A Year With President Biden

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Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. On Joe Biden's 365th day in office, at least three significant things happened. One had nothing to do with Joe Biden, the Supreme Court ruled that Donald Trump does have to comply with a congressional subpoena for documents pertaining to the January 6 insurrection, and that understanding what happened that day is more important than any claim to executive privilege that Trump was asserting. Only one Justice, Clarence Thomas, wrote in dissent. Last night, it's being reported the National Archives gave the committee hundreds of pages of White House documents it was holding, eventually, we'll know if they shed any meaningful light.

The second significant thing that happened yesterday was that the Senate, as expected, failed to advance voting rights legislation blocked by all 50 Republicans plus Democrats, Joe Manchin, and Kyrsten Sinema. The third thing, Biden day 365 was the day that he held an end of his first year in office news conference that as much as anything, was a two-hour-long push back against the media narrative and public perception in many places that year one has not been a great success. Here's the first question asked by a reporter at the beginning of the President's news conference, and we'll also hear the beginning of his response.

Journalist: Thank you, Mr. President. I know some of my colleagues will get into some specific issues, but I want to zoom out on your first year in office. Inflation is up. Your signature domestic legislation is stalled in Congress. In a few hours from now, an effort in the Senate to deal with voting rights and voting reform legislation is going to fail. COVID-19 is still taking the lives of 1500 Americans every day, and the nation's divisions are just as raw as they were a year ago. Did you over promise to the American public what you could achieve in your first year in office? How do you plan to course-correct going forward?

President Joe Biden: Why are you such an optimist? Look, I didn't over-promise, but I have probably outperformed what anybody thought would happen. The fact of the matter is that we're in a situation where we have made enormous progress. You mentioned the number of deaths from COVID. Well, it was three times then, not long ago, it's coming down. Everything's changing.

Brian Lehrer: President Biden near the start of this nearly two-hour news conference yesterday afternoon. We'll spend some time with two opinion writing journalists with different orientations, and with you on Twitter and on the phones, mostly in two major sections. How's Biden doing on COVID Public Health and the COVID Economy? That'll be a first section. Then, how's Biden doing on democracy? Then we will also touch on the significance of last night's Supreme Court ruling on Trump in January 6.

We'll do this in sections like I say. Listeners, our first call-it question and screeners heads up is how's Biden doing on COVID Public Health and the COVID Economy? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Here on January 20, 2022, how's Biden doing on COVID Public Health and or the COVID Economy? 212-433-9692, or tweet @BrianLehrer. Only that for now then we'll open it up to other things largely democracy later, but for now, how's Biden doing on COVID Public Health and the COVID Economy in your opinion, and what would you like to see him do next? 212-433-WNYC, 433-9692.

With us now are Jamil Smith, senior correspondent at Vox and co-host of the podcast Vox Conversations. Some of his recent pieces or interviews are on Robert Bullard, known as the father of the environmental justice movement; Why Fannie Lou Hamer's definition of “freedom” still matters, and on what he called The ironic spectacle of Kyle Rittenhouse's appearance on Tucker Carlson. Also with us. Amanda Carpenter, political columnist at The Bulwark, the news organization made up largely of anti-Trump conservatives.

Carpenter is author of the book Gaslighting America: Why We Love It When Trump Lies to Us and has previously served as a speechwriter to South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint, and communications director to Senator Ted Cruz up to 2015. Before going to Capitol Hill, she worked as a reporter for the conservative-leaning news organizations Human Events, Townhall.com, and The Washington Times. Hi, Jamil. Hi, Amanda. Thanks for doing this. Welcome back to WNYC.

Amanda Carpenter: Thank you.

Jamil Smith: Good morning.

Brian Lehrer: We played that clip of the first reporter question framing progress not made during Biden's first year as president and the beginning of Biden's answer in which he referred to his progress on COVID. That was just the start of that answer. Let me get each of your big picture takes first, just in terms of how successful you think Biden has been on COVID Public Health and the COVID Economy, not just as an absolute, but compared in real life to how else he might have done given the state of the country when he took office. Jamil, would you start?

Jamil Smith: Yes. First of all, I think the question was stated in a way that I think frames things a little bit narrowly.

Brian Lehrer: You mean the reporter's question in the [unintelligible 00:05:46]?

Jamil Smith: Yes. I think that the reporter's question certainly frames things as if everything just went to hell. I think certainly the President's response saying that, "Okay, yes 6.4 million jobs were created." While yes, we're working within this old paradigm of job creation, and inflation, all these things that worked in a world where we didn't have a pandemic that none of us had ever seen before. We have to reorganize our thinking, and within this new COVID world, supply chain economics are different, and unemployment rates should be viewed differently. Labor shortages should be viewed differently.

Frankly, there's just a lack of confrontation on both the side of the press, and frankly, the President, in terms of how do we confront this new world, and these new challenges, not trying to restore what was but understanding what frankly is. We are talking about what Dr. Fauci was mentioning recently about how this is possibly going to become endemic. This is a reality we have to get used to, have to live with. If that's actually true, how do we adjust? How do we adjust America to understand this reality? How do we think about numbers in a new way?

It's tough to evaluate any president after one year. Think about if we tried to do that to President Obama during the Great Recession, with job numbers sinking in the first year, but my point is, how do we think about this new world. This is not a recession, this is a pandemic. This is something that we're all suffering from in various ways, and we may have to suffer from for years to come.

Brian Lehrer: An endemic is an interesting word that we're going to tackle in more depth on tomorrow show. It's good in the sense that it's not a pandemic anymore, but it's bad in the sense that it's kind of permanent. What there will be if endemic is what comes about? Amanda Carpenter, same question?

Amanda Carpenter: Well, I just like the framing of the reporter's question, because there's so much going on, and you have to set the table for the President to respond, which he did over two hours. This idea that we need to settle into a permanent COVID mindset, that is most definitely not what President Biden campaigned on, and was not the expectation from the American people. I think it wasn't a matter of whether Biden over promise, but did he understand what he was elected to do?

In my view, as a sort of Never Trump conservative, Biden was elected to number one, not be Trump and restore some sense of normalcy and credibility and certainty to the government, and also crush COVID. Get us out of this pandemic. The latter did not happen, and I understand it's not completely within Biden's control, but guess what, presidents have to deal with a lot of unexpected, unfair circumstances. There are many ways in which he fundamentally misunderstood what was going on here. We've had two new variants.

Above all, the lack of communication coming from the administration on COVID is what is extremely frustrating when it comes to just basically living, whether you have kids in school, you're dealing with unemployment, the economy, and he should take credit. The economy is doing okay, but if you're a family, even if you have some money, if you can't go spend it, if you can't go places, if you can't give normally, you're going to think the economy's doing extremely poorly.

It's good that he's out there talking but he can't just do this once-year press conference and go out for two hours, check the box, and say that he's done. I'm going to say something that sounds a little bit crazier here, he needs to be more like Trump. He needs to be holding press conferences with the doctors on a daily basis. Tell us where we're going, how we get these masks off, what are the metrics? How do we get back to normal because what I'm hearing propose that we just have to settle into this permanent malaise? The American people are never going to accept that.

Brian Lehrer: Jamil, want to continue?

Jamil Smith: Sure. I definitely think that the American people need to come to grips with it. Listen, I think the American people have come to grips with a lot of different realities over the course of the history of this country. I think we would be wrong in underestimating what we as a people can in fact make adjustments to. I think that the president could offer a reassuring presence if he in fact did do pressers. I agree with Amanda wholeheartedly that the communication, especially from the CDC has been absolutely abhorrent and has been one of the major failings of this administration with regards to just barely showing the efficacy of government.

I think one of the main things I do think that Biden was elected to do was to show how governance can work, especially in the wake of such an incompetent administration. You have to show that governance is a thing as the presidency can actually function. When it doesn't function in a really elemental and easy way, then you have people starting to doubt and you've had people wanting to satiate their feelings with their votes rather than actually putting people who are effective. That's how we end up with the--

Brian Lehrer: I think Amanda saying it could have function more better than Trump under Biden.

Amanda Carpenter: Let me agree with Jamil just a little bit here. If the Democrats want to be the party of government, they have to show that it works. I think this is best illustrated with the feeling of just getting testing done. Number one, it was good what the Trump administration did to get Operation Warp Speed in effect to really have the multiple shots on the goal strategy to get the vaccines going. Biden deployed it. Great. Good job, everyone.

On the testing, this pandemic started in 2020. It is now 2022 and we still don't have our arms around free, easy, cheap testing. It seems to me the party that wants to have universal healthcare and all these things, they should be able to execute on testing; other countries do it. There is models to follow. I'm glad we're finally getting them maybe in the mail at the end of January, but this is not a good illustration of government competency.

Brian Lehrer: Let's take a few phone calls and we'll play three more clips of Biden from the news conference on COVID public health and the COVID economy. Maya in the Bronx. You're on WNYC. Hi, Maya. Thank you for calling in today.

Maya: Hi, Brian and company. Sorry, I don't remember your names. Actually, I was really disappointed with what Biden said. Honestly, I thought his response being there's much less people dying now, obviously I'm not quoting it verbatim, but pretty much saying there's much less people dying now than there were just a little while ago is completely insensitive to families who are literally dealing with deaths and dealing with COVID every day. You can't compare now to when this first started. We have so much more information.

My last point is I also just was really upset with the rollout of the COVID test at home that should have happened long ago before the holidays. Also limiting it to just four per household is insane considering some households have more than four people in them.

Brian Lehrer: Maya, thank you so much for your call. We really appreciate it. Call us again. Let's go next to Julie in Lido Beach. Julie, you're on WNYC. Hi there.

Julie: I think that people are being a little too harsh. You have to realize what Biden inherited and all the circumstances that came about during his time and the resistance he has with the Republicans balking at every stance that he tries to move forward. I think that in the first year as the gentleman said on your show, it's too soon to judge someone. I do agree that perhaps he should have had more conferences and more formal [unintelligible 00:14:45] of once a week when the country is so anxious, to just speak to them from higher up and to say, "Look we don't know this. We didn't do that. We've got plan to do this."

Particularly when people are in lockdown. Luckily, we have MBR to set us straight, but not everybody listens to that and they just stay in their home afraid, and that isn't a way to move forward.

Brian Lehrer: Julie, thank you very much.

Julie: I think give him a chance.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you very much. I do say sample from many different news organizations, but I'm certainly glad we are here. Rick and Glen Cove, you're on WNYC. A business owner, right, Rick?

Rick: Yes, I am. Good morning, everybody. I just want to remind everybody the dumpster fire that we came out of when Biden took office. The issues with inflation were going to happen no matter who was in office, the supply chain issues we are going to be dealing with for probably another two years before we get back to any kind of normalcy. I was standing on the beach on the south shore of Long Island the other day watching tanker ships go on for miles and miles for as far as the eye could see.

The reasons is that they're backed up. Manufacturers are having difficult time catching up with orders that they had from two years ago. That's one of the reasons why we're seeing this high inflation right now. The labor issues that we're all dealing with right now, anybody to think that there wasn't going to be a labor issue coming out of a pandemic has been sticking their head in the ground. As a business owner, the labor pool is shrinking. The mindset of employees is changing.

I frankly don't have a whole lot of faith in the unemployment numbers right now, and one of the reasons that I don't is that unemployment benefits have been exhausted for so many Americans out there. They can't file for unemployment. They're making ends meet any way that they can. Even though the unemployment numbers maybe somewhere around 3%, I have a suspicion that they're probably closer to 6% or 7%. Unemployment benefits have been exhausted. I'm not inclined to give president Biden high marks for the first year, but it's not a totally bad situation that he finds himself in. I think there's a lot of hope, and look forward to '22 and beyond.

Brian Lehrer: Rick, thank you very much. Mike in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hi, Mike.

Mike: Yes. Hello. Good morning. I think that we've been here now. It's already one year today, it's one day in Biden. I think equal or it's not even maybe a little more, COVID deaths we're talking. This is with the vaccines and with all the therapeutics. Also, I think the main issue is that we had the new-- Early on in the epidemic in March and April of 2020, there was an issue with testing. We should have learned from that and then we developed better tests and the rapid test we should have continued on that. I think it's a big failure, the fact that just yesterday is when we could start getting free at-home-tests. I know I have some friends in the UK, and they were telling me a month ago that they get like 20 free tests there? Also on the other hand, you can't really say this is all Biden's fault because everyone in the world is dealing with. Thank you.

Brian Lehrer: Mike, thank you very much. One more in this set. Kevin in Hopatcong, you're on WNYC. Hi, Kevin.

Kelvin: Hi. Good morning. I think he's done as well as can be expected with COVID when you have about half the population that wants to deny that this is an issue. There's websites you can go in and see bar cams and down in Florida and the keys, no one is wearing a mask. It's like it doesn't exist south of Delaware. How do you fight that? What are you supposed to do? They're in an alternate reality.

Brian Lehrer: Kevin, thank you very much and with Amanda Carpenter from the Bulwark and Jamil Smith from Vox. Amanda, anything from that set of calls that jumped out at you that you want to riff on?

Amanda Carpenter: Oh gosh. There's quite a bit there but number one, I think people should understand. There is a huge disconnect when it comes to things like masking and COVID protocols. I see it largely on an urban-rural divide. There's a lot of people maskless in Florida because they're outside a lot, versus up in New York City where it's cool and you have to cram into buildings. Those are totally different kind of scenarios. If the Democrats do want to go into this permanent pandemic phase, there's going to be a lot of people in the heartland who do not understand why that is the case. I think that would be a massive mistake.

The good news, listen, I think Joe Biden has a lot of time to dig out of this, but if the Democrats don't firmly lean into providing a pathway for people to have hope to get out of this, to get schools back to normal, not to mention the women who are disproportionately bearing the burden of this pandemic when it comes to childcare, who have dropped out of the workforce, who have permanently changed their lives, that are unwilling to accept this. I do think COVID moms are going to be a huge factor in the midterms. If Joe Biden doesn't find a way to hang on to them, he will not only lose the House, he will lose the Senate.

Brian Lehrer: We've heard of soccer moms, we've heard of waitress moms, now we've heard of COVID moms. Jamil, a response?

Jamil Smith: Sure, a couple of things. First of all, what Kevin was speaking to-- I live in Tennessee, and I've arrived here about a year ago. I can tell you it's pretty chilly here and people are still not wearing masks. People weren't wearing masks a year ago. I'm not sure however cold this year or last year, it doesn't really matter. People are just going to do what they're going to do. It's not necessarily they're going to listen to Joe Biden or any kind of government message. The cultural message that they need to be hearing, it needs to be coming from, frankly, their own party.

We need to put some responsibility on Republicans to not only get the message to their own people, their own voters, about the importance of masking, of getting vaccinated, of taking care and in eliminating this pandemic, but also, frankly, they need to be putting some policy prescriptions forward. We talk about this being all about Joe Biden and whether or not he's going to be doing well, the midterms being all about him. The Republicans should be putting forth a reason to vote for them.

Brian Lehrer: That was part of the heart of Biden's message yesterday. In fact, that's exactly what we're going to get to in one of the clips when we continue in a minute. Listeners, stay with us, with Jamil from Vox, Amanda from the Bulwark, more of your calls. Stay with us.

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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. As we continue assessing President Biden's first year in office here on January 20th, the first anniversary of his swearing-in hearing clips from his two-hour first anniversary news conference yesterday with you on the phones and Twitter, and our two guests Amanda Carpenter from the Bulwark and Jamil Smith from Vox. 212-433-WNYC. A few of the things coming in on Twitter, listener writes, "Optics are everything, and from my perception as a supporter, Biden repeatedly stumbles publicly."

Another one writes, in reference to how few people are wearing masks from our previous caller, "I was just in Italy on New Year's and it was warm, and everyone that was outside was masked." One more writes, "Biden needs to pivot and tie sporadic disruptions as a macro opportunity to reshape the workforce to be more flexible and restore jobs in places where towns have lost anchor businesses pre-COVID, or financial support, finding work elsewhere. Good mid-term opportunity."

That's a little bit coming in on Twitter. Next, I'm going to play three more clips of Biden from the news conference on COVID public health and the COVID economy. Here he is answering your question about inflation in terms of his Build Back Better Safety Net Bill, which he doesn't currently have the votes for in the Senate.

President Joe Biden: My Build Back Better Plan will address the biggest cost that working families face every day. No other plan will do more to lower the cost for American families. It cuts the cost for childcare. Many families, including the people sitting in this room, if they have children and they're working full time, many families pay up to $14,000 a year for childcare in big cities, less than that in smaller ones.

Brian Lehrer: There's that. He also made a centerpiece of his news conference, criticizing Mitch McConnell and the Republicans for not even having a solutions agenda. This is what Jamil was referring to just before the break. Only trying to make sure he, Biden, is unsuccessful as mindless gamesmanship from the Republican side of the aisle. Here's Biden on that.

President Joe Biden: What are publicans for? What are they for? Name me one thing they're for. The problem here is that I think what's happens, what I have to do in the change in tactic, if you will, I have to make clear to the American people what we are for. We've passed a lot of things that people don't even understand what's all that's in it, understandably.

Brian Lehrer: Biden came back to that. Definitely a midterm elections theme a number of times. Here's one more where he admits he'll have to try to get smaller pieces of his Build Back Better Bill passed separately. The original, as many of you know, included childcare, universal pre-K, paid family leave, eldercare supports, free community college, climate protection measures, and some other things too. Listen to what he said yesterday.

President Joe Biden: I'm confident we can get big chunks of the Build Back Better law signed in law. I'm confident that we can take the case to the American people that the people they should be voting for who can oversee whether elections in fact are legit or not, should not be those who are being put up by the Republicans to determine that they're going to be able to change the outcome of the election.

Brian Lehrer: Some more of the President from yesterday's news conference as we continue with Jamil Smith from Vox and Amanda Carpenter from the Bulwark. Amanda, for you as a former staffer for Senate Republicans, do you agree with Biden that the Republicans have no solutions agenda for COVID or the economy and only care about blocking anything Biden might try to accomplish, even if it's good for the country?

Amanda Carpenter: I would certainly look to the new governor of Virginia, Glenn Youngkin, for the model of what solutions Republicans would like to put forth in terms of COVID and the economy. It's firmly leaning into the decision of getting things back open, lifting the mask mandates in schools, et cetera. Whether people agree with that strategy or not, that is what he is seeking to do there. If you want to talk about Senate Republicans on what Biden is facing-- Understand I'm speaking politically here. There's no reason for the Senate Republicans to push forth an agenda because they are, by default, winning the argument, because the Democrats are fighting themselves constantly.

If you want to talk about why Joe Biden is unable to unify the country, perhaps look at why he's been unable to unify his party. It is his own party that is set on the Build Back Better Bill and he has been unable to message the win that he got on the hard infrastructure part. It is his party that can't come to an agreement of whether they will change the filibuster rules to pursue a voting rights agenda. I think he is on the right track in understanding that if he wants to have the victories, he needs to pursue smaller items, but at the same time, his party needs to accept what is doable with only a 50/50 Senate, be happy with those victories, message them, and use it as a way to build towards the midterms.

Brian Lehrer: Jamil.

Jamil Smith: I don't know. We're facing increasingly urgent challenges in this world. Climate change has to be solved now. These are things that have to be solved now. We can't accept compromises on how that can be solved or not solved. Voting rights have to be done now. We have to get infrastructure done now. Thankfully, they did manage to be a $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Bill that was made into law. We'll see how much that does. I'm working on a piece on that now.

The point is, they have to work on these problems now. They have to do their very best. That's what voters elected them to do. Granted, yes, there has to be compromises in politics and all that, but if voters don't see them trying their hardest to get these problems solved at the level at which they need to be solved, why on earth would they show up at the polls given how hard Republicans are working to keep them from doing that? Why would they work so hard to do that especially during a pandemic?

Amanda Carpenter: Can I offer something?

Jamil Smith: Why are they when they're literally risking their lives sometimes to actually vote?

Brian Lehrer: Amanda, go ahead.

Amanda Carpenter: Here's something that I think is a fundamental mismatch when it comes to the Republicans and Democrats in a way that really advantages Republicans, and it is unfair. There is the expectation from, I think, too many progressive voters, that they have to get all the things that they want from President Biden. The most clear example I can think of is that cancellation of student loan debt. It's my understanding that Biden was never firmly on board with that plan, but a lot of other figures say Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders were.

The Democratic voters did not pick Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren to be their nominee, they picked Joe Biden. Yet I hear again and again, from progressive activists that we're not going to come out and vote for Biden again, because he didn't cancel my student loan debt. Now, that is an unfair expectation that Joe Biden has to manage. Then when you contrast that with the Republicans, they're not promising their voters anything. All they are telling their voters is that "Hey, we're going to stop Biden, and also maybe own the libs along the way." That is a much easier task to accomplish. No, listen, I'm just speaking here. [crosstalk]

Jamil Smith: No, I hear you.

Amanda Carpenter: I'm not saying it's good.

Jamil Smith: I actually agree with you. I agree with you.

Amanda Carpenter: I'm not saying I like it, but this is what Biden's up against and it's tough.

Brian Lehrer: Go ahead, Jamil.

Jamil Smith: I agree that that's an unfair expectation of those particular voters. I do want to note that Biden did promise to make voting rights a primary push of his presidency. The words voting rights were not only not in his inaugural address, but they were not a primary push of his presidency until John Lewis died. Then all of a sudden, he makes a speech in Wilmington, Delaware, in which he says, "Okay, well, yes, now's the time to actually make that push," and by then it's too late.

Brian Lehrer: We're going to get more into voting rights in a minute as we pivot from COVID and the COVID economy to Biden and democracy, so we'll come back to that. A couple of more calls on this first section. Caitlin in Manhattan, you're on WNYC. Hi, Caitlin.

Caitlin: One of the guests said, Biden that he was voted into office to crush COVID. I have to say I can't understand how that comment or mindset is at all helpful when we have a Supreme Court justice who, when asked to wear a mask, said "No." Just to a meeting where he sits next to someone who has underlying health issues. If a Supreme Court justice won't put on a mask, how on earth can a presidential cabinet, can the administration be effective on COVID? You can apply that logic to the Senate, to the House. Anyway, that was my comment.

Brian Lehrer: Caitlin, thank you very much. We talked about that on yesterday's show Justice Gorsuch refusing to wear a mask, reportedly from NPR's Nina Totenberg, when asked by Chief Justice Roberts the only justice during Omicron reportedly to refuse and that reportedly that caused Justice Sotomayor who has diabetes, hence is vulnerable because of an underlying condition, to have to isolate and do Supreme Court meetings virtually. The report was because Gorsuch refused to wear a mask. I see they put out some kind of joint statement asserting their good relationship.

I'm just curious. We're digressing a little bit, but because we covered it yesterday and the caller brought it up. Amanda, have you seen this statement from the two justices by any chance?

Amanda Carpenter: Yes, I have. It didn't come through by with Chief Justice Roberts saying essentially that they're on good terms now and everything is fine. Do I have that correct? [laughs]

Brian Lehrer: I would have to look more deeply into it myself. It wasn't really what I prepared for today, but interesting.

Amanda Carpenter: I think you're trying to smooth it over. [laughs]

Brian Lehrer: Yes, I see. He wasn't saying it didn't happen. He didn't deny the fact that he asked Gorsuch. If I'm hearing you right, Jamil, anything to add to that? I'm sorry to be vague on this.

Jamil: I would just say that if the highest court in our land chooses to issue a statement of that kind, it would be nice that they actually addressed the facts of the report.

Brian Lehrer: Alan in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hi, Alan.

Alan: Yes, good morning. I was wondering why Biden didn't make two simple points that could have really helped the argument on COVID. First of all, Washington wrote a letter to the troops, and I think in 1775, ordering vaccinations against smallpox when it was just recently available. Nothing against liberty or freedom or patriotism there, it was just common sense, saving the lives of troops so they could fight in battle. Why isn't that the view of people being partners in life save so they can participate in the economy?

The other point I'd want to make is the attitude held by Scalia that seems to be followed by his disciples, the three new Trump appointees. Scalia once said to an audience when he didn't know that he was being recorded that, "What's the big deal about procedural capital punishment cases that sometimes lead to execution? If people are believing followers of certain faiths, then death is no big deal." He actually said. Now, if people like Gorsuch or Barrett or Kevin believe these things, their goal is not to actually protect life. Their goal is to promote their dogma.

There must be a subtle way of getting across the view that we're basically the government in favor of life, even if individuals want to pursue a religion that doesn't prioritize it.

Brian Lehrer: Alan, thank you for your call. We appreciate it. Before we pivot to Biden and democracy, maybe this actually makes a segue. Jamil, maybe the most embarrassing part of the whole news conference for Biden yesterday was acknowledging that he thought Republicans would be different with him as president than they were when he was vice president under Obama.

McConnell's stated mission, Amanda will give you a chance to say if you disagree, was to make Obama a failed president. What did Biden with all his Senate experience misunderstood about what Mitch McConnell and other Senate Republicans would do?

Jamil Smith: Yes. [laughs] That was particularly embarrassing. Of course, that was part of his response to the over-promising question at the beginning of the press conference. It goes to, frankly, a feeling that I had when he was running was that, is Joe Biden actually prepared to meet this moment? It doesn't have anything to do with his long experience in the Senate or as vice president. Frankly, this is a moment that calls for a particular kind of politician who's attuned to the need for anti-racism and anti-misogyny, and all these different kinds of urgencies that are needed from a public official.

Also, frankly, someone who's attuned to the need for getting things done within our government. He just seems to prioritize a lot of the big swings at the very beginning, as opposed to starting to hit some singles. I don't understand, frankly, given how Republicans have been engaged in this election subversion throughout various state legislatures and school boards and engage in this ridiculous crusade against critical race theory, or what they call critical race theory. How he's stood on the sidelines and watched all this happen.

Then at the end wants to take a very big swing, after John Lewis dies, and then is caught flat-footed, and is unprepared for this stoic stance of Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, who he knew weren't going to change their minds.

Brian Lehrer: Maybe Biden's been watching too much actual baseball lately, where they only try to hit home runs anymore and not singles, but that's another show for another station. Go ahead.

Jamil Smith: Or he's caught up in his own dogma of this Soul of America talk, instead of actually worrying about trying to get things done and making sure that people's rights are protected. We need to stop talking about the Soul of America and actually make sure that people can participate in America.

Brian Lehrer: Amanda.

Amanda: I do think he misunderstands where the Republicans are. Also, it comes from a misunderstanding, I think of who Joe Biden is. What I mean by that is that Joe Biden is a longtime creature of the Senate, who does believe in this battle for the Soul of America rhetoric and thinks that these values can bring America together again when he talks about democracy and all the things that most people universally agree on. He thinks people will naturally come to that conclusion. That is not happening right now. That is a nonstarter right now, as long as Trump is in control of the Republican Party.

He has this baseline belief but the progressives, they want to see him go fight, give these fire and brimstone speeches, and so then he goes down to Atlanta and says things I don't think he truly believes. With this overheated rhetoric about how if you're not going to vote for these voting rights bills, you're essentially lawless, and Bull Connor and against Martin Luther King. That stuff is just offensive to Republicans who might potentially be willing to consider it.

I'm thinking Mitt Romney. I'm thinking Tim Scott, the Black Republican senator from South Carolina, saying he's offended by that kind of language. You can laugh, but a lot of people do find it to be too much. Listen, I'm obsessed with voting rights. I'm deeply concerned about the threat to democracy, but because Atlanta have long lines [crosstalk].

Brian Lehrer: We should say you're involved with a group called Republicans for Voting Rights, right?

Amanda: Yes, that is correct. When people start comparing voter ID to Jim Crow 2.0, and when there is a mismatch approach on laws that are in red states versus bad voting laws that are also on the books and blue states that get completely unignored, people throw their hands up and say, 'This is a big game," and they opt out of the process. I deeply want people to opt into this process but the stuff hasn't worked so far. I think Biden needs to find a way to recalibrate into the bite-size approaches that are reasonable, that people can agree on rather than getting pulled by these progressive activists into these huge sweeping bills that are dead on arrival and this overheated racially changed language.

Brian Lehrer: Jamil.

Jamil Smith: Just very quickly, I would say that first of all, you can go to the Brennan Center for Justice to and see that there's 19 states that have 34 bills and since January 1st of last year to December 7th of last year. Some of those bills were in democratic-led states. They aren't being ignored. If we talk about, yes, the quote that's in the speech is, "Do you want to be on the side of John Lewis or Bull Connor? Do you want to be on the side of Abraham Lincoln or Jefferson Davis?" Abraham Lincoln is a Republican. Is that a hard point?

Amanda Carpenter: Do you think that's what people takeaway from that kind of language? You're essentially saying you're racists if you don't support-

Jamil Smith: Here's the thing. If being called a racist, if that's actually more on their minds or more priority to them than actually taking part in the racism, then that's the problem. That's the problem to me. If they're so caught up in their own feelings, then that's the problem. That's where we need to find a way to get to, how do we solve that? How do we get to Republicans to understand that look, it doesn't matter if you are being implied that you are "a racist," you need to be on the side of anti-racism period, because the effect of what you are, or part of as a party is racist, period. It's not about whether or not you are a racist.

Brian Lehrer: We're going to hear three of the things that Joe Biden had to say about exactly this when we come back after a break, and more with Jamil and Amanda and your calls stay with us.

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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC, as we continue assessing president Biden's first year in office here on January 20th, 2022 with Amanda Carpenter from the Bulwark and Jamil Smith from Vox and you on the phones and on Twitter. Listeners, now we turn officially to our second focus, how's Biden doing democracy. We invite you in on that. If you are holding on to talk about Biden in COVID or Biden in the economy, please hang up and let people call in on democracy or change what you want to talk about. 212-433-WNYC, 433-9692. Here's the president yesterday predicting the Republicans' attempts to make voting harder, especially for people of color or minorities as he called them, will fail.

President Joe Biden: The highest voter turnout of the history of the United States of America, well I think if in fact, no matter how hard they make it for minorities to vote, I think you're going to see them willing to stand in line and defy the attempt to keep them from being able to vote. I think you're going to see the people we're trying to keep from being able to show up showing up, and making the sacrifice it needs to make in order to change the law back to what it should be.

Brian Lehrer: Here's the president answering a reporter's question about many Black voters thinking he's only giving lip service to voting rights recently and didn't try hard enough from day one. This came up in our conversation before the break. Here, Biden says he has tried from day one, but--

President Joe Biden: Part of the problem as well I have not been out in the community nearly enough. I've been here an awful lot. I find myself in a situation where I don't get a chance to look people in the eye because of both COVID and things that are happening in Washington, to be able to go out and do the things that I've always been able to do pretty well, connect with people.

Brian Lehrer: One more clip on this. We talked before the break about the President admitting he miscalculated on being able to get some Republicans on board for some of his agenda items. Well, here he admits he miscalculated on Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema from his own party's willingness to help get something done on voting rights.

President Joe Biden: The idea that I didn't either anticipate or because I didn't speak to it as fervently as they want me to earlier, in the meantime I was spending a lot of time spent hours and hours and hours talking with my colleagues on the democratic side, trying to get them to agree that if in fact, this occurred, if this push continued that they would be there for John Lewis and anyway.

Brian Lehrer: The president yesterday. Jamil, we accidentally, I have to admit had your mic up during the first clip and luckily, you didn't say anything that would cause our FCC license to be revoked, but you were clearly not happy when the president was talking about how minorities, as he called them, are going to vote anyway, despite what Republicans do in a bunch of states, what were you thinking? I apologize because we should never let that happen.

Jamil Smith: No, it's perfectly fine. In a way, I'm glad because it echoes that report from last summer when it came out of the White House, when they started talking about how their hopes for that folks were going to out-organize voter suppression. It's a grand vision and it's quite a fantasy, but it also abdicates the responsibility of policymaking to people who have been oppressed for generations. It's really easy to say, "Oh, well you go ahead and, you folks on the ground, you handle it. There are people out here breaking their necks.

Brian Lehrer: By standing online for hours.

Jamil Smith: Right. There are people on here breaking their necks to get this policy passed. They are sending people to Washington and to statehouses and to local offices to try to get this kind of policy passed, to make sure that the folks, who are out here working every day have access to the ballot so that they can participate in democracy. This president and his White House else are talking about, "Well, you know what? I just really hope that everyone shows up and that's how we're going to fight this". That's abdication of duty.

Brian Lehrer: Amanda, anything on those three clips?

Amanda Carpenter: Yes. I completely agree with the notion that Biden should have gone to this earlier. The amount of time that was spent on infrastructure, basically a whole year when there was already $5 trillion in COVID relief money sloshing around between emergency spending conducted by both the Trump and Biden administration in that time at the end of 2020 through the beginning of 2021.

They should have been able to make the calculation that there's only so much that is achievable in the 50/50 Senate, got that done, taken the win, and then pivoted quickly to voting rights. I would've preferred that voting rights be number one, but that is not the decision that the Biden administration made, and it costs them. It costs them "bigly" it as Trump would say, and to Jamil's point, the Republicans didn't wait. While Joe Biden was busy negotiating in the backroom deals with Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin, Republicans in the states were moving to aggressively restrict voting rights. 30 laws in many states.

Arizona conducted a ridiculous audit that took over a year and the Democrats essentially gave them all a free pass to do it. That is going to be extremely problematic going into 2022 because this mindset embracing the big lie, new laws restricting the right to vote based on the big lie, have firmly taken hold. I'm not sure how he can recover, but he has to try this idea that Manchin was going to embrace some rules change and wouldn't be interpreted as nuking the filibuster was silly, but now is the time to start talking to voters in all the states about what rights they should be able to expect from their states in terms of early voting, automatic voting registration, mail-in ballots.

The education process has to start early. I am hopeful that there does seem to be bipartisan interest in updating in the Electoral Reform Act, which would raise the threshold in terms of objections, when it comes to certifying the eventual winner and clarifying the rule that the vice president should play in that process. The Trump folks found out that there were a lot of vulnerabilities there and they tried their darndest to exploit those vulnerabilities and deprive Joe Biden of the presidency. It is absolutely urgent that that Electoral Reform Act be updated. That would be a good win, sufficient, but also not enough.

Brian Lehrer: Les in Queens, you're on WNYC. Hi, Les.

Les: Hi. I can't understand why they can't get a carve-out to pass the voting rights bill and then reverse the carve-out so that there's the full filibuster back intact so Manchin and Sinema are happy. Why can't they do that?

Brian Lehrer: It's an excellent question for Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema. We had Senator Warnock certainly made an eloquent case for doing just that recently and yes, he made eloquent, quick case for after they did that for the debt ceiling. They quickly made the quick carve-out and then reinstated the requirement. I feel like Republicans and Democrats alike, unfortunately, have been able to make these kinds of exceptions for wealth and oligarchy but not for democracy, and we keep seeing that time and time again.

Brian Lehrer: Sienna in Hudson, New York, you're on WNYC. Hi, Sienna.

Sienna: Hi, good morning. I'm just feeling like the Democratic Party hasn't been using their power to get out in press conferences. I'm talking about all of our representatives in each of our states, to explain how the Republicans have passed legislation to suppress voter’s ability to vote. I think that a lot of people that aren't facing that problem, that they can't necessarily identify that there is a problem. I really don't think the time has been spent to explicitly make clear through facts, through statistics, but also through videos and people's experiences given actually the voice of the people who have already been affected out there.

I'd love to see our representatives do more to do so. I wonder what your thoughts are on that. I can take the answer off offline.

Brian Lehrer: Sienna, thank you. I'm going to bring on a couple of more callers first and then let our guests respond to them all, including you, Sienna. Brian in Atlanta, you're on WNYC. Hi, Brian.

Brian: Hey, thanks for taking my call. I'm a C-SPAN geek. Well, I'm a programmer and actor and I've watched the entire Senate debate yesterday. I missed his first comments, but he called out four Republican senators and one of them was Collins and she got up and resented it. They had a battering back and forth and they finished. It was pretty congenial, and then the next Senator, I can't remember his name, Democrat. He said, I've been in the Senate for 16 years and that is the best debate I've ever seen since I've been in the Senate." They do not debate anything in the Senate. Excuse my language. I think you can cut that out because you got to--

Brian Lehrer: No, you're right. That one's on the okay list, go ahead.

Brian: Okay. We need to force these damn people to discuss the issues.

Brian Lehrer: You did it again.

[laughter]

Brian: The Republicans don't want to want to talk about-- Sorry. They don't want to talk about the bill. They want say they just don't want to talk about it. We need to demand that these people talk about it.

Brian Lehrer: The actual talking filibuster.

Brian: No, of the Voting Rights bill. I think this is what it's about. They don't even want to talk about it because they don't want to say, "All right. We'll make it so Indians. We don't want them easier ways to vote or we don't want to talk about seven which is real in Lounge County and Georgia closing six of seven polling places in a rural county. I'm going to leave with two comments. I've heard the one person up at Harvard that was discussing police brutality. One of his comments was we need to begin talking about interest rather than positions.

I think that's true with politics. Another one is out of Georgetown, some theologian that said, "I don't care about. Let's stop going left and right and left and right. Let's go deeper. That's the end of my comment.

Brian Lehrer: Brian, thank you. Call us from Atlanta again and tell us what's happening on C-SPAN. Payton in Sunset Park, you're on WNYC. Hi, Payton.

Payton: Hi. My question, earlier, we spoke more about obstructionism. My question is Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed 3,721 executive orders during his presidency and so far, Joe Biden has signed 77. Why is it that that this presidency who needs to win over voters can't deal with obstructionism by making more of these types of short-term pushes for American people?

Brian Lehrer: Payton, thank you very much. In our remaining time, which is not a lot of time I want to touch each of those three callers and in some way or another. Amanda, to the caller from Georgia who watched that debate on C-SPAN and is frustrated that the Senate reflecting one of the Democrats who spoke, the Senate doesn't actually hold real debates anymore. For you as a former Senate staffer to two Republican senators in the past, do you think that's true?

Amanda Carpenter: I think it's 100% true, which is why I thought maybe the best pathway to moving forward on voter rights was to restore the talking filibuster. The biggest criticism that Joe Manchin is afraid of is saying that essentially he would gut the filibuster, nuke it. Well, bring it back, make that word mean what it is supposed to mean, "debate." Right now the Senate rules, you have to have 60 votes in order to move forward with a bill. Well, why don't we have 60 Senators hold the floor, talking about it in order to hold it up? Because right now it favors the minority.

There are tradeoffs in doing this. It means the Senate would be able to do fewer things but as long as the majority was able to prioritize what is important, I think voting rights certainly merits that kind of prioritization. I think a talking filibuster would be the way to go. I think that's what they were trying to demonstrate last night, but we sure could use a heck of a lot more of it.

Brian Lehrer: Jamil, to the other two callers, the one from Hudson, New York who said Congresspeople aren't driving the message on voting rights, and to the last caller from Sunset Park who noted how few executive orders Joe Biden is issuing. Can he do anything about voting rights, as far as you're concerned, through an executive order that he's not doing.

Jamil Smith: I heard Sherrod Brown, the Senator from my home state of Ohio on the Senate floor yesterday very loudly and eloquently talking about voting rights. I actually hope that people go and watch what he had to say. Frankly, I would recommend that the President go watch what he had to say and maybe adopt some of the cadence and urgency of his speech. Frankly, with regards to presidential orders, I don't know how much speeches or presidential orders from Washington are going to help ultimately. Executive orders, heck there was one in March of last year, executive order on promoting access to voting done by the White House. We see how much that did.

Honestly, the only thing I can think of right now, perhaps, and I'm not really in the business of giving advice to the President, but perhaps he or Vice President Harris can start brainstorming the country and start making voters aware of the anti-democratic efforts that Republicans are in the midst of, or have taken advantage of over the course of the last couple years and that might have an effect on the 2022 midterms and make sure people at least are aware of what the heck is going on in their states, and make sure that people can find ways to possibly get involved. That to me is possibly all they can do at this point.

Brian Lehrer: Amanda, we have one minute left and I'm going to give it to you because I said at the beginning of the hour that we get to the Supreme Court ruling last night, requiring Trump to give Congress his January 6th related documents. I see your latest article on the Bulwark called: The Six Main Strands of the Trump Coup Attempt. What are you hoping these January six papers reveal in our last minute?

Amanda Carpenter: Well, I think the broad thing that I continually try to demonstrate and think this release would was that the strategy to overturn the election was sustained, multi-pronged, deliberate, and serious. It started off this thing about conspiracies about the rigged election, but it did very quickly build up into a scheme that encompassed all of the Republican elite, the conservative grassroots base, and the militias in America. That's something that people need to fully understand and I hope those records shed light on.

Brian Lehrer: Amanda Carpenter from the Bulwark, Jamil Smith from Vox. Thank you both so much for joining us and having a great conversation about Joe Biden's news conference yesterday and his first year. We really appreciate it.

Amanda Carpenter: Thank you.

Jamil Smith: Thank you.

 

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