The NPR Politics Podcast - More Police, More Fencing: Here's What The Capitol Riot Report Recommends

Episode Date: March 8, 2021

A new assessment commissioned by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi recommends a dramatic expansion of security measures at the U.S. Capitol. And Republican state lawmakers have introduced a spate of bills aimed at blocking trans women and girls from participating in girls' sports—the legislation, meant to rally base voters, has so far foundered under legal scrutiny. This episode: congressional correspondent Susan Davis, congressional reporter Claudia Grisales, White House reporter Ayesha Rascoe, and political reporter Danielle Kurtzleben.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 Allison. This is Jamie. This is Kate. And Ellie in Washington, D.C. We just got back from the National Mall where our brother Eric proposed to his wonderful girlfriend, now fiancée, Catherine. This podcast was recorded at 2.03 p.m. on Monday, March 8th. Things may have changed by the time you hear it, but we'll still be celebrating Eric and Catherine's engagement. All right, here's the show. And we are also celebrating Eric and Catherine's engagement here at the podcast because that Eric is our very own Eric McDaniel, this very fine podcast editor. I love it. Congratulations. Wow, congratulations. Who must not only have wonderful sisters who cared enough to send along that timestamp, but congratulations, Eric.

Marriage is a wonderful blessing and we're all very happy for you. It is. It's a journey. It is. That too. A beautiful journey. A beautiful journey, though. A beautiful journey. Buckle up. Hey there. It is the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Susan Davis. I cover Congress. I'm Claudia Grisales. I also cover Congress.

And I'm Aisha Roscoe. I cover the White House. And there is a brand new report out today about a security assessment of the U.S. Capitol complex following the January 6th Capitol riot. Claudia, let's start with who put this report together and what was their charge in doing so? This is a review led by retired Lieutenant General Russell Honore. He was tasked on this mission by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. He was joined by more than a dozen other members, some of which have worked on Capitol security in the past and evaluating how they were understaffed and under-resourced. For example, they were left without earpieces and riot gear in many cases as they fought these Capitol attackers. The task force said they met with federal, state, and local law enforcement officials, including military officials, congressional members, and staff to put together these findings in this 13-page report.

Okay, so what are the major recommendations included in the report? They want to see this security apparatus for the Capitol just revamped dramatically. For example, they want to see Capitol Police add 854 new officers. They already have more than 2,100 members of law enforcement personnel. And also they want to see the expansion of a civil defense unit that they should be on deck anytime Congress is in session rather than just during special occasions. They also want to see the creation of a quick reaction force. They could be made up of members of the National Guard. And they want to see the installation of a new fencing system that would be mobile and retractable. This would replace the current fencing and it would not be permanent. It would be more aesthetically pleasing,

if you will, and also won't require the level of Guard members that are there today to secure it. Claudia, one thing you talked about, that mobile fencing, so it wouldn't be permanent that the idea of having the the Capitol, the people's house, you know, behind fencing and not necessarily barbed wire. But you know what I'm saying? Having it very almost militarized is obviously something that has been controversial. Did this report shine any light on what they think needs to be done as far as the fencing so it would just be kind of brought out when they think it's necessary or what would happen with this fencing? Yes, they are recommending this fencing be mobile and retractable so they could move the perimeter when need be, take it down when need be. It's clear they're trying to address a lot of objections to the fencing.

This has been something that security officials have been asking of lawmakers for 40 years. I talked to a former sergeant at arms about this and all the opposition they face. So this is a potential compromise between those that still don't want to see the fencing, but they also want to see that security ramped up in the wake of this insurrection to ensure that it never happens again. Claudia, you just outlined a very long list of either policy changes or security changes to the Capitol complex. Do you get a sense of how lawmakers are responding to it? And frankly, it sounds like something that's going to cost a whole heck of a lot of money. Are they willing to sort of put up the money they're going to need to spend to

enact them if they are embraced? That remains to be seen. Yes, this is going to be very, very expensive to add all these officers and all of these security, all the all of these security parameters. And that's part of a discussion now for a new supplemental funding measure. Now, details on that have not been put out yet. But we already hear some Democrats saying they're in support of all of these changes, or many of them. We hear Republicans such as GOP leader Kevin McCarthy of California saying, you know, some of these recommendations make sense, but I'm worried that this was a partisan appointment with Honoré and with Pelosi leading this. And I'm worried about making the Capitol a fortress. So this is going to be one area of tension that we could see Republicans go in on

is we don't want to turn this place into a fortress. And also the spending possibly could become a target for Republicans. So we're still waiting for kind of those details on how much this will cost, what's the total bill, and where our members are going to be once that's out. All right. Thanks so much. Thank you. We're going to take a quick break. And when we get back, we'll talk about the fight over transgender women in sports. This message comes from NPR sponsor Hint,

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checkout. On NPR's Consider This podcast, we help you make sense of one big story in the news every day, like how to combat disinformation and conspiracy theories, which pose a real threat to democracy, and what life looks like after you're vaccinated, the next phase of do's and don'ts. All that in 15 minutes every weekday. Listen now to Consider This from NPR. And we're back with the one and only Danielle Kurtzleben. Hey, Danielle. Hello. So you've been reporting on the latest front in the seemingly never endless culture wars.

The fight now is over transgender women and whether they should be able to play on women's sports teams. Obviously, we're going to talk about this as a political fight. But first, I just want to sort of frame who it affects. You know, transgender people are those who identify as a gender other than the one they were assigned at birth. But Danielle, when we talk about them, how many people are we talking about? Relatively small, if we're talking about in the context of the full population, right, but growing substantially. So there was this Gallup poll that came out a couple weeks ago that got a fair amount of attention. It showed a rapidly growing LGBTQ population more broadly, especially among Gen Z. But what it also found is specifically the T part of the LGBTQ, transgender, is growing.

So it found that 1.8 percent of Gen Z adults and 1.2% of millennials identify as transgender. Now, that is statistically more higher than Gen X or baby boomers. So it does appear this population is growing. But again, you know, it is still a relatively small sliver of the population. Yeah, and I imagine that the transgender women who then also want to play women's sports is an even smaller group of people. But Republican-led state legislatures all over the country are moving bills to ban them from playing sports. So what kind of legislation are we talking about? And what is driving the interest on the right in this very sort of niche issue? Sure. Well, and to be clear, it's not to fully ban them from

playing sports. What this is about is, again, transgender girls. These bills tend to be about transgender girls, not transgender boys. So in other words, people who identify as girls but may not have been assigned female on their birth certificates, right, saying that they cannot play on girls' sports teams. In other words, that they would have to play on the boys' sports team because they may have been assigned male at birth. So that's what we're talking about here. Broadly speaking, that's what these bills say. There's a lot of them. There's 35 such bills that have been introduced in state legislatures this year. Now, that's a count according to a group called Freedom for All Americans. That's a group that advocates against LGBTQ discrimination. Now, that is growth. Like I said, 35 thus far this year alone. That's more than the 25 there were in all of 2020 or the two there were in 2019. So this is, when we say the latest front in culture wars and in fights over LGBTQ rights, this has grown quite quickly. And seems kind of coordinated when you have that kind of rapid growth. Sure. Yeah. I mean, it's hard to imagine that one day all these people in Mississippi, which just passed one of these bills, the governor is going to sign it, that people there woke up the same day that people in Utah and Texas and Georgia all did and that they all decided at the same time that this was a problem. I mean, there are trends like this in state legislation, right?

We saw this a few years ago with the so-called bathroom bills, one of which controversially passed in North Carolina. Now, one other thing to add here is that there is sometimes coordination on the outside from a higher level, from national level groups or between states on this, right? That LGBTQ advocates right now allege that there are some of these coalitions of socially and religiously conservative groups that are pushing these at the state level. And as evidence, they point to the fact that the language in some of these bills is remarkably similar or just flat out identical. So you'll have a bill, you know, there are three bills in West Virginia right now that say roughly the same things. And they look similar to a bill in Oklahoma, for example. So that is also happening.

Ayesha, Democrats have leaned into this fight. Transgender rights have been a very early and clear priority for President Biden. How has the new administration weighed in on all of this? President Biden has signed an executive order that expanded protections for trans students. He also, you know, made it a point to repeal the transgender military ban that former President Trump had put in place, and that was extremely controversial. You know, Biden has also nominated the first openly trans person to serve in a position that required confirmation by the Senate. Rachel Levine, she would serve as assistant health secretary. So this is something that the Biden administration has made clear that they support transgender rights and that they support equitable treatment. Danielle, where is the trans rights community, the civil rights community in all of this?

LGBTQ advocates, they're, of course course quite opposed to these bills. They argue that these laws are unnecessary. And there was, in fact, a really fascinating Associated Press investigation into some of these bills last month where the AP went to state lawmakers who introduced these bills and said, OK, tell us the instances that necessitate these bills. Please point us to instances in your state where a transgender girl on a girl's team created a fairness problem. And in the vast majority of cases, these lawmakers couldn't point to someone. Now, this is important not just because of the logic of the bills, not just so advocates can say, hey, see, these bills are unnecessary. But when there is eventually, if there is eventually a court challenge to these bills, that could be important as well, as one law professor explained to me, that if you are going to introduce a bill that discriminates based on sex, the government has to present a very compelling reason to say, and here's why, because of this case. Now, if you don't have great

justification, that might make it harder for a state to defend these laws at the state level. And this has happened in Idaho. Idaho is the one state that has passed and signed one of these bills. And a federal judge last year, for a number of reasons, said, no, I'm going to block this bill. The question I have from just the brass knuckle politics of this is that cultural issues are pushed by political interests for a reason, right? That they see them as a way to win over voters or swing voters or people who haven't made up their mind on an issue like this. Do you have a sense of where the country broadly feels about transgender rights and specifically this question of trans women playing on women's sports teams. That's totally right, Sue. And, you know, Republican politicians, strategists at the state levels may see this as an effective wedge issue that can

whip up agitation right now among their voters. But one thing they may also be thinking about is just how quickly opinions can change on issues like this. Think about same-sex marriage in our lifetimes, how quickly same-sex relationships have become quite broadly accepted in America. transgender people. There was one poll from 2019 from the Public Religion Research Institute that showed that those opinions might be changing relatively quickly. It found that roughly six in 10 Americans said that compared to five years prior, they were more supportive of transgender rights than they had been five years ago. So a solid majority of people saying that they are growing more supportive. And it's been two years since that poll. So I mean, it stands to reason that those opinions may still be changing and potentially changing relatively quickly. All right, well, let's leave it there

for today. I'm Susan Davis. I cover Congress. I'm Aisha Roscoe. I cover the White House. And I'm Danielle Kurtzleben. I cover politics. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.