The NPR Politics Podcast - Weekly Roundup: Swift Speaks, Congress Stalls

Episode Date: September 13, 2024

The influential pop star threw her support behind Vice President Kamala Harris in an Instagram post Tuesday. What impact does her endorsement — or any endorsement — have on an election? Plus, Congress returns with a government shutdown on the horizon, and a TikTok sound becomes an earworm. This episode: White House correspondent Asma Khalid, political reporter Elena Moore, congressional correspondent Claudia Grisales, and senior political editor & correspondent Domenico Montanaro.The podcast is produced by Jeongyoon Han, Casey Morell and Kelli Wessinger. Our editor is Eric McDaniel. Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi.Listen to every episode of the NPR Politics Podcast sponsor-free, unlock access to bonus episodes with more from the NPR Politics team, and support public media when you sign up for The NPR Politics Podcast+ at plus.npr.org/politics.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Support for this podcast and the following message come from the NPR Wine Club, which has generated over $1.75 million to support NPR programming. Whether buying a few bottles or joining the club, you can learn more at nprwineclub.org slash podcast. Must be 21 or older to purchase. Hi, this is Michelle, and I just moved to Cleveland, Ohio. After 10 years as a software engineer, I'm gearing up for my first day of nursing school. This podcast was recorded at... 12.37 p.m. Eastern Time on Friday, September 13th. Oh, guys! Oh, no. It's Friday the 13th.

No one cares. You are such a grump. Things may have changed by the time you hear this, but it's never too late to try something new. Okay, here's the show. Domenico, why can't you be more like her? I am. I just don't think that we need to be, like, weirded out about Friday the 13th. Who cares? It's not a big deal. 80% of people don't think it's a big deal. There was just a thing I heard about that on NPR. Is this a poll throwing a poll at us? Hey there, it's the NPR

Politics Podcast. I'm Asma Khalid. I cover the White House. I'm Elena Moore. I'm positive about today and I cover the campaign. And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. And I'm also optimistic about today, but that's because I'm not superstitious about Friday the 13th. All right, folks. Well, today on the show, we've got our weekly roundup, and we're going to kick things off with a look at the power or lack of power of political endorsements. Kamala Harris has racked up a few notable ones this week, like, of course, Taylor Swift. Elena Swift had long been rumored to endorse Harris. There was this expectation she was going to do it, and she did indeed after Tuesday night's debate. What did she say? kind of, you know, highly anticipated. She posted a photo on Instagram and she has more than 280

million followers. So got around. It was a photo of her holding her cat with this lengthy caption about how she did her research. You know, she watched the debate and she landed on Harris, that she would be supporting Harris this fall. And like the cherry on top of all of this is she signed it, Childless Cat Lady, which is a nod at Republican vice presidential nominee Senator J.D. Vance, who has made past controversial comments about, you know, women with no children. So in Taylor Swift fashion, there was a lot of Easter eggs in there. So, Alina, I've got to ask you about what impact, if any, this has. I mean, she directed people to register to vote. And I know you've been doing some reporting on what impact, if any, that direction had in terms of voter

registration numbers. Yeah, I mean, she specifically called out first time voters, which is kind of a nod also to some of her fan base. She's got, you know, a lot of younger people, millennials, Gen Zers have grown up with her. And so, yeah, she was like, if you are a first time voter, you want to check your registration. Here's some information. And she posted in a separate post on her Instagram story, a link to vote.gov, which is a voter resource platform run by the government and a spokesperson for the U.S. General Service Administration, which runs the site, told me that in the 24-hour window that Swift's story was live on her Instagram, there were more than 405,000 visitors to Vote.gov's website via that unique link.

And I guess, you know, the question after that is like, how does that compare? It is over 13 times higher than the daily visitors to Vote.gov. You know, in the days leading up, they said it's about 30,000 people visit the website. So that's a lot of people. And, you know, vote.org, which is a separate voter group that provides registering information, you can register, told me that in between when Swift put out her endorsement and like midday on Thursday, they saw they had 52,000 people register to vote on their platform, 52,000 and 144,000 people checked their registration. So it's like, you know, when we're talking about how small these margins are, that's not, you know, nothing. It's not nothing. But Domenico, I mean, there is this broader question that I've often had of whether endorsements matter, particularly whether celebrity

endorsements matter, because I think back to that 2016 election where Hillary Clinton famously received a host of celebrity endorsements against Donald Trump. Ultimately, as we all know, she went on to lose that election. Well, I mean, I think Elena makes the right point and uses the right word, margins, which I think is the word of this election potentially. And, you know, someone like Taylor Swift going out and making an endorsement and saying that people should get out and register to vote, and you see these spikes in registration, it's certainly helpful to Democrats when younger voters are people who pay attention to Taylor Swift

and who in our polling, by the way, are the least likely group to say that they are definitely voting in this election. 65% say that. And any kind of marginal tick upward with them is a win for Democrats. I've also got to ask you, though, about some of the other endorsements Harris has been receiving. She's received a bunch of support from folks that I would describe as kind of the old guard of the traditional Republican Party. I'm thinking of people who are quite influential, someone like the former vice president, Dick Cheney, the former Republican attorney general,

Alberto Gonzalez. These are people who I would argue are not necessarily popular amongst Democrats with a memory of the early 2000s, certainly progressive Democrats. So I'm curious how you see Harris navigating these different endorsements. I mean, obviously, someone like a Dick Cheney plays well to a certain type of voter she wants. But I'm curious if you think that that could alienate some of the voters also that she needs. You know, Dick Cheney is certainly an eye opener. I'm not young enough not to remember that Democrats saw him as public enemy number one, calling him Darth Vader and the like. But I think the point on all of this, and, you know, there's some 200 Republicans that Kamala Harris called out during the debate who have said that

they're endorsing her. People like Adam Kinzinger at the Democratic National Convention speaking on the stage, the former congressman from Illinois who ran afoul of Donald Trump, and again, former congressman now, essentially saying that he doesn't agree on a lot of policies, but that we have to rise above, be bigger than that necessarily to be able to stand against somebody who they see as a threat to democracy and the normal way of doing things in the United States. So the Harris campaign is clearly making a sort of sliding scale judgment on who this will help her with and who this will hurt her with.

And certainly they are looking squarely at the middle and hoping that people in the middle, the quote-unquote normal folks who the Tim Walzes of the world are trying to help her appeal to, will come be on her side, again, perhaps at the margins to help her over the finish line in places like the blue wall states of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. So I want to shift gears and ask you both a bit about some of the messages that we've been hearing from both Harris and Trump these last couple of days. They've been out on the campaign trail after the debate. Just catch us up on what caught your attention, Domenico. Well, the big news being that Donald Trump has now said that he's not going to agree to any more debates. You know, Donald Trump still seems like he is kind of flailing a little bit. I mean, he talked about geese now and Haitian immigrants in the town of Springfield, Ohio. Again, false, debunked, not true. It's way out in left field because, again, he could have been much more rational in talking about the idea that this is a small town that's had a significant influx of migrants and that resources may be straining. But he doesn't speak that way. He doesn't speak in these rational terms. He does what he does for the most provocation for the most part.

Harris is trying to continue to build momentum off of what she's seen from the debate, the crowds, energy, again, packing some of these arenas. It's certainly something that Donald Trump is watching, and he can't be happy about. Watching the way that both of these candidates have kind of spun what we would consider the spin room. It was funny to kind of see that translate online on social media and see a version of that for, you know, a lot younger people. You know, on TikTok, it's kind of part of my job now to just like constantly troll these accounts and like see what's going on. And both Trump and Harris on their campaign accounts have been, you know, posting clips of the debate. It's like they're using it as part of their campaign message to

continue to try to like talk to this kind of a question mark of a demographic that they really want to win. And like this all for me gets back to the Taylor Swift thing, because like we've been talking about Harris having this momentum boost and Trump trying to pick up where he left off before, you know, Biden dropped out. And I think that, you know, moment like Swift endorsing, obviously it's not going to like make or break the election, but it adds a tiny bit of momentum and it keeps that like Internet frenzy going a little bit. And so I think for me, I've just been watching how that's played out online because so much of this debate is about viral moments now. I mean, we know that from the June debate. after this debate is that Trump did make a speech on a policy standpoint talking about

overtime, police officers and people like that who work hourly and how they need to catch a break, quote unquote. But he didn't really get into a lot of specifics or any specifics. But he said no taxes on overtime work. Yes. So clearly the Trump campaign is continuing to try to focus in on those blue collar white voters, which is a huge portion of who goes and votes for Trump. But there are still continued questions about how these kinds of things would be implemented. You know, he wants to talk a lot about what Kamala Harris is proposing and how there's no plan to get it done. But you know, his stuff is also very, very superficial. All right.

Let's wrap this up for now. Elena, I know you've got to go, but please don't go too far away because we want to talk to you in our segment, Can't Let It Go. Sounds good. And we're going to take a quick break now. And when we get back, we'll check in on what Congress has been up to. Support for this podcast and the following message come from Autograph Collection Hotels, offering over 300 independent hotels around the world, each exactly like nothing else. Hand-selected for their inherent craft, each hotel tells its own unique story through

distinctive design and immersive experiences, from medieval falconry to volcanic wine tasting. Autograph Collection is part of the Marriott Bonvoy portfolio of over 30 hotel brands around the world. Find the unforgettable at AutographCollection.com. And we're back and we're joined now by NPR congressional correspondent Claudia Crisales. Hey there, Claudia. Hi there. I'm so glad you're with us. It's been a minute. I feel like I know it's been a minute. I know. Thanks for joining us. And you're with us. It's been a minute. I feel like since I've actually spoken to you. I know it's been a minute. I know. Anyhow, thanks for joining us. And you are with us because Congress is inching and inching closer to this deadline to keep the government open. I feel like you come on this show often when the spending deadlines approach.

But help us understand what is going on here and what makes this moment any different from the previous deadlines. Right. Yeah. Inching is a great way to put it. Slowly inching. Isn't that Congress? Yeah, that is Congress, aka inching. But yes, now this deadline is approaching on September 30th. So there is a little bit of time. And when Congress has a little bit of time, they'll use up

every bit of minute for that last dramatic moment, oftentimes to finally figure it all out. But this time around, the Republican-led House put out a first offer, if you will, in terms of how to address this deadline, September 30th, with a stopgap funding bill. And with it, House Republicans attached the SAVE Act. And we talked about the SAVE Act, of course, more extensively in the pod yesterday. But to recap, it would ban non-citizens from voting, which is obviously already illegal. However, House Speaker Mike Johnson, who put up this proposal, is trying to appease his hard right wing. One of their own members sponsored this plan.

And he likens this effort to preventing minors from accessing alcohol, acknowledging, yes, it's already against the law. Democrats, for their part, are adamantly opposed. And even if some Republicans are against this plan for various reasons, they say they're concerned that they'll be the ones to blame, this is an election year, if they don't figure out this funding plan in time. Meanwhile, Democrats in the Senate said this plan would be dead on arrival with this SAVE Act attached. And Johnson was able to get a procedural rule approved on the House floor this

week. And he planned a vote on it later, but had to pull it because he did not have enough votes. So Claudia, I am still left wondering though, why this seems to be happening so often that Congress has this threat of a shutdown. I mean, it feels like that used to be once upon a time, a situation of last resort. Now it's just normal. We're routinely talking about potential government shutdowns. Right. It's just a reminder of this tumultuous Congress for the last two years. And these threats grow with each different Congress. And this one is going to have that very hard right wing asking for some extreme demands that are very controversial among various factions

of even their own party, and of course, Democrats. And so we continue to see these dramatic swings between the Republican-led House, the Democratic-led Senate, and specifically within the Republican party. And a reminder how Speaker Mike Johnson will only hit his one-year mark as Speaker next month. And so a lot of this chaos is tied to the smaller wing of his party. But Johnson is playing with a very tiny margin. He's trying to make everyone happy. And if he doesn't look like he is fighting, then he's already in trouble. And so this is him trying to make that case for that wing of his party. But he has told his conference that a shutdown is not an option.

And it's clear that he's going to have to negotiate with Democrats if they want to get out of this in time. And what role, if any, is the former president, Donald Trump, having in all this? Well, he's having a pretty big role as usual. his social media account through his company, Truth Social, saying that Republicans should accept nothing less than a bill that includes this SAVE Act. And of course, this is really contrary to what Congress needs to do to get its work done on this plan if they want to avoid a shutdown. And again, Republicans worry if they don't do this, they'll get blamed. And so there's a lot of back and forth. And Johnson, of course, responded this week to Trump's statement that they should fight for this SAVE Act. He said he is fighting, he's doing everything he can, but it's another wrench in the negotiations. Yeah. And if you have Republicans in Congress looking to hold onto

their seats in swing districts, We haven't talked a lot about the race for Congress this year, but there's a very different Washington and a very different administration and the power that comes with the presidency, a very different Harris administration if she were to win, a very different Trump administration if he were to win, depending on who controls Congress. If you have divided government, you have far less of an ability for either of them to do anything. And, you know, the other party is going to want to be able to control Congress, to be able to stop the president from doing whatever he or she wants to do. And Trump weighing in again with his sort of chaos theory of, you know, staying in the way, not compromising.

That is the last thing that moderate Republicans need or want to be able to try to campaign on because it puts them on the defensive as they're trying to sound reasonable, rational and paint Democrats as extreme. Domenico, I do wonder, though, in an election year, isn't it plausible that both parties could argue, well, hey, look, the other side isn't serious about making government work. So vote for us. I mean, do you have a sense of which party actually sees the benefit or couldn't they both just point fingers at each other? Yeah, I mean, it's more likely that Republicans are going to get blamed. I mean, just when you look at polling, for example, Republican favorability ratings are less than Democrats, you know, marginally.

Democrats don't do great, but they're a little bit better than Republicans in general. Republicans are also running the House. So what Speaker Mike Johnson decides to do, you know, the ball is really in his court, so to speak, compared to it being Hakeem Jeffries in charge. You know, the Democrat from New York, who's now the minority leader, and could be the House Speaker, you know, and when you look at which party is more likely to compromise, Democratic voters generally say that they more value compromise than Republican voters do. So I think that's gotten pretty worn in the fact that Republicans are more likely to be ideologically immovable as compared to Democrats. All right, just 17 more days to go before that spending deadline is hit.

So a lot to watch out for. And Claudia, I'm sure we will have you back on soon to talk about this all. Thanks so much. Sounds good. Thank you. All right, one more break. And when we get back, it's going to be time for Can't Let It Go. And we're back. And Elena Moore has rejoined us. Hello. Hey, it's great to have you with us. All right. It is time now for Can't Let It Go. That is the part of the show where we talk about the things that we just cannot stop thinking about, politics or otherwise. And Elena, why don't you kick things off for us? Sure. Okay. So mine has a little bit of a backstory, but former President Trump has referenced multiple times this baseless claim that there are Haitian immigrants in this town

of Springfield, Ohio, that are eating pets. And it's been fact-checked. It's not true. It's actually had some pretty serious ramifications for the people who live there and their safety. That is a serious story that NPR has been covering. But I cover young voters, and I am unfortunately online a lot. And so after the debate, I was on TikTok trying to see how people were responding. And in the same like brat-like fashion of people remixing Vice President Harris's old remarks, this moment in the debate where Trump spoke about this, again, not true thing, has become a TikTok song. And it is in my head and I cannot let it go.

They're eating the dogs. They're eating the cats. Eat the cat. Eat, eat the cat. They're eating the dogs. They're eating the cats. Eat the cat. Guys the cat. They're eating the dogs. They're eating the cats. Eat the cat. Guys, I woke up with this song in my head.

I went to bed with it in my head. My boyfriend, I was going to bed last night and I told him that one day I'm going to be like old and he's going to be like, hey, how are you doing? And I'm going to just be like, eat the cat. Eat the cat. And so obviously, again, this is a very serious story. And like, I'm not commenting on that at all. But as someone who covers young voters and is on TikTok, this is something I have to look at for my job. And it's just nuts. And how is how is it being received online? with the username jhation5. And that video has 157,000 views. And it's being remixed. People

are doing dances to it. It's one of many. It's one of many sounds that we've seen. But this is like the power of social media. And I feel like, you know, imagine 20 years ago, a candidate says something wild. Fine. It lives in that initial moment of the debate and, you know, maybe gets talked about a bit. But here you have younger voters who presumably, it sounds like, sort of thought this was a ludicrous statement, who can take it and turn the story around on their own. And there's some power in that. Also, I will just say as two New Yorkers on this podcast, the way he says dog has been in that specifically has been in my head. So I've been saying they're eating the dogs nonstop. And again, so I just had to say that. It's very horrible. It's very horrible. All right, Domenico,

what about you? Well, I'm going to take us off the debate stage and the memes of the debate to something a little bit more heartwarming and compassionate. And I'm sure you've seen the video of Jon Bon Jovi on the bridge in Nashville with a production assistant from his team that went over and helped a woman who was on the other side of the railing. Broad daylight, they were shooting a video for Bon Jovi. They noticed this woman standing there and very casually went over, talked to her, engaged with her, got her to come back onto the other side of the bridge and gave her a big hug. And I think to me it was a reminder. There are very real things going on in people's lives.

And sometimes a helping hand and a little compassion can really go a long way. I loved that story because it's just a basic story of like human kindness and goodness. And I feel like covering politics, you don't often, that doesn't fill my orbit and world that often. Let's put it that way. Yeah. And, you know, we should say if people are struggling with suicidal ideation or being depressed, you know, you can call 988. There's help. Glad you mentioned that.

Really heartwarming story. So, Asma, what about you? What can't you let go of? Okay, well, I am taking us in a totally different direction. Not political. And I'm not even sure it's really heartwarming. But I don't know if either of you all watch the show Emily in Paris. Do you watch this show? I haven't seen it. Oh my god, guys, I'm addicted. And I can't explain to you why I'm even addicted to this show. Because you watch it and you're like, I'm not sure this is good TV. Why am I watching this?

That's what I've heard. I keep watching it. Yeah. And new season is out. I think I've discovered why I'm obsessed with this show. As you all know, I'm obsessed with fashion. Emily in Emily in Paris wears the most ridiculous slash fabulous. I'm not really sure if they're

ridiculous or fabulous outfits. Just Google this and you'll be like, no one should wear this in public. It doesn't matter if you live in Paris. I just did. Oh, look at that. Everything is like overly color coordinated. Oh, wow. The frills. The frills are extreme. You expect the raspberry beret and some of the black and white, but yeah. But I think that's part of why I love this show is I just love to see the outfits that she wears. Because, I mean, there are literally like, I think there's an Instagram account dedicated to Emily in Paris outfits. And then some people have tried to see if they can actually wear these outfits in real life. And could you?

I don't know, guys. So if I show up next week wearing a head-to-toe blue suit with ridiculously tall shoes, you'll know I was inspired. You would literally slay in that. You would look so good. I'd be like, get on TV right now. This is Friday the 13th,

and it does then make me think of costumes for Halloween. Oh, my God. You should be Emily in Paris for Halloween. Oh, my God. That's kind of a brilliant idea. Yeah.

I kind of love that. Okay, that's great. Thank you for that inspiration. All right. Well, on that note, let's wrap up today's show. Our executive producer is Mithoni Maturi. Our editor is Eric McDaniel. Our producers are Jung Joon Han, Casey Morrell, and Kelly Wessinger.

Special thanks to Ben Swayze and Brett Neely. I'm Asma Khalid. I cover the White House. I'm Elena Moore. I cover the campaign. And I'm Elena Moore. I cover the campaign. And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. And thank you all, as always, for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast. Who's claiming power this election?

What's happening in battleground states? And why do we still have the Electoral College? All this month, the ThruLine podcast is asking big questions about our democracy and going back in time to answer them. Listen now to the ThruLine podcast from NPR. ThruLine.