The NPR Politics Podcast - Roundup: Supreme Court Abortion Ruling, Robert F. Kennedy

Episode Date: June 28, 2024

The Supreme Court largely punted on abortion access and curtailed a law the Department of Justice has been using to prosecute accused Jan. 6 insurrectionists. And NPR spoke with independent candidate for president Robert F. Kennedy Jr. about why he is running a race he almost certainly cannot win.This episode: voting correspondent Ashley Lopez, national justice correspondent Carrie Johnson, reproductive rights and abortion correspondent Elissa Nadworny, and All Things Considered host Scott Detrow.The podcast is produced by Casey Morell and Kelli Wessinger. Our intern is Bria Suggs. Our editor is Eric McDaniel. Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi. Listen to every episode of the NPR Politics Podcast sponsor-free, unlock access to bonus episodes with more from the NPR Politics team, and support public media when you sign up for The NPR Politics Podcast+ at plus.npr.org/politics.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hi, this is Mary calling from Tokyo. My husband Josh and I, along with our Labrador Henry, are about to move to D.C. after 30 years of living overseas. And this November, we are excited to finally vote in person. This podcast was recorded at 12.51 p.m. Eastern Time on Friday, June 28, 2024. So things may have changed by the time you hear it. Okay, here's the show. Lots of new smells for the Labrador. Welcome to D.C. There are a lot of good parks for Henry. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Ashley Lopez. I cover voting. I'm Keri Johnson, national justice correspondent.

And today in the roundup, we're talking about the Supreme Court. If you're looking for a wrap up of the debate, we already did that. It's the episode before this one in your feed. We did that last night. You can check it out. Keri, let's start with a ruling out this morning that has big implications for the alleged and convicted insurrectionists who disrupted the presidential transition on January 6th. Before we get into the details, I think it's worth reminding folks just like how sweeping the scale of these prosecutions have been. Can you start there? This may be the biggest criminal investigation the Justice Department has ever conducted. To date, there have been more than 1,400 people

prosecuted and new defendants getting charged every day for entering the Capitol on January 6 and other crimes, including assaulting police officers that day. And this case has to do with a specific charge that has been used by prosecutors in some of these cases. Can you talk about what specific charge we're talking about and what was at issue in this case? Sure. This is a law that Congress passed after the big Enron document scandal in the early 2000s. There was a gap in the law. They realized at the time that it was a crime to persuade other people to destroy documents, but it was not a crime to destroy those documents yourself. And so Congress thought that shouldn't be the case. So they passed this law to cover certain kinds of obstruction. And the Justice Department repurposed it after January 6 to use it in about 350 cases against rioters who appeared, hey, this is a law that covers papers and evidence, not going into the Capitol building. And today, the Supreme Court, by a vote of six to three, actually agreed with the criminal defendant in this case, a former police officer named Joseph

Fisher. And ultimately, I guess what they did here is they just constrained the statute to sort of like the most, you know, like sort of limited interpretation of it. Can you give me a breakdown of where like the justices sort of split on this? Absolutely. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the majority opinion, and he was joined by the other conservatives and also Justice Katonji Brown Jackson, a Biden appointee. Justice Jackson wrote separately to say that even though it was quite clear to her that what happened at the Capitol on January 6, three years ago, was a terrible thing, a wound to the country and immoral in many ways, this case was actually about the scope of this obstruction law and whether the DOJ was using it too widely. And interestingly enough, the dissent was written by Justice Amy

Coney Barrett, a Trump appointee. And Justice Barrett basically said, if you look at the plain language of this law, it should be an open and shut case. This guy allegedly appeared at the Capitol. He scuffled with police officers. He entered the Capitol building and these defendants obstructed the count, the electoral count. It's an open and shut case. How is it that that couldn't be construed as obstruction? And two liberals, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, agreed with her. Yeah. And I do want to take a moment to focus on the scale of impact here, mostly on the people who have been wrapped into these prosecutions. Because as you mentioned, it's like 1,400 people so far have been prosecuted. How does this affect those people? Yeah, this is an important point.

The U.S. attorney in D.C., Matt Graves, who's in charge of all of these prosecutions, says that basically 82 percent of the people he's charged were not charged with this particular obstruction crime. And so this will affect only a small number of cases. There are dozens of cases where people haven't yet pleaded guilty or gone to trial because they were waiting to see what the Supreme Court would do here. But this will have the biggest impact on a handful of cases, really. The U.S. attorney says there are 27 people currently serving a federal prison time for this charge alone and 52 people total who were convicted and sentenced on this charge and no other felony. The majority of other defendants faced other charges as well.

And there are some brand names in that group. There are people you would know, like the Pr this case, judges who have been hearing cases involving these January 6th defendants have tried to craft their sentencings in such a way that they wouldn't have to go back and do it all over again. All right. Well, let's move on to a second case and invite on NPR's Alyssa Nadwarni, who covers abortion. Thanks for hanging out with us today. I'm happy to be here. So this is about a case that came out yesterday, another abortion ruling from the Supreme Court. This one has to do with, you know, in what situations hospitals are required to provide emergency abortion care. Can you tell us more about that case?

That's right. OK, so the federal government has a law known as the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act. Most people just call it EMTALA. It was passed in the 80s to prevent hospitals from refusing care to uninsured patients and dumping them on other hospitals. It basically says that anyone who comes into the emergency room must be stabilized before they can be discharged or transferred. And after the Dobbs decision, the Biden administration argued that EMTALA should apply even if the treatment was abortion and that the patient, you know, even if they were in a state that banned abortion with very limited exceptions, like this would have to happen in the ER. Right. Under Idaho law, so this is a case between the federal government and Idaho, it is a felony to provide nearly all abortions unless the life of the mother is at risk.

But what happens if a pregnancy threatens a woman's health? Right. Like losing an organ it is a felony to provide nearly all abortions unless the life of the mother is at risk. But what happens if a pregnancy threatens a woman's health, like losing an organ or not being able to have children in the future? So that was essentially what the case was. Yeah. And what did they decide? Well, for now, those abortions to save the health of the mother can happen in Idaho emergency rooms. The court in a 6-3 vote dismissed the case and they didn't rule on the merits. So essentially they sent it down to a lower court. So until the appeals court makes a ruling, doctors can perform this emergency care. And what is the scope of impact here? Does this just apply to Idaho for now? The ruling, yeah, is super narrow. It only applies to Idaho. Idaho is actually one of six

states that have abortion bans that don't include exceptions for the health of the mother. And it basically doesn't clarify anything in those states. I wonder how doctors are reacting to this because states who don't include exceptions for life of the mother, stuff like that, this has put doctors in a really interesting position. I wonder in Idaho what doctors are saying about how this affects how they do their work. Well, the doctors in Idaho that we've talked to, this has been so stressful. I mean, these are super hard conversations to have, even when EMTALA, you know, is the standard, because this is, you know, really tricky, tricky conversations. We've been in touch with Sarah Thompson. My colleague, Selena Simmons-Duffin, talked to her about the decision. And, you know, she was relieved

that temporarily she'll be able to kind of have the autonomy to work out these decisions with her patients. I am relieved for the patients that I'm going to be taking care of in the immediate future. I do still feel like it's tragic that pregnant women have had to languish with emergency complications and have their care delayed or denied while our state fought this and the still feel like it's tragic that pregnant women have had to languish with emergency complications and have their care delayed or denied while our state fought this. And the Supreme Court took six months to consider the case. She told us, you know, while this case is being figured out, she had a lot of tearful conversations where she had to tell women, you know, you're just not sick enough, even though the national standard of care is that I should be able to help you. Yeah. And Carrie, I want to bring you back into this because I wonder where this leaves the Justice Department.

I understand this Amtala Avenue was one of their legal strategies for protecting access to abortion, right? It is. It's one of the main things that they turn to after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade a couple of years ago in that Dobbs decision. And Attorney General Merrick Garland made a point of years ago in that Dobbs decision. And Attorney General Merrick Garland made a point of making remarks about the importance of this case and EMTALA generally to guarantee essential emergency care to all Americans, no matter where they live. Obviously, we just heard Alyssa. This issue is still alive, very much alive in Idaho and in other states, too. And DOJ says it's going to continue to press forward defending this law and the primacy, in their view, of the federal EMTALA law over these state laws

that more harshly restrict abortion procedures. Just as Carrie says that this kind of keeps abortion in the spotlight, there are up to 11 states where abortion could be on the ballot this fall. And so kind of by punting this, the Supreme Court just like makes it almost an even bigger election issue ahead of the presidential election. Yeah. And just before we wrap this up, Carrie, I know we're waiting for one more big case, right? There's still one outstanding. Waiting and waiting and waiting. July 1st, Monday, is the final day of the term, and we expect the Supreme Court to tell us whether former President Donald Trump enjoys absolute immunity from criminal prosecution in that January 6th case in Washington, D.C. against

him. Yeah. All right. Well, thank you, Alyssa Nadwarny, for joining us. You bet. And Carrie, don't go far. We're going to bring you back after a special segment to end the week with Can't Let It Go. You got it. All right. Time for a quick break. And then we'll hear from Robert F. Kennedy Jr. And we're back this time with our old friend and all things considered host, Scott Detrow. Hello. Well, well, well. Welcome back. Exciting to be here. So you sat down this morning with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an independent candidate for president. Why did you want to talk to him? He is almost certainly not going to be elected president, but he is certainly going to play a major role in this election. I think the last night's debate and reaction to it has really shown how many people are not super thrilled about the two main choices.

And he has gotten a really high level for a third party candidate level of interest, somewhere between 10 and 15 percent, depending on the poll, consistently in the 10 percent range. We all know how close the election is going to be in just a handful of states. And both the Biden and Trump campaigns seem really concerned about his candidacy. So I've been wanting to talk to him for a while. The campaign, obviously, he was shut out of last night's debate and he was trying to make the media rounds. And we had a conversation that aired on All Things Considered today where I really tried to press him on what he sees as his viable lane to being elected president. Mr. Kennedy, why do you want to be president? I want to be president because I think our country is going in the wrong direction.

And I don't think that either President Trump or President Biden has the capacity to address the existential issues, issues like the $34 trillion debt, which they played a disproportionate role in running up. President Trump said that he was going to balance the budget and ran up an $8 trillion debt. He spent more money than every president combined from George Washington to George W. Bush, and President Biden is now on track to beat him. And so and this is what's driving the inflation. Can I ask you about debt for a moment? Because you bring it up a lot. You talk a lot about the deficit. Let's just take the two of the biggest areas of federal spending. Would you would you cut or modify Social Security? Would you cut Medicare? What would you immediately do to lower

the spending? Because you talk about this a lot. I'm going to cut the military budget in half down to about $500 billion during my first four years in office. I'm going to... Cut the military budget in half. Would that zero out any sort of foreign aid for Ukraine or Israel, the two big topics right now? I will zero out foreign aid for Ukraine. But I'll cut the military budget. I'm going to close most of the bases abroad. We don't need 800 bases abroad. We should be focused on national defense. I'm going to cut the military budget back to the point where the same amount it was in 2024 dollars at the height of the Cold War during the Eisenhower era.

If that was sufficient during the Cold War, it's sufficient today. Some major cuts to the military budget. Can we talk about the viability of your campaign, though? Tell me what your viable path is to the presidency, because I know you push back on the spoiler term, but I would love for you to tell me right now how you get to 270 votes. You mean how am I going to get on the ballot? No, I would love for you to tell me right now how you get to 270 votes. You mean, how am I going to get on the ballot? No, not just how are you going to be on the ballot. How are you going to be elected president of the United States? Because right now you're on the ballot in eight states. I know that you've submitted signatures in many more states, but tell me how you win 270 electoral votes. Well, you know, I'm beating both President Trump and President Biden among young Americans,

among everybody under 35. But it's about 10 to 15 percent in the national polls, which is historically good for a third party. But I don't see sitting here a path to winning states. Tell me why I'm wrong. Do you want me to finish what I'm saying? I do. Yeah. Independence now represents 43 percent of the electorate compared to 27% for Democrats, 27% for Republicans.

I have greater favorability, and I beat President Trump in that cohort. I have greater favorability ratings than President Trump and President Biden. Which means people would prefer to vote for me. They're voting for President Trump and President Biden out of fear. For the same reasons that you're bringing up now, they believe that I can't win. If they believe that I can win, I would win. Oh, and the demographic that I'm doing poorly in that is against me are baby boomers, which if you think about it, I should be doing best in them, but I'm not allowed on the mainstream media that they watch. Baby boomers watch

MSNBC, CNN, the networks. They read the Washington Post and the New York Times, and those mainstream media will not allow me on for live interviews. Well, Mr. Kennedy, you're on All Things Considered right now for an extended interview. And this is the first interview that I've done on All Things Considered for many, many years. That actually, but when it comes to your campaign... And this is a taped interview. So I don't know what you do with it at the end. I don't know if you're going to play the whole thing. But what I'm saying is the audience that you're reaching, when I can reach them, we have a very, very high conversion rate. So if you ask me, how do I win? I went by getting on, ultimately pushing my way onto the networks and reaching that audience. But that actually leads me to another question when it comes to how you are campaigning for president. I'm curious what your strategy is, because your campaign and NPR have actually

been having a lot of conversations about you and I doing a sit-down interview at one of your upcoming events, but there haven't been that many events scheduled. There's been a long period of time without rallies. What is your plan for the summer into the fall to raise that awareness and to become a competitive campaign like you're talking about? I've been on the road for 13 months. I've done hundreds of rallies during that period. I didn't see NPR at any of them. And, you know, we will continue to do rallies.

If you want to talk, I'm sure we can arrange a time. But we've focused on now because the rallies are very expensive and I have to pay my own security and our strategy, because of the cost of it, has shifted so that now I'm spending more time

in Los Angeles or in other places doing media rather than doing the big rallies, which are expensive for us because of the security issues. What did you make of last night's debate? I thought it was a sad evening for our country. The idea that this was the best that we can produce, I think, is troubling. It's troubling not only for our country, but just for the whole cause of democracy and self-governance around the world. Democracy is supposed to produce the best of the best.

But I don't think that that was on display last night. Do you see last night's debate as an opening for your campaign? What do you see as your pitch for voters who watched both of those candidates and felt frustrated with the choices that they had? Yeah, I do. I think anybody who watched that, you know, people, look, even before that, Scott, even before that debate, 70 to 80 percent of Americans said they didn't want to be forced to choose between President Trump and President Biden. So, you know, I think I offer a choice. People are voting for them out of fear, fear that the other guy will win. If I can persuade people to vote out of hope rather than fear, out of inspiration rather than fear and trepidation, then I'm going to win the election. All right. So a lot there.

What was your big takeaway after talking to him? I think first we should do just a little bit of fact checking. First of all, of course, as we know, our own Stephen Fowler has covered a lot of his events. So NPR has been actively covering his events. And second, as Stephen pointed out to me afterward, Kennedy's really misstating a lot of polls there. A lot of the strong polling he's talking about is in a hypothetical one-on-one matchup with either him and Biden or him or Trump, which, of course, doesn't exist. But the broad picture is he is at, if not quite historic, certainly highest in decades third party support. I think what's interesting to me about his campaign is that so many people seem to be frustrated with the Democratic and Republican

Party. And for all of the major flaws, and we didn't get into the many conspiracy theories that he has been pushing and has pushed throughout his career in this interview, he's attracting a lot of attention. He's obviously limited in the campaign finance front, as he hinted at in the conversation. He hasn't been actively campaigning that much, but I think he is going to be a factor into the fall. And I think the question we all have is, does he draw more support from Joe Biden or Donald Trump? And it's just really hard to tell right now. Yeah. Well, Scott, can I ask you a favor? Sure. Can you stay for Can't Let It Go? Oh, I would love to. Wonderful. All right. Time for a quick break, then we'll get to it. And we're back and it's time for Can't Let It Go. That's the part of the

show where we talk about the things we just cannot stop thinking about, politics or otherwise. Carrie, let's start with you. What can't you let go of this week? I cannot let go of a series of photographs by Associated Press photographers of regular people around the country watching the presidential debate last night with their hands to their mouths, their foreheads, covering their entire face as if they were in agony. And, you know, we have a former colleague, Lizzie O'Leary, who actually posted on X, news organizations are now required to run these instead of those Wall Street floor trader with hand-on-hand photos on a bad market day. And I feel like these photos of agonized people watching the debate will be the gifts that keep on giving throughout the year and maybe into next year as well. It's like the universal signal of America is a face palm right now. Just everyone with their hand on their face. There were some really sad looking pictures. Yeah, it was pretty striking.

All right, Scott, what can't you let go of this week? Well, in addition, first of all, it's thrilling to be back here. I can't let it go. And I'm mostly sad that I'm a few days too early for your 4th of July extravaganza. But, you know, just putting it out there. In addition to interviewing Robert F. Kennedy Jr. this week, I interviewed pop superstar Kamiya Cabello about her new album. We had a delightful conversation, but the interview started in a very unexpected way where I was just kind of asking like, hey, what's it like when your new album comes out? And she said, I'm not comparing myself, but I was texting with somebody about how it's kind of like running for president.

And I thought like, actually, there's something to that. You're going all over the country. You're doing all these events. You kind of have a stump speech about your album. So then we just started like riffing on this. And then I was like, you know, this was a few hours before the debate. And I was like, I don't know, maybe I should just ask you the questions like like you're in a debate or something like that and then she said this but it would be crazy if they had us like I don't know

like I was like debating like Charlie XCX or something I would watch that and then I I will confess I did not know this at the time but we veered into a little bit of shade there because apparently she and Charlie XCX have had a little bit a little bit some shade there because apparently she and CharlieXCX have had a little bit, a little bit, some shade thrown back and forth. So we were getting into that world of celebrity shading each other on All Things Considered this weekend.

Oh my goodness. You can't get away from controversy. Yeah. But it was a delightful conversation and I enjoyed the very unexpected weird mashup of new pop albums and presidential campaigns. My wheelhouse.

Your world contains multitudes. It does. Ashley, what about you? Okay, so what I can't let go of this week is that we have all been blessed with Martin Short guest hosting Jimmy Kimmel's late night show this week. And usually I don't care about late night shows, but in this particular case,

this situation has gifted us all with a slew of Jiminy Glick interviews. For those of you not in the know, Jiminy Glick is this character that Martin Short has been playing for years now where he's basically interviewing celebrities and seemingly doesn't care enough to prep at all for those interviews. It's just like a bit of him being sort of mean to these people. And in the past week, he has interviewed almost exclusively comedians and absolutely no one has been able to hold it together throughout those interviews. And I just like I cannot stop watching them. My favorite so far is definitely his interview with Bill Hader. Here is a bit from that.

Willie Mays just died. Oh, my God. You're choked up about it. No. Do you hold any responsibility? It was so delightful. By the way, right before that happened, Martin Short was cleaning his face like a cat,

like touching his tongue and like cleaning. I saw that. Oh, my gosh. It was so funny. And I think in that whole interview, Hater didn't get more than 10 words out. He was like turning away from the camera. At one point he was laughing.

Anyways, it was truly joyful. And I think yesterday he did the whole show as Jiminy Glick because obviously like this is what the people want. And it's just been it's just been the best. I'm taking the wrong approach to interviews. You're going to start like licking your face. I'll try it. Carrie has the most horrified look I've ever seen. Please, I beg of you.

No. Do not do that. No. Do not do that. I mean, it's a strategy. And by the way, I liked it. It works for some. Most people do not work for it.

But anyway, so much fun. Okay, that's a wrap for this week. Our executive producer is Mithoni Maturi. Our editor is Eric McDaniel. Our producers are John Yoon Han, Casey Murrell, and Kelly Wessinger. Our intern is Bria Sugg. Special thanks to Dana Farrington and Krishnadev Kalamer. I'm Ashley Lopez.

I cover politics. I'm Carrie Johnson. I cover the Justice Department. And I'm Scott Detrow. I'm an interloper. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.