The NPR Politics Podcast - How Will Biden Respond To US Crises?

Episode Date: August 30, 2021

Much of the country is reeling from natural disasters as COVID hospitalization rates hit levels not seen since before the vaccine was widely available. Evacuations continue from Afghanistan in the wake of the most deadly attack on U.S. service members in more than a decade.All that during what was supposed to be a domestic policy-focused summer for the Biden White House, with two trillion-plus dollar deals on the line. So, how is the president responding to crisis?This episode: White House correspondent Ayesha Rascoe, senior political editor and correspondent Domenico Montanaro, and national political correspondent Mara Liasson.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, I'm Theda, and I'm Antona, and we're from Austin, Texas. Today, we're excited because it is our first day back at school after a year and a half of homeschooling. This podcast was recorded at... It is 2.08 p.m. on Monday, August 30th, 2021. Things may have changed by the time you hear this. Okay, here's the show. Pretty cute. That is cute.

Oh my goodness. First of all, I'm so impressed. I could not get my kids to be so on script. Today was my daughter's first day too, so dropped her off this morning. She was excited and terrified. So I think it'll be a good year. Yeah, yeah. My kids start next week. So I mean, I'm glad to be sending them somewhere. Away. But hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Aisha Roscoe. I cover the White House. I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent.

And I'm Mara Liason, national political correspondent. It was supposed to be infrastructure summer. And before that, it was supposed to be a summer of freedom, maybe even a summer of love. But we have not gotten any of that. Instead, President Biden has managed to negotiate a bipartisan trillion dollar infrastructure deal. He did get that done. And there is a process starting on an even larger economic and social plan, that framework has passed the House. But rather than being able to travel the country, selling his plan or celebrating freedom, Domenico Biden is dealing with a lot of other very serious problems from rising COVID cases,

Afghanistan, a major hurricane. It has not been the summer that people envisioned. No, but that often happens in presidencies. This is when a presidency is really tested, when these unforeseen events crop up. How does a president deal with it? How do they show presidential leadership? Are they able to console people? Are they able to show competence to have things run smoothly after a difficult situation? That's why in a lot of cases,

presidents are elected. And they really can forge their legacies in these kinds of moments. The Biden administration has shown to be pretty adept when they're on script, but off script here, we've at least seen with the Afghanistan withdrawal and, you know, perhaps misplaced trust in the Afghan government really threw off the plan that they had in place for withdrawal and they're having to respond. And Mara, it seemed like during the Trump administration was kind of a weird, especially the first few years, because before COVID, they didn't really, they had a lot of crises, but they were all kind of self-inflicted, or most of them were largely self-inflicted. They did have a major hurricane in Hurricane Maria. But now President Biden is facing all of these crises, external crises, for the most part, that are not, as Domenico said, they're not on script. Are we learning anything about President Biden's ability to manage these external crises? The problem for President Biden right now is not a message problem.

It's that he made a grave miscalculation in Afghanistan. He was wrong. He was 180 degrees wrong about how far and how fast the Taliban would move. He thought that he would conduct this evacuation when the Afghan government and the Afghan military was still in charge of Kabul, and it didn't happen. And for a moment there, the White House was actually trying to get back on message. They were saying, yes, the Taliban moved faster, but look, we're moving over 100,000 people out of Kabul. Then the bombing happened, 13 U.S. soldiers died, and there's no way to spin that at all. And the other problem for President Biden is when you listed all these crises, wildfires, a hurricane, those are kind of normal crises that happen to presidents. Even COVID has become the new normal. But Afghanistan was a crisis, you could argue, of choice. In other words,

he decided to pull out. He decided to pull out by a certain deadline. And President Biden ran on competence. And that's why for him, competence is even more important because it's part of his brand. And Afghanistan, the Afghanistan exit just looks incredibly incompetent. Yeah, I think that's the biggest issue that Mara hits on is it's a real gut punch to that, you know, that narrative that he ran on that he was the competent alternative to Trump. And while Trump didn't competently handle the coronavirus pandemic, and that's what Biden was really focused on, you know, the Afghanistan withdrawal sort of probably took outside, you know, the White House,

even by surprise, for, you know, the level or lack thereof for competence for that drawdown, which, you know, really undercuts lack thereof for competence for that drawdown, which, you know, really undercuts the premise of the Biden presidency. Mara, is there a sense that having all of these other issues to talk about, whether it's Afghanistan or hurricanes or what have you, in some way that having those issues, even if they're negative, that that could leave more room for Democrats to negotiate in Congress on this big, you know, deal that is supposed to change the social framework and the social safety net, and that that could give Democrats more room to get something

done? Hmm, that's an interesting theory. So the idea is that Republicans are so busy criticizing him on Afghanistan, they don't have time to criticize him on the $3.5 trillion social safety net. Well, but the thing that's interesting about that is they already weren't criticizing him on that. The thing that's been amazing about the Republican critique of Biden, it has almost nothing to do with his legislative proposals. Of course, there are Republicans who say this $3.5 trillion package is just way too big and it's going to explode the deficit. By and large, Republicans have been much more focused on cultural issues than they have been on Joe Biden's legislative agenda. And remember, Joe Biden ran as a moderate on culture issues, but as a pretty progressive liberal of urgency among Democrats to get something done. That's for sure. Yeah, because I think that they already see that the House is probably gone at this point.

I mean, at this point, when I talk to Democrats, they acknowledge that they're going to have a very difficult time holding on to the House next year. These two pieces of legislation, the infrastructure bill and this other so-called human infrastructure bill with all the other things that progressives like in party, the Democrats are as pessimistic. I mean, I think that Republicans are measuring the drapes. I mean, I've never seen anything where they feel like it's a foregone conclusion. It's very early to be thinking that, but it's because of the numbers, right? I mean, you know, we're in a redistricting year. It's 2020. You know, it's not a normal, you know, kind of midterm. You know, there's history on Republican side, which we talk about all the time with the out party, usually picks up some two dozen seats since World War II. That's because the out party is more fired up.

And Republicans only need to net five seats to take over the House. And they likely start with, once redistricting happens by December, we'll have a better picture of this. But some estimates show that Republicans could pick up something like eight seats before there's even a vote cast next year, which would put Democrats minus three. And Democrats need to go on the offense to kind of pick up seats. So I think that's what a lot of Democrats are looking at and why Republicans feel pretty confident because they just keep getting these issues over and over again that are piling up on the plate of attack items that they can levy against Democrats.

All right, well, let's take a quick break and we're gonna talk more about this when we get back. Maddie Safaya here, host of Shortwave, the daily science podcast from NPR. Listen for new discoveries, everyday mysteries, and the science behind the headlines, all in about 10 minutes every weekday. It's a great addition to your daily listening, whether you're a science nerd or, you know, just a little science curious. Subscribe now to Shortwave from NPR. And we're back.

Let's just end things today talking about COVID. Hospitalizations are back at levels that they were in December when there wasn't vaccines widely available. It's like we're going back in time, even though we have more available to fight against the virus with this Delta wave, but how much can a president really do to address this coronavirus pandemic? They've got the vaccine. It's out there. It's available, but people don't want to take it. Well, there's a lot of things that he has tried to do, you know, make certain federal workers have to get a vaccine, encourage people to have vaccine mandates. Look at what's happening in the private sector. You know, large employers are requiring their workers to get vaccines. But I think that over time, getting boosters, getting vaccines is still the answer to this. And you do see something interesting happening.

In red states like Florida, there's been a backlash against governors who have been vaccine hesitant or mask mandate hesitant. I think this has a ways to play out. But I think the levers that Biden has are the same ones he's always had. Just try to get as many people vaccinated as possible. Yeah, it just seems that the US is stuck, you know, at this sort of 50% or a little higher rate of vaccination, you know, for everyone, in large measure because of politics. I mean, you know, it reminds me a little bit of immigration in the sense that

you need almost a Republican president to get this over the finish line, but a Republican president who advocates for this thing that might not necessarily be thought of as the thing that, you know, his base might want. And we saw former President Trump, you know, get his shot in private. And when he tried to bring it up in Alabama that people should get vaccinated, you know, people didn't react well to that. So it's not something that a lot of Republicans are going to be talking about in places that they need them to be talking about, although you are starting to see a bit of a split among some of them. And that's why you're seeing, I think, as Mara notes, you know, a slight uptick in some places like Louisiana, where you've had, you know, members of Congress like Steve Scalise say, get vaccinated. You know, Domenico just mentioned something that I thought was one of the most important political moments in COVID. I've wondered all along, Donald Trump, who can rightly take credit for getting the vaccine on board as fast

as he did with Operation Warp Speed, what would it be like if he had cut a PSA and was aired all over the country encouraging his supporters to get a vaccine? And I always wondered why he didn't do it. But then there was that rally in Alabama that Domenico talks about where he said vaccines were good and you should get them. But I recommend take the vaccines. I did it. It's good. Take the vaccines. But you got that.

That's OK. That's all right. You got your freedoms. And some in the crowd booed. And that to me was an amazing moment. His base has outrun him. He's no longer the leader of his base. The base is on its own, you know, with disinformation and vaccine

hesitancy, and even Donald Trump can't convince them to get a vaccine. He can't sell that. But it does seem like when people see the effects of, you know, hospitals being overrun, vaccination rates do start to tick up. But let's leave it there today. I'm Ayesha Roscoe. I cover the White House. I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. And I'm Mara Liason, national political correspondent. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.