The NPR Politics Podcast - How Tennessee and Colorado Are Responding to Pandemic

Episode Date: April 1, 2020

As the White House warns the American public to expect 100 thousand or more deaths from the coronavirus outbreak, the administration is deferring to states to determine the best response. Many of those governors are looking to the federal government for more support. This episode: congressional correspondent Susan Davis, political correspondent Scott Detrow, WPLN reporter Sergio Martínez-Beltrán, and Colorado Public Radio reporter Bente Birkeland.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

This is Francesca calling from Paris, France, leaning out my window, applauding all the hospital workers in France and around the world who are busting their butts to keep us safe and healthy. This podcast was recorded at 2.11pm on Wednesday, April 1st. Things may have changed by the time you hear this, but we'll be clapping in

gratitude every night. Okay, here's the show. I think that's one thing we can all clap at, Scott. That was pretty life-affirming right there. Yeah, you know, I have a friend who lives in Manhattan, and she sent me video the first night they did that in New York City, and I did not expect to be moved as much as I was. I ended up crying watching the video. But it's just, you know, we're all by ourselves in a lot of ways, but there's so much community happening. And moments like that, I think, have really been meaningful for a lot of people. We can all use a little feel good right now. Yeah.

Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Susan Davis. I cover Congress. I'm Scott Detrow, and I'm covering the White House. Say what now, Scott? Yeah, you know, the primary slowed down a little, and the White House beat is a little bit more busy at the moment. So I'm helping the White House team for a while throughout this coronavirus crisis. Scott, you are the ultimate jack of all trades. Whenever there is a beat that's on fire that needs somebody sent to it, Scott Detrow is on the case and we appreciate you for it.

I've collected a lot of beats over the years. They absolutely have. And we'll start the podcast today talking about the White House because yesterday at the White House briefing, President Trump announced some pretty breathtaking numbers about the toll the coronavirus could take on the country, saying that we need to be prepared to see an estimated 100,000 to 240,000 Americans potentially die from the virus. When you see 100,000 people, and that's at a minimum number. Now, what we're looking at, and as many people as we're talking about, whatever we can do under that number and substantially under that number, we've done that substantially under that number. We've done that

through really great mitigation. We've done that through a lot of very dedicated American people that, you know, 100,000 is, according to modeling, a very low number. Now, public health officials say those numbers are based on current assumptions. It could get a lot better than that. But Scott, the president was pretty clear there's some tough days for the country ahead. And it's coming in a wave, most likely over the next few weeks. Already, more people have died from the coronavirus in the United States than died on 9-11, which I think for many of us is the, you know, horrific marker in our lives. And now we're talking about a death toll that's going to

exceed a lot of American wars. And it's just totally incomprehensible. And I think watching that briefing last night, it really jumped out to me that this was a moment that President Trump was very somber, very serious about this likely death toll in a way that he just had not been up until that point in these briefings. Well, the White House has a plan to combat the virus. And they've said that their strategy is to let states and local governments take the lead, the federal government obviously serving as backup, passing trillions of dollars in aid that is on its way. But we wanted to bring in some of our local NPR station reporters to talk about how it's going on the ground in the states. Welcome to the podcast.

Please introduce yourselves. Hi, I'm Sergio Martinez Beltran, and I cover state politics for WPLN News in Nashville, Tennessee. And I'm Benta Brooklyn. I cover politics for Colorado Public Radio. First, how are you guys doing and sort of what's life in your communities like right now? Well, you know, just something funny. I thought I had a regular size closet until I had to get in it to record this podcast. And then I realized it's a tiny, maybe a kid's size closet. But you know, everything's relative. But you know, we're in self-quarantine, working from home. The whole state, it's pretty much working from home at this point.

We have almost 20,000 state employees working from home as well. So yeah, it's pretty much a ghost town for now. The same story in Colorado. We have a work from home order and Colorado Public Radio employees are working from homes, state government folks, our state legislature is on a temporary pause. So it's a radical shift from just a few weeks ago in terms of how our state was operating. Well, the president's decision to let the states lead is not without some criticism. This morning on Morning Edition, retired Army General Stanley McChrystal talked to Rachel Martin, and he was critical of the president here. And we should note that McChrystal is

consulting for the city of Boston on how they are responding to the virus. We should not be fighting COVID-19 as 50 separate fights, 50 separate states and territories, and certainly not at individual municipal levels. This needs to be a collaborative, national-level fight. So, Sergio Benta, what's the view from the states on this? So, I'm not seeing a lot of pushback, at least in Tennessee. You know, Governor Bill Lee is a Republican, and he's been very grateful for the federal government. In fact, yesterday, he announced that the state had received a federal grant that would help with mental health services in underserved areas. Now, that grant was already, you know, in the works

before the pandemic, but still, he's been very grateful about it. And he's talking about a partnership with the federal government and the federal delegation. So at least in Tennessee, Governor Bill Lee has not been criticizing the president. In Colorado, we have a Democratic governor, Jared Polis, but he's largely tried to avoid criticizing President Trump. I'd say so far in our state, people have tried to put politics on the back burner. We're seeing some of that come up a little bit now, and we may see more as things continue. But Governor Polis has talked about the needs the state has and what he'd like to see from the federal government in terms of more personal protective equipment for healthcare workers and ventilators and things we're hearing from states across the country. But he also praised

President Trump for giving Colorado a major disaster declaration, and that will give us more federal resources. So do the states feel like they're getting what they need as of right now? I think for now, the governor of Tennessee thinks that we are receiving what we need at this point, but I think he's very open to ask for more. And he's actually expecting more help from the federal government. You know, it's expected that this disease will peak sometime in April, at least in Tennessee. So he's getting ready for that and to ask for more resources. And I wouldn't go so far in Colorado as to say that people feel like the state has what it needs. But in terms of really broad criticisms of the president,

we're not seeing that as much as we typically do. We have Democrats in charge of every branch of state government here. And Sue, if you broaden it out, I'd say there's been two big areas of criticism for the federal government from governors, and some of this flared up on a call that President Trump had with several governors earlier this week. The first is a decision that the White House made early on to have states try to acquire a lot of

the equipment they need themselves. The federal government is trying to acquire this equipment and distribute it, but so are the states. And that has led to a situation that a lot of governors from both parties have been frustrated at, something that New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, who's been very high profile throughout this crisis, addressed yesterday when he was speaking to reporters. It's like being on eBay with 50 other states bidding on a ventilator. And then FEMA gets involved and FEMA starts bidding. So FEMA is driving up the price. So you've had this with ventilators, with testing kits. The other point to mention, it's something that Maryland Governor Larry Hogan, who's

of course a Republican, told NPR earlier this week. They just disagree when President Trump says that testing is an adequate level at this point. Hogan was saying, it's just not. We need more tests. We need to know who has this and who doesn't before we can move forward. That's something we've heard a lot in Colorado. Our governor repeatedly says we're chasing this ghost and we don't know how many people have this or where it's spreading. And I think across the board, people feel like it's so difficult to manage without having all the information and data. Scott, do you think that there is political risks for President Trump here and that he has a very stated and clear strategy

right now that there doesn't seem to be overwhelming pushback from as we're hearing that governors right now are going along with it. But at the same time, he's had a very fraught relationship with some of them. Yeah. And you've seen him tweak his approach at different points in the in the last couple of weeks. There was a stretch where he was really going hard after Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, who was criticizing the federal response. He turned to the personal attacks that he often turns to when he's criticized, nicknames, things like that, really blasting her personally.

And then he suddenly backed off that over the last few days and has made a point to say, I'm working with Michigan. I had a good call with the governor of Michigan. You know, as I'm sure you do remember, Michigan is one of the most important states for the 2020 election. So I think that was part of the thinking there. And also Michigan is a state that is among the second wave of states that's really seeing the numbers spike up, especially in the Detroit area. It's such an unusual time, because I think Benta's so right when she says that people seem to have put politics to the side. I feel that even in congressional campaigns and at the White House, I mean, we've kind of put campaign season on pause. But it's hard, we can't forget that we are still in the middle of a presidential election.

And it seems like this is going to have a major impact on how this plays out in our elections. We just don't know what that impact is yet. Absolutely. Well, let's take a quick break. And when we get back, we'll talk more about how states are facing the pandemic. Right now, every household in the country is being asked to fill out the U.S. Census. It's the form that helps us determine how voting districts are redrawn, where to build public schools and hospitals, how to spend federal money. So why are some people afraid to fill it out? We're getting into all that this week on NPR's Code Switch podcast. And we're back. And as the country faces this pandemic, we have seen states take very different approaches to it. I'm curious about how your states have responded to this.

Were they quick to it? Were they slow to it? And sort of what did your governors grapple with as they made these decisions? The governor issued this week what he calls a safer at-home order. For Governor Bill Lee, that means that non-essential businesses, such as barbershops and nail salons will remain closed until April 14. And then essential businesses will be able to remain open. Now, it's not a mandated shelter in place. The governor, you know, has been very worried about violating personal liberty.

So he says that by just doing this encouragement, he's safe and he'll be able to work things out. And it's important to note, you know, that we are also seeing an increase in the numbers. Right now, over 80 percent of counties in the state are reporting cases, and we have over 2,200 overall confirmed cases in the state. That's from March 5th, where we reported the first case in the state. And in Colorado, our Democratic governor kind of took an incremental approach. We do have a statewide stay-at-home order that's been in effect for about a week now, but he wasn't quick to jump on that. He was really worried about the economic consequences. Started off closing the ski industry and then schools and then bars and restaurants. And he said he was waiting to see if those will be effective enough. He considers those to be pretty extreme orders and was hoping

the state wouldn't have to do a stay at home order. But things were just spreading too quickly and folks were still moving around too much. And so that's why he put that in place. And Sue, this conversation is bringing back my many, many years that I spent as a state government reporter and just looking at all of the steps that governors in Colorado and Tennessee and across the country are taking for public health purposes. They are going to directly make these governors' lives so much harder later this year when it's time for the state budget. It's been about a decade or so of pretty steady economic growth, and that has led to much

easier budget seasons, conversations about what to do with extra money, right? A lot of states are going to face massive, massive, massive deficits because of the economy shutting down. So Andrew Cuomo is going to have this massive popularity that he's accumulated tested when he has to preside over some really drastic budget cuts. And this isn't the only crisis your states are facing. I mean, Serial, I think about Tennessee just got hit pretty hard with some tornadoes. Yes, and I'm so glad you're bringing that up. You know, we're still in recovery mode in a way. It was on Super Tuesday. So, you know, that's when deadly tornadoes touched down in Tennessee. There were multiple deaths, you know, counties were destroyed. And then three days later, we had our first case of coronavirus in Tennessee. So it's

been kind of crazy, honestly. I mean, the governor and the legislature has been trying to like rush things and work on, you know, a budget. We, Scott, we passed a budget in the state. It was an emergency budget. It was $900 million less than what was initially proposed, a lot of cuts. But the General Assembly decided that it was the best thing to do. You know, they wanted to adjourn at least until June, and then come back and pass, you know, pressing legislation. But for now, they have this emergency budget that, you know, we don't know if it's going to be enough when the fiscal year starts and this pandemic starts to win down.

Yeah, I was on a conference call today with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi about the next phase of legislation Congress needs to do. And she time and time again kept coming to this point that state governments are going to need significantly more money to make up for all these budget shortfalls and all the other sort of influx of cash they're going to need to recover. If it's a 50-state strategy to fight it, it's also going to be a 50-state strategy to recover from it. And that's going to be very, very expensive. And I think state lawmakers and governors are still wrapping their heads around the idea of they have to recalibrate everything when they do come back. It's a whole new world and their legislative priorities that they wanted to focus on, they may have to be completely scrapped.

All right, let's leave it there for today. Sergio Martinez Beltran of WPLN in Nashville and Benta Berklin of Colorado Public Radio. Thank you both so much for being on the podcast. Thanks to both of you. Thank you. Thanks for having me. And a reminder for our listeners, we're thinking about doing a Q&A episode later this week

to answer your questions about the politics and economics about the coronavirus. Since those are the questions in our wheelhouse, don't ask us healthcare questions. We can't give you medical advice, but we would love to hear your questions otherwise. And you can send them to us via email at nprpolitics at npr.org. I'm Susan Davis. I cover Congress. I'm Scott Detrow. I'm covering the White House. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.