The NPR Politics Podcast - Weekly Roundup: July 23rd

Episode Date: July 23, 2021

A hearing next week featuring testimony by Capitol Police officers will be held without any members nominated by Republicans. Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy is boycotting the process after the House's top Democrat Nancy Pelosi vetoed some of the members he selected to serve.And the rate of violent crime is sharply up in some cities across the United States. There are no simple answers about what's driving the increase, but it it is certain to be a central issue in the Republican effort to retake majorities in Congress next year.This episode: White House correspondent Scott Detrow, congressional reporter Claudia Grisales, 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

Hi, this is Alan Hutchison in Mesa, Arizona. I just hit 70,000 words in the novel I'm writing, which means I've reached the whatever made me think this was a good idea part of the process. This podcast was recorded at... Keep going. Keep going. It is 106 Eastern on Friday, July 23rd. Things may have changed by the time you hear it, and I may have decided to take up woodworking. Okay, here's the show. I wonder what it's about. I think it's good. You know what? I'm working on a long-term project, and I currently am an hour longer than I need to be. So I appreciate his space in the

creative process. Editors, you need an editor. You definitely do. I hate to admit. Hey there. It's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Scott Detrow. I cover the White House. I'm Claudia Grisales. I cover Congress. I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. So the House Committee investigating the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol had a bumpy week this week. And given how things have gone so far with this, that probably was not a surprise. But it is worth taking a step back today and talking about that, because it says a lot about how toxic and broken the House seems to be right now, and how partisan factions seem to be overriding every other impulse in politics and in Congress right

now. So, Claudia, let's start with this. What was supposed to happen, you know, originally and then with this latest version of the committee plan? Yeah, it feels like going back to ancient history. When we go back to the beginning of this, it was just towards the beginning of this year, after the insurrection, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had said, let's do a 9-11 style commission. She was pitching a bipartisan plan. By May, a deal was reached between the top Democrat and Republican on the House Homeland Security Committee. And by later that month, they were passing it in the House. Thirty-five Republicans joined. There seemed to be some hopes this could push through the Senate. But by May, 35 Republicans joined. There seemed to be some hopes this could

push through the Senate. But by May, this fell apart. There weren't enough Republicans on board. There's actually their first filibuster to block a vote to proceed to this. So Pelosi moved forward with the committee idea. It was going to be 13 members, eight Democrats potentially, five Republicans in consultation with Pelosi. And she named her members. She included a Republican, Liz Cheney, in that group. And McCarthy took his time. It wasn't clear if he was going to boycott, but he finally named those members this week. And that's where things went awry this week. Okay. And before we talk about who those picks were and what happened next, Domenico, I think we do need some big picture context here of why it is that we have seen this very quick migration from Republican leaders in particular from this was a very bad thing that happened and President Trump played a role in it to a view very different from that.

And that move happened quickly and you had some sort of bipartisan consensus on doing some sort of committee to where we are now. Why is that? You've seen this migration because Republicans are scared of the base. I mean you're even seeing former President Trump talk about how he was in front of a loving audience that day and really in some respects trying to whitewash what's been going on because you just don't have a lot of Republicans who are saying that continuing to condemn this among the rank and file. And, you know, you're seeing those sort of what were mixed messages at the beginning. Really, they're just trying to corral around, frankly, former President Trump, because they need his voters to be able to, you know, help them win the House back in 2022. And, you know, House Minority Leader Kevin

McCarthy has really made this sort of bargain that this is the way to do it. And he's got to hitch his ride to former President Trump. So, Claudia, given all of that, Kevin McCarthy names his picks. Who does he pick? How does Pelosi respond? So he picks these five Republicans. Some of them seem like really logical choices, like Rodney Davis of Illinois. He sits on the House Administration Committee that oversees Capitol Police. But there were two members that caught Pelosi's concern. This is Jim Banks of Indiana. McCarthy wanted to see him as the top ranking Republican on that committee. And then Jim Jordan of Ohio. Pelosi said their past statements and

actions caused her concern. For example, she felt like they had, in one case, for example, banks had made remarks to the effect of saying the Biden administration had a role to play here on January 6th, and she cut off reporters to get more detailed on what those statements and actions were. But it was obviously a concern for her to the point she had to block it. She said this was an unprecedented investigation. It called for an unprecedented decision. And so with those two members blocked, McCarthy then went and said, forget it. I'm not sending any five picks over to you. And now that leaves eight members on this panel to proceed next week with their first hearing.

And look, this is a real thing that happened. Claudia, you and I, what was that, two days after? Yeah. When I met you and we walked through the Capitol and saw all signs of just a horrific attack on that building. It's surreal. And we're just a little past six months later and there is, you know, a political calculation going on. You see these quotes happen in hearings, you know, that line about just a bunch of tourists going through. That is obviously not what happened. Domenico, there is a little bit of politics going on, though, from Pelosi and House Democrats in that they want to get to the bottom of this. They want a full accounting of what happened. But given the fact that former President Trump did cheer this on,

there's certainly a little bit of politics in them wanting this to be out front and center, correct? Right. I mean, it's stunning to see, you know, the lack of unity and Republicans not wanting to really get to the bottom of a thing that happened. You know, at the same time, Democrats do have an incentive politically to continue on with this because this came from Trump supporters. You know, so the further you dig, the worse it could make former President Trump look. It's also interesting. This puts a bright light on some Republicans who are standing out against this kind of effort. For example, Liz Cheney is a classic example saying that McCarthy has not maintained his commitment to the Constitution or the rule

of law, and that he's tried to essentially sabotage this probe. She and others like Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, they're really trying to push against this kind of approach of trying to just erase this moment. So we're at this point now where maybe it's exactly where House Republican leadership wanted to be, that it's an entirely partisan panel, given the political dynamics in this country is whatever investigation, whatever report they put forward, is anybody who doesn't already agree with them going to view this as a definitive nonpartisan, a definitive factual accounting? No. I think we know the answer is no. Nonpartisan? A definitive factual accounting? believed what they believed coming in, believed what they believed going out, except at the margins. And it just speaks to the partisanship and the status of where we're at as a country currently where people don't trust the sources of information that they're getting except from trusted sources who tend to agree with them. Oh, so there is talk of adding more Republicans to the panel. We're still waiting to see what Speaker Pelosi decides there. But just on Friday, for example, we were hearing of an interview, if you will, between Speaker Pelosi and a former House Republican. This is Denver Riggleman of Virginia. And of course, there's buzz about possibly adding someone like Adam Kinzinger to the panel. So there are efforts on Democrats' behalf to try and ramp up that bipartisan look, but it is tough, especially when you have Republicans largely on the whole walking away. Well, sure. And Trump has spent the last several

years dismissing people like that as never Trumpers. And that really seemed to work with his base. Right. Yeah. NPR's investigative unit has actually done a ton of work, you know, filing legal paperwork to get more and more evidence released from police body cams, among other things, and really combing through all of the federal indictments. So the bigger picture of what happened will continue to come out, just not from this, you know, authoritative congressional commission. So having said all that, I guess the next thing to ask about and look forward to, there's a hearing next week on Tuesday. Claudia, what, if anything, can we expect from this? So I'm hearing from aides I've spoken to today that this could, this hearing

could go several hours, perhaps not as long as we're used to when we see these marathon sessions with a smaller panel at this point, eight members, the seven Democrats, and Liz Cheney is the lone Republican on the committee for now. And we're going to hear from four officers who were on duty the day of the attack,

who are going to share firsthand their stories of what they experienced. Some of these officers, we've seen them in some of these horrifying video clips from that day. And so we're going to hear at least a round of questions, maybe more from those members who want to get a better sense of what they experienced. This is going to form the base. This is this is kind of how this select panel is introducing itself to the public, saying, you know, this is why we're looking into this. We want to see what they went through. We want to hear their stories. And this is why we're working on this, because of what they went through. And we don't want to ever see this happen again. All right. Well, let's take a quick break. And when we come back, we're going to talk about how an increase in violent crime in the U.S. is impacting politics. Investigations into police use of force and misconduct were secret in California until now. We've sifted through hours of interrogation tape to find out who does the system of police accountability really serve and who does it protect?

Listen now to every episode of the new podcast on our watch from NPR and KQED. We are back. Look, violent crime is up in a lot of the country. It's a serious issue. It's also changing some political realities, especially in the last few weeks. And here we're going to focus in just on how this is affecting politics. And Domenico, you've been looking into this, doing some reporting on this. Over the last few months, how much has crime changed? Yeah, I mean, violent crime is on the rise in lots of urban areas across

the country. I mean, many small cities that usually have relatively few murders are seeing pretty significant increases actually over last year. I mean, look at just places like Albuquerque, New Mexico, Austin, Texas, and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. They've seen double the killings so far in 2021 that had taken place up to this point in 2020. Portland, Oregon has had five times as many murders compared to last year. You know, I think for context, we should note that violent crime is still at a fairly low rate compared to the highs of the mid-1990s. But we know in politics, that doesn't necessarily matter. Even if you tell someone that, hey, your taxes are lower than they've been since the 1950s, you start telling people you want to raise their taxes,

and from what they are now, it's not going to be good. Plus, in talking to Republicans and Democrats, they're saying this is a real issue that is on voters' minds, and they're going to have to deal with how they message around it. Yeah, I mean, we've seen a lot of things here in Washington, D.C. that kind of go along with this trend. And certainly if something has happened in your neighborhood or to someone you know hearing, well, if you compare it to the trends, it's kind of like that's not the answer a lot of people – I mean, Domenico, is there one easy answer for why violent crime is up all over?

Well, of course there's no single answer for why crime is up in a lot of different places throughout the country. We know that policing, for example, is decentralized. It's not like something a federal government can just flip a switch and say, OK, be tougher on crime, be less tough on crime. There's a myriad different ways that these cities are trying to handle this. What Republicans will say is all of these places or most of these places are run by Democrats. So they're making this a democratic governance issue to put them on the ballot to say, hey, if crime is violent, crime is going up. Who's running those places? Well, it's Democrats. That's the easy message that Republicans are putting out while Democrats are pushing back

and saying, hey, you don't have many answers for this either, because there are a whole lot more things going on, more variables than just simply saying, police more. So let's talk here about how we have seen this start to shift politics or start to see, you know, politicians and lawmakers really act in a way that they think this is a problem. I need to do something about it. I need to look like I'm doing something about it. Domenico, I think one good example is the New York City mayoral race, right? Absolutely.

I mean Eric Adams is a former police officer, Brooklyn Borough president, really caught my eye in his advertising when I was in New York visiting family because he was not taking kind of a far left approach. He was taking a tonally centrist approach with much more favorable language toward police than we'd heard from other – not only candidates in New York but in cities across the country following up on protests over police violence toward black Americans last year, notably, of course, with the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis. There was this push on the left to defund the police, quote unquote. And really, we've seen some cities reallocate or reduce funding from police departments. And some of those cities, by the way, have reversed course and reinstated some of that money. Democratic strategists I talked to really called the slogan politically tone deaf. And they say that's not where the majority of Democratic leaders or voters for that matter are because not just Adams, but of course Joe Biden having won.

And you start talking to veteran Democrats about how to win. They really go off on this idea of ideology over winning and how bad that is for the party. You know, it's interesting. We've heard the defund the police debate on Capitol Hill as well. It's been picking up with this trend, especially Republicans using it as a weapon, if you will, against Democrats and saying, listen, you're not doing enough here. I've talked to aides, for example, there's an ongoing debate on funding the Capitol police after this insurrection. Their funds were drained after that attack. They're about to run out of money for their officer salaries next month. And I've had aides tell me, listen, do Republicans believe in defunding the police? They haven't been able

to pass an emergency supplemental funding measure now for several weeks. It's been stuck in the Senate. But right now we have negotiations going on between the top Republican and Democratic members of the Appropriations Committee trying to reach a deal here. And here are the cops on Capitol Hill about to run out of money. So it seems like this is an issue ongoing everywhere, not to mention, you know, other crime debates that we have going on on the Hill right now, too. Yeah, I mean, this was a thing that a lot of the Democrats I talked to said, you know, is really important, because the first thing is they need, they feel like that Democratic

candidates need to acknowledge this as a real issue and get past that idea that this is somehow not that important because it's not as big as high violent crime rate as it was in the 1990s. So you start there, but then you move on to them talking about this kind of holistic approach that Democrats have, that they want to fund social services and mental health, you know, counselors to come in to be able to work with people who might be mentally ill, but committing crimes to take some of the burden off of police departments, but to fund those police departments. And then finally, they say, look, you got to turn the tables on Republicans, just like you're talking about, Claudia, the idea that Republicans voted against the COVID relief bill, which had funding increases for police departments in it.

And the fact that they are, again, not looking into what happened on the January 6th insurrection where police officers were killed. Yeah. And meanwhile, we are still stuck on the Hill when it comes to police reform. It seems like it starts and it sputters and it starts, it sputters. Just this week, the buzz was it's on life support. Interestingly enough, Tim Scott, this is the South Carolina Republican senator, tweeted out a picture of him meeting with New Jersey Senator Democrat Cory Booker, saying looking pretty lively for a bill on life support. So they're trying to say the talks are still going, but it's really hard to get a sense right now if they're going to be able to pull something off, a bipartisan deal on that. And Domenicos, we talk about the politics here. I think we're at a good

point in the first year of an administration to remind listeners, when do the big themes and political climates of a midterm start to set in? Like, on one hand, we're talking about this. It's more than a year away. On the other hand, it is starting to form, right? And it seems like the idea that this could be part of the conversation is pretty baked in. Absolutely. I mean, we're already seeing Republicans push what they're calling as a sort of three-pronged strategy. One is attacking Democrats on crime. Two, it's the economy, particularly what they see as rising inflation and these job openings that aren't being filled

in the restaurant and service industry and on border security, which, by the way, not surprising. Border security is the area where President Biden gets his lowest ratings. The economy, you know, Americans are fairly split, even though Biden has been routinely above 50 percent on that. But if coronavirus variants continue to surge, then there could be a potential closing down even more of the economy, which is a place where obviously Republicans are ready to jump in. All of this being said, Republicans only need to pick up five seats here. And historically, you know, presidents in their first term, their part, the party in power, the president's party, winds up losing 26 seats on average since World

War II. Only one president has seen his party pick up seats in the House since World War II. That was George W. Bush in 2002 after, of course, 9-11. And we certainly have not seen any sort of national moment of unity since then. Yeah. All right, we're going to take one more quick break, and when we come back, it's time for Can't Let It Go. We are back, and it's time to end the show like we do every week with Can't Let It Go, which is, of course, the part of the show where we talk about the things from this week that we cannot stop talking about politics or otherwise, and we usually work very hard to keep our Can't Let it go secret from each other.

But I have a suspicion here that we all have the exact same one. It is that time of year. It is that time of every four or five years. And let's just get it out there. We all can't stop talking about the Olympics. And let's just talk about it. Domenico, why don't you start us off as we celebrate the whatever Roman numeral Olympiad getting underway. Well, for me, it was kind of just wondering how NBC was going to pull off this opening ceremonies without hardly anyone in the audience.

And you know what? It was pretty darn cool on TV, I have to say. The thing that really jumped out to me was the drone Earth. That was the drone globe. That was cool. I mean, 1800 drones that made the Tokyo symbol that then morphed into the rotating earth, which was really pretty cool. And I have to say, for as much as the Japanese people were sort of annoyed that these Olympics were continuing to take place. Seeing the creativity of how much effort and work went into it from so many different

places within Japan and types of light shows and all that kind of stuff, I can see why they were like, ah, yeah, we're going to do it. Wait a second, though. Dominica, you're the one who used to work at NBC. I've become so browbeat over the year that it's not live. You have to wait for the evening. Did this air already? I was just going to turn it on tonight and resign myself that I couldn't watch it live.

Did I miss the opening ceremonies? There are two. There was the live one at 7.30 this morning or so, which, of course, the Today Show is the highest grossing television show on all of TV. So not a problem for NBC to be airing it there. I can't believe they – OK. Well, but there's a 7.30, I think, tonight or some primetime thing that they're doing with an enhanced version where you're going to have, like, different artists singing and stuff like that or whatever, kind of edited as opposed to live. But I'd say the live was pretty darn good. All right.

I'm glad it's not too late. Claudia, what about the Olympics can you not let go? We'll just talk about the Olympics. I'm just glad that Olympic television is back. I have been waiting for this an extra year. And myself, I'm a swimming buff. And Simone Biles, I consider her a sport in and of herself. So those are the two sports I follow.

I cannot wait. I also like the idea, Domenico, you're talking about the live coverage. You can get up early, stay up overnight, whatever. Watch kind of the raw version. And then you can watch the nice, pretty, decorated version that night. So I like to take it all in and DVR it, and then like, because I'm behind right now, but I kind of do it on purpose so I can kind of binge watch it all through the weekend, because I've been complaining over the pandemic, just kind of dark programming or shows that

haven't come back. I've been waiting and waiting and waiting. So I get to go from Shark Week to this. I mean, this is the best. Well, you've got some sharks in the water there, especially with Team USA and Katie Ledecky swimming again, which is a huge piece of... Sharks in the water. Yeah. But on the men's side, it's going to be interesting because Thelps is not swimming again, right? He finally retired for real. Yes, which is really difficult for some of us to believe he's not going to be there. So,

and he wasn't on shark week this year either. So that was a bummer, but still there's so many fantastic new swimmers to watch this year. I cannot wait. It's so thrilling. My kids do the little summer neighborhood swim league here in our neighborhood. And so it's like our chance

to see like the real pros go. So it's very cool. I mean, I love the Olympics to the point where like in the past we have scheduled like what week we're going to take a family vacation around. Like, can we watch the Olympics during it? And like, you know, to be honest, in the run up to this, I was having a hard time just like I did with some sports last year of like, OK, this just seems like a bad idea. I don't know. Like this feels gross. And then,

then like watching some, like the gymnastics, uh, Olympic trials got me a little excited. But the thing that got me the most excited is I feel like every Olympics, there is a sport that I just become obsessed with that I never knew about before. You know,

like one year it was like, it was like velodrome biking. And then like the winter Olympics, it was the biathlon. I was like getting up early. I think I've identified it this year. And Domenico, I don't know if you know that this exists. Three on three half court basketball.

What? That's an Olympic sport now? Yeah, it's an Olympic sport. Let me tell you, my 20 year old hoop it up self would have been all over that. You could have had a... It's like NBA jam as an Olympic sport. And it's even like, I was like, is it a full court? No, it is a half court basketball court.

It's like a 10 second shot clock or maybe 12 second shot clock, three on three. They sadly did not let the NBA players do the three on three. Oh no. Yeah, but I am definitely going to be watching that. That would have been awesome to watch. You know, and Scott, just for all these new sports, one of the really cool things that they do in the ceremonies

was they do these pictograms with people in almost mascot costumes, and they kind of change their body shape to mimic what the actual symbol is for that sport. And they went through all of them, and I applaud how cool it was and just the creativity and the body work that it took. I mean, just amazing. Really very creative.

All right. Well, happy Olympic watching. That is a wrap for today. Our executive producer is Shirley Henry. Our editors are Mathani Maturi and Eric McDaniel. Our producers are Barton Girdwood and Elena Moore. Thank you to Lexi Schipittel and Brandon Carter. Our intern is Maya Self-Spotted Elk.

I'm Scott Detrow. I cover the White House. I'm Claudia Grisales. I cover Congress. And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. Thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.