The NPR Politics Podcast - Weekly Roundup: February 28th

Episode Date: February 28, 2020

By some measures, this week was the stock market's worst since the 2008 financial crisis as traders worried about the market impacts of the new coronavirus. The administration continues its effort to project stability and preparedness. If the downturn lasts though, it does not bode well for the president's reelection chances.Also, former Vice President Joe Biden faces what may be the most pivotal day of his half-century long political career in Saturday's South Carolina primary. Ahead of the vote, our portrait of his candidacy at this inflection point.This episode: congressional correspondent Kelsey Snell, campaign correspondent Asma Khalid, senior political editor and correspondent Domenico Montanaro, and chief economics correspondent Scott Horsley.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hi, I'm Megan, and I'm calling from Maryland, where I'm getting ready to celebrate my ninth birthday on Saturday, February 29th, along with 4 million of my fellow Leap Day babies all over the world. This podcast was recorded at 2.09 p.m. on Friday, February 28th. Things may have changed before you hear this, and they will definitely change before my next birthday in 2024. Okay, enjoy the show. Oh, those Leap Day babies, they always get me. Scott and I were sitting in here being like,

nine. That's a really old nine-year-old, 79-year-old. When do they celebrate their birthdays? Is it like the day before, day after? Whenever the weekend is, I don't know, just like the rest of us, right? Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Kelsey Snell. I cover Congress. I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. And once again, we are joined for a little bit of bad news special guesting from our friend Scott Horsley, who left us not that long ago to go to the business desk. I'm the Maria Bartiromo of the Politics Podcast.

Well, welcome back and let us know what bad news you're here to share. Another down day on Wall Street. The free fall of the stock market continues as investors try to get a handle on how much economic damage the coronavirus might do to the U.S. economy and the global economy. All right. You use the word free fall, but I've also heard dive or slide or correction. Can you explain what those things mean and what this actually is? We've been testing the cesaris because the market's been falling all week and we've been looking for new ways to describe it. But a correction is a technical term, meaning the market is down 10% from its recent high. So we entered correction territory yesterday. The Dow was down nearly 13% at the close of trading on Thursday. And as we record this podcast on Friday afternoon,

the Dow's down another 921 points. It's been bouncing from way down to a little way down today. It's been down all day, but it's not always been as far down as it is right now. So who knows where it'll end up. But if it's anything like yesterday, the selling accelerated at the end of the day. Still feeling the effects of that Democratic debate, huh? That's what the president blamed it on, right? Well, in part, yes. He said that, yes, it's coronavirus. That is the reason for it.

But it's also the Democratic debate because, you know, one of these people could be president and the market doesn't want one of these folks with their ideas to be president. Now, that's clearly not what the market experts are saying. And I think it does highlight the fact that the Trump administration is really nervous about this, not only from a public health standpoint, and obviously that's the number one priority and issue, but always in the back of President Trump's mind or the front of his mind is his reelection and his reelection chances. And nothing, you know, when you've got a good economy, when there aren't foreign policy crises and there isn't some other wild card, you know, a president up for reelection is usually the favorite. But if the opposite is true or there's some wild card event like coronavirus could be, that certainly has the chance to hamper president's

reelection chances. Scott, I wanted to ask you to kind of put this in context of other downward trends in the market that we have seen, because I think a lot of times people hear the big numbers like that. They can understand that it's probably bad for their 401k, but might not really be able to engage with what 15% mean. Sure. And one thing we should all keep in mind is if we are talking about a 401k and you're years or even decades from retirement, this will all be forgotten by the time that it matters. If you're about to retire, hopefully you're not heavily invested in stocks. If you're already retired, the same thing. But these are big numbers to be sure. To Domenico's point,

Mark Zandi, the economist for Moody's Analytics, was giving a presentation to a group of economists here in Washington this week. And he has an election forecasting model that plugs in a bunch of economic variables to see what are the chances that Donald Trump will be reelected. And one of the big variables he watches is the stock market. His base model is that Donald Trump is the favorite to be reelected, but he said that would change if the stock market were to fall 15%. In that case, the Democrat would become the favorite. He was saying this on Monday when the market wound up falling more than a thousand points, but it was only still at that time a few percentage points. As of this week, the Dow is now down 15% from its recent high, if it closes about where it is right now.

Now, Zandi's model flips the probabilities if the market falls that far and stays down for a while. So if it bounces back next week, all bets are off. But as of right now, we are seeing a big drop in the stock market. A virus like this has a pretty strong effect on the economy for a lot of complicated reasons. It has to do with supply chains. It has to do with global markets. It has to do with who's buying what. But what would it take to actually make the markets or the people on Wall Street feel better? It doesn't sound like there's a really easy answer to that. That's right. You know, what the market could really use is a vaccine for the coronavirus.

And public health officials are telling us that's still a year off at least. And not just a vaccine that exists, but one that people can actually buy. Exactly. So it's hard to say exactly what will calm the markets. A better understanding of the virus is maybe part of it, a better understanding of what the public health response to the virus will be. One of the things markets really don't like is uncertainty, and there's just an awful lot of uncertainty surrounding the trajectory of this virus and how far governments will go in controlling it. It's not necessarily even the people who get sick that are the drain on the economy. It's the people that say stay home from work to avoid getting sick or stay home from work because the government tells them they have to. It's that response by the government that may also affect the economic fortunes. And Domenico, Scott was just saying that there was this

prediction from Mark Zandi that if the market drops 15% that it would have an impact on the election. Is there really an impact here on the election? Is there something that we can quantify or see at this point? Nothing you can really quantify at this point. You know, there have been a couple polls that have shown a dip in President Trump's approval rating slightly. So if you look at that, maybe I haven't seen like a full array of polling yet that shows that. But, you know, if this virus is the thing that's dominating the news and people's consciousness for the next three weeks to a month, you'll start to see that show up in polling most likely. And the Trump administration understands that the president's floor is pretty brittle. He's at a

lower approval rating than any president who you would expect with this good of an economy to be at. When he's got an economic approval rating in the 50s and his approval rating overall is in the low 40s, any kind of thing that goes poorly has the potential to threaten to push his approval rating down. And that would in turn wind up hurting his head to head matchup with whoever the Democratic nominee is. Of course, we're right in the middle of the Democratic nominating process. And we're still many, many months away from the general election. Obviously, voters are going to be watching to see how the Trump administration and the whole federal government responds to this crisis as well. You know, a really competent response could burnish the president's credentials.

But that's something people will be watching. And in a way, it's unfortunate that we are in this very politicized environment because there's a lot of finger pointing going on, Democrats criticizing past moves by the administration. As you mentioned, Domenico, the president blaming Democratic debates for the drop in the stock market. At a time when it would really probably be helpful for the federal government to all be working together, we have a very partisan politicized atmosphere. All right. Thanks again, Scott, for bringing the positive news of the podcast. We'll let you go start your weekend. And we are going to take a quick break. And when we come back,

we'll take a look at Joe Biden's big push in South Carolina. Support for this podcast and the following message come from Google. From Connecticut to California, from Mississippi to Minnesota, millions of American businesses are using Google tools to grow online. Thank you. Learn more at google.com slash NPR or download the app. Hi, this is Felix Contreras from NPR Music's Alt Latino podcast. As part of our Black History Month coverage, we take a look at the Afro-Latin roots of reggaeton and its rise over the last decade to become one of the most listened-to musical genres on the planet. To check it out, download Alt Latino from wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back, and we're joined by Asma Khalid in South Carolina.

But Asma, you're in a hotel lobby, is that right? That's right. We had to check out. They were very generous with their late checkout, but we are currently sitting in the hotel lobby, so if you hear a bit of background noise, that's what it is. Those are the glamorous parts of being on the road, right? Totally. So you have been with Joe Biden all week as he goes back and forth across the state. So what does South Carolina mean to him?

It means a lot to him. I mean, he and his campaign have been insisting for a while that he would do better once this race moved to more diverse states. That argument kind of fell flat in Nevada, which is a majority minority state. He lost to Bernie Sanders by more than 20 points. And so now we're here in South Carolina, which is largely seen as his firewall. And, you know, I think for us, what was really intriguing was in many ways, I would argue that for Joe Biden, this week is the most important week of his entire political career. This is a man who is 77 years old, who has run for president multiple times. This is his third time running for president. And to date, he has never won a primary or a caucus before. So a lot really depends on South Carolina.

Domenico, you have been paying really close attention to the polls here. And I'm wondering if you are seeing any indication that South Carolina will be different for Biden. Biden had seen a sort of tightening in the polls while he was suffering those disappointing losses in Iowa and New Hampshire. But he seems to have rebounded in the last few days to a week. And I think that's because he had a pretty strong debate, but then also got that key endorsement from Jim Clyburn, the longtime South Carolina congressman who's, you know, the highest ranking African American in Congress. That was probably the best 24 hours that Biden has had in this campaign in quite some time, certainly since voting has started.

And also, you have been with the Biden campaign for about a week now, right? That's right. And for a couple of those days, we were traveling right alongside him on a press bus that was trailing him around the state as he stopped for rallies at a barbecue joint. And we just wanted to get a sense of what really his campaign world felt like here in South Carolina. You know, he's really in his element. And the other day we hopped off of the press bus in Georgetown, South Carolina. It's this beautiful, historic, picturesque city right on the water's edge. And we wanted to get a sense of what folks who were here at this Biden rally

to come hear the candidates speak thought of both the primary, but also specifically about Joe Biden himself. And one man we spotted is Jack Scoville. He's the former mayor of Georgetown. We're actually going to try something different in the pod. I want to hear from him. And so let's listen to a longer story that you reported with producer Monica Statieva. Let's listen to it now. Yeah, I'm what locally called a yellow dog Democrat. Somebody who would vote for a yellow dog before they'd vote for a Republican. So have you decided who you're going to support yourself on Saturday?

I'm leaning real heavily towards Joe Biden. I'm kind of here for him to close the deal with me. What do you like about him? I just think Joe's the guy that can beat Trump, has the best chance of beating Trump. We just got back. We were in New Hampshire, Nevada, Iowa, and the vice president did not have particularly strong finishes in any of those three first states. What does that make you consider when you're thinking about the vice president in terms of his electability, his ability to beat President Trump? You know, he did pretty good in Nevada.

He still lost by 20 points. Yeah, but that's a caucus. That's a screwy system. That's just not a good system. And I don't know. I mean, again, they say South Carolina's the first, you know, where you have a substantial African-American, you know, electorate. And we'll see. But I think at the end of the day uh you know the moderate wing of the party needs to get behind one candidate and that's either at this point buddha judge or what did you

think about buddha judge i mean is he anybody you've been i mean he did pretty well in iowa new hampshire well what's bugging me most about him and he's so articulate you i know that sounds crazy but after i listen to him i, this guy's just too good. You know, he's just so smart and all. Joe's got that stutter and he's, you know, stumbles around a lot, but it just makes me more, makes him more likable. We head inside this historic Southern brick building, up a staircase and into a ballroom. Debbie Smith heads the county Democratic Party and Vanessa Green is a lifelong Democrat in town. Both are still unsure if Biden is the right candidate. Green is African American, and even though Biden insists he has more support with

black voters than anyone else, Green says there is someone not on the ballot here that she's also considering. Well, I think that we need to look at Bloomberg. I think that it may come to that. I mean, I think that we might have to hold our noses, but I think that this is going to be a really tough race. So what do you like about Mayor Bloomberg? I think he's a very good manager. I think sometimes he's tone deaf when it comes to people who are different,

but he's been a rich man for a long time, and so there's a little tone deafness. But he's been a rich man for a long time, and so there's low-tone deafness. But I do think that he is moderate enough to be able to win over Democrats and Republicans. You were shaking your head when she mentioned Bloomberg. Who is your candidate? Well, I'm still undecided. I have narrowed it down. First of all, I got to say, today, seeing Joe Biden up close, he was great. I had had my concerns about him with some of his TV appearances where he seemed a little off. But that was the old Joe's today. So what do you like about Joe Biden?

He's sincere. You feel compassion coming from him. I just believe that he is a true man who wants just wants to do what's right for the nation. And he's he's just and of course, he and Obama were, you know, side by side. And he's done a lot of good things as a senator. He's got great foreign policy chops. But Debbie Smith also thinks Elizabeth Warren is a force of nature who could get a lot of things done. What would make you decide what to do on Saturday officially? I wish I knew what would make me decide. I go back and forth and back and forth. My decision was going to be who did I really think could win. But I think in the end, I'm going to go with my heart. And my heart at this moment is going in two different directions. The next day, our next stop, Coastal Carolina University for another rally. Biden is far more comfortable in South Carolina than he ever was in Iowa or New Hampshire. He often talks about health care and gun control, and he brings up Barack Obama's

name a lot. But in South Carolina, that relationship should not be underestimated. For months, Black voters have told me how much they appreciate how Biden served as Obama's faithful number two. On this night, Biden told the crowd how his mom convinced him he should seek the vice presidency. She looked at me, I swear to God, absolutely true story. She says, Joey, the first black man in history has a chance to be elected president. Says he needs you to win Pennsylvania high and some other states. And you told him no? I said, damn, mom, what are you doing? So I picked up the phone and said, OK, Barack, go ahead and vet me. Best decision I ever made on the finest man I've ever knew.

So Asma, what are Biden's chances in South Carolina tomorrow? Well, polls indicate that he will likely win here in South Carolina. The main question I have, though, is even if he has a resounding victory in South Carolina, does he have the infrastructure, the grassroots support, and frankly, the money to then compete when 14 additional states vote just a couple of days later on Super Tuesday? He will have to compete against someone like Bernie Sanders

and Mike Bloomberg, and I do think there are legitimate questions about whether his campaign is kind of healthy or up to the task to compete in all of those additional states with some of his rivals who've been spending a lot of time in those states. I don't think it's a question. I think they're not. They're not up to the task.

I mean, the fact is, you know, according to advertising analytics, Biden has spent his campaign $600,000 on television ads in about half a dozen states, which have significant black populations in the Democratic electorate. And compare that, let's just put Mike Bloomberg to the side for a second, because no one's ever seen the kind of money he's spending. But let's look at Bernie Sanders. He's spending $15.5 million across those 14 states with a sizable chunk of that in California. And, you know, 415 delegates in California and right now Joe Biden and his campaign are not even competing. That's about 30% of all the delegates at stake on Super Tuesday. They have fewer organizers on the ground and there just aren't that many days between South Carolina and Super Tuesday, three days between the two contests.

It's going to be really, really difficult for Biden's team to be able to capitalize on it unless he gets a ton of free media between now and then. That means he's going to have to have a very big win on Saturday in order to even have a chance of really kind of trying to compete with Sanders. You know, that totally gets to one of the things I thought was really interesting about the piece there, Asma, is that we heard from that voter who was saying she was really swayed by seeing Biden in person. But the vast majority of voters don't ever get that opportunity. Their interaction with a candidate is through ads or through TV appearances or through what I guess people on TV say about

their TV appearances and their debates. So where does that leave him? I think that is a struggle. One of the consistent themes I've heard about the former vice president is this disconnect between his TV appearances, some of his debate performances, and the persona that they feel, not even so much when he's on the stump campaigning, delivering a speech, but when they personally shake hands with him, snap a photo with him, or just even get a quick moment to share a story with him after the speech wraps up. It's those interactions on the rope line that I often hear most about from voters. But as you say, that's a pretty rare opportunity.

And that's even harder to do, to that one on one opportunity on a day when more than a dozen states vote, and you're essentially running a national primary. You know, one thing to point out about South Carolina, four of the last six Democratic nominees have won South Carolina. The two who didn't were John Edwards in 2004, who was born in South Carolina, and Jesse Jackson, who won South Carolina, got a huge share of the black vote. And I'm wondering, that was in 1988, and I'm wondering if Biden's campaign and candidacy is looking more and more like Jesse Jackson's candidacy than anyone else. Because what Biden had promised was to win white working class voters. So far, he's only won about 13% of white voters without a college degree in the first three

contests. That part of his coalition is gone. He said he'd do better with voters who were not white overall. Well, he didn't do so well with Latinos, lost them by more than 30 points to Bernie Sanders. Really, the only piece that he's got left are African-Americans unless something changes on Super Tuesday. We are going to have a lot more clarity on all of those questions after South Carolina votes tomorrow. But for right now, we're going to have to leave it there and take another quick break. And when we get back, can't let it go. This message comes from NPR sponsor Indeed.

When it comes to hiring, you need help getting to your shortlist of qualified candidates fast. With Indeed.com, you can post a job in minutes, set up screener questions, then zero in on qualified candidates using an intuitive online dashboard. And when you need to hire fast, accelerate your results with sponsored jobs. New users can try for free at Indeed.com slash NPR. Terms, conditions, and quality standards apply. Offer valid through March 31st, 2020. Each of us is the star in the movie of our life, but how much of a role do we play in other people's movies? It was a really sort of palpable fear that they were going to reject me or worse. The unseen pressures we place on other people this week on Hidden Brain from NPR. And we're back. And now it's time to end the show, as we always do with Can't Let It Go,

when we all share one thing we cannot stop thinking about this week, politics or otherwise. And it looks like I'm going to start us off. All right, guys. So my Can't Let It Go went a little bit viral this week. And it is the show Love is Blind on Netflix. Have either of you guys seen this? I wish. I have not watched TV that is nonpolitical in a very long time. Okay. Let's preface with the fact that I do not really do reality TV.

My reality TV tastes tend towards like RuPaul's Drag Race and Great British Bake Off. But for some reason, this show is really working for me. Basically, it's these large group of very conventionally attractive people from Atlanta are put into tiny rooms. They called pods that are inside of what they called the facility. And they're on opposite sides of a wall. So you go in and you have a quote unquote date where you talk to somebody you can't see. And the only way that you can see them is if over the course of several dates

you decide to get engaged. And at the end of all of this, this sounds like an arranged marriage to a person in another country. Right? And then they're supposed to get married after four weeks. So, spoiler, some people get engaged after like three days.

Jeez. Dude, if I'm 24, I people get engaged after like three days. Jeez. Dude, if I'm 24, I don't want to be having kids. Again, I'm not your average 24-year-old. You're like the first white guy I've dated. In just four weeks, you'll be at your wedding. Will you say I do to the person you chose, sight unseen? Of course I do. Or

are you going to walk away from them forever? Really high stakes. You know, the only advantage to this show I can see, as opposed to, say, The Bachelor, which is another one of those shows where you wind up maybe getting engaged at the end, is at least whoever you wind up with doesn't have to watch an entire season of you flirting and hooking up with other people. Yeah, that's a really good point. You know, there are a couple of takeaways from the show that I cannot shake. Number one is they're drunk all of the time. Like I'm not entirely

certain that any of these people get engaged sober. Number two, on the same thread, there's one point where this woman is like having a conversation with the guy that she's like supposedly going to get married to. And he's trying to explain that he's definitely totally stable enough to get married and he's not at all comparing her to his mom. And she's feeding her dog wine. It's just like, it's completely wild. I can't let it go. It's crazy.

You have to watch it. This just seems like some like crazy anthropological experiment. Oh, they do call it an experiment. That's all of reality TV. All right, Domenico, it's your turn. What can you not let go of? Okay, I have a pop quiz for you guys. Who is the best-selling country artist of all time?

Anyone know? Shania Twain? Close, actually, but nope, not number one. Any other guesses? Okay, the top-selling country artist of all time is Garth Brooks. Oh, that was my second guess. Oh, that was. And what I know is that Garth Brooks showed up in Detroit at a concert of his wearing a very controversial shirt.

And you know what it said? Sanders 20. Really? Uh-huh. I didn't know he was a Sanders fan. He's a Barry Sanders fan. Wait, what? And that set the internet on fire.

Wait, how did I miss this? Barry Sanders is one of the greatest running backs in Detroit Lions history. How did he miss this? His number is 20. But when fans saw this photo of Garth Brooks turned to the camera with a Sanders 20 shirt on jersey they like fans of President Trump's went bonkers saying love your music can't believe you're you you're into Bernie that makes no sense so it wasn't really about Bernie Sanders it was about Barry Sanders but it's a pretty good troll. Yeah. I mean,

do you think he was conscious of what he was doing? I'm not. I'm not 100% sure. I got to look into it a little more deeply. Maybe our listeners know. What hole would you have to be in to not know that one of the leading presidential candidates is named Sanders? Yeah, but you know, you're going to Detroit, you're putting on a concert, you're in a football stadium, like the most famous Detroit Lion of the last 25 years is Barry Sanders. I suppose the only Sanders I think about tells you like how myopic my worldview is right now. That bus life has a way of kind of focusing your attention, Asma. Speaking of bus life, what can you not let go of this week?

As you all know, I have a little baby and he is going to turn one years old next month. And I have been gone from him for a really long stretch of time. And I think that no matter what anybody ever tries to tell you, otherwise or not, to be a working mom and to be away from your baby for so long is tough. And Joe Biden said something in his town hall this week, to make it all political again, that has been sticking with me. You know, he lost his son, Beau, a little while back. He often talks about this, but he specifically brought this up in his town hall in Charleston this week, where he referred to Beau being his soul.

And then I saw this tweet that Karen Tumulty, who writes for The Washington Post, put out, and she added her own thoughts. She said, you know, it's a cliche, but it is true. Having a child means your heart will, for the rest of your life, live outside your body. And that's a feeling I will say I never fully understood. But I'm away from my little boy these days. And it's tough. How long has it been now? I don't know. I feel so bad that when I come home, he's like not even that excited. He's like making you dinner. He's like, what's up, mom? Asma, I feel like the celebration of a first birthday is as much of a celebration for the parents who, you know, made it.

We survived. Our team has a lot of new parents and we're all kind of figuring our way through this. And I'm really always very impressed by you guys who are out on the road and having to do that because I know how hard it would be. And you're doing great. Oh, thank you. Well, we will be having a birthday party here for him and we can't wait to celebrate when you get back. But for right now, it's a wrap for today.

And let's end the week by thanking the team that puts the show together. Our executive producer is Shirley Henry. Our editors are Mathoni Maturi and Eric McDaniel. Our producers are Barton Girdwood and Chloe Weiner. Our interns are Meredith Roden and Maya Gandhi. Thanks to Lexi Schipittel, Barbara Sprunt, Monica Evstatieva, Dana Farrington, and Brandon Carter. I'm Kelsey Snell. I cover Congress. I'm Asma Khalid. I'm covering the 2020 campaign.

And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.