The NPR Politics Podcast - Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer On Climate Law

Episode Date: August 17, 2023

The New York Democrats discussed the landmark climate law, the Inflation Reduction Act, a year after he helped to pass the legislation. He said it will take time to for its provisions to be felt by the American public.This episode: political correspondent Susan Davis, congressional correspondent Deirdre Walsh, and White House reporter Deepa Shivaram.The podcast is produced by Elena Moore and Casey Morell. Our editor is Eric McDaniel. Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi. Unlock access to this and other bonus content by supporting The NPR Politics Podcast+. Sign up via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org. 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

This is Mo Brady. I'm currently standing in front of the remains of Fort Wadsworth in Gateway National Recreation Area, underneath the Verrazano Bridge, and looking out towards New York Harbor. This podcast was recorded at 1.10 p.m. on Thursday, August 17th. Things may have changed by the time you hear it, but hopefully I'll still be exploring our nation's incredible national park system. Enjoy the show. That sounds nice. I've never been there. Me either. That's lovely. It's very scenic. Hey there. It's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Susan Davis. I cover politics. I'm Deirdre Walsh. I cover Congress. And I'm Deepa Shivaram. I cover the White House.

And this week marks one year since the Inflation Reduction Act, the not-so-greatly-named IRA, was signed into law. President Biden and top Democrats are taking a bit of a victory lap this week. And Deirdre, you sat down with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, and he was pretty adamant that he sees the IRA as central to Democrats' chances next year. They're busy investigating. We're busy investing in America. Ask yourself, which one does the public want? I mean, that was Schumer's message to draw the contrast between Democrats and Republicans in the 2024 election. He is all in on the IRA. He kept talking about it over and over again as sort of the jobs and climate program that they'll be able to point to over and over again as proof that they're doing what people need around the country in red states and blue states while House

Republicans are tied up in all kinds of investigations and to Hunter Biden, the president's son and other people. You know, but Schumer is a pretty tactical political thinker. He's run the Senate campaign operation. He's one of the more politically savvy members of the Democratic Party in the Senate. He has to be pretty aware of the fact that the average voter probably isn't super engaged in what the IRA policy implications are across the country. He is. And he was very honest and upfront about the fact that he acknowledged it's going to take time. He kept saying the best is yet to come. Just like the economy has lagging indicators, it's going to take some time between the law going into effect and people feeling the effect in their communities. But he did continue to point to

projects like a battery plant in Ohio, or, you know, green energy jobs related to the production of new, you know, solar panels that are going to generate jobs and filter out through the community that Democrats will be able to take advantage of. And he pointed out that, you know, Republicans didn't vote for this bill, but they're showing up at ribbon cuttings around the country as these projects are getting rolled out. You know, it's interesting, too. It's a big piece of legislation. But I think about it in contrast to like the Affordable Care Act, Obamacare, where Republicans campaigned really hard against that law. Republicans aren't doing that about the IRA. They have a different message. They're focused on the Biden administration, their investigations, but there's no really Republicans out there

running ads against this law the way that they have been about other Democratic priorities. And that might play a bit into Democrats' advantage in that there's no real vocal opposition to it either. I mean, I think that they're arguing that inflation is still bad and that people – that costs for consumers are still high. I mean, there are a lot of Republicans putting out a study showing Americans are paying roughly $700 a month for goods and services than they were two years ago. But as the inbox was flooded with one-year anniversary emails from Democrats, mostly Republicans sort of, you know, just sort of criticized the sort of general state of the economy and weren't necessarily targeting the law. Deba, you've spent some time recently talking to voters. I'm curious

about what they told you, especially if anyone brought up the IRA or sort of how broadly they're thinking about the economy and these ideas. Yeah. So I went to Las Vegas last week. And just off the bat, Las Vegas is a little bit of a niche spot in a state that's a little bit different than the rest of the country right now because the unemployment rate in Nevada is the highest in the country. It has remained high for more than a year now. So as the president and the White House are kind of taking this victory lap, like you said, celebrating the passage of the IRA and saying unemployment is down, inflation is down, you know, people in Las Vegas are saying the same thing that they said during the midterm elections, which is I can't afford to pay for things. Everything here

is too expensive. I'm struggling to make ends meet. I talked to a woman named Gabby Gama. I ran into her outside like a children's museum in Las Vegas, and she had a whole laundry list of things that she was worried about. The rent is really high. Groceries and just pretty much everything gas, everything that we use in the daily is just very pricey. And that was, you know, the same thing I heard from so many other voters as well. They were very concerned about rent specifically. The cost of housing has been really expensive and unemployment, like I said, is really high. And that, of course, is affecting the way they think about the president, the way they think about the White House, how they're starting to think about how they might vote in 2024. Gabby told me that she

voted for Biden in 2020, but she actually regrets her vote. You know, because the economy went down. It just seemed like it went that way to me, you know, visually. It just seemed like as soon as he took over, it was just kind of like, whoop. So there's kind of this disconnect between what Biden is saying and what the White House is trying to push out, what people like Chuck Schumer are saying, and then what folks in a city like Las Vegas are actually feeling. And, you know, they said that they wanted a candidate who cared about the people, who was invested in helping the working class. And you have to keep in mind, like, polling shows that all of these aspects of the IRA are so politically popular and generally people approve of it, but they just are not seeing the effects yet and they are definitely not giving

the president any credit for it. I'm curious if you asked her if she would vote for Joe Biden again. She's very undecided right now. She definitely is. And that is kind of the sense that I got from a lot of voters I spoke with that, you know, whether they voted for Trump or Biden in 2020, they feel very unsure about what direction they're going to go in in 2024. You also traveled with the president this week who is out doing his own campaign messaging on this. What's behind his messaging and his strategy there? Yeah, the thing that if you ask the White House about this and you say, you know, why isn't the public giving the president credit for the Inflation Reduction Act? They don't feel like the economy is doing better. There's a general disapproval of how President Biden is handling

the economy. And they say it'll take time. That's the line that we keep hearing is to essentially say, like, have patience, like this will get better. It's just not clicking in right now. And so that's kind of what you're hearing from White House officials. The president himself, I know, you know, there was this big celebration at the White House yesterday, but he is even saying, you know, I'm not done. I'm not taking a victory lap yet. There's still a lot more work to do. So they're definitely acknowledging that. And the one thing they keep hammering home is some of these tangible aspects of the IRA. Things like capping the cost of insulin is a very direct, immediate impact that the IRA had. And so talking about those drug

prices, talking about things like insulin, and then, of course, talking about all these manufacturing jobs. That's where I was with Biden earlier this week in Wisconsin. Jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs is the message that they also keep pushing. All right, let's take a quick break. And when we get back, we'll talk more about Deirdre's interview with Senator Schumer. And we're back. And Deirdre, I don't know if all listeners recall this, but I think many of us recall the very tortured road it took for the IRA to ultimately become law. The bill collapsed in its original form after Joe Manchin, the moderate from West Virginia, opposed it. But

he then also helped put this deal back together and get it passed through the Senate. Manchin's also flirting with a potential presidential run under the no labels ticket. He hasn't said yet whether he's going to run for reelection for West Virginia. He's sort of the Senate Democrat all Democrats are talking about right now. What did Senator Schumer have to say about him? I mean, he really downplayed the criticism that Manchin's been launching against his own bill in recent months. I mean, the statement that Manchin put out on the one year anniversary yesterday sort of shows the line that he's walking in a very red state. The first line is he calls it one of the most historic pieces of legislation passed in decades.

And then a few lines later, he talks about how he is in an unrelenting fight with the Biden administration's efforts to implement the radical climate agenda. So this is the bill he co-authored. Schumer really just said, look, it's going to make a difference in states all over the country. And, you know, he's happy he got to work with Senator Manchin and he's OK with him criticizing the law. There are going to be parts that Senator Manchin never liked and will say he opposes. That's fair enough. There are lots of things he said he likes in that bill and in the agreement that we had. And so, no, I don't think it hurts us at all. It's also worth saying that Chuck Schumer really, really, really wants Joe Manchin to run for re-election to the Senate. So I don't think he has any interest in saying anything that might

anger Joe Manchin on that front. Yeah, I mean, he didn't signal any news he had on sort of Manchin's decision, which we expect at the end of this year. But he did make a point to compliment him and say that he had been in touch with him, I think, that day or that morning. Diva, how does the White House see this? Because there is an element of the Democratic Party. Joe Manchin is probably best known for it. But you think of senators like Kyrsten Sinema, you have some critics in the House of the President, like Dean Phillips. There are Democrats that have their own vested interest in criticizing Joe Biden to win reelection in 2024. They have to draw some distinction from the president. They got

a campaign as independents. How does the White House view that? And, you know, are they okay with it? Joe Manchin might never want to appear on a stage with Joe Biden ahead of the 2024 campaign. Right. And that's pretty understood. And that's been pretty consistent, right? This Joe Manchin criticism is absolutely nothing new. And the White House was asked about this yesterday, this recent criticism of the IRA, which, of course, couldn't have passed without Joe Manchin. And they weren't being critical of him at all. They were saying, you know, this couldn't have passed without Joe Manchin's vote. We're very grateful for that. And, you know, yeah, he has a little bit of concern about how it's playing out. But of course, as more people, as the law kind of comes into effect month after month after month, people will understand it a little better. So they have no ill will towards

Joe Manchin, at least publicly, and they have no criticism there. What they are trying to do, though, is sort of target Republicans who absolutely did not vote for this bill and are now saying, oh, look at what's coming to my state from things like the Inflation Reduction Act, from these investments. And so what you have heard from Joe Biden in fundraisers, on stage at these public events, is trying to draw the contrast there. And that has been their strategy for kind of dealing with some of this. You know, I'm just skeptical that voters who don't pay a lot of attention to the news, who are focused on their day-to-day lives, that this kind of Washington centric messaging has a lot of impact on how they vote closer to election day. So I'm always sort

of skeptical about like what the national Democrats want the message to be and what's actually resonating with voters. The other thing, and we're going to say this a lot over the next year and a half, I mean, this campaign is going to coincide with a series of four competing trials against the former president of the United States and potentially the Republican nominee. And I think that is an environment in which it's going to be very hard for the Democratic Party to, you know, control the microphone and consume media attention. It's just going to be very hard for Joe Biden to direct that conversation, I think. Yeah, I pressed the Majority Leader Schumer about this issue, just the sheer news cycles that we've gone through in the last few weeks, and then what's coming in terms of

four trials, all the legal maneuvering, investigations of the president's son. And Schumer really just downplayed all of it and sort of waved it off and dismissed it as I think what he called usual Washington background noise. I mean, he really is leaning in aggressively to this contrast, saying there, as we heard earlier, you know, we're investing, they're investigating, and really, you know, made this point of just, oh, it's just 10 percent of the hard right that cares about these investigations at all. And, you know, I'm curious, Deepa, what you're hearing from voters, because, I mean, we're you know, I'm talking to him in the Capitol. But I mean,

what are people saying that you talk to? Yeah, people were it was pretty much bottom of their list talking about investigations into Hunter Biden, talking about Trump's legal troubles. They are not actively paying attention to these things. I talked to one man who seems like he's leaning towards voting for Trump if Trump becomes the nominee. And he kind of saw these trials as, oh, they're just throwing things at him. You know, this has been going on for so long. It's very much, at least from the voters I spoke with, not really factoring in to their decisions. And what they are thinking about is what we talked about, things like rent and cost of living and groceries and things like that. But as they see Trump come up more and more in the news, and obviously it will continue to be this way, what they're also seeing is, oh, the economy was doing a lot better when he was in office. And so they're kind of associating what's happening right now, not even just blaming President Biden, but just looking at Trump over and over again and saying, I don't know, things were just better when he was president.

And so I think that is going to be something that the Biden folks in the campaign have to target is trying to get that airtime back, like you mentioned, but also be able to try to shift that messaging too. I do think it's important too. When I say it's hard to break through, I guess I'm thinking about it in terms of the presidential race. But Deirdre, I do think Schumer has a valid point in that having something tangible to run on is always a good thing for any candidate in any party. And you think about people, you know, there's a lot in there that Joe Manchin does like that he can go back to West Virginia and say, hey, this is because of me. There's stuff in there that a guy like Sherrod Brown in Ohio or John Tester in Montana and these hyper competitive races, being able to point to something you did is always

better than when you've seen we've seen it before in past election cycles, or the majority party wasn't able to get anything done. And that was a real problem with voters. That was immediately the message that Schumer kept pivoting to. Sort of any time I sort of pressed him about other competing issues like all these investigations, he was like, look, in West Virginia, there's this project in the works that's going to create all these jobs. In Ohio, they're opening this lithium battery plant. You know, in Arizona, they're, you know, making semiconductor chips. I mean, he was definitely sort of reverting back to the all politics is local. And while there may be all this Washington noise or people in the media focused on the legal maneuverings, we're going to focus on linking climate to jobs. I mean, the other thing that

Schumer said was things have changed in the last five years in terms of where the electorate is on the issue of climate. Even Republicans, he argued, care more about these issues because they're living through natural disasters in red states and blue states. And if Democrats are persistent, and he said, look, it's a cumulative thing, and we're going to have to be persistent, and it's going to take months, they'll be able to show this linkage. I mean, I guess I would say, who knows, 15 months is an eternity in politics. And we'll have to see, you know, if some of these jobs materialize and Democrats can latch on and get the credit that they don't seem to be getting, at least for now. Yeah, and I'll be curious to see, you know, down-ballot campaigns, whether they're actually doing things like running ads on this kind of stuff. All right. Well, that is all for today. We'll be back in your feeds tomorrow.

I'm Susan Davis. I cover politics. I'm Deirdre Walsh. I cover Congress. I'm Tifa Shivaram. I cover the White House. And thanks for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.