Thursday Morning Politics: Ukraine, Biden, More

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Brigid Bergin: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. I'm Brigid Bergin from the WNYC and Gothamist newsroom, filling in for Brian Lehrer who's off today. On today's show, an update on the race for governor in New York, then a closer look at a new law that requires more salary information on job postings. Later, we'll dive into the gray market of cannabis sales in New York, but first, the situation in Ukraine. As you've undoubtedly heard, Russia has launched a military attack on Ukraine, a full-scale attack from multiple directions according to Ukraine's Foreign Minister, with explosions heard in the Ukrainian capital.

In a statement last night, President Biden condemned the attack as unprovoked and unjustified, promising the world will hold Russia accountable for what he expects to be catastrophic loss of life and human suffering. He's meeting virtually with the G7 leaders this morning, and is expected to address the nation this afternoon.

While the Russian invasion of Ukraine is the most high-stakes situation demanding his attention, President Biden has said he would announce his pick for the Supreme Court this month, which ends Monday, and his first State of the Union address is scheduled for Tuesday. To talk about all of this, including what more the US could do to hold Russia, and the other matters vying for the President's attention, we're joined by Philip Bump, national correspondent at The Washington Post, where he writes the How to Read This Chart Newsletter. Phillip, welcome back to WNYC.

Philip Bump: Thank you very much.

Brigid Bergin: Listeners, what do you want to hear from President Biden when he speaks today or in Tuesday's State of the Union address? Call us at 212-433-WNYC. That's 212-433-9692, or tweet @BrianLehrer. Philip, let's start with Putin in Ukraine where there's so much at stake, politically, geopolitically, and very personally for those under attack. What are you seeing as the situation on the ground now?

Philip Bump: It's pretty remarkable. Obviously, I'm based outside New York City, so my view is through the lens of reporting and social media. I think one of the things that's really remarkable about the conflict as it unfolds is how well documented it is. There was a point that was made by someone that I think is accurate, which is the fact that this buildup was weeks in the making meant that there were a lot of reporters on the ground. This is occurring in a very modern western country where a lot of people have access to social media, so we can really get a sense for what's happening in real-time, and what's happening is really, really stark.

I think a lot of people who have not been tracking this overnight, who woke up to the news this morning, may not understand the extent of what's happening. This is not simply Russia trying to lock down what it has claimed are these two independent states in the eastern part of the country. This is a broad attack across the Ukraine that is now threatening the capital, Kyiv, that has already incurred damage in a number of major cities throughout the country. It is fundamentally what Putin said, that he aimed to demilitarize Ukraine. This is not something that is limited in scope, and I think that's important [unintelligible 00:03:24].

Brigid Bergin: As I said, President Biden and the European allies have condemned the attack, and had already imposed some very tough sanctions. Ukraine is not a member of NATO, so there's no obligation to intervene militarily, and the US has said it won't, correct?

Philip Bump: Yes, repeatedly. I think there's very little appetite domestically for that to happen, or at least there was prior to the events in the past 12 hours or so. I'm not sure if that changes significantly, but the US has been very adamant that we are not going to send troops to Ukraine to fight Russia. However, it does seem, given the extent of the conflict in Ukraine that is now encroaching on the borders of NATO-allied countries, there's already been a call to invoke Section 4 of the NATO Accords, which means that people are going to convene and ensure that there are protections for NATO members who are close to the fighting here.

There have been other concerns that as Russia engages in cyber attacks on Ukraine, shutting down institutions in Ukraine, for example, that they could use tools that are rough enough that they could spread into other places as well. It is not clear that this conflict will remain bounded by Ukraine's borders, and I think that's a broad concern for those who are paying attention to what's happening.

Brigid Bergin: This is obviously very early days in an evolving situation, but do you get a sense of what other information we'll learn today about additional options that are available to the US and allies?

Philip Bump: Yes. The United States and its European partners, in particular, have apparently been working for some time on a tranche of sanctions that could be applied, were Russia to take this step. We've heard about this repeatedly. I think there's a lot of question about why those already haven't been implemented, given the fact that it's been 14, 16 hours at this point that Russia has been actively engaged in attacking Ukraine broadly. I actually saw one of the editors of a news outlet in Kyiv tweeted frustrated, "Where are the sanctions? We were promised very quick sanctions. It's been now nearly 12 hours, what's happening?"

I think we're going to see some broad-scale sanctions, but the question is the extent to which that actually has an immediate effect. Obviously, the threat of sanctions was not a deterrent, and I think that there is some justified skepticism that imposing these sanctions now, what do you do then? Do you dust off your hands and say, sorry? I mean, it's just-- Not to advocate for an expanded military presence, but it's not really clear once those sanctions which have already been threatened are actually in place, where the deterrent effect comes for Russia at that point.

Brigid Bergin: In terms of what this means for politics in the United States, I seem to remember a time when there was a saying, "Politics stops at the water's edge," meaning Democrats and Republicans might be in a [unintelligible 00:06:20] struggle over domestic politics, but willing to work together when it came to foreign policy. You wrote about part of why that is very much not the case with Ukraine. It's deeply embedded in recent US politics, not just different approaches, but actual electoral politics. Can you hit on some of those highlights?

Philip Bump: Yes, and I'm actually writing something about this right now for The Post. Fundamentally, we've seen since 2014, since even prior to the Trump era in American politics, we've seen this increasing alliance between the American political right and Russia's interests. Obviously, this is sort of an ad hoc alliance largely, but there is sort of sympathetic [unintelligible 00:07:01] back and forth between those two groups, and I think that that was strengthened both by Russia's efforts in 2016, by Trump's approach to Russia over the course of his presidency, and incidents like Trump's efforts to pressure Ukraine's president in 2019 to try and dig up dirt on Joe Biden at the expense of actually providing defensive armaments to Ukraine.

One of the things that we're seeing that I think is really important for us to remember is, we are seeing a transition in American politics away from Democrats and Republicans sharing a united goal of making America better and disagreeing on policy, to Democrats and Republicans seeing each other as enemies, and seeing each other as one force or the other trying to actually undermine the United States itself.

If you are someone who sees the other side politically as an enemy who's trying to undercut the United States, it seems then almost rational to look overseas for allies in that fight. We see a lot of folks, particularly on the political right in this moment, people like Steve Bannon, even President Trump in some of the comments he's made recently, who are expressing some appreciation for Vladimir Putin at the expense of President Biden, in part because they see Putin as allied in their common fight against America's left, which is, I think a reflection of the broad partisan divide that has erupted over the course of the past several decades.

Brigid Bergin: I know that in the past we've certainly heard former President Trump side with Putin, calling him a genius, smart, savvy-- Given the stakes of what we're seeing right now, have we heard anything from the former president at this point, and how does that play into how people understand what's happening on the ground there?

Philip Bump: The former president called into Fox News, Laura Ingraham's opinion show last night, and immediately tried to say that this is because the 2020 election was rigged. I think that it is very easy to overestimate the extent to which Donald Trump is really thinking things through on this stuff. I think that he is representative of a certain faction in American politics, but I'm not sure that he is doing anything besides self-promotion at any given point when he's considering these things. His goal here, he's looking at 2024, thinking he might run against Biden, so he's going to use this as an opportunity to tear down Biden, even if that's something that is detrimental broadly, potentially, to the United States.

That said, there are elements, there are people like Tucker Carlson on Fox News who are actively promoting Vladimir Putin's worldview here. There are others who are saying, "Hey, Putin's got a real point in terms of the threat posed by Ukraine," which I think no actual foreign policy analyst treats with any great credibility. That's the argument that was being made by Vladimir Putin, and there are people in the United States who are saying, "This is something that ought to be treated seriously," which I think can be evaluated on some merits.

Brigid Bergin: I want to go to one of our callers. Biella in Stamford, Connecticut, welcome to WNYC.

Biella: Thank you. I'm a former participant of the Hungarian Revolution. I'd like to share some of my experiences in connection with the Ukraine. One of those is my advice for the United Nations to send troops immediately to protect the Ukrainian government and military leaders, because our experience was that that's the very first thing the Russians go after. In case of Hungary, the head of the army was invited after a staged withdrawal by the Russians, was invited to their headquarters, arrested, and later hanged, and that destroyed the total resistance of the army.

The other thing I'd like to mention is that for the average population, the Molotov cocktail is a very important tool in a street fight in cities. In that connection, people have to think of the practical details such as, have a wine bottle or something and empty it, and make sure that you have gasoline, which you fill it with, and then put a piece of cloth in it so that when the tank is coming, you light.

Brigid Bergin: Biella, thank you so much for sharing what sounds like an incredibly traumatic experience during your time in Hungary, and the comparisons and sympathies that you are sharing with what people in Ukraine are experiencing. I want to pivot back, Philip, to how the US is responding. In this particular case, how Congress is responding to the invasion. Do we know yet what their response has been so far?

Philip Bump: Well, there's a pretty remarkable document that came out yesterday in which a number of members of Congress from across the political spectrum called on President Biden to ensure that if there were to be military deployments targeting Russia, if there were essentially to be an expanded conflict in which the United States engaged, to actually involve Congress in that decision-making. That's something that's been avoided by presidents in recent history. I think it reflects both the fact that Congress is trying to ensure that it's protecting its own power, but also broadly reflects concern about the way in which the American military has been deployed in the past for open-ended engagements, as we saw, obviously, after the 9/11 attacks.

The question of sanctions, again, we have heard repeatedly from the administration that the sanctions are essentially locked and loaded, and they're ready to go. We've not seen them deployed. We understand that President Biden is going to address the nation at 12:30 today, so it may be the case that he actually announces something then, or clarifies what has already gone into place.

Again, if the United States justifiably, given public sentiment, and given recent experience, is not going to engage militarily with Russia directly, then there's not a lot that can be done. I mean, it certainly is the case that the United States has corralled a lot of international support and opposition to Russia. That's part of the reason that Biden and the American intelligence agencies were so direct in saying, "Here's what Putin is planning. This is what it looks like, and this is what we expect to happen," was to make sure that people understood the stakes and to get those ducks in a row, but there is a point at which-- There is a very big difference between enacting a sanction on Vladimir Putin and his allies, and the fact that some 200,000 Russian forces are at this point crossing the border in Ukraine.

Brigid Bergin: We're going to take a short break here. When we get back, we shift gears a little and talk about some of the domestic items demanding the president's attention, like a Supreme Court pick and the State of the Union address. More on that, including your calls, just after the break.

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Brigid Bergin: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. I'm Brigid Bergin from the WNYC and Gothamist newsroom, filling in for Brian Lehrer who's off today. With me is Washington Post national correspondent Philip Bump. Phillip, while all this is going on overseas, the president has also committed to naming a Supreme Court justice to replace Stephen Breyer this month by Monday. This is a different kind of high-stakes decision. There have been reports that he's interviewed at least three candidates himself. Are they close to making this announcement, or were they at least yesterday?

Philip Bump: Yes, it's an important [unintelligible 00:15:23]. We had heard rumblings that there was likely to be an announcement at some point this week. Obviously, this week, meaning today or tomorrow, since it's Thursday. That seems pretty likely to be delayed. I think that President Biden is being pretty deliberate in the way in which he wants to roll this out, given some of the existing criticisms about how he's handled it so far. Now, I think the White House probably is pretty confident now is not the time in which to actually engage in this separate fight. I think there are certainly questions--

Once we see who the nominee happens to be, it seems fairly likely that this will not be the same sort of knockdown drag-out fight we've seen for other Supreme Court nominees in recent years. In part, because this is a Democratic nomination who's going to be replacing a liberal justice, which makes the stakes somewhat lower, but obviously, the White House wants to do this very deliberately. I think it's safe to say that now is not the time for such a deliberate rollout.

Brigid Bergin: Let's go to another one of our callers, Jenny in Fairfield, Connecticut. Jenny, welcome to WNYC.

Jenny: Good morning. I think Biden has a really tough time to create unity out of the chaos. It's going to take, I think, a miraculous epiphany to turn around a unifying population when so many people want to believe Trump, who says the NATO Alliance did not pay enough money, so this is what they get.

I think in an upcoming speech, Biden needs to take clues from Reagan's Axis of Evil old speech, but maybe he should call it like Points or Sights of Tyranny, and how we have to fight against Putin, and Xi, and Kim Jong-un, and Duterte, and Bolsonaro. All these tyrants that Trump admired, he says he loves them, he saved their letters down at Mar-a-Lago. Biden really has a hard row to hoe, and I think he has to emphatically name names, and keep up with the sanctions, just get tougher with sanctions. I would be horrified if we lost any more American lives in wars like we have over the last 25 years.

Brigid Bergin: Jenny, thank you so much for your call. Listeners, what do you want to hear from President Biden this afternoon or in Tuesday's State of the Union? Call us at 212-433-WNYC. Let's go to John in Red Bank. John, welcome to WNYC.

John: Thank you. There are three main things that President Biden should immediately do. Number one is reverse his actions regarding the oil and gas industry in the United States. Have a meeting of all the oil drillers, the oil companies, and make that a priority to drill for oil and gas in this country so that we can supply Europe and our own country with more oil independence. The other thing would be to complete the oil pipeline project. Improving the supply of oil will send a message to Mr. Putin that Europe and the United States are not going to be dependent on his oil that supports his regime.

The third thing is to provide the arms and the technical assistance to the Ukrainian government, and to Poland, and Romania, and the other countries, so that Mr. Putin understands that he's dealing with a united front. The other part of it is, Mr. Xi Jinping is watching all of this. If Mr. Biden fails, and the United States government, the Senate and the Congress fail to show a united front, Mr. Xi Jinping is going to be next in attacking Taiwan.

Brigid Bergin: John, thank you so much for your call. Philip, lots of advice and analysis from our callers there. As an incoming president last year, the president didn't do an official State of the Union address, but he did address a joint session of Congress. At one point, we might have thought that economic recovery or the falling case numbers might be the lead on Tuesday, but what do you think we're going to hear, and what do you make of the advice from our callers?

Philip Bump: I think one of the things we're going to hear is actually a refrain that Biden's been making a lot but hasn't gotten a lot of attention because it's sort of conceptual, which is, at the outset-- At his inaugural speech on January 20th, 2021, he was very pointed in saying that he saw the United States as engaged in a fight of democracy against autocracy. The first caller who just pointed out that Donald Trump had embraced all of these various autocrats around the world, Biden has been very pointed in saying he sees this moment on the international stage as being exactly that fight. I think we should expect that that'll be a central theme of his speech next week, that the United States is engaged in a fight specifically in order to defend the international democratic order.

As to the specifics of what he ought to do in the meantime, there are certainly-- I mean, the challenge with energy production in the United States is not that we don't have enough energy production, it's that it's a lot easier to ship gas, particularly natural gas, from Russia to Germany than it is to get it from the United States to Germany. There have been a lot of efforts to try and do things like liquefied natural gas depots and establish a flow between the United States and Europe, so there are obviously geographic issues at play when it comes to actual oil and gas.

Broadly speaking, I think we should assume that the United States is engaged in covert activities in Ukraine which we're not made aware of. We certainly have not seen a lot of American troops over there, but I would be extremely surprised if we didn't learn in the weeks and months to come that there were American special forces on the ground there, that there had been provision of military aid to the Ukraine that was more surreptitious. It seems bizarre to assume that wouldn't have happened, but obviously not something that the United States wants to do necessarily while proudly waving an American flag and driving big trucks down the street. We'll see what actually is on the way and the role of-- What the United States has been doing.

Brigid Bergin: This obviously could change radically between now and Tuesday, but in terms of how Americans will be listening to this speech, do you get the sense that people will be listening more about what the president plans to do about, say inflation, versus what's happening in Ukraine?

Philip Bump: Yes. I mean, this is sort of the broad question of any political actor in the United States, is that it is necessary to address these big sweeping historic issues, but these are not issues necessarily that affect people's daily lives. People are a lot more worried about gas prices than they are about Ukraine, and I think there's obviously good cause for that, but that doesn't mean the president shouldn't do anything about Ukraine. He's going to need to thread that needle. I mean, it's 2022, he's a politician, he's going to be looking at this through the lens of how Democrats are likely to do in 2022, which at this point is poor. That's the likely outcome from the midterm elections. He's going to do what he can to booster that, and so that means he's necessarily going to have to talk about some of these domestic issues.

At the same time, he recognizes the threat that is posed by Russia. We see this now as a Russia-Ukraine conflict, but there is broad concern that it's something that becomes something broader than that. Not necessarily explicitly militarily, but in terms of the threat it can pose to the international order. That's something that, as the President of the United States, you have to tackle. This is actually an opportunity for him to elevate that issue and to talk about it in a way that makes it more salient to Americans as well.

Brigid Bergin: Philip, this feels like a smaller detail in the context of some of these larger issues, but last year, the chamber was only partly filled because of COVID restrictions. This year, all the members of Congress are invited, but they'll have to wear serious masks, have a negative PCR test, and so there's some speculation that that's going to thin the ranks of the Republicans in attendance. Do you know any more about that?

Philip Bump: I don't. I suspect you're right. I mean, there are a lot of-- I shouldn't say a lot, there are several members of the Republican caucus who have been ostentatious in rejecting those safety mandates. I suspect that some of them will try and make a show of force at that moment, we'll see what it looks like. I mean, I think that this is-- As someone who's observed these things for a long time, this is also a moment that members of Congress who normally are just quiet participants in American democracy, this is sort of an exceptional thing. That's one of the perks I think of being a member of Congress, is getting to be on these historic speeches, and so that may be more limited than we suspect.

Brigid Bergin: Let's take another caller, Jennifer in Astoria. Jennifer, welcome to WNYC.

Jennifer: Hi, thank you. For the State of the Union on Tuesday, I want to hear President Biden's full-hearted support of the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, and the urgency of getting it passed and implemented before the 2024 election. The events in Europe right now are extremely concerning, and they obviously deserve our attention and our resources, but we have to keep our eyes on the long game. None of the conversations that we're having today will have any durability if we can't fortify our own elections against our own American autocrat and his supporters that are holding office in our own government.

Brigid Bergin: Jennifer, thank you so much for your call. Philip, any reaction to that?

Philip Bump: Yes. I mean, the challenge of being president is you don't always get to set your agenda, and I think that Biden has-- He's deployed Vice President Harris to take lead on this. He has repeatedly advocated for the passage of that and other changes to the electoral process, but he can't-- Hopefully, this resolves in a positive way before next week. It seems extremely unlikely, but who knows? Then he can redirect his attention elsewhere, but he doesn't get to choose the urgent crises that are in front of him nor, of course, in the case specifically of that legislation, does he get to choose the senators who are willing to come along with him on it. That's been the roadblock. It hasn't necessarily been Biden's advocacy, but instead, opposition from members of his own party.

Brigid Bergin: Spencer in Berkeley Heights, New Jersey-- Spencer, welcome to WNYC. What are you listening for next week in the president's speech?

Spencer: Thank you for having me on. I'm really hoping that President Biden will be taking a more active stance during his speech. The last year and a half or so, I felt that the president has been fairly passive in terms of letting Congress attempt to establish its legislative agenda, not necessarily lobbying before the American people in the correct way that would've resulted in all kinds of different outcomes than what we're currently dealing with.

It's interesting that Biden was Vice President to former President Obama, Obama came into office, there were lots of different problems that were waiting on his doorstep, domestic and international, and he took a very active stance on most of them. The one exception being when Congress debated or deliberated over the Affordable Care Act, the end result being something that almost no one has been happy with, either for or against.

Unfortunately, in my opinion, President Biden has been very similar with regard to deliberation on the Voting Rights Act, and in terms of trying to get through Build Back Better, and all of the other plans where he let Congress [unintelligible 00:27:34], and the end result was not, in my opinion, to the American people's overall benefit. With everything going on in Ukraine, with everything going on with the United States trying to get out of the pandemic with a bifurcated economy, the President needs to, again, take the stance of Angry Joe, which he was a few weeks back when he said he was tired of being quiet, or tired of being polite. We need that Biden in front of the podium, because the way that the situation is--

Brigid Bergin: Spencer, thanks so much for your call, and that leads me to this question of tone, Philip. There's been a fair amount of commentary on what tone the president should adopt, that his July 4th barbecue promise means he should hedge on sounding victorious over COVID, and now of course, the war in Europe. We hear that in our callers who, despite-- As you pointed out, the fact that the president can't-- Even if he supports certain legislation, can't force senators to support it with him. It seems like a lot is at stake for him in this speech next week. What's your take on that?

Philip Bump: Yes, I think that's true. I don't know the extent to which the State of the Union Addresses generally move public opinion, I think though that he very much needs to send a message to his base that he is engaged in the fight. I think one of the challenges-- Biden did a very good job at the outset in terms of setting expectations, particularly on the pandemic. He set low-bar estimates for where the country was going to be in terms of its approach the pandemic, and he surpassed them.

He received justified appreciation for that, but since then, he's done a relatively bad job of setting expectations, claiming-- Sort of arguing that he's going to be able to pass all these sweeping legislative goals which have been stymied, again, not because of his lack of advocacy, but because of the composition of the Senate primarily. One of the challenges he has at this moment is he does need to encourage his base and say to his base, "We're fighting hard, and we're out there," but he is going to again be in a position where he's not going to be able to deliver on that.

He's not going to get Joe Manchin to come along with him on his standard Build Back Better Program, and so if he's not going to do that, he can stand up there and say, "Hey, we're going to do this, and we're going to fight for voting rights, and we're going to fight for Build Back Better," but then he's not going to deliver. Does that do him more or less good politically? I think that I don't envy his political team in trying to have to navigate that.

Brigid Bergin: Cheryl in Soho-- Cheryl, you're going to be our last caller for this segment. Welcome to WNYC.

Cheryl: Welcome, long-time listener. It's a quickie-- If he wants any hope for the midterms, I certainly hope he brings in something about forgiving student debt. The kids need it, they are absolutely getting squished, and in self-interest for everybody, there's got to be some serious forgiveness for student debt, and I hope he mentions it.

Brigid Bergin: Cheryl, thank you so much for that. Philip, before we let you go, I want to ask you about those truckers. The Canadian truckers managed to mangle traffic and trade in Ottawa and across the border in their mask and vaccine mandate protests. Now, there are convoys from various parts of the US reportedly on their way to Washington. It is an odd moment, given that mask mandates seem to be falling by the wayside as Omicron infections wane. What could be the impact of this?

Philip Bump: It's a good question. One of the things we don't know yet is the actual scale of people who will arrive on the East Coast and Washington for example. There was the one guy who left in Scranton Pennsylvania who was literally just one truck, and then they ended up getting lost and stuck in traffic. We don't know what might actually show up. I think it is a very good signal that these protests, particularly in the United States, are not really predicated on COVID, but rather just broadly oppositional to the Democratic president. I think it's very safe to say that that's the case here.

The trucker protest in Canada was a protest about having to be vaccinated to cross the border, which a lot of the truckers there have to do simply by virtue of the way the [unintelligible 00:31:55] is oriented. That is not the same constraint that applies to the United States, and so I think that a lot of this is just sort of, "Hey, here is a way--" and we saw this. We saw a lot of people on the political right internationally saying, "This is a way to stick it to the elites in the power structures." That was not necessarily predicated entirely on COVID, and I think that's what this response is. We'll see-- But you're right, it's going to look particularly bad if the United States is trying to navigate a geopolitical crisis, to have these truckers parked in the streets honking about COVID mandates that don't exist.

Brigid Bergin: One more question before you go, a national story with very local ties, some new developments in the Trump criminal investigation out of New York City District Attorney, DA Alvin Bragg's office. Evidently, he wasn't convinced by the grand jury investigation that started under his predecessor, Cy Vance. Two of the attorneys in his office leading the investigation resigned yesterday. Any idea what that means for the case against the Trump organization?

Philip Bump: I think it bodes very poorly for the case at the Manhattan level, but I think that the bigger threat to Trump has long been at the state level with the Attorney General. Letitia James is still apparently pressing forward, recently got a judge to agree that Trump should have to actually be deposed as part of that case. While this is a derailing of that particular probe in New York City, there is still the state probe, and there still are other probes. There's the probe in DC of the inaugural committee from Trump's first inaugural, there is the probe in Georgia of his efforts to influence the election there, and there still is something that might come out of the January 6th Committee in the house as well. There's still a lot of ways in which Trump is still at risk, even though this one particular [unintelligible 00:33:43].

Brigid Bergin: We're going to have to leave it there. I've been talking with Philip Bump, national correspondent at The Washington Post. Philip, thanks so much for joining us.

Philip Bump: Of course. Thank you.

 

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