The NPR Politics Podcast - Weekly Roundup: July 9th

Episode Date: July 9, 2021

President Biden gave a defensive speech Thursday updating the American public on his plan for withdrawal from Afghanistan. He said that the United States accomplished its mission in Afghanistan, though his administration acknowledged earlier in the day that the two-decade war "has not been won militarily" and that there are ongoing risks to the safety and prosperity of Afghans.Domestically, the White House is stalled on voting rights reforms: Democrats in Congress can't find a route around the filibuster and conservative courts have throttled historic enforcement options made possible by the Voting Rights Act. This episode: White House correspondent Tamara Keith, White House correspondent Scott Detrow, Pentagon correspondent Tom Bowman, White House correspondent Ayesha Rascoe, and national justice correspondent Carrie Johnson.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

This is Brenna in Connecticut, and I just filed for unemployment for the very last time. After 352 long days on furlough, I finally start back at work tomorrow. This podcast was recorded at 11.09 a.m. on Friday, July 9th. Things may have changed by the time you hear it, but I wager I'll still be happily sorting through a year's worth of unanswered emails. Okay, here's the show. That is amazing. Congratulations. Congratulations on returning to the salt mines. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm

Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. And I'm Scott Detrow. I also cover the White House. And we are joined today by NPR Pentagon correspondent Tom Bowman. Hi, Tom. Hey, Tam. In remarks from the East Room of the White House, President Biden updated Americans on his plan to end the nation's longest war. I will not send another generation of Americans to war in Afghanistan with no reasonable expectation of achieving a different outcome.

So, Scott, how did Biden characterize the war in Afghanistan as he now attempts to bring it to an end? You know, he made a lot of points, points that he made in an initial speech in April announcing this decision, points that he's campaigned on, you know, in the several years that he ran for president, that it's been a generation. You know, this war started shortly after the September 11th, 2001 attacks. We are about to hit the 20th anniversary of those attacks. And Biden's argument is that the U.S.

accomplished its immediate short-term first round of goals, that is, of thwarting Al-Qaeda, finding and killing Osama bin Laden. And that, you know, since then, the country has become more and more entrenched. And to use a phrase that has really caught on over the last few decades, he said, it's time to end these forever wars. There are still a lot of problems in Afghanistan,

problems that will be made worse by the U S leaving though, as we'll talk about Biden, wasn't quite ready to frame that in the way that many people are saying is reality right now, but he made the argument that this fight is not worth having anymore. It is not worth keeping another generation of American soldiers in Afghanistan. It is not worth the money and time and effort that has gone into what is now the longest war in American history. Well, and Tom, the president also announced that 90% of the withdrawal is complete, that it will be done by the end of August, as he had promised before. You've covered this war since its earliest days. You've been on the ground in Afghanistan numerous times. What do you make of how President Biden is describing

the mission as it was and where this war stands right now? Well, Tam, what jumped out at me for his speech was he said we did not go to nation build. But the U.S. did nation build in Afghanistan. And, of course, he was part of that as vice president under President Obama. The U.S. created an army, a police force, ministries. It helped create the government, later brokered a deal for a new government, and also shepherded a peace process. So to say that we didn't go there to nation-build, he can say that, but clearly the United States did and continues to support the Afghan government with billions of

dollars. It's spent around a trillion dollars so far. Now, the president also said the Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Special Representative Zelenskyy will, quote, work vigorously to push for a negotiated settlement. That seems unlikely. The talks have gone on for two years with little show for it. And now, of course, the Taliban are gaining more and more territory, targeting government officials, journalists, military pilots. The Taliban appear intent on overthrowing a government they see as a mere puppet of the U.S. The Afghan government at this point really has no leverage now that the U.S. forces are leaving. Tom, let me ask you something. Biden was pretty defensive yesterday.

You know, he made the speech and there was an extended back and forth with reporters where he was really pressed on. Do you see the Afghan government crumbling? What do you make of the fact that the Taliban is sweeping up all of this ground and gaining momentum? And Biden made this argument that he doesn't necessarily see it as a given. He thinks the Afghan army has the resources and training and could hold the Taliban back. What is your read on that and what you're seeing right now? Well, look at what we see on the ground. The Taliban have taken over a huge amount of territory in the country, more than half the country, maybe three quarters. There's some Afghan army units that are fighting strongly, and there are others

that are dropping their weapons and running away. So it is really a mixed bag. They also have a really good commando force, 22,000 or so commandos. They're excellent. We've gone out with them a couple of times. People I talk with say they believe the way ahead is the Taliban will take more and more urban areas, and then there could be a fight for Kabul. People I talk with say it's a 50-50 chance that Kabul itself will fall. And you can understand the president's defensiveness. This is going to be really ugly in the coming weeks and months. The Taliban, again, are on the move, and it's not going to be pretty. And just a reminder, you know, when the Taliban controlled Afghanistan in the 90s, it was not a good time for women and girls in the country. And President Biden was asked about this yesterday by a reporter from Afghanistan.

I love Afghan Safar women. Any message, good message for Afghan women in future? Because they have achievement. They are really concerned about their achievement. They are very concerned with good reason. You know, I think people I talk with over there are very worried about it. They're considering leaving the country. It could be a brain drain. I think particularly if you're an educated woman, it's going to be very, very difficult for women and young girls. So the bottom line is what Biden said to that

reporter is, yeah, it's going to be bad. And basically, what can we do about it? Yeah. I mean, Tam, that's what really stuck out to me. Biden made this point in the sweeping, kind of speechifying way of saying it's not, is it worth, I ask you, is it worth another generation of American soldiers, right? And then in the back and forth, he just said it in a much more blunt, direct, real politic way of basically, these things are going to happen and they're just not the United States problem anymore. They are not worth it to the United States to stay there and maintain a status quo and spend money and have this military presence, even the much more drawn down military presence

compared to earlier years of this war. Basically, it's not our fight anymore. It's time for us to move on and just not deal with this. Yes, ma'am. Mr. President, will the United States be responsible for the loss of Afghan civilian lives that could happen after the military exit? No, no, no. It's up to the people of Afghanistan. You know, what I have done over the last number of years, I've asked senior military officers, senior civilians,

if you had to do this all over again, what would you do? The towers come down, you go in and throw out the Taliban, you're in charge, what do you do? One guy who was a senior advisor at the Pentagon said to me, talk to the Taliban. That was never done. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said, we're going to bring justice to the Taliban or the Taliban to justice. And five years ago, when I was in Kabul, I talked to the senior military officer and asked him the same question. What would you do if you had to do it all over? And he looked at the ground for about 30 seconds and he looked at me and he said, plant trees out the butt and go home.

Well, I guess the U.S. is going home, except for what will be a large diplomatic presence and a presence attempting to protect those diplomats on the ground. Scott, I want to get to the politics of this a bit. I mean, we've sort of nodded to it, but how did President Biden talk about this on the campaign trail? And what is his political, domestic political calculus now? Sure. I mean, this is, it's worth saying that poll after poll shows most Americans do support ending this presence, that they don't think we should be in Afghanistan anymore. This is something that they came to it by very different ways and had very different views of how to proceed. But this is something that, you know, in a vacuum, Joe Biden and Donald Trump agreed on. And there was an increasingly broad consensus that, yeah, it's

time to go. We should not be here anymore. Biden often points out that he was for a long time the voice of trying to scale back to try to minimize the footprint in Afghanistan when he was vice president. He says he was always pushing against kind of the broad nation building approach for this. But, you know, the way I've thought about it is is yesterday's speech was kind of this this flip side, bizarro version of the speech that Biden gave in the spring. He gave it from the treaty room on the upstairs in the residence of the White House, which happened to be the place that George Bush first announced that military operations had begun in Afghanistan in October of 2001. And Biden talked the way he talked to the campaign that forever wars need to

come to an end. The United States needs to not be there anymore. Talking about it that way is one thing, and that's something a lot of people can agree with. But even if people agree that this is the right move, there's a certain discomfort and a certain concern and frustration and disbelief to see the images of Bagram Air Force Base, you know, the U.S. just totally pulling out and having looters come in during a window immediately after that withdrawal of seeing the Taliban kind of sweep through the country and kind of, are we really okay with these consequences of this decision? And then Biden came back and said, yes, I am. And here's why. And it's not comfortable, but this is my decision and I've made it. And I think that was a really such a different dynamic yesterday compared to a few months ago. Really quickly before we go, there are a lot of people in Afghanistan who helped America, who helped U.S. troops.

And now the Biden administration is trying to get them out of there. A lot of interpreters and others. Where does that stand? Well, they've said, the president said they're going to start moving people out this month. We don't know where they're going. It's possible they could go to Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, to the north of Afghanistan, or also some of the countries in the Middle East, maybe United Arab Emirates, Qatar. There's also talk of sending them to U.S. territory, Guam. So we don't have details where they're going to go, but we're talking thousands of people. The Pentagon estimates anywhere from 20,000 to 100,000. And the State Department is going to be running this whole effort through, I think, contract air.

But if things get really dicey and the numbers go up, you're going to have the Pentagon step in and help as well. All right, well, we are going to take a quick break. But Tom and Scott, we are going to let you run. So thank you so much for joining for this conversation. Great being with you. Thanks. Talk soon. And when we get back, we are going to talk about voting rights. Capitalism touches every part of our lives. Capitalism is a giant force that I don't understand. I feel that it's a very safe system. I am constantly in fear of losing my job.

It is our biggest success and our biggest failure. On this special series from ThruLine, Capitalism. Listen now to the ThruLine podcast from NPR. And we're back and we have a whole new crew, Ayesha Roscoe and Kerry Johnson. Hello, my friends. Hey there. Hey. And obviously, Ayesha covers the White House.

Kerry covers the Justice Department. And we are talking about voting rights. And it has not been smooth sailing for the president and his administration as they have tried with allies in Congress to pass voting rights protections. And then last week, there was this ruling by the Supreme Court that dealt a blow, another blow to the Voting Rights Act. So Carrie, let's start there. What was that Supreme Court decision? And what does it mean? Yeah, sure. This was a ruling in a case involving two new laws in Arizona that pose restrictions on certain kinds of voting. And the reason why it's important is that eight years ago, Tam and Aisha, you know, the Supreme Court basically gutted the heart of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. And so what was left for people

to use to sue over voting measures that seemed to have a discriminatory purpose or effect was part of the law called Section 2. But now the Supreme Court, in a 6-3 decision along ideological lines, has basically erected new roadblocks for plaintiffs who want to sue challenging ballot restrictions. And also talking, the Supreme Court majority did, about the issue of election security and integrity, basically saying that the desire by states to prevent election fraud and voter fraud, which we know happens very seldom in a widespread way, but that could be a legitimate basis that courts would use to evaluate some of these

new restrictions. So this is a big, big hurdle for new cases coming on board with the Voting Rights Act. So Carrie, does this mean that the Voting Rights Act, like does it have any teeth now? Is it basically toothless? Or does it have like one tooth what is going on with that one little nub Aisha and Tam you're both moms right I would liken this to like the the the first two or three teeth in your mouth okay you're a little little little type okay so um so it's possible that some challenges to voting restrictions new voting restrictions uh filed uh using section. The only major surviving part of the Voting Rights Act could still survive. But the Supreme Court majority led by Justice Samuel Alito has made it a lot, lot harder to challenge these things moving forward.

Now, didn't the court essentially say, yes, we have made these changes or we've thrown out these parts, but Congress could fix this if Congress wanted to. Well, Congress has two parties and they don't actually agree on what the problem is. No. And you have the White House, you have President Biden facing a lot of pressure from civil rights groups, from his base, from other Democratic lawmakers who are saying this is an existential crisis because you have Republican state legislatures that are trying or that are restricting voting in some ways, making changes to voting rules. And they are saying that this needs to be dealt with. But really, the only way you can get significant change is through Congress, and Congress is

not cooperating. Yeah, I mean, I think that I still find remarkable about where things are with this is that there was a time in the not so distant past when voting was sort of a nonpartisan issue. It was, you know, Secretary of State was not an office that people with political intentions really ran for. It was the office that nerds ran for in states. And now it's become this very, very much more political role. Not just political, Tam. The Justice Department, the deputy attorney general, has launched a task force to investigate threats against state election officials.

That's how bad things have gotten in this country. We know that a lot of them are bailing out of their jobs because of all this pressure they've been getting over the last few years. And now the FBI is paying special attention to these kinds of threats on a criminal basis. Wow. Yeah. You know, a lot of this is because the former president, Donald Trump, has repeatedly lied about the last election, saying that it was stolen from him.

But really, you have the Justice Department that can take action, not just that criminal action. You know, what the White House is saying is that not that they're pushing the Justice Department, they're trying to thread this line because they don't want to say they're influencing the Justice Department, but they're saying that they have, you know, nominated people and had officials confirmed who are, you know, experts in civil rights and voting rights and who can look into these issues and file lawsuits where they feel necessary. They did file a lawsuit in Georgia because of the Supreme Court ruling. That is going to have a difficult time, but they can do that. The other thing they can do is try to get

groups together to get the public on board. And so I talked to Cedric Richmond, who's one of the senior advisors at the White House, and this is what he talked about. We're going to fight in the courts. We're going to fight in the streets. We're going to fight, you know, for fair voting. We're going to do that. But at the same time, we want our groups and community leaders to also take the belt and suspenders approach of educating people on how to deal with these new laws. What do they mean? How do I still vote meaningfully? So he's basically saying, let these groups also educate people on how they can still vote because they're going to need people to vote if they're going to get more support in

Congress. Yeah, there is this thing that's happening where it seems like the White House is relatively powerless to either get legislation through or otherwise affect this march of Republican-led states changing voting rules in a way that Democrats worry will make it harder for people to vote. And so they're talking about, well, the White House, the president is going to use the bully pulpit. And it seems like part of that is simply making voting rights an issue in the election or making it, you know, telling people your franchise is going to be taken away, get angry, get out there, don't let that happen, vote. At the same time, as he talks about actual

education, making sure that people know how to vote and how to work around these rules. But, you know, I just don't know that this is what they would have chosen. No, no. And I think that voting rights advocates, I think they, what they are saying is they feel like the status quo is unacceptable. They're like something has to get through Congress. And they also expect the White House to do more, even if it's behind the scenes. Like they want them to use the bully pulpit. They're happy that the Vice President Harris is now in charge of this. She's the point person on this.

But they want the president to put pressure on lawmakers to make sure this gets done one way or another. All right. Well, I feel like every third podcast ends with that thought. So we keep it consistent. Let us take a quick break. And when we get back, it's time for Can't Let It Go. their monthly book picks straight to your door so you can spend less time finding a good book and more time actually reading one. Redeem your 30-day trial for only 99 cents at literati.com slash NPR politics. And we're back and it's time for Can't Let It Go, the part of the podcast that we love the most where we talk about the things from the week that we cannot stop thinking about politics or otherwise. Aisha, what can't you let go of? Well, not surprisingly, what I can't let go of this week is this great remake of a classic. Oh, I think I know where this is going. But one for this moment, and it is Juvenile, the great Juvenile, remixed his Back That Thing Up, and he made it Vax That Thing as a way to get people vaccinated, to encourage people who may not want to get vaccinated.

And it is stuck in my head. Girl, you look good. Won't you vax that thing up? You's a handsome young brother. Won't you vax that thing up? They did a video and everything. And even though Juvenile is great and, you know, my husband is, you know, he's from down south, as am I, and so he loves Juvenile.

But I have to say, Manny Fresh is also on it. And his verse kills me. It's like, it has verses like, no holding hands, chick. But when we get the shot, we gonna be romancing. Oh, my God. Girl, you can be the queen at the quarantine i have to say i i did watch this video um it has don't watch it with the kids because well the kids won't understand it but there's a lot of um innuendo shaking it's a lot of booty shaking and there's a lot of innuendo about the kinds of things that you can get if you get

vaccinated like some you could get some if you get vaccinated. Like some, you could get some if you get vaccinated, for instance. Motivation. You could get some motivation. Some motivation. Get a lot of things. Well, that's how the kids got here. So, you know. Carrie, what can't you let go of? Well, you know, I'm in a New York state of mind this week anyway with the news of the mayor's race. And then yesterday, I don't know if you two saw this, but there was a flood in the subway system in New York City. And there are images of New Yorkers who are as tall as all three of us are, which is to say not very tall at all, wading into this water and going about their business, going through the revolving door and going to where they wanted to go, just totally undefeated by these floodwaters in their subway system. And it turns out the subway actually kept on running.

That's a New Yorker state of mind, though. For sure. Nobody would climb over broken glass and floodwaters to get to the Washington, D.C. metro. I'll tell you that. No, we're turning right around. I'm not doing that. Get me an Uber. Yes.

All right. I'm going to go last here. And what I cannot let go of that I made my husband watch twice last night on Twitter videos was the spelling bee. And it is just so glorious. 14-year-old Zahila Avant-Garde, she became the first African-American winner of the spelling bee, the Scripps National Spelling Bee. The first lady was there. The word that she ultimately got right to win was

Maria. Maria. It's a genus of tropical Asiatic and Australian trees having pinnate leaves and flowers with imbricated petals. Maria. Maria. Does this word contain like the English name Murray, which can be the name of a comedian? Or just the English name in general? I don't see that here. Bill Murray made the spelling bee. Maria. That tells you she's on the right track, though. Wait, what is the language origin?

It's formed in Latin from a Swedish name. Maria. N-U-R-R-A-Y-A. That is correct. And she twirls around and then the confetti falls. And she's just so joyful. And I just love the spelling bee. And anyone who knows me knows that I am in radio because I cannot spell any words.

And I am just in awe of these children. That's a lot of pressure. It's a lot of pressure. And apparently she's also like a basketball protege. Like she wants to play in the WNBA. Like she's like she can do all sorts of like this is just spellings like her hobby she's pretty incredible um i can't do barely anything and and and she she says that uh she wanted to thank bill murray because that's how she knew how to spell the word and that she used

to listen to the Lost in Translation soundtrack a lot when she was a kid. You know, I don't want to sing it, but More Than Words is in my head right now. There's another earworm. Aww. Alright, 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. Thanks to Lexi Schapittle and Brandon Carter. Our intern is Maya Sel Spotted Elk. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. I'm Aisha Roscoe. I also cover the White House. And I'm Carrie Johnson, national justice correspondent. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.