The NPR Politics Podcast - Roundup: Saudi Arabia Cuts Oil Production & LA City Council

Episode Date: October 14, 2022

The White House has accused Saudi Arabia of helping Russia fund its war in Ukraine by pushing up oil revenues after the OPEC+ group of oil producers, including Saudi Arabia and Russia, decided to cut oil output by 2 million barrels per day. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby accused the kingdom of strong-arming other oil producing countries to agree to the cut.And a controversy in Los Angeles is roiling the city's politics: city councilors were caught making racist and otherwise bigoted remarks in a leaked recording. President Biden has called on them to resign.This episode: political correspondent Susan Davis, White House correspondent Asma Khalid, international affairs correspondent Jackie Northam, and national desk correspondent Adrian Florido.Learn more about upcoming live shows of The NPR Politics Podcast at nprpresents.org.Support the show and unlock sponsor-free listening with a subscription to The NPR Politics Podcast Plus. Learn more at plus.npr.org/politics Connect:Email the show at [e-mail] the NPR Politics Podcast Facebook Group.Subscribe to the NPR Politics Newsletter.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

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Saudi Arabia is one of the most consequential allies of the United States and the Middle East. But the U.S.-Saudi relationship is under strain, significant strain, both after the killing of Jamal Khashoggi and now after the country urged OPEC Plus to cut oil outputs. What has been at times a warm relationship is getting a bit chillier. So NPR's Jackie Northam is with us to talk through all of it. Hey, Jackie. Hi, thank you for having me. Okay, so Jackie, walk us through this. Why was the decision from OPEC Plus so problematic for the U.S.? Well, there are a number of problems, and one of them is the war in Ukraine. You know, if Saudi Arabia and the rest of OPEC Plus slash oil production by two million barrels per day, what that's going to do is raise the cost per barrel. And Russia is part of OPEC Plus. So if

there's a reduction, if there's a significant reduction like this, then what it's going to do is put more revenue into the Kremlin. It's going to put money into the Russian coffers to help pay for the war in Ukraine. And this is at a time when obviously the U.S. and other Western allies are trying to undermine President Putin's efforts for that war in Ukraine. But that's just one of the reasons. Yeah. And Jackie, I would echo what you're saying. The White House has certainly pointed to the war in Ukraine as being a primary point of disagreement here.

But I think it's deeper than that. Right. I was on the trip that President Biden took this past summer to Saudi Arabia. And after that trip, the Saudis did bump up oil production a bit. And I spoke with a senior Biden administration official who told me that leading up to this oil production cut, American officials had a two and a half hour phone conversation with the Saudi oil minister and the Saudi finance minister. And really, they just had a fundamental disagreement about the state of the world economy and the role oil prices play. But, you know, Sue, I think there's also this domestic political component.

And this is the subtext that you're not necessarily hearing from the White House out loud. But when oil production is cut, it will likely lead to higher gas prices at the pump. And this is happening as people are already voting in the midterm election cycles. And as you know, when we just got new inflation data this week showing that rising prices are a problem and a continuous problem. Potentially the number one cause of concern for most Americans right now. A lot of lawmakers are furious about this decision. Bob Menendez, he's a Democrat. He's the top Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee. He spoke to All Things Considered this week.

And host Mary Louise Kelly asked him if the U.S. could even afford to cut off Saudi Arabia. My answer, Mary Louise, would be, can the U.S. afford not to? The reality is that the crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, has decided to side with the authoritarians of the world. He's decided to side with Putin. This is not only about Saudi Arabia making more money, which they will because the reduction in supply, the demand will still be there. And so therefore, the prices will go up. So they will make more money. It's also about fueling Putin's war machine. He's decided to join with Putin and authoritarians like him. Jackie, are there arms sales pending? And is this really a point of leverage that the

U.S. has? In fact, no, there are no arms sales pending right now. There's still weaponry that's on its way over to Saudi Arabia, but some of that's just left over from contracts that were, you know, up to four years old at this part. You know, there's a lot of anger in Congress right now, the White House definitely, but we have to remember that Saudi Arabia is a long-term partner. You know, 1945, you know, President Roosevelt and King Abdulaziz Al Saud, you know, made this agreement that they were going to be partners

and the relationship has certainly gone up and down over the years. If you think of 9-11, when most of the hijackers were from Saudi Arabia. So there's anger, but there is validity in maintaining the relationship. The thing is, the relationship is now different than it has been historically. And a large part of that has to do with the crown prince, who is the de facto leader right now. I spoke to a number of analysts, and the consensus is he's more of a transactional leader.

And the U.S. has to really think hard about how it wants to approach that now. Does the U.S. want to keep spending time and energy trying to keep this together as a strategic relationship? Or should the U.S. say it's transactional? And if it's the latter, if it's transactional, then the U.S. would have to think about things like weapons sales. Does the U.S. want to give Saudi Arabia the most sophisticated weapon that it has right now?

Or could they give them something not quite as good? What about training? Does the U.S. want to do that? All these things can now be looked at through a different lens, if you like, because of this and because you are dealing with a different leader than one that the U.S. has always dealt with. It sounds like what you're saying is that this is bigger than just one agree to disagree moment between the U.S. and Saudi, that the chapter of the relationship between these countries is fundamentally changing. It has. Yes, definitely. will tell me that ultimately, you know, why the United States, for example, has a number of troops based in Saudi Arabia isn't really to just protect the Saudis. It's about U.S. regional security interests as it relates to Iran. And so there are other sort of more complicating factors. And

where does the U.S. go if it does not continue this relationship with Saudi Arabia? Well, that's right. And I don't know if it has to be all or nothing as well. You know, the U.S. can pedal back if it has to. You have to think about, you know, if you're thinking about energy as well, you know, there's a shift, a large shift. You're seeing it definitely in Europe towards natural gas, LNG, that type of thing. Well, Qatar is a huge producer of LNG. You know, so, you know, the world's energy markets are shifting. And as we all know, energy almost, it is national security nowadays. You know, Saudi Arabia has real problems with the U.S. as well. You know, they don't think that the U.S. has its back when they're talking about regional security. And they're very angry still, the Saudis, that the U.S. did not do anything,

essentially, after Iran attacked an Aramco facility, Aramco being their huge oil facilities out on the east of Saudi Arabia. And that was during the Trump administration as well. And so the Saudis are also reconsidering their view of the relationship with the United States. But again, a large part of this, it all kind of winds back to the United States. But again, a large part of this, it all kind of

winds back to the crown prince. You know, he's a man who was not schooled in the West. He's lived in Saudi Arabia his whole life. And so his worldview is different than other kings and princes that are Saudi. And he doesn't want Saudi Arabia to feel that the U.S. pulls, you know, pull the strings anymore, that the Saudi Arabia can make up its own decisions. And this is just one of the examples of that. Asma, there's obviously appetite on Capitol Hill for some kind of action, things like Jackie mentioned, like blocking arms sales. But does the White House have a lot of options here? It doesn't seem like the Biden administration can really do much in the short

term to fundamentally impact Saudi's decision making. I mean, President Biden did say rather plainly that there will be, quote, consequences for Saudi's actions. But to your point, I think there are limitations when you sort of practically start looking at different options, right? There's this so-called NOPEC bill that would kind of crush OPEC's power that's being brought up. But no Republican or Democratic president in, gosh, the last 20 years has actually stood by that bill. You talk about arms sales. So long as Bob Menendez, who's the chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, says nothing's going to get through, nothing will actually get through in the short term because he has veto power. But in the long term, there are definitely going to be voices in D.C. who

are concerned about American jobs, say, at defense companies and regional security. One oil energy expert that I spoke with said part of this is going to be looking ahead to, say, December. That's when OPEC plus next meets. And it's going to be also this moment when some Russian oil is off the market. And so if there's this shortage of supply and the Saudis don't do anything, they think that could be a real key turning point. So I'm not convinced that the Biden White House is actually going to make a move in the immediate future. All right. We need to take a quick break, Jackie. We're going to let you go. Thanks so much.

Thank you. And Asma, stick around. When we get back, we're going to take a look at what's happening out in Los Angeles. And we're back and we're joined by NPR's Adrian Florido out in Los Angeles. Hey, Adrian. Hey, Sue. So your city, it's in a bit of a political crisis after an audio tape of racist remarks made by city council leadership became public. A lot of our listeners might not be aware of the scandal. So can you take a step back and walk us through what happened? Well, over the weekend, the LA Times reported on the existence of this secret recording that was made between three LA council members and a powerful union leader here. And this conversation

was taped a year ago. And these officials were talking about the city's redistricting process that was underway last fall when they were having this conversation. All three of these council members were Latino, and this union leader was also Latino. And on this tape, they're talking about how to increase their political power through the drawing of the city's election maps. But here's the thing. It was clear from the recording that they think that they can do that by diluting the power of black voters who they think are overrepresented in the city. And then it gets worse. This hour-long conversation is just, you know, peppered with racist and cruel language. The racism mostly comes out of the mouth of the city council president, Nuri Martinez. She uses a racist trope to talk about the black son of a council colleague and says that the little boy needs a beat down.

And then there's this white guy with this little black kid who's misbehaved. There's nothing you can do to control him. She uses racist tropes to talk about indigenous immigrants from Mexico. She talks pretty crassly about gay people, Jewish people, and the racism and cruelty in this conversation are all just so casual. And so in a city like LA, where diversity and cross-racial coalitions are so important in politics, this tape has caused a huge outrage. The city's politics have basically imploded. Nuri Martinez, the council president, was finally forced to resign on Wednesday. And the two other council members on this tape, Kevin DeLeon and

Gil Cedillo, are still facing calls to step down. Is there a sense or a context around the leak? I mean, obviously, what the content of the tape is very newsworthy. But was it in the broader context of some other story? I mean, as you said, this redistricting fight happened zero-sum game, because if one group or community gains something in terms of the drawing of these district maps, that means another one loses it. And so one of the things that's been really upsetting to people, especially in the black neighborhoods of Los Angeles, is this sense, this feeling, this suspicion that Latino leaders were conspiring to take things away from them. Yeah. Asma, on the one hand, this is one city's politics. But on the other hand, it's a big enough issue that the president of the United States felt the need to weigh in this week.

Yeah. The White House press secretary said that President Biden believes all three council members who were involved in these tapes should give up their seats. And, you know, Sue, one of the things I have been struck by is, you know, over the years I've covered demographics and politics, there is this assumption, I would say particularly in the Democratic Party, that there is some sort of solidarity, some sort of coalition, a pan sort of identity amongst people of color. And, you know, over the years of reporting, I think that at times I've kind of been suspect of that assumption because it doesn't always play out like that. You see what happened here in this local city council story. But it feels like for the last couple of at least presidential election cycles, Democrats have believed that they can talk about issues of race in a common way. People of color. I'm finding a job. And his views on immigration were more conservative than where the Democratic Party was at that moment in time.

And I don't know that the Democratic Party has been able to be sophisticated in understanding the nuances in a multiracial coalition. I don't know. Thoughts, Adrian? I mean, you certainly see that on a local level here in Los Angeles. You know, jobs, for example, 30 years ago when the L.A. riots broke out and exposed these huge racial divisions within the city of Los Angeles, one of the points of friction in South L.A. where black and Latino communities were sort of coming together was jobs. You know, who was getting the jobs in the neighborhoods? And since the riots, and there's been a lot of work to heal those wounds, heal those divisions. And you can get this sense now that it is sort of kumbaya that black and Latino communities all have the same interests, the same goals, and are working in lockstep to achieve them through city politics. But then something like this happens, and it really exposes the fact that a lot of these tensions are not yet resolved. A lot of people still think of themselves as in conflict with the other. Yeah, I mean, and the Democratic Party has tried to brand itself as the party that does not tolerate racism in any shape or form.

And I think Los Angeles and California are one of the heartbeats of the Democratic Party in this country, right? Like some of the activism, the money, the donor bases come from places like New York and L.A. And when you see this kind of just raw, blatant racism, there's no obscuring what this was. I think that it hurts Democrats. It hurts the brand. It hurts the idea that this party is above these issues that they have been attacking Republicans over, that they tolerate racial grievances or that they feed off of racial grievances for self-gain. And you just have such a blatant example of it. It's so rare that you get to see these behind the scenes conversation. They got caught.

How people are thinking about some of these things. But I've heard it in subtle ways, I think, over the last couple of years when you start talking to- This wasn't subtle. This is not subtle at all. No, no. I mean, but you get the sense that I think the Democratic Party needs to figure out ways to be more sophisticated and struggle a little bit more with how to have these conversations, because to pretend as if people do not often have diverse interests. You know, to your point, Adrian, what you were saying is when things became so severe that there were racial riots in LA, there became this moment where people had to

say, okay, we've got to wrestle with this jobs issue. We can't ignore it. And I often think that we've begun to feel like there is this solidarity that exists. And you know, that if you're Asian, Latino, Black, you all have similar political interests and priorities. And frankly, that's just not the case in how people vote and what their priorities are. Adrienne, this is all happening against a very high profile mayoral race. Has this had any impact in that race? A huge impact. The two candidates are Congresswoman Karen Bass and businessman Rick Caruso. And they spent most of their debate this week talking about which of the two of them was most equipped to heal the city's racial divides.

Caruso, who's a developer, he pointed out that Bass had been endorsed by council members on this tape. And so he's sort of trying to argue that she's essentially part of this sort of corrupt cabal within City Hall. Although she's a black woman. She is a black woman and she has something else going for her. She was, before she was a congresswoman, she was a community organizer and the founder of this group in South Los Angeles called Community Coalition, which is one of the main groups in L.A. that for decades has worked to bring Latino and black Angelenos together around common policy fights. So she's in some ways

the poster child in Los Angeles of cross-racial coalition building. So I don't know that Cruz's attacks are really going to stick. This is also, you know, a huge blow to Latino political power in Los Angeles. Four of the council's 15 members were Latino, and three of them were on this tape. So if all three end up resigning, it essentially decimates Latino political participation, at least in the interim, on the city council. And what this will do in terms of how Black Angelenos feel about the city election, whether they decide to come out in force or stay home, that's another question I think is going to be interesting to keep an eye on. All right, let's take a quick break. And when we get back, it's time for Can't Let It Go. And we're back and it's time to end the show like we do every week with

Can't Let It Go, the part of the show where we talk about the things from the week that we just can't stop talking about, politics or otherwise. Asma, what can't you let go of this week? So any of you might remember the story of Adnan Syed, if you all were big podcast listeners and heard the show Serial. Adnan was convicted of murdering his girlfriend, Hayman Lee, gosh, more than 20 years ago. He was profiled very famously in the first season of Serial. So I think it was probably late last month, prosecutors said that they were going to relook at his case. And then this week, Baltimore prosecutors decided to officially drop charges against him. And I just feel like I have not been able to let it go

for a whole bunch of reasons. Long story short, it seems that there was DNA testing they were now able to do on the victim's shoes. And the DNA test results showed, I believe, DNA from four different people on those shoes. None of them were a non-Syed. Wow. You know, I'm sure people have all sorts of theories. Look, was he innocent? Was he not? Was he this or that, the other? But I just think, to me, I'm sure over the course of your career, you've, you're supposed to be guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

And a whole lot of times there is a little bit of doubt in these cases and people still get locked up. I listened to the first season of Serial and I saw the news this week. But is there a relationship between the two? Like, was it the I mean, the podcast obviously focused so much national attention on this case, but he had been appealing and doing these things. Like, can the can the podcast and Spotlight take some credit for this? Or was this just part of the judicial process? Yeah, that's one of the questions I had, too, because it seemed to really get going once the podcast came out. But I don't know if maybe that was just a coincidence. Yeah, it certainly creates pressure in ways that it doesn't when no one's paying attention, you know?

Which has also got to be crazy, because you think how many people's stories are not the subject of a serial podcast who may also be sitting in jail, whose cases actually do have quite a bit of doubt behind them. Yeah, yeah. Adrian, what can't you let go of this week? Well, so people who know me well know that I have an obsession with field recording and oral histories. Okay. And I have been doing a lot of sort of field recording and sound recording for years now, especially in Puerto Rico where I spent a lot of time. And I just found out like three weeks ago that the Lomax digital archive had been posted almost in its entirety online.

Do you guys know who Alan Lomax is? No, I don't. He was a really important ethnographer and field recorder in the U.S. back in the mid-20th century. And he and his dad spent a lot of their lives basically just traveling, especially the American South, but really all over the world, recording traditional music and interviewing musical figures and basically just capturing the sound of the United States and the world on tape. And apparently last year,

the foundation that Lomax has created finally posted the entire archive online. And so you can go on and listen to all kinds of really cool recordings. And I, when I get a break from reporting these stories we've been talking about today, have been just listening to cool field recordings. What's like a good example of a field recording you've listened to that you really liked? So I really like one that he recorded with Violeta Parra, who is a Chilean folk singer. And it's just like so raw, just the sort of thing you don't often hear, you know, like he was sitting, I don't know if it was on a porch in her living room, and just her and a guitar singing into his microphone. It's really beautiful.

And I mean, we work in radio. There's a reason, right? We love the intimacy of the human voice. Listen to the warmth of her voice. I mean, you can't get more intimate than that. I didn't know that about you, Adrienne, but I too am actually obsessed with oral histories. And I just think there's something really powerful about that and the eternity of having tape of someone's voice. We actually recorded my grandpa before he passed away, and it's one of the most beautiful things I have. And I will cherish it, hopefully at last, and save it for my kids. What about you, Sue? What can you not let go of? The thing I can't let go of this week is the new video that we have seen coming out of the January 6th attack on the Capitol. There was new

video that was played in the hearing this week. But also, there was new video obtained just by CNN. And it was shot by Nancy Pelosi's daughter, Alexandra. She's a documentary filmmaker, and she was with her mom. And there is video of Nancy Pelosi's chief of staff telling her that the president might actually show up on Capitol Hill on January 6th. And this is happening in real time as the attack on the Capitol is underway. Secret Service said they have dissuaded him from coming to Capitol Hill. They told him they don't have the resources to protect him here. This is Pelosi's chief of staff.

So at the moment, he is not coming, but that could change. I'll be coming. I'm going to punch him out. I'm waiting for this, for trespassing on the Capitol grounds. I'm going to punch him out, and I'm going to go to jail, and I'm going for this, for trespassing on the Capitol grounds. I'm going to punch him out and I'm going to go to jail and I'm going to be happy. I'm going to punch him out. I'm going to go to jail and I'm going to be happy. Can you imagine Pelosi punching Trump? How tall is she?

She's not as tall or big as he is. But it's like, you know, it's one, it's fascinating to see that these like raw moments happening, right? Like this is the kind of stuff that a lot of times you would read about in a book later when somebody interviews Pelosi and she says it. We might never know. Or you might never know. Right. And we are just getting because of the ability of people to record and take images like we're just getting these views into these historical events like we've never had before. And it's like fascinating for me to see it. And also Polisi, who is always so composed and always so measured and being like, I'm going to punch him in the face and I'm going to go to jail.

It was just remarkable to me to see it. All right. That's a wrap for us today. Adrian, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you. Our executive producer is Mithoni Matori. Our editor is Eric McDaniel. Our producers are Elena Moore and Casey Morrell. Catherine Swartz is our intern.

Thanks to Brandon Carter, Lexi Shapiro, Ju Massey, and Krishnadev Kalamar. I'm Susan Davis. I cover politics. And I'm Asma Khalid. I cover the White House. And thanks for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.