Up First from NPR - House Speaker McCarthy Ousted, Catholic Church's Future, China's 'Golden Week'

Episode Date: October 4, 2023

For the first time in U.S. history, the House of Representatives removed its speaker. Who will fill the vacant seat? Roman Catholic leaders are meeting in the Vatican to chart a way forward for the church. And how do Chinese people spend their "golden week" holiday?Want more comprehensive analysis of the most important news of the day, plus a little fun? Subscribe to the Up First newsletter.Today's episode of Up First was edited by Kelsey Snell, Cheryl Corley, Michael Sullivan and HJ Mai. It was produced by Mansee Khurana, David West and Chad Campbell. We get engineering support from Stacey Abbott. And our technical director is Zac Coleman.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

For the first time in U.S. history, the House removes its Speaker. The office of Speaker of the House of the United States House of Representatives is hereby declared vacant. Who will fill that vacant seat? I'm Amy Martinez, that's Leila Fadl, and this is Up First from NPR News. Roman Catholic leaders are meeting in the Vatican to chart a way forward for the Church. It's the first time women can vote at the bishops' meeting. Will the gathering end with more equality for women and more openness to LGBTQ Catholics? And how do Chinese people spend their Golden Week holiday?

NPR's John Rewich takes us to a popular pedestrian shopping area to see if holiday tourism might give a boost to China's struggling economy. So 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. Kevin McCarthy is out as House Speaker after Democrats joined eight rebellious Republicans in voting to remove him. You need two 18s.

Unfortunately, 4% of our conference can join all the Democrats and dictate who can be the Republican Speaker in this House. Congress now enters uncharted territory, and it's still unclear who the next long-term leader of the chamber will be. NPR congressional correspondent Claudia Grisales has been following the turmoil from the Capitol and joins me now. Hi, Claudia. Good morning, Layla. Good morning. So what happened yesterday? So we saw Florida Republican Congressman Matt Gaetz lead this rebellion of eight Republicans,

you mentioned, who voted with Democrats to claim a majority of the votes to oust McCarthy from his speakership. It was a stunning scene in the chamber last night. McCarthy vacillated between a frozen look on his face and laughing, and it ended in this very historic moment. So, Claudia, you've been in the Capitol for all of this drama, and Kevin McCarthy has had a difficult path since the beginning of his speakership, not even a year ago that it started. So tell us about how he got here. Right. In January, it took 15 rounds for his own party to elect him speaker. He came

into the role as one of the weakest speakers in modern times. But despite this, McCarthy did avert a national crisis with two key bipartisan votes in the House this year, the debt limit deal earlier this year, and then a bill this past weekend to keep the government open to avert a shutdown. But in the end, it was that last deal that was too much for many hardliners in his conference who moved to end his speakership. Did McCarthy fight to keep his job? He argues he did, but truly this time was marked by a series of unforced errors. A lot of those who voted against him said that he reached out and when he did, he only solidified their plans to vote against him. One member described his conversation with McCarthy before the vote as condescending. And then in extended remarks to reporters last

night, McCarthy was defiant. He attacked everyone who voted against him. But Democrats, for example, who voted to oust him said he did not try to negotiate with them in any way. And this was a culmination of what they saw as a long list of betrayals from the January 6th attack and his actions that followed to the impeachment inquiry into President Biden today. So now what happens next? I mean, North Carolina Republican Patrick McHenry was named as the interim speaker. What do we know about him? He was formerly in leadership. He left because of chaos.

He now chairs the House Financial Services Committee. He's a longtime McCarthy ally, but he has a good relationship with members. That said, he doesn't appear to be interested in holding onto the gavel permanently, but he played a very key role during the debt limit deal, and many trust him. Okay, so how do they pick their next person? I mean, this is a really important time in Congress. What do we know about what happens in the future? Right, this is uncharted territory, and we should note that now we're facing a new government shutdown deadline, November 17th, so we have a lot of work to do. So committees can work, but for example, the House floor is frozen until a speaker is chosen. I'm told by members there's going to be

a candidate forum for the next speaker Tuesday evening, and they'll try to hold a vote on Wednesday, but the list of candidates to replace McCarthy is growing long. As we heard from McCarthy, 218 is a magic number that may need to be reached for the new speaker. And there's a big if, if they can get to 218. And PR's Claudia Grisales. Thanks so much, Claudia. Thank you. Roman Catholic leaders are meeting at the Vatican starting today to discuss the future of the church. Among the topics on the agenda, being more responsive to laities' concerns, women in ministry, and being more welcoming of divorced and LGBTQ Catholics.

Joining us to discuss the meeting is NPR religion correspondent Jason DeRose. Jason, so help us understand what this meeting is actually about. Well, the term the Vatican is using is a synod on synodality, which is a big term, which essentially means it's a series of conversations about how the church conceives of itself, listens to itself. This month's meeting is part of a several-year-long process of listening. Local Catholic parishes began holding listening sessions back in 2021 and 2022, and then reports from those listening sessions went to diocese and archdiocese and then onto the Vatican. And the report that summarized those sessions

came out this summer. It was called Making the Tent Bigger. Okay, so the church did a lot of listening. What did they wind up hearing? Well, Laity said they wanted a church that takes them seriously, a more responsive church, a more bottom-up than top-down approach. I spoke with Professor Massimo Fagioli of Villanova University in Pennsylvania, who says that sentiment matches a metaphor Pope Francis has used during his time leading Roman Catholics. It's a church as a mother who makes no differences between their children, whether they are sinners or saints, gays or straight,

it makes no difference. And that's an image that has resonated with so many during Francis's papacy, mother rather than stern father. Still, there are some conservatives in the church who aren't happy with the direction or the tone that Francis has set. They say all these conversations, all this openness and possibility of change only confuses the faithful. Okay, so then what were the topics lay Catholics said they specifically wanted the church to think about differently? Well, the first and one that's been given a lot of attention is the role of women

in ministry. This synod at the Vatican will discuss the possibility of allowing women to become deacons in the Catholic Church. Right now, that's a role restricted only to men. Now, deacons can preach and teach and baptize, but unlike priests, they aren't allowed to preside at communion or hear confessions. It's important to note that at this synod, for the first time, there will be women taking part. About 10% of the delegates are women. Another issue that came out during these listening sessions was that the laity want the church to be more welcoming of all Catholics, especially divorced Catholics and LGBTQ Catholics. Many priests still deny communion to those who've divorced and remarried, and the official Catholic teaching is that homosexuality is intrinsically disordered, which is not exactly welcoming for lesbian, gay, and bisexual people. Other topics that could be on the table, married priests,

and the possibility of blessing same-sex couples. Okay, now any decisions expected to come out from this synod? Well, nothing right away. This is a process that moves at the speed of church, which is to say, slowly. The meeting starting today continues until the end of October, and then the synod on synodality is actually continuing next October when delegates will go back to the Vatican and vote on some sort of official document. That would then go up to Vatican hierarchy and the pope himself. Any actual change would come down after that.

So it'll be a while. But what comes of it could be defining for Francis's legacy. All right, that's NPR religion correspondent Jason DeRose. Jason, thanks. You're welcome. China is in the middle of an eight-day nationwide holiday to celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day. The government is hoping it'll give a big boost to the economy, and tourists have indeed been flocking to sites such as the Great Wall, the Forbidden City, and this shopping district in Beijing. NPR China correspondent John Ruich stopped by there the other day to take the pulse,

and he joins us now. Hi, John. Good morning. Good morning. So give us a sense of how people are spending their golden week holiday. Well, they're hitting the road. The government expects nearly 900 million domestic trips to be made during this week. Those are journeys on trains, planes, boats, and so forth. And analysts expect that to generate more than $100 billion worth of revenue, all told. We'll have the final tally in a few days. Those numbers would actually be improvements on recent years and are pretty decent compared with pre-pandemic numbers. But on the street, you know, some people say

it still feels like something's missing. We talked to the guy named Wang Xinglong. He sells these kind of hand-blown glass-like sculptures that are made of melted sugar that hardens. You can eat them. Kids really dig them. But he's a little bit concerned. So he's saying here that he thinks people are being conservative about what they spend. He says there's a ton of people out and about. It was crowded there, but they aren't spending like they used to. He's not selling as much as before. And he points out that fewer people are

actually carrying shopping bags, meaning that they hadn't bought anything. And they're just there for the experience. So despite the crowds, it sounds like the economy hasn't quite turned a corner yet. Right, John? Yeah, it kind of feels that way. Look, people expected that when the government dropped its tough COVID restrictions almost a year ago, that the rebound would be a lot stronger than it has been. When that didn't happen, analysts and economists started to worry. There's been a lot of hand-wringing. But I talked to Andy Rothman about this.

He's an investment strategist at Matthews Asia, which is a fund management company. He says he thinks that the pessimism has been overdone. The data does show that the economy is weak, but it's improving and certainly not approaching a crisis. He points to things like household income, which is up compared with 2019 and retail sales. EV sales have been soaring. I think the biggest problem facing the Chinese economy right now is a lack of confidence in government policies on the part of entrepreneurs, the small businesses that drive the Chinese economy, that employ 90% of the urban workforce and create all the new jobs. Right. And that's been a real issue. He thinks policy is starting to shift to address it. But that's created a wariness about making investments, which impacts the future health of the

economy. It sort of underpins this weak consumer sentiment that we saw in Beijing, too. And there's another big problem out there, the real estate sector, right? Correct. It's a sector that accounts for about a quarter of the Chinese economy. It's where about three quarters of all households in China park their wealth. The government's been trying to deflate this massive real estate bubble without doing major damage to the economy. But there's a lot of nervousness around it. And it's recently centered around this company called China Evergrande. It's one of the biggest property developers in China. It's been teetering sort of under the weight of more than $300 billion in liabilities. And last week,

it said its chairman's under investigation is the subject of a criminal investigation. That got a lot of people's attention and has sort of taken some of the luster off Golden Week. And here's John Ruich in Beijing. Thanks for that update. You're welcome. And that's Up First for Wednesday, October 4th. I'm Leila Faldin. And I'm A. Martinez.

Today's episode of Up First was edited by Kelsey Snell, Cheryl Corley, Michael Sullivan, and H.J. Mai. It was produced by Mansi Khurana, David West and Chad Campbell. We get engineering support from Stacey Abbott and our technical director is Zach Coleman. Start your day here with us tomorrow. And if you like your news on demand, check out the NPR One app. Get a mix of local, national and international news wherever you go and whenever you want it. And hear podcasts based on what you like. Download NPR One.