The NPR Politics Podcast - Will Americans Tolerate COVID Restrictions If Cases Rise Again?

Episode Date: February 18, 2022

Even Democratic areas have begun to relax COVID restrictions as the Omicron wave ebbs, but another wave could mean the restrictions have to come back. Outside public health experts say that the federal government should establish a data-driven plan to help the public understand when and why safety measures like masking are necessary.And the January 6th investigation in Congress continues its work seeking documents and interviewing hundreds of witnesses. It is all building toward public hearings in the spring, where members will explain to the public what they have discovered about the insurrection.This episode: White House correspondent Ayesha Rascoe, congressional reporter Claudia Grisales, and health correspondent Allison Aubrey.Connect:Email the show at [e-mail] the NPR Politics Podcast Facebook Group.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

Hi, this is Becky from Perrysburg, Ohio. I am about to take off on a 10-mile run to celebrate my 1,000th consecutive day of running one mile or more. This podcast was recorded at? It is 12.08 p.m. on Friday, February 18, 2022. Things may have changed by the time you hear this, but my running streak will finally have a comma and I will still be running at least a mile every single day. Okay, enjoy the show. Well, that is laudable, but this comes just as I was starting to feel better about myself in fitness. Now I'm not. No, but that is a huge achievement. I've just started, you know, just working out like five to 10 minutes of a couple of days a week and I'm exhausted.

I'm serious. Okay. I'm trying to think of what I've done a thousand days in a row. I've had a cup of coffee a thousand days in a row. Yeah. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm trying to think of what I've done a thousand days in a row. I've had a cup of coffee a thousand days in a row. Yeah. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Ayesha Roscoe. I cover the White House. I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. And Allison Aubrey of NPR's health team is here. Hi, Allison. Hey, great to be here, guys. So right now, a lot of people are very impatient about the pandemic and they want it to end. Americans are ready to move on. Even in places like New York State and D.C., Democratic strongholds that have had pretty tough pandemic standards,

mask mandates and vaccine requirements around events and dining are being lifted. So in much of the country, Omicron has waned and life is in some ways returning to normal. So Allison, let's start with this. President Biden and the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, they have suggested that trying to completely return to normal right now is premature. But it seems like that's where a lot of people are at in this country. You know, I just think that we're at a very confusing moment. On one hand, I mean, the president's top COVID advisor is saying we are moving towards a time when COVID is not a crisis. It's something we'll be able to manage and live with. But we're just not exactly there yet. I mean,

cases are way down to about 120,000 cases a day. So that's low compared to the highs of a month ago. But we're still at about 80,000 people in the hospital with COVID and about 2,000 deaths a day. So, you know, Dr. Rochelle Walensky has said now is not the moment to drop all restrictions, specifically mandatory masking in schools. Domenico, when we talk about things like this, it's complicated by the fact that there are places in this country, many, many places in this country, where people haven't been wearing masks for like over a year. Like they haven't, they've been, you know, at the club and at parties and doing what they want for a very long time. But

there are places and there are people who have still been living, you know, pretty restricted lifestyles. Like there's a big divide in this country on that. Well, definitely. And I think when we talk about this idea of moving on from COVID, and we should first say, by the way, people who are immunocompromised, you know, are not going to be moving on, you know, they're still very much at risk and having a difficult time with this. But I talked to Kathleen Sebelius, who was former President Obama's HHS Secretary, Health and Human Services Secretary, and she was also a governor. So she really understands this sort of intersection here between balancing what people want versus what the, you know, what needs to be done from a Washington standpoint. And, you know,

she really talked about being in Kansas and how there is this COVID fatigue. People are tired. They want to travel again. They want to see family and friends. They want to participate in normal life, whatever that may look like. And I think, ironically, it is COVID fatigue for those at the front of the line who have been most faithfully following the rules, tried to, you know, isolate the entire time at the beginning of this, wore a mask everywhere, did not go out and about, got in line quickly to get the vaccines, got in line quickly to get a booster. And it's like, why should I continue to do that when there are clearly people who have never followed the rules and seem to be, you know, still walking around. We're seeing that turn with folks who are boosted and vaccinated saying, okay, enough is enough here. I mean, do you think that, you know, part of this is the issue of even though even when you govern people, like there has to be like a

implicit, like buy-in from the people that you govern, right? Like people have to, like if people are just unwilling to wear masks, like what can you do? Like if people are just unwilling to like not go to a restaurant, like is there a limit to what people can do? And now you have politicians kind of bowing to that reality, Allison? You know, I think we've been living that, right? We've seen that we have seen time and time again. I mean, how many times can people be asked, you know, please get vaccinated, please wear a mask, and these protections only work when people follow them. I think a lot of people would argue we might not be in the situation that we are now if we had more compliance, if certainly if everybody had, you know, agreed to be vaccinated and boosted, and if everyone were

following these protections, I mean, I think it's worth underscoring here, all public health is local. So where most infectious disease experts have landed on this is, let's have agreed upon metrics for when to have masking, for when to lift the masking and when to bring it back based on transmission in your area, based on hospital capacity in your area, and based on vaccination rates in your community. Yeah, and I think it's also interesting, you know, we talk about weather forecasts. You know, what's funny about this is people saying, oh, I don't want to have to put a mask back on. Well, you know, the weather changes, right? I mean,

when we watch the weather on the local news, you know, we don't say, oh, it rained yesterday, I'm never going to put the umbrella back up. You know, if the forecast says rain, then it's going to rain, and you should probably put an umbrella on or you're going to get wet. And I think the Biden administration just wasn't prepared for that, getting to a place where we have to lay out these kinds of metrics. And you're going to see President Biden, for example, the State of the Union, have to thread a very fine needle on how he walks a line to say, not be boastful, but to give people hope for the summer coming up. And Allison, so like, what is the administration kind of signaling for like,

how they plan to lay out their approach for dealing with this pandemic, which is not going away? Like, it's not good. We're not going to be able to plant the flag and say, it's done. We're through with that. So what does the future look like? Well, I think the line that they're leaning on is even after we leave the pandemic phase and enter this endemic phase, COVID isn't going away. So they're leaning on the line of, hey, look, we're in much better shape now to fend off future outbreaks. We have vaccines, we have antiviral medications, we have monoclonal antibodies. You know, COVID isn't going to disappear, but not every outbreak is going to put us into crisis. And I think mostly infectious disease experts agree with that.

Allison Aubrey, thank you so much for your time today. Thank you guys for having me. We're going to take a quick break. And when we get back, we'll talk January 6th. And we're back with Claudia Grisales. Hi there. Hey there. So the House Committee investigating the January 6th insurrection is continuing its work.

Claudia, can you tell us like what are they like building up to right now? What's on the horizon for this committee at this point? So they're hoping to tell a story that former President Trump's last impeachment trial did not. They want to fill in massive blanks. They want to do this through a series of big showy hearings in the spring. And I talked to the former House impeachment manager about this, Jamie Raskin. This is a Democrat from Maryland, and he gave a little preview of what the committee is hoping to share. You know, I've been hopeful that we will be able to create a set of hearings with a very fast tempo

where people can see from day to day the entire plot unfold. So it's those kind of details that will become part of these public hearings. They could last two, three weeks and play out, they hope, in some cases on primetime television. So, I mean, what's been happening lately? There have been a lot of subpoenas and interviews. Who are they talking to? Are there people still refusing to cooperate? What are they focused on now? a fake elector scheme. So this is involving groups of Republicans who tried to put together a fake slate of electors for former President Trump to try and overturn the election's results, certifying President Biden's win, even trying to get those fake slates of electors to government officials. And so this is one of the many subplots the committee has zeroed in on with this new wave of subpoenas. Even aside from that, the committee's interviewing

about two to three witnesses a day. Some of them we learn about publicly. For example, recently, some members of the White House press team under Trump did come before the panel. And this is among the efforts to get closer to Trump's inner circle to find out what he was thinking, saying that day and in the weeks building up to it. The committee has also issued subpoenas for other Trump insiders, such as former trade advisor Peter Navarro. And recently this week, several committee members said that Rudy Giuliani, this is the former Trump personal attorney, could cooperate with the committee that remains to be seen. So, Claudia, I've seen reports about these documents at Mar-a-Lago that weren't supposed to be there, that now I guess the National Archives have gotten, and also separately that the Biden White House has rejected some of Trump's requests to keep

documents from being made public or from being turned over to the committee, like visitor logs and things like that. What is going on with all these documents in the committee? Right, so much is going on. So there was this request from the committee for all of these Trump documents, and Trump sued to try and block that effort. He eventually lost, and this was ultimately sent to the Supreme Court. And so the National Archives has handed over thousands. Among that search, it looks like 15 of those boxes related to these records perhaps were found at Mar-a-Lago. I've talked to the panel chairman about this, Benny Thompson. He said, we're not certain this is tied to our investigation. We're waiting to see if it is. Meanwhile, this

week, when it comes to additional documents from the Trump administration that were not part of that Supreme Court case, it looks like there's even more headed over to the committee, including White House visitor logs, because the Biden White House said this past week that there's no executive privilege, as the former president might claim, that would shield these documents from being moved over. And instead, they're going to be turned over to the committee on March 3rd. But look, you're going to have the report. It's unclear whether there'll be anything criminal that could come out of this

or that the Justice Department will be persuaded to do anything criminal. When you have these big hearings, when's the last time there was a big hearing that really changed people's minds or affected the discourse or made people change course? Domenico, can you think of a hearing that has been able to accomplish that? Well, you know, the thing is, congressional hearings have always had this kind of vaunted place in, you know, sort of American society going back to Watergate, you know, that really is where it sort of cemented itself with all these revelations that kind of have come out. You know, there were a lot of things certainly that came out during the impeachment hearings.

You know, I think about Ambassador Gordon Sondland under President Trump, you know, being so candid about what he knew, when he knew it, who he was talking to. Did it break through? Yes. Did it matter with the right? No. So that's a difference now that we're seeing, uh, compared to what we've seen in the past where people can get someone to move one direction or the other, admit to something, and then people are able to actually judge them together. Um, isn't something that happens anymore because there's a spin machine that makes it possible to not have to do that. Right. There's one group I think folks are really eyeing closely to see if there's any kind of

public testimony from witnesses tied to former Vice President Mike Pence. Several of his advisors have already come before the committee. This includes his chief of staff, Mark Short, his general counsel, Greg Jacob. And so there's going to be a lot of interest. If you could have a Gordon Sondland moment, if you will, and have any of Pence's advisors talk about what they told the panel publicly, because already Pence in some ways is testifying in public, saying that Trump is wrong when he talks about January 6. So this is of extreme interest to the committee. And it will be something that we will be tracking closely if any of his aides or even Pence comes before the committee at some point, and that's able to be shared publicly. Wow. Well, certainly we'll be looking out for that. We're going to 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 that we just cannot stop thinking about, politics or otherwise. Domenico, you start us off. Well, I want to talk about the Olympics since they're basically wrapping up. And it really kind of tore my heart out watching figure skating last night and this entire saga with Kamila Valieva, the Russian skater, best in the world. She's 15 years old. She had a pre-Olympics positive doping test for a heart medication that can help you essentially with more oxygen so that you can train longer.

The way that her coaches reacted to the way that she performed last night, which by the way, she is known as the best skater in the world for the amount of amazing jumps she can do. But the reaction from her coaches last night after she fell four times had this kind of disastrous performance. She was in tears and they were pretty harsh on her and telling her essentially, why did you give up? And it really shined a light on the kind of training practices. You had the head of the International Olympic Committee who rarely speaks out against other countries come out and say that he thought it was cold and it was harsh and he did not approve of it. And you had this entire sort of meltdown with the other Russian skaters.

One saying she never want to skate ever again. And this is somebody who finished with the silver medal behind her teammate who won the gold. So just a complete mess brought right out in the open with an Olympics that was marred by all this politics between Russia and China. Is there anything that can be done about this though? I mean, that's what it seems like.

It seems like there's always this dark cloud. I don't want to just say over Russian Olympic athletes, but there's some smoke. You know, let's say there's some smoke around it, you know? Like, it's a lot. And these are just, like, very young kids. Like, it's a lot of pressure. Yeah. Yeah, well, I think that it's sort of

similar to what we used to see with gymnastics. Remember you had these young girls who were, you know, doing all these crazy things that they were able to do. But people really started to look at this, their training methods, long-term health for these girls and see that this is probably not appropriate. And they changed the age limit. And I think we're probably going to this, their training methods, long-term health for these girls, and see that this is probably not appropriate. And they changed the age limit. And I think we're probably going to be moving toward something like that. You have a movement already of people talking about moving it to 16, 17, maybe even 18 years old to compete in figure skating. And with all of that, with the background with Ukraine and what's happening with Russia on its borders. You can't even call Russia the Russia. It has to be the Russian Olympic Committee. It's just such a mess of

a whole bunch of different things in this Olympics. It's one to forget. Yeah. Agreed. Claudia, what can't you let go of this week? So mine is more along the lines of a happy can't let it go. Oh, that's nice. That's nice. Because the Olympics was not. So mine is a website I just heard of today. It's Big Jet TV. They have a YouTube channel and there's a guy on there. His name is Jerry. And all he does, sounds very simple, is he narrates as planes fly into London Heathrow. However, there was a big storm today, and with the winds and the craziness,

he was narrating these planes. You see them coming in, just kind of weaving in the wind, kind of, whoa, you don't know if it's going to land or what. And he's, like, talking the planes down to the ground. It's hilarious. Drop it. Drop it. Drop it. I love it.

Yeah. Nicely done. So he's just encouraging them. You know, he's just giving them moral support. These massive planes. Yeah. He's telling the 737s, the air buses, you can do it. You can do it. You can do it. You know, it's got to be tremendous joy

all day because you know how many planes actually do land and just fine? Like almost every single one, thank goodness. Yes, hopefully. Hopefully all of them. Yes. I want to hear everything he has to say. Like he'll say, easy, easy, tippy toe, tippy toe. And a plane is kind of on its side a little bit. And he'll say, big swing, man. Oh, blimey. So you're getting all of his reactions. People are driving by honking.

I think these are fans. At one point, he booked an interview with ITV. You can hear the whole thing. I mean, the guy has been cracking me up all day. I'm having a hard time staying off the website. So it's thrilling. Go check it out. I highly recommend it. Oh my gosh. So why you show what can you not let go of? So I mean, a lot of people know this is not a happy, can't let it go. A lot of people know that I'm afraid of birds. I revealed that on, you know, this podcast and now everyone always reminds me of it. Like, and you know, they're like, you know, get, if they get upset at me,

they like send me a picture of a bird or something. So it's like, I've opened myself up to this, but there was some news this week about this. And you may have seen this video. Look it up. But there are all these birds that went plummeting to the ground outside of this house in Mexico. Like they just went like, you just see them. And then all you just see is like the swarm the swarm of birds that, like, just crash into the ground. And it's like, well, why did that happen? And part of it is, like, we don't know why it happened.

Some experts say that they think that it was, like, because of, like, a predator. Like, the birds saw a predator, and then they went frantically um flying away um they also said that you know some experts were like they could have theoretically um flown through a cloud of lethal chemicals um but autopsies would need to be done on the the dead birds to confirm that wow i personally believe it's my thing as soon as I saw it, this was my theory. Because my other thing that I'm really into is horror movies and stuff like that. So what I think is that there was some type of... Clearly The Birds and Alfred Hitchcock is your favorite horror movie.

Yeah, there's some type of evil force going on in that area that drove the birds into the grounds so someone in one of those houses might have had like a head spinning around 360 degrees oh my goodness i'm just saying what century are we in it was what is this forces look there were some evil forces that I think may have been involved in... Have y'all seen The Exorcist? I have seen it and I agree. It's based on a true story. It's based on a true story.

I knew the scientists like Domenico would come in and say, oh, we have a reasonable explanation. Please, please. I know some demonic stuff when I see it. I agree. Oh my gosh. Okay. Well, I think we have

to leave it there for today. Our executive producer is Mithani Mature. Our editors are Eric McDaniel and Krishna Dev Calamer. Our producers are Lexi Shapiro and Elena Moore. Thanks to Brandon Carter. I'm Aisha Roscoe. I cover the White House. I'm Claudia Grisales. I cover Congress. And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.