The NPR Politics Podcast - Weekly Roundup: May 28th

Episode Date: May 28, 2021

The country's reckoning with policing, racial equity, and representation have reshaped the contest to run the largest city in the U.S. And, Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand has pushed for eight years to change the way the military prosecutes sexual assaults. Now, it looks like her legislation could pass Congress.This episode: congressional correspondent Susan Davis, WNYC reporter Brigid Bergin, senior political editor and correspondent Domenico Montanaro, 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.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 Andrew from Western North Carolina, just outside of Asheville. Today, I am celebrating my 35th birthday, where I am now eligible to become President of the United States. Maybe I'll run in 2024. Who knows? Crazier things have happened. Today's episode was recorded at 1.11 p.m. on Friday, May 28th. Things might have changed by the time you hear this. I'd also like to say happy birthday to all you other May babies. Oh, happy birthday. I love that Western North Carolina accent.

It's so genteel. It's so smooth. Now you're making me think of barbecue. It is lunchtime. You can have that after the podcast. Hey there. It's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Susan Davis. I cover Congress.

I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. And today we have got Bridget Bergen from WNYC here with us. Thank you for joining us, Bridget. It's great to be here. We wanted to have you on because we want to talk about New York's mayor race. New York is in the middle of a very crowded race right now for the upcoming June 22nd primary. I know I speak for Domenico when I say we always find New York politics interesting, but this mayor's race has been being watched closely, especially by Democrats, because it mirrors some of the broader political dynamics we're seeing playing out in the country

right now. So I want to start by asking you just about the candidates. What are the lanes, the progressives versus the moderates? What's sort of the political tension in this Democratic primary? Sure. So, Susan, like you said, it is a very crowded field. There are actually 13 candidates on the ballot for mayor for the Democratic ballot. You know, there hasn't been a lot of great public polling, but at this point, the candidates who really are more centrist to the right have been dominating this race.

And in that, we're talking about Eric Adams, who's a former New York City police officer and city elected official. Catherine Garcia, who was most recently the city's sanitation commissioner under Mayor de Blasio. She also scored the coveted New York Times endorsement. And then, of course, former presidential candidate Andrew Yang. You know, they all three are running more moderate campaigns now to a lesser extent, but still considered, you know, candidates to watch in this race are the city's controller, Scott Stringer,

former MSNBC analyst and attorney for de Blasio, Maya Wiley, and Diane Morales. She's a former nonprofit executive and really a newcomer to city politics. Those three candidates really occupy the progressive lane and have sort of been competing with each other to secure progressive endorsements, but none of them have really pulled above those other three more moderate candidates. Domenico, a lot of these names are new to most of our listeners. I'm sure they probably haven't heard of most of these candidates, with the exception of Andrew Yang, who was obviously one of the 2020 Democratic primary candidates. How unusual is it to see someone like him in a race like this following a presidential run? Well, there might have been a lot of people

who watched the presidential race who didn't even know Andrew Yang was from New York. I would include myself in that. I mean, I think the number one thing about being mayor of New York is like someone with an outsized personality usually has been, you know, aside from maybe David Dinkins back in the early 90s, who some would say gave rise to Rudy Giuliani and his sort of tough on crime tactics. But you've had a lot of people from Ed Koch all the way through Giuliani to Mike Bloomberg, who are people of huge personalities, the size of the city in some respects, who, you know, really command the spotlight. They're able to get lots

of attention. Their names are talked about nationally. And that's just not the case in New York this time around. I think it's confused, probably a lot of people who live in the boroughs and aren't sure who to vote for and might be making up their minds, you know, as the election nears. And by the way, it's getting pretty darn close. Yeah. Well, one of the reasons that I have been kind of obsessing about this race is because of what's driving voters right now or what voters in New York say is driving them. And poll after poll says that crime and concerns about rising violence are the number one concern for voters. And part of why I think that's so interesting in New York City of all places is this is a place where the pandemic was like, you know, hit some of the hardest, right? I would

just would have thought that pandemic recovery or economic recovery would be a dominant force. So Bridget, I would just put it to you. What's driving the fears in New York about crime? How bad is it in the city right now? So I think some of it is a perception. You know, we are coming out of eight years under Mayor de Blasio, where, you know, he consistently talked about historic lows in crime, you know, the safest big city in the nation. And it's true, right now, we are seeing some of those numbers go in the wrong direction, you know, shooting incidents up 80% this year so far. Murders are up by 20%. Hate crimes are an issue within the Asian American community and within the city's

Jewish community. But what we're also seeing is some of that gun violence that, you know, has been a real issue for certain communities across the city throughout this entire time. We are seeing that impact communities that are, you know, the tourist destinations, you know, there was a shooting in Times Square not long ago, where there was a four year old who was injured and outside of a popular steakhouse in Brooklyn. So certainly the perception of crime and the concerns about public safety are very real. And something that those moderate candidates that I talked about, I think, are seizing on more so.

There's this tension in New York between, you know, people who are old enough to remember the bad old days in the 70s and 80s and, you know, taking subways with graffiti all over them, you know, compared to people who might not remember those days, you know, they just sort of remember and know like a slick, clean Times Square that a lot of people give Giuliani some credit for, you know, Bloomberg sort of brought a lot of development to the city and the outskirts also into places like Brooklyn, and Long Island City and Queens. And that's sort of the New York reputation that it was having. But you have some of these older voters in the boroughs who remember those bad old days, definitely don't want to go back to it. And then yet you have this younger generation

of voters who are far more progressive than we've ever seen really in New York City. And I think those two things playing off each other, this is the first election we're really going to see which of those kind of wins out. Well, one of the things I'm curious about this race is because this crime rate thing is not happening in a vacuum in New York. I mean, crime rates are rising, including those homicide rates in basically every major city all over the country. And Domenico, I wonder if Democrats should have a greater cause for concern here going into 2022 if crime and violence continues to be a top tier cause of concern for voters. It almost feels like it's a bit of a backlash to the defund the police movement that we saw sort of capture the Democratic Party in the past year.

Well, listen, as COVID concerns start to fade away some, you know, we're seeing that nationally where President Biden is going to be, you know, we're seeing that nationally where President Biden is going to be, you know, facing a lot of these other vulnerabilities, things that he's trying to take on things like immigration, for example, but in New York, you know, and in big cities across the country, it's about democratic stewardship, in a lot of ways, and that can reflect more nationally on the party, you know, and Republicans are sort of Republicans are sort of right there eager to see problems in a lot of these cities so that they can take over management, take over some ownership, and peg that, by the way, to Biden, Democrats, and quote unquote, the radical left and the kinds of

places and cities that they're trying to build and try to use that against him, against Biden, if he runs in 2024. And, you know, look, if former President Trump runs in 2024, that is absolutely going to be a central issue for him. This is also the first time the New York mayor's race is going to be decided using a different kind of balloting. They're going to be using ranked choice voting, also known as instant runoff voting. Bridget, how does that process of how they're electing candidates impact the race? It has thrown people into a state of complete confusion. You know, it's not that ranking candidates is in itself that complicated, but it is the first time that voters, candidates, campaigns,

strategists, pollsters, everybody in New York City is wrapping their head around, you know, how this will play out. One thing I would say about the ranked choice voting that I think a lot of voters are probably not prepared for is when we're going to get the results here in New York City. Y'all take too long. You take too long with your election results up there. Yeah, based on the latest estimates, and some of this is because of, you know, election reforms that are, you know, intended to prevent disenfranchisement, you know, allowing people to cure absentee ballots, etc. But the Board of Elections is saying probably around July 12th. What?

I just wanted to put that out there. I did not know that. Oh, wow. Well, Bridget Brigham of WNYC, thank you so much for coming on and explaining all this to you. It sounds like we might need to have you back as late as July to actually figure out who won the mayor's race. Happy to do it. Thanks so much. All right, we're going to take a quick break. And when we get back, we're going to talk about one senator's plan to change how sexual assaults are handled in the military. On NPR's rough translation, there's just fewer people that know somebody that's in the military.

After 20 years of war, are civilians and military farther apart than ever? They were asking me, do you want to hear this? Do you want to know us? Listen to Homefront, the new season of Rough Translation. And we're back and Claudia Grisales is here now. Hey, Claudia. Hi there. So you have been reporting on what has been a longstanding plan from Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, she's a Democrat from eight years now. It would reform the military's criminal justice system. She and other supporters want to see major criminal cases such as sexual assault, murder, manslaughter, some of these really serious crimes moved from the hands of the chain of command, moved away from commanders who don't have any legal expertise and into the hands of experienced legal prosecutors, people who are familiar with how to run these cases.

The concern that she has had is that these crimes are continuing to climb for the military, but prosecution rates are falling specifically for sex assault-related cases and other similar crimes. And she wants to see that turned around. You know, this has been one of those fights that has tied up the Senate for years. I mean, Gillibrand went to war a couple years ago with former Missouri Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill. I covered that fight. She lost it because McCaskill and a bunch of other senators didn't want to remove this authority from the military. The military obviously had a lot of support among senators in both parties. But now there seems to be a surprising amount of support for this in today's Senate. So how

did Gillibrand build this sort of new consensus? You know, she has been relentless in terms of talking about the failures for the Pentagon in terms of improving these numbers of turning around these case rates, because they've tried all sorts of different things legislatively, working directly with the Pentagon to see if they could turn this around. And as we mentioned, you know, it's been several years now, she has sponsored this since 2013. And instead of improving, it's gotten worse. And so over time, she's been able to win these supporters. And it's made for some very strange bedfellows. And they include Ted Cruz from Texas, Bernie Sanders of Vermont. Sanders,

of course, is an independent. Cruz is a very conservative Republican. So it just illustrates to you just kind of the wide interest that she's drawn in the Senate to the point now where she does have 65 supporters, sponsors now, and they could pass it on the floor today if they wanted. Yeah, and it looked like the key supporter who sponsored it with her was Joni Ernst of Iowa, right? How important was getting her on board, given her experience in the military, and what she went through, how important was that to sort of unlocking this slate of other Republicans? That's a good question. She is such a game

changer because other Republicans have signed on for years. For example, her colleague, Ernst's colleague in Iowa, Chuck Grassley, longtime Republican senator, has been on this bill since the beginning as well. But when Ernst signed on, the dam broke. She was able to get into that majority. And Ernst just has this incredible story. She is a sex assault survivor herself. This was before she went into the military. And she's a veteran combat company commander. So she has that military experience. She served in Iraq.

She knows how these commanders play a role in these cases. And she was a holdout until this year. She and Jill Brown worked together. She pitched this idea of let's look at more prevention measures that we can include in this legislation, more cameras, more security for our military facilities. And so together they've made quite a team and they just drew so many more supporters, among them Tim Kaine of Virginia. He actually was one of the holdouts, Democrat, and he signed on. So it's really interesting in terms of the shift we've seen this year, just in the last few weeks. I mean, and you do see the fact that, you know, you've had this tension in the Senate in particular that, you know, they sort of are deferential to the military for the most part.

And I think this kind of legislation, you know, would make an older Senate, one of a different era, one that's more male, be more uncomfortable, right? So how important is it, the fact that you now have a quarter of the Senate women, even though that's still not representative, women making up more than half of the electorate, obviously, and only eight women who are Republican senators, how important is that sort of growing number of women in the Senate to get this kind of legislation passed? I think that's been really key here because we're also talking about female veterans in the chamber who are very familiar with this issue. So they're going to bring that experience to the floor, to this legislation when they talk about it and say

how much frustration there is. They haven't seen this shift. And it just adds a whole new wave of momentum. That said, you know, there's still some holdouts. Even Gillibrand's own Democratic colleague who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee, they both sit on this panel. And there's a difference of opinion in terms of what crime should be pulled out of the chain of command. It seems like everybody is easily on board, the majority needed, and even some military leaders have signaled support for pulling these sex-related crimes out of the chain of command. But other serious crimes like murder and manslaughter, that's what Reid and other

members are still kind of considering and wondering. Maybe we're moving too fast here and need to reconsider this. You mentioned Reid. That's obviously Jack Reid, the chairman of the Armed Services Committee. He's not on board with this legislation in its current form. So how big of a roadblock is that for Gillibrand if the chairman of the committee doesn't want to bring it up just yet. So he is a roadblock if she wants to get this approved right away on the floor. That's what she was trying this past week, three nights in a row, taking to the floor, asking for its approval. And there was Jack Reed saying, I object, I object, I object. And so it slows down the legislation's path. They really wanted to move it through. They're so excited they have these 65 sponsors. Reed wants to take it back to the committee, put it through that process. So it slows it down. But ultimately, whether it goes

through the committee process or it gets added on the Senate floor, it still has a path forward. This is the defense bill, and it's kind of a sure shot in terms of legislation that gets through every year on a bipartisan basis. So the bets are on that it will get on there. But what form it gets on there, if it's through the committee or the floor, that's what we have to wait and see. Also, Claudia, before we wrap on the Senate, I think we have to bring up, it's been kind of a crazy 24 to 72 hours trying to get out of town for the Memorial Day weekend. Two big questions of legislation, one we know the answer to, one we don't. Can you catch us up to speed on the fate of the January

6th Commission and as well as on sort of competitive legislation with China that's been a big priority for Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer? Yes, we finally saw this big anticipated vote on the Senate floor for the January 6th commission to look into this attack on the Capitol. And it failed as we expected. This was a procedural vote to move on to the underlying bill to create this commission. And even that vote failed. They weren't able to move past it. We saw a majority of Senate Republicans vote against it. Only six of their members voted with Democrats to try and push this commission through, and they needed 60 votes, so they fell short. So we did see that commission effort fail. There was a lot of disappointment, along with this

bill focused on ramping up competition with China. There was a lot of expectations that that would be wrapped up in a pretty bow by yesterday. Instead, they go until about 3 a.m. this morning, try to pick it up again. So it was a disappointing day for bipartisanship all around, and they're going to have to try again, at least on this China bill, when they get back from the Memorial Day recess. I like to just call that a typical Thursday in the Senate these days. All right, let's take a quick break. And when we get back, it's time for Can't Let It Go. Support for NPR and the following message come from BetterHelp,

offering online counseling. BetterHelp therapist Hesu Jo shares the unique benefits of therapy. Being in therapy is this very intimate, unique experience to have this other person see you, this other person acknowledge who you are and accept all of it, you know, and like figure out the bits and pieces that you don't want to accept to change that stuff for the better. Even if you're not struggling with something necessarily, but you just want to learn a little bit more about who you are, you want to function a little bit better in your relationships with people or change the way that you approach habits. Doing that together with somebody else can be very powerful and impactful to talk this out and process this together as two humans.

To get matched with a counselor and get 10% off your first month, go to betterhelp.com slash politics. And we're back and it's time to end the week like we always do where we share the one thing we can't let go of politics or otherwise. Domenico, what can't you let go of this week? I cannot let go of cocaine and the risky sex habits of quails go on oh my oh my and that's the reaction that senator ran paul wants you and other americans to have and that's because he went to the senate floor by the way i should say again with a graphic that depicts a quail with its with well it depicts a quail first with its head buried under a scar face like mountain of cocaine, presumably under over its head. And it says cocaine and risky habits of risky sex habits of quail.

Three hundred and fifty six thousand nine hundred and thirty three dollars point one four. Oh, which is actually a footnote, not 14 cents. We'll get to that in a second but yeah he's trying to make this point about wasteful spending in government and not giving this money for research and development of uh japanese quails and giving them cocaine which there's a whole lot kind of wrong with this and we can get to some of that but it's an amazing visual and that's why he keeps using it so are we funding cocaine-fueled quail sex or are we trying to what part of the quail sex are we funding

are we also buying the drugs are we just funding so many questions so many questions first things first though is that this doesn't actually even exist in what the Biden budget would be giving. Wow. This is something that Paul has been using. I just just doing a quick Google search of Rand Paul quail cocaine brings up him talking about this in 2019 on Facebook, 2018 on the Senate floor, 2017 in a hearing. OK, so this is something he's been using and talking about for a while. The government, this line that would go to an agency within the government to like, you know, look at this study or potential of this study is actually phased out five years ago. So there's actually no money at all going toward that.

You might say this is his pet cause. His pet cause. Nice. That's a Domenico joke right there. Well, Sue, what's your can't let it go? I actually have a politics can't let it go this week. I feel like it's been a while. Maybe this is another sign that nature is healing,

that politics are back as my cligs. But what I can't let go is an event today between President Biden, who was down in Virginia, touting COVID recovery, standing alongside Virginia Governor Ralph Northam. Northam, as I'm sure you all both know, was the center of a big scandal back in 2019 because it was revealed that he had worn blackface and he had become sort of persona non grata in the Democratic Party. Many people, including Joe Biden, called on him

to resign at the time. Biden saying at the time that Northam had, quote, lost all moral authority and should resign immediately. Wow. And today, Biden sounded very differently. Gov, I really mean this. I'm not being political. You've done one hell of a job, Doc. You've done a hell of a job and it matters. It matters. Wow. The reason I can't let it go is I, you know, and I think Domenico, we've talked about this and for about other politicians in the podcast, Donald Trump, certainly in this column, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo in this column, that we're sort of living in this post-shame

era of politics. I think Northam sort of set a new standard that if you can ride out the storm, you might be able to survive. And I think we've seen a lot of politicians who in other times and other worlds might have resigned, might have left. But if you just stick it around and ride out the news cycle, the president could be standing next to you not too long after that, praising your work as governor. Yeah. Isn't there like an hbo show called shameless or whatever i feel like that's like our politicians yes yeah i feel like our politicians could easily star in uh in in one of these you know picturings you know the guy on the on the railroad tracks uh you know i won't say what he was doing but you know yeah but i think like

using the playbook now right like cuomo in New York is using the same playbook. You could argue Matt Gaetz, the Republican congressman from Florida who's under his own butt of scandal. Like the pressure for politicians to get out of office even when people in their own party are calling for them to leave just doesn't seem to matter anymore in politics. And it's a little bit of an obsession of mine. Hey, Claudia, what can't you let go of this week? So maybe mine is politics adjacent. At least it takes place in a place where a lot of that goes down. That's the Capitol. And it involves the chief congressional correspondent at CNN. Oh, Manu Raju. Yes. Hardest working man

in show business. Exactly. And wow, did he have to work hard recently with a cicada they caught it before a live shot on camera he had no idea that there was a cicada on his jacket just casually just crawling up i saw the video yes and to his neck and so you're wondering is someone going to stop this is someone going to save him but no he feels something in the back. Oh, oh my God. And he grabs it and rips it off. And then a slew of profanities come after, which I relate to. Cicada. What the hell?

Do I have more on me? Are they any my hair? I myself am almost in nearly a new lockdown, avoiding the cicadas. Different kind of quarantine. Exactly. And I have a little side story if we have time for it. I was chased by a cicada in Texas growing up there. They're everywhere.

Yes. A kid was chasing me in third grade and somehow I fell. I didn't know that my head, when I was laying on the ground, struggling away from the cicada, that my head was in a mound of fire ants. And so they all got over me. I probably ended up with thousands of bites. So since that moment in time, I hate cicadas. So when you in recent weeks said, oh, the cicadas are coming, Sue, you were saying the cicadas are coming. We can do this. No, I cannot do it. I don't know how anybody does it. So God bless them for his calm in that

horrific moment. I think the forecast is like around July 4th, they're supposed to leave the DC area. So I have to be in lockdown until then. I love that you're like fully vaccinated, but you're like, you know what? I'm still going to have to keep working from home. Not against cicadas, Sue. That's true. There is no cure. I know. There's no cure. All right.

That is it for us this week. We'll be back in your feeds on Monday. Enjoy your Memorial Day weekend. Our executive producer is Shirley Henry. Our editors are Mathoni Mottori and Eric McDaniel. Our producers are Barton Girdwood and Chloe Weiner. Thanks to Lexi Schapittle and Brandon Carter. Our intern is Claire Obie. I'm Susan Davis. I cover Congress. I'm Claudia Grisales. I also cover Congress. And I'm

Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. And thanks for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.