The NPR Politics Podcast - Weekly Roundup: April 15th

Episode Date: April 15, 2022

Sarah Palin, whose 2008 turn as John McCain's running mate presaged the Republican Party's evolution, is reentering the political arena with a bid to represent her home state of Alaska in the House of Representatives.And in the contentous race to serve as the Republican Senate candidate in Pennsylvania, TV personality Mehmet Oz secured Donald Trump's coveted endorsement against Dave McCormick, a fifth-generation resident of the state with a more othodox politcial resume. Will it matter to voters there?This episode: White House correspondent Asma Khalid, acting congressional correspondent Deirdre Walsh, national political correspondent Don Gonyea, and Alaska Public Media correspondent Liz Ruskin.Connect: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 station.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hey y'all, my name is Mimi DeRosa and I'm a junior in high school from Lexington, Kentucky. I'm currently studying for my AP United States History National Exam. This podcast was recorded at 1 12 p.m. on Friday, April 15th. Things may have changed by the time you hear this, but I'll still be memorizing every little detail of Washington's inaugural address and the Roaring Twenties. Enjoy the show. I remember those days. AP exams. Good luck. A lot of pressure if we have AP students studying this. Listening to us as our public service.

Well, hey there. This is the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Asma Khalid. I cover the White House. And I'm Don Gagnagne, national political correspondent. And today on the show, we're going to be talking about Sarah Palin. I'm sure you all remember her. I mean, how could you not? You know, they say the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull? Lipstick. Well, the former 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee and former governor of Alaska is making a return to the political scene. She is now running for Alaska's single House of Representatives seat to replace Don Young, who recently passed away after many decades on the job.

And we were wondering, what exactly has Sarah Palin been up to for this last decade or so? And no better person to call than Liz Ruskin of Alaska Public Media. Welcome to the podcast, Liz. Thank you. I'm delighted to be here. Thanks for inviting me. Thank you for hanging out with us. So Liz, let's start with a basic question. It seems that Palin has had a rather eventful decade or so, even though she's not been on the national political scene. So can you fill us in? What exactly has she been doing? Well, yeah, after the campaign, after the presidential campaign, she came home and was governor again, but not for long.

She resigned in 2009, which a lot of people still remember and hold against her. Then she was a paid contributor on Fox News for a while. She had a reality TV show. She was at CPAC, you know, the conservative. Conservative Political Action Conference. Right. She had this one really memorable appearance in a pink and blue bear suit on The Masked Singer, if anyone remembers that. I do remember that.

I'll tell you what she has not been doing is she has not been active in Alaska, you know, political issues. So it sounds like what you're describing is she's been sort of a celebrity and made a name for herself nationally, but hasn't been involved in issues there on the ground in Alaska. Absolutely. Well, Dawn, you covered the 2008 presidential race when Sarah Palin was John McCain's running mate on the Republican ticket. in some ways, it felt like seeing her that cycle gave you an indication of the beginning of this shift we were seeing in the GOP that kind of paved the way for Donald Trump. Oh, it certainly did. It felt like she was a precursor to Trump. And I guess just to set the scene a bit, I was on the Obama campaign bus in 08 when she

was announced as McCain's running mate. We didn't even know how to pronounce her name. We knew she was the governor from Alaska, but she did not have a national profile at all. But she really quickly established her presence. She was provocative, combative. I'll tell you, it was the first place that I encountered serious jeering and taunting of journalists at campaign events. She would taunt us from the stage, like Trump did eight years later. She called us the lamestream media. Trump likes the term fake news.

The other thing that was like Trump, fact-checking was meaningless in terms of how it affected her behavior. There was the story of the bridge to nowhere in Alaska. She claimed she cut the funding. She didn't cut the funding. She'd been a supporter of it. But even after she'd been fact checked, she kept telling that story. That was new then. We're very used to that now from Donald Trump. So I am curious that given she's had this decade or so where she's not been involved directly in politics, if you have a sense, Liz, of why she's getting back into politics at this particular moment. moment? Yeah, I think that she and a lot of other people see an opportunity because for the first time in 49 years, Alaska's sole U.S. House seat is open with no incumbent. And we have 48 candidates. She's one of 48 candidates in the special primary to fill the remainder of Congressman Young's term. That's wild. Did you just say 48? Yeah, 48 for the special primary. And we have this brand new voting system, and nobody knows exactly how it's going to shake out. So I think a lot of people see an opportunity in that.

Okay, so explain this new system to me. It seems really different than I think what we're familiar with probably with most other primary races. a lot of people see an opportunity in that. Okay, so explain this new system to me. It seems really different than I think what we're familiar with probably with most other primary races. Yeah, it's totally different than any system elsewhere in the country. So it starts with a pick one primary. All candidates, regardless of party, will be on the same ballot and voters pick one. And then the top four vote-getters advance to the general. And in the general, voters will rank the candidates one through four. And if nobody gets a majority, then the fourth-place finisher is removed and the

ballots that went to that candidate are reallocated based on the voter's second choice, and so on until somebody gets a majority. So, Liz, looking back, I recall what the reaction was to Palin back in 08 when I was covering her. What is the reaction from Alaskan voters this time? You hear all kinds of reactions. One word you hear a lot is quitter, that people remember that she quit the governor's office in 2009. And some people are really burned about that, especially, you know, people who had supported her and saw that as a betrayal. Other people adore her. I've been talking to some conservatives in Wasilla, her home turf, and they are not universally happy about it.

You know, they talk about the quitting, and you also hear the word embarrassing. People mean different things by it, but in general, she has high negatives, as the pollsters say. And yet, no one doubts that she will make it to the general ballot because, you know, name recognition, and she's got some popularity. I talked to a man named Ron Johnson. He's a Vietnam veteran, a retiree who lives not far from Wasilla, and he had a lot to say about Sarah Palin. I think she's out of touch with Alaskans right now. You know, she's moved into a different circle. She was a vice presidential candidate. I don't think that the people here locally, you know, we don't take her very seriously.

That's interesting. All right, well, thank you so much for joining us, Liz seriously. That's interesting. All right. Well, thank you so much for joining us, Liz. We really appreciate it. Thank you. That was Liz Ruskin of Alaska Public Media. All right. Let us take a quick break. And when we get back, we'll talk about another Republican race that Don Gagne has been reporting on from Pennsylvania.

And we're back. And we're joined now by another member of our politics pod squad, Deirdre Walsh, who covers Congress. Hey, Deirdre. Hey, guys. So on Wednesday's show, we talked about how this fall's Senate race is going to be quite competitive. And one state in particular where this is true is Pennsylvania. Republican Pat Toomey is retiring this year, and the fight to replace him, it seems like it's already getting really heated. There are tough primaries for both Democrats and Republicans. And Don, you were just in Pennsylvania, and we're going to focus mostly on the GOP primary

today, but I do want you to speak briefly about the Democrats. Can you just give us a basic lay of the land on that side? Right. Three main candidates. There's Lieutenant Governor John Fetterman. He's from the more rural western part of the state, a former small town mayor, a progressive, a Bernie Sanders supporter. But he has been campaigning hard in red Pennsylvania, in Trump country. He has this very kind of casual demeanor, a shaved head. He stands well over six

foot tall, wears basketball shorts to campaign, and he's got this man of the people vibe. So he's been out there and he is the front runner at this point, according to polling. Then there's Congressman Conor Lamb, a moderate Democrat elected in 2018 to the U.S. House. He's won in a swing district. He can get blue collar and Republican votes, and he says that's the key in November. Then there's State Rep Malcolm Kenyatta. He's from Philly. He's working the African-American vote. He wants to be Pennsylvania's first black U.S. Senator. He would also be the first statewide officeholder who is a member of the LGBTQ community. So those are the Democrats. All right. Well, if what Don has been describing sounds a tad familiar to folks,

it's because we talked about it on the February 23rd podcast. If you missed it, you can go look that one up. But today we're going to turn to the Republicans, and there are two main candidates out there, one a familiar name to many folks and one less so. So let's start with David McCormick, who on paper seems like the typical kind of Republican candidate that you might expect to see. Don, tell us a little bit about him. Right. And to be clear, he is the less familiar when it comes to his name. He is a former official from the George W. Bush administration. He is married to a former Trump administration official. Dino Powell was a top advisor to Trump. He is very buttoned down, very establishment, a former hedge fund manager,

went to West Point, grew up on a farm. He's a fifth generation Pennsylvanian, and he really, really, really touts his conservative credentials, but also his experience, his ability to get things done, and his ability to be at 100% in the job starting on day one. Okay. And his main challenger, Mehmet Oz, also known commonly as Dr. Oz from television, he, despite McCormick's bona fides in the Republican Party, is actually the one who picked up the endorsement of former President Donald Trump. By the way, I endorsed another person today, Dr. Oz in Pennsylvania. Dr. Oz. Great guy. That endorsement, I will say of all things, actually did not occur in the state of Pennsylvania with Dr. Oz beside him. It came over the weekend in North Carolina, a totally different state. And a lot of Republicans in Washington were surprised that former President Trump weighed in at that place you know, place and time. This has been a, you know, contested primary.

You know, both of these candidates that Don was talking about have a lot of their own money. So we already knew this was going to be an expensive race. But I think a lot of people thought it would, you know, play out a little bit longer before Trump put his finger on the scale for his preferred candidates. And, you know, former aides to Trump were working for both candidates. So I think people in the McCormick camp thought he had a shot at getting the endorsement. And so it seems like they were taken a little off guard. But I will say it does feel like a Trump endorsement this cycle perhaps does not carry the clout that maybe Donald Trump's name may have carried before. At least it seems a little

murkier, right, as to what it might mean. And to that point, Don, I mean, did the Republican voters that you spoke with feel swayed by what Donald Trump thinks about the Senate race in their state? Boy, that's an open question at this point. And again, we don't have polling that might give us some sense of what an endorsement just this past Saturday may mean. Polls in general have shown McCormick ahead by a single digit margin, you know, maybe six, seven points. One poll this week shows it to be a tie, essentially. But while there are certainly people, and I've talked to them them who are waiting for Trump to give them some clue as to who they should support. It is not at all unusual to find loyal Republicans who like Donald Trump, who are still undecided, who say, nah, this isn him this past week. His name is Bob Rapp. Again, he was at a McCormick event, but he stressed he is undecided. In my mind, Trump was a type of leader. You don't agree with your leaders 100% of the time, but he wasn't afraid to lead.

Could his endorsement sway you in this Senate race? No. That's a flat no. No. Hmm. That's, that's fascinating to me. I feel like so many political operatives in Washington really stress all the time, the power of the Trump endorsement, the power of what he has over the party. And I think, you know, what we're seeing is, you know, in some primaries, the Trump endorsed candidate didn't win, like there was one contested House race in Texas, where his candidate lost the primary. So it's, it's fascinating to me, Don, the people that you're talking to, you know, obviously still see him as the leader, but are willing to break with him. You know, and Don, I was struck by something you said earlier about McCormick, him being a fifth generation Pennsylvanian, because it seems like with Dr. Oz being this big name, McCormick is trying to stand out by kind of painting Dr. Oz as being

out of touch with Pennsylvanians. And there was this moment where the two kind of went at it over a big local issue, fracking, during a forum last month. On your shows and your columns, you've argued for more regulation in fracking. You've made the case that there's health defects from fracking, and you've argued for a moratorium in Pennsylvania like that's in New York. I'm sorry, that's not true. Excuse me, Mr. McCormack, if we could please just stay focused on how you... Hold a second, Jesra. You let him attack me. He didn't stop until he attacked me. That is wrong. That's a lie, and you know it's a lie. You've been letting those ads over and over again... You know how we mine the record of an elected politician for every vote they took,

no matter how long ago, to look for contradictions? Well, Oz has never held office, neither has McCormick for that matter, but Oz has been saying stuff off the cuff on television forever. So there are not only challenges to his support today for fracking and more of that kind of energy explanation. He's held events talking about that. They're also using things he has said about abortion against him. Voters wonder if he's as pro-life as he claims to be. And on and on and on, on issue after issue, his whole life as a TV host is fodder for attack ads against him now. And it's interesting, too, that a lot of these voters are not willing to give Oz a pass for things that he may have said on his television show when they were, as Republican voters in the last two presidential elections, willing to give Trump a pass on his past, if I'm saying that clearly. But let's also be clear. Oz does bring a lot to the table. He is able to raise a lot of money. He's running a very high-profile media campaign with lots of ads.

He knows how to organize an event and to reach out and talk to people. And just that celebrity thing in general does have a great deal of cachet. Again, as long as you clear a certain bar as far as credibility goes. I think it's worth just taking a step back and just talking about how important the Pennsylvania Senate race is on the overall landscape. Because I think Democrats see this, you know, the seat is currently held by Pat Toomey, who's retiring a Republican senator. And when he announced he was retiring, I think Democrats saw it as like, this is a place that we could flip, right? And we're in a 50-50 Senate and Democrats are defending a lot more seats and have a lot more of their own incumbents that they have to protect. But this is an offensive place where they felt like they have

a good chance. Biden won Pennsylvania and he grew up in Pennsylvania. So it's a place where he may be an asset on the campaign trail, where in other states he may not be as much this cycle because of the state of the economy. So I feel like on both ends of the political spectrums, in terms of the Democratic primary that Don covered, that'll be a real test of where the energy is. And then clearly, like this Republican primary is just so fascinating in terms of the power of the Trump endorsement. And obviously both self-funding Republicans who are going to just throw a ton of money into this race. All right, well, we are going to take another quick break. And when we get back, it's time for Can't Let It Go. And we are back and it is time to end the show like we do every week with Can't Let It Go. That's the part of the show where we talk about the things from the week that we just cannot stop thinking about politics or otherwise.

And I think I will kick it off this week. So guys, mine is apolitical, does not have anything to do with what is going on in the state of the world right now. But this week, one of my favorite movies when I was growing up turns 20. It's called Bend It Like Beckham. Before I go into this soliloquy, did you guys see it? I love that movie, yes. Okay. I was like, am I going to be talking to the bad or preachy?

I played high school soccer, so of course I love that movie. Yeah. Dada, have you seen it? I have. I love it. I love it. I can't believe it's 20 years old. I can't believe it's 20 years old either.

Actually, when I saw that news, I admit it really did make me feel a bit old. I was like, oh gosh, I didn't realize it had turned 20. But for those of you who may be a tad younger and were not around 20 years ago, this movie, to me, is amazing for a whole bunch of reasons. And I would just encourage you to go out and actually watch it this weekend if you haven't seen it. It was this fairly low-budget film that became a big hit in the United Kingdom. And I would say it even became a pretty big hit here in the US. And to me, what I think was so powerful about it, and in many ways, I think it felt very

ahead of its times because it was dealing with issues in a really subtle way. It was this coming of age story. But coming of age stories, I think when I was in high school, I mean, frankly, they just did not have non-white characters as the center focus. And here you had a main character who's Punjabi. She's a brown South Asian girl from London. And the film deals with issues of race and sexuality and gender in ways that I just think were not being discussed publicly in the early 2000s. And she was also like a strong female character who kind of was very just real, like she was herself. Like a lot of those other coming of age stories, I remember, probably older than you,

were very like, I don't know, the female characters are just like very perfect looking and very like had lived in perfect houses and had perfect outfits and, and the whatever the storyline was about some sort of high school relationship, whatever. But this was like, it's all about the relationship. And this was actually more about her relationship I felt with football, aka soccer, than it was, you know, I don't want to give too much away for those who haven't seen it. But yeah, and her family, right? And her family and her place in the world. And like, I just felt like I, you know, I was so, I didn't have very much in common with her. I played soccer and I played sports.

And, but I identified with her as someone who had a very different life than her, but I just thought it was just a really cool story. So shout out to Bend It Like Beckham and for folks who haven't seen it, please take the time to watch it this weekend. All right. What about you, Deirdre?

What can you not let go of this week? So I guess this is sort of related. The thing I can't let go of this week is UK related in the sense that Harry and Meghan, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, his wife, returned to the UK for the first time since they left, since they left the royal family, the official duties of the royal family. And I think it was just such a totally under the radar visit. Like the last thing they did was this like splashy dishy Oprah interview with like primetime. And it was just like this big break and all this scandal so well I'm just googling this as you speak because I feel like I follow most things royal and I did

not know this and I was like how did I miss this yeah I just saw like a little reader on it the other day it wasn't like remember the Oprah interview was like the lead of every show for like a week straight so they um I guess Prince Harry went back when Prince Philip passed away, but his wife did not go because of security issues and all the controversy around that interview. So this time they went on their way to this event that Harry runs. And they went to go visit the Queen. Yeah, so she hasn't been doing well. She had COVID and they went to visit her. And I guess it's up in the air as to whether they're going to go to the big jubilee for her, which I think is in June.

And I'm kind of interested to see, like, do they rehab their relationship with the royal family by doing it this way? And Don, your turn. What can you not let go of this week? Okay, so mine's about baseball. I have this T-shirt I wear. It says baseball because it's not politics. So I his first start of the season this week, Wednesday, I think it was. And he had a perfect game going through seven innings. Perfect game. Nobody had reached base. And they took him out. They took him out of the game.

Oh, yeah. I actually remember seeing this on SportsCenter. Wait, why? Why'd they take him out? no reason except that it was his first start, and he'd thrown 80 pitches, which is not a ton of pitches, but he was probably only going to throw maybe 100 tops, and he had a lot of injuries last year, and his body's getting creaky and old, so his manager talked to him, and they just decided to sit him down, and Kershaw seemed very unperturbed by it all, and there's a reason I am so sensitive about this. I have a backstory. When I was a kid, now this goes back to 1973 in Detroit, I declined an offer from my uncle and my cousins to go to a game at Old Tiger Stadium in Detroit. I think I decided to go to a church festival instead. And that game that I turned on a ticket to, Nolan Ryan pitched for the California Angels, they were called then. And he threw a no-hitter against the Tigers.

And I missed it. And you're still kicking yourself, I can tell. Well, I will tell you. So I've been a baseball fan my whole life. And I'm a 15, 20 games a year guy. And I have never once gone to the park since that date back in 1973 when I haven't said to myself quietly, maybe I'll see one today. Maybe I'll see that no-hitter today. It's good that you weren't at the Kershaw game. But I've still never seen one in my life, right? I've seen a one-hitter, but I've still never seen one. So not only can't I let it go, I think we need to change it to a we'll never let it go in this case.

All right. Well, that is a wrap for today. Our executive producer is Mithoni Mathuri. Our editors are Eric McDaniel and Krishna Dev Kalamore. Our producers are Lexi Schipittel, Elena Moore, and Casey Morrell. Thanks to Brandon Carter, and I'm Asma Khalid. I cover the White House. I'm Deirdre Walsh. I cover Congress. And I'm Don Gagné, national political correspondent. And thank you all, as always, for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.