The NPR Politics Podcast - Weekly Roundup: January 1st

Episode Date: January 1, 2021

A new Congress will be sworn in on Sunday—the Democrats have a slimmer majority and Republicans have elected slightly more women. And Trump's education secretary Betsy DeVos survived his full presidency, making herself out to be a champion of school choice and deregulation. Now, Biden's pick for the job is set to emphasize a new set of priorities.In this episode: political reporter Danielle Kurtzlaben, White House correspondent Franco Ordoñez, congressional correspondent Kelsey Snell, and education reporter Elissa Nadworny.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 Danielle Kurtzleben, and before we start the show, we want to ask you to support your local NPR station. By supporting them, you're supporting all of us on this podcast. All of our lives were upended this year, and we at NPR and at all of your local stations have tried to cut through the noise to make sure you know the facts about the election, the coronavirus, and so many other stories. So, if you've got some dollars to spare, head to donate.npr.org slash politics to get started. Again, that's donate.npr.org slash politics. And thank you. Hey there, it is the NPR Politics Podcast.

I'm Danielle Kurtzleben. I cover politics. I'm Frank Ordonez. I cover the White House. And I'm Kelsey Snell. I cover Congress. And we made it, guys. I cover the White House. And I'm Kelsey Snell. I cover Congress. And we made it, guys. It is the new year. Happy 2021. Happy New Year.

Let's get it going. Yes. 2020 in the rear view. Thank God. All right. So let's get started. First podcast of the new year. And by the way, we get a new Congress pretty soon. So let's start there. Kelsey, we're going to talk about what the 117th Congress will look like. They are set to be sworn in on Sunday. But it's worth talking first about

what the current Congress is still up to this week because they've still been working. The big question has been about whether they'd pass those $2,000 stimulus payments. So what's the latest on Capitol Hill? Well, to give people a little bit of a reminder, there was this effort to get $2,000 direct aid checks approved. The House approved it earlier this week and then went over to the Senate, where Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell tried to pair it with two completely unrelated issues. One was to look into unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud, and one was to repeal a decades-old law that provides certain liability protections used by social media companies. Now, Democrats said pairing those things together essentially poisoned the whole thing and made it so that none of it could pass, and that looks like that's probably true. The only way that they could have gotten something

done was with a speedy approach. And McConnell described that as having no realistic path for quick approval. And like you said, Congress is basically over and bills die when a Congress ends. So this looks like it's not going anywhere. All right. Well, that's what Congress has been doing. But let's look ahead and let's start in the House because we know the most about what the House is going to look like. Democrats lost seats, but they will still control it. And Biden plucked some folks to work in his administration. So what does that mean looking ahead? Well, first up, the House has to go through the whole rigmarole of organizing themselves, which is what they're going to do on Sunday. Part of that will be having a speaker

election, and then they'll move on to passing a rules package. Interesting thing about all of this is they had set up some rules that allowed people to vote by proxy, so they could vote from wherever they were by designating someone else to cast their votes for them in person. But they have to have a rules package to do that, and that means that the first couple of votes of the year have to all be in person in Washington on the House floor. Can I ask you, Kelsey, I mean, like, what about Pelosi? I mean, is it is it a done deal that she is going to be the speaker again? Well, some reporters asked her if she was feeling OK about the speaker's election, and she said that she would be fine. But she also told Democrats on a call this week that, you know, the only real thing standing between her and this election is COVID.

Because like I said, since they all have to be there in person, if a number of Democrats in this world where they have a much smaller majority, if a number of them are out, then it makes her margin of victory a lot smaller. So we know of at least one member, Gwen Moore of Wisconsin, who tested positive recently. And so we're just kind of keeping an eye on whether or not all the Democrats that she needs to be reelected will be there. Well, speaking of that Democratic caucus and different factions within it, we, of course, saw a lot of young, newly elected progressives like the squad get a lot of attention over the last two years. Do we expect to see progressives wield even more influence this next session? You know, I think influence is an interesting word. I think there's no question that they're

going to have an impact. I mean, they already are in so many ways. And depending on who you talk with, that may be good or bad. You know, in many ways, Biden moved to the left, arguably out of his comfort zone on several issues because he wanted, you know, a very broad coalition to win the election. And progressive activists, they insist that Biden would not have won states like Arizona or Georgia without their support. And they promise that they're not going to let him forget some of the promises he's made. But at the same time, you know, it hasn't all been good for Democrats. There has been a decent amount of blame against progressives because they lost a lot of House seats. And, you know, Kelsey can talk about this more.

But, you know, this fighting between the two is likely to spill over into Biden's term. And it's just gotten ugly at times. Yeah, I think one of the dynamics that I'm going to be watching pretty closely is that just as progressives say that they delivered some states for Biden, you know, moderates say they delivered a number of House seats for Biden and a number of other states for Biden. There is a lot of arguing over where credit is due here. I will also say that the power shifts a little bit when you're in a world with such tight, tight, tight margins in both in the House and, you know, it will definitely be tight in the Senate. We just don't know if Democrats or Republicans will

control the Senate. Either way, tight margins mean typically that you need to do a lot more compromising. And in that regard, moderates think that they have some power here. Can I ask the both of you about the Republicans? I mean, the Republican caucus is still much wider than the country as a whole, but it did manage to elect, you know, a few more women this year. Yeah, and I think a thing to really start with is just the raw numbers. And what we know so far is that there will be 36 Republican women in the 117th Congress and 105 Democratic women. So Democrats still have far more women. But yeah, Republicans did elect a record number. And one person who has been heavily behind that is Elise Stefanik, a representative from New York who really made it a goal of hers to get more of those women elected.

Women, like men, legislate by party. It's not like women are considered, quote unquote, family issues for maybe for lack of a better term. So it's not clear exactly what the difference in legislating will be, but Republicans are excited to have more balance. I think it's fair to say, right, Kelsey? Oh, yeah, absolutely. And they have been really, really touting not just the fact that they elected more women, but they elected, you know, a more diverse crop of freshmen this time. And it's something that they really want to, you know, keep going. And it's part of the messaging that we're hearing is that Republicans want to invite a broader coalition going forward. Though a question that I have about that is how will the change from a party being led by President Trump to a party figuring out who their next leader is, how will that change who identifies with the GOP?

All right. Well, one more thing. We've talked about the House and now, of course, we need to talk about the Senate, but it's hard to say a lot about the Senate right now. Right, guys? Because we have to see what happens in Georgia. And that will really affect what the Senate can do and what Biden can do with the Senate is at play here. And if Democrats are able to flip the Senate, that changes completely what can get done. It means that Democrats control what goes on the floor in the Senate. And we have heard the entire time the Democrats have had control of the House that Mitch McConnell is blocking all of their bills. They're passing all of these things and Mitch McConnell isn't taking them up. Well, that kind of gives them license to pass things without, you know, expecting that they'll become law. So they can pass a lot of messaging bills. So that could also change the type of things that go on the floor in the House. You know, who controls the upper chamber in the Senate really changes the entire dynamic in Washington. Absolutely. Okay, well, we're going to let Franco go for a bit. But Franco, please don't go far. We are going to bring you back for a bit. But Franco, please don't go far. We are going to bring you back for Can't Let It Go in just a little bit. I'll talk to you guys soon.

Now we're going to take a break. And when we come back, we are going to talk about what education policy will look like under Joe Biden. Stay with us. 2020 had a lot of us rethinking our lives. 2021, LifeKit wants to help you make those changes, whether they're big or small. All this January, LifeKit will give you smart tips to think through your next decision. Listen now to the LifeKit podcast from NPR. And we are back, this time with Alyssa Nadwerny of NPR's education team. Alyssa,

welcome. Happy New Year. Hello. Hi. I'm excited to be here. Happy New Year. We're really excited to have you here because we want to talk about Joe Biden's education policy. So let's do just that. But first, let's start with Donald Trump's education policy to get a sense of where we've been. As I know you know, Betsy DeVos, Donald Trump's Secretary of Education, she's one of the few Trump originals left in his cabinet right now. So what have been the big impacts of the DeVos education department, Delisa? Yeah, so Betsy DeVos definitely has been one of the most controversial cabinet members of the Trump administration. And she's here four years later. So she is characterized by her kind of

support of school choice. She's been an advocate for private and religious schools. And much of her work has focused on undoing federal oversight that she characterizes as overreach. So let's see, she scrapped protections of transgender students, as well as guidance on school discipline. There's been a lot of culture war wrapped up in Betsy DeVos's tenure, am I right? That's right. I mean, she and she's also kind of come out and said she's not a fan of the education department, which she leads. And she got kind of crosswise, not even just with Democrats about that. I mean, I got some releases recently about the Rural Education Achievement Program, which they tried to make changes to this. And that is something that really upset a lot of Republicans. So she's controversial for both parties.

That's right. And actually, you know, before DeVos, charter schools were bipartisan. Right. And I think her tenure has kind of made teachers and some of the general public kind of turn against this, like, push away from public schools. We certainly saw that with teachers. Yeah, well, absolutely. And so, OK, we've had a perhaps not surprisingly during the Trump administration, we'd have a poll. We've had a polarizing education department, education secretary under Trump. Let's look ahead to Joe Biden. Then he has named his pick Miguel Cardona, the commissioner of schools in Connecticut for

education secretary. Alyssa, what does that pick tell you about what we should expect from the Biden education department? Well, it's certainly a rebuke to DeVos, right? I mean, Biden has long said that he would pick an education secretary that was an educator. Right. That's exactly what Cardona is. He is a lifer. So he started as a fourth grade teacher. He became a principal and an assistant superintendent. All of that was done in the public school system that he grew up in and attended in Meriden, Connecticut. So unions like him. I mean, we've even seen reaction from school choice folks and from charter folks who are open to him. So, you know, Ed Week called it the

honeymoon period. We'll see. But he seems, all sides seem to be to be a fan. It just seems like this is one of the positions in the cabinet that maybe doesn't get the level of attention that, say, Secretary of State or Attorney General gets, but will have such a huge role in the next several years, particularly as people are recovering from the pandemic. I mean, there's a lot for this education secretary to do. That's, I think, one of the main reasons Biden picked him is because he's had kind of firsthand experience navigating school opening during the pandemic. That's what he's dealt with all fall in Connecticut. Kelsey, do lawmakers on the Hill

seem pretty receptive, pretty excited about Cardona? You know, this is a really interesting situation where Democrats have, you know, they have been fairly receptive. And I will say that as I talk to Democrats, they have put education related issues really high on their list of things that they want to do. We hear so often about, you know, the immediate relief aspects of COVID, but education is one of the biggest issues Democrats see as the long-term recovery project that they're going to be facing because they're talking about everything from broadband access and how that impacted whether or not kids could participate in online learning all the way through grade level standards. Well, COVID policy right now is education policy. It's just sort of the top of the list. I mean, I guess you could say that of a lot of policy areas, but it's true. Biden

highlighted this again this week. He reiterated his desire to get many schools, many K-12 schools open within 100 days. So what are his plans for that? And very importantly, how achievable are they? Well, it's going to be tricky because to open schools to get students back in there safely, that's going to take a lot of money. That's probably the biggest challenge. And we saw in this recent relief bill, which Kelsey, you can talk about a little bit, but $54 billion for K-12 schools in there. So that's big.

I think that's about four times what schools received in the CARES Act in March. But it's going to be a challenge because a lot of parents don't feel safe going back. And you've got community spread in places, so it's not going to matter if coronavirus isn't spreading in the schools. It's in the community. So it's going to be a big challenge no matter what. Yeah, and the funding portion of that, as you mentioned, is also potentially going to be a challenge. You know, Democrats and Republicans largely did agree throughout this entire process about needing money for schools, but they differed on how that money should be allocated and how it should be spent. And another part they differ on is that state and local funding. We've heard this argued about over and over and over again, but when it comes to

schools, it also applies to kind of the support staff and the mechanisms of state government that assist education outside of just the classroom, which is, I think, something that people often forget, is that in public schools, it's not just about the classroom activities, but there's a lot that goes into keeping schools open. We have a couple more big policy areas that we really wanted to ask you about here. One of them is pre-K. Getting pre-K programs up for students nationwide is something that Biden really talked a lot about on the trail and that Democrats have been talking about a lot this year. Elizabeth Warren talked about this pre-K child care type things as being infrastructure for families. Guys, do we expect much to happen there? And what are you seeing? Biden talked about this last week. This is clearly a big priority for them. It's unclear kind of what vehicle they'll use to do it, but they've talked about expanding high quality

universal pre-K to three and four year olds. And look, we've had research for decades that shows that this has an excellent return on investment. Like these years really matter. I think a study just came out this week that investing in three and four-year-olds actually leads to outcomes in college completion. So it's certainly a good return on investment. I don't know. Kelsey, what do you think in terms of like how this actually happens? One of the things I think will be interesting to watch is how one of the House Democratic leaders interacts with this.

Catherine Clark from Massachusetts is very, very, very interested in child care and pre-K policy. And this is something that she has pursued the entire time she's been in Congress, but now having an opportunity to work directly with an administration who kind of shares her views. I wonder how that will be elevated. We're also seeing, this is an interesting moment too, for the chairman of committees in Congress, you're seeing a lot of women. And while education is not by any means just an issue for women, it is an issue that a lot of women in Congress have adopted for a whole number of political reasons. But I do think that that we could see that elevate in a way that we haven't seen before. All right. One final issue and one that has gotten a lot of attention and that I'm sure will continue to is student loans, specifically student

debt forgiveness. This has been a huge topic among Democrats, and there is a wide spectrum of opinions even within that party. So let's end on that. What do we expect to see here? Well, I guess I'll first bring up kind of what's happened during the pandemic. So federal borrowers have had their payments on hold, no interest since March. DeVos extended that relief. So now that goes through January 31st. A lot of folks are looking to the Biden administration to extend the relief.

I think there was a chance it was going to be in Congress's relief bill. It wasn't. So the pandemic, I think, might be good cover for loan forgiveness. But it's, you know, it's kind of unclear what Biden actually wants to do with loan forgiveness. Like before the campaign, this wasn't a big issue for him. Yeah. And there's also a division among Democrats about how to structure loan forgiveness, right? Like I, as I talk to people, hear them say the people who have student loans that they're paying off are more likely to be in better economic positions during the pandemic. And that a lot of the people who are hurting the most are people who do not have college degrees. So there are some concerns among Democrats that I talked to that this is not a policy that actually helps the people most in need.

Right. All right. We've gotten through a lot here. Alyssa, this has been fantastic. Thank you so much. You bet. All right. We're going to take another break. And when we get back, it is time again for Can't Let It Go. And we are back and it's time to end the show like we do every week with Can't Let It Go. And we are back, and it's time to end the show like we do every week with Can't Let It Go. This is, of course, the part of the show where we talk about the things from the week that we just can't stop talking about, politics or otherwise. But since it's a new year, we're mixing things up, and we're going to talk about the things from 2020, the few things that we don't want to let go of in 2021. So it's a challenging question.

Franco, let's start with you. What won't you be letting go of in 2021? Yeah, you know, you know, I think I can't, I'm not going to be able to let go for a while this, you know, this idea that while we are very excited about the new year, I just got to imagine that dogs must really be dreading 2021. I mean, there's been so much talk, you know, the last year about how great it was for dogs, so many adoptions, so many attention. There were all these memes about how dogs talking to each other and things and how they were holding their families together. But now, you know, it's going to really be tough to hearing such excited talk when you're

lying underneath the dinner table and that talk doesn't really involve you. I deeply appreciate that you believe that the dogs under the dinner table are listening closely to these conversations. But there are so many dogs that like once everybody's vaccinated, once people are back at the office, they're going to be experiencing life at home alone for the first time. It's going to be very disorienting. We on our team had quite the puppy boom this year, too. We had a number of adoptions on the politics team.

Yeah, I think it was at least like it was a bunch. I can't I'm trying to think how many was it was a bunch. And we had. Yeah. And there were some foster dogs. I will just say that our slack was full of adorable dog photos. It was a bunch. And we had, yeah, and there were some foster dogs. I will just say that our Slack was full of adorable dog photos. It was excellent. All right. Excellent thing to not be able to let go of in 2020. What about you, Danielle? What can you not let go of? This is a kind of cranky one, but that's fine. That's how I felt in 2020.

So if you will all hearken back to the summer when we had the every four year rite of passage, which is the conventions, I watched those from hotel rooms because I was out on the trail interviewing voters. But I got to say, I loved having the conventions the way they were this year. Like, well, as a reporter, as a political reporter, maybe this makes me bad. Maybe this means I have a bad attitude. I never quite understand the amount of people, the amount of energy put into putting all of us in an arena so we can all hear the same speeches. Like, yeah, we all go, we build sources, we go to parties, but the return on investment is so low. I got the exact same information by sitting in a hotel room. Actually, more information

because I could hear everything that was said. And you were so much more comfortable. Counterpoint though, parties. You were in slippers. You know, more parties and more slippers. I'm fine with both of those things. We're going to find the hybrid. Maybe both at once. Okay, rant over. Kelsey, what won't you be letting go of? I'm not going to let go of something that some of us did together, and that was our workout playlists. Now, we weren't always consistent like most people are with workouts, but you know what I really loved about it was that it reminded me of how much I enjoy making playlists and sharing music with my friends. It was a really fun thing to do with you guys, just to kind of think about how we're all spending our time when we're not talking about work. Plus, it got me more excited for workouts, which have become a really big upside of pandemic life for me, is that without a commute, there's a little bit more time to do that for myself. And so I want to carry all of that forward. And in the spirit of that, I think, Danielle, you and I are working on something for people after this. Yeah. I mean, I got to say, I also learned a lot about you, Tam, Juana, Barton. I learned a lot about what my coworkers are listening to when they're running or lifting or doing whatever.

I really liked when it wasn't our group. So our group was, as you said, Tam, Juana, you, me, and our producer, Barton, who created this whole playlist thing. But I loved looking at the list of other people when it was their turn and trying to guess who picked what song. So that was a fun little bonus for me. You can definitely like peer into a person's soul by listening to their workout music. Part of my New Year's resolution is to be better about keeping up with this playlist. So in the spirit of that, Danielle and I are going to start building our playlist for you now.

And Franco, do you want to join us? Oh, yeah. I was like, oh, wow, this was going on. I need in. Well, Franco's joining us then. So look out for that coming hopefully really soon. We're going to peer into his soul. Bring a little bluegrass too.

Yes. Wonderful. Oh, I'm excited. All right. Well, that is a wrap for today. But if you want to follow that playlist, go on Spotify and just search for NPR Politics Daily Workout. You will find it there. Follow it.

And please remember, you can support all of us on this podcast by supporting your local NPR station. Just head to donate.npr.org to get started. Our executive producer is Shirley Henry. Our editors are Mathoni Machuri and Eric McDaniel. Our producers are Barton Girdwood and Chloe Weiner. Thanks to Lexi Schapittle, Elena Moore, Dana Farrington, and Brandon Carter. I'm Danielle Kurtzleben. I cover politics. I'm Frank Ordonez. I cover the White House. And I'm Kelsey Snell. I cover Congress. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.