The NPR Politics Podcast - Weekly Roundup: May 1st, 2020

Episode Date: May 1, 2020

Note: This podcast contains a frank discussion of an alleged sexual assault.In an appearance on MSNBC Friday morning, Joe Biden denied sexually assaulting a former staffer. And the Senate returns to Washington on Monday; Mitch McConnell plans to move forward on judicial confirmations.This episode: congressional correspondent Susan Davis, White House correspondent Scott Detrow, campaign correspondent Asma Khalid, and congressional reporter Claudia Grisales.Connect:Subscribe to the NPR Politics Podcast here.Email the show at [e-mail] the NPR Politics Podcast Facebook Group.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, I'm Emily. And I'm her sister Natalie. I'm currently in my first year of virtual med school in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. And I'm currently face-summing here from the mountains of South Korea. We're a planet apart and doing very different things, but we bond over our shared love for the NPR PaulPod. This one was recorded at 1.21 p.m. on Friday, May 1st. Things may have changed by the time you hear this, but hopefully I'll have made it to the top of this mountain. I believe in you, Nat! Alright, here's the show. That's quite cool.

I love the idea of our podcast bringing people together from all over the globe. I'd never heard somebody shorten it to PolPod before. Hashtag PolPod. I kind of like it. Hey there. It's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Susan Davis. I cover Congress. I'm Scott Detrow. I'm covering the White House. And. I'm Scott Detrow. I'm covering the White House. And I'm Asma Khalid. I'm covering the presidential campaign.

And before we get started, we should mention that we're going to discuss an allegation of sexual assault that could be disturbing to many of our listeners. And if so, you might want to skip forward. This morning on MSNBC, Joe Biden responded directly to an accusation of sexual assault made by Tara Reid. I'm saying unequivocally, it never, never happened. And it didn't. It never happened. Reid worked as a junior staffer in his Senate office back in 1993, when she says this assault occurred. Asma, can you remind us what the accusation is? Yeah, you know, I've spoken with Reid multiple times, and she told me

that Biden pinned her up against a wall in a hallway on Capitol Hill and put his fingers inside her vagina without her consent. She said that she could not recall the exact date or location of the incident, but it was sometime in the spring of 1993. She made this accusation public several weeks back. You said you've talked to her. How did Biden respond to the accusations on TV this morning? Well, he's denying it. He put out a statement shortly before he appeared on Morning Joe. And in both the statement and in the TV interview, he insists that what Reid is describing, you know, as we just heard, he says it never happened. Reid says that 27 years ago when she was working for Biden, she filed a complaint and she can't recall the exact office where she filed that complaint.

She doesn't have a copy of it. And I want to be really clear because I feel like we've been hearing a lot about this, this apparent complaint that she filed with some Senate office. She told me that the complaint was not about the assault, but about being made to feel uncomfortable in Biden's office. OK, so there has been a lot of back and forth about records of a claim that Reid says she made about feeling uncomfortable when she worked in Biden's office. Can you explain what's going on there? Yeah. You know, as we mentioned, this complaint that she says is about being made to feel uncomfortable.

It's not about this alleged assault. So whatever is or is not found in terms of an official complaint would not actually deny or confirm that an assault occurred. But look, you know, there have been a lot of questions about private records from Joe Biden's Senate office. They have not been made public yet. They're being held at the University of Delaware, and they won't be made public until two years after he leaves public office. You know, Biden says those records don't contain any personnel files. And that's pretty standard for a university that gets the records from somebody who is a high profile public official. You know, a lot of times with presidents or senators, it's either after any sort of paperwork from the office that Reid says that she filed this complaint to. So in his statement this morning, Biden said that he's requesting that the Secretary of the Senate

ask the archives to identify any record of a complaint, and if they do find it, then to release it to the press. Now, in the statement, Biden said that any record filed by Tara Reid. And then in the interview with MSNBC, Mika Brzezinski said, well, why limit it there? What about any complaint by any any staffer? And Biden seemed to agree to that. But since you want to set the record straight, why limit this only to Tara Reid? Why not release any complaints that it may had been made against you during your Senate career? I'm prepared to do that.

The best of my knowledge has been no complaints made against me in terms of my Senate career, in terms of my office, and anything that's been run. Look, this is an open book. There's nothing for me to hide. Nothing at all. Sue, I want to throw a question here to you because I know you've covered the more recent ways in which Congress has been dealing with sexual assault allegations. And I guess my question is, like, even if a record is found, I guess, is it clear that there will be all these records, right, of what happened? And then secondly, is it clear that they will be made

available to the public? Like, are they not under some sort of seal? Yeah, the short answer is all things with Congress is it's complicated, right? So the office that existed at the time of this complaint, if she filed a complaint, as she said, in 1993, at the time, it was would have been under something called the Office of Fair Employment Practices. That's an office that's been remade twice since that time, once in 1995. And again, in 2018 2018 amid the Me Too movement when there was a lot of allegations raised against members of Congress. And so they've been rehabbed and reformed over the years. It's a long time ago. And the question of congressional record keeping is complicated because Congress isn't governed by the same record keeping acts as the White House

and the president is. So he is correct in saying if there is a complaint, it would have likely been filed at this office. And it is correct to say that these archives are generally held by the National Archives. The National Archives stores a lot of official congressional records. Official congressional records are different than a senator's or a house member's personal records. The personal records is completely up to the discretion of the lawmaker. They could keep all of them. They could keep none of them. There's nothing that says that they have to keep anything as it pertains to their legislative service. So the question is, you know, now what will National Archives do? Will they search these records? Will there be anything? Would anything come out? But your point earlier is correct, Asma. You know, the existence of or

non-existence of a record still does not get to the point of whether this specific allegation of sexual assault occurred or not. So Biden makes this statement. He says that he wants the National Archives to look into it. But Asma, the thing that really struck both of us is that Biden makes this forceful statement. He goes on TV. He defends himself. He waited more than a month to do this. It's been more than a month since Reid first made these allegations in a podcast. Since then, several outlets have reported them in detail, including NPR. And all along, even though the Biden campaign put out this statement that they kept putting out, Joe Biden did not answer a

single question about this. He did not bring it up. And that's made things awkward for a lot of his prominent supporters, especially since many of them were at the forefront of, you know, criticizing Brett Kavanaugh during his confirmation hearings, among other things. Yeah, that's right. And Republicans have been accusing Democrats of hypocrisy on that. You know, they said that, look, Democrats believed Christine Blasey Ford's allegations against the Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. So why are they not believing Tara Reid? And Biden was asked about this on Morning Joe today.

You said if someone like Dr. Ford were to come out, the essence of what she is saying has to be believed, has to be real. No. Why? No, what I said, it has to be. Why is it real for Dr. Ford, but not for Tara Reid there because the facts are that. Look, she I'm not suggesting she had no right to come forward. And I never and I'm not saying any woman, they should come forward. They should be heard. And then it should be investigated.

It should be investigated. And if there's anything that makes it that is consistent with what's being said and she makes the case or the case is made, then it should be investigated. And if there's anything that makes it, that is consistent with what's being said and she makes the case or the case is made, then it should be believed. But ultimately the truth matters. The truth matters. It's period. I fought my entire life to change, to change the whole notion of the law and the cultural sexual around the culture around sexual assault. And I fought to strengthen and protect the process for survivors. And you know, Biden is getting a lot of criticism for sounding different in these two different circumstances. And so are two in particular, Kamala Harris and A.B. Klobuchar, who are both probably going to be on the short list for vice president and who sat on that Senate

Judiciary Committee during the Kavanaugh hearings. And yes, that initial stance is different. But I do think it's important to point out the Democrats were calling for a follow-up investigation. They wanted the FBI to dig into those claims by Christine Blasey for it wasn't a carte blanche, you know, therefore, she is absolutely right. But still, this is obviously a very different first response to an allegation that we're hearing. And politically, it doesn't happen just in a vacuum. This isn't just about Joe Biden. You already see on the congressional level campaigns being asked how they feel about Joe Biden. Do you defend Joe Biden?

There is a certain trickle down effect of this politically. And I think Republicans see an opportunity at least to attack Democrats here and make them look like hypocrites and make it seem like Democrats have a different set of standards if depending on the political party of who's being accused. But look, I mean, I think that this is a really tough moral battle for Republicans to wage without themselves appearing hypocritical, because while they point at Biden for this allegation, more than a dozen women have publicly accused President Trump of various incidents of sexual assault, all of which he denies. And we should note that President Trump

was asked about this on Thursday, and he gave a response that, quite frankly, was a lot softer than a lot of Republicans who are attacking Joe Biden right now. I don't know anything about it. I don't know exactly. I think he should respond. You know, it could be false accusations. I know all about false accusations. I've been falsely charged numerous times. It's a lot harder to weaponize a political attack if you face the same political attack. Yeah, absolutely. And I think the very first thing you'll hear if President Trump himself does start to go on the attack against Joe Biden is yes, and you've been accused by dozens of women of similar things. All right, we're gonna leave it there for today. Asma,

I know you have to get going. So thanks so much. You're welcome. And when we get back, we'll talk more about the Senate coming back next week and what we know about the next coronavirus relief package. Hey, it's Guy Raz from NPR's How I Built This. And each week on the show during this unprecedented crisis, I'll be asking some of the top founders and builders how they're dealing with the economic impact of the coronavirus and hear about some of the ways they're pivoting to fight it. Subscribe or listen now to How I Built This. And we're back and we're joined now by Claudia Grisales. Hey, Claudia. Hi there. So the Senate is expected to come back into session next week. Originally,

the House was going to come back too, but then they backtracked saying it wasn't yet safe to return. Right. But the Senate is. Yeah, this is going to be a very interesting turn of events. The Senate is moving forward and they're scrambling. They're putting together plans. It's going to be business as usual is what the look of it is right now. And they're coming back under some concerns that perhaps, you know, this pandemic is ongoing, perhaps there's these risks here with them returning. But they're hoping to see some guidelines are hoping to practice social distancing and we'll see how it all shakes out. But a lot remains to be seen how it shakes out.

Yeah, because you're not supposed to gather in large groups. This is a chamber of 100 members plus their staffs. And people over age 65 are particularly vulnerable. Big chunk of the Senate is over 65. Like, how does this logistically work? I'm thinking about those crowded subways that senators ride back and forth to get into the chamber. I'm thinking about the hallways, the whole bunch of different scenarios that basically involve large combinations of people. Exactly. You've seen it up close. There are crowds of press, of staff, of members in very

small confined spaces. And a large majority of these members are of an older age. And so, for example, Senator Dianne Feinstein of California sent a letter to Senate leaders, to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, raising concerns about this exact issue. She is 86, and she's worried about coming back. So that is going to be something we'll be watching closely, how this all is planned out, how people can social distance, will they wear masks? There's lots of questions here. So it's Friday. The Senate's supposed to come in session on Monday. We don't have clear, transparent answers about how they're going to do this safely.

So why is Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, so insistent that the Senate get back to work? So they had set this date previously of May 4th. We're coming back May 4th after taking quite a bit of time off. He has made very clear that the Senate is going to get to work because there's essential workers out there, grocery workers, frontline responders that are working, and Congress should be considered the same. They shouldn't be given a pass. So despite all these risks that they're looking at, he is barreling forward. And right now, it looks like it's to work on issues such as approving nominees and holding hearings that they would normally hold during times that were not during a pandemic. So wait, this is not to work on emergency response

legislation. This is like to improve federal judges and things like that. Just to be clear. Initially, yes. Initially, they said we're going to come back in May, we've got to work on another wave of relief to address Coronavirus. But both sides are stalled essentially in their talks. So right now, McConnell is setting up all these plans for the nominees. So lawmakers say that they know that they're going to have to pass more legislation to address the pandemic and the economic fallout. But they don't seem to agree on when or what it should look like, at least because the Senate's coming back next week. What's McConnell's view on this? So McConnell has been pretty firm in terms of setting a red line. He is focused on getting protections from businesses when it comes to liabilities. He wants a new legal shield put up

for businesses that may deal with challenges related to the pandemic and protect them from lawsuits. So that is his focus right now. Meanwhile, Democrats have been pushing very hard for funding for state and local governments. They are in dire straits in terms of their budgets. They're looking at billions in shortfalls. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi just this week said that they could be looking at a trillion dollars of aid, 500 billions. I know. Eye-popping. Eye-popping sums.

Eye-popping. Another big number. And this is coming off about $3 trillion already approved by Congress in a matter of weeks. Yeah, you can definitely feel sort of the tide turning on Capitol Hill in that everything they've done so far since the pandemic hit has been largely bipartisan and negotiated relatively quickly. Of course, there's been some blips along the way, but things passing with unanimous support or no opposition. And it's changing now. It feels like the familiar battle lines of Capitol Hill are being drawn and people are sort of resorting to form. Exactly. That's where we are now.

Now, the last time the Senate was in, of course, Senator Rand Paul tested positive for COVID-19 after spending a lot of time with his colleagues. Is there any sort of testing protocol in place or is that along with the distancing and the mask something that hasn't quite been figured out just yet? Exactly. So, for example, they are recommending for folks to wear masks, but there's much less certainty with the testing. This seems like something members may not have access to. So that is another unknown. And in that case of Senator Paul, two more members, Utah Senators Lee and Romney, both had to quarantine. Neither became ill.

However, they both had to quarantine for two weeks after that. So there's definite concern that we could see a reoccurrence of this again, because in Paul's case, he was asymptomatic. He had no idea he was at the Senate, he was wandering the halls there, as he was perhaps spreading the illness. There were concerns of that. And there's worries that could happen again. And remember, if there is an outbreak and senators are disabled or have to quarantine, there's still no plan for remote voting or for proxy voting. So the concern not just is about the public health side, but if you convene and there is an outbreak of coronavirus among lawmakers, does it create a bigger governing crisis than if they had all just stayed home? And Sue, all of the House members who had gotten COVID-19 have all recovered, right?

Yes. I mean, in varying degrees of illness, some tested positive and felt fine and only got tested because they had been exposed. Others got really sick. I think the worst case has been Ben McAdams. He's a Democrat from Utah who very publicly sort of cataloged his dealings with coronavirus, but he tested positive. He had to be hospitalized. And otherwise, young, healthy male. So he was one of the hardest hit.

And again, young and healthy being key here. It's worth people really understanding that the Senate is an older chamber. Many of the members in it are over 65. Many of them have pre-existing conditions. They are exactly the vulnerable population that we are otherwise trying to protect right now. Exactly. Any sense of when the House might come back? There is some discussion. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said perhaps they could return the week after next. But again, we came into this scenario just a few days ago thinking the House was going to return on May 4. But the next day after announcing this, they said they weren't coming back. So this is really very fluid right now. So we could see them return in May, but it remains to be seen for sure.

All right, well, let's take another break. And when we get back, time for Can't Let It Go. The biggest story in the world is a science story. And keeping up with all the latest coronavirus research, it's a lot. So on Shortwave, we we talk about the things we couldn't let go this week, politics or otherwise. Claudia, what can't you let go this week? My Can't Let It Go goes to a little girl named Audrey. She is in Malaysia and she did this incredible cover of a song for one of my all-time favorite bands. This is Rage Against the Machine. They were actually due to reunite this summer for a tour after not performing together for more than 10 years. And I was so excited about this and like everything else, it got canceled because of coronavirus. So this little angel,

little Audrey, does this incredible performance along with her dad's help on guitar. Amazing cover. There's this very amazing quarantine scream in the middle of it that she gives. That's the toddler rage scream? That's it. I think we could all use the toddler rage scream that's it i think we could all use the toddler rage scream right now it's perfect the thing i love about this is that i would not have pegged you for a big rage fan you're like one of the sweetest most optimistic people on the washington desk and the idea that rage is like you're you're the band you need to go see is pretty amazing to me. Yeah, I know. I was like, are there mosh pits still? Because I'll do a mosh pit. But yeah, rage is what I need like today to get stuff done. Like if I need to run or something, rage is kind of what I need to hear.

But now maybe I'll listen to Audrey. She's like a different take on it. Okay, and so that takes us to you, Sue. What is your can't let it go this week? The thing I can't let go this week was my favorite tweet of the week because did you guys watch the show Homeland? Yes. No. Well, Homeland ended at its season or its series finale this weekend. I love that show.

We watched it for years. And one of the lead actors in it is Mandy Patinkin, who's a very well-known actor. And he's stuck at home in quarantine. He's stuck at home like the rest of us. And his son was taking videos of Mandy Patinkin and his mom, Mandy Patinkin's wife, and showing how sort of bumbling and comical his parents are. And the one he did is he was quizzing his parents on internet language. Like, do they know what these shorthand things mean? BRB, OMG. And Manny Patinkin and his wife have no clue what any of this very common internet speak is. Oh, so we're talking like basic level stuff. Very basic, like entry level.

L-M-A-O. What does it stand for? Let me. Dad, I need you. Ask later. L-M-A-O. What does it stand for? LMAO. Let me. Dad, I need you. Ask later. L-M-A-O. Let me. Let me ask. Alone. Let me alone, oaf. Let me alone, oaf.

Mandy Patinkin's version of LMAO is the thing I can't let go this week. And also, because Mandy Patinkin in this video is like the opposite of his character on Homeland, who is like the most plugged in together, like ahead of the curve thinker. And Mandy Patinkin is just like your adorable, lovable dad. And so, yeah, you're thinking this guy is the intelligence man. He knows everything, anything. And he fails most of the tests. They do get a few of them right, though.

I was impressed. They do get one right. They did get OMFG right, but we'll have to watch the video to see that one for yourself. Scott, why can't you let go this week? So it's been a stylish week for our podcast, and I'd like to talk about two quick versions of that. One, it's much more funny than the other, but let's walk through them both. First of all, I'm watching the presidential briefing at one point this week, and I've got my Twitter deck open. I'm focusing on other things, but suddenly a tweet pops up one point this week, and I've got my Twitter deck open.

As one does. See, I'm focused on other things, but suddenly a tweet pops up in my mention section, and it is from the fashion and style outlet Stylecaster. I'm like, okay. Big news, colon, Scott Detrow recently liked an old Kourtney Kardashian kiss Instagram photo. And I thought, oh, God. What have I done? First of all, I was not aware. I knew about Kim and Khloe, but I did not know Kourtney Kardashian was a Kardashian. And what seemed to

happen was very quickly cleared was the article was about Kourtney's, as I gather, ex-boyfriend, or maybe not. Scott Disick had liked an old photograph of Kourtney Kardashian. Yes, Kourtney Kardashian. But somebody at the outlet mixed him up with me, which I think is the first and only time that ever happened. I love that whoever mixed you up is maybe following you on Twitter. Like maybe it auto-populated and it like chose you instead. And they were like, they have very tastes over at Style Entertainment or whatever that, what is the site? Stylecaster. Stylecaster, which is not the most high profile. Maybe they're big podcast fans. Maybe.

And we appreciate it. But you know what? It's a much more high profile style outlet, the New York Times Style Section. And you know who was in the New York Times Style Section this weekend? Our friend, Kelsey Snell. And do you know why? Let's walk through all the different reasons that Kelsey Snell could be stylish enough to be mentioned in the New York Times style section. While there are many reasons, unfortunately, the reason is that a group of rats moved into her car engine.

So I just want to read. Tuesday was the first time in about a week that Kelsey Snell and her husband had attempted to drive their car. A clue something was amiss came from the vehicle's internal alert system. It gave us a really weird error message as we were driving away, said Ms. Snell, a congressional correspondent for NPR. The second clue was the rat fleeing her driveway. I've never seen rats in our driveway before, said Ms. Snell. They go on.

It turns out back in the driveway, Ms. Snell and her husband popped the hood, revealing as she said, quote, poop all over the engine as well as a puddle of rat urine. Horrified. Horrified. Snell tweeted, we have rats living in the engine. We, of course, all saw this and were totally horrified. Like our Slack channel was just screams. The horrifying thing about this story, too, is she said they called their car dealer to be like, hey, what's up? And the car dealer told them that they were like the fifth person that day to call with the same problem.

Apparently, it's like people aren't moving their cars as much, right? Because we're all stuck at home. And apparently rats in your engine is like, I didn't even. There's like so many things we have to worry about right now. Rats in my engine wasn't even in my like top 150. And now it's in like the top 15. Well, we all know that in the New York Times, like every other outlet is always looking for a good trend story.

And in fact, unfortunately, this is enough of a trend story all over the place. Rats without restaurants are losing their minds. So this leads to my favorite sentence of the article. Miss Snell, who had never previously shared her car with a rat, confirmed that such incidents had become all of a sudden super common within the past two or three weeks. So now you know. Still, she was in the style section, so I think that counts more than the rat issue, right? That's true. I mean, if you're going to be in the New York Times, at least it's about something like funny and something that happened to you

and not something bad you did. Yeah. Maybe she'll get an invite to the Met Ball next year. There's only one way. And maybe you will too, Scott. If you keep getting confused with the Kardashian boyfriends, you might get an invite too. We'll see.

All right. I think that's a wrap for this week. Our executive producer is Shirley Henry. Our editors are Mathoni Matori and Eric McDaniel. Our producers are Barton Girdwood and Chloe Weiner. Thanks to Lexi Schapittle, Elena Moore, Dana Farrington, and Brandon Carter. I'm Susan Davis. I cover Congress.

I'm Claudia Grisales. I cover Congress. And I'm Scott Detrow. I'm covering the White House. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast. podcast.