Monday Morning Politics: Romney's Retirement, Biden's Age and More

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Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone, on Climate Week NYC. Later in the show, we will have Amy Westervelt. Some of you remember her work when she was with NPR. She's an incredible climate journalist. In fact, she just won an award from the media consortium called Covering Climate Now that this show and WNYC are a part of, a Climate Journalist of the Year award from Covering Climate Now. She's going to be here later in the hour, along with Mark Hertsgaard, the executive director of Covering Climate Now. We'll take calls from those of you who were at the March to End Fossil Fuels yesterday, and we'll talk about other climate issues, other climate politics. That's coming up and a lot more in today's show.

We begin this week in national politics with autoworkers on strike at plants owned by all three major US carmakers, with Democrats and Republicans having very different reactions. Here's President Biden on Friday.

President Biden: Auto companies have seen record profits, including in the last few years, because of the extraordinary skill and sacrifices of UAW workers, but those record profits have not been shared fairly, in my view, with those workers.

Brian Lehrer: As for the Republicans, they're blaming Biden's climate policies, not automakers' greed or the demise of pensions and retiree health benefits or anything like that that the union is asking for. For example, Ohio Senator J.D. Vance said rapid transition to electric vehicles could cost nearly a half million autoworkers' jobs. Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri, another state where there's a plant being struck, tweeted, "Autoworkers deserve a raise, and they deserve to have their jobs protected from Joe Biden's stupid climate mandates that are destroying the US auto industry and making China rich." He tweeted that. They don't take the workers' side against management exactly, only against progressive policies. Happy Climate Week to you too. That's among the things we'll talk with Amy Westervelt about later in the show. We'll talk about it in this first segment too.

It's a week when the political class and maybe many less-political Americans are digesting Mitt Romney's retirement announcement last week. Much of the coverage says he announced it because he genuinely believes that he, plus Biden, plus Trump, are all too old to be national leaders anymore, but to my ear, Romney betrayed that. That, that may just be a line to cover for the fact that he would likely be primaried successfully by a pro-Trump Republican when he cited another really old Republican senator who's staying in office, Chuck Grassley. Listen.

Senator Mitt Romney: If I knew that I was going to be like Chuck Grassley and be able to be vigorous and dynamic into my 90s, I might have reached a different decision, but you never know. But I do think that the times we're living in really demand the next generation to step up and express their point of view and to make the decisions that will shape our American politics over the coming century.

Brian Lehrer: But Romney is nearly alone, I have to say, among Republicans in calling the reality of Donald Trump and his supporters the way he sees it. There's so much reporting that says a lot of Republicans in Washington think Trump is ridiculous, but they don't feel free to say that, but Romney did, like this clip from his retirement news conference the other day.

Senator Mitt Romney: My wing of the party talks about policy and about issues that will make a difference to the lives of the American people. The Trump wing of the party talks about resentments of various kinds and getting even and settling scores and revisiting the 2020 election. What are the policies for the future? And my party is only going to be successful getting young people to vote for us if we're talking about the future, and that's not happening so far in that other wing.

Brian Lehrer: Romney also said this, going even further.

Senator Mitt Romney: I was in a rally where someone said to me, if you're elected -- this was when I was running for Senate last time, "If you're elected, will you close down ABC, NBC, and CBS because they're not sending out the truth?" This was in a Republican rally, and I was like, "Really?" I mean, there's no question there's some portion of my party and the opposition party who thinks we need to have a strong person, a strongman to put aside the Constitution. For that matter, President Trump, former President Trump said we should put aside the Constitution and reinstall him as president.

Brian Lehrer: Pretty strong stuff about lots of his fellow Republicans, and he did say some Democrats, wanting a strongman form of government. This from the guy who ran against Obama in 2012, saying 40% of Americans would vote for Obama because they saw themselves as victims and were dependent on government. They wanted government to guarantee things like housing and healthcare, which to Romney was apparently outrageous in 2012.

Our first guest this week, Christina Greer, a Moynihan Public Scholars Fellow at City College here in New York, Associate Professor of Political Science at Fordham University, co-host of the podcast FAQ NYC, host of The Blackest Questions podcast on TheGrio, and author of the book Black Ethnics.

Hi, Christina. Always good to have you. Welcome back to WNYC.

Christina Greer: Thanks, Brian.

Brian Lehrer: Let's start with Romney's retirement announcement. Do you think his generational message was genuine or just a way to save face with reelection prospects very uncertain, or a little of each?

Christina Greer: I think a little of each but more of the latter. I think Mitt Romney recognizes that his party has left him. I mean, he's been relatively silent during the Trump years and post-Trump years because he recognizes that when you look at who's running Washington DC from his party, it's the far-right fringes who have become a larger percentage of the party with each passing election, and definitely the Mitt Romney of Massachusetts no longer exists. To have [crosstalk]--

Brian Lehrer: People forget that he was the governor of Massachusetts for a while, that very blue state, but he was a Republican governor of Massachusetts.

Christina Greer: Right, because he helped implement healthcare in the state of Massachusetts, and did quite a bit of bipartisanship building while he was governor and really had a vision for the state. I didn't agree with everything that he did while I was there, but he definitely understood Massachusetts' values in a lot of ways. The shift from Massachusetts' Mitt Romney to Utah Mitt Romney is something, but I think recognizing that the Gaetz, the Taylor Greene's, the Boebert's of the party, even the McCarthy's of the party, are not people who are willing to work with and/or respect Mitt Romney. I think he's hiding behind the sort of, well, it's time to retire and so we should all retire, but there are so many ways that Mitt Romney did not stand up to the president and his own party when Donald Trump was in office, and he's been relatively quiet as a senator with his party in these past few years.

Brian Lehrer: I mentioned in the intro [crosstalk]--

Christina Greer: I'm sure we'll all see it in a book that he'll write when he lets us all know the things that he was [crosstalk]--

Brian Lehrer: [chuckles] Which, by the way, would be a lot different, maybe, than the book that he wrote when he was getting ready to run for president. You probably remember. It was 2010, I looked up the exact year over the weekend to get ready for this, that he published a book with such a sort of Republican hardcore title called No Apology. Can't you see that fitting in to what we might think of as hardcore Republicanism today?

No Apology, that was the name of Mitt Romney's book when he was getting ready to run against Obama. The premise being that Obama, after he took office following the devastatingly awful Iraq War, was apologizing in some speeches in other countries for some American policies. Romney was like, "No, we don't do that. I won't do that. It's the case for American greatness," that was the subtitle of the book. No Apology: The Case for American Greatness. That was the Mitt Romney book of 2010. You're suggesting his next book might be a little different in tone.

Christina Greer: Right. Well, that book, I think we're still seeing vestiges of that, though, Brian, because so many Republicans say that because of Biden and also the policies of Obama, we're weak in the international playing field. Putin doesn't fear us. Other countries, Europe is running amok, and so United States doesn't really have the same standing as we once did because of the weakness of Barack Obama and Joe Biden.

I do think that this next book, which we know he will write and sell, will essentially say, while Donald Trump was doing this, I was thinking this. It's like, well, thanks for thinking it, but you never said it, as evidenced by the conversations that he was having around January 6th. It's like, well, it would have been great if you weren't feckless at the time and actually stood up and said, as Republicans, we must come out against this, we must have a peaceful transference of power. It is a sin and a shame that the president did not go to the inauguration of Joe Biden as he's being sworn in as the 46th president.

I mean, there's so many minor and major things that Mitt Romney and his colleagues in the Republican Senate could have and should have done, but they didn't do. We know that we'll hear about all these things as they write books and get a few million dollars in advancements.

Brian Lehrer: Interesting. Listeners, I wonder if there's anybody out there right now who lived in Massachusetts when Mitt Romney was governor, which Christina mentioned, and has a recollection of Mitt Romney in that phase of his career. Did he achieve anything genuinely bipartisan or really big tent that deserves to be celebrated if you lived in Massachusetts when Mitt Romney was the red-party governor of that very blue state? 212-433-WNYC.

Or anyone else on Mitt Romney's retirement announcement. Anything from it that rings true to you, anything from it that doesn't? We can talk about the generational issue, which I'll ask Christina about as a college professor who obviously has young voters in her classes as she's a political science professor. Or anything else you want to say about what Mitt Romney said about Trump, or his party, or Mitt Romney's career as it reflects American democracy in any way. 212-433-WNYC. You can bring up other national politics as well. 212-433-9692. Call or text, or you can tweet @BrianLehrer.

We'll get into some Eric Adams politics as well a little later in the segment, since Christina also follows New York politics. Some of you may have seen the development over the weekend of these numerous lawsuits that the city of New York has filed against other counties, mostly upstate counties, refusing to house any of the asylum-seekers. The city has now dropped most of those lawsuits. We'll explain why and what New York City can do next, and Eric Adams' position as he gets increasingly frustrated with media coverage, among other things, of his actions with respect to the asylum-seekers. That's all coming up, but for now keep it to national politics. 212-433-WNYC. 212-433-9692. Call or text, or tweet @BrianLehrer.

I mentioned in the intro, Christina, reporting that indicates a lot of Republicans in Washington, meaning House and Senate Republicans, who really probably don't support Trump, who really think Trump is ridiculous or worse, won't say it like Romney has been saying it because they're afraid of exactly what Romney's fate seems to be, that they would be primaried and they would lose their jobs. There was an excerpt about that. Some of the reporting comes from the new book by McKay Coppins about Mitt Romney, which isn't out yet. Some excerpts have been released. We invited McKay Coppins to come on, but he said, no, when the book comes out, or his publisher says that. That's a few weeks from now.

There are some excerpts that have been released. Jamelle Bouie, New York Times columnist, in his newsletter over the weekend cited this one passage from McKay Coppins' Romney book. It says, "What bothered Romney most about Hawley," that's Republican Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri, "and his cohort was the oily disingenuousness." Then he quotes Romney saying, "They know better. Josh Hawley is one of the smartest people in the Senate, if not the smartest, and Ted Cruz could give him a run for his money." That's the quote. Then the book says, they were too smart, Romney believed, to actually think that Trump had won the 2020 election. Hawley and Cruz, "Were making a calculation," Romney talking again, "that put politics above the interest of liberal democracy and the Constitution."

He's not the only person to say it, but I think it's one of the most important things in American politics right now, if true, that there are so many people in one of the two major parties who actually think liberal democracy is under siege by the leader of their own party, but they won't say it.

Christina Greer: Absolutely. I think that's part of the frightening calculus because we have the Cruz's and the Hawley's of Washington DC who have been to some of the best schools. They're the ones who are saying, Democrats are elitist, with their Harvard and Yale JDs. They understand what's at stake, but they're more concerned about their personal success and surviving a primary to stand up to a person like Donald Trump. Because of that, we're breeding sort of mini Trumps around the country in smaller races, in smaller districts.

Their fear of him, because we know that Donald Trump does not care about the life of the Republican Party, he cares about his own political survival, so this was the first time -- we talked about this years ago, Brian. We've never seen a political candidate essentially turn on his own party, which we saw Donald Trump do time and time again, so they know that they're not immune to his vitriol and his ire, especially in a primary. We know that because voter participation in political primaries is pretty abysmal across the country, a primary really does make or break a race in a lot of ways, and so they must make sure that they stay on the good side of Donald Trump. They know better. They just refuse to do better and because of that, American democracy is on the precipice of failure in many ways.

I hate to think of it that way. I'm obviously pragmatically optimistic because I work with young people, but if we don't get certain elections right, we are looking at a man who has said that he wants to destroy particular policies that not only serve as a social safety net for millions upon millions of Americans, Republicans included, but he wants to take away these checks and balances that we've worked really hard to try and get better at. We're not there yet, but we know the entire democratic experiment that is American democracy is completely under attack with any Trump return.

Brian Lehrer: Though, Romney did feel compelled to put in that clip that we played. Let's see if I can get that transfer up. Let's see. I was in a rally and someone said to me, if you're elected -- when I was running for Senate last time, "If elected, will you close ABC, NBC, and CBS because they're not sending out the truth?" Then he said, "There's no question, there's some portion of my party and the opposition party who thinks we need to have a strong person, a strongman to put aside the Constitution."

I was surprised, as much straight talk as he's been coming out with about Trump, that he felt compelled to put that in there as if there's an equivalent strain in the Democratic Party that would go for a strongman government.

Christina Greer: Right, because we know that Joe Biden isn't coming out with edicts by any stretch of the imagination. I think it's not just a national, but even a global trend where more and more people seem to be warming to the idea of strongman politics, sort of having someone who comes in and either upends democratic principles or gives a mandate as to what is happening. It seems to be much more attractive to many Republican voters.

We're seeing what's going on in Florida with Governor DeSantis and the systemic removal of rights that have been in place and hard-fought rights, we have to be clear about, that have been in place for so many decades, just coming in and completely- firing folks just because he doesn't like them or because they're of a different political party. Which isn't the same as Democrats encouraging Departments of Justice and Attorney Generals across the country to actually do due diligence and investigate where problems have occurred. That's not being a strongman, but I think so many right-wing outlets are framing it as, well, Joe Biden is being a dictator because he's punishing his political opponent, which is similar or worse than Donald Trump's philosophies on governance.

Brian Lehrer: We have some thoughtful texts and calls coming in about Mitt Romney, now that he's had this long career and announced his retirement from the Senate or that he won't run for reelection. Let's take a call. We'll read some of the texts in a bit. Nan in Manhattan lived in Massachusetts when Romney was governor there.

Nan, you're on WNYC. Thanks for calling in.

Nan: Thanks for taking my call. I became a real estate broker in Massachusetts in 2004 when he was governor. He had championed a policy where instead of real estate professionals working for the seller who pays them when the transaction happens, there was an option for buyer's brokers as well because the people actually spend more time with the buyers, taking them around to the different properties. He felt-- I don't know exactly what he felt, but it ended up being, there was a choice: you can be a buyer's broker or a seller's broker, or they can choose. 15 years later, they adopted that policy in New York.

Brian Lehrer: Nan, thank you very much. What's the moral of that story?

Nan: That he wanted it to be fair. He saw it as unfair that the buyers were misled, I would put it, because they developed a relationship. Okay.

Brian Lehrer: Nan, thank you very much. Here's another one. Let's see. This is a text, Christina, and I think probably fair enough. Listener writes, "I just wanted to note that Romney was the first to call out Putin as America and the Free World's greatest threat. We all laughed at him in 2012," Alan from Brooklyn. That's fair.

Do you remember that moment? I remember that moment. It was in one of the debates against Obama, I'm pretty sure, and they were asked, "What's the greatest threat to US national security?" Obama might have said climate change, I'm not sure, but he definitely did not say Russia. Romney said Russia under Putin. It's true that a lot of people did laugh at him as stuck in a Cold War mentality, like, come on, the Cold War has been gone since 1990, and you're up here saying Russia? Get with the times. Maybe he does deserve credit for having been the first or one of the first to call out Putin as the Free World's greatest threat in 2012.

Christina Greer: Yes, and don't forget, as governor-- I was in Massachusetts when he was governor as well, for a short stint. One, we called his healthcare policy Romneycare, which Obamacare is sort of an adaptation of that. Two, he survived a pretty robust primary in 2012. As governor of Massachusetts, there are a lot of international interactions he had. Don't forget, we always have relationships with various South American countries because of oil production and trying to get less expensive oil to residents of the state of Massachusetts.

The fact that Mitt Romney-- don't forget, he's also second-generation politician. His father was governor of Michigan, so he understood the job, and I think he really understood the public service aspect of the job. The fact that Senator Romney from Utah was relatively mute for much of his tenure when it comes to democracy and calling his party out is, I think, the more disappointing part of his legacy.

Brian Lehrer: Yes, you remind us that his father, George Romney, was governor of Michigan once upon a time. I guess when Romney was coming to national prominence, running against Obama in 2012, part of the vibe was, oh, he's not the centrist, moderate Republican that his father was. He's this new generation of more hardcore, no apology Republican, with a parallel drawn to George W. Bush compared to his father, George H. W. Bush.

People look back on George W. Bush now as kind of a mild Republican president because he's been denouncing Trump as crazy and sometimes in words that we can't use on the radio, but come on, the Iraq War, and you're either with us again or against us and all of that stuff, a torture. Romney, similarly, was considered the new generation of more right-wing Republicans than his father.

Christina Greer: Absolutely. If we knew then what we know now about George Bush; in many ways, Democrats of my age and my Northeastern leanings, we thought that George W. Bush was the worst possible scenario that we could ever see. Just wait a few election cycles [crosstalk]--

Brian Lehrer: Right, do you remember how much talk-- again, you jogged my memory on something. Remember when Bush was leaving office in 2008, and no matter who was going to be elected next, either McCain or Obama, the talk was, is Bush the worst president ever? There were articles written. There was a lot of serious talk comparing him to, I don't know, from the 19th century, someone or other who people don't even really know what they did these days. Was George W. Bush the worst president ever? Then we got Trump.

Christina Greer: Right. I think part of the George W. Bush legacy is looked upon relatively fondly because of Donald Trump. So many people see him as this dog-painting, benevolent former president who hangs out with Barack Obama and Bill Clinton at baseball games. If we go back to 2000 and 2008, the level of ire, the feelings of like, this man is going to drive this country into the ground and/or off a cliff because of his sheer ignorance, the fact that he has Dick Cheney and so many other people who were driving us into wars, plural, for their own personal financial gain that we're still tied up in in so many different ways economically, emotionally and you name it, so many people thought that George W. Bush was the nadir of American democracy.

Then we get someone like Donald Trump who not only lies with impunity, but somehow coerced an entire party to move to the far reaches where they're no longer even on the distribution curve, where I put the distribution curve on the board for my students. It's like, okay, so here are the sort of super-progressive Democrats. Then we've got the people in the middle. This is where presidents usually hang out, Barack Obama included, because you can capture the most people, weak-leaning Democrats, weak-leaning Republicans who disguise themselves as independents, but we know that they're just weak-leaning Democrats, weak-leaning Republicans if we look at how they vote.

Then you have these outliers. In the past, it's outliers don't make it past a primary. That's what straw polls are for. Those are the people who have funded CPAC. Now Donald Trump has not only taken his role as an outlier, he's pulled the party to this outlier status where we have these far-fringes dictating policy and changing the course of an entire party that we now have to grapple with, and so many Americans are either quiet about it or tacitly supporting it or overtly supporting it. All three are, I would say, as equally dangerous.

Brian Lehrer: Talking national politics with Fordham University political science professor Christina Greer. Pushback in a text message to the previous text message that I read about Romney and Russia. This one says, "Romney may have said Russia is our greatest foe, but he never said how or why. Please don't let this revisionist history set in. Romney may be good by Republican standards, but that's a low bar," writes one listener in response to the other listener.

Amy in Manhattan lived in Massachusetts when Romney was governor. Hi, Amy. You're on WNYC.

Amy: Oh, hello there. Yes, I can't say I lived in Massachusetts, but I spent a lot of time in Massachusetts when Romney was governor because all of my close family lived in Massachusetts, so I was there quite often. Anyhow, one of the things that Romneycare did in Massachusetts was address the fact that most people get their insurance through their employer if they haven't reached the age to receive Medicare. They addressed that with their plan in Massachusetts, and they also did something in order to allow people with pre-existing conditions to have a healthcare plan. I don't think either one of them went as far as what Obamacare did, but they do say that Romneycare kind of set the stage for something like Obamacare.

Brian Lehrer: Right, and in most of its elements was actually the template for Obamacare. If you didn't get health insurance from your employer, like you say, then there was a structure under which you would get subsidies, and there would be a marketplace under which you could get affordable, hopefully, health insurance as a single individual.

That makes the 47%-- Amy, thank you for your call. Christina, that makes the famous 47% comment even a little more befuddling. We're going to play this, the comment that helped lose Romney the election in 2012. He lost to Obama partly because of this comment caught on tape at a private event where he wrote off 47% of the American people, he used that number, as mooches. Since this was at a private event and this wasn't professional audio equipment, the sound is not perfect, but you'll be able to hear it. Listen.

Senator Mitt Romney: There are 47% of the people who will vote for the president no matter what, all right? There are 47% who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe that government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to healthcare, to food, to housing, to you name it.

Brian Lehrer: What a contradiction with what we were just talking about, Christina, that 47% of people think they're entitled to healthcare. What?

Christina Greer: Right, after implementing Romneycare. I think that was always the problem with Mitt Romney is that his political identity was always somewhat of a hologram. He was constantly running away from his legacy as governor of Massachusetts because the trend of the party, because of African American Barack Obama, was becoming a lot more hostile and vitriolic, and I wouldn't say extremist at the time, but they were definitely moving more to the Right, and he was trying to keep up with that, especially as the nominee.

This is still when Donald Trump is trolling Republican candidates, essentially, still saying, this man is a Muslim and he's not American, and you should be demanding his birth certificate, even when Barack Obama shows his birth certificate. They're also still operating in the shadow of Donald Trump, citizen Donald Trump at the time.

I think the 47%-- unfortunately, Democrats consistently adopt Republican talking points, so they call them entitlement programs. This is a social safety net that we have had going back to FDR. Because we know that many Republicans implement policies that actually destroy the social safety net and Democrats have to rebuild it for millions of Americans who actually do need assistance to survive in this very expensive country that has tons of money, but oftentimes doesn't seem to trickle down to regular Americans who work several jobs. Most people don't want to be on the social safety net. They just need it for a host of reasons.

I think Mitt Romney and his 47% comment, that was part of it. I think the "binders full of women" showed a gender analysis that he wasn't as up with the times. I do think also, the dog on the top of the car was something for a lot of people as well.

Brian Lehrer: What was the dog on the-- I remember, binders full of women. It was, "Do you have women in your administration?" He said, "I have binders full of women."

Christina Greer: Binders full of women, so many people [crosstalk]--

Brian Lehrer: People he might appoint if he was elected, right? What was the dog on the top of the car?

Christina Greer: You remember, the family put the dog in the crate on the top of the car and drove, and many folks in my set who care deeply about animals just could not get past that. For Halloween, they went either as binders full of women, but in the conversations about Mitt Romney, there was a judgment call that many people in my set just could not get past. Where it's like, if this family treats their own pet this particular way, and his response was a bit callous, then they saw it as a precursor to how he would actually treat regular Americans.

Brian Lehrer: I see. They all had to stay in the cab of the car. The dog got to ride like it was a convertible. Never mind. We'll continue in a minute with Christina Greer, a few more of your calls, texts and tweets as well. Stay with us.

Brian Lehrer on WNYC. A few more minutes before we get to today's climate segment, which is going to include your calls if you were at the March to End Fossil Fuels yesterday. A few more minutes with Christina Greer, political science professor at Fordham University. She's now also a Moynihan Public Scholars Fellow at City College. She's host of the podcast FAQ NYC, host of The Blackest Questions podcast on TheGrio, and author of Black Ethnics published by the Oxford University Press a decade ago now.

I'm looking for this text. We're getting so many. There was one I wanted to flag. Well, I'm going to have to summarize it. Basically, somebody was saying, look, even if he was disingenuous in saying politicians of his age should leave office, including Trump and Biden, or not run, and that's why he made that announcement rather than because he would lose in a primary to a Trump-supported candidate that, that was an important point to make, that we do have a gerontocracy and it is bad and it doesn't equally consider the policy needs of Americans who are younger. The Tweeter said that, and I think Steve in Manhattan is going to give a different point of view.

Steve, you're on WNYC. Hello.

Steve: Hi, Brian, and hello to Professor Greer. Thank you for taking the call. Yes, I think there's an overemphasis on the polling that's come out that shows people are worried about Joe Biden's age. I also disagree about there being too many old people, and I'll tell you why. First of all, with polling, we know it's not as accurate as it used to be. Things have changed a lot, and the polls have gotten things wrong election after election, and it's way too early in the process to tell what's going to matter to voters. Independents who decide elections are very hard to predict, especially at this stage. The key issues will be decided much closer to the election, except we know the economy is a big deal and that is going well compared to expectations.

Along those lines, Biden is getting his agenda accomplished. He may be 80 years old or whatever he is, but including Bidenomics, even with a divided Congress, he's passed all this legislation and he's getting his agenda passed. He's got a lot of young people with energy around him, who are in his cabinet and filling all these positions, who are getting things done and driving a lot of his policymaking. That is not to understate his more than capable and qualified vice president. I think that misogynoir is animating a lot of this constructed fear about Biden's age. "Oh, watch out because Harris is coming," and I think that's a wonderful thing. If we had President Kamala Harris, our country would be in a very good place.

Lastly, we're in a very particular moment in American political history with the very idea of democracy on the ballot. I, for one, welcome elders. Even if I disagree with everything Joe Biden has done in his career, whether it's Nancy Pelosi, or James Clyburn, or Biden, we need elders to provide wisdom and guidance in this really difficult time.

Brian Lehrer: Steve, thank you. Christina, there are so many things from that call and the text that I read leading into it that we could talk about. I'm going to pick out one word from Steve there: misogynoir.

Christina Greer: Yes. I think Steve laid it out beautifully. Misogynoir is sort of this intersection of, obviously, racism and sexism. I do think that in the shadow and the latent conversation that we are having about Joe Biden's age is the fact that Republicans-- Nikki Haley already put it in a tweet. Republicans are using the fact that's like, he's old. If he passes, you all will have a Black female president. That is enough to motivate a lot of people in the Republican Party where like, "Well, I don't know who the nominee is, but I definitely don't want Kamala Harris, a Black woman, a child of two immigrants, as the president." That boogeyman factor is real.

I do think that, yes, the Biden administration is doing leaps and bounds with the economy, but the problem with, I think, a lot of Democrats is the articulation of successes. There have been successes with student debt, there have been successes with the economy, but do people feel it as a palpable issue when they go to the polls? We'll know that much closer to 2024. I think the third thing is Democrats, because we're so many shades of blue, we are actually much more critical of members of our own party. You see the diversity within the Democratic Party critiquing Joe Biden, some valid, some invalid, it doesn't matter, but we are a diverse party [crosstalk]--

Brian Lehrer: We're going to hear some of it on our next segment, because quite a bit of the March to End Fossil Fuels was aimed at Biden not doing enough, but go ahead.

Christina Greer: Exactly, so Alaska pipelines, and whether student debt cancellation is enough, or all the things we can check off, whereas Republicans are in lockstep. They have their talking points. You can hear it in every single Republican in every media outlet they go to, whether they agree or disagree. We know, as Mitt Romney just said, behind closed doors, they're like, our leader is a maniac, but in front of the cameras, they are with Donald Trump and with the agenda completely.

Then I think the last part is this larger conversation about baton-passing that I have with a lot of my students. We see it on local levels. We saw Charlie Rangel who's the Dean of the House and the Lion of Congress, but in office for 46 years. Obviously, an amazing legacy, but where does that leave younger people who want to get into politics? I think on the local level, we're seeing a lot more young people, millennials and Gen Zers, dip their toe into local politics, which will, hopefully, mean a much larger, more robust career in all levels of government. It's a little harder on the federal level because of the types of money that you need, but we're seeing it, slowly but surely, in the baton-passing.

As it pertains to Joe Biden, I do think that saying that he's an octogenarian, we know that Democrats are much more critical of Joe Biden, but we haven't talked about the cognitive capabilities or incapabilities of Donald Trump. Joe Biden has to ride a bicycle a few miles to show people he's in shape. Donald Trump doesn't feel the need to do that because his party doesn't ask him to do that.

Brian Lehrer: Yes. There was a good segment on On the Media yesterday in which they had an expert on aging, talking about the ways that Biden presents read old to people because the types of things that are aging visibly on him, like his gait, the way he walks, and his voice, the way he speaks, but those don't reflect his cognitive abilities, a phrase you just used, his ability to make the decisions that presidents need to make in the big-picture policy context that they make them.

You teach college. How's the generational issue playing out with your political science students?

Christina Greer: Well, I think some people-- obviously, some of my students want student debt canceled immediately. That is a huge issue for them. All issues are essentially economic issues. I think that they are excited about young people in politics, sure. I do think that many of them-- I don't know if this is a self-selection because oftentimes, even though I have first-years, they hear from other people what professors they want to take. I have a certain type of student who chooses to be in my intro class, who tends to think that they care about democracy and they are very frightened by the prospect of, say, a Donald Trump. That's the leaning that I get, but my job is to [crosstalk]--

Brian Lehrer: Fair disclosure.

Christina Greer: I'm sorry?

Brian Lehrer: That's very fair of you to disclose that. Go ahead.

Christina Greer: Right. My job is to inspire them. That's not to say that I have nothing but progressives in my class by any stretch of the imagination, but my job is to inspire them in the short period of time that I have them to actually think about where they want to be in our political process. That doesn't always mean as a candidate. The great thing is there's so many different jobs that they can do, whether it's speech writing, whether it's election law, or campaign management, you name it, but to care about every single issue because every single issue - sorry, I live in New York, you can hear the sirens - directly comes back to them and their families and the communities they care about.

What are the issues they really care about and how do they want to fight for those issues? I do think that there's a frustration that so many students feel because the entry to politics seems-- before we break it down in the possibilities. I think a lot of them think, well, I can't be president. It's like, well, first of all, we don't have to jump to president. We could actually be on the community board first to see what issues you're passionate about, or city council, and then work our way forward that way. Because I think a lot of students, because civics isn't really taught in schools, they think about Washington DC politics only and forget that so much money and power is within their own city and state-level government, and so thinking about the role of state houses is incredibly important as well.

Brian Lehrer: But also, on the age issue, they may talk about Biden one way, but then they look at Bernie Sanders, who's around the same age, and talk about them a different way.

Christina Greer: Exactly. I was talking to a friend of mine who had a severe stutter growing up. He reminded me that oftentimes, the way Joe Biden speaks isn't because he's having a cognitive breakdown and it's not because he's old. He's like, it's an old tactic to help you master your words so you can overcome your stutter. Because many speech pathologists say being a stutterer is a lifelong process that you're consistently working through.

What we may see as someone who appears old and not necessarily fully present is actually the opposite. It's Joe Biden specifically working to still master his stutter. I think that we need to be a little cognizant of that when we evaluate him when he's doing public speaking on an international scale at all times.

Brian Lehrer: As we run out of time, I just want to acknowledge that a number of people are texting or calling in to say, with respect to Mitt Romney's legacy, don't forget about Bain Capital. Fair enough. That he was running a company whose reputation was buying up struggling companies to put them out of business and make money in that process while eliminating a lot of jobs.

I'll also mention that we were going to talk about Eric Adams as well in this segment, but we've stretched out our national politics conversation spontaneously all the way to the end of our time. We talk about Eric Adams almost every day on this show, so that conversation, at least the Christina Greer version, will be for another day.

As we leave it here with Christina Greer, Moynihan Public Scholars Fellow at City College, political science professor at Fordham. Don't forget her podcasts, FAQ NYC and The Blackest Questions. Christina, always great to have you. Thank you very much.

Christina Greer: Thanks so much, Brian. Always great to talk to you.

 

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