The NPR Politics Podcast - NPR Politics Live From Philadelphia: The Road To 2020

Episode Date: April 27, 2019

This is a special episode, recorded in front of a live audience at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia on Friday, April 26th. The cast heads to the heart of the blue wall that secured his win in 2016. With the 2020 field firmed up, how are Trump and his Democratic rivals positioning themselves for the win? This episode: Congressional correspondent Scott Detrow, Congressional correspondent Susan Davis, White House reporter Ayesha Rascoe and editor correspondent Ron Elving. Email the show at [e-mail]. Find and support your local public radio station at npr.org/stations.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hi, I'm Kylie. I was the first person here way, way, way early, and the setup crew was playing Beyonce, so that was really cool. I'm Lucy. And I'm Steele. And we're here to see the NPR Politics Podcast. Hi, I'm Linda. And I'm Wayne. And we're from Shipbottom, New Jersey, and we came here all the way to Philadelphia's National Constitution Center to see the live taping of NPR Politics Podcast live from Philadelphia. I'm Scott Detrow. I cover politics.

I'm Susan Davis. I cover Congress. I'm Aisha Roscoe. I cover the White House. And I'm Ron Elving, editor-correspondent. All right, so we're here in Philadelphia at the National Constitution Center. Everybody say hi. Hi. We are partnering with WHYY for this latest live show. Huge thanks to them for helping set this up and for everything they do, covering the news

day in, day out. Before we get started with the full show, I just want to show you something about the NPR Politics Podcast community. I'm going to say it. My ties to Pennsylvania and Philly do not extend to rooting for the sports teams. That's a true fact. But there is one part of the Philadelphia sports community we have come to love. Over the course of the summer and fall and winter, we had John McCain dying. Then we went right into the Brett Kavanaugh hearings. Then we went right into the election. And then we went right into a government

shutdown. And Kelsey Snell and I, who were covering Congress, had no moments of free time. And we were losing our minds. And we resorted to once Gritty came on the scene. And in that initial wave, you remember that initial wave of Gritty excitement. We just would text pictures of Gritty back and forth to each other.

Gifts of Gritty, Gritty falling on the ice. And we talked about it on the podcast one day. and I got a note from Brian Allen from Flyland Designs who is the person who invented Gritty. And he ended up drawing for us our own... That's amazing. So this beautiful commissioned artwork of Gritty hangs on my desk at work and I look at it all the time, even though I don't root for the Flyers. We can all agree on Gritty. Gritty's a great guy. So, all right, on to politics. Tonight we're going to be talking all about 2020.

We're going to talk about this growing 20-person democratic field in a bit. First, we are going to start with the general election and how President Trump is approaching the 2020 election. And Ron, let's just start out with this. We're in one of the most important voter blocks of one of the most important states in the 2020 landscape. How important is Pennsylvania? One of the most important, Scott? I think while it's a mistake to say that any state is the ball game, Pennsylvania comes as close to being the ballgame for the Democrats as any state. It is almost impossible to imagine the Democratic Party taking back the White House without taking back Pennsylvania. All roads come through Pennsylvania at this point.

These are the essential electoral college votes that need to be restored for the Democrats to win by restoring the blue wall. Now, you've all heard that expression many times, but there were states that were voting very consistently for the Democratic Party in presidential elections, not only when they won, but even when they lost, such as to George W. Bush, and Pennsylvania was among them. And critical to that group was Pennsylvania and Michigan and Wisconsin. And by a grand total of about 80,000 votes or a little less, all three of those states did not vote Democratic in 2016. And without reversing that particular result, starting first with the biggest, Pennsylvania, sixth largest state, this would not be possible for the Democrats to do. So that's

really why Pennsylvania comes so close to being the ballgame. What is the Trump campaign thinking about as they try to recreate their 2016 success? Well, they feel like it worked for them to start, right? Like they feel like what they did before worked. And so they want to do that now. And now the difference between in 2020 versus 2016 is that Trump's campaign was really kind of on a shoestring, right? Like it was kind of pulled together. But now he has the money, he has the full backing of the Republican Party, and he has the organization. So they are going already to Pennsylvania to make sure they're shoring up some issues there. And they feel like if they're able to get out their

base, they can win. Like that's their thing. So they'll have more money, more organization, but will it be the same approach and message? It's the same approach because they feel like, I guess now President Trump is saying he's already made America great so now he's thinking it's keep America great so if that's a little little flip on it but I think that what President Trump feels that he has been able to do is to say look the economy is doing really well I am in charge and look at how well the country is doing as far as the economy in particular. And so I think that they're going to try to run on that. And I think he feels like his instincts have worked, being combative, calling people names, the insults, all of that stuff.

They feel like Trump being Trump has worked. It's so risky, though, because one of the things that's fascinating about the president is that everything in his so far has held you know his approval ratings hover in an area and his coalition is strong the base is gonna stick with him no matter what but he hasn't really grown his coalition since he won re-election right he's run a very base campaign base White House policies so in order to win a place like Pennsylvania he needs to almost replicate by exact margins what happened in 2016. If no further people have been brought into the Trump tent, at least that's not what the numbers are telling us yet, then you need to bank on everybody

who voted for you in 2016, sticking inside the tent. And you kind of need to hope that people aren't excited about the Democratic side either. You know, you need to replicate, which I think is why you see Trump, he's kind of attacking every Democrat in the race because you don't know who you're going to be running against. So run against all of them. And that's the thing. So when they look at this, they feel like they, and they also, when you talk to people who are, you know, who are looking at these issues, they kind of compare it to President Obama's reelection to that 2012, like the way he was able to get out his base. And they feel like if they can get their base out, they can win. And they also feel like even though there are people and Republicans and moderates who

maybe don't like Trump very much, they and don't like his style, they are banking on the fact that they will dislike the Democrats more. And that will either keep them home or make them go out and vote for Trump instead. So they feel like they have a base of almost secret voters, people who don't like Trump, but who will vote for him because they don't like the Democrats more. One of the things we've seen already is that Republicans are going to talk about the eventual Democratic nominee, whether it's Bernie Sanders, who is a Democratic socialist,

or whether it's anyone else. They're going to say this is a party of socialism. They're veering into socialist territory. Has this tactic worked before? And how many campaigns have Republicans tried to take this approach with the Democratic Party? Countless. I mean, I went to high school in Kansas, and the Republican Party has been fairly successful

in Kansas, Scott. They have dominated statewide elections. Now they just happen to have elected a Democratic governor in this last 2018 midterm. But they have dominated the Congress congressional and senate elections there since the peak of the New Deal, as soon as the New Deal began to end, it first began to end in Kansas. This is not to say that people in Kansas are better off than anybody else, but they have very much bought into the Republican combination of policies for agricultural America and a definition of what freedom means and what liberty means. Republicans have been able to characterize Democrats as

socialistic and make the very small linguistic move from socialistic to socialist, which through much of the 20th century, of course, for a lot of people meant Soviet socialist republics, right? So it was very much confused with communism, very much confused with Russia. And this has been a burden for all people on the left, and certainly anyone like Bernie Sanders, who wants to embrace the label, but even people like, let's say, a name that may come up later in the conversation, Joe Biden, who very few people would see as being anywhere near the hard left of even the Democratic Party, let alone the national spectrum. Nonetheless, he too will be accused of being a socialist because it's worked very well in the past.

Sue, I'm going to blow everyone's mind here and remind people that in 2020, voters will be voting for Congress as well as the White House. I know it's something that kind of falls off. The freshman class that made the majority, again, for the Democrats, the ones who get the most attention are pretty far on the left end of the spectrum, but by and large it was moderates who won back the House of Representatives. How have these moderates in Republican districts reacted to this Republican talking point and focus on the most extreme versions that they can find of the Democratic platform at every moment. Yeah, I mean, that's such a good point, because I think, especially as you see the Democratic enthusiasm that happened in 2018, and record women running, and record women voting, that so much of the attention has been given to these far more

progressive on the left side of the party. But the reason why Democrats won the House is because they won the suburbs, and they won some exurbs, right? And they won districts and places where people's politics are kind of in the middle. I mean, the Philly suburbs are one of these places we talk about where people don't really subscribe to really right-wing or really left-wing ideologies. They're more moderate. They're more pragmatic. And so I do think that there is a worry among Democrats, among the moderates who will also be up in swing states like Pennsylvania, do you want to be tagged with that? You know, do you want to be about things that aren't just this attack of socialism? The thing I will say is, you know, we know Republicans want the election to be about a good economy and Democrats are socialists.

We don't actually know what the election is going to be about yet. You know, I talk to a lot of Democrats who say, look they say socialism but we're talking about health care. And if we frame this is not a debate about socialism versus capitalism but it's which party do you trust with your health care, I think that's an election and that's a debate that Democrats would love to have with the president. I will say I was talking to a Republican this week who was saying how he couldn't believe that the president, after the bar letter, the initial letter from the, indicating that the special counsel, where he, it was a good news day

for Trump. And he turns around and immediately announces that he's going to reinvigorate the fight to repeal and replace Obamacare. And you could just hear, like on Capitol Hill, I mean, even Mitch McConnell came out publicly and was like, no, we're not going to do that. We're not going to do it again. So, you know, what are we going to be talking about as people make up their mind next year? And if it's, it's depending on how, who defines what that narrative is, is very much going to change the way voters in these swing decisive places make up their minds. And what stands out to me with President Trump is this idea that now he's kind of running, now he will always be in some sense an outsider, but now he is the incumbent. And so when he came, so now he's calling everyone

else radical. But when you look at his ideas, when he was running for president, he's going to build a wall and Mexico is going to pay for it. That wasn't a mainstream idea. But because he sold it and people went with it, now that is a part of the discourse, right? Like that's a normal part of the discourse at this point. And so ideas that are thought of as radical, if you throw them around enough and people, it turns out people like some of these ideas. People might like the idea of everyone getting health care. One of the things that he really amplified in the final weeks before the midterms was immigration. His real hardline immigration stance, warning about that caravan, even engaging troops to go down to the border for a threat, as he put it, that was hundreds of miles away.

And by and large, you know, women and children who were making their way up there. He has since fired his Secretary of Homeland Security, who implemented these policies because she didn't implement them as far enough as he wanted. And he seems to be doing that even further. I mean, how do Republicans feel given the results where they lost so many suburban districts? And a lot of them thought it was because of that issue. I mean, how do they feel about the fact that he keeps talking about it? I think Republicans, by and large, in Congress and elsewhere, would like President Trump to focus on the economy, to focus on what he has, what has been his strength. But for President Trump, his gut is immigration, and this works for me, and this gets my base really worked up and when I say

that these people are coming and I'm going to protect you and you can trust me and Democrats just want open borders, he feels like that is a winning message for him. In the midterms, it didn't work out that way, not in the House. We'll see what happens in 2020. Ron, last question before we shift gears. So often, we're all told that you can't read too much into the results of a midterm compared to the presidential election two years later. It's a different group of people voting. It's a lower turnout election. You know, Democrats got killed in 2010. Obama wins in 2012. Several other examples. But given how high the turnout was in 2018, can we read a little more?

Looking at a chart of turnout in presidential elections up, midterm elections down, presidential up, midterm down, presidential up, midterm down, it is a perfect stitch. It is a perfect stitch. And the percentages scarcely ever vary until you get to 2018. And then suddenly, turnout in the midterm bumps up to almost presidential levels. So if there isn't the usual up and down mountain stitch, it's almost level. And that draws the eye of a political scientist very quickly. That is something that's, it's like you're looking at somebody's EKG and you suddenly see something radical happening.

You see a flat line? Well, a flat line. I hope the body politic isn't in that much trouble. But let's just say that if the enormous turnout that we saw in 2018, particularly among nontraditional midterm voting groups, younger voters, women, people of color, if those groups were to turn out again in the same

proportionate robustness that we saw in 2018, that would really change that equation that Sue was talking about at the beginning, where if the president's not expanding his base, and if he's already brought out his populist surge, and we saw that in 2016 without question, many people voted for the first time in years. If that's already baked in and there's a new counterforce coming that was indicated by 2018, well then, Scott, we'll see. All right, well, we are going to take a quick break, come back and talk about the Democrats. I cannot promise we will get to all 20, but we will make our way through as many as we can. We'll be right back. Support for this podcast and the following message come from the Walton Family Foundation, where opportunity takes root. More information

is available at waltonfamilyfoundation.org. And we're back. So on the Democratic side of the aisle, things have gotten pretty crowded. We're up to 20 candidates. I think the playing field seems to be largely set and it's a great week to be here in Philly because former Vice President Joe Biden finally made it official. He got into the race. His campaign headquarters are gonna be here in Philadelphia. Oh yeah, give Philly a round of applause.

Ron, Joe Biden has been an active member of the Democratic Party for a very long time. Where is Joe Biden in the Democratic Party of 2019-2020? I first have to say that when Joe Biden was first running for president, Pete Buttigieg was seven years old. Now, that's either a great advantage or it's a great disadvantage, or perhaps it's both, because Joe Biden really does embody in many ways the dilemmas of the Democratic Party. If you look at the Democratic Party's actual voting base, it includes a great number of people who are living in metropolitan areas and are people who have a college education or more than a college education and that are high income. But that's not the base of the Democratic Party.

The base of the Democratic Party is also not among people of color, although their voting percentages are far better for Democrats. The base of the Democratic Party remains, even today, surprisingly enough, white working class people, people who don't have a college education, but have been voting Democratic primarily because of the inheritance of that habit from their forebears. Now, that used to be very true in the South. It's not anymore, but it's still true in many of the metropolitan areas of the rest of the country, the Midwest, especially the West, and still increasingly now in the Northeast, in New England, which has become a real stronghold of the Democratic Party, largely because they are still

getting the votes of white working class people. Joe Biden has that in his quiver. That's one of the things that Joe Biden can do. He has always been seen as a son of the white working class. He's talked about it a lot. Born and raised in Scranton. Wants to have a strong identification with Pennsylvania. So in a lot of ways, Joe Biden's strengths are just the strengths the Democrats need. At the other hand, he is almost the oldest white man in that field. And it really is time for the Democratic Party to ask, how many more times do we nominate one or two white guys in every single presidential ticket?

I think Joe Biden would be the first to admit that he certainly embodies the characteristics of his generation and his gender and his race. So that may not be the right moment for Joe Biden at all. So he really does incorporate a lot of the pluses, minuses, and dilemmas of the Democratic Party. One of the things that struck me about how he announced is, you know, he does a campaign video, which is pretty standard. But then one of the first acts of his campaign is to come here to Philadelphia and have a private fundraiser. Right, Scott? We were talking about this on the train ride up.

Like the choice he made was very old school Democratic Party, how you would run this campaign in a race where all the other candidates are running as far away as possible from corporate money, from special interests. And Joe Biden's first act is to go to a corporate executive's house and have a closed-door private fundraiser with big donors. He went to the house of David L. Cohen, who was a big executive at Comcast. It was an interesting move because so many of the candidates have focused on raising money online, really honing in on, I'm raising $50 at a time, $100 at a time, $27 at a time for certain people. And Joe Biden, the very first thing he does, the very first remarks come. David L. Cohen gathers all these big officials, all these rich people to get a scene of what the fundraiser there would be like.

Think of the like the big fundraiser scene in The Dark Knight where Bruce Wayne has a fundraiser. And he says, you know, when I hold you a fundraiser, you don't need to raise any more money. Not to say that David Cohen is a superhero, but in terms of his political powers in Pennsylvania sometimes. But, you know, that being said, that was one of the questions we all asked of, wow, is Joe Biden going to not adapt to 2020 style politics? He's going to focus on those big donors much in the way that Hillary Clinton did. And then we get an announcement this afternoon from the Biden campaign that, in fact, he raised $6.3 million more than any other candidate in the first 24 hours, and he got

$100,000 online. So I think, you know, we don't know which way this is going to go with Biden. There have been a lot of questions. Is the fact that he's on top of the polls name recognition or strength? You know, how much of this fundraising continues. But bringing in $6.3 million in the first 24 hours is a big sign of real strength. We also talk a lot about Trump hitting at all the Democratic candidates. But I thought Biden was really interesting in his rollout because he chose his message to go at the president directly, which is not something that the other Democrats in the race have done, right? No, and it seems like haven't candidates really kind of tried to stay away from that? They wanted

to define themselves and not really put the focus on Trump because they feel like that's kind of a winning thing for Trump and the focus when his name is there that that helps him. But Biden decided, no, I'm going to take the fight to Trump directly. I'm going to call him out. I'm going to say he is this unique force. And that is why you should elect me at 77 to come up against him because this is a unique time. And Trump responded to him more than he has many of the other candidates in the first day or so of their campaign. Trump and Biden, I don't know whether it's the Obama connection. And so there's this dynamic there. I do think that the nickname Sleepy Joe, which is what President Trump is calling him, I think that's kind of, I don't think it's really fitting. I feel like Trump is running out of ideas for Sleepy?

Sleepy is his go-to when he can't think of anything else. Yeah, is it Sleepy? I mean, I'm just saying. It's just kind of like, you know, out of the nicknames. But that's his thing. And so, but the fact that he decided to come out with a nickname, there are lots of candidates who do not have nicknames right now. So the fact that he is

coming at Joe Biden that way says that he's looking at Joe Biden. And I think that for his supporters, the idea that Biden could appeal to that moderate base is something that they're concerned about. You know, we know Donald Trump really, whatever he says about polls, respects polls, is polls obsessed, and spends more time looking at polls than most people who actually are in office. So when he sees polls, like there were several last week, one in particular showed Joe Biden beating him nationwide by eight points. That's not typical for a midterm, first term, incumbent president with, by his own description, the best economy in history. And here in Pennsylvania, you could make the case, could you not? I mean, there are numbers, at least, that suggest that these are the best of times for the Pennsylvania economy.

That's going to make it tough for any Democrat to take it away from Donald Trump. And he knows that. But he also knows he's behind in Pennsylvania in the polls. And he knows that he's behind nationally, but only to one guy. So his approach to Joe Biden is going to be entirely different from his approach to any of the other people on that screen. So Biden's in, and the field seems to be largely set. I think the only other person we're maybe waiting for is Colorado Senator Michael Bennett. He's still kind of flirting with Iran, but we know the playing field, and maybe wrong, as it exists today. And we know things are going to change a lot right over the course of this race. But I look at this field, and I think the question is raised, if you look at just as it

stands right now, is Bernie Sanders the front runner? There's a really strong argument to make the case that he is. First of all, he is also atop the polls along with Biden, even as a lot of people who supported Bernie Sanders have gone, you know, flirted with other candidates as well. Even as that happens, the field grows. He's still up there. Ideologically, and so far, this is a race where Democrats are talking about issues. Voters care about issues. There are substantive conversations happening on the campaign trail all over the place in a very expanded group of states compared to the states that candidates are normally showing up at this point in time. The ideological turf that this campaign is being fought on is Bernie Sanders' ideological turf. With the exception of Klobuchar, I believe, every single senator

running for president co-sponsored Bernie Sanders' Medicare for All health care bill. When Bernie Sanders rolled out the latest version of his $15 minimum wage bill, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer were standing there with him at the press conference. These were two big picture ideas that even when Hillary Clinton agreed with the general goal of them, that was the policy divide. She said, going for $15 right away is unrealistic. We need to scale there and make sure we can pass things. Same thing with fixing Obamacare. Now the party has come to Bernie Sanders turf. The question, and this is something that Bernie Sanders' campaign admits when you talk to them, is they feel like they need to still sell the idea that he is the general election candidate, that he time is fluid, it's hard to tell. But I think two weeks ago, within the last month for sure, I know that, Bernie Sanders did a swing where he was in Pennsylvania, he was in Michigan,

he was in Wisconsin, and the argument was, I am the candidate who is electable, and my populist message can win these voters back. The thing that has surprised me the most about the Democratic field so far, especially coming out of 2018, where we talk so much about women enthusiasm, women candidates, women energy, I've just been really surprised by the fact that the women in the race, very strong candidates, just seem to be hovering in this like second tier, top of the second tier in the polls. And specifically, Kamala Harris, the senator from California, is with Warren, the senator from Massachusetts. I just would have thought coming out of the energy of 18, that there would be, they'd be performing better, especially when, if we say that voters maybe want not a white guy, maybe they want

someone younger. We know that women do well, women voters want to show up. And I don't know if I can explain it, but I think it speaks to this fact voters want to show up. And I don't know if I can explain it, but I think it speaks to this fact that things are really unpredictable. And we don't really know exactly where the Democratic primary electorate is. Some effect, too, from there being four or five women running who are all in some sense or another viable and imaginable nominees or people who could be on the ticket as vice presidential candidates, all of which is important and is a step in the right direction for equal representation between the genders,

but perhaps does not focus on one individual candidate the way, say, for example, a similar kind of energy focused on Barack Obama in 2008. He was clearly the one who was going to be able to break through in terms of race, and everyone who wanted to get behind that message had one candidate to go with. This is a little different situation, and all of them have, in some measure, equal degrees of claim and equal degrees of, let's say, restraint in terms of their general appeal to the nationwide audience. Scott, you were just in Texas. I don't remember, what was the name of the forum you were at? It was called She the People, and it was organized by, and the focus was on speaking to women of color. Because, you know, Ron, you talked about where the base of the party is.

The fact is, especially in the last few elections, I think the real spirit in the party, the energy of the party, is with minority voters, and especially the realization that elections are won by the Democratic Party. Look at the special election for Alabama Senate in particular. African-American voters, particularly African-American women, showing up, being enthusiastic, being the most consistent block of voters over and over again for the party. So they put on this candidate forum that was really interesting. All the candidates were asked a lot of wide-ranging, tough policy questions, and also the basic question of, with so many people running,

why should a woman of color vote for you? And there was like a palpable frustration at this field that is being dominated by the white men in the race. And when Beto O'Rourke was asked, why should they vote for you, there was, felt very long to me, somebody timed it at 15 seconds,

a 15-second pause, where he said, felt very long to me. Somebody timed it 15 seconds. A 15 second pause where he said and there was like an awkward laugh and then the moderator said, we'll wait. And the answer was he said, you know, it's not something I expect. I feel like I need to earn it. And most of the candidates

came back to saying, trust my track record. Look at how I've run. But when Bernie Sanders did that, he started talking about the question was like, how do you stand up to this rise of white nationalism? He said, I've got a long track record. Look at how I've run. But when Bernie Sanders did that, he started talking about the question was like, how do you stand up to this rise of white nationalism? They said, I've got a long track record. I marched with Dr. Martin Luther King and the room turned on him. And they said, stop telling us about stuff you did decades ago. What are you going to do as president right now? And that was interesting. Yeah. One thing I'm really curious about too, and I don't know if there's a way to do this, but I wish there was, like, it'd be really interesting just to be able to poll black women in the Democratic primary. Because one of the things when people ask me,

do you think Mayor Pete Buttigieg has a chance? Or do you think so-and-so has a chance? And I always say, tell me that black women are excited about them, and I'm going to tell you that I think they have a chance. And right now, it's a little too wide open. But that is a voting block that, one, they're excited. They're going to show up and vote. And if you capture their hearts and minds, you're probably going to be the nominee. And you don't see right now from talking to black women, like, we're a clear standout at this point. So you don't see. But it's part of this idea of electability. When you talk about, when you look at this field and somehow it is kind of three white men who have risen to the top.

We have a colleague, Danielle Kurtzleben, who's on the Politics Podcast sometime. And she wrote a story about when we look at electability, does that end up being in our heads a white male? Because that's what we have seen every time except once. And so when people start talking about, I like this person, but I like this candidate, but I think I'm going to vote for this candidate because I think he's more electable. Are they really kind of counting out a black woman? Are they counting out other people because they feel like that can't work? Or a woman in general, because I think it has to be this one type of person that could win.

And Elizabeth Warren was the last speaker at this forum. And that was the very last question, basically, like, what is going on here? Are we afraid to, are we concerned about this? And she basically, she really rallied the room and I think ended up winning the day by saying, what are we afraid of? Let's stop being so timid. Let's stop not doing what we believe in. Like, come on, we know that our views matter, our votes matter. Let's stop deferring to other people. And I think that was a really powerful moment in that forum. I think when we talk about the ticket, where you talk to Democrats or voters, and they're not sure who the nominee is, but everyone is certain there will be a woman on the ticket, right? Everyone says there's no way that it'll be a male-only ticket. We just don't know which woman. All right, so we are going

to move on to the final part of the show, the way we end shows every week with Can't Let It Go. You guys ready for that? Scott, what can't you let go this week? I know I talked about this forum that I was just at a lot, but I'm going to talk about it one more time because there was a little bit of an awkward moment at one point in the forum, and that was when former HUD secretary Julian Castro came out onto the stage and was introduced.

And they said, Julian Castro. They showed a picture of him. Everybody cheered. He sat down and he said, it's great to be here, but this is kind of awkward. The picture that you used is not me. It's my brother Joaquin. Julian Castro has an identical twin brother, Joaquin, who is a member of Congress.

So you have two Castro brothers in the public eye who look exactly like each other. Joaquin Castro even grew a beard in the last few months to try and differentiate, and it clearly hasn't worked. This is the problem with having twins, having a twin run for president, because you never know when they could switch out. That's the issue. You can switch them out. And they did that once.

They did that when Julian ran for mayor. He sent Joaquin to a parade once. That's what I'm saying. These are the issues. And people have to look into this. President is a movie I would watch. You know, identical twins in the White House, hijinks ensues. How did he know that was his brother and not him?

How did he know? But Rod, would it be like, would it be a separation of powers constitutional crisis if you had a president in one branch of government and his twin brother in the other branch of government? Well, I was going to say it was a little more like an heir and a spare in the British system. I think you could still work your way around that constitutionally as long as they both stayed in separate branches. And don't swap places. Although it does also speak to his enthusiasm even among Democratic voters, because this was a Democratic voter event.

And even they were like, ah! In Texas. He's from Texas. It's in his home state and they still aren't sure which one it is. I'm not sure the guys in the next room ever really actually contemplated that question but we should go in there.

I mean it is a real struggle because Joaquin is actually like a pretty quotable member of Congress. He's accessible. He's at the front line of a lot of issues and sometimes I'll talk to him and I'm like, okay, Joaquin in Congress, Julian running for president, got it, congressman. So, you know, but still. He was very low-key about like,

that's not my picture. Who is I think, Aisha, I think you're up next. I'm next. So, first of all, I want to start off. This is, this isn't like a sad can't let it go, but I want to start off by saying that all life is precious, and so get that out of the way. I'm not making fun of that, but something happened in the news, and it's basically my living nightmare.

I'm going to open up. I'm going to be vulnerable. I have a fear of birds, right? Especially big birds, especially big birds that cannot fly. So I'm talking like ostriches, right? Well, big bird theoretically could get a little scary. He has a very pointy beak and he's very big. He's very very tall but like ostriches and things like that well there was this person in florida a man in florida who had a farm with a lot of exotic birds and they had this one bird it starts with the sea a kala wallah something something i can't really pronounce it cassiberry yes somebody's not afraid of birds i guess this is my fear but this man with he was actually killed by his bird, right?

It's not good, but the bird is now up for sale that killed him. So someone could own the bird. It's a big bird. It has a claw. This is the thing. I am scared of birds, and I feel like they will hurt you, all of them, even the little pigeons, but they're just not big enough. And so this is my warning. It's scary. They're scary. Don't, let's see, like, yeah, leave that bird where it stands.

I'm very afraid of them. And that is what I cannot let go of. It haunts my dreams. If this was like the Oprah show, now this would be the point when they're like, and we got you that bird. And it just comes out. No, don't play with me. Don't do that.

Shall we tell Aisha about that Hitchcock film? I have not seen it. And I love horror movies. I've not seen that one. Good idea. Don't see it. Ron, I hope you can't let it go. It's not as visually terrifying as that was. It's just a curious and interesting story in our day because I think it shows that

some degree of progress goes forward in our country. You may know that down in the capital, United States Capitol, each state is entitled to have two statues of prominent historical figures from that state. And they line the halls of the Capitol and you see them and you wonder who these people were. The state of Arkansas has had the same two statues there for about a century, one of a Confederate lawyer and one of a former governor of the state who was quite an outright racist. Just this past week, Asa Hutchinson, the Republican governor there in Arkansas, or excuse me, I guess it was earlier in the month, signed into law a bill whereby they're going to remove those two statues, and they're going to erect instead two statues to two other Arkansans who are perhaps not as famous in one case.

That one case is a woman named Daisy Lee Gotson Bates. Some of you may know this story. She was the person who organized the Little Rock Nine and helped them integrate Central High School in the 1950s. Extraordinary story. Now you're wondering how did that get accomplished in the Arkansas State Legislature? Well the other statue is going to be to Johnny Cash. I'm worried for the jobs of Sue and myself covering Congress because our colleague Don Gagne, who's obsessed with Johnny Cash more than anyone else in America,

is going to come barreling in taking over that job for us to see the statue. I love this story too, Ron, because I think when you see like a headline where you're like, Arkansas has plans for Confederate statues, and you're like, oh no, what's this going to be? And it, to me, proved that like states, even sharply divided political states, sharply divided country, can still come up with plans on stuff where everyone was like, yeah, okay, we're into that. And Daisy Bates' family, Johnny Cash's family, they all came together.

Everyone was like, what's the plan? Oh, great, we're all on board for that. Compromise is still possible. There is a way. There is always a way. There is a way. All right. And Sue, you were up last.

What can you not let go? So my can't let it go has nothing to do with politics. My can't let it go is, you know, my favorite season is summer. And every year, a friend of mine and I always joke about, like, what is going to be this year's summer jam? Like, what is the jam that you are, you're on the Atlantic City Expressway, you're going to the shore, and it comes on the radio, and it's your jam. And this week, I discovered my jam. Have you guys heard of the artist Lizzo? There's some people.

Oh, wow. Guys, I told you Philly was cool. I told you Philly was cool. I just figured out who this was this week. Apparently, people way cooler than me have been huge fans for a long time. And I listened to her new album, and I fell in love with it. And I think, I don't know, Barton may have a little taste of it just to get you into your little summer jam mode.

That is the show for tonight. Thank you. We love coming here. And thank you to our partner, WHYY. You can support this podcast by supporting them. Donate to your local public radio station. We could not have done this event without Allie Prescott, Jessica Goldstein, and the entire NPR events team. The tools that you saw behind us tonight were done by Renee Klar and Mina Tavakoli.

This show and the podcast are produced by Barton Girdwood and Barbara Sprunt. The lobby was designed by Brandon Carter. Our editors are Beth Donovan, Mithani Mitteri, and Shirley Henry. And most of all, to all of you in the audience tonight and to everyone listening, thank you for listening to the

podcast.