The NPR Politics Podcast - Trump Visits Mask Factory In Arizona, A 2020 Battleground

Episode Date: May 5, 2020

In his first major trip during the outbreak, President Trump is in Arizona Tuesday touring a mask factory. The state is an important 2020 battleground, with a closely-watched Senate race that could be a boon for Joe Biden.This episode: White House correspondent Tamara Keith, and national political correspondents Mara Liasson and Don Gonyea.Connect:Subscribe to the NPR Politics Podcast here.Email the show at [e-mail] the NPR Politics Podcast Facebook Group.Subscribe to the NPR Politics Newsletter.Find and support your local public radio stationLearn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hey there, I'm Tamara Keith, and if you didn't know it from the 5,000 emails you've gotten today, today is Giving Tuesday. It is a special day for donating to non-profits that strengthen and inform your community, like your local public radio station. It's really easy to feel discouraged and overwhelmed right now when so many people are struggling, but there are ways to help. Your donation of any size, if you're in a position to do this, makes a difference, especially during times like these. Visit donate.npr.org slash politics to give back and help keep vital information flowing in your own backyard and beyond. So we can all listen tomorrow. Thanks a lot. This is Chloe calling from beautiful Asheville, North Carolina, where I'm spending my extra

time in isolation taking care of a new flock of chicks, including Eleanor Roosevelt, Bertie Sanders, and Ruth Bader-Hensburg. This podcast was recorded at 2.14 p.m. on Tuesday, the 5th of May, Cinco de Mayo. Things may have changed by the time you hear this. on Tuesday, the 5th of May, Cinco de Mayo. Things may have changed by the time you hear this. Now here's the show. Let's not chicken out or anything. I have like this text chain with all of my neighbors,

and we have been talking at length about how we want to get chickens. Okay, that's a sign, Tam. I'm a little afraid now. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. I'm Mara Liason, national political correspondent. And I'm Don Gagne, also national political correspondent. President Trump is in Arizona today. Technically, at the time of this recording, he is on his way to Arizona to visit a facility that has expanded into the production of N95 respirator face masks. It's his first flight on Air Force One in more than a month. Mara, let's start with what is motivating this trip? Well, first of all, the president really wants to get out of Washington. And so

he's been able to do that. He has a couple motivations. He wants to tell a positive story, first of all, about the economy, which he believes is opening up and will be doing great by the fall, so he says. Also to show how well his administration is responding. He's, as you said, visiting a factory that's producing these special N95 face masks. And the president has been under withering criticism for not being ready, for ignoring the early warnings, and for not ramping up production of masks, tests, ventilators, etc. So this is a trip to tell a positive story about the Trump administration's response. And it just happens to be to a very important battleground state. Yeah, and we will get to a bit more about

Arizona in a bit. But you know, this actually is a pretty cool story. The Honeywell plant that he's going to visit is an aerospace factory. It was making airplane parts. Well, there's not a lot of demand for airplane parts right now with so little flying going on. So they were able to like carve out some space in this factory to start making these N95 face masks. And the first ones rolled off the line at the end of last month. And they they say that they were able to employ about 500 additional people. They're going to be able to make 10 million masks at this one factory every month once they get up to full production.

So it's like one of those American ingenuity stories. Don, what else does the president get out of this trip? Well, we all know how much the president misses holding those big rallies. One of his last rallies was actually in Phoenix back in mid-February. November, means he at least gets himself on the ground, on local television, in the news, and on the front of people's minds in this state. And they see him doing something presidential. So there are pluses for him to be there, quite apart from as if it had been a rally or some other kind of official campaign event.

Yeah, and this is definitely not a campaign event. Absolutely not, yeah. However, who wants to put money on whether it shows up in the next Trump campaign ad? President Trump in a factory where masks are being made. Indeed, everything is fodder for the campaign, even if it is not labeled officially so when it happens, especially an event like this. Yeah. Don, you've been doing some reporting about the importance of Arizona in this presidential race.

I mean, a reminder, it's 2020. People will be voting soon. And Arizona is a swing state, even if it hasn't been in the past. It is a brand new battleground state. It hasn't gone to a Democrat in a presidential year since Bill Clinton in his reelection run in 1996. But if we kind of retroactively plus that Mitt Romney beat President Obama by there just four years earlier. So it was really narrow. You have a growing Hispanic, Latino population, and they are getting more organized and more active every election cycle. But you also have this huge influx of new residents to Arizona. It's a lot of retirees. That's what we hear about, you know, mostly traditionally. But it's also people just moving to Arizona because there are jobs, there are beautiful places to live.

It's become an attractive place for people to move to. That has fueled growth in the metropolitan areas and the suburbs. Those are places where Democrats tend to do better. There are also places where Donald Trump, quite apart from the Republican Party, tends to not do as well, which means because all of those trend lines have continued in four years, we go into 2020 knowing that this is a battleground. The Trump campaign told me they've had people on the ground nonstop since 2015. They are planning to run aggressively in Arizona and fight for it. They say that this is a state that they will be fighting for to keep in President Trump's column. That's right. And, you know, it's interesting because Arizona is one of those expansion states for Democrats.

There really are not hardly any expansion states for Trump. I mean, the Democrats have Arizona and North Carolina in addition to those three really important blue wall states that they have to get back, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. But with the exception of New Hampshire, maybe. He wants Minnesota too. Really not a lot of states.

Yes, but that's always a pipe dream for Republicans. But what's interesting about Arizona, what Don just described was this trend that sometimes is called the modernization cycle. You've got highly educated people moving to suburban metro areas who tend to attract knowledge industries, health care, finance. They're more open to immigration. They tend to become blue. You know, that's been the starkest divide in politics that we've seen. If you have a college degree, you are getting more and more likely to be a Democrat. All right, we are going to take a quick break. And when we come back, there is another race we're watching in Arizona for 2020, a Senate race. We translate the science you need to know into short daily episodes. Listen and subscribe to Shortwave from NPR. And we're back.

Don, the Senate race in Arizona this year is turning out to be really competitive. It is. And it's one of those places where Democrats see a real opportunity for a pickup of a seat. The incumbent is Martha McSally. She's an incumbent, but this is her first time actually running for this seat, which was the seat long held by the late Senator John McCain. Martha McSally is a former fighter pilot. She, incidentally, ran for the Senate two years ago against Democrat Kyrsten Sinema and lost that race. Now, again, having been appointed to McCain's seat, she is trying to win it outright. She has a very formidable opponent. He, too, has a significant military credential. It's former astronaut Mark Kelly. Again, he's running as the Democrat. He has had a fundraising advantage. He's a very

high profile person in the state and nationally for that matter. And polls have shown him to be consistently leading in the race. But we should say that our former colleague, Jessica Taylor, who is now with the Cook Political Report, rates it a toss up. The other thing about Mark Kelly, his wife is Gabby Giffords, who was a member of the House, who was shot in the line of duty, suffered traumatic injuries. But this is an extraordinary race because usually the presidential race leads everything in a state. But this is one of the few cases where Democrats are hopeful that Mark Kelly could actually help the top of the ticket. In other words, Mark Kelly is running better than Joe Biden is in Arizona. Well, and Mark Kelly, like you want to talk about fundraising, as Don mentioned, right now, cash on hand at the end of the first quarter, Mark Kelly has about twice as much

cash on hand as Senator McSally. That's a major advantage. And, you know, the other thing that's interesting about McSally, and Don probably has some insights into this, you know, we're asked a lot if Donald Trump's style will become the standard go-to style for Republican candidates. And that really hasn't happened very often. But with Martha McSally,

she has not only portrayed herself as an ally of Trump's, but she's also acted like him. Remember when she was asked a question by a CNN reporter and said, I don't want to answer your question. You're a liberal hack and then turned around and immediately fundraised off that viral moment in the halls of the Senate. So she's tried to be just as pugnacious and divisive as Trump. And it remains to be seen if that's going to help her or not. And at that rally that President Trump held back in February, before everything shut down, he brought her up on stage.

She spoke in the first seconds, practically. She pointed the press pen in the back and referred to them as the hacks in the pen. But then in the twist, again, this is John McCain's old seat. Who was the anti-Trump in every way, shape and form. And then the specter and kind of legacy of McCain kind of hangs over all of this. And the Democrat, Mark Kelly, is is I had one Republican strategist tell me this week, it's almost like Mark Kelly is playing the role of Republican John McCain in this race. He is, you know, he's portraying himself as more of a centrist. He is certainly the antithesis of Donald Trump.

He's trying to appeal to those more moderate voters. And it's fascinating to kind of see how he has assumed the role that McCain once certainly embodied. And who does that remind you of? Kristen Sinema, a Democrat who won the other Senate seat in Arizona. She campaigned as a real centrist, angering a lot of Democrats in the process, but she was successful. Yeah, she was almost like, I'm not even sure I'm a Democrat when she was running. So that kind of middle-of-the-road, bipartisan approach worked for cinema. It certainly worked for John McCain all those years. Well, he was also a national hero. And it might work for Mark Kelly. Martha McSally is trying the opposite tack.

And it certainly also, what we see Mark Kelly doing, it taps into those demographic changes that are happening in the state. Buster, shush. All right, we are going to leave it there for today, because Buster has run out of patience. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. I'm Mara Liason, national political correspondent. And I'm Don Gagne, national political correspondent. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.