The NPR Politics Podcast - Weekly Roundup: September 30th

Episode Date: September 30, 2022

The scope of Hurricane Ian's damage remains to be seen, but millions were left without power and much of Florida's west coast saw devastating floods. Florida's governor, Ron DeSantis, and President Biden are coordinating disaster response.And as pandemic-era programs expire, as many as one-in-ten Americans face food insecurity. This week, the White House held a summit to explore solutions — it helped to highlight how entrenched partisanship remains a major roadblock.Learn more about upcoming live shows of The NPR Politics Podcast at nprpresents.org.Support the show and unlock sponsor-free listening with a subscription to The NPR Politics Podcast Plus. Learn more at plus.npr.org/politics Connect:Email the show at [e-mail] the NPR Politics Podcast Facebook Group.Subscribe to the NPR Politics Newsletter.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hey Atlanta, it's Asma Khalid from the NPR Politics Podcast. We are going to be live on stage doing our show Thursday, October 20th at 8 p.m. at the Buckhead Theater. And we'd love for you to be there. Ticket info is at nprpresents.org. Thanks to our partners, Georgia Public Broadcasting, WABE, and WCLK Jazz. See you there. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Susan Davis. I cover politics. And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. And it's 10.04 a.m. on Friday, September 30th. We're focusing on Hurricane Ian and its devastation through much of Florida this week. Communities across the state are figuring out just how much

damage has been done. Recovery efforts are expected to cost tens of billions of dollars. NPR's Greg Allen is in Florida. Hey, Greg. Hello. So talk us through this. Which areas of the state were hit hardest by the hurricane? Well, you know, this hurricane was so large that it affected almost all of Florida in one way or the other. The main impact, of course, has been on the Gulf Coast from Naples all the way up to St. Petersburg. And all those areas felt some impact. The greatest impact, of course, is in Lee County, where Fort Myers is, and Charlotte County.

Port Charlotte is the main city there. And when the storm came in, it brought this huge storm surge and it just devastated the islands, the barrier islands there, and it flooded many other communities on shore. And the wind did a lot of damage in some communities. We've seen almost every house damaged. Here's what Governor DeSantis has to say about it. To see a house just sitting in the middle of Esteroareau Bay, literally was have gotten picked up, flown because of the massive wind speed and the storm surge, and deposited in a body of water. There was cars floating in the middle of the water. And the biggest issues

really are the infrastructure going out to the islands. Sanibel Island, Fort Myers Beach, and Pine Island all have bridges that have been declared unsafe or are totally out. There's been a lot of reports of people without power, obviously loss of homes. How many people are being impacted by this right now? Well, like I say, it's almost the entire state, although, you know, in some places, South Florida didn't get too much. But as the storm went through the state, it flooded many areas in central Florida and in northwest Florida. So it's hard to put a number on it. You know, you've got to put it in the millions. And we're a state of some 20 million plus. And so you've got to say probably at least a third of this had some significant impacts from this.

And, of course, the main impacts have been the loss of power for many people and flooding in these most affected areas. Domenico, when states have this level of devastation, there almost has to be a federal government response. How has the Biden administration been dealing with this? Yeah, and we've heard DeSantis allude to that yesterday, talking about how there would be federal money, even though he was also touting the fact that because of his economic policies, there's a surplus in the state so that they're pretty well positioned. But, you know, even though President Biden and Governor DeSantis couldn't have more different politics, I mean, these are two people who don't appear to like

each other very much. DeSantis doesn't particularly like Biden. You know, he's talked, made basically his entire reelection campaign in many respects about how he would do things differently than Biden. And we know he has presidential aspirations, DeSantis. But this is a time when, you know, the federal and state coordination has to be of the utmost priority because these are people's lives at stake. And this is when politics is supposed to work well and at its best, where you kind of get rid of the silliness of politics and deal with the seriousness of it, you know, to be able to have government help people's lives. And I talked to Professor Andrew Reeves at Washington University in St. Louis, who actually researches storm politics. He was saying that there are really a lot of incidents in which, you know,

presidents and local officials can be helped by these kinds of storms because they look like leaders, or they can be hurt if they kind of mismanage a recovery. If things go very bad, you know, if the fallout from this storm is food can't get delivered and electricity takes forever to get restored, well, you know, there could be a backlash. But right now, I think, you know, it's sort of like leadership on display from these politicians. And that is potentially a good thing for their electoral fortunes. Well, that brings to mind the question of Governor DeSantis, Greg. I mean, he is someone who certainly most recently has been governing from a very partisan posture.

I wonder, obviously, long recovery ahead, but how has he been approaching this crisis? Is there something to say about his leadership style in this moment? It's like there's two Governor DeSantis's. The one that we've gotten used to over the last year and a half, two years, has been this partisan one who attacks the Biden administration at every stop. When the hurricane hit and the lead up to the storm, suddenly we got back to the Ron DeSantis that we saw when he first took office after being inaugurated, where he basically talked about just being a good governor and responding to emergencies.

The first emergency he responded to here was Hurricane Michael up in the panhandle right after he took office, and he made that kind of a hallmark of his early administration. He's back to that Ron DeSantis. He's holding briefings several times a day. He's on the media everywhere, and he's actually shown a very gubernatorial style. Now, the question is, going forward, will that help him or not? And I think the professor who mentioned potential problems is on to something. Florida has this looming insurance crisis, and you've got a lot of people here whose homes were devastated

and who might not have the flood coverage they need to pay for it. So all these are issues that could come to the fore over the next month or two. We'll see if it has how Governor DeSantis handles it and how it affects his political chances. Sure. I mean, and obviously he's talked about in the 2024 context, but he's also on the ballot this November. He's running for reelection as governor and he's in, you know, at least a seemingly competitive race based off of public polling. Yeah, that's what makes this a lot different. You wind up with an election that's happening within weeks of when this storm hits. And the recovery is really the big piece of any, you know, political fortunes of somebody who, you know, is dealing with the management of a storm. It's far too early to know right now in this moment whether or not

this helps or hurts DeSantis or even Biden. Greg, back to the people of Florida. What needs to happen in the coming days in terms of the recovery effort and what are you watching? Well, right now, I mean, some of the big issues are these major infrastructure issues. There's this major water main break in Lee County that's affected a lot of people there so if you don't have running water that's almost more important than power when in recovering from a hurricane and so that's important and then as we mentioned earlier getting people on those barrier islands those are economic engines here santa bel and fort myers beach that's where all the money comes from of tourism so that those have to be rebuilt and and it's going to take some time just to get

the bridges back and then there's lots of other devastation there so those are have to be rebuilt. And it's going to take some time just to get the bridges back. And then there's lots of other devastation there. So those are going to be the biggest needs economically for individuals, getting your power back, your water back. And that's happening actually at a decent pace, except for the infrastructure issue with the water main that I mentioned. Domenico, it used to be the norm when a state, any state, faced this kind of destruction. Congress would pass emergency funding to help the state in need. And it used to be the sort of bipartisan norm of Washington. That's not the case anymore. We've seen in recent years, emergency spending, even hurricane spending has become much more polarized. Do you anticipate that that could happen again? Or is it different this time?

Well, it was bipartisan until the Tea Party. I mean, let's be frank, that's what happened in 2010 or thereabouts after that. It became really a cause to say, you know, there's too much spending on a credit card, quote unquote, and that's why the federal debt is as high as it is. And guess who felt that way not too long ago was now Governor Ron DeSantis. Back in 2013, he voted against funding for recovery for Sandy, for example, the superstorm in New York, New Jersey, and much of the East Coast. He had a very different vote when there was a hurricane that affected Florida and then Texas during the Trump administration a few years ago and voted in favor of it. Maybe it's because we're further from the kind of Tea Party politics of that kind of federal debt focus. But that's something that has started to bubble up again as people look to, you know, toward DeSantis's

reelection and things to sort of use against him. But it is a fact that this has become a way more partisan issue and all on the Republican side. All right. NPR's Greg Allen, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. You're welcome. And Domenico, we'll let you go too. Thank you. Let's take a quick break and we'll be back in a second. And we're back with White House correspondent Franco Ordonez and politics reporter Ximena Bustillo. Hey, guys. Hey. And Ximena, we should note, first time on the podcast. It is.

Welcome, welcome. Yeah, first time for everything. Well, you're here today because President Biden earlier this week held a conference on hunger at the White House. He pushed for Congress to do things like permanently extend the child tax credit, raise the minimum wage, and expand nutrition assistance programs. So you covered this event. What was the driving force behind it? President Biden had three months to put together a hunger conference that really focused on finding solutions to ending hunger in America by the year 2030. And he put out a 44-page plan on how he wanted to do that and got groups, whether they were regular people, advocates, lobbyists, and members from agencies at this conference to talk about some of those solutions.

We saw during the pandemic that government assistance really helped to keep hunger rates down. And also, one in 10 Americans at the same time still face hunger every single day. So even though government assistance is helping, people are still going hungry at the end of the day. Can you talk about sort of the scope of the problem of hunger in America, especially with a lot of these programs expiring soon or if they haven't already expired? Yeah. So a lot of that pandemic aid is coming to an end and will definitely come to an end whenever the emergency declaration is lifted eventually. Again, one in 10 Americans faces food insecurity every day. That's about 34 million Americans, according to USDA. And that can range, you know, that can be children, that can be families. At the same time, though, we are also seeing this focus on health and diet

related diseases. And what we're seeing during the pandemic is people that have diet-related diseases like diabetes, hypertension, heart diseases, they were more likely to experience more severe symptoms and even hospitalization and death because of COVID. And that is something that other countries have acknowledged and have, you know, begun to address hunger and diet-related diseases, nutrition access, right? This idea of nutrition security, not just food security. But the United States hasn't quite done that. Food policy is still on the back burner. Franco, I mean, the timing of this is interesting to me because we're weeks before midterm.

This is a very known problem. It's like, why the interest now? Why haven't Democrats been talking about this for a long time? Yeah, I do. I find it interesting because they've been talking about a really ambitious game, talking about ending hunger by 2030. Yet, you know, when it comes to execution, it doesn't seem like they've really been putting kind of the muscle behind it that they have behind other issues. And I think that's one of the reasons why it's kind of led to some of this partisan talk saying this is more of raising Democratic interests before the midterms. Jimena can talk better about this, but I mean, planning was kind of rushed together. They were

only putting out some of these invites weeks before this were to go around. And the reality is that Republicans, while they support a lot of the ideas behind this, they're not so behind and they oppose some of the recommendations or how they will be actually carried out, how they will be paid for. I mean, even Republicans involved in the issue were complaining that this was partisan. But, Jimena, is it partisan? I mean, I think of food policy, a lot of Republicans represent really poor districts where people need a lot of food assistance. A lot of Republicans represent ag states that care a lot about these programs. I mean, this does seem like there is an issue where you could find some honest players willing to find bipartisan solutions. Right. Absolutely. And even on the Hill, the Senate and House agriculture committees like will at any moment they can say that they are the most bipartisan

committees. The Farm Bill tends to be a big bipartisan effort. And they do. You know, they do try to pass everything together, which has been very interesting to watch compared to other committees. But again, it really comes down to the money and how much money is being allocated into some of these programs. I don't think anyone's necessarily saying that hunger is good or people need to experience hunger in order to pull themselves up. However, there is an issue about how much money gets allocated to some of these programs. Expanding SNAP is expensive. Universal school meals are expensive. And that's where that line gets drawn. So what exactly is expiring? This is a big issue that needs to be solved in a lot of ways, but there are short-term programs that are basically just going to cease to exist soon? Sort of, yeah. So there were a couple of flexibilities to SNAP and the Women, Infants, and Children program that are on the verge of expiring, which are programs that specifically help families and children access food and be able to purchase food when they

otherwise might not be able to. At the same time, there have been some expansions recently made that will eventually come to an end. There's kind of this idea of a cliff that's eventually going to happen. We saw universal school meals that were in place for the last two years just come to an end. There's kind of this idea of a cliff that's eventually going to happen. We saw universal school meals that were in place for the last two years just come to an end as soon as this new school year started. And that's a cliff that many parents are experiencing right now. Stimulus checks, child tax credit, all of that already faded out. So we're seeing less assistance than we have the last two years. And it's that idea of a cliff that has a lot of advocates really worried that even though we haven't seen hunger rates increase in the last two years, we might this year. It also seems a lot less likely if one or both chambers of Congress flip in seven, eight weeks that next year, President Biden is probably not that not that something couldn't get done, but you're going to have less willing partners, at least in terms of how you pay for this stuff.

Oh, yeah. I mean, look at the leaders of the Republican Party who are part of these committees that are involved with this, whether it's the Agriculture Committee or the Education and Labor Committee. Both of the leaders on the Republican side were complaining that the conference that Jimena was at was partisan and, you know, really critical of the administration for what they saw seeing it as a political event. This is also an issue that the president has been focused on in sort of the global stage as well, isn't it? Yeah. When President Biden spoke to the U.N. General Assembly last week,

this was a very big issue. And there's a lot of pressure on the Biden administration to do more for hunger globally, and that's been exacerbated by the war in Ukraine. Part of the push for getting more done for global hunger is trying to isolate Russia. And how they're doing that is because many of the countries who are most affected by the needs of hunger, by the food security problems, happen to be countries in the global south, they say, many in South America, Africa, which also happen to be countries who have not taken sides in the war, who have not gone against Russia for economic reasons, for food security reasons, for geopolitical reasons. So what Biden has been basically doing is essentially going to these countries and telling them, look, we want to work on these issues with you. We want to work on the issues that are important to you. But at the same time, you've got to come over and kind of follow some international norms to do that, which he means, you know, going against Putin. So regardless of what happens in the congressional elections at the summit,

what were the policy ideas on the table? Like, what are they saying that needs to be done? And is there any hope that it can be done either by Congress or potentially by executive action? Right. So there are 44 pages of recommendations and they are divided up into what Congress can do, what agencies and the administration can do by itself, and then also very particularly what private companies can do and kind of more of a public-private partnership approach to solving hunger at a local level. Now, in terms of what Congress can do, that's everything that you mentioned off the top, increasing the minimum wage, a child tax credit, expanding SNAP and nutrition assistance programs. Now, there are things that the administration can sort of do itself, but that will also take time and is limiting. There are no necessarily executive orders that have been announced or that have been put out, but they want to do things like change labels on food products to

maybe make them more easier for people to understand what it is that they're eating. So putting them on the front instead of the back. Again, these rules and regulations would be coming out of the FDA, and that takes a really long time. And then there's the idea of private companies. And so we saw about $8 billion worth of promises or commitments, they're called, were put out by dozens of private companies. And I'm talking like fitness companies, food companies like Tyson and Smithfield. They, you know, vowed to look at how they were going to look at promotions or how they were going to look at their programs. I talked to the Tyson folks and they specifically have a program where they have grants for food banks to be able to buy bigger freezers or bigger compartments to store more food.

And they donate a lot of their protein to food banks as well. And they want to grow and expand that as well. So definitely a mix. How many can I just ask you? I mean, do the people that live and breathe this on a day to day basis, I mean, what do they feel about what the White House is doing? Do they feel that the White House is putting its back into it? Or do they see it as, you know, another, you know, political move before the midterms? Yeah.

The people in the space, I think, are very passionate about it. Food is a very personal thing. And what you can eat and what you have access to is very passionate about it. Food is a very personal thing and what you can eat when you have access to is very, very personal. So the fact that this conference was held was a good first step for a lot of folks. It was almost a sense of an olive branch to groups that have been paying attention to this, especially during a pandemic where food and access to food was such a big deal. However, like you said, the planning did feel really rushed to a lot of folks. A little partisan. And a little partisan, right? Very, very little GOP

representation at the conference itself. And the GOP representation that was there did not talk about legislative action. And it's also a situation where I think some folks were hoping Biden would come out with some sort of an executive order or some sort of immediate rollout of money. And we just did not see that. All right. Let's take a quick break. And when we get back, it's time for Can't Let It Go. And we're back and it's time to end the show like we do every week with Can't Let It Go, the part of the show where we talk about the things from the week. We can't stop talking about politics or otherwise. I'm going to go first this week. The thing I can't let go of is the still ongoing scandal surrounding former NFL star Brett Favre and the scandal in Mississippi where top political officials were involved in essentially, allegedly, stealing funds from the welfare program for poor families and redirecting them to any number of pet causes, including a volleyball stadium at a local Mississippi university.

But the thing about this that I can't let go is that the story was basically exposed by a very small news outlet called Mississippi Today and a young reporter named Anna Wolfe, who I've discovered just in the course of the past week. But I can't let it go because I think it's such a great tale of local journalism doing the local journalism thing and exposing this like really big, important story. And it reminded me of years ago when another young female reporter exposed the scandal at Penn State, the Sandusky scandal there. Sarah Gannon. Sarah Gannon, right. And it's just, to me, I can't let it go because it's actually been, again, like, it's a sad story. It's a story of government malfeasance and corruption.

But I think there's also, like, a positive in this story that it's like... The importance of local journalism. Yeah. And like a young reporter like and I listened. She did a really long interview this week with WMU's 1A where she talked about what it took to get this story. And it was, you know, years of trying to get government documents and knocking on doors and just that sort of reporting that is like the thing Hollywood movies are made out of. Right. And like you're seeing the fruit of all that labor right now. It's a big, important story to the state

of Mississippi. It's exposing all kinds of things that will probably help poor people in the long run. And it's like a feel-good story about journalism, right? Like it's like there's so much like media criticism and culture and all of that. And it's like, no, this one is like, this is a great story of local journalism and what it can do. And she's like getting seen for it too. Like not necessarily as like a personality, but people are reading what she wrote, which, you know, sometimes I feel like I write things and no one sees them ever. Right. And it's like a small nonprofit newsroom, like churning out stories, but it's like doing really important work. And it just made me feel good this week. It was the thing that made me feel good about the world this week. Franco, what can you let go of?

What I can't let go is, I don't know if you guys have heard, or maybe you're into, maybe you guys are players, is about pickleball. Is that LeBron James? I've heard of him. I'm familiar every now and then. Well, you may not know, but he has purchased a professional pickleball team with a few other NBA stars, including Kevin Love and Draymond Green from the Golden State Warriors. But they have purchased a professional pickleball team. First of all, I didn't even know there were professional leagues of pickleball. I thought it was just— Pickleball, it's like a form of tennis, right?

It's like tennis-like. It's like a a form of tennis, right? It's like tennis-like. It's like a small form of tennis. Some people compare it to between a large ping pong and small tennis. Obviously, it's played on a court. It is all the rage. A lot of people are doing it. A lot of people like to do it because it's a little less stressful on the bones. Even our producer was recommending that I start playing pickleball instead of playing soccer because each time I come after a soccer game, I complain of a different injury. And, you know, I hate to say it, but she's probably right. You can pickleball your whole life, I guess. Does the pickleball team have a name?

I do not know of a name yet, or at least I have not seen it in these reports, but I will get back to you on that. Hima, what can't you let go of this week? My can't let go is Lizzo. Absolutely rocking it on that flute earlier this week. not only did she bring out James Madison's old, old flute from the depths of D.C., but she played it in concert and played it in the Congressional Library, I believe. Yeah. And really rocked it. You know, I didn't know this about Lizzo, but she has been a flautist for a very long time. Yeah, classically trained, yeah.

Maybe I was behind on that Lizzo fact. There are so many about her. But, I mean, it's a gorgeous flute. It's a crystal flute, and it was gifted to James Madison for his second inauguration. I think I would have been terrified to handle something like that. To drop it? I just think her nails are so beautiful

and long and she just plays it. They handed it to her and she played it in concert. I think they had security there to take it right back. Like a baby, very quickly. But if I went to the Library of Congress and they're like, hey, do you want to hold this glass flute? I'd be like, I'm good. I'm going to drop

Jenny Madison's flute. I'm going to ruin it. I'm going to blink at it and it's going to crack. Yeah. Honestly, a glass flute sounds better than I would think a glass instrument would sound.

I know. I had never thought about a flute being made out of crystal glass. But it's gorgeous. All right. I think that that is a wrap for today. Our executive producer is Mathoni Mottori. Our editor is Eric McDaniel. Our producers are Casey Morrell and Alina Moore. Thanks to Christian of Calamore, Brandon Carter, Maya Rosenberg, and Lexi Schapiro. I'm Susan Davis. I cover politics. I'm Ximena Bustillo, and I also cover politics.

And I'm Frank Ordonez. I cover the White House. And thanks for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.