The NPR Politics Podcast - Trump, Governors Weigh How To Reopen Country

Episode Date: April 15, 2020

President Trump is impatient to get the country reopened. The administration's public health experts and the governors of California and New York say testing will have to become more widespread for that to be possible.In this episode: campaign correspondent Asma Khalid, political correspondent Scott Detrow, national desk correspondent Quil Lawrence, and KQED political editor Scott Shafer.Email the show at [e-mail] Join the Facebook group at n.pr/politicsgroup Subscribe to our newsletter at npr.org/politicsnewsletter Find and support your local public radio station at donate.npr.orgLearn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hi, this is Darren, a professional magician in Burlington, Vermont. I'm using my time in isolation during the coronavirus to work on some great new magic tricks for my stage show. This podcast was recorded at 2.19 p.m. on Wednesday, April 15th. Things may have changed by the time you hear this. Have a magical day, and here's the show. I was waiting for like some sort of like, pulling something out of a hat. Well, hey there, it's the NPR politics podcast. I'm Asma Khalid. I'm covering the presidential campaign. I'm Scott Detrow. I'm covering the White House. So President Trump has been touting a new task force that's going to focus on reviving and

reopening the country's economy. Last night at a press conference in the Rose Garden, the president spent about 10 minutes reading off a long list of names of the business leaders who are apparently a part of this task force. The American Farm Bureau Federation, Zippy Duval, Cisco Systems, Tyson Foods, Purdue Farms, Cargill, Archer Daniels. Suffice it to say, Scott, this is not exactly what folks expected when the president first mentioned an economic task force. Yeah, like many of the things coming out of the White House during the coronavirus crisis, this has morphed from day to day, often, you know, from statement to statement.

It went from this idea of something akin to what you've seen the task force headed by Mike Pence with Dr. Fauci and Dr. Birx really taking the lead on an economic side. That was the idea. And it seems to have turned out as, you know, President Trump making a bunch of phone calls to a bunch of business leaders and political leaders and economic leaders. One thing he said that really cut through to me was that, look, this task force, this is back when it was the idea of more of a formal task force. They know what I want. They know what they're being asked to produce. So I think they'll be able to do it pretty quickly. It seems like President Trump has a pretty strong

idea of how he wants the country to move forward on a more aggressive timetable than others want to see, which is something we're going to talk about. And this seemed more to be just checking in with people than anything else. Has the president actually announced a target date for reopening the country economically? No, he has not. What you've seen over the last week or so is a pattern that has repeated itself a few different times over the last month or so, where the president will recommit to social distancing guidelines, which he's done through the end of April, but then kind of get increasingly impatient about it, saying the country needs to get back moving, it needs to get working again,

life needs to resume. And he's been pushing that line more and more while you've had more and more governors saying, wait a second, we're the ones who put these orders in place to begin with, we're going to decide, and we're going to decide based on the data, not just a general antsiness or any political motivations. And that has set up a little bit of a confrontation, though at times it's seen more confrontational, less confrontational, which I think we're going to talk about. Scott, I'm glad you made that point about governors, because we have been wanting to talk more about that. And so we brought on some special guests today. Quill Lawrence of NPR's

National Desk, who's been following the situation in New York State for us. Hey, Quill. Hi, everyone. And we've also got Scott Schaefer. He's Senior Editor at KQED. That's NPR's member station in San Francisco. Hey, Scott. Hey there. And Scott and I worked together at KQED for a couple years covering state politics. Yes, we did.

Great to have the Scotts reunited on station. That's right. Scott squared. So, Quill, let's start with you. And let's begin with a status update on the pandemic. How does the outbreak look right now in New York? The good news that they can point to is that they have flattened this curve. And I suppose good news as well is that a few weeks ago, a month ago, we were looking at really doomsday predictions about running out of ventilators and having hospitals overwhelmed. That hasn't really happened. And you can see this curve has flattened, but they're still just facing this punishing death toll each day, over 700 every day. That's

probably going to go on for days, if not weeks. But it's just this punishing number of New Yorkers, of families in New York who are dying every day. And they're well past 10,000 deaths now just in New York City, especially because they've started to count people who are presumed to have died of COVID-19 and not just people who were tested to have it and died. Scott Schaefer, how does the situation compare there in California? Well, it's really different listening to Quill. I'm just so grateful that things are different in California. We do have about 25,000 COVID-19 cases, but, you know, we have 40 million people and we have a total of about 758 deaths. You know, things are much more under control here. Hospitalizations are beginning to level off. So clearly, you know, things are much more under control here. Hospitalizations are beginning to

level off. So clearly, you know, things here are not nearly as dire as they are on the East Coast and in some other states like Michigan and Louisiana. You just saying that number right there, 700 deaths total, it just jumps out to me that the total number of deaths in California is what New York State is seeing every single day at this point. You know, that strikes me. It's something that Governor Cuomo said today when he was asked why he didn't act sooner. And of course, he defended his own record, said, oh, well, we went 19 days from our first case to in total lockdown, and that's faster than any other state. But I think it's clear in the difference that New York could have moved faster. But Cuomo said, if I had told New Yorkers to shut down and stay home, when we didn't of these cases enough to put the fear into people that they would say, okay, we're doing this because we now believe you that this is very serious. And I guess

the evidence just wasn't there for people to sort of take such drastic steps earlier on. You know, there has been this sort of tug of war between the Trump administration and governors over who really has the authority to determine when to end social distancing orders and when to kind of go back to normal. There's a debate over what authority you have to order the country reopened. What authority do you have? Well, I have the ultimate authority, but we're going to get into that. And after Trump was really criticized for that statement, he seemed to back off it a little bit the next day, saying something along the lines of, well, you know, I'll give the state's authority to come up with their own plans. and a very powerful reopening plan of their state at a time and in a manner as most appropriate. Yeah, I mean, there was a lot of discussion about that. Constitutional lawyers saying who has what authority. But I think what it came down to was that the governors on both coasts have decided that as a practical matter,

they really need to coordinate just so you don't have the bars in New Jersey right across the Hudson River opening up while the bars in Manhattan are still on lockdown. So you don't have different policies that are, you know, 20 minutes away by commuter rail and causing dangerous transmission. And really what Governor Cuomo said, although, you know, he was taking some shots on the morning news shows afterwards, he was saying, I don't want to fight here. And, for example, if if there is a plan coming from the federal government to do this, we would love to hear the model. We would love to have to see FEMA take over authority of distribution and purchase of testing, that kind of thing. And it just seemed to be saying, we've got a vacuum here. If you have a plan, we'd love to have you do this. We haven't heard that plan yet.

All right. Well, there is certainly a lot more to talk about here, but let's take a quick break. And when we get back, we'll talk about what California and New York are saying about what it will take to reopen their economies. In the United States, Black people as a whole have less access to good health care, to education and job opportunities than other groups. But who do we even mean when we say Black people? Who counts as Black? It's a question this country has been trying to answer from the very beginning. Listen on NPR's Code Switch podcast. And we're back. And Scott Schaefer, I understand that Governor Gavin Newsom has specifically laid out what he would like to see before he starts moving the state back to business as usual.

What is that? What does he want to see? Well, Asma, he's setting a pretty high bar, actually. He says, as I think most governors are saying, that this is going to be guided by science and the data, not by politics. But among the things he's going to be looking at is the availability of widespread testing so that people can be monitored and tracked if they test positive. Also, the ability to protect the most vulnerable seniors, homeless people, people with underlying conditions, that kind of thing. And also a consistent drop in the numbers of infections and hospitalization rates for probably a couple of weeks. He also mentioned that if they're going to reopen, schools and businesses need to be able to enforce social

distancing. So they might be staggering the hours for schools, for example. And then he also talked about the availability of treatments. Well, we don't know when treatments are going to be available, and there isn't a lot of testing, or at least not enough testing going on right now. So that's a pretty high bar. And of course, the governor did not mention a timeline or any specific date, which I think is quite wise. You know, this thing is changing every day. And Asma, to me, seeing Gavin Newsom lay out this criteria was such a contrast to what we've been hearing from President Trump in recent days. President Trump has really sounded eager to get moving, talking about sooner

rather than later, but he has not given the specifics of what needs to happen. And that first criteria that Gavin Newsom talks about, that every health expert agrees, the idea of really aggressive testing, President Trump often downplays it, saying that's not necessarily needed as much, that testing is doing well, there's no problems with testing, when in fact Newsom and a lot of the health experts say you just need to have this overwhelming number of tests like you've been seeing in South Korea to even have a conversation about some sort of slower-paced return to normal life. Well, and Newsom is really also being clear that even when California begins to reopen, life is going to be very different. You know, restaurants

are going to have fewer tables, waiters might be wearing face coverings and gloves, and we might have disposable menus. So, you know, he is not certainly not raising the specter of things being quote unquote normal or the way they were before. Yeah, Governor Cuomo said the same thing about New York, that we're building a bridge, he said today in a long metaphor, but not to back to what it was before, but to a new and different normal situation. And he said, of course, New York has to ramp up testing enormously. It's not probably going to be happening before June. And then he described sort of a way in which the state could start measuring how they would bring businesses back online. Because right now we have all quote unquote essential workers who are working,

right? This would be, well, what's the next tranche of essential workers? And how high or low is the possibility of infection spread if that business becomes operational? And then you basically have a matrix. And of course, he said that this matrix is going to be based, again, on widespread testing. And he said, we're really not going to be out of this until there's an effective medical treatment or an effective vaccine. And he said, we're really not going to be out of this until there's an effective medical treatment or an effective vaccine. And that is 12 to 18 months. And it's really hard to get your head around. Cuomo has been trying to put that message out there that it really is going to be a long haul. I mean, is there a realm in which either one of these governors has addressed the concern that you reopen businesses, and then you see an uptick in cases, and then you have to shut things back down again.

Yeah, I mean, they say it every time. Here in California, Governor Newsom has said this isn't like an on-off switch. It's more like a dimmer switch, playing electrician there and saying that, you know, very much saying we're going to need, we may need to tighten things back up and then loosen it up again, depending on what the data show in terms of infections and hospitalizations. Yeah, and Governor Cuomo has talked about watching the meter. As you slowly turn things back on, if you see infections rates, hospitalizations start to tick back up, you back off. So Scott, one thing I keep hearing from both, it sounds like California and New York, is this emphasis on the need to have widespread

testing. Is that something that we are continuing to hear from the president that part of reopening the country is not just an economic solution? It's a public health solution? Yeah, one of the areas where the president often does get the most defensive during these press conferences is on the question of testing. He repeatedly makes the point that there are more and more tests being administered being produced. That is true. The number of tests have gone up by a lot. But still, a lot of governors are saying it's nowhere near enough that's needed, especially if you're talking about the proactive testing that would need to happen to reopen the country. This is something where the health experts, Dr. Fauci and Dr. Birx, do say, yes, there need to

be more tests. And there's been a lot of talk lately about antibody testing, you know, doing blood tests to see whether people have had the virus, even if they were asymptomatic, to know which people are more safe to go out and re-engage in the economy. So certainly testing is a big part of it, depending on who you talk to in the Trump administration. There's different acknowledgement that more needs to be done or different emphasis on that being a key part of moving forward. All right, well, that is a wrap for today. Thank you so much to both Scott Schaefer from KQED in California and Quill Lawrence from NPR's national team who's been following the situation in New York. Thank you both again for hanging out with us. Hey, it was fun. Anytime. Thanks, Scott. Thanks, Asma. Thanks, Scott.

Well, obviously, there is still a long road ahead and we will be here with all the latest. In the meantime, we are looking ahead to Friday and we're going to need your help. We want to try something new with our Can't Let It Go segment

in our weekly roundup. And we want to know what you cannot let go of, politics or otherwise. You can let us know by recording yourself telling us what it is, and you can send it to nprpolitics at npr.org. I'm Asma Khalid. I'm covering the presidential

campaign. I'm Scott Detrow. I'm covering the White House. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.