The NPR Politics Podcast - Weekly Roundup: December 11th

Episode Date: December 11, 2020

The electoral college will cast ballots Monday, officially selecting Joe Biden as the president-elect. Trump and Republicans continue to attempt to overturn the will of voters. And, Joe Biden has selected top Obama administration officials to serve in his White House.This episode: correspondent Scott Detrow, White House reporter Ayesha Rascoe, and senior political editor and correspondent Domenico Montanaro.Connect:Subscribe to the NPR Politics Podcast here.Email the show at [e-mail] the NPR Politics Podcast Facebook Group.Listen to our playlist The NPR Politics Daily Workout.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 there, it's Scott Detrow. Before we start the show, we are making another appeal for your support. And in the past, we have been pretty earnest about this. We have talked about how your support helps us do journalism, how it helps your local station cover the news in your community. But that ends right here, because the other day I turned on a lesser NPR podcast, Shortwave, and I heard this. The theme for this year's fundraising campaign is togetherness, which we have interpreted as together the NPR shortwavers will defeat the competition. I mean, can you really even call the politics podcast competition? You know, they have Scott Detrow on their team, Kwong. Like, how tough can they really be?

Shots fired, Detrow. Okay. That is Maddie Sophia, who allegedly, I don't know, I don't listen to it that much, hosts a podcast called Shortwave. And she makes a point that there is an internal competition at NPR among the different podcasts to see who can bring in the most money. We hadn't focused on that because we're better than that. We just wanted to tell you the truth about how it supports journalism. But now that we have been dragged into a vicious attack, I think we're going to focus on the fact that the Politics Podcast is having some tough competition right now, and we could

use your help. So if you want to support public radio for petty internal rivalries or for broader points about supporting your community and journalism and things like that, you can go to donate.npr.org slash politics. Thank you so much. Here's the show. Hi, this is Steven calling from Brooklyn, New York, where I'm practicing our animal sounds with my 18th month old daughter. Margo, what sound does a cow make? What sound does a piggy make? Moo. This podcast was recorded at... It's at 1254 Eastern on Friday, December 11th. Things may have changed by the time that you've listened to this,

but hopefully Margo will have mastered the oink. Moo. Here's the show. It was a solid moo, though. It was a solid moo though. It's a very solid moo. Maybe that's a sleeping pig. Like dreaming. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Scott Detrow. I cover the Biden transition.

I'm Aisha Roscoe. I cover the White House. And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. Domenico, I'm glad you're here. I wanted to tell you I had a dream last night that I was vice president and I was taking the subway to a Mets game and the Secret Service detail got lost and was mad at me about trying to find me on the subway. And I was like, actually, the most unrealistic thing would be that I would ever go to a Mets game. So I thought I'd share that with you. City has such a Yankees fan thing to say. It's so obnoxious. You think they're going to be nice and then there they go. Whatever, Scott.

You know, just sharing my dream logs with you. Okay. So we're going to look forward in this podcast a little bit today because on Monday, yet again, it is the presidential election. Electoral college voters will gather in state capitals across the country to cast ballots. This is a formality. It is a very important and constitutional formality, but it is even more important this year, given the reckless attacks on the election from President Trump, who is continuing his calls for the courts, state legislators, governors, anyone who will listen to overturn the results of a free and fair election. And Ayesha, let's just start with, I think it's worth underscoring for a moment just how much the tone and the specific message coming from the president has changed over the past month and gotten more intense? Yeah, it's been intense, but now it's very specifically,

I mean, he tweeted out, you know, overturn at one point, you know, he is saying now, you know, they went from, you know, they were going to go to the courts, they're going to fight it out in the courts, to now, basically, he has been lobbying, you know, the states that were certifying the results of the votes. And he wasn't successful in stopping these states from certifying. So now it's he's, you know, going all out and talking about the Supreme Court and basically lobbying any avenue that he can to try to get them to overturn the results of this election. And it's not we found fraud. It's not any legal challenge because he keeps losing in the course. It's just I would like to still be president, even though I lost this election. Well, he says that it's fraud. Yeah, he claims that the reason why he wants this or this should happen

is because it's fraud but as we've pointed out over and over again they don't make that argument in court um where is which is the place where you would make that argument um because they don't have evidence to back that up yeah it was pretty eye-opening when he tweeted hashtag overturn because that's not even you know having sort of sort of a, you know, a cover of saying that maybe there was abuse or fraud. It's saying, okay, these results are certified, essentially, now let's change them. And, you know, they still have not proved anything in court related to this. And, you know, but yet the people who believe in President Trump, the majority of them, the vast majority of them are not giving any

credence to a Biden win here. And that is problematic for, you know, the peaceful transfer of power. The president's side has lost more than 50 court cases at this point, including an initial appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States, where the US Supreme Court, you know, rejected entertaining that one case that was was about alleged unproven electoral fraud in Pennsylvania, which had been rejected by lower federal courts. There's another challenge being made with the hopes that the Supreme Court takes it up. This is from Texas. Domenico, can you explain what is going on with this case? Well, you know, the Texas lawsuit, which was joined by a handful of other states, with all Republican attorneys general, they're asking that the results be thrown out because

of changes in voting procedures that allowed expanded in-person voting in four key states, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. There's a real question here of legal standing. You know, when you take something to the court to say, you know, I'm suing over this, you have to show how you were harmed. And there's no, you know, a lot of legal experts and scholars are saying that this case has very little merit, and a few calling it bogus, because there is very little legal standing from Texas or any of these other states to say how they were harmed as opposed to a person in that state, for example, to say why, who have reacted pretty sharply in return, saying that this threatens federalism and pushing back on them for the results in their

states, which they say were accurate. And in a place like Wisconsin, where they said, look, Trump's already gotten recounts in two of the key counties he wanted recounts in, in Georgia, saying that obviously they had a recount there too and found no problems. Right, exactly. Two recounts in Georgia saying obviously they had a recount there, too, and found no problems. Right. Exactly. Yeah. So and we should note, it's a mix of Republicans and Democrats making those those those counterclaims from these key states. What do we make of the fact, though, that so many Republicans in Congress, 106 Republicans in the House have have filed an amicus brief in this case? You had 17 Republican attorneys general signing on to this. What do we make that a month later? This is a very

widespread view. And in Domenico, we talked to him in the podcast the other day that the new NPR PBS NewsHour Marist poll shows that a big chunk of Republican voters feel this way, too. Yeah, definitely. I mean, you know, we had less than a quarter of Republican voters saying that they believe that the results of the election were accurate. And I do find it interesting that if you look at those 106 in Congress, they represent about a quarter of the country overall. That's about a quarter of the number of representatives in Congress, just a little less than that. And I do think that, you know, when you look at the support for President Trump, he's had a very solid floor of about a quarter of the country that will sort of believe almost anything that he says or throws out there. But the majority of the country does appear to be moving on. Legislating is going to be a lot more difficult, though, for a President Biden, if you have, you know, half of another party essentially saying they won't work with him. And right now, I mean, it really shows how much power at this point, President Trump still has,

you know, at first, it seemed like Republicans were largely just saying, well, let it play out in the courts. But now they're going beyond that. And I mean, we can't lose sight of the fact that this democracy works in that people go, they vote. And then as we all, as well, as people always like to say, elections have consequences. Therefore, even if you don't like the outcome, democracy says you accept it. And yet now you have, you know, so many members of the Republican Party basically saying the outcome, disagreeing with the outcome and saying that action should be taken to overturn it. The president has continued his claims through recounts, through court challenges, through what's known as the Safe Harbor Day, the day earlier this month that is the deadline for states to certify elections,

through state certifications, through Supreme Court challenges. I don't think we expect him to drop this claim after the Electoral College votes on Monday. No, no, he's not going to drop it on Monday. You know, he has been asked, he was asked whether he would leave. You know, if the Electoral College went against him, they voted and upheld, and which, by all accounts, they will. And he said that he would, but he said it would be a mistake. But he's not going to stop.

He's given no sense that he will ever stop saying that he believes that this is a fraud. And he has been lobbying to try to, you know, fight even after the Electoral College holds its formal vote. So, Domenico, I'm remembering four years ago, you and I were sitting in the newsroom tracking all of these votes across state capitals and kind of the twists and turns that happened. There is always the potential for some strangeness when the Electoral College meets to vote, even when the election is conceded and done with. What should we look for on Monday? Well, I mean, there are people who do sign their ballots and cast votes. They are individuals. So this is not an automatic thing. The Electoral College consists of 538 members, one for each senator and representative in the country. And there have been, quote unquote, faithless electors in the past. In fact, in 2016, there were two electors who did not cast their ballots for President Trump when they were

supposed to, quote unquote, they wound up voting for Gary Johnson. So President Trump was supposed to wind up with 306 electoral votes in 2016, which by the way, happens to be the number that Joe Biden is supposed to receive this time around. Trump wound up with 304. So you know, we're gonna watch for some of that. It's not unprecedented to see some of these faithless electors. And you know, then we're gonna be watching the big deadline of January 6th for the counting of the actual electoral ballots in Congress when they meet in a joint session. And I expect some theatrics there as well. And for the president to say that people should fall on this and overturn the results. But we're in a rocky way moving along to Biden's inauguration on January 20th.

And we should just quickly mention that four years ago you had several Clinton electors vote for other people, which was, I mean, it's not anything close to an apples and apples to comparison because Hillary Clinton, of course, conceded the presidential election. But in this attempt to try and get the Electoral College or the House to vote for somebody who wasn't President Trump, which, of course, went absolutely nowhere, but had some some strange turns in it. So worth paying attention to. We will, of course, be doing that for you and telling you what happened on this podcast and our other platforms on Monday. We're going to take a quick break here. And when we come back, we will talk more about the Biden administration and the fact that his cabinet, you know, looks pretty familiar. Support for NPR and the following message come from UStudio. Today's business world requires remote communication for training, sales enablement, and more. That's why companies like Nike, AT&T, and Dell all trust UStudio.

UStudio securely hosts and distributes fully branded podcasts for businesses to communicate effectively with their employees, customers, and partners in a media-first mobile experience. Get started for as little as $1 per user. Visit theletterustudio.com today for your personalized demo. Support also comes from Quantacy and Associates, a full-service creative agency and studio, helping brands grow by pushing culture in the right direction while more power thanacy.com. Today, some people argue that the Supreme Court has more power than all other branches of government. But when and how did the Supreme Court end up getting the final say? How the court became more powerful than anything the framers could have imagined. Listen now to the

ThruLine podcast from NPR. We are back. And you know what? So are a lot of Obama-era officials. As Joe Biden fills out his cabinet and senior level post, a lot of familiar names. Susan Rice, she was UN ambassador and national security advisor in the Obama administration. She's going to oversee domestic policy. John Kerry was secretary of state in Obama's second term. He is going to be a climate envoy. Dennis McDonough, Obama's chief of staff, he has been nominated to be Veterans Affairs Secretary. And Tom Vilsack is Biden's pick to be Ag Secretary. That name might sound familiar because Tom Vilsack spent the entire eight years of the Obama administration as Ag Secretary. Biden's nominated him to fill the

exact same job. What is the thinking here? The thinking seems to be that this is a time and a moment where you want experienced hands. You want people who know what they're doing and that you need to bring in people who can hit the ground on day one and know their way around government and can get things done. That would be the argument that the Biden team, I think, is making. They want stability. No, and I think that Biden ran on competence and, you know, this return to normalcy and for him to be able to, in a crisis, you know, manage this crisis well. He feels like he's surrounded himself, one, with people he trusts and two, with people who are good managers. And that's what these folks are. Now, you know,

there is certainly a question of a bridge to a younger generation, which this is not. You know, clearly the Democratic Party is changing in some ways and it's not. You know, clearly, the Democratic Party is changing in some ways, and it's not, you know, opening much of a lane for some of those folks. But I think that the Biden campaign's, you know, feeling is that with the country in crisis, and Biden being president, that he gets to pick his cabinet, and he wants to surround himself with people that he knows, trust, will push him and will do a good job. And it's also worth flagging that best case scenario for Democrats is a 50-50 Senate. Their House majority is very small. It's five seats.

So even if it's a safe district, taking somebody from the House and putting them in the cabinet, you know, creates an opening for a little bit until there's a special election. So that's been something that the Biden team has not been as interested in doing. I do want to talk about one House member, though, that Biden has picked for his cabinet, and that's Marsha Fudge, because I think this is an example of this backlog coming into play. Fudge had really aggressively lobbied for Agriculture Secretary, making the point that this is a position that we think of as a rural-focused department, but in fact, you know, controls a lot of policy that affects people in cities, affects a lot of people of color. And she said, you know, she's a Cleveland Congresswoman.

She's been on the Ag Committee. She wanted to run that department. She did not get that job. She'll be nominated to be the Housing and Urban Development Secretary. And instead, like we mentioned, it's Tom Vilsack who had the job for eight years. So I think this is an area in particular where there's been some frustration saying that Joe Biden might be, you know, prioritizing the fact that he has long relationships with people a little bit too much sometimes. I think that in a lot of civil rights groups, Congressman Jim Clyburn, who played a big role in getting Biden the nomination, who we've talked about again and again, the South Carolina congressman, was one at fudge for agriculture. And Secretary of Housing and Urban Development is a position that typically does go to a person of color, you know, and so putting her in that slot was not innovative, to say, look, agriculture, putting a black woman at the top of agriculture who knows about all of these food programs and has been a big advocate for food stamps, that's a big part of what the agriculture department does.

And putting that focus there would have been something that is not the status quo. Yeah. And it's an interesting, innovative kind of idea. I think that that tells you a little something about Biden and the way he thinks that he's more interested right now in stability as he starts out a new term than shaking things up. And, you know, obviously, obviously, the running of the federal government is the most important thing here. But, you know, politics are a factor, too. And we have talked so much about how many Democratic rising stars happen to live in states where it's harder for them to advance in the

ranks. You know, Julian Castro in Texas, Pete Buttigieg in Indiana. And the fact that some of these people, Buttigieg especially, you know, did a lot for Joe Biden. A lot of people thought he could get a pretty high profile cabinet post. That has not materialized yet. And as the party struggles to kind of build its bench, that there could be long term implications there. Yeah, I think it's really interesting that, you know, we are talking about this sort of lack of a bridge to a younger generation, you know, but I think Javier Becerra is an interesting example of somebody who left the house House because he felt like moving up the ladder in the House on leadership was so difficult with, you know, Nancy Pelosi, Steny Hoyer,

Jim Clyburn sort of in the way and not wanting to move anywhere that he left, became Attorney General, and now winds up back in Washington in a cabinet position. And that was his sort of circuitous way around that sort of power structure. Yeah. California Attorney General, when Kamala Harris left that post to be senator. So now that post will be filled again. And we are actually still waiting. U.S. Attorney General is probably the highest profile cabinet position that has not been filled yet. So we're continuing to keep an eye on that.

All right. We're going to take one more break. And when we come back, it is Friday, which means it is time for Can't Let It Go. Support for NPR and the following message come from Gimlet and Resistance. When people all around the world were protesting this summer, you'd hear it over and over. This time is different. But how? In Gimlet's new podcast, Resistance, host Saeed Tijan Thomas Jr. brings us stories from the front lines of the movement for black lives,

told by the generation fighting for change. It's a show about how we can make sure this time really is different. Resistance is out now. Follow and listen for free on Spotify. We are back. It is Friday. That means it's time for Can't Let It Go. If you love listening to Can't Let It

Go or the podcast as a whole, or if you just listen to your local public radio station a lot, another reminder that they could use your support, we could use your support. Go to donate.npr.org slash politics, and thank you so much. All right, Can't Let It Go, Domenico. Well, you know, this is kind of a weird thing to talk about because I heard you talking about it earlier about Cameo. But like discovering Cameo has been a really interesting thing. I feel like in this year of the pandemic, I had no idea what it was and then discovered that you can pay people to deliver messages. I had a friend who did it and I thought it was like super cool and was like, how did this happen? Then I saw the prices on some of these folks.

And you were saying that Kevin from The Office, the guy who plays that guy, made a million dollars this year off of it, which is just crazy to me. But politically, the thing that's so interesting is you're also saying that like all these republicans had were wound up wishing joe biden well because the biden campaign had had gotten isn't that it's a little it's so crazy it was kind of a troll joe biden's digital director um would like request cameos from like roger stone and sebastian gorka ahead of the debates being like, just want to wish Joey good luck on his big night tonight. And then post them right before the debates. Hey, Joey, Sebastian Gorka here. Member of the president's National Security Education Board.

Host of America First. Your buddy tells me things got you down. Good luck to you, Joey. Katie Rossi has your back. Oh, man. And how much are these people charging? Because it seemed like, Domenico, you were saying that some of these people charge too much.

Rod Blagojevich, $80. $80. $80. You know who else is on there? Rod might be. Like, Corey Lewandowski is on there for like $55 or something. I can't remember what it is. Maybe his rate's gone up. I don't know.

Michael Cohen, $100. Anthony Scaramucci, $55. $55. There you go. $55. That's getting sad. I don't know. We could keep going. It's cheaper than a Kim Jong-un impersonator. Aisha,

this could be great for you. You focus on Korea policy. Yeah, I do. Kim Jong-un impersonator, $196. Watch out for your next birthday. And no one even knows what Kim Jong-un sounds like, really. I guess that makes it easy to... Well, he did that one press conference.

But you don't really know what he sounds like. It's just the look. I think Aisha wants to play Kim Jong-un, and you can pay her to do the impression. Yeah, if you'll give me $196, sure. I'm going to wildly shift gears here. So mine is that Chuck Yeager died earlier this week, kind of one of the last people from this whole generation of heroes who broke all sorts of aviation records and things like that.

He was the first person to break the sound barrier. If you ever saw the movie The Right Stuff, he does not appear in the this year Disney Plus The Right Stuff, but he's a big character in the movie The Right Stuff. And it's all about kind of like the tension between test pilots like him and the Mercury astronauts who got all the attention for, in his opinion, doing a lot less work. So, you know, as he was, after he died, NPR did a lot of coverage, and some of our longtime science reporters who covered the space program were tweeting, and I saw this and I didn't know about it, Howardard burkus who covered space first forever was tweeting that when npr covered the very first space shuttle landing we booked chuck yeager as the you know we call it the uh the uh you know the expert who sits with

the anchors and and um and he and a couple of neil conan um who was who was one of the reporters covering it posted like these cool remembrances. And then our research department dug up the clip for it. And I want to play it because there's this amazing moment that happens. He's sitting there with Neil Conan and Ira Flato, who are like iconic NPR science reporters, right, who know what they were talking about. But listen to what happens as the space shuttle starts to land on Edwards Air Force Base, which is, of course, the spot where Chuck Yeager

had spent years being an iconic pilot. Here she comes. Here she comes. Coming down. He's starting to level off his flare now. So this is Ira

doing the play-by-play. And then Chuck Yeager just takes it over. He's like, no, this is my broadcast. Flaring, flaring at about 220. There comes the landing gear.

Landing gear is down. And you can hear the NPR reporters trying to get inward edgewise, but Chuck Yeager just dominates them, and he does the play-by-play of the whole rest of the landing. There's the first dust. A beautiful touchdown. He's got the nose up. Everybody is so

enthused. Wow. He's just like, alright guys, guys, I got this. I'm Chuck Yeager and you're not. It kind of reminds me of like sports broadcasting. And like if you tried to, you know, just kind of hop into like there's a play by play guy and a color analyst and the color guy is supposed to just stay quiet until the play by play-play guy kind of you know nudges him for some information and it's like a color analyst just taking over like the plays of the game and so he so he just he just kind of took it over but that's because he knew what he was you know he knew what he was doing he had firsthand experience way more than anybody else so you can just do it

you can just jump on and just do it i loved it it. And, you know, they also posted that he spent a lot of his time off mic just totally trashing the Mercury astronauts, which fits exactly if you watch the movie. Oh, my gosh. All right, Aisha. Aisha, what about you? So I and I will give a hat tip to someone who we know very well because she tweeted this and this is where I got it from. It is our own susan davis tweeted about this study that has come out um and it says and and the headline really says it all study buying little kids things basically but basically the idea is that don't

try to get a kid and experience like disney world or something like that just give them a toy because they're their memories aren't that great so the toy they'll have the memory they don't which i've been going through this with my kids because i took them when they were younger to Disney World with two of them because one of them I was pregnant with at the time. And they don't remember it. Right. They don't remember it. that you get them because the joy that they, and anticipation that you see, even from like something that's like $2, you know, that they're like furiously unwrapping as opposed to like putting it all in one box.

It's sort of, there's, I feel like there's like an accumulation of joy with every little unwrapping. I know that's how Scott feels. I mean, Aisha, that's such a good point, though, because like listeners have heard me talk about the time Sesame Street came to NPR 600 times. Right. But so my son, I took him. He was way too little to have any idea what was going on or like who these furry people were.

But now he's into it. And I will watch it. I'm like, yeah, you were there. He's like, what? No. But like, Aisha, you were there with your kids and like you sat in a place where like you appear on the screen and you can be like you could prove it to your kids that they were there yeah and you know and I think they I think they they do remember Sesame Street because they have very good I think they think

that those puppets are just like at the office all the time like I think they think that what a great thing to think and so they always want to go to NPR because they have very good memories of NPR. But yeah, you know, I mean, they also,

so I mean, that, that's the good thing about that. But I don't know if Annalise, the youngest, who was most into it and was actually talking to the puppets and they were talking back

in baby talk, she's the one who I don't think will remember it, but she was so into it. But we have video, so, and they do say, But we have video. So, and they do say, if you have video,

you can show it to the kids and that will help their memory. I mean, I think maybe as you get older, like experiences mean more. Cause if anyone's by me and experience, I'm happy to take that on. That'd be a lot of fun. Yeah.

Zip lining, you know, whatever. Cameo. And it all ties together. we brought it all back together I think that's clearly a wrap for today hey I see what you did there was that on purpose a wrap

everything's in a bow all tied together our executive producer is Shirley Henry. Our editors are Mathani Maturian and Eric McDaniel. Our producers, Barton Girdwood, Chloe Weiner. Thank you to Lexi Schipittel, Elena Moore, Dana Farrington, and Brandon Carter. Our intern is Kalyani Saxena.

It is her last week with us. She has done an amazing job at this desk. This was a remote internship because of 2020. That is a hard place to leave your mark. It is a hard thing to do. What a great job. But you know what? Konyani made her mark helping on Deadline, helping with the podcast, helping with everything else. And thank you so much for all the work you did this semester. I'm Scott Detrow. I cover the Biden transition. I'm Ayesha Roscoe. I cover the White House. And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. Thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.