The NPR Politics Podcast - Parkland Students Bring Gun Debate Front And Center

Episode Date: February 23, 2018

Exactly a week after 17 of their teachers and classmates were shot and killed, students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida traveled to Tallahassee to meet with lawmakers, and urge them to take action on guns. Others went to the White House for a listening session with President Trump. And still others took part in a CNN Town Hall, where they confronted senators Marco Rubio and Bill Nelson and the NRA. Something about this moment feels different — but is it? This episode, host/White House correspondent Tamara Keith, congressional correspondent Susan Davis, political reporter Danielle Kurtzleben and national political correspondent Mara Liasson. 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, this is Nolan. I'm a deputy court clerk from beautiful Grand Rapids, Michigan. This podcast was recorded at 2.12 p.m. on Thursday, the 22nd of February. Things may change by the time you hear it. Keep up with all of NPR's political coverage on NPR.org, the NPR One app, and your local public radio station. All right, here's the show. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. This week has been dominated by students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. Just a week after 17 of their teachers and classmates were shot and killed in school, many of the students traveled to Tallahassee yesterday to meet with lawmakers. Others went to the White House to talk to the president, and still others took part in a CNN town hall where they confronted Senators Marco Rubio and Bill Nelson and the NRA. Something about this moment feels different, but is it? That's the

question. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House for NPR. I'm Danielle Kurtzleben, political reporter. I'm Susan Davis. I cover Congress. And I'm Mara Liason, national political correspondent. And normally on Thursdays, we have a wide-ranging discussion about a wide range of topics. And today we are going to have a wide-ranging discussion about one basic topic, and that is the aftermath, the continuing aftermath, and the political aftermath of that terrible shooting last week at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. Yesterday was one week since that shooting. 16-year-old sophomore Tanzil Philip talked about that and about how much has changed since then after meeting with lawmakers in Tallahassee yesterday.

To think, last week at this exact time, I was complaining about not wanting to go to rehearsal after school and trying to think of an excuse to get out of it. That day will be with all of us and all of our parents, all of our teachers for the rest of our lives. The students did not hear what they wanted when they went to Tallahassee. A lot of them were disappointed, though the conversation is ongoing there in the state capital in Florida. And they came away saying that they weren't deterred. Here's junior Alfonso Calderon. This matters to me more than anything else in my entire life. And I want everybody to know, I personally, I'm prepared to drop out of school. I am prepared

to not worry about anything else besides this, because change might not come today. It might not come tomorrow. It might not even come March 24th when we march for our lives down in Washington. But it's going to happen. And it's going to happen before my lifetime because I will fight every single day, and I know everyone else here will fight for the rest of their lives to see sensible gun laws in this country and so that kids don't have to fear going back to school. Thank you. Many other students, parents, and teachers were in Washington, D.C. yesterday at a listening session with the president and the vice president in the White House.

Mara, you were there. You were in the room. It seemed intense watching on TV. It was very intense and very raw. Like all of the discussions have been this week, there were students and parents from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. There were parents who'd lost children in Sandy Hook. And there was a parent who'd lost a child in Columbine. And it was a respectful but pretty wide-ranging discussion.

And you heard the kind of pain and anger that this happened at all. The emotion in this room from Parkland parents was really summed up by Andrew Pollack, whose daughter Meadow was killed, and he came to the White House with his three surviving sons. All the school shootings. It doesn't make sense. Fix it. Should have been one school shooting and we should have fixed it. And I'm pissed because my daughter, I'm not going to see again. She's not here. She's not here. So fix it. But how? And that's where the discussion really kind of fell into two different camps. There was a lot of consensus around background checks, around having better security in schools. But there were big differences over whether teachers should be armed and whether certain kinds of assault rifles should either be banned or have the age at which you can buy them raised. Yeah, it was sort of this fascinating thing where, as you were watching it, you didn't know where it was going. You didn't know what these students and parents were going to say.

You didn't know what the president was going to say. This was not preordained. This was not scripted. This was incredibly raw. And it was a real conversation. That father who you just heard, he happens to be a Trump supporter. After the shooting, as he was on the campus looking for his daughter, he was wearing a Trump 2020 hat. But there was the Democratic mayor of Parkland there.

And there were students like Sam Zife who became famous momentarily because of the texts that he and his 14-year-old brother exchanged. They were on different floors in the high school. His brother's teacher was killed. Yes, his brother's teacher was killed. Rescuing, saving his brother. Yeah. I don't understand. I turned 18 the day after.

Woke up to the news that my best friend was gone. And I don't understand why I could still go in a store and buy a weapon of war, an AR. Did we get a sense from this event of, you know, these people got to say their piece to the president, which is extraordinary. But aside from that, did we get a sense of any movement from Trump from this or of him? to assault rifles yesterday, although today he met with state and local officials where he talked about raising the age to purchase a gun, period, to 21. So we're not exactly sure where he is. We do know this is a position that is not supported by the NRA. And today he said that he's not going to go against the NRA, but they're going to be for this. So it's a little confusing about where he's going legislatively. And we're going to get into all the policy stuff in the second half of

the pod. One of the things that I thought was so interesting to watch, both at the White House and at the CNN town hall, was really one that politicians were willing to go into rooms where they knew it was not a receptive audience, something that they don't tend to do, certainly the president doesn't tend to do, and really take it. You know, I mean, listening to these students and these parents have these really confrontational yelling at politicians moment, I thought in a weird way was really healthy, right? Like a lot of the criticism we see of politicians is pundits, it's people on television, it's people who do this for a living. And seeing like real citizens in raw emotion engage with their elected officials was really amazing thing to watch this week. And one of the things that set this event, I think, somewhat apart than the other mass shooting

events that we've had is we haven't had similar responses. I think that these sorts of conversations have probably happened before that, you know, like presidents have gone and met with families and survivors. And I have no doubt in my mind that they've been yelled at and that they've been you know, they've been they've been taken to task and they've been implored to do something. The last 24 hours in particular has been on television. It's been live in front of audiences. It isn't behind closed doors. As Sue was talking about just how intense that CNN town hall was, I just want to play a little tiny bit of it. This is Fred Guttenberg. His 14-year-old daughter, Jamie, was killed at Stoneman Douglas. And he was the first person to get to ask a question at this town hall of Marco Rubio, the Republican senator from Florida.

Senator Rubio, I just listened to your opening and thank you. I want to like you. Here's the problem. And I'm a brutally honest person. So I'm just going to say it up front. Yes, sir. When I like you, you know it, and when I'm pissed at you, you know it. Your comments this week and those of our president have been pathetically weak. The other thing about the CNN town hall, just very briefly, it was in a, like an arena. There were like thousands of people there and they were cheering and hooting and it made for a very intense experience. So you and I are now eye to eye because I want to like you.

Look at me and tell me guns were the factor in the hunting of our kids in this school this week. And look at me and tell me you accept it and you will work with us to do something about guns. Fred, Fred, I'm not, first of all, let me explain what I said this week and I'll repeat it. I'll repeat what I said and what I said and then I'm going to tell you what we're going to do. We're going to talk about guns and we're going to talk about what I said this week. And here's what I said. I said that the problems that we are facing—

Let him speak. I think we need to hear it. I'm saying that the problems that we're facing here today cannot be solved by gun laws alone. And I'm going to tell you what we've done already and what I hope we'll do moving forward. Are guns the factor in the hunting of our kids? Absolutely. Of course they were. It's the weapon of choice. Can you say that? Number one, Fred, I absolutely believe that in this country, if you are 18 years of age, you should not be able to buy a rifle, and I will support a law that takes that right away.

Fantastic. I will support the banning of bump stocks, and I know that the president has ordered the attorney general to do it. And if he doesn't, we should do it by law. I will support changing our background system so that it includes more information than it includes now. And that all states across the country are required or incentivized to report all the information into it. The thing that's so interesting about that, too, Tam, is that that they could fill an arena of people that want to have this conversation. Right. And that one of the points that's been made is when they talk about the power of the N motivating issue that you show up and vote on. And one of the questions that we don't have the answer to yet, but one of the questions I think going forward of this is, do people that feel the other way engage with the same levels of enthusiasm and single mindedness at the ballot box and being able to fill an arena of people. I mean, that deck was stacked against Marco Rubio last night, right? Like that was a room of people who want to see more gun laws. And he went in to have the argument. I'm not sure that that arena is a reflection of where this

country as a whole is, but it does speak to the fact that people in communities, as they are increasingly affected by these shootings, do they start to engage in elections in a way they haven't? It might not be the country as a whole, but in communities like Broward County, suburbs around Philadelphia, these are the kind of communities where the midterms are going to be fought. These are the kind of parents and students that are energized by this issue. Now, Sue is exactly correct. The question is, how intense is this feeling? And if you listen to those kids who went to Tallahassee, and we have a couple clips of them, how devoted are they going to be to getting themselves registered to vote for the first time, registering other people? Because we know that young people turn out at abysmally low numbers. One of the kids who went to Tallahassee to meet with lawmakers and was pretty disappointed with what they told him was Ryan Deitch. They can walk around any question they want, but the more they don't act, the more they don't deserve to be in office. The more that I know, me and my friends, we are turning 18. I am a senior. I'm 18 myself now. I can vote and I know who I'm not voting for. Up until now, the intensity on this issue, even though a lot of these gun control measures have majority support, but the intensity of this issue has been on the gun rights side.

And this week, we now have the possibility it could be turning a little. in terms of the intensity with which gun owners approach this issue. I mean, a thing that I often say is that gun ownership is an identity issue. And to an extent that gun control, I think it's pretty safe to say, has not been. You know, people are literally card-carrying NRA members. They have NRA-branded credit cards. Like, the NRA is a brand, you know, and people identify with it. People are a member of it. Danielle, this is such a good point. And I've said the same thing where but I even say it's not just identity for gun rights owners. This is religion, right? Sure. This is even beyond identity politics. This goes to your core values of what it means to be an American. Yeah. Oh,

absolutely. And fact on that. So Pew last year asked people about, you know, what it means to be an American. You know, the different freedoms that define American-ness. So they asked about freedom of speech, voting, freedom of privacy, freedom of religion. Now, gun owners and non-owners on all of those, overwhelming majority said, yes, those are core to being an American. Now, you ask them about owning a gun. How core is that to being an American? Now, you can expect a divide on this, and there is one. 35% of non-gun owners say that's an important freedom to being an American. 74% of gun owners say that's an important freedom. That is the one area where they found a really big gap. Because things are so tribal now, we can't have the argument that we used to have,

which is nobody is taking away anyone's guns. We just want to make it illegal, just like we already make it illegal to have a machine gun. We think there are other guns that are like machine guns that should also be banned and were for 10 years from 1994 to 2004. But because we're so tribal, it's black and white. Any gun restrictions at all means you're coming after my tribe. Right. Well, it means you're restricting who I am by extension. Any restriction at all. And that's the problem with this debate is that there's no room for anything in the middle. The line I always say is it's like, take a born again Christian and an avowed atheist

and put them in a room and say, OK, guys, just come to some baseline understandings on who Jesus was. And that may seem like a joke, but I think it is as serious as how the gun debate divides this country. The passionate disagreement on what it means to own a gun has been an intractable debate. And I feel like this is the point at which we should hear from the NRA because we've been talking about him for a while. And it just so happens that the conservative political action conference was underway in the greater Washington, D.C. area today. And one Wayne LaPierre, who's the head of the NRA, spoke this morning and he didn't tiptoe. These intellectual elites, they think they're smarter than we are.

They think they're smarter than the rest of us. And they think they're better than we are. They truly believe it. And you know it. The privileged and the powerful, they think they deserve to be in charge of every lever of power. But you know what? The United States Constitution makes it absolutely clear that they are not in charge. We, the people, are in charge of this country. I mean, that just totally speaks to Danielle's point about identity politics and the us and them and the cultural issue of this.

They, the nefarious they, they want to take your guns. They want to take your freedoms. You know, it speaks to this, again, that core gut visceral thing about what kind of role the government gets to play in your life. And if you have a gun in your home and you want to keep it, it's not just about that firearm, right? It's about like the very existence of what it means, your identity as an American. It is so passionately felt among the gun right ownership crowd. And the NRA, to Mara's point, has done nothing but throw gasoline on that fire. And what's so interesting is, to me, I heard the speech today. It was the distilled essence of Trumpism to me. It was about anger and fear.

The NRA usually uses anger and fear really well. During the Obama years, it motivated their voters. Now what Wayne LaPierre is worried about is that there's anger and fear on the other side. Fear is an amazing mobilizer in American politics. Well, and to flip this around 180 degrees, once again, to this identity point, Sue, there was a stat that you sent around last week just after the shooting. It was something to the effect of 150,000 Americans have experienced a school shooting to, you know, since Columbine, since Columbine. Thank you. And when we talk about identity politics, yes, the NRA is a very big organization. It has, I believe, around five million members. OK, so that's a lot. Yes. And one hundred and fifty thousand pales in proportion in comparison to that. That said, I mean, that is one hundred fifty thousand people who have the identity of person who has survived a school shooting, person who has experienced a school shooting. And I think what we are one part of what we are seeing right now is that there have been so many shootings that you have enough people who can kind of who feel that identity in their gut. And they're

starting to not just starting, but like they are reaching a critical mass. That is one way to look at what's happening right now. Except for they don't have a powerful corporate plus grassroots lobby behind them. They do not. And that is true. Yes. But we can say I think it's accurate and fair to say that we are at a point where mass shootings are a distinctly American experience. I mean, that is a reality of American life. And how you feel about how you prevent those things, there's very different ideas on how you change that. But I don't think there's any dispute that this type of shooting has become a common occurrence. I think I've been at NPR a little over two years, and I think this is maybe the fourth time we're in studio talking about one of these.

I mean, it happens at least several times a year now. Yeah. As for the solutions, the fixes, what the problem even really is that we are discussing, we're going to get to that after a quick break. Support for this podcast and the following message come from SimpliSafe. We're going to get to that after a quick break. with SimpliSafe. Each SimpliSafe system is a complete security arsenal. There are no contracts and no hidden fees. Get a special 10% discount when you order today at simplisafe.com slash NPR politics. Hey, I'm Kelly McEvers, host of Embedded, and we know how confusing the investigation into Trump, Russia, and the 2016 election can be. So we've got two new episodes that lay it all out. So the next time you see a headline, you'll know what's going on.

Listen to Embedded on NPR One or wherever you download your podcasts. All right. We are back. And in the last 24 hours, in addition to having these town halls, we've also had a couple of Republican politicians, namely Marco Rubio and President Trump, take new positions on gun policy. And I think it's worth just sort of talking through, walking through what they are saying that they support now and what that means. So last night at the CNN town hall, Marco Rubio, he changed his view. He has been hardline, right in line with what the NRA position is. And he seems to have come out for some things that are not that. Right. Most notably, he said he was willing to reconsider his stance on high capacity magazines.

These devices that, you know, can feed quite a few bullets, you know, up to 30, sometimes more into a gun. And so, you know, that allow a shooter like the shooter in Las Vegas or like Nicholas Cruz to shoot a lot of people without reloading. And Senator Rubio said that he is willing to reconsider his stance on that. One of the commonalities in these mass shooting events is the use of high capacity magazines, which is another thing that is unique to mass shootings, and I believe have been used certainly in at least all of the recent school shootings. It allows you to kill a lot of people in a very short period of time. Rubio is also open to raising their age when you can buy certain kind of assault rifles. He's also open to ban their age when you can buy certain kind of assault rifles. He's also open to banning bump stocks. Those are things that the president says he's also open to. So

there is a little bit of change around the edges, except the NRA is not for some of those things. So it's hard to see them passing Congress. Let's explain the age thing. Right now, when you want to buy a gun, if you are under the age of 21, you can't buy a handgun. But you can buy an AR-15. Right. That is right. And other long guns, other types of rifles. Between the ages of 18 and 21. Yes.

And there's been sort of a coalescing around that as a potential policy change that is is getting some traction in Tallahassee and getting some traction from President Trump and Marco Rubio, among others, because the shooter in Florida was 19 years old and was able to legally purchase an AR-15 while he would not have been able to legally purchase a regular old handgun. Right. Let's go to President Trump. Today at the White House, President Trump spoke and he talked about some of the ideas that he is planning to push. I've called many senators last night, many congressmen, and Jeff and Pam and everybody in this room, I can tell you, Curtis, they're into doing background checks that they wouldn't be thinking about maybe two weeks ago. We're going to do strong background checks. We're going to work on getting the age up to 21 instead of 18. We're getting rid of the bump stocks.

And we're going to be focusing very strongly on mental health because here's a case of mental health. One thing that I think is interesting that the prescriptives that Trump laid out here, and I think it helps to think about policy solutions in this gun debate, is I think I put them in two columns. Is that there are policy proposals that don't actually involve the actual gun itself. And there are policy proposals that involve the actual gun. And the things he laid out here are accurately the more common ground kind of proposals, mental health, background checks, bump stocks are not an actual weapon, they're a weapon accessory, although obviously that might get a little bit trickier. It's really when you get into limiting ammunition, access to the gun, sale of the gun, who gets to carry the gun, where do you get to carry the gun, that that is where it gets a bit more complicated. And it's hard to separate those two columns, which is what

has caused so much inaction. The one point I want to make, when Sue talks about common ground, it's true the background checks seem to be the thing that everybody is for, but the devil is in the details there too, because everyone wants to make sure that deranged people don't get guns. But today, in his speech, Wayne LaPierre was saying he's fine for somebody to be prohibited from owning a gun if they are adjudicated as mentally incompetent. Right. And that is a high bar. And there are also all sorts of civil liberties issues. That's why you

saw the ACLU and the NRA on the same side against some of these Obama-era regulations that would have allowed the reporting of someone who was declared financially incompetent. Right. And, you know, you saw some of this at the CNN town hall. Dana Loesch, the NRA spokeswoman, she used the word crazy a few times, saying that we don't want crazy people to get guns was her, I believe, her wording. People who are crazy should not be able to get firearms. C. People who are dangerous to themselves and other individuals should not be able to obtain a firearm. Well, so you could hear there, you could hear someone saying, you know, don't call them crazy. Like that, the way that you approach this issue, like Mara was saying, the devil is in the details.

What do you consider someone who is mentally ill? Many, many Americans have some form of mental illness. I mean, the issue is who is adjudicating this? Who declares it? There is a legal process for adjudicating somebody. Look, the NRA really knows what it's talking about. Donald Trump doesn't know what he's talking about when he says, of course, we're going to solve this problem. Mental health, we're going to go strong on mental health. The NRA knows exactly what it's talking about. It uses precise language. And then when they say someone who is adjudicated mentally incompetent or

dangerous, that is a legal process that results in this. And rightfully has a very high bar because you were talking about taking away someone's civil liberties. Correct. Well, you know, one thing that really jumped out at me, the president had one solution above all. And he talked about it yesterday with the families and today again with the local and state officials, he wants more armed personnel in schools. Arming teachers, he said maybe 20 percent of them would be trained and adept with firearms. Today, he said a school is like a military base. It should be hardened. I want certain highly adept people, people that understand weaponry, guns, if they really have that aptitude.

Because not everybody has an aptitude for a gun. But if they have the aptitude, I think a concealed permit for having teachers and letting people know that there are people in the building with guns. You won't have, in my opinion, you won't have these shootings because these people are cowards. They're not going to walk into a school if 20% of the teachers have guns. It may be 10% or maybe 40%. And what I'd recommend doing is the people that do carry, we give them a bonus. We give them a little bit of a bonus. They're frankly, they'd feel more comfortable having the gun anyway, but you give them a little bit of a bonus. So practically for free, you have now made the school into a hardened target. In the orbit of policy proposals that have come up this week and we're talking about, it is very hard for me to put arming teachers in the serious policy proposal column. I would put this more in the political debate of NFL players who kneel or these kind of flashpoint. People are going to have really heated debates about it,

but it's not a proposal that any of the stakeholders in this really support. We also saw that at the CNN town hall last night. The county sheriff there said, as the senior law enforcement agency in that county, he does not support arming teachers. Marco Rubio said he does at the CNN town hall last night. The county sheriff there said, as the senior law enforcement agency in that county, he does not support arming teachers. Marco Rubio said he does not support arming teachers. It is not an issue that I think has a majority support in the public and policymakers among teacher unions or school chancellors. I mean, this is not a serious policy prescriptive, but it is something that is going to ignite a very passionate debate over who should carry a gun. This is the president of the United States' main solution. He talked about it

more than any other solution. And as Sue just pointed out, it's not a serious policy solution. Which for Trump is like a bit of a missed opportunity, right? I mean, he does have this unique position where he has so much credibility among NRA supporters, among the NRA itself, because they were a strong supporter of his campaign, where if he could thread this needle, right, like he could help give Republicans the opportunity to do a stronger background check system with some of this bump stocks. No, that is the fantasy Trump. Nixon goes to China Trump. No, we saw this with immigration. We see this every time. Wrong. That's just the fantasy. He's beholden to no one. He

could he has so much power with the base. He could bring two sides together. No. As he said today, I am not going to go against the NRA. They're good people. One thing I want to get at here, I want to zoom way out because we are talking about these particular little policy proposals. This one, as you guys are saying, doesn't seem terribly serious. I mean, one stat that never ceases to blow my mind is that the U.S. has 4.4 percent of the world's population and 42 percent of the world's guns. And what I'm getting at with that is that the genie is out of the bottle to a big extent when it comes to guns, right? I mean, if we're talking about background checks on future gun sales and so on, I mean, to the extent that a large amount of guns is correlated or causes, if that's true,

all of these mass shootings, if you're comfortable saying that, I mean, then to what degree can this problem be solved is the question that I always ask after something like this. I think that's a good question as like a broader, the broader public health question, right? Like, is it already such an epidemic? Is there a cure? It's an imperfect parallel, but I do think you could draw a parallel to smoking cigarettes. You know, at one point, smoking rates in this country, pretty much, I used to smoke cigarettes. At one point, like smoking was a way of life. And whether it was good for you or bad for you was a really disputed matter of public policy. And it took a lot of legal, lawmaking, regulation, public policy, health fights. And now there's a very

different argument. That's when expertise was valued. People listened to scientists and believed that it caused cancer. Now, can you imagine if that kind of argument was proposed? People would say fake news. Yeah. It's really good for you. Sure. But this is like that goes to the meta problem here, which I think gets to the problem of why it's hard to find these policy solutions, is that of the many laws that have been passed affecting guns in this country, there is what is essentially a prohibition on the federal government at the Center for Disease Control doing research into the impacts of gun violence and how to prevent it. It was something that passed, I believe it was in the 90s under the Dickey Amendment. And the intention of it was to not allow the CDC to lobby on the issue of gun legislation. The effect of it is that we don't really have any wealth of public, scientifically based, nonpartisan data on gun crimes, gun violence, prevention, what to do. And so the data we do have tends to be

partisan. It's from the NRA or it's from the Brady campaign or it's from media outlets that have crunched nonpartisan data, but they're easy to dispute by partisans on either side. We can't even agree on what the facts are. One other thing that I want to lay on top of this, on top of what Sue is saying there in terms of research on gun control. I mean, one other thing that gun control advocates have working against them is that it is so hard to prove counterfactuals. You know, there are not news stories about today someone who was not allowed to get a high capacity magazine, for example. Prove the negative. Yeah. Today, someone who otherwise would have shot someone did not shoot someone. That never is never going to make a headline. And if it ever does, you know, come tell me when gun control works. There is never going to be a dramatic headline about it beginning of this podcast, where I said that something feels different.

The question is, is it? And I know that's a really big question. No, but it's worth it. But I want to ask it. I don't want to be the skunk at the garden party here, but I don't really think it's different. It felt different after Sandy Hook, too. I think that school shootings, the mass shootings at schools are still absolutely the most horrific things that happen. And when they do, I mean, it's different than even what happened in Texas in the church shooting,

in Las Vegas. I mean, these are all horrific. Killing kids is emotionally, I just think, just devastating, right? This is beyond politics or how you vote or whatever. I mean, it's just tragic. And watching parents talk about losing their children and watching the tape we play to the kid, the brothers texting, saying, I love you. I mean, these are just absolutely raw human moments. The cynical political reporter in me, I don't really think

that the needle has moved either in public opinion or in policymaking. I don't think that when Congress comes back into session next week, we're going to have a different argument that we've been having. I think that the argument about guns in this country is going to be happening for a much longer period of time. I am in Sue's ballpark here. I'm a few inches sunnier than her. I think that this time is different. I mean, it depends on what you think different means. It's different in the sense that we have this group of high schoolers who are talking about this, this group of high schoolers who, if they are like a lot of other kids in America, spent their entire childhoods doing lockdown drills in school. That's not nothing. You know, but when it comes to the binary one or zero of whether something passes, you know, yeah, we saw Marco Rubio start to change

his tune on a few things. But as far as that black, white, yes, no, is there going to be gun control? Like, it seems like there is such a high hurdle for that to clear. And so I totally see what Sue is saying on that. meaning today we're doing a hibernation drill and a hibernation drill is where all the kids grab their favorite stuffed animal from the classroom and they go get and hug the stuffed animal in a place where no one can see them at all and they were prepping the kids for their hibernation drill and one of the kids said oh this isn't really about hibernation, is it? This is about hiding from bad people who are coming to get us. And then other kids started talking about the shooting. And these are four and five year olds. And this is their lives. Part of what was interesting to watch with these kids this week is how articulate they were. Right. Like, I just think we look at 17 year olds and you're like, oh, they're just kids. And they were very poised. They were articulate. And I

tweeted about this this week and it kind of went viral and it was kind of weird because I didn't, I just, it was like a one-off thought I had. But about, I thought about it because when I thought, if you're 17 right now, I was like, wow, you were born in 2001, right? And 2001 was 9-11. And if you've grown up in this like age of terror already as your nation's political climate and just in the number of mass shootings we've had in their lives. Right. I mean, they these Florida kids, they experienced the Pulse nightclub shooting, the Las Vegas shooting and sort of aware of the world and that they exist. They were in middle school, I think, when Newtown happened. I mean, the consciousness of a generation, and I think every generation has the touchstone experiences that define being a 70s kid or an 80s kid or a 90s kid. And these are, what would you call them if you were growing up? The aughts kids? Aughts teens kid? I don't know. The things that they will talk about when they're

in podcasts at our age that defined their childhoods and their coming into adulthood is pretty dark. Does that argue against your thinking that it's not different? It's not different, I think, in the real term, immediate impact of policy debates. But does it change the way people think about these issues? You know, in terms of, I talked to one of the two young women, Eleanor Nectarline and Whitney Bowen, who are juniors at Potomac School, and they organized the lie-in in front of the White House. And originally, they just wanted 17 people to lie in, turned out to be much bigger. And they really spoke to Sue's point here. We really just want to show politicians

that the movement for gun reform is not only coming from adults and parents and politicians with opposing views, but it's coming from the kids who are sitting in the classrooms and it's coming from high school students and college students and the kids like us who have grown up

in a era when we have never known a world without school shootings. We were born two years after the Columbine massacre and the Virginia Tech shooting happened when we were in first grade. We've been having lockdown drills since we were in kindergarten. And we really just want to show that that the push for this isn't coming from parents. It's coming from the kids. So where I come out as to whether this is different or not is that tipping points can only be seen in the rearview mirror. You just don't know when you're in the midst of one. And everything I know about covering politics would say, of course, nothing will change. It didn't change after Sandy Hook. What could be more horrific than a bunch of little kids being

mowed down? On the other hand, when things change, they change fast. And we're in a time of tremendous disruption. And all the things we thought we knew about politics were proven wrong in 2016. Why shouldn't they continue to be proven wrong? So my feeling is, I don't know if it's different. But I'll tell you when we're going to get one big clue, November. And on that note, we are going to take one more quick break, and then a dramatic change. Can't let it go. and the new WBEZ podcast, Making Obama, with interviews from the former president, his mentors, advisors, and rivals who were there from the beginning. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts

or wherever you get your podcasts. It's available now. We're back, and it is time to end the show as we always do with Can't Let It Go, when we all share one thing we cannot stop thinking about this week, politics or otherwise. Who wants to go first? I'll go first.

All right, Sue. My can't let it go this week is, I hope I say his name right, Alexander Krushelnitsky. You got to say it with a Russian accent. I like it. He is a Russian athlete competing in the Olympics, and he was stripped of his bronze medal this week because he was found guilty of doping in a regular round of testing. You would think what I can't let go is that Russians, after already being banned from the Olympics for doping, are still finding ways to dope in the Olympics, competing under a neutral flag. Still finding ways to get caught. That's not what I can't let go. What I can't let go is that he was doping in curling. I don't know if I am. I am a member of a devoted curling watching household and it is very fun to watch curling and I think I would like to try it someday. It's really fun. The thing about curling is if you watch curling, which it's kind of like shuffleboard on ice, but adults are the pucks. And there's brooms.

And there's brooms. But it's kind of the sport that like not out of shape beer drinkers could watch and be like, I could win a gold in that. I am not sure what... You are underestimating the athleticism of curling. Maybe I am. Maybe curling is so much harder than any of us have ever anticipated and it requires performance enhancing drugs. How heavy are those rocks anyway? But I was like, the Russians,

they cheat at everything. What flag was he competing under? He was competing under, it's like, they're allowing Russians just to compete as like athletes of Russia. It's not like under their OAR.

They're not competing for their actual country. But to already have your nation banned for doping, get in anyway, still be doping and have it be for curling. You're like, man, it's just embarrassing. Mara, why can't you let go? Okay, my can't let it go this week is the advantages and disadvantages as a journalist of being in the room. So I was in the room when the president met with these kids and parents, and it was incredibly moving. On the other hand, because I was not a photographer with a telescopic lens, it was not possible for me to read the words on the card that the president was holding, which turned out to be part of the story. He was holding a little card, and the first instruction to him was, what would you most

want me to know about your experience? What can we do to help you feel better or safer? And the last one was, I hear you. And for a president who has struggled with empathy in the past, this was a little reminder from his staff, presumably, to make sure he expressed empathy. And this reminded me of another time I was in the room and missed the story because I was in the room. And that was when Howard Dean. It was exuberant, but it was not a person screaming whose head filled the entire television screen. And that looked different. These events are televised events. And sometimes, and this is why we all like to not be in the room for debates, want to either watch them on TV or at least have a telescopic lens that you can see what the president is holding. Well, it's like when you're at a political convention, you hear the boos that are in the room because there in the press file because most Americans are watching the debate at home in their living rooms and you should be closer to how the people are absorbing the information, which is the Dean screen. And in this, yes, in this case, it was just the power

of photography that you can zoom in. And Twitter, right? Somebody tweeted that picture and it spread really quickly. And I was standing right there and I only could learn about it from Twitter. All right, I'm going to go next. My can't let it go involves lobster and emoji or emojis. Anyway, a couple of weeks ago, Senator Angus King from Maine had this incredible victory. He had convinced Unicode to include among the new class of emojis lobster because Maine lobster. It's the state food or something. Anyway, he had been lobbying hard to get a lobster emoji. It turns out that the people who drew up the little

lobster picture didn't give it enough legs. And the poor lobster only had eight legs. So the news this week is that there has been a great victory. They have revised the image of the lobster for the

new class of emojis. It will have the appropriate 10 legs. And there is a quote from Senator King's spokesman, John Faraday. Senator King knows that many around the world were rightly steamed by the exclusion of two legs from the original design and is grateful that Emojipedia took quick action to ensure that Maine's delicious Decapod will be accurately represented when it crawls onto phones in the coming months. I've learned something today. Decapod.

Did not know that was a thing. My favorite tweet about Angus King when they announced that he had won the lobster emoji fight was somebody tweeted, Angus King secures lobster emoji victory, wins reelection with 100 percent. Angus King secures lobster emoji victory, wins re-election with 100%. And I love how he signs his name in his tweet, cow crown. Angus King. But here's my question. I don't know if you have the answer to it. When will I be able to type lobster and get an emoji symbol?

It's going to take several months, apparently, for this to propagate. There's a lot of red tape in the emoji arena. Yeah, sorry. Do you know I've never used an emoji? I believe that, Mara. And on principle, I never will. And on principle, you're like, I don't even know what you're talking about right now.

Have you ever even done a sideways smiley face? Yes. A frowny face? Yes. Okay. That's a do-it-yourself emoji. That's a gateway drug to marijuana. That's the marijuana both-way to school emoji.

Emojis and memes belong in the same circle of hell. Dustbin of history. Mara has drawn a very stark line in America. Yes, I really have. I'm not on Facebook, and of course now I'm so happy. Danielle, what can't you let go of? All right. So for my Can't Let It Go, I offer you a defense of Fergie because...

Oh, no. Get out. I'm going to counterpoint you on this. Go on. All right. So for those who missed it, this week at the NBA All-Star Game, Fergie, formerly of the Black Eyed Peas, sang the national anthem. And it was unorthodox. Oh, say can you see by the dawn's early light what so proudly we hailed.

My favorite part of this is when she's singing and they're panning the faces of the NBA players. And you can see them all looking at each other like, what is happening? Steph Curry has a very good game face. It was just keeping it together. This is not Roseanne Barr level terrible. No, this is... It's creepier, though, because it was like Marilyn Monroe, breathy, singing happy birthday to JFK's sexy national anthem. And it made me physically uncomfortable to watch it.

It was less that. It was more vocal fry. Like, okay. Okay. What is your defense? My defense, I have a couple prongs to this defense, and I'll keep it quick. One is that, like, the national anthem is done before every single sports game. And there's some interesting history to that, but I'm not going to get into it.

And it's almost become rote. And I appreciate anybody doing something new that is not overtly disrespectful like the Roseanne one from way back in the day. Like try a new thing. Someone get up and rap the national anthem. Fine. I appreciate that she was trying something new. And, you know, like, it was like stand-up bass and brushes on a snare drum sounded like what her backing was.

Like, jazz is uniquely American. I'm fine with that. I want other people to do new types of national anthems. I'm fine with it, even if it was kind of sultry is the word that has been used for it. And as the podcast's resident musician, we defer to you. Oh, really? Awesome. I will only just use this opportunity to once again make a point that I've argued very ferociously in my life that the best national anthem by any celebrity ever is still Whitney Houston at the Super Bowl. Oh, sure.

It's not even an argument. Don't at me. Sue, all I can say. You're very strongly about celebrity versions of national anthem. I think I'm just discovering this. But you're correct on that. I am right about Whitney Houston. And that is a wrap for this week.

We will be back in your feet Saturday with a podcast from our live show in Cleveland. And if you're in Cleveland, there are still a few tickets left. Come see us tomorrow night, Friday. We will be at the Ohio Theater at Playhouse Square. You can find more information and tickets at NPR Presents dot org. And in the meantime, you can always keep up with our coverage on NPR.org, NPR Politics, on Facebook, where Mara does not go. And of course, on your local public radio station and on Up First every weekday morning. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House for NPR.

I'm Danielle Kurtzleben, political reporter. I'm Susan Davis. I cover Congress. And I'm Mara Liason, national political correspondent. Thanks for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.