Up First from NPR - Haley Suspends Campaign, CA Senate Race, Health Care Cyberattack

Episode Date: March 6, 2024

NPR has confirmed Nikki Haley is due to suspend her presidential campaign after a big win on Super Tuesday for Donald Trump. Why a prominent California Democratic Senate candidate spent millions of dollars to boost a Republican opponent. And, how a cyberattack on an obscure but critical U.S. health care company has disrupted our entire system.Correction: In the broadcast version of this story, the reporter incorrectly refers to a United Health Care subsidiary as "Optus." The correct name is "Optum."Want more comprehensive analysis of the most important news of the day, plus a little fun? Subscribe to the Up First newsletter.Up First was edited Dana Farrington, Kevin Drew, Andrew Sussman and Ben Adler. It was produced by Julie Depenbrock, Claire Murashima, Ben Abrams and Kaity Kline. We get engineering support from Josephine Nyounai, and our technical director is Zac Coleman. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Nikki Haley is suspending her presidential campaign after a big Super Tuesday for Donald Trump. That would effectively end the presidential primary and clear the way for a rematch between Trump and Joe Biden. I'm Steve Inskeep, that's Michelle Martin, and this is Up First from NPR News. Voters also chose nominees in down ballot races in california for example a prominent democratic senate candidate spent millions of dollars to boost a republican opponent why did he do that and how did it pay off and how a cyber attack on an obscure but critical u.s health care company has disrupted our entire system when we put all of our eggs in one basket when when that basket tips over, all the eggs crack. Patients are paying full price for drugs and doctors are having trouble finding medical histories.

What's going on? Stay with us. We'll give you the news you need to start your day. Now Our Change will honor 100 years of the Royal Canadian Air Force and their dedicated service to communities at home and abroad. From the skies to Our Change, this $2 commemorative circulation coin marks their storied past and promising future. Find the limited edition Royal Canadian Air Force $2 coin today. If it wasn't clear up to this point, it is now. Donald Trump will almost certainly be the Republican nominee for president once again. November 5th is going to go down as the single most important day in the history of our country. Trump spoke at Mar-a-Lago, his resort in Florida, after largely sweeping the Super Tuesday states. Nikki Haley picked up just one of the 15 Republican contests, and in just a couple of hours,

NPR has confirmed that she will suspend her campaign. That leaves Trump free to focus on his once and future opponent, Joe Biden, who swept the Super Tuesday states on the Democratic side. NPR national political correspondent Don Gagne begins our coverage. Don, good morning. Good morning. So what do you make of this development? It was going in the wrong direction for Nikki Haley. She said after Michigan, which was what, let's do the math. It feels like weeks ago, but it was a few days back. Yeah. Exactly. That she was in through Super Tuesday. And here we are. NPR has confirmed, our colleague Sarah McCammon has confirmed from sources that this is the end of the line. And the map yesterday is really telling, right? In places like Iowa early on, Michigan, New Hampshire, she was in the high 30s, even in the 40% range in some cases. The map yesterday,

with the exception of Vermont, which she carried with 49%, there was a lot of 17% against Donald Trump, 19%, 15% in Oklahoma. But it was just clear to her that this is the end of the line. So we'll get this announcement today. And it still raises a lot of questions. Yeah. Let's talk about one of the questions. We've been able to confirm, as the Wall Street Journal first reported, that Haley is not going to endorse Donald Trump. She is going to, in some fashion, this is the way the Wall Street Journal phrased it anyway, that she is going to, in some fashion, call upon Trump to earn the votes of the majority of Republican voters, but there is that slice of people who have said in interviews and in exit polls that they were for Haley, at least in part because they had serious concerns about Donald Trump as a presidential candidate once again. And there is going to be a lot, I think we can expect this fall, of candidates on both sides or surrogates on both sides essentially saying, you may not like our guy, but the other guy is so terrible, you just gotta, you just gotta. That's going to be the Republican appeal. And honestly, in some cases, the Democratic appeal, isn't it? Exactly, exactly. And that's what I've been

hearing all along. And we'll see if that changes at all. It's also a question of turnout, whether or not they are enthused enough to vote at all. Okay. Okay. That's NPR's Don Gagne. Let's continue our conversation now with the former Republican governor of Arkansas, who was also a presidential candidate himself, Asa Hutchinson. Welcome back to the program. Good morning,

sir. Well, thank you, Steve. It is great to be with you today. I know that you had been supportive of Nikki Haley up to now. What do you make of the announcement that we expect a little bit later on this morning? Well, she's a smart lady and obviously can read the tea leaves. Last night was not a good night for her. It was a very strong night for Donald

Trump. And so, one, I'm very glad that she stayed in through Super Tuesday. It was important for a large number of states, what, 16 last night, to be able to cast their vote and to have an alternative. And clearly the Republican base is in Donald Trump's camp, but Nikki ran a good race and she timed it well now to make a decision to suspend her campaign. There really wasn't any choice. And so now we'll

see, just as the previous analysis went, exactly where her supporters go. And I think that remains up in the air exactly what she does, as well as others who supported her. Well, let's talk about what you might do as one Nikki Haley supporter. There is the third party option. There's the not voting option. The Wall Street Journal is characterizing Haley's message today as saying that Trump needs to earn the support of those Republicans who are still reluctant. What are you thinking? Well, it is important that the burden is on Donald Trump to unify the party and to reach out and to bring people together in the Republican column. That's hard for him to do. And he's not been very successful of that in the past. So in terms of me, I fit in the column that I can't endorse Donald Trump. There's nothing I see that he reflects my views of the Republican Party,

the role of the United States of America abroad, the importance of controlling spending in the federal government. All of these issues, I don't see Donald Trump being effective. And so I'm withholding my support from Donald Trump as well. Now, as to what I do, that remains to be seen. But I want to see how Nikki Haley, what her comments are today. But I think I'll be with a lot of people that just say Donald Trump would be a risk for the United States of America. Do you have any faith that if elected, that former President Trump would respect the law and respect the democratic system that we have? I think there's a high risk that he would assume more powers than our Constitution gives the executive branch.

In other words, I think there are risks there. Last night was a good example in some ways that he just won an incredible election across multiple states, and his victory speech included attacking the election system, saying it's a third world country that we have. And so as a lawyer, former federal prosecutor, I don't like him undermining the rule of law that we have, our institutions of democracy, but also our system of law that we have in the courts. And so, yeah, there's risk to that. I think there's a lot of unknown there.

He plays very cagey in terms of what he says. He wants to be a dictator for one day. What does that mean? Does he really mean that? So, yes, there's risk that I'm concerned about. And that's where independent voters are going to be concerned. And Donald Trump, if he wants to win, has to be able to expand beyond the base to go after independent voters and to make sure that he has a message that makes him feel comfortable in supporting him.

I'm sure that there is a list of issues a mile long where you disagree with President Biden or disagree with the way that he has conducted himself in office. But does he pose that same kind of danger to the system that you just described with Donald Trump? Well, it's different, and I'm not going to support Joe Biden. I look at his failed policies from energy security to our foreign policy to particularly our border and spending too much, the economic side of it, all of those reasons, I think he has his own set of risk. And you can say that if we have a weak southern border, that's a risk to our democracy as well. So it's a different set of risk. So I have to look at it both in terms of, uh, I'm a Republican. I've been historically supporting the party and it's a big deal not to offer that endorsement

to Donald Trump. Governor, thanks very much. It's always a pleasure talking with you. Really appreciate it. Steve, great to be with you today. Thanks so much. Asa Hutchinson was himself a Republican presidential candidate. And before that was the Republican governor of Arkansas.

Now, our correspondent, Don Gagne, has been listening along with us here. And, Don, let's think this through. Isn't this something that Republicans have struggled with a lot, Republicans who have public or, in many cases, private concerns about Donald Trump, but seem to struggle with what exactly, what else to do? Absolutely. And the conversation you just had with former Governor Hutchinson, sure, he's a former governor. He's a former presidential candidate. I've had that exact same conversation with so many voters across the country. People have been wrestling with this since the earliest days of Donald Trump as a political figure in the country. Obviously, it is a settled question for Governor Hutchinson, but a lot of people are still wrestling with what they do come November.

Don, thanks as always for your insights. Really appreciate it. A pleasure. That's NPR's Don Gagne on this morning after Super Tuesday when we're learning that Nikki Haley is suspending her presidential campaign. She'll make a statement a little bit later on this morning. Next, we head down the ballot from the presidential race to a U.S. Senate primary with a bit of a twist. California voters picked two finalists to replace the late Senator Dianne Feinstein in a seat that is open for the first time since 1992. And the Democratic finalist found a way to choose his opponent.

Marisa Lagos covers California politics for member station KQED and is with us now. Good morning. Good morning. All right. Tell us which two candidates made the runoff. The Democrat's going to be Representative Adam Schiff. He's represented parts of Los Angeles in the House for more than two decades. And he led the first impeachment inquiry into former President Trump in 2019. And he's really made pushing back against Trump and, quote, saving democracy a centerpiece of his campaign. On the GOP side, we have former Los Angeles Dodgers first baseman Steve Garvey, who retired in 1987 but is still fondly remembered by baseball fans. And he toyed with the idea of entering politics for decades, but only jumped in this fall after Feinstein died.

Here he is at a victory party in Palm Desert last night. This is the first game of a doubleheader. So keep the evening of November 5th open as we will celebrate again. So a lot more baseball references ahead for all of us here in California. And honestly, Garvey might not have made the top two in this primary at all without the help of Adam Schiff.

Say more about that. Yeah. So Garvey entered late. He didn't raise a lot of money. He didn't do a ton of campaigning. But Schiff basically poured in $10 million into running ads about Garvey. This was largely on conservative media outlets like Fox News. And they were kind of ostensibly attack ads, painting Garvey as a Trump Republican. But for conservative voters, it served as an introduction to Garvey in a huge state where he couldn't afford to run TV ads of his own. OK, so why would Schiff want to face Garvey this fall? We have a kind of unique primary system here. It's an open primary. So all the candidates run on one ballot in the primary and the top two vote getters move on to the runoff, regardless of party. So in an overwhelmingly Democratic state,

where less than one quarter of registered voters are Republican, Schiff wanted to head off his most formidable Democratic opponent, who was Orange County Congresswoman Katie Porter. And it looks like it worked. He will now have a much easier time in the November general election. I'm assuming that this was known, that Schiff was doing this. How did that go over with other Democratic voters? You know, how did that tactic go over with them? It doesn't seem to have really hurt him with his supporters. I think

porters expressed a lot of anger, and I think that he could receive some blowback. But, I mean, broadly, this is such a big state. I just, I don't know that a lot of voters were actually paying that close of attention. And it's looking to shape up to a pretty low turnout election generally. So it may not sting him ultimately, even though clearly there are some people who are not happy with the tactic. So let's talk about how this race is going to look. And I understand that Schiff's election night party was almost taken over by people protesting the situation in Gaza. Yeah.

Listen to this. This is how it sounded there. I want to thank you all. You know, that protest echoes what we've seen elsewhere in the country, and it might be a taste of what's ahead, not just for Schiff, but for President Biden, who did overwhelmingly win in California on Tuesday night's primary. But let's be clear, given the overwhelmingly Democratic electorate in California, it would be extraordinary if Garvey could really mount a serious challenge this fall. So this isn't seen as a competitive race for Republicans, but there are some tight House races in California, and that could help decide who controls Congress next year. Is there any way in which this matchup could influence those races? You know, it could. We're going to have to wait and see. I know some national Democrats are

probably happy that there won't be an expensive Democrat on Democrat race between Schiff and Porter in this blue state that would suck money from elsewhere. But having Garvey up toward the top of the ticket could actually excite some GOP voters or conservatives who maybe aren't as enthusiastic about Trump. So we'll kind of have to see how that plays out. That is KQED's Marisa Lag care the last few weeks, you are not alone. People around the country have had trouble filling their prescriptions. Many doctors have not been able to bill insurance providers, all because one company was targeted with a cyber attack. NPR cybersecurity correspondent Jenna McLaughlin is here to tell us what's going on. Good morning,

Jenna. Good morning, Michelle. So this attack happened, what, two weeks ago and things still aren't back to normal? Yes, it's been over two weeks and things are still messed up. At pharmacies, sources say things are starting to improve, but there are still major issues like patients paying full price for drugs. Meanwhile, doctors are having problems submitting insurance claims and looking up patient medical histories. Yesterday, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced that they're stepping in to help provide emergency funding, but it's not totally clear how that will play out yet. So how can this attack on a single company, which frankly many of us have probably never heard of, so profoundly disrupt the American

healthcare system? Yeah, basically a ransomware gang called Black Cat breached Change Healthcare. As a cybersecurity reporter, I hadn't heard of them either, but I sure got a crash course in exactly how important they are. Let me break it down. And you know, it gets complicated, so bear with me. Change Healthcare is like a digital middleman. Pharmacies, doctors, clinics, they all use it to check patients' eligibility for services, look up their medical histories, and then bill the insurance company for treatment. Now, they're owned by Optus, which is a subsidiary of UnitedHealth, one of the largest health insurance companies in the country. But basically, Michelle, what's important to know is that this is a big, juicy target for hackers. Once the payment platform went down, the whole health care system was disrupted.

I spoke to Douglas Hoy. He is the CEO of the National Community Pharmacists Association about all this. Listen to how he described it. One of the biggest lessons learned from this situation is that when we put all of our eggs in one basket, when that basket tips over, all the eggs crack and there's none left. We're scrambled at that point. I also talked to a senior administration official at the White House. They've been working on this. And they said that this is an attack that's a real example of concentrated risk and the dangers of a single point of failure.

This is obviously very unnerving. So tell us more about what's being done to fix this. So part of the Health and Human Services announcement was that they wanted to help providers figure out ways to make their systems more resilient. If another company like Change Healthcare gets attacked tomorrow, providers should be able to easily switch to another similar one so that they can keep billing insurance without disruption. It turns out there are companies working on this very thing. But have they been successful? Yeah, actually, I reached out to Zach Cantor. He's the founder of a technology company called Steady. He actually ended our conversation on a positive note. Here's what he said.

It's a very solvable problem. There's lots and lots of very capable people working on this, both at Steady and at other companies. And it's like, it's different than the power company going out and you don't have a backup power source. In this case, it's just a matter of the company's getting in touch. But even if that problem gets solved tomorrow, it could be something else. The cybersecurity standards need to improve across the board. Hopefully, Michelle, this is a moment the healthcare industry learns from. You know, never let a good crisis go to waste. NPR cybersecurity correspondent Jenna McLaughlin. Jenna, thank you.

Thank you. And that's Up First for Wednesday, March 6th. I'm Michelle Martin. And I'm Steve Inskeep. Today's Up First was edited by Dana Farrington, Kevin Drew, Andrew Sussman, and Ben Adler. It was produced by Julie Deppenbrock, Claire Murashima, Ben Abrams, and Katie Klein. We get engineering support from Josephine Neonai and our technical director, Zach Coleman. Join us here tomorrow when we preview the State of the Union address coming this week from President Biden.

And there's a simple way to explore the very big world of public radio shows and podcasts, including Up First, the all-new NPR app. Hear news from the station in your community, stories from around the country, and podcast suggestions based on what you like. Download the NPR app at the App Store.