The NPR Politics Podcast - The Supreme Court Rejects Planned Parenthood Case & President Trump Threatens New Tariffs On China

Episode Date: May 29, 2018

The Supreme Court rejected an appeal of a restrictive abortion law in Arkansas, which could force all but one facility that performs abortions in the state to close. And, although the administration said it will hold off on a trade war, President Trump announced new trade restrictions to be placed on China. This episode: Reporter Sarah McCammon, White House correspondent Scott Horsley, and political editor Domenico Montanaro. 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

Hey there, this is Kim, a teacher from Aurora, Colorado, where I just said goodbye to a great school year. And I'm about to say hello to summer 2018. I'll be sure to keep up with all things political this summer through the NPR Politics Podcast. This particular podcast was recorded at 1.11 p.m. Eastern Time on Tuesday, May 29th. I remember those days being able to look forward to summer as a teacher. Good for them. Remember that things might have changed by the time you hear this. All right, here's the show.

Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. This morning, the Supreme Court rejected an appeal that may leave Arkansas with only one center that provides abortions. And the White House says the trade war with China is on hold. But President Trump is once again talking about imposing tariffs on $50 billion with a B in Chinese products. I'm Sarah McCammon. I'm covering the White House. I'm Scott Horsley. I also cover the White House. And I'm Domenico Montanaro, political editor.

So it's another decision day at the U.S. Supreme Court. And today the big decision was a rejection. The court sent an appeal of a restrictive abortion law in Arkansas back to a lower court. Now, all nine justices declined to take the case brought by Planned Parenthood and none of them dissented. So let's dig into this. Domenico, you've been writing about this. What was the background on the case? This is the court saying that it's rejecting an appeal from Planned Parenthood to block this law from going through in Arkansas that would not allow abortion by medication. So people might be familiar with having heard of RU-486. And this is believed to be one step along the process.

It's a very similar thing to what happened with Texas. When Texas came forward with their case, the Supreme Court initially sent it back to a lower court to sort of say, get your ducks more in a row. You have to vet this a little bit more, fill all of that out and then come back to us. So a lot of people believe that this is just one step in the process. However, that doesn't necessarily mean that that won't have real world implications. So there could be more legal decisions down the road. But for the time being, this Arkansas law against using medication to induce abortions stays. It's the law in Arkansas. And it's important to be clear that the medication abortions are just,

if I can give some quick background on it, it is non-surgical. So basically basically a woman can take a pill or a set of pills to induce essentially like miscarriage. It's done in the earlier stages of pregnancy. And it's an increasingly popular option because women don't have to go and get a surgical procedure. Right. So surgical abortions are still legal in Arkansas, obviously, as they are legal nationwide. Sometimes that kind of gets forgotten in the debate between abortion rights and those who are against abortion rights. The thing is, there's only three facilities in Arkansas that currently perform either abortion by medication or surgical abortions. And the thinking is here that this would likely shutter two of those

facilities. What's happened so far according to Planned Parenthood is women who've already scheduled procedures, medication abortion procedures, have been told they can't do this now. And one sort of technical detail about this Arkansas law, it doesn't actually ban medication abortion, but what it does is it imposes such strict rules on these clinics, essentially requiring that providers have an agreement with a doctor who has hospital admitting privileges. And so far, from what I'm told, the clinics in Arkansas have not been able to do that. This is part of a larger strategy. Domenico, you alluded to the Texas decision, the whole women's health decision from a couple of

years ago. And what these have in common is basically abortion rights opponents have pushed for pretty heavy restrictions on how abortions can be performed, not banning them necessarily, but saying clinics and doctors have to meet all of these rules in order to perform abortions. If they don't meet them, the clinics either have to close or stop providing some of those services. And I mean, Arkansas itself has a pretty long history with trying to institute some of these restrictive abortion laws. I mean, in the 1990s, during Bill Clinton's presidency, there were some big fights there over this. Recently, in 2013, it tried to institute a 12-week abortion ban, which would have been at the time the strictest in the country. And that was struck down by a federal court. And the federal appeals court that did strike that down was a three-judge panel that was all judges appointed by George W. Bush at the time.

So, you know, this continue to see efforts like this looking to curtail abortion rights as much as possible. So in this case, it sounds like women seeking an abortion in Arkansas are, for the time being, going to have fewer options open to them. The clinic that's closest to them may go out of business. But the legal decision is just a sort of procedural step and not the last word on this. And I guess the idea that all nine justices were in agreement on that suggests that this was just a case that wasn't quite ripe to take up on its merits. Right. Exactly. And if people go and read the reason for not taking it up, they don't address the merits whatsoever of the law itself. It's all procedural. It's all

the vetting. So, for example, the lower court that had decided to overturn the injunction of this law basically said to Planned Parenthood, you need to outline how many real women would be impacted by this. They didn't do so. So it's questions like that, that Planned Parenthood has to kind of now go back and fill in. Because there was a case, Sarah, you can refresh my memory about this, but there was a case a couple of years ago where the Supreme Court did strike down one of these very restrictive anti-abortion measures that was nominally passed in the name of protecting the health of the women seeking the procedure, but which the court went through sort of chapter and verse and said, there is no medical justification for this. The

outpatient procedures are performed that are much more dangerous at all times. And the court's makeup really hasn't changed since then. Justice Gorsuch has taken the place of Justice Scalia, but in terms of the politics of the court, it's pretty much the same. Right. And that decision was the Texas case, Whole Women's Health, that basically said these kinds of restrictions, if they're too stringent and you don't establish that there is a real health reason for them, that imposes an undue burden and it's unconstitutional. So that is the hope of abortion rights advocates that ultimately the thinking in this Arkansas case will line up with that. And Planned Parenthood is going to a district court asking them to essentially block this law.

So we'll see. Right. And that was a 5-3 ruling, the Texas case. And it was sent back once. So that context is important. And as long as we're talking about abortion, obviously, the politics here in the U.S. are what they are. But, you know, Ireland has just gone through a really interesting public debate and vote about abortion overwhelmingly. Right. With a pastor referendum, the people there voted to to legalize abortion after it had been banned for quite some time. Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, a lot of this has to actually do with the sort of changing culture and climate within Ireland itself, actually. It's obviously a very Catholic country, like Italy, for example, Spain,

very Catholic countries where the church has always had significant influence and religious influence. Personal religious influence has had tremendous influence on policymaking and the law, unlike in the United States, where there's always this sort of invisible dividing line, or some people try to cross it, others try to hold that line. But in Ireland, it's always sort of bled over. And what's happening in the country now, though, is it's become much more secularized with the younger generation that's sort of not liking a lot of the policies that the church has instituted. And some of the activists who felt quite emboldened by this overwhelming referendum victory want to go after schools now and say that they don't believe that the church

should be in schools. So that kind of battle between public life and religious life is going to continue to play out there. And I think it does sort of beg the question, if we had a vote here, what would happen? Because that's not, you know, abortion is legal in the U.S., but not because of a referendum. That's right. We had a columnist from the Irish Times was on Morning Edition this morning. And he said he thought that this referendum in Ireland would sort of put an end to the debate. Whichever side you were on, people would feel like, all right, the Irish public has had a chance to weigh in on this. And the decision was cast. In this country, of course, the Roe v. Wade decision sort of put a hold on that political process way back in 1973. There's been lots of politicking

around the edges, but the decision has basically been made by the courts. We haven't had that kind of referendum. The political energy has generally been on the side of the anti-abortion activists because they're the ones who want to change something. If you did ever have the Supreme Court strike down Roe v. Wade, strike down the sequence of laws, the decisions that have followed that, and you really saw strict anti-abortion measures go into place, which Ireland had and the people saw that, it would be very interesting to see what the politics would be like in this country. Well, here's the thing, right? Referenda in this country are actually fairly controversial in many ways, not because of always what's on the ballot, but because of the organizing around the campaigns for one side or the other. I mean, you think about the drop off in this country between presidential elections and midterms, there are about 30% fewer people who show up in midterm years than in presidential elections. So when you get down from that sort of celebrity status of the presidential candidate who's running to something like one

question on a ballot, sure, it can inspire a lot of energy, but it doesn't mean everybody's going to vote. So, you know, if we were to just take a poll and it's going to depend on abortion on the way you word the question. Yeah, I've got several polls spread in front of me here, actually. And, you know, Gallup's has a majority, I think about 79 percent, if you combine those who say abortion should be legal under all circumstances and at least certain circumstances. So a majority say it should be illegal at least sometimes. But if you look at the Pew Center poll, it's 57 percent say legal in all or most cases. It really depends on, you know, how big your poll is and how you

phrase it. But majorities in both. But majorities in both cases. And interestingly, another polling firm, the Public Religion Research Institute, just came out in April with some polling that indicated that younger people were shifting more and more towards supporting abortion rights. Right. It's a huge gray area. I mean, just if you look at the Gallup poll, you know, you combine those two numbers. But one line says legal under any circumstances is only 29 percent or roughly a little less than one in three people. Illegal in all circumstances is 18 percent. So those two are certainly not even close to a majority. And most people believe something in between where legal under only certain circumstances is the majority of

the country, which is, in fact, the law of the land right now. Okay, we're going to take a quick break. But first, I want to let you know that we're hitting the road. This Friday, we're doing a live show in Charlotte, North Carolina. We'll be doing a deep dive on the midterm elections. Domenico, you'll be there. I am very excited about Charlotte, and Carolina. We'll be doing a deep dive on the midterm elections. Domenico, you'll be there. I am very excited about Charlotte and I will not, like Michelle Obama, say I'm looking forward to good barbecue because apparently that was a big faux pas of hers because Charlotte's not known for its barbecue. Although I will. The Carolinas are. They are, but I will testify you can get good barbecue in Charlotte. It's just not the place that's known for it. But yeah, but I have good friends in Charlotte. I'm just not the place that's known for it. But I have good friends in Charlotte.

I'm looking forward to seeing them too. I'm sure their barbecue is good there, but I'm from Kansas City. So that's where my loyalties are when it comes to barbecue. Anyway, regardless of what kind of barbecue you like or if you don't like it, head to NPR presents dot org for tickets. You can see Domenico and the others this Friday in Charlotte, North Carolina. We'll be right back. Support for NPR and the following message come from Newsy,

the TV news channel with honest, in-depth context on the stories that matter. Newsy is for people who aren't satisfied with getting only the loudest part of the story. Newsy delivers more, more context, more solutions, and greater understanding of the people and events that shape our world. Learn more at newsy.com slash watch. How much would you pay

to avoid morning traffic? Why are plane tickets to Boise so expensive? I'm Cardiff Garcia, co-host of The Indicator. In every episode, we take on a new, unexpected idea to help you make sense of the day's news. Listen every afternoon on NPR One And we're back. We've talked a lot about the escalating trade standoff between Trump and China. And this morning, that story took another turn when President Trump revived discussions about possible tariffs on $50 billion in Chinese products. Now, this is a big deal right now because the administration had said it would not impose new tariffs on China

while the two countries negotiate trade terms. So, Scott, you are a resident trade expert. What is this all about? What are these potential tariffs? What would they do? Well, everyone's sort of trying to make sense of this, including the Chinese, because just over a week ago, the Treasury Secretary, Steve Mnuchin, had said, hey, we're putting the trade war on hold. So it looked as if, you know, all the parties were getting ready to kind of sit down around the White House puts out a statement, once again reviving this idea of slapping big tariffs, 25% tariffs on tens of billions of dollars worth of Chinese exports, also imposing new restrictions on what kinds of U.S. companies Chinese investors can buy into. None of this has gone into effect yet, and it may not go into effect. That's the example we've seen in the past

from Trump. But it certainly roils the waters again and invites the possibility that China comes back and says, OK, well, if you're going to play hardball, we're going to impose big tariffs on soybeans or airplanes or other U.S. exports. So why now? That's a good question. It's not entirely clear whether President Trump was just irritated at some of the heat he's been taking about maybe going easy on this Chinese telecom company, ZTE, that's been in the news a lot lately. Right. So wanted to kind of show a force. Maybe the hardliners within the administration got the upper hand in some arm wrestling match over the long weekend. It's not entirely clear what provoked this latest sort of tough rhetoric from

the White House, but the Chinese aren't sure what to make of it. And of course, this also comes at a sensitive time geopolitically because Trump is counting on China's President Xi to help rein in North Korea. Yeah, there are few things happening in Asia right now. All kinds of stuff going on. So every time we circle around this topic of will they or won't they impose tariffs, the question is, what does it mean for farmers, for companies that rely on steel? We do so much business with China. So let's come back to that question again. What does this mean for American companies? Well, and interesting you mentioned steel, because we've also been talking about a separate set of tariffs on steel and aluminum imports. China is not a huge supplier of steel and aluminum to the United States, although it is a big player on the world stage.

But those steel and aluminum tariffs, which the president announced with great fanfare a couple of months ago, have been mostly on hold. Some countries are paying them, but most countries got a break. That break is supposed to end at the end of this week, and those tariffs could go into effect against big suppliers like the European Union, Canada, and Mexico. If something isn't worked out to avoid that, you're going to see a lot of pushback. Europeans are talking about imposing tariffs

of their own on Harley-Davidson motorcycles and Kentucky bourbon, and agriculture is always a big target. Soybeans, right? Soybeans. So those are not randomly chosen products, as you know, Domenico. Those are carefully calculated for maximum political impact. Well, and the political impact of this, I mean, obviously, depending on whether or not Americans wind up paying more money for their goods and realize that like an $8 toy for their kid suddenly is $20, That would be a major difference if that were something that were to play out. But I assume that would take some time

before you would actually see that happen. Politically speaking, you know, the president's in an interesting situation here, because his views on trade have actually kind of inverted the Republican Party in a way that you would never have thought possible. And there's been this struggle inside the White House on the quote unquote globalists versus the sort of more nativist populace. And when I was looking at some of the polling on trade, I thought it was interesting that 71% of Americans, according to a recent Harvard poll, said that they think that the US should do something about addressing this $375 billion trade imbalance with China. But 52 percent, a majority, disapprove of Trump's tariffs on aluminum and steel. So once you start getting into the details here, it's not always going to be something that is clear, which means there's a lot of room here

for the message war to be fought. One thing I'm really curious about is, you know, some of the big sectors that could get hit if there is a trade war or something short of that, retaliation, agriculture, manufacturing. These are sectors that, you know, are huge in places that have by and large supported President Trump. Right, where Trump won. And so, you know, what does it mean for him long term? What does it mean for the midterms? And that's no accident. I mean, the other countries that are trying to put the hurt on President Trump over these policies, they can read a red and blue map just like any of us, and they know where the pain points are.

It was cliche during the campaign for Trump to go out and say that he could shoot someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue and not lose any of his supporters. But there are certain things that he's continuing to do economically. He didn't carry New York City. Right. Obviously. Fifth Avenue would be fine. But if you're going out into the middle of a main street in South Dakota and saying, I'm blowing up all of your soybeans, we'll see if that's something he can actually do. Yeah. It'll be interesting to see how far he can take it. And I mean, a lot of people voted for him, at least they said for economic reasons. So if his economic policies, you know, how will they play out? How will they affect those parts of the country? I was just in Michigan a few weeks back when the president did a rally there. And one thing he said was he specifically addressed farmers and he said, I'm going to need you to trust me on this. There might be a little pain in the short term, But how much pain are people willing to take? Trump's got a long leash with his supporters. I think we saw during the campaign that culture

outweighed economics in many ways. But if people start feeling the pain in their pockets, that's always going to wind up trumping whatever the other issues are, especially considering that the people who had a lot of the culture issues with Trump actually were doing pretty well economically, the people who supported him because of culture. If there is some pain in their pocket, then you could see a turn. But boy, that's a long way away. All right. I think that's a wrap for this week.

We'll be back later this week. Our email address for your comments, questions and timestamps is NPR politics at NPR dot org. If you like the show, leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. That helps new listeners find us. And keep up with our coverage on NPR.org, NPR Politics on Facebook, and of course on your local public radio station. I'm Sarah McCammon.

I'm covering the White House. I'm Scott Horsley. I also cover the White House. And I'm Domenico Montanaro, political editor. Thanks for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.