The NPR Politics Podcast - Weekly Roundup: Thursday, May 16

Episode Date: May 16, 2019

President Trump gave a speech where he unveiled an immigration plan that calls for a dramatic change to the legal immigration system in the United States. The governor of Alabama signed into law one of the most restrictive abortion bans in the country. This episode: Congressional correspondent Scott Detrow, White House correspondent Tamara Keith, Congressional correspondent Susan Davis, political editor Domenico Montanaro and national correspondent Sarah McCammon. Email the show at [e-mail]. Find and support your local public radio station at npr.org/stations.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hi, this is Emily from Vancouver Island on the west coast of Canada. I live a couple blocks away from the hotel where the seagull pepperoni incident took place. And trust me, we can't let it go either. This podcast was recorded at... It's 3.13 Eastern on Thursday, May 16th. Things may have changed by the time you hear it. Okay, here's the show. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast.

I'm Scott Detrow, I cover politics. I'm Tamara Keith, I cover the White House. And I'm Susan Davis, I cover Congress. Okay, and President Trump gave a speech today in the White House Rose Garden. He unveiled his latest version of an immigration plan and would call for a drastic change to the legal immigration system in the United States. Our plan achieves two critical goals. First, it stops illegal immigration and fully secures the border. And second, it establishes a new legal immigration system

that protects American wages, promotes American values, and attracts the best and brightest from all around the world. Tam, the president talks about immigration basically more than any other subject. I think that is very fair to say. So what's new here today? Well, so if you were wondering whether this was a political speech or whether it was a speech with a bill that was ready to go and let's get this done. The answer came about a minute into it. Today, we are presenting a clear contrast. Democrats are proposing open borders, lower wages and, frankly, lawless chaos.

We are proposing an immigration plan that puts the jobs wages and safety of american workers first which was a very political statement he then did go into detail about what he wants to do and these are ideas that have been out there for a while circulated many of them by the trump administration but with maybe a little more meat on the bones. Okay. He wants to build the wall. He talked about that. He wants to secure the border and prevent people from getting in illegally. And then he also wants to completely reshape the legal immigration system.

So right now, the legal immigration system heavily favors family-based migration. So people bringing in members of their families. What he would like to do is make it more, the term would be merit-based is the term he uses. So they want people to pass a test. They want people to have college degrees, have greater earnings potential. They essentially want higher skilled immigrants. So these have been things that the White House called for before and really in the process blew up earlier immigration negotiations back when they were trying to find a permanent fix for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, among other things. Has anything changed?

Well, notably, that DACA program is not in here. And the White House was asked about that. Why didn't you put this in the plan if you are actually trying to in here. And the White House was asked about that. Why didn't you put this in the plan if you are actually trying to get a bill done? White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said DACA was too divisive, that every time they've tried to do immigration before, with that in it, it has fallen apart. So they're going to try it again without that in it. I didn't hear much new in the president's speech in terms of big policy ideas. You know, shifting from a more family based immigration system to a more merit based one has been something that a lot of Republicans have talked about for a long, long time. And making it harder to apply for asylum at the border is something that he's been talking about. I do think politically there is clearly some interest in the White House in being able to say that they have a plan for both what's happening at the border and what they want to do to immigration in this country. Some of his White

House advisors, Jared Kushner, Kevin Hassett, and of course, Stephen Miller, came up and met with Senate Republicans this week to brief on this plan. And I think Republicans are more like raising their eyebrows about this plan in terms of why now and what are we trying to accomplish, in part because it's clearly not comprehensive enough to bring in Republicans like Susan Collins of Maine, who wants, if you're going to do something on immigration, she wants it to be a bigger deal. I think you're also getting a little bit of skepticism from conservatives more to the right, people like Tom Cotton of Arkansas, who are conservatives who have advocated for actually bringing overall immigration numbers down.

Notably, the president in his plan would keep them static or keep them level year over year, which is about, what did Tam, it's about a million green cards a year? Yeah, it's 1.1 million green cards a year. And they're saying they'd keep that static. I've talked to sort of immigration hardliners out there who say, why in the world is the opening salvo here? If this is about a conversation, why is the White House starting a conversation at a level of immigration that sort of the hardliners out there say is too high? They don't like it. So who is this plan for then, Tam? Because it doesn't even talk about DACA or anyone else who's currently in the country illegally. And as you mentioned, it does a lot of stuff that makes the real immigration hardliners angry as well. Like, who is happy with this? Well, the White House is very happy with it. And a senior administration

official who was briefing reporters said, this is the Trump plan, and we are hoping it will be the Republican plan. We want to unite Republicans behind this plan. And really, really what it's about is being able to go out there and campaign and say, hey, guess what? Republicans don't hate immigrants. We want immigration. We want legal immigration. That is the pitch. That is the idea behind this. There was also a sense that this has become a bit of the brainchild of Jared Kushner, who has had past successful negotiations with Capitol Hill on things like criminal justice reform. This sounds like this has also been one of his sort of projects is to try and come up with a new immigration agenda. It was notable that he was the one up

here in the room this week trying to explain this to senators. I don't think he really won over a lot of the legislators he talked to. I think they still have some work to do to get people to think that this should be the one unifying immigration idea that they're going to campaign on. But I don't think there's anything in here that Republicans would really oppose the president on. I just think they're a little bit, you know, either let's put more meat on the bones. If it's really going to be political, make it political. Or if you're actually trying to get a bill done, show us what you think you need in there to get that done. And that means Democratic support. And Democrats are looking at this and just kind of rolling their

eyes. I guess I'm still a little confused here because I feel like a lot of these pieces are things the Trump White House has been talking about for a long time. Like, remember when he and Democrats in Congress were making some progress on a DACA deal, and then all of a sudden the White House said, and we want these 72 other things. A lot of that stuff seems like what he was talking about today. Yeah. Family-based migration is also the more friendly version of saying chain migration, which is what I think the White House was, the term it was using through a lot of those earlier immigration debates. So I think using family-based is a softening of a bit of the language from the White House, which they

might actually see as a bit of a concession because they're talking in a more conciliatory way. One thing he also did say that I think in some ways, again, if there was actually an effort to be bipartisan here or try to get a deal, he did talk about making the criteria for entry into the country and for a path to citizenship clearer, which is something that I think immigration reform advocates across the ideological spectrum believe is a good thing. That our immigration system is so complicated and it's very hard to understand and who comes in in the lottery system that having clearer criteria in theory would be a good thing. It's just the criteria that the Trump administration would prefer is one that Democrats just can't support. And he doesn't like the lottery system. He has opposed the lottery system.

And this appears to basically get rid of that in favor of an increase in visas that would go to people with skills. What's his core argument for making that shift? Family-based immigration has been sort of the core of American immigration policy probably for 100 years, right? And the theory behind family-based immigration systems was that if you came to this country and you already had family here that was advocating for your entry, you would be more likely to assimilate into the country. You'd be more likely to find a job, you would have a community, and that you would have a purpose for coming here. A lot of people that come in through family based immigration are high skilled workers, they do have advanced degrees, it's that I think there's some there's some misinformation there.

But the argument for merit based is you don't prioritize family relationships, you prioritize skills, you say you have to have an advanced degree degree or you have to be a doctor, which is not dissimilar to what a lot of other countries with really strict immigration laws for citizenship do have. One thing to note is that the president isn't calling for fully eliminating family-based immigration. It's de-emphasizing it and making it a smaller group of family members who could come. So it would just be spouse and children. their families here, the thinking is you just disincentivize immigrants from coming at all, which I think is probably a core goal of certain elements of the White House who have people like Stephen Miller, who have more hardline immigration views. And Democrats simply oppose that. They see it sort of a red herring as a way to sound like good policy. But what you're actually trying to

do is disincentivize immigration. This is about the economy. To hear the White House describe it. I mean, it seems like it's also about a pretty hard ideological view. Oh, sure. Sure. But the pitch that they are making, they want to increase wages. They don't want immigrants coming to America and depressing wages. They want to bring in people who are going to make more money. I also think there's reason to be skeptical here because, you know, the president has outlined this policy proposal, but this is not an actual piece of legislation yet. And I think sometimes the president says Congress is going to do things or we're going to do things. One thing I will be watching for is whether anybody actually does try to make what he said today into a legislative text to introduce into Congress and get some co-sponsors on.

And this could be something that they do or it could be one of those things that the president falls back on is, you know, we'll see what happens. We'll get that bill soon. It'll be up there in two weeks. All right. Well, we're going to take a quick break. Tam, Sue, we are saying goodbye to the two of you. And when I come back, Domenico Montanaro and Sarah McCammon will be here to talk about these recent new state laws dealing with abortion. Thanks, guys. See ya. Bye. Support for this podcast and the following message come from ZipRecruiter. Hiring used to be hard. Multiple job sites, stacks of resumes. But today, hiring can be easy, and you only have to go to one place to get it done.

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before Stonewall to today. Episodes are available every Tuesday. And we're back. There's a really serious discussion this week about the future of abortion rights. Alabama's governor has just signed into law one of the most restrictive abortion bans in the country. It is the latest in a series of several states passing laws that violate the guidelines put in place by landmark Supreme Court ruling Roe v. Wade. And joining me to talk about this is Domenico Montanaro and longtime friend of the podcast, Sarah McCammon, who now covers abortion for NPR, among other things. Hey, Sarah. Hey, Scott. And you'll notice I have a little cold, but we'll do our best. Well, who doesn't with allergies in the air now? It's good to have you on the pod. We always miss you. Thank you. Sarah, let's jump in. What does this Alabama Now Law do?

It criminalizes performing an abortion at any stage of pregnancy. So it makes it a crime. Doctors could go to prison if they perform an abortion, except to save a woman's life or in the case of a lethal fetal anomaly. The vote in the Alabama Senate was 25 to 6 with one abstention. So there was really overwhelming support. And I should also mention there are no exceptions for rape or incest. So this bill, which was just signed into law by the governor, it restricts abortion more aggressively than any other law on the books.

And how many other states have either signed laws or had bills pass some part of the legislature on something like this in the last few months? Because it really seems like a lot all of the sudden. There's been just a dramatic increase this year in abortion related legislation and kind of what I always call a tug of war between both sides. Some more sort of blue states have passed or tried to pass protections for abortion rights, while a lot of red states, especially in the Midwest and South, are restricting it. What's gotten the most attention is these six-week bans, which make it a crime to perform an abortion after a heartbeat can be picked up. And this is really early in pregnancy, usually about six weeks. There's some cardiac activity that can be detected. And as many women know, at six weeks, you might or might not know you're pregnant.

You would have maybe just missed a period a couple weeks before that. So opponents of these laws say they effectively ban almost all abortions. Four states this year have passed laws like that. And now this fifth with Alabama going even further. I should say that none of them are currently in effect, though, either because they have yet to take effect or they've been challenged in court. And abortion rights supporters have promised legal challenges to all of these and say that they're very likely to be thrown out in court. That said, they're alarmed to see legislatures willing to pass more and more aggressive abortion restrictions. I should also add, last year, Iowa passed one of these heartbeat bills bills or six week bans, depending on what you want to call it.

And that was thrown out in court. You know, they're testing this all out to see how far the Supreme Court's new conservative majority will go. And that's really why you're seeing this sort of effort on behalf of all these conservative states to see which of these vehicles will get to the Supreme Court. Can both of you just back up and give some context here? Because it's been a while since we've talked about the Supreme Court. Brett Kavanaugh, the newest justice, replaced another Republican justice, Anthony Kennedy. But Anthony Kennedy leaving the court had a big potential shift on how the court approaches abortion, right? Well, yeah. I mean, Anthony Kennedy believed that abortion rights

were a right in this country that were going to remain that way. During his confirmation hearing, Brett Kavanaugh was asked repeatedly about Roe v. Wade. And let's take a listen to some of what he had to say and how he said that. One of the important things to keep in mind about Roe v. Wade is that it has been reaffirmed many times over the past 45 years, as you know, and most prominently, most importantly, reaffirmed in Planned Parenthood versus Casey in 1992. And as you well recall, that makes Casey a precedent on precedent. And let's remind everybody what precedent means. That's just basically what the courts have said in the past. So whatever the Supreme Court and courts below it have said previously about a particular issue, usually that's supposed to stand up and sort of dictate

what happens in the future with laws that come up from the state legislatures going forward. Of course, if the Supreme Court decides to revisit an issue, they definitely can. You've been covering this for a while. And it seems to me like all of these hypothetical scenarios that both sides of the issue have talked about for a long time are suddenly starting to happen. These bills are being passed. They're being signed into law. This seems like real life, even if none of them have gone into effect yet, this seems like it's getting very real very quickly. Yeah, and definitely abortion rights opponents are excited about this. They see these victories in state legislatures as a promising sign. And it's really payoff for many years of organizing on this issue and a lot of work that Republicans have done to take back a lot of state legislatures. They've made a lot of progress in the last decade or so

in state legislatures. And then seeing, you know, Trump in office, having the opportunity to nominate a couple of conservative justices has really been this catalyzing event. And so, yes, you are seeing many, many years of ideological back and forth really coming to a head in some of these legislatures and in the courts. So what happens next here? Well, I mean, if you're talking about the Alabama law, Alabama law is going to have to go through the lower courts that will most likely be challenged. Of course, it doesn't take effect for another six months. This law may never even get to the Supreme Court because lower courts may find it unconstitutional and likely will to say that as far as the Roe precedent goes, this does not fit with what the high court has found.

So it would be up to the Supreme Court to then take up that case. And the Supreme Court could very well let lower court ruling stand. There is a lot of other legislation, some of it passed in previous years, that's already worked its way through the court system and is not far from the Supreme Court, including laws like one from Louisiana that essentially puts what abortion rights supporters would call burdensome and unnecessary health regulations on clinics and threatens to shut a clinic down there. Those kinds of laws, the court has previously said, are not constitutional, but this court might see it differently. It's interesting if you talk sort of behind the scenes with anti-abortion rights groups and even some of what they say in public, you can see a little bit of a difference of opinion within the movement about how to go about trying to advance restrictions on abortion.

We've seen everything from, again, these what are called trap laws, which is an acronym that refers to basically health regulations of clinics that can often shut them down or limit their work to things like 20-week bans, you know, banning abortion after 20 weeks, or earlier, you know, all the way down to these six-week bans and Alabama's law. And from what I've heard, strategically, some in the anti-abortion movement think that some of these earlier bans, they realize that they're not likely to make it very far in the court system. And they worry that if they did make it to the Supreme Court, they might just be thrown out. And essentially, that would be a way of the Supreme Court sort of reaffirming Roe.

So there are concerns that some of these really restrictive laws could backfire for the anti abortion rights movement, or just not accomplish what they're trying to accomplish. All right, we're going to take a quick break. And when we come back, we'll do can't let it go. Support for this podcast and the following message come from Google veteran Mitch Hoyt founded skinny sticks maple syrup, and he's showing that small businesses can do big things. Mitch started making syrup from a few trees in his Wisconsin backyard and now is connecting with customers worldwide with help from Google tools. Skinny Sticks is one of millions of small businesses using Google to grow. Learn how Google is helping businesses in your state at google.com slash economic impact.

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and a murder. A new podcast exposes the lies that kept this murder from being solved. And explores memory, myth, and accountability for a crime at the heart of the civil rights movement. From NPR, White Lies. Listen and subscribe now. We are back and let's end the show like we do every week with Can't Let It Go, where we talk about one thing we just can't stop thinking about, politics or otherwise.

Domenico, I'm just going to say I have also been obsessing in what you're going to talk about. And it's great. So excited about this. Can't let it go. And you know what? That is not the case every week, dear listeners. You know, this is a segment that is here in the podcast. We do it every week. And sometimes, you know, the problem is I'm a political editor. The thing I'm obsessed with is politics. And I don't always have a thing outside of that. Luckily, this week is a thing within politics. And it had to do with Trevor Noah talking about Bernie Sanders and old tape that he found of Bernie Sanders

basically hosting a public access cable show when he was mayor in Vermont in the 1980s. And this is amazing, but I do think we should say that Politico had found this stuff first, and then The Daily Show did a great segment based on it. But yeah, it was amazing. Whatever. Facts, schmacks. Let's listen to a couple of clips, especially about Bernie Sanders when he talks to children. This one about, I kid you not, cocaine.

Who knows about cocaine? Anyone ever seen cocaine? Yes. Hold it one at a time. What about cocaine? Good thing? Bad thing? What about even smoking cigarettes? Who even smokes? Who even smokes? Come on, raise your hand. And we should say he's sitting around with a bunch of five-year-olds. I've seen a lot of kids with 12 and 11 smoking.

I don't smoke. All right. I don't smoke because I'm a little kid. I'm only five years old. I don't smoke because I'm a little kid. I'm only five years old. Oh, my gosh. So Trevor Noah's send-up of that clip was pretty great.

And the applause you hear there in the background is from the studio audience at The Daily Show, not part of the cable access show. It might have spiced it up a little bit to be totally honest but it's like and what trevor noah said was it's like it's like bernie sanders can't distinguish between kids and adults it's like mr rogers gone wild what child has ever heard of cocaine and if they have my goodness call child protective services and this is like seven minutes worth of these clips, and they're all amazing because Bernie Sanders does not have the best demeanor for talking to children. He calls a kid dumb at one point.

He's like, I think you're dumb. Let's listen to that. Actually, we have that queued up because he was talking about the importance of reading and writing. And, of course, kids don't like school necessarily all the time. Bernie had a reply for him hold on let me ask you a question what is your name all right george do you think it's important that you know how to read well and write oh you think not oh really i'm trying to argue with these kids they

think they're very smart and that school is not important yeah is that right? Well, I disagree with you. All right. I think you're dumb. Wow. Bernie 2020, I think you're dumb. I think your kid is dumb. Sanders talking to third graders in which he's trying to explain to them how the world has changed. The arms race has gone from spears and rocks to one kid says nuclear bombs. And it's Bernie Sanders way of saying we don't need war. We need peace. I just want to say I first saw this clip more than a week ago and I'm still laughing this much listening to it. The entire thing is awesome, especially the very last clip that Trevor Noah plays with a little girl who says that she wants an amusement park built on the waterfront, and he starts explaining zoning laws to her.

And they don't have the land, the railroad owns the land, so we can't build this amusement park. And the little girl just goes, I think I have to go I was one of those kids that hated it when adults talked down to me and like knew it when they were talking down to me I have to say I endorse most of this and there was this one clip I don't you guys thought where he was I mean I don't know if I endorsed calling kids dumb okay that's a little too much but kids have like crazy questions sometimes as many parents know and I endorse calling kids dumb. Okay, that's a little too much. But kids have like crazy questions sometimes, as many parents know.

And I kind of think you should just answer them. Although maybe not call them dumb. He could maybe learn a little bit from Mr. Rogers about tone. Well, anyway. Okay. I'm up next. And I'm going to warn you that I'm going to be very earnest and vulnerable here. So please don't exploit that.

Okay. I have been... This is a safe space, Scott. Sometimes it's not, but I appreciate that. But even then, it's all in love. Okay. So I am still buzzing with happiness about a celebrity encounter that we had at NPR last week. And actually, if you heard our interview with Cory Booker, I kind of mentioned this at the very end. We have tiny desk concerts and all these

musicians come in. I'm now old enough that I usually don't know who three quarters of the people are. But we had a very special tiny desk concert last week and it was the cast of Sesame Street. And even before the tiny desk concert, they were in NPR the day before, like filming like a promo video for the concert that that's going to post online soon. And I was sitting at my desk and I should just say that I was like a lifelong Muppet fan. My dad was a huge Muppets fan. It's something he shared with me. Like I watched the Muppet movie like a hundred times or more when I was little. And I'm sitting at my desk and we have a radio studio right next to where we sit on the politics team and i'm sitting

there and i kind of knew they were there but i didn't see what's happening and then all of a sudden through the window up pops the familiar tufts of hair of burt and ernie and my heart soared through my mouth and it was just like the most overjoyed moment to see burt and ernie five feet away from us and then like a crowd crowd of basically everyone from NPR politics who was, who was there that morning gathers around in a crowd outside the studio to watch the, the Muppeteers do their thing. They finished the set,

the Muppeteers walk out and they could just see how we were reacting. And they're like, all right guys, sure. Hold on a second. And then proceed to pull the Muppets out and interact with us as Bert and Ernie. And even though, like, I'm an adult, as soon as the Ernie Muppeteer started operating Ernie, it was like I was meeting the greatest celebrity and someone who I've had, like, a lifelong relationship with.

And it was just like a really – and somebody was actually recording it. Oh, you guys want to take the picture? You've got to come in. Don't get my ugly bump. You're my favorite muppet of all time oh i'm sure i'm just getting a little emotional what's your name i'm my name scott watching this afterwards i like clearly regressed to being like an eight-year-old in this moment and then he does this ernie laugh and it was just great. Well I have to say my Instagram feed was joy pure joy seeing all of you so excited and happy. I was so disappointed that I wasn't able to meet you know like Big Bird and Cookie Monster who are also huge. I was huge

fans of as a kid. So Sarah what can you not let go of? I'm sure you've seen it in your social media feeds too, but it's what I can't let go of. I have the new Morning Edition theme song stuck in my head. And it's not because the song is so wonderful, which it's great. I like it. It's fine. Let's not get into that debate. Right. We're not going to wade into that. But the reason actually it's stuck in my head is is it stuck in my head in a very specific way. Did you guys see the Conan O'Brien bit where he took it upon himself to add lyrics to the new Morning Edition theme, which of course was replacing the old theme that had been around for 40 years. Did you guys hear that? I did. And now every time I hear the actual news show, his lyrics are in my head. So Conan O'Brien started off by playing a little bit of the theme. That's the song.

And then he went to this new thing. I'm going to play just a bit more. Check it out. News, news, NPR news, morning edition news. You snooze, you lose, because we tell you the truth. You get what you choose, so choose our news. My favorite part is the next part. Yeah, of course. We're NPR News.

It's na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-news. Na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-news. Na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-news. Na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-news. You've got to make t-shirts of that. Yeah, I may have been going around my kitchen, you know, washing dishes and singing that out loud. My kids look at me funny, but they're used to me doing weird stuff. Yeah, and it was very nice.

I actually thought it was fun. And Conan is a listener, clearly. It was perfect because it kind of made fun of us, but also was like in a very loving way. And I could tell that there was affection there. All right, that is a wrap for today. We'll be back in your feeds as soon as there is political news that you need to know about. You can follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to keep up with all the political news to search for NPR Politics. special poster about it. If you would like your own copy of that poster, you can snag one by sending us your questions for all the Democratic contenders for 2020. If you are one of the first hundred people to send us a question, we will send you a poster. You can email your question

to nprpolitics at npr.org. All right. A lot of instructions there. Hope you follow along. I'm Scott Detrow. I cover politics. I'm Domenica Montanaro, political editor. And I'm Sarah McCammon, national correspondent. Sarah, it's always fun to have you back on the pod. Great to be here. Thank you so much. Thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.