The NPR Politics Podcast - President Trump Partly Shuts Border With Canada

Episode Date: March 18, 2020

The Defense Department said it would contribute to the coronavirus pandemic response with hospital ships, field treatment centers and medical supplies. Congress also ramped up its response, with the Senate expected to pass a stimulus package Wednesday afternoon. This episode: campaign correspondent Asma Khalid, congressional correspondent Kelsey Snell, and White House correspondent Tamara Keith.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hello, this is Joe Miles. I'm sitting by myself in peaceful Seuss Creek Park near my home in King County, not far from Seattle, Washington. I'm practicing social distancing by listening to the sounds of nature. I'm finding it very therapeutic. This podcast was recorded at 2.13 p.m. on Wednesday, March 18th. Things may have changed by the time you hear this podcast. Enjoy the show. I hope he also starts listening to the lovely sounds of the NPR Politics Podcast. We might be just as therapeutic as the sounds of nature. I mean, I've heard that all of your voices sound kind of like a babbling brook.

So it's all the same, right? Well, hey there. It's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Asma Khalid. I cover the presidential campaign. I'm Kelsey Snell. I cover Congress. And I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. As we tape this podcast, the government is continuing to ramp up its efforts to address the coronavirus pandemic. And we're going to walk you through the latest developments. Let's start with what happened today at the White House. A lot of updates, including a decision to close the U.S.-Canada border. Tam, what's going on?

It's not a full closure of the border, but it's closing it to all but essential travel. And as this is rolled out, we'll understand more about it. But certainly health care workers who say live in Canada but work in upstate New York are still going to be able to get to work at the hospitals where they work. Also, quite notably, the president at this press conference announced that he is invoking the Defense Production Act. This is something that many people had been calling on him to do for some time that he said he wasn't sure would be needed. Now he says he's doing it. And this could possibly lead to the production of more ventilators, for instance, or more respirators and masks. Yeah, the ventilators are in particular are what Democrats have been worried about. They put out a letter earlier this week asking for the president to invoke the DPA, Defense Production Act. They're basically saying that Congress took action in 2009 to make

sure that this could allow the president to explicitly extend authorities to support domestic preparedness when responding to national emergencies. In particular, they want to be able to allow the president to go to private industry and ask them to help ramp up production of things like ventilators or diagnostic kits and medical supplies in particular, because they think that it's probably the easiest and fastest way to make sure that those supplies are provided for medical professionals who are seriously worried that there is a critical shortage of all of those things in the economy right now. So is this like in World War II where the U.S. government went to car makers and said, all right, you're not making

cars anymore. You're making tanks. Not quite. I mean, this was passed originally in 1950, but it does kind of have that same vibe, right? It allows the president to start marshalling resources wherever they may be in order to respond to something that is of this scale, a national emergency. It has to be a response to a national emergency or in a defense situation for national security. And one other thing that the president announced is that he's going to make these two military hospital ships available for civilian use in states that might need them. Now, it's a little bit more complicated than it sounds, because one of the ships is sort of out of commission for repair at the moment, and neither of them are set up for a respiratory disease,

an infectious disease like this. But it's something and it's something that states have been wanting. And Kelsey, I want to ask you about what's been happening on the other side with Congress. It seems like the Senate will pass this multi-billion dollar aid package by the end of the day today. What should we know about what's in that legislation? The bill that they're voting on today is the thing that passed the House last week, and then the House had to pass some technical corrections to it on Monday. It is the House legislation that expands unemployment insurance and paid sick and family leave. It also shores up some of the food security programs like food stamps

and making sure that kids have access to expanded school lunches. Kids who would normally get free and reduced lunch when they attend school, it gives them an opportunity to be fed when they are not attending school, creates new systems to make sure that food is getting out to people who need it. And Kelsey, I think yesterday it was Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader, said something like, yeah, yeah, just plug your noses and vote for this and we'll move on to the next thing. Right. There are some concerns among Republicans about the way the paid sick and family leave would work in particular. They're worried that small businesses might not be able to actually pay those benefits because they're already hurting pretty badly in this

economy, you know, where they some places just aren't open or where they, you know, if they're a restaurant in a lot of states in a lot of cities, people can't serve food. So there are a lot of concerns about how exactly they would execute some of these benefits when the companies themselves are having a hard time staying afloat. It seems like a major intent in this legislation is to stabilize the economy. And, you know, it does seem like we've seen so much volatility in the stock market. We saw the markets, you know, fall today to a point that I believe was on par or even lower than where it was at Donald Trump's inauguration day. Do we have a sense from lawmakers that this feels sufficient

for the sort of increased anxiety that people feel about the economy? They absolutely do not feel that the bill that they're voting on today is going to be sufficient. The whole plan is for them to move on immediately to working on a bill that they that Leader McConnell says he's working on it already with the White House. But the plan is to try to get something passed as quickly as possible. That would include direct cash payments to people who need it. We don't know the structure of that. We don't know who all would be eligible for the payments, but we do know Congress wants to get it done and get it done fast. Yeah, I mean, things are moving so quickly that the House bill that seemed really big a week ago now seems pretty insufficient to the problem. And the idea of paid sick leave

is it's like everything's moved beyond sick leave. People are being laid off. Businesses are shutting down. And tomorrow we're going to get an economic indicator. It's something that comes out every week. It's first time claims for unemployment insurance. And it's a lagging indicator. So whatever comes out tomorrow probably won't look as bad as what comes out next week. But already states are saying that they are getting massive claims for unemployment. People are just people are losing their jobs. People are being laid off. And this is all happening extremely quickly. It's just so sudden. What we've been just talking about are, you know, assistance to individuals,

but there is a concern that there are just large sectors of the economy. You know, I'm thinking about the airline industry in particular that's been particularly hard hit. You know, are we getting some clarity on some sort of relief for particular industries? We don't know what shape the business side relief is going to take, but I'm told we should expect that it will be in there, that there may be industry-specific relief. There is a lot of concerns about shoring up the foundation of the economy, as Leader McConnell says. He wants to make sure that this isn't just assistance to families and to individuals, but there's also supposed to be business assistance in here. And some sort of portion of this upcoming bill will deal with getting additional resources

to healthcare providers. But everything is moving really, really quickly. As Tam said, this is one of those situations where we know negotiations are happening and that things are being written down. But every time I see a number or somebody speaks a number at a press conference, get a follow up within 10 or 15 minutes saying that that number or that proposal or that idea has started to change. So we may be a couple of days before we see what the true outline of this relief package looks like. But to be clear, they are talking about literally sending checks to Americans. And this has been done before. It was done right after 9-11. But talking about sending, the dollar figure isn't set, but maybe a $1,000 check to every adult in America. It is a dramatic effort that they're working on,

the idea being that if the economy has come screeching to a halt because of efforts to contain this virus, that they have to do something to sort of keep it afloat and keep people afloat. All right. Well, we are going to take a quick break. And when we get back, we'll talk more about how the White House is changing not just the substance of its coronavirus message, but also its style in delivering that message. This message comes from NPR sponsor StoryPoint Vineyards, maker of StoryPoint, a new wine brand who believes wine and storytelling are the perfect pair.

StoryPoint grapes are sourced from California's best-growing regions, so their wines are never one-dimensional. Consumers on Vivino rank StoryPoint among the top 3% of wines in the world. As a special offer to NPR listeners, shipping is included in your online order. Visit storypointvineyards.com slash politics to purchase. Change is hard. Transitions can be even harder. But they're also an opportunity to explore and discover and reimagine things you thought you knew. I'm Manoush Zomorodi, the new host of NPR's TED Radio Hour. And with all this in mind, we've decided to make my entire first episode about reinvention. Subscribe or listen right now. And we're back. And let's talk

about messaging. NPR's Steve Inskeep sat down with Vice President Mike Pence to ask how long the administration expects this crisis to last. Do these efforts, these measures have to continue until there is a vaccine? We think, based upon other similar viruses and what we know of what's taken place in China and in other countries that we will essentially see what people see on television on a regular basis and on the internet. We will see a curve, something of a bell curve. But given the processes for approving a vaccine, putting the safety and health of America first. A vaccine will likely not be available for more than a year, closer to a year and a half. But therapeutic medicines, relief for Americans, because our pharmaceutical industry is responding to the president's call,

we believe will be available this summer. But do you have to continue the CDC guidelines, the shelter in place, those things until you have a vaccine, or can you drop them soon? I think what we're asking the American public to do right now, based on our best information, is in the next 15 days, is to avoid social gatherings of more than 10 people, avoid eating and drinking at bars and restaurants and food courts, use the drive-through and pickup and delivery for restaurants, avoid discretionary travel, essentially do all of those things that our task force unveiled with the president's endorsement yesterday. And we're going to give best practices to the American people. Isn't the science pointing to more than 15 days, though, Mr. Vice President? If we look at Italy,

if we look at China, the science is pointing to a lot more than 15 days of this, is it not? Oh, well, we understand, as the president said, that we will likely be dealing with the coronavirus until midsummer. Yeah, so this 15 days is 15 days to slow the spread. This is the message that's coming out from the White House, the message that says, all right, everybody, stay home. We're shutting her down. Let's try to prevent this virus from spreading out of control and spreading beyond the point that our health system can handle. But already you have governors saying they don't expect public schools to open again this school year. In some ways, this 15 days, it's 15 days and then reassess because we may not even know by the end of that

15 days, whether it's working. Because as testing ramps up, what they're saying to expect is for the number of cases to go up very rapidly for our curve to be very steep. And then after that, hopefully, you would start to see signs of what this social distancing is doing. So, Tim, one thing that has stood out to me and how the president has begun to talk about this virus is this rhetoric of war and how this is a sort of national emergency akin to war that the whole country needs to be united in fighting. It's language that I have heard quite a bit from Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden. You know, Bernie Sanders has addressed this as also being akin to, you know, the damage and the loss of life that we saw during World War Two. It is language that I had heard from the Democrats for a while, but it was to me an unusual difference in how we heard the president speak about this. Yeah, I think ever since Monday, when he sort of flipped a switch and stopped downplaying the concern and started urging Americans to take concrete steps, the president has been using this war language, saying he's a wartime president, that we're on a war footing, fighting against this invisible enemy, this virus.

So certainly the language has ramped up. And I think that what you're saying is right, that part of this is trying to get everyone to feel like they're part of some larger effort, even as we are all in our Act, which we talked about a little bit earlier. He said it's used in times of war. He said, but they have to mobilize it as if now was a time of war when it comes to hospital beds and supplies. So it is becoming a pretty common comparison, I think it's fair to say, among many politicians. All right, well, that is a wrap for today. And we know that all of this feels incredibly intense. And we want you to know that we're going to be here every weekday to keep you up to date about what is going on politically around the coronavirus. And if you need a little

stress relief, we highly recommend some non-newsy podcasts from NPR. Check out Pop Culture Happy Hour or the newly relaunched TED Radio Hour. I'm Asma Khalid. I cover the presidential campaign. I'm Kelsey Snell. I cover Congress. And I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.