-June or so. That was their timeline today. Now, that does really depend on everything going as planned so far. And even just in these first days and weeks, we're watching, you know, for logistics, we want to make sure that those vaccines are getting to the addresses where they're actually supposed to go and that those cold chain requirements are stable. You know, the government has kept back a reserve supply of around 500,000

doses. And so far on day one, they haven't needed to tap into it yet. But you know, those are, those are big logistical hurdles and issues that they're facing right now. Yeah. Well, for now, I think it's nice just to have a good optimistic day when it comes to the pandemic. It feels good because we've done a whole lot of podcasts about what a long, hard year it's been. So, Ping, thanks so much for coming on and giving us something to feel good about. Yeah. Thank you for having me.

And this is a really exciting day. And don't forget, we'll be back in your feeds tonight with a special episode after President-elect Joe Biden's remarks. I'm Susan Davis. I cover Congress. I'm Mara Liason, national political correspondent. And thank you for listening to the Empire Politics Podcast.