The NPR Politics Podcast - Weekly Roundup: November 27th

Episode Date: November 27, 2020

This Black Friday we're bringing you a greatest hits of NPR podcasts. Many other shows have been looking at specific policy options on the table for Joe Biden. Planet Money has looked at economic policy, and Short Wave has been looking at climate policy. So we invited them onto our show to share their reporting and take a look at what Biden might do starting on day one.And as a bonus, we sat down with Pop Culture Happy Hour to talk about the tv shows we're missing when we're spending all our time watching the news.This episode: congressional correspondent Susan Davis, political correspondent Asma Khalid, White House reporter Ayesha Rascoe, Planet Money's Jacob Goldstein, climate reporter Rebecca Hersher, and Pop Culture Happy Hour's Aisha Harris.Connect:Subscribe to the NPR Politics Podcast here.Email the show at [e-mail] the NPR Politics Podcast Facebook Group.Listen to our playlist The NPR Politics Daily Workout.Subscribe to the NPR Politics Newsletter.Find and support your local public radio station.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hey there, before we start the show, we have some news. We're hosting a virtual live show next Thursday, December 3rd at 8 p.m. Eastern. We're calling it Politics After Dark. That means we'll talk about the news, of course, but we'll also give you a behind-the-scenes look at what it's been like to cover this election during the pandemic. And we'll quiz you on your political knowledge, too. We've really missed doing live shows, so we hope you'll join us. Head to nprpresents.org to RSVP.

Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Susan Davis. I cover Congress. And I'm Asma Khalid. I cover the Biden transition. And today we're going to do something a little bit different. It's Black Friday, which is all about finding a good deal. And today on the show, we have got a great podcast deal for you. We're going to give you four NPR podcasts all in one. Our friends at NPR's Planet Money and Shortwave have been looking into key parts of Biden's plans for his presidency. And so we've invited them onto our podcast to talk through some of their reporting. We're going to start with Jacob Goldstein from NPR's Planet Money podcast.

Hey, Jacob. Hi. How do you get to four, by the way? I get you guys and us in shortwave. Isn't that three? That's a great question. We will have an extra segment with NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour at the end where we don't talk about politics at all, I promise.

Great. Jacob, real fast, could you explain Planet Money if someone's never heard of it? Sure. Planet Money is basically a podcast about economics for people who don't yet know that they love economics. I love that description. I find that that would be a very accurate description of your show. That's even better than an elevator pitch and faster too. Yeah, who wants to be on an elevator now? You gotta be faster. So a couple of weeks ago, y'all did an episode on President-elect Biden and what he could do to tackle the economic challenges he's going to inherit, especially

if Congress is still divided, which could be very likely. And you broke it down into four Bs. What are they? So the four Bs are banks, bureaucrats, billions, and the burbs, as in suburbs. Okay, well, let's talk about two of those today. Let's start with banks. What do you mean there? Okay, so banks, I actually found this really interesting policy proposal, something Biden can do without Congress, from a guy named Aaron Klein. He used to work at the Senate Banking Committee and at the Treasury Department. Now he's at Brookings. And so I called him up to talk about this idea of his. The show I'm doing is basically things, economic things Biden can do without Congress. And you just wrote a nice listicle

to that effect. Thank you. And there was one sentence in particular that jumped out at me that I want to talk to you about. Okay. That sentence is, all banks should be required to offer low-cost, no overdraft, safe bank accounts. Can Biden make banks do that? Yes. So why would that be a big deal? The very short answer is because there are millions and millions of people in this country right now who don't have bank accounts.

The slightly longer answer is it's bad and weirdly expensive to not have a bank account. You know, I mean, it's dangerous. You have to carry cash around. It's inconvenient. It's hard to pay your bills. And also it is it's expensive. You know, people without bank accounts wind up using sort of alternative financial services like check cashing stores that are that are expensive. So, you know, one thing I will say, Jacob, I think this idea about making kind of universal accessible banking is really interesting,

though I will like put the brakes on it a bit, just saying that I think realistically, Biden is going to come into office in January with extremely limited political capital, if, say, Republicans maintain control of the Senate. And so I do wonder, like, what he can do via executive orders or, say, through the Treasury Department, especially in this moment when we're looking at growing unemployment, as we saw just this week, in a situation where millions of people could potentially face this economic cliff if Congress does not pass another stimulus bill. And so, you know, a lot of what I've been hearing, to be blunt, kind of in the economic orbit from Biden's world recently has been this focus on the need to pass a stimulus

bill and the need for that to happen during the lame duck session. I mean, they are very concerned with these kind of like immediate economic crisis. And so I do wonder, you know, to what you're saying, Jacob, if like there's just so much of a need to kind of like plug the sink and stop people from falling off of this economic cliff, that they are so focused on that and the crisis in the moment that these other more creative solutions are just something that they're not able to do immediately. Oh, that certainly seems right. I mean, this is not like some day one thing, you know, nor should it be, right? I mean, to your point, there are more urgent problems in the economy right now. And, you know, it's possible that this won't happen at all. I will say one thing that makes me think it's plausible in the medium term, you know, presumably the current crisis will pass relatively early in Biden's administration.

So there will be more time to do other stuff. One thing that makes me think this might happen is that just this fall, the American Bankers Association, which is this big national trade group of banks, they themselves said that banks should offer these kinds of accounts, right? So obviously, banks are politically powerful. This seems like it would be a politically popular thing. It certainly is no substitute for, nor is it as urgent as addressing these terrible immediate problems. But like medium term, it seems quite reasonable. And the fact that the banks themselves seem kind of into it makes it seem plausible. Another B on your list is billions, as in the high tariffs that are still in place on goods that come from China. These are tariffs that President Trump put in place. He did it without Congress. What are Biden's options here?

So for this one, I called up one of the smartest trade reporters I know, a reporter named Samaya Keynes, who works at The Economist magazine. He said he will reevaluate the tariffs, right? And so thanks, Mr. President-elect, for giving us so much detail on that. So that's interesting, right? I mean, it's interesting that he did not say, as he said with other things President Trump has done, he did not say, look, I'm just going to get rid of all this and we're going to go back to where we were four years ago. That seems maybe significant. Yeah. I mean, I don't think there are that

many votes to be won right now and being softer on China. And so I think there was a political point there. You know, one thing you could do is keep the tariffs on and use them as some kind of leverage to get something out of the Chinese. You know, if you decided that you want to lower them because it's good for your economy, then you might as well get something out of it. What is the orbit of things that Biden could consider trying to extract from China by keeping the tariffs in place? Like, what is he trying to negotiate here? So they actually mentioned one in particular that she said Biden himself had mentioned during the campaign. And that is, it's a little wonky, but it's actually quite interesting. So there are these rules that China has in place for certain foreign businesses, U.S. businesses

that want to go do business in China. The rules require these businesses, in many instances, to form a partnership with Chinese companies, a joint venture. And U.S. businesses don't like this, basically. You know, they say that Chinese companies take our intellectual property. They say that Chinese businesses are often not equal partners. You know, because of the political dynamics, they tend to have more power in the relationship. So U.S. businesses for a long time have been asking for China to ease these rules. So one thing that seems likely or at least possible is that Biden could say to China, OK, we will lower these tariffs if you ease up on these partnership, on these joint venture rules. You know, I was struck, Jacob, by what Sumayya said there about the political calculations at play, because throughout the campaign cycle, there were these moments. And I would say we saw this actually a bit initially in the spring with coronavirus on the rise, where both Donald Trump and Joe Biden tried to present who was kind of weaker on China. And then as we moved further into the general election cycle. Biden actually created his own nationalist economic agenda, right?

He has this plan called Made in America. And while it's not necessarily about trade specifically with China per se, it is a, you know, it's a nationalist economic agenda. It is a focus on ensuring that goods and services, particularly when, you know, the federal government's involved in procuring these government contracts, that the federal government focuses on buying goods and services produced in the United States. One thing to keep in mind is there are lots of places where the tariffs that President Trump put in effect are still in effect, where there are industries that just don't exist

at significant scale in the U.S. You know, shoes, you know, I'm sure there are a few manufacturers who make these scale in the U.S. You know, shoes, you know, I'm sure there are a few manufacturers who make these things in the U.S., but the vast majority of what we buy, we import, right? So there's plenty of space, I would think, for President-elect Biden to have a sort of protectionist agenda and still lower a lot of these tariffs. All right, that's all the time we have for today, but there's still two more things that y'all talked about on Planet Money, bureaucrats and the burbs. Be sure to check out their podcast for more. And Jacob, thank you so much for joining us.

Oh, it was fun. Thanks for having me. We're going to take a quick break. And when we get back, we're talking about the future of climate change policy with NPR Shortwave. This message comes from NPR sponsor Headspace. Life can be stressful, but 2020 has challenged even the most difficult times of life. You need stress relief that goes beyond quick fixes. That's Headspace. Headspace is your daily dose of mindfulness in the form of guided meditations and an easy-to-use app. Overwhelmed? Headspace has a three-minute SOS meditation for you. Go to headspace.com

slash NPR for a free month trial with access to Headspace's full library of meditations for every situation. Support also comes from Crown, publisher of Barack Obama's A Promised Land, the first volume of his presidential memoirs. Obama reflects on the campaign that led to the White House and the early years of his presidency, navigating the challenges facing our nation at home and abroad. He shares portraits of his team, world leaders, and cabinet and Congress members, and describes his inspirations and quiet moments with family. A Promised Land is available wherever books and audiobooks are sold. Visit obamabook.com slash NPR for more information. Mitch McConnell might be the most powerful Republican in Washington today, but when he started in politics, he knew he had a lot of work to do. He knew that he just was completely lacking in that natural political charisma

and that he was going to have to find other ways to win. How Mitch won and kept winning on NPR's Embedded Podcast. And we're back. And for the next podcast in our NPR podcast palooza, we're teaming up with NPR's Shortwave. And we're joined by NPR climate reporter Becky Harsher. Hey, Becky. Hey. So you're a frequent guest on Shortwave, which is our daily science podcast that launched, I think, a little over a year ago now. Recently, y'all did an episode about the Trump administration's decision to exit the Paris climate agreement. Can you remind us what that agreement did and why it was such a big deal? Yes, yes, yes, yes.

It is only the most comprehensive international climate agreement ever. No biggie. So it was negotiated under the Obama administration. The U.S. was really crucial in getting it done, which was actually a really big change. Like, it's easy to forget this, but up until then, the U.S. had a reputation for being like the problem child, like the skunk at the house party when it came to climate change. Right. But 2015, the U.S. leads these negotiations in Paris, gets it signed, brings China to the table. It's a really

big deal. Basically, every country in the world joins this thing. And what it does is it requires that every country make a promise to do something about climate change. So reduce greenhouse gas emissions for the most part. And every country gets to decide what's right for them based on what they like, what they can do. The U.S. ended up kind of in the middle in terms of its promise to reduce greenhouse gases. And then President Trump announced that he was withdrawing the U.S. from the agreement just a few months after he took office. And that process, it takes a few years. It was finalized the day after the most recent election. Just a weird coincidence. So the U.S. is now the only country that has left the Paris Agreement. What was the rationale that the Trump administration gave for why they wanted to get out of it?

It was mostly economic, honestly. There was a little bit of sovereignty stuff thrown in there. So the main argument was that reducing greenhouse gas emissions would hurt the U.S. economy by getting rid of jobs and oil and gas and coal. So that's one argument. The other argument that some members of the administration, some members of the Republican Party made was the U.S. had made stronger promises than some of its adversaries, its competitors like China and Russia, and that being part of the Paris Agreement was making the U.S. weaker internationally. And I have to say here, economists and climate scientists inside the federal government have been publishing studies for years that show that not addressing climate change would be devastating to the U.S. economy.

But it's really scary to a lot of people to imagine that the energy sector would change really dramatically, really fast. So that was one of the big driving things. Yeah. So it's interesting, you know, to hear the argument from the Trump administration about this being partly about the economy and about jobs, because, you know, much of what Biden was saying throughout the campaign cycle about climate was that this is an economic and jobs argument to support, you know, sort of a major investment in green infrastructure. So, you know, you hear both sides of the aisle, I guess, making an economic argument for climate, but they are polar opposite arguments. Yeah, exactly. President-elect Biden has been campaigning all along saying that if he were to win, he'd rejoin the agreement. I wonder, especially now that the U.S. has officially withdrawn from it, is it that simple?

Can you just jump right back into it? You can, actually. It was designed to be hard to leave and easy to rejoin for exactly this reason. And it's kind of funny because the U.S. led that because at the time, the Obama administration was worried that some other government would change leadership and some other country would try to leave. It turns out the U.S. was the one who did it. But yes, on day one, the State Department can go to the U.N. and say, hey, we want back in. There's a short waiting period and then the U.S. will be back.

The thing is, the U.S. will be way behind on greenhouse gas emissions because U.S. greenhouse gas emissions are falling really slowly. So the Biden administration will have to do a lot. You know, it'll really have its work cut out for it. And the rest of the world will be watching, I think, with some realistically low expectations, because the US hasn't followed through on its promises so far under Paris. So they'll have to really go big if they want to get the US back in the game. Climate policy is one that I think is an issue that proves how stark the divide is between Democrats and Republicans. I mean, Democrats all across the board have said climate policy is sort of their number one priority. They've put forward all kinds of ideas to combat it. What exactly, Asma, has Biden said he's going to do on this front?

So he hasn't endorsed the Green New Deal, right, which is something that we've heard from folks on the progressive left of the Democratic Party pushing for. But what he did announce during the campaign cycle was this $2 trillion climate plan. You know, I do think there are questions about what and how Biden can enact some of these campaign promises. And in fact, already just last week, we saw, you know, a number of grassroots activists rallying outside of the Democratic Party's headquarters, trying to push the president-elect to maintain these promises specifically on climate. And you saw folks like, you know, Senator Ed Markey and New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez at that rally saying, we helped organize for you. We want to make sure you fulfill your promises specifically on climate change. That all being said, you know, I just feel like there are a lot of incoming crises that the incoming administration is going to have to deal with. And I don't know that climate change will

be at the top of the list. That all being said, you know, it is noteworthy that just this week, Biden began to announce names of some of the appointees that he's going to have in his administration. And one name that he announced is former Secretary of State John Kerry to be this special envoy on climate. And he said that John Kerry in that position will sit on his National Security Council. And I mean, that is a sign of how elevated he feels this issue is. And that's a big deal. You know, John Kerry is very trusted in the international community when it comes to climate change policy. And we have also learned that the Biden team is planning to appoint a second person who will be sort of the domestic

counterpart to Kerry. And that person will be within the White House, will help lead domestic policy to reduce greenhouse gases. And even if they're not called climate change policies. So I think that's important to say is for example, infrastructure or a job spill will be going into probably a pretty long economic recovery. There are a lot of things that could affect our emissions, that could be labeled as other things going forward. On the issues of the actual climate policy, Becky, what is sort of the challenges immediately facing the Biden administration right now? There's sort of a laundry list of executive order ready things that the Biden administration will

need to look at. So power plants, especially coal firedfired power plants, they're sending a ton of carbon pollution into the atmosphere. And the Biden administration is going to have to figure out what to do about that. The Obama administration's clean power plan was struck down by the Supreme Court. So they're going to have to figure out, do they want to approach that with an executive order maybe? Cars and especially trucks are a big problem for climate change. The new administration will need to work with auto companies to figure out how to slash those emissions, maybe without the help of Congress. And then everyone's favorite campaign topic, fracking, you know, oil and gas operations. More generally, they're releasing a lot of the most intensive greenhouse gases.

So, again, that is going to be something that the Biden administration has to deal with. But there is some more positive stuff. I feel like whenever the science gets involved in politics, it's just doom and gloom. But, you know, clean fuels like hydrogen, you know, the federal government will probably need to play a role in trying to get those off the ground. Building up solar and wind, expanding public transit, making buildings more efficient, you know, especially if we're looking at an economic recovery. Those have long been some of the areas that the federal government likes to spend money on when they're

trying to put cash into the economy. So I would look there. All right. We're going to leave it there for now. But you can hear reporting from Becky and the rest of NPR's science team on the Shortwave podcast five days a week. Becky, thanks so much for joining us. Thanks. And Asma, I'm going to say goodbye to you, too. I'll talk to you soon. Bye, Sue. Have a good weekend. And we're going to take a quick break. And when we get back, we're going to talk about what you should watch when you're tired of watching the news with NPR's Pop Culture Happy keep up. We update stories as they evolve every hour. So no matter when you listen, you get the news as close to live as possible on your schedule. Subscribe to or follow the NPR News Now podcast. And we're back. And to end this NPR podcast palooza, we're bringing in one of our friends from NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour,

Aisha Harris. Hey, Aisha. Hey, Susan. And we have our own Aisha here, Aisha Rasko. Hey, Aisha. Hey. I think it's fair to say that this is the NPR Aisha crossover event of 2020. That everyone's been waiting for. Yes. Yes. Aisha, I'm sorry that I haven't had a chance to meet you in person yet, but you've come on full time to Pop Culture Happy Hour, which, you know, is our podcast that talks all about the biggest moments in film and TV. But just like the NPR Politics podcast, you guys just went daily. We did. a great opportunity, especially now in 2020, when there's just, we all have so much time, or maybe you don't have a lot of time, but we have more time than we might have before during this pandemic. And we're looking for things to, you know, make us feel good, to take us away from all the craziness that's happening. And so what we hope we're able to do with this five days

a week is to just make recommendations for you, things that we like, things that maybe we're a little bit more on the fence on, but sort of serve as a concierge of sorts to help you figure out like what's worth listening to, watching and reading. So listeners of our podcast have heard for the past couple of weeks, we've been advertising for Pop Culture Happy Hour in our show breaks. And we've been saying that if you need a break from the news, listen to it. And we're going into a holiday weekend. I know I can speak for myself. I don't want to speak for Aisha, that I could use a break from politics. I would like to think about things that have not involving the election or Washington. So we brought you on because we basically are really eager to hear what you would recommend us do this holiday weekend if we don't want to check into the news. Yes, well, it was it was very hard to narrow it down. Because I think that

despite everything that's happened this year, there's been so much really great movies and TV that have been coming out. And so one of my recommendations is this very under the radar show called Betty. It premiered on HBO earlier this year. And it's a really interesting, easy, quick binge. It's six half hour episodes. And it's based off of Crystal Malzell, the filmmaker, her 2018 film Skate Kitchen. And that movie starred a bunch of female skateboarders,

like real actual skateboarders. And it was about sort of their lives and what it's like to be a woman in this very male dominated profession. When I first watched it, we had just gone under lockdown. And so watching it was kind of a shock to me because it was weird to see all these people doing things that we weren't able to do, like go to parties.

Like touching and hugging. Like touching, touching, hooking up, just being outside and interacting with people and going to parties. And I just think this show is, the characters are really, really interesting and different. And there's women of all ethnicities and genders and sexualities.

And I just think it's something that's worth watching and I wish more people had seen it so this is my chance to get more people to check it out yeah I looked at the trailer and it looked like the characters looked really likable and I'm not I'm not someone who's into like teen shows or like coming of age type stuff because I'm just not in, I don't like coming of age, but I do like, but all the characters look very likable. Like they look like that made me, just looking at the trailer,

it seemed like, oh, these are people that seem cool, like who you would want to know more about. They also look like women you don't see a lot of on TV. No, yes. Absolutely, absolutely. And the first episode sort of introduces the premise of it is that two of the characters, Janae and Kurt are trying to start a, a female skateboarding meetup at one of the parks in the city. And so it's really interesting. I wouldn't

say it's so much coming of age, just because because these are they're definitely out of high school. They look young. They do look young. Like, I think they're supposed to be like early 20s. Oh, OK. Very, very early 20s. So, I mean, I guess obviously in your early 20s, you're still coming of age. But it's not it's not quite the like typical buildings Roman that you would expect.

So it's just fun. And again, it's six short episodes that are perfect for binging over a holiday weekend. Okay, so if it's only six episodes, that's my Friday. What do I do on Saturday? So for a show that's slightly longer, you have more seasons to binge Search Party, which I don't know if you two have heard of it. it yes so it's this great sort of dark comedy neo-noir series um and about a bunch of like hipster millennials who um find themselves obsessed with uh looking for this missing um missing peer and wind up just becoming involved and entangled in a bigger crime and narrative than I ever expected. And it stars Aaliyah Shawkat, who many people probably know from Arrested

Development, as Dory, who is this, you know, personal assistant, who's unhappy with her life, you know, has a college degree, but isn't doing what she wanted to do, and finds herself obsessed with finding out what happened to Chantel, this peer who went missing. And it's all about her relationship with her friends. And they're trying to figure this whole dynamic out. It's really, really fascinating. It's funny. It's quirky. There are three seasons.

How many episodes is it in each season? Oh, you know what? I'm not sure. I think it's around like eight or ten. eight or 10. So that'll, that'll tide you over for for a long time. There's three seasons and they just announced season four is premiering in January. Sue is really trying to plan out the weekend. I'm a binge watcher. I like discovering a new show that already has a couple seasons in that I can just like plow through in a short period of time.

Yeah. And this is definitely the type of show that benefits from plowing through. And I also want to just shout out John Early, who plays one of the friends in the group, is just a hilarious dude. He's funny. They're all narcissists, but he might be the most narcissistic out of all of them. It's just great. I very much enjoyed it. And I think politics, Aisha, has a recommendation for us, too.

I did have a recommendation that I want to make. I feel like my recommendation after your recommendations, Aisha, is a little lowbrow. Oh, no. Do the lowbrow. Please do. But there is a new Housewives series, Real Housewives of Salt Lake City. Now, this is, you know, obviously Real Housewives has been around for a long time. And, you know, it depends on what you're into. But Salt Lake City is a contender.

And they're only about three episodes in. You can start from the beginning all i have to say is that one of the women one of the housewives actually married her step grandfather um yes and so and it go and it and it just goes from there and so it's like but it's really interesting because you have these dynamics of a lot of them are Mormons, some of them are ex-Mormons. And the woman who married her step-grandfather is a black woman who's actually evangelical. She's not Mormon, but they live in Utah. It's fascinating and it's fun.

And if you want to get away from politics politics it gets you away and gets into some messy trashy just fun where do you rank it in the hierarchy of housewives it's too early to say it's too early to say but i would say it's promising almost like a real housewives of new jersey because okay so because because some of these people know each other a long time you know it's always best when you have a real housewives where they they these people know each other a long time. You know, it's always best when you have a Real Housewives where they kind of know each other and some of them really don't like each other. Like they have real, you know, they're not just brought together.

So I would say it has a promising start to me like a Real Housewives of New Jersey. All right, Aisha Harris, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you. That was Aisha Harris from NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour. 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, Alina Moore, Dana Farrington, and Brandon Carter. Our intern is Kalyani Saxena. I'm Susan Davis. I cover Congress. I'm Aisha Roscoe. I cover the White House I cover Congress. I'm Ayesha Roscoe. I cover the White House. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.